The Middle Ages to about 1485
55 BC - 410 AD > Roman Occupation
410-597 > Old English Period
597-1066 > Anglo-Saxon England
1066-1485 > Medieval England
The Romans first invaded Britain under the rule of Julius Caesar and
conquered Britain by 77 AD. In 63 AD, Joseph of Arimathea made the
first Christian mission to Britain. In 122 AD, construction began on Hadrian's Wall to
hinder raids from the north. As the Roman Empire began to fall, troops
were withdrawn from Britain.
By 410, attacks from Picts and Scots were increasing. Britons defeated
the Picts and Scots with the help of the Jutes, Saxons, Frisians, and
Angles, who subsequently subjugated the Britons. In 597, Pope Gregory I
sent Augustine to convert the Angles, and in 601, Augustine became the
first Archbishop of Canterbury. His assistant, Paulinus, became
Archbishop of York in 627.
During the early Anglo-Saxon period,
England was split into the seven warring kingdoms of Northumbria,
Mercia, East Anglia, Wessex, Essex, Sussex, and Kent. The monk Bede
completed his Ecclesiastical History
of the English Nation in 731. Beginning in 787, Viking raiders
beset England, continuing for more than two centuries. The seven
kingdoms continued to war with one another, with King Ecgberht of
Wessex finally being recognized as King of all England in 829. In 886,
his grandson, King Alfred the Great (the only English king to be known
as Great), formally unified England. Alfred codified Saxon law, built
the first permanent fleet of warships, promoted education, and
instigated the compilation of The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, outlining political, social, and
economic events. Alfred was the first true patron of the arts and a
literary artist himself, translating works of Boethius and Augustine
into the vernacular. His descendants shared and upheld his cultural
interests. Scandinavian lore influenced literature during this period,
and Beowulf was
written somewhere around 1000.
William I conquered the throne with his victory at the Battle of
Hastings in 1066 and established a Norman dynasty which ruled until
1154. William embarked on an extensive campaign of castle and cathedral
building and introduced manorialism to Britain. He instigated the
compilation of the Domesday Book,
a sort of medieval census record.
In 1154, Henry II came to the throne
as the first of the fourteen Plantagenet kings of England who ruled for
331 years. During Henry's
reign, Oxford University was founded (in 1168) by English scholars
expelled from Paris. Henry appointed Thomas à Becket archbishop
of Canterbury and subsequently quarrelled with him over laws regulating
the power of the Church; Becket was then murdered by four of Henry's
knights in 1170. In 1173, Becket was canonized. Richard I (the
Lionheart) succeeded Henry and spent only seven months of his ten-year
reign in England, preferring to spend his time Crusading in the Holy
Land and campaigning in France. At Henry's death, his brother John
acceded to the throne and is perhaps best known for his quarrels with
the nobility which resulted in his signing of the Magna Carta in 1215.
John's son, Henry III, was crowned king at the tender age of nine and
came to full power at the age of twenty, but he was a very unpopular
ruler and almost lost control in 1265 when Simon de Montfort summoned
the first English parliament; his son Edward, however, led a group of
barons in the Battle of Evesham against de Montfort, who was killed in
the fray. Edward succeeded Henry in 1272, tried (unsuccessfully) to
unite the kingdoms
of England and Scotland, and conquered Wales. He also summoned a
partly-elected Parliament (the Model Parliament) in 1295 and in 1301
created the title of Prince of Wales for his son, Edward, who succeeded
him in 1307. Edward II was ineffectual and was deposed by Parliament
and murdered on his wife's orders in 1327; his son, Edward III, ruled
for fifty years, during which time Parliament was divided into two
houses (Lords and Commons) for the first time. Edward's reign was
dominated by the Hundred Years' War with France (1337-1453) and by the
Black Plague (1348-1350), which killed one-third of the English
population. During his reign, Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight was written (ca. 1360). Edward III
was succeeded by his ten-year-old grandson, Richard II. Until Richard
was old enough to take control, his advisers, John of Gaunt and Thomas
of Gloucester, ruled. Richard's reign saw the first translation of the
New Testament into English (by John Wycliffe in 1380), a Peasants'
Revolt against Poll Tax (in 1381), and the completion of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (in
1387). Richard was forced to abdicate in 1399.
The next three kings, all named Henry, were from a branch of the
Plantagenet family known as the House of Lancaster. Henry IV, son of
John of Gaunt, seized the throne from Richard II, but his reign was
marked by revolts and money shortages. His son, Henry V, defeated the
French at Agincourt in 1415 and forced the French king (whose daughter
Henry would subsequently marry) to accept him as his heir. Henry died
before he could hold both thrones, but in 1422, his son, Henry VI,
became King of France and England at the age of ten months. From 1422
until Henry assumed personal rule in 1437, England was governed by a
regent, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. In 1453, the English were driven
out of France, bringing an end to the Hundred Years' War. Henry fell
ill in 1454 and submitted control to a Protector, Richard, Duke
of York. Thus began a thirty-year period of civil war known as the War
of the Roses, wherein the Houses of Lancaster and York battled for the
crown. Henry lost the crown to the Yorkist Edward IV (son of the
Protector) in 1461, was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1464, was
restored to the throne in 1470, but was reimprisoned and murdered in
the
Tower in 1471.
Edward IV was the first English king of the House of York and held the
throne for two periods, 1461-1470 and 1471-1483. During Edward's second
reign, William Caxton established a printing press in Westminster
(1476). At Edward's death, his son, Edward V, acceded to the throne; he
was only twelve at the time. He was declared by Parliament to be
illegitimate and was moved (along with his younger brother Richard,
also deemed illegitimate) into the Tower of London; his uncle, Richard
III, succeeded to the throne. The princes were never seen again and
have become infamous as the Princes in the Tower. Richard III ruled
from 1483 until 1485, during which time the College of Arms was
founded, Parliamentary statues were recorded and printed in English for
the first time, and Caxton printed Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur.
Richard was killed at the Battle of Bosworth by Lancastrian troops led
by Henry Tudor, thus ending the Wars of the Roses.
Go back to the English 2120 Page