-Several species of humans have intermittently occupied Britain for almost a million years.

Although
some historical information is available from before then.

_Neolithic:

(from around 4300 – 2000 BC)

Flint axe used for cutting down trees in the Later Neolithic.

The Neolithic was the period of domestication of plants and animals. For example, the development of
Neolithic monumental architecture, apparently venerating the dead may represent more
comprehensive social and ideological changes involving new interpretations of time, ancestry,
community and identity.

-The Neolithic Revolution was the beginning of the creation of settled societies that divided people into
different social classes . People at that time started taking over forests to provide more land for growing
essential grains and for animals . At the beginning rearing pigs was very popular amoung people but
they later started rearing goats and sheep . At that era in Britain only few people lived in settlement and
most people used to live in caves .

-The Middle Neolithic (c. 3300 BC – c. 2900 BC) saw the development of running monuments close to
earlier barrows and the growth and neglect raised way across wet ground or water enclosures, as well as
the building of Impressive prehistoric tomb with chamber inside such as the Maeshowe types. Wooden
tools and bowls were common, and bows were also built.

_Bronze Age:

This period can be sub-divided into an earlier phase (2300 to 1200 BC) and a later one (1200 – 700 BC).
Beaker pottery appears in England around 2475–2315 cal.

Beaker techniques brought to Britain the skill of refining metal. At first the users made items from
copper, but from around 2150 BCE smiths had discovered how to smelt bronze (which is much harder
than copper) by mixing copper with a small amount of tin. With this discovery, the Bronze Age arrived in
Britain. Over the next thousand years, bronze gradually replaced stone as the main material for tool
and weapon making.

-There are a group of people known as “the Beaker people “, they know how to make ornaments
fluently from many materials like gold, silver, and copper, and these ornaments have been found in
graves of the wealthy wessex culture of Central Southern Britain. The Britons of the early bronze age
buried their dead under earth mounds known as barrows, it often placed with a beaker next to the
body.

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The people of the Bronze Age lived in round houses and divided up the landscape. A 2017 research
suggests a major genetic change in late Neolithic/early Bronze Age Britain, so that more than 90% of
Britain’s Neolithic gene pool was exchanged with the people which genetically linked to the Beaker
people of the lower-Rhine area.

- There is an evidence that the scolars may indicate to invasion or a migration (to Southern Great
Britain).

Some scholars considered that the Celtic language arrived in Britain in 12th. But the more accepted that
Celtic origins lie with the Hallstatt culture .

_Celtic Britain during The Iron Age (c. 600 BC 50 AD).

-The Iron Age is the age of the “Celt” in Britain.The Ce lts were a group of peoples loosely (
relatively) tied by similar language, religion and cultural expression. They were also the people
who brought iron working to the British Isles.

_Iron Age

(around 750BC_43AD)

In around 750 iron working techniques reached britain from southern Europe. Iron was stronger and
more plentiful than bronze, and its introduction marks the begning of the Iron Age. Iron tipped ploughs
could turn soil more quickly and deeply than woodern or bronze ones, and iron axes could clear forest
land more efficiently.

There was a landscape of arable, pasture and managed woodland. There were many enclosed
settements and land owners ship was important.

The term ‘Celtic Britain’, was only applied at this time to a tribe in Gaul. However, place names
and tribal names from the later part of the period suggest that a Celtic language The traveller
Pytheas was spoken

In Iron Age, Britons lived in organised tribal groups, ruled by a chieftain. As people became more
numerous, wars broke out between opposing tribes.However some hillside constructions may simply
have been cow enclosures.Large farmsteads produced food in industrial quantities and Roman sources
note that Britain exported hunting dogs, animal skins and slaves

-The basic unit of celtic life was clan asort of extended family. Each of Which had its social structure and
customs and possibly its local gods.

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_celtic mythology :

-celtic religion was spiritual, believing in spirits existing in rocks and trees. Celtic religion declind in
Roman Empire period, especially claudius in 54CE.

_Celtic Lord of animals

-His name means the (Horned) one he was one of the major Gods religious by celts.The God and
goddesses of Celtic mythology are many and they colourful, epic story keep to this day. Like most god
and goddesses,there’s idol could change form and behave rashly _ and they to include themselves in the
affairs of the common people. Often appearing in Celtic stories and, the gods and goddesses were both
religious and feared here is a look at a few important Celtic gods and goddesses.

_The Morrigan:

-In Celtic legends, Morrigan is known as the goddess of war, struggle and fertility. Art, sculpture, and
poetry. Morrigan is often apper as a black crow. According to legend, Morgan fought and was able to
defeat Verblog, in the First Battle of Baj Touyira

_The Green Man:

-This Welsh god is also known by the name Arddlhu, or sometimes Atho.

This masculine god was a symblo of life force and virility _

His “body” was massive, like a giant’s, and he was made up entirely of foliage.

-Irish (celtic ) god’s name is pronounced as”LU” he is considered the regent of distant past. Lugh is a
heroic figure in Irish myths,he wields swords and other weapons. The magical powers of Lugh was
proven when he healed his son’s battle wounds after Cuchulainn participated in violent combat with an
opponent

Note: Irish = celtic

The Scottish goddess was a deity who was more commonly known as Beira , the goddess of winter. The
words cailleach Bheur mean “old waman” in the ancient Scots Gaelic tongue. This goddess was believed
to have created many mountains Scottish.

-The Celts lived in huts of arched timber with walls of wicker and roofs of thatch. The huts were
generally gathered in loose hamlets.One of the interesting innovations that they brought to Britain was

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the iron plough.This means that the Celts brought iron innovations to Britain as a result Celtic age was
called iron age.

-Druidism is thought to have been a part of Celtic culture in Britain in the 2nd century BC, but also
spread into parts of Western Europe. In the early period, Druidic rites were held in clearings in the
forest. Sacred buildings were used only later under Roman influence. The Druids were suppressed in
Gaul by the Romans. In Ireland, they lost their priestly functions after the coming of Christianity and
survived as poets, historians, and judges.

-Their practices were connecting the people with the gods، they were also acting as teachers, scientists,
judges and philosophers.Druid Women were equal with men in many respects. As they could take part
in wars and even divorce their husbands.

-One of the earliest accounts of Druids was written by Julius Caesar

In 59-51 B.C. He wrote it in Gaul, where prestigious men were Divided into Druids or nobles. It was from
the Roman writers that historians have gained most of their knowledge of the Druids.he Sacrificers
would fight and wear red. The blue Bards were artistic, and the new recruits to Druidism completed
lesser tasks and were held in lesser esteem, wearing brown or black.

-In the 1st century AD , druids were facing oppression from Romans. Druids appeared to an end.
Because of, Frist is that as with many societies , disease , famine or warfare could wipe them out.the
second implicates the arrival of Christianity in decline .

_The Romans:

43-AD 410 AD Two thousand years ago, the world was ruled by Rome. From England to Africa
and from Syria to Spain. The emperors sat at the top of Rome’s social order . The social
structure of ancient Rome was based on heredity, property, wealth, citizenship and freedom.
Women w ere expected to look after the houses and very few had any real independence.

-Unlike society in ancient Egypt, Rome did not regard women as equal to men before the law.At
that point, authority switched to their husband, who also had the legal rights over their
children.On the other hand, female slaves were common and filled a huge variety of roles, from
ladies’ maids to farm workers, and even gladiators.

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Wealthy widows, subject to no man’s authority, were independent. However wealthy they were,
because they could not vote or stand for office, women had no formal role in public life. Women were
expected to be the dignified wife and the good mother and, while these rules could be bent, they could
not be broken.

- Ancient Rome was a man’s world. In politics, society and the family, men held both the
power and the purse strings they even decided whether a baby would live or die.The
paterfamilias had absolute rule over his household and children. If they angered him, he had
the legal right to diso children, sell them into slavery or even kill them.

-Sons were important, because of continuing the family name. If a father had no sons then he could
adopt one to preserve the family line. The paterfamilias had the right to decide whether to keep
newborn babies.If the decision went the other way, the baby was exposed – deliberately abandoned
outside .

This usually happened to deformed babies, or when the father did not think that the family could
support another child. Babies were exposed in specific places and it was assumed that an abandoned
baby would be picked up and taken a slave.

-The religion of ancient Rome dated back many centuries and over time it grew increasingly diverse. A
different cultures settled in what would later become Italy , each brought their own gods and forms of
worship . Worshipping was a part of early Roman culture . Vesta was the goddess of fireplace , penates
was the spirit of Food cupboards and a lar was the spirit of families . Each family had a larium. Festival of
the crossroads called the compitalia in this festival each doll represented a member of the family , while
each ball represented a slave . There were to beliefs for doing this , the first they hoped that the spirits
would spare each person represented by the woolen offerings , the second belief that the power of
spirits would strengthen each person represented there.

-Aside from the spirits, worshipped privately at home, the Romans had a large number of public gods.
Many gods were believed to have taken part in the founding of Rome.Publicly, the Roman state
honoured many gods, all of which were believed to have human characteristics.As a result, Roman gods
were a blend of deities, with similarities to the gods worshipped by the ancient Greeks. In particular, the
twelve greatest gods and goddesses in the Roman state religion –called the di consentes – paralleled the
gods of Greek mythology.

-Although they kept Latin names and images, the links between Roman and Greek gods gradually came
together to form one divine family that ruled over other gods. The three most important gods were
Jupiter (protector of the state), Juno (protector of women) and Minerva (goddess of craft and wisdom).
Romans also believed that many of their gods had played an active part in the foundation of Rome.Over
time, the same divinity was extended to wives and children. The whole imperial family came to be seen
as gods and was often commemorated with temples and coins.

-As the Roman Empire expanded, it took control of new countries that had their own cultures and their
own gods.The boundaries between the different classes were strict and legally enforced: members of
different classes even dressed differently.

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_Class difference:

-Roman dressed different from one to another.The tunic was worn by common people.Herdsmen and
slaves’ tunic was made from coarse dark material.The judges wore a tunic augusticlavia,and senators
wore a tunic with broad lines.Military tunics were shorter than civilian tunics.

_A Roman could tell who important or wealthy person from their toga.Toga was originally an Estruscan
clothes which was worn by Roman instead of cloak.It was made by white wool or white Egyptian linen.It
was a square in shape and draped around the body.It was a square in shape and draped around the
body.

-The toga was worn often during state occasions. Consuls and senators wore a toga edged with purple.
Some Roman senators wore white tigas that were ten meters long.Black togas, though, were usually
only worn in times of mourning.(The toga was inconvenient, and people felt the cold when they wore
it.)To get anyone to wear them, even very early emperors had to legislate the wearing of togas by at
least senators. Eventually, the emperors gave up.

_Tunics

-Romans at that age started wearing tunics which were more flexible . Summer tunics were made of
cool linen while winter tunics were made of wool .

Men at that time wore wigs in order to hide their baldness and they used to trim their beards and shave
.
Roman Soldiers / Armor

Most of the Roman armors didn’t really shine . They made a type of armor called scale armor that used
to shine .

To sum it up Romans really loved shimmer and glitter but their armors didn’t really shine.

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_Roman men:

-Rings were the only jewelry worm by roman citizen men, and good manners dictated only one
ring.about 1 century AD, they had started to style their hair, and wear beards again.

_Roman women:

-Women wore a tunica which was adapted from the greek chiton. A shawl,called a palla was worn
wrapped around the shoulders and arm,or could be draped over the head. Cloaks were worm to keep
warm

-Parasols were used, or women might carry fans made of peacock feathers, wood or stretched
linen.Hats were not worn except by slaves but women were expected to cover their heads when walking
outdoors.

-Women enjoyed staring at themselves in mirrors of highly polished Metal (not glass).Elegant women
wore hair-pieces that were Often made from the hair of slave girls.

-Britain was not unknown to classical world, as early as the 4th century BC, the Greeks,phoenicians and
carthaginians traded for Cornish tin in Britain.But it was regarded as a place of mystery, with some
writers even refusing to believe it existed at all.

-In 58 BC, Julius Caesar became governor and military commander of the Roman province of Gaul. In the
first century BC, Britain was settled by Iron Age societies, many with longe- term roots in Britain, and
others closely tied to tribes of northern France. Tribes in southwest Britain and Wales controlled
considerable mineral wealth in tin deposits and copper mines.

-Caesar is the only existed source providing firsthand descriptions of Biritain and his observations,while
confined to the southeast areas of Kent and the lower Thames are very important to understanding
those regions.In 55 BC,the Roman Cavalry ships were confined to the shore and in 54 BC,a large Roman
expedition(mission) landed at Deal and penetrated inland along the River Thames.

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 THE END OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Around the year A.D. 300 Britain prospered under two strong emperors – Diocletian and Constantine,
who happened to be at York when he was proclaimed emperor. Even before Diocletian, however, Saxon
pirates from what is now Germany had begun to raid the English Channel coast. Some of the former
defeated the legions in the Balkans, A.D. 378 and actually invaded Italy itself. One by one these outlying
districts were abandoned to their own resources. The collapse of the Rhine barriers brought Germanic
tribesmen deep into Gaul and almost severed the line of imperial communication.

With political paralysis at Rome the occupation of Britain was shattered by renewed invasions from the
north, the west, and the sea. From the east the Nordic pirates, barbarians of the same general stock as
those who were harassing other imperial frontiers, were growing bolder in their frequent coastal raids.

In A.D. 410, three years after the second withdrawal, Rome itself was sacked by German barbarians, and
with this Britain was no longer Roman. The glory of Rome had faded into darkness.

THE HADRIAN WALL

In the continued fighting on the north and west frontiers, the legions stood constant guard. Their
principal stations were at Chester and Caerleon on the borders of Wales and at York in the north. A
hundred years later it was rebuilt in stone thirty feet high and wide enough for three men to walk
abreast from one tower to the next. Hadrian’s Wall was to stand firm for almost three centuries, even
when Roman defense was crumbling in Asia and beyond the Danube. Britain was to be in serious danger
from only one direction, the sea.

Rome’s Influence on British Life:

Towns with forums, columns, baths, and other less desirable features of Roman life and extensive villas,
with plumbing have been revealed by excavation. Some of the towns were fairly sizable. It is believed
that there were single farmsteads surrounded by flimsy outbuildings. The fragmentary traces suggest
that many Britons were only slightly influenced by Roman ways.

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 The AngloSaxons
Britain came under increasing pressure from barbarian attack on all sides towards the end of the 4th
century and troops were too few to mount an effective defence. By tradition, the pagan Saxons were
invited by Vortigern to assist in fighting the Picts and Irish. Germanic migration into Roman Britannia
may well have begun much earlier than that. There is recorded evidence, for example, of Germanic
Roman auxiliaries being brought to Britain in the 1st and 2nd centuries to support the legions. The new
arrivals rebelled, plunging the country into a series of wars that eventually led to the Saxon occupation
of Lowland Britain by 600. Around this time m Britons fled to Brittany .

The arrival of the Anglo-Saxons into Britain can be seen in the context of a general movement of
German people around Europe between the years 300 and 700, known as the Migration period (also
called the Barbarian Invasions)

The most important British ports were London and Richborough , whilst the continental ports most
heavily engaged in trade with Britain were Boulogne and the sites at the mouth of the river Scheldt.

It has been argued that Roman Britain’s continental trade peaked in the late 1st century AD and
thereafter declined as a result of an increasing reliance on local products by the population of Britain,
caused by economic development on the island and by the Roman state’s desire to save money by
shifting away from expensive longdistance imports.

During the latter part of the Roman period British agricultural products, paid for by both the Roman
state and by private consumers, clearly played an important role in supporting the military garrisons and
urban centres of the north-western continental Empire. This came about as a result of the rapid decline
in the size of the British garrison from the mid-3rd century AD onwards and because of ‘Germanic’
incursions across the Rhine, which appear to have reduced rural settlement and agricultural output in
northern Gaul.

Development of Mine:

Mineral extraction sites such as the Dolaucothi gold mine was probably first worked by the Roman army
from ca 75 AD, and at some later stage passed to civilian operators. The mine developed as a series of
opencast workings, mainly by the use of hydraulic mining methods. They are described by Pliny the Elder
in his Naturalis Historia in great detail.

Although mining had long been practised in Britain the Romans introduced new technical k nowledge
and largescale industrial production to revolutionise the industry.

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By the 3rd century, Britain’s economy was diverse and well established, with commerce extending into
the no The design of Hadrian’s Wall nRomanised north. Especially catered to the need for customs
inspections of merchants’ goods.

Anglo- Saxon Literature: Old English literature or Anglo-Saxon literature, encompasses literature written
in Old English, in Anglo-Saxon England from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest
of 1066. “Cædmon’s Hymn”, composed in the 7th century, according to Bede, is often considered the
oldest extant poem in English.

The strict adherence to the grammatical rules of Old English is largely inconsistent in 12th century work
– as is evident in the works cited above – and by the 13th century the grammar and syntax of Old English
had almost completely deteriorated, giving way to the much larger Middle English corpus of literature.

The poem Beowulf, which often begins the traditional canon of English literature, is the most famous
work of Old English literature. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has also proven significant for historical study,
preserving a chronology of early English history.

Beowulf (/ˈbeɪəwʊlf/; Old English: [ˈbeːowulf]) is an Old English epic poem consisting of 3,182
alliterative lines. It is one of the most important works of Old English literature.

The author was an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet, referred to by scholars as the “Beowulf poet”.

The story is set in Scandinavia. Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of
the Danes, whose mead hall in Heorot has been under attack by a monster known as Grendel. After
Beowulf slays him, Grendel’s mother attacks the hall and is then also defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes
home to Geatland (Götaland in modern Sweden) and later becomes king of the Geats. After a period of
fifty years has passed, Beowulf defeats a dragon, but is mortally wounded in the battle. After his death,
his attendants cremate his body and erect a tower on a headland in his memory.

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 The Coming of the Normans 1066

The Battle of Hastings This battle took place on October 14, 1066, between the Saxon kin Harold and the
Norman Duke William. Harold’s men were brave, but they were placed under a desperate handicap,
since their arms and tactics were hopelessly out of date. They were outclassed by the Normans whose
army was the bestequipped in Europe. During this battle Harold fell with an arrow through his eye, and
William proclaimed himself king of England.

Viking Warrior :

In William’s twentyone year reign there were many changes of fundamental importance: 1) The
introduction of the politi cal feudal system. The tightening and centralizing of the royal power, though
local government was left largely as it had been. The Normanizing and improvement of the Church,
which was more definitely separated from secular affairs. The importation of a hi gher culture and a
Latinized language which eventually merged with the AngloSaxon. The closer linking of England with the
Continent.

THE FEUDAL SYSTEM :

The most revolutionary of all the Norman changes was the transplanting to England of that system of “l
and tenure based on military service” which had gradually grown in Europe. Under the ‘feudal system’
the ablest fighters received estates from the king and higher nobles in return for military service.

3Another result of the Norman Conquest was a new language. The Normans came to England speaking
their local variety of French, derived from their century and a half contact with the Latinized civilization
of France. For the next three centuries three dif ferent languages were heard in England. The
Churchmen, the scholars, and sometimes the lawyers used the international language, Latin. English
remained the tongue of the bulk of the population. The new Norman French was the polite tongue of
the royal court and of the dominant feudal minority. By the middle of the fourteenth century the old
English and the Norman French would be blended into a new common English language which could be
understood both by the lord and by the peasant.

William the Conqueror died in action while raiding the lands of the French king in 1087. For twentyone
years Willia m’s iron will had directed the Normanization of England. His last instructions had been that
his second son William II, (10871100) hurry to England to be crowned, while the eldest son, inherited
simply Normandy and the third a grant of money.

Page 11 of 20
By this time, English had itself been profoundly transformed, developing into the starkly different
Middle English , this formed the basis for the modern language. During the centuries when the elite
spoke French, a large proportion of the words in the English language had disappeared and been
replaced by French words, leadi ng to the present hybrid tongue in which an English core vocabulary is
combined with a largely French abstract and technical vocabulary. The grammatical structures of the
language had also changed dramatically, although the relationship, if any, between this transformation
and the neglect of English by the elite resulting from the conquest is uncertain.

WILLIAM II

William II was a good fighter and a strong ruler, who brooked no interference with the law and kept the
nobles in o rder. England at that moment needed his strength; without it, the work of the Conquest
might have been undone. Evil in character and ugly in temper, he had, according to his kindest
biographer, already sunk so low in vice at twenty seven that there was n o hope for betterment. The
country folk fled to the woods at the approach of this vicious king and his companions. Yet the barons
feared him, too. His appearance, very fat, with a constant sneering expression, a noticeable stammer,
and a beefy red f ace gave him the name “Rufus.”

The barons lost no time in trying his mettle. They wanted Robert, (William’s brother in Normandy) with
his inability to say No; and since many of them held fiefs in both England and Normandy, they disliked
two separate suzera ins. They revolted under the Conqueror’s half brother, Odo. Rufus cannily appealed
to the Saxon common people and promised them the best laws that ever were in this land and that he
would forbid all unjust taxation and give them back their woods and hunti ng. Most barons seem to have
joined the revolt; but most churchmen sided with the English townspeople and peasantry. The uprising
failed; and so did a second one, seven years later.

Rufus’s fine promises were not kept, and once more seized the rich land.

THE FIRST CRUSADE (1096)

England had almost no part in the tremendous wave of religiousmilitary enthusiasm which sent
thousands of Europeans to the Holy Land in the First Crusade. Nevertheless Rufus profited from it. His
brother Duke Robert of Normandy g ained states in the Holy Land which survived for some time. The
First Crusade was primarily a French enterprise. Duke Robert had already sold part of his duchy to his
younger brother Henry, and lost a part to Rufus king of England. Now in order to raise fu nds for the
crusade, he pawned the remainder to Rufus, and finally returned penniless.

Rufus and the Norman barons in England, however, remained at home, distrustful of one another.

Rufus launched border raids against Wales and Scotland, and was on the point of seeking further French
land when he was killed by an arrow during a hunting party in 1100.

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 HENRY I

Within three days, before most of England had heard of the king’s death, the Conqueror ’s third son
(Henry) had rushed through his coronation and seized the royal treasury at Winchester.

The achievements of Henry I (11001135)

Henry I was one of England’s best kings.

A good general, but a better diplomat, he avoided fighting whenever possible.

THE DEATH OF HENRY I, in 1135, ended a nearly seventy year period during which three Norman kings
had been strong enough to establish a firm central government.

HENRY II

Henry II’s accession gave England a new line of kings which was to rule until 1399.

Henry II had four sons from his wife Eleanor. Henry and Geoffrey, died before their father. Richard and
John succeeded him in turn. Not one of the sons was content and they constantly intrigued against their
father. His son Henry, in leagu e with the kings of France and Scotland and many barons, led a revolt in
1173; but Henry II the father finally crushed it.

His son Richard joined Philip Augustus of France against his father. Sick at heart at this and also at his
favorite son John’s invol with Richard, Henry II died in tragic bitterness in 1189.

RICHARD I

Richard the Lionvement Heart (named by his admirers) was anything but an asset to his kingdom. So
little did it interest him that he was in England less than ten months of his tenyear r his two brief visits
were merely moneyeign (11891199), and raising affairs. The rest of the time he spent in quarreling with
Philip over French lands, crusading in the Holy Land, or in captivity.

Richard I has come down in history and in legend as the embodiment of the romantic m edieval knight.

The motive force of Richard’s existence was the crusad movement.

King Richard I, the Lion Heart, spent the last five years of his reign in France, engaged in constant
squabbles with Philip Augustus and his own French vassals. In a fight in 1199, Richard was killed by an
arrow. As he had no son, the throne, went to Richard’s younger brother John.

Page 13 of 20
 KING JOHN

He was known as England’s worst king. He was an ab ler administrator than some kings, was personally
courageous and keen in political craft. But he failed because of utter faithlessness, extreme cruelty, lack
of reliability, and unwillingness or inability to carry matters through to conclusions.

THE MAGNA CARTA

In the last years of John’s reign the barons commenced a series of orderly efforts to secure a share in
the government, and several times during the next century they would adopt further measures to curb
the formerly absolute royal power.

On June 12, 1215, the king met the large force of barons and their followers. The barons brought with
them a series of demand s, and to this document John set his seal. After long discussions of details, the
two sides had agreed to the sixty three points of the famous Magna Carta, or Great Charter.

• It did not indulge in political philosophy or in sweeping generalizations about t he freedom of the
people.

** Its sixty three articles dealt with immediate, specific problems.

*** The most numerous items centered on questions of feudal dues, law courts, and administrative
abuses.

****The articles were designed to keep the king within reasonable b ounds in the matter of reliefs, ward
ships, aids, scutage, and similar points where he had abused his relations with the vassals.

*****The legal articles show that, on the whole, the barons appreciated the value of the new court
system established by Henry II, even though it cut into their own jurisdiction.

******They stipulated that penalties should be reasonable.

*******The king was to appoint officials who knew the law of the realm and observed it.

********The sheriffs, who had become very powerful as royal agents, were to be curbed.

********* Committees were to investigate abuses of the forest system

**********Royal officials were to be checked in the commandeering of property and labour.

***********Articles concerning weights and measures, fish weirs and bridge-building.

************ Immediate and temporary situatio ns such as the return of all hostages; the discharge of
certain unpopular officials; the restoration of all illegal fines and seizures, and the granting of a general
pardon.

*************The freedom of the Church was recognized.

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The real significance of the Magna Ca rta lay in its general implications. Certain laws and customs were
greater authority than the king himself. If the king did not observe these laws, the people reserved the
right to force him to do so. John’s death 1216 left his son a nineyear old, Henry I th II, to reign for fiftysix
years.

He took actual rule at the age of twenty. He reigned through more than half of the 13 century.

Henry III also had trouble with both the Church and the barons as John had had before him, but Henry
himself never quarreled with the Pope because he had stood by him at the beginning of his reign.

Henry III of England:

Henry assumed the throne when he was only nine in the middle of the First Barons’ War.

Restoring royal authority:

With the end of the civil war, Henry’s government faced the task of rebuilding royal authority across
large parts of the country.

Death :

Edward left for the but Henry Eighth Crusade , led by Louis of France, in 1270, became increasingly ill;
concerns about a fresh rebellion grew and the next year the King wrote to his son asking him to return
to England, but Edward did not turn back.

Henry died in Westminster, probably with Eleanor in attendance. He was succeeded by Edward, who
slowly made his way back to England via Gascony, finally arriving in August 1 274.

EDWARD I

He In succeeded his father in 1272, was one of the ablest kings that ever sat upon the English throne. A
seri es of great laws that he issued, besides undermining the strength of the barons, played a great part
in shaping English Common Law. His skill as a soldier enabled him greatly to influence the history of
Scotland and Wales and he saw that it would be far wiser and far better to work with rather than
against, the country gentlemen and the townsmen.

Edward I, when he wanted money for his many wars, got it through Parliament. The Parliament of 1295
has come down in history with the title of the Model Parliament.

Courtier who could amuse h im. All through his reign there were quarrels between the barons on one
side and the King and his favorites on the other.

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In the reign of the Stuart kings. In the reign of Edward III the Hundred Years War began, a struggle
between England and France. At the end of the Plantagenet period, the reign of Richard II saw the
beginning of the long period of civil feuding known as the War of the Roses. For the next century, the
crown would be disputed by two conflicting family strands, the Lancastrians and the Yorkists. The period
also saw the development of new social institutions and a distinctive English culture.

Three Plantagenet kings were patrons of Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English poetry. During the early
part of the period, the architectural style of the Normans gave way to the Gothic, w ith surviving
examples including Salisbury Cathedral.

Edward III was Plantagenet king of England (1312 1377)

Edward was king of England for 50 years. His reign saw the beginning of the Hundred Years War against
France.

Richard II (1367 1400) Richard was Plantagenet king of England from 1377 to 1399 and was usurped by
Henry IV.

ENGLISH LITERATURE

THE BEGINNINGS

The earliest forms of English literature have perished. We know nothing whatever of Old English poetry
in its rudest shape.

For the poets of Beowulf what they wished to and Widsith,The earliest literature has much to do with
life and journeys that were a constant struggle against a grim and pitiless element .

The first English poet known to us by name is “Widsith”, the “Wide Wanderer”, an itinerant minstrel of
the sixth century.

The Wanderer lot of others who once (Exeter Book), a moving elegy of 115 lines,

OLD ENGLISH CHRISTIAN POETRY

The northern English literature came to be touched by an influence that people have agreed to call
Celtic.

The first English poet clearly known to us by name is Caedmon.

The Caedmonian Hymn is the oldest surviving piece of English poetry.

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LATIN WRITINGS

Much of the older literature of Christian England is written in Latin.

THE NORMAN CONQUEST

The invasion of English literature by French influence had begun in the time of Edward the Confessor.
Nevertheless, the year 1066 is a crucial point, because from that date, the language of the ruling classes
was no longer English. Formal manuscripts were written in Latin.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER (c.1340_1400):

Both from the standpoint of historical significance as well as of literary technique Chaucer ranks amon g
the greatest English poets.

He was a very remarkable innovator. He adapted certain modes, themes, and conventions of French
and Italian medieval poetry to English poetry for the first time. He developed the art of literature itself
beyond anything to be found in French or Italian or any other medieval literature.

In the Canterbury Tales (c. 13861400), “the most important Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem” he developed his
art of poetry still further towards drama and towards the art of the novel. The poem reflects the life of
fourteenthcentury England. A number of pilgrims, on their way to Canterbury, whiled away the time by
telling one another stories; and these, loosely connected with sundry occurrences at the tavern or on
horseback on the way to Canterbury, comprise the poem.

THE RENAISSANCE

The Middle Ages in Europe were followed by the Renaissance. This great movement transformed not
only literature but social and religious ideals throughout Europe.

The classical Renaissance, or rediscovery of classical thought and literature, implied both a knowledge of
the classical writers and ability to use the Greek and Latin languages. Italy gave it birth, and it gradually
spread beyond the Alps into Germany, France and England.

In the Midd le Ages knowledge of Greek and Latin literature had withdrawn itself into monasteries.

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SIR THOMAS MORE (1459_1535)

Thomas More’s literary fame rests on his history of Richard III and his book universally known as Utopia
(Nowhere). It discusses in its few pages many of the problems, interests and activities of its timepolitical
speculation, voyages of discovery, the iniquitous wars and leagues of rulers scrambling for extensions of
dominio n in Europe, royal indifference to social injustice, the growth of crime caused by lack of
employment.

The longest and most valuable part of the book is that which describes not Utopia, but England.

Utopia purports to be a conversation between Thomas More and a learned and much traveled seaman,
who compares England with the mythical kingdom of Utopia. He is amazed at the cruelty of the laws in
England and suggests that if, severe punishment would not be necessary.

In Utopia everyone lived a simple life, following his own craft. They found their major delight in good
health, in good conversation, and in reading aloud from Gree k writings. Wars were avoided. In religion,
the Utopians were extraordinarily tolerant. Some worshiped the moon, others the sun, while the more
enlightened worshiped an unknown power.

The University Wits are graduates of Oxford and Cambridge. Men with learning and talent but no
money, and because the monasteries were dissolved by King Henry VIII, they could not, like the clerks of
the Middle Ages, find a career in the Church. The University Wits fortunes were tied to the theatres and
what they produced was much better than the old popular morality plays.

Christopher Marlowe, (156493)

A University Wit, born only a few weeks before Shakepeare, but destined to have a working life very
much shorter than his. Marlowe’s reputation as a dramatist rests on five plays Tamburlaine, Doctor
Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward II and Dido, Queen of Carthage. In this handful of plays appears the
first true voice of the Renaissance, of the period of new learning, new freedom, new enterprise, of the
period of worship of Man. The old restrictions of the Church and the limitations on knowledge have
been destroyed; the world is opening up and the ships are sailing to new lan ds; wealth is being
amassed; the great national aggressors are rising. And above all the spirit of human freedom, of limitless
human power and enterprise that Marlowe’s plays convey.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

William Shakespeare was the most famous of all the Elizabethans; yet surprisingly little is known about
his life . He was born in 1564 at StratfordonAvon. His father a man of some local importance, his mother
higher in the social scale. Apparently he attended the local ‘grammar school’ and as a young man led a
rather reckless life at Stratford. In London he rose slowly from obscurity to a reasonable degree of
contemporary fame as a poet and playwright, and made sufficient money by 1600 to buy a handsome

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property in his native town, where he died in 1616. Shakespeare is a man of the late Renaissance,
intereste d in music, in rural games and pastimes, a sportsman, a man of the world, absorbed in the
human drama, fond of society, of adventure, and of all that was new and amazing in the astonishingly
fresh and spring like Elizabethan day.

Shakespeare’s poetic fam Adonis and e began with two long poems The Rape of Lucrece—Venus and
and with the first of the Sonnets which he continued writing alongside his plays.

His talent consisted in his sympathy with human nature in all its shapes, degrees, depressions and
elevations.

Shakespeare’s greatness lies in his consistency of achievement. From 1593 he wrote historical plays,
comedies, Love’s Labor’s Lost, Henry VI, tragedies lyrical tragedy, Hamlet , romantic Romeo and Juliet
with the same excellence throughout.

BEN JONSON (15741637)

Shakespeare followed no rules and had no dramatic theory; Jonson was a classicist, whose masters
were the ancients, and whose every play was composed on an established ancient pattern. Jonson’s
plays generally obey the rules of ‘unity’: the a ction takes less than a day and the scene never moves
from the initial setting. While Shakespeare sees human beings as strange mixtures, walking masses of
conflict and contradiction, unpredictable, always surprising, Jonson sees them as very simple and alm
ost mechanical combinations of four elements. This was a mediaeval idea: the human soul was made
out of ‘humours’ sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, melancholicwhich, mixed in various proportions, gave
different human ‘types.’ Ben Jonson’s characters are a ll ‘humours’, in each character one quality
predominates: amorousness, cowardice, avarice, etc.

POETRY AND PROSE

Translations from the Greek, Latin, French and Italian make up much of the first Tudor prose. Pre-
eminent among all Tudor translations is one from the Hebrew as well as the Greek- the English Bible.

Secular translations of the Elizabethan age include the translation of the Lives of Plutarch, in 1579.

From the French was the rendering of the Essais of Montaigne. The first English essayist was Sir Francis
Bacon (1561-1626), his Latin works, such as Novum Organum, lay the foundation for modern scientific
study.

Robert Burton’s (1577-1640) The Anatomy of Melancholy, written after the death of Shakespeare, was a
treatise on mental ailment which we call today depression.

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The Book of Martyrs was a bitter account of the deaths of Protestants at the hands of Catholic
persecutors.

The prose stories of the Elizabethan age are interesting. In them we see the beginnings of the novel.

The Elizabethan age is full of odd books about all the subjects under the sun, recipes, cures for the
plague, how to cheat at cards, what flowers to grow etc.

Poets like Edmund Spenser, loved the English language and tried to do for it what Homer did for Greek
and Virgil for Latin. Spenser wanted to speak of the glories of the Elizabethan age. His poetry is full of
noble ideals, patriotism, polite learning and chivalry.

Poets like Donne in the 17th century (1573-1631) were rough and fiery, full of harshness and witty
conceits.

The sonnet form which had been accepted for a long time in Italy as the most suitable for love-poems
became a very popular vehicle of expression during the Elizabethan period. They differed in the
technical structure from the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet.

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