The Middle Ages

1066-1485Katherine Wiley

Lake Cormorant High School

The Timeline

The Crusades begin, 1095

The Knights Templar founded, 1119

Thomas a Becket is murdered, 1170

King John signs the Magna Carta, 1215

The Domesday book is compiled,

1086

The Crusades end, 1270

Geoffrey Chaucer is born, 1343

John Wycliffe’s followers become the

first people to ever translate the entire

Bible into English, 1380

Robin Hood is created, 1378

The Hundred Year’s War

begins between France and

England, 1337

Black Death strikes

England, 1348

Sir Gawain and the

Green Knight is written,

1348

Geoffrey Chaucer dies, 1400

Joan of Arc is burned at the

stake, 1431

The War of the Roses , 1455-1485

Henry VII, becomes

king, beginning the Tudor dynasty,

1485

William the

Conqueror

• Was the cousin of Edward the Confessor, who was king of England until his death in 1066

• Edward died without a successor, and a man named Harold became king

• William killed Harold, ending the Anglo-Saxon era, and became the first true King of England

• He was the leader of the Normans• With them, the Normans brought

administrative ability, an emphasis on law and order, and cultural unity to Europe to add to the more democratic and artistic tendencies of the Anglo-Saxons

• His greatest achievement was the Domesday Book, which cataloged all land ownership in England. It was significant because it meant that for the first time in English history, people could be taxed based on what they owned.

Feudalism & the

FeudalismPyramid

• The Normans also brought a new social system to England- more than a social system, it was a:– caste system– property system– military system

• Based on a religious hierarchy with God as the supreme overlord

• According to the Feudal system, a king received the throne from God, and that king could appoint those beneath him and promise them land in return for their military or monetary allegiance.

Life as a Knight

• The invention of the crossbow required men to start wearing stronger armor than chain mail.

• Starting in childhood, boys were trained to be warriors

• Young boys were trained to be knights in homes other than those that belonged to their parents to ensure that the training was strict.

• Knighthood was grounded in the ideals of chivalry and loyalty.

• Suits of armor were very uncomfortable and dangerous- they average suit weighed 120 lbs and consisted of 200 metal plates.

• One poet described an armored knight as a “terrible worm in an iron cocoon”

• As a result of the armor they wore, many knights died of:– Drowning– Heat stroke– Suffocation– Heart failure

Chivalry & Courtly Love

• Chivalry- a system of ideals and social codes governing the behavior of knights and gentle-women– One must remain loyal to his or her

overlord– One must never attack an unarmed

opponent– Gave rise to a new form of literature-

the Romance• Courtly Love

– The idea that revering and acting in the name of a lady would make a knight braver and better was central to Courtly Love

– Nonsexual– A knight would wear his lady’s colors in

battle, glorify her in words, and be inspired by her, but she always remained pure and out of reach

– Women were highly valued and respected, but had absolutely no rights

The Life & Murder of Thomas a Becket

• was a friend of King Henry VII• became Prime Minister of England under Henry’s rule• Henry named him Archbishop of Canterbury (head of the Church of

England)• Henry hoped that by naming Becket the head of the church, he would

have the upper hand in disputes with the Pope• Becket, however, agreed with the Pope more often than he did with

Henry• Enraged, Henry said, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”• Taking him seriously, four of Henry’s knights murdered Becket in the

cathedral of his church. One eyewitness wrote, “Then the third knight inflicted a terrible wound as he lay, by which the sword was broken against the pavement, and the crown which was large was separated from the head, so that the blood white with the brain, and the brain, red blood, dyed the surface of the virgin mother Church with the life and the death of the confessor and martyr in the colors of the lily and the rose.”

The Shrine of St. Thomas a

Becket

Artists’ Rendering

s of Becket’s Murder

The Hundred

Years’ War• The first national war• Fought between England and

France• Started because two English

kings, Edward III and Henry V both claimed that they had the claim to the French throne

• The English lost, but they found a great asset in Yeoman- small landowners who were able to shoot arrows very long distances.

The Black Death • AKA the Bubonic Plague• Highly contagious disease that

was spread by fleas that had bitten infected rats

• Wiped out one to two thirds of England’s population

• Killed 100 Million people in Europe between 1348 and 1350

• 4 of 5 people infected died within eight days

• Symptoms included:– fever, headache, cough, bloody

sputum, oozing buboes

Buboe on a girl’s neck

The hand of someone who died of the Black Death

A Bubonic Plague Victim

Buboe on a boy’s thigh, very close to the groin area

The garb worn by doctors who treated the

Plague in the Middle Ages

Other Things that happened in the Middle Ages…

• Cities and city classes, such as lower, middle, and upper-middle began to develop. • The Crusades- a series of wars waged by European Christians against the Muslims,

with Jerusalem and the Holy Land as the prize• King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215, limiting the power of the church. It

later became the basis for English constitutional law.• The Chinese discovered gunpowder in 1325. Because of it, the castles, which were

previously impenetrable, had to worry about being attacked by new weapons, like canons.

• The church was the center of learning, and its language, Latin, was the international language of all educated Europeans. The church also fostered cultural unity.

• The Knights Templar were founded- their mission was to protect pilgrims to the Holy Land.

• The Wars of the Roses were fought between the Lancasters and the Yorks from 1455-1485