The Medieval Period - Middle Ages
1066-1485 - British Literature
Turning over leadership
What is Feudalism?
a. Feudalism was a caste system, a property system and a military system
b. based on a religious concept of rank (with God as the supreme overlord)
c. Kings held land as a “divine right” (i.e.: given to them by God)
d. All of the land belonged to the King, who granted land to nobility, called Barons
Barons
- Barons were bound in loyalty to the king, had to raise armies to fight his battles, and pay taxes to support his court
- Barons granted land to lesser nobles and required services and taxes from them
- At the very bottom of the social order was a class of bondsmen, known as peasants or serfs
Peasants/Serfs
- The life of a serf was terrible
- They were the property of their feudal lords and could not leave the land or even marry without permission
- They lived on meager diets, suffered terribly from disease, and worked very hard only to turn over much of what they produced for the support of the lord’s household
- Occasionally, a serf could earn his freedom by some exceptional service to his lord. This class of freed serfs (or freemen) grew to include many merchants, traders, and artisans.
The Knights are coming. The Knights are coming.
a. Boys were trained from an early age to become warriors
b. Not every boy could become a knight – his parents had to be rich enough to buy
him a horse, armor, and weapons
c. A knight’s education began at about the age of seven, with instruction in good
manners and social skills, such as singing, dancing, and playing chess. Also, how
to use a sword and shield;
d. At the age of 14, a boy became a squire, a kind of personal servant to a knight
e. After his training, a boy was dubbed (ceremonially tapped on the shoulder) and
given the title of “Sir” and full rights of the warrior caste
f. Knighthood was grounded in the feudal idea of loyalty & the complex system of
social codes!
Women are to be seen and not heard
Women in Medieval Society: No Voice, No Choice
a. Since they were not soldiers, women had no political rights (b/c the society was
primarily military)
b. Women were always subservient to a man: her husband, father, or brother
c. Her husband’s social standing determined the degree of respect she commanded
d. Peasant women, experienced a never-ending life of child-bearing, housework
and hard field work
e. Women of higher stations (class/rank) were occupied with childbearing and
household supervision. Some women might even manage entire estates when
their husbands were away on business or at war (but when the men returned,
the wives went back to the same old…)
f. The Church also regarded women as inferior to men – during the Middle Ages,
the Church took further steps to diminish women’s status by reclaiming co
Medieval Literature
Ballads: songs of the common people, four-line stanzas that served as entertainment and as records of events that captured the popular imagination.
Robin Hood and similar stories
Morality plays: represented abstract virtues and vices as actual characters
Mystery plays: told stories from the Bible
Miracle plays: told stories from the lives of Saints
We will be reading The Canterbury Tales by G. Chaucer
Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
FULL TITLE · The Canterbury Tales
AUTHOR · Geoffrey Chaucer
TYPE OF WORK · Poetry (two tales are in prose: the Tale of Melibee and the Parson’s Tale)
GENRES · Narrative collection of poems; character portraits; parody; estates satire; romance; fabliau
LANGUAGE · Middle English
TIME AND PLACE WRITTEN · Around 1386–1395, England
DATE OF FIRST PUBLICATION · Sometime in the early fifteenth century
PUBLISHER · Originally circulated in hand-copied manuscripts
NARRATOR · The primary narrator is an anonymous, naïve member of the pilgrimage, who is not described. The other pilgrims narrate most of the tales.
POINT OF VIEW · In the General Prologue, the narrator speaks in the first person, describing each of the pilgrims as they appeared to him. Though narrated by different pilgrims, each of the tales is told from an omniscient third-person point of view, providing the reader with the thoughts as well as actions of the characters.
TONE · The Canterbury Tales incorporates an impressive range of attitudes toward life and literature. The tales are by turns satirical, elevated, pious, earthy, bawdy, and comical. The reader should not accept the naïve narrator’s point of view as Chaucer’s.
SETTING (TIME) · The late fourteenth century, after 1381
SETTING (PLACE) · The Tabard Inn; the road to Canterbury
THEMES · The pervasiveness of courtly love, the importance of company, the corruption of the church
What are these tales......????? A contest to see who can tell the best story.
At a tavern in Southwark, near London, the narrator joins a company of twenty-nine pilgrims. The pilgrims, like the narrator, are traveling to the shrine of the martyr Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury. The narrator gives a descriptive account of twenty-seven of these pilgrims, including a Knight, Squire, Yeoman, Prioress, Monk, Friar, Merchant, Clerk, Man of Law, Franklin, Haberdasher, Carpenter, Weaver, Dyer, Tapestry-Weaver, Cook, Shipman, Physician, Wife, Parson, Plowman, Miller, Manciple, Reeve, Summoner, Pardoner, and Host.Sources used
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