MIDDLE AGES ENGLISH LITERATURE

The literature of the Middle Ages describes the beginning of literature in England. This
period was around the 5th to 15th century A.D, from roughly 400 – 1400 A.D. The Middle Ages
can be divided into three main sections: the Anglo – Saxon period, the Anglo – Norman
period and the Pre – Renaissance period.

I. The Anglo – Saxon Period [Early Middle Ages or Early Medieval Period] (5th – 10th)

In Europe, this period followed the decline/ withdrawal of the Western Roman Empire. The
period saw a continuation of trends begun during late classical antiquity ntikwiti t nh
tr ng x , including population decline (especially in urban centers), a decline of trade,
and an in re sed immigr tion. This period w s lso l beled s the “D rk Ages” – a
characterization highlighting the relative scarcity of literary and cultural output from this
time, especially in Northwestern Europe.

During the first five centuries of the history of Britain, and long before that the people that
lived in Britain were called Celts, who lived in tribes. During this period, the various Germanic
tribal groups (Angles, Saxons, and Jutes) invaded Britain from the 5th century, and subdued
or displaced the Celtic inhabitants. Not only that, they also had their own leaders who
fought between themselves for supremacy in this new territory. The first region for them to
re-establish their stability was Southeast England where kingdoms of Kent and Sussex were
in existence before the end of the 5th century and Wessex became an identifiable kingdom
not much later. At the end of the 5th century, they finished settling in Britain and began to
call themselves English. The three large kingdoms were great horizontal slices across
England – Northumbria in the north, Mercia in the midlands and Wessex in the south. Each
of these in turn is the dominant power within England: Northumbria in the 7th century,
Mercia in the 8th and Wessex in the 9th century. At the end of this period, a unified England
at last began to emerge – under the banner of Wessex, in the time of Alfred the Great.

Although we know very little of this period from literature because nearly all the Anglo –
Saxon authors were anonymous, some authors are still known up to know thanks to some
medieval sources. Old English poetry fell broadly into two styles or fields of reference, the
heroic Germanic and the Christian. The most popular and well-known understanding of Old
English poetry continued to be lliter tive l p m u verse. The system is b sed upon
accent, alliteration, the quantity of vowels, and patterns of syllabic accentuation. It consists
of five permutations on a base verse scheme; any one of the five types can be used in any
verse. The system was inherited from and exists in one form or another in all of the older
Germanic languages.

Song poems called epics were created in many countries, which told about the most
rem rk ble events of people’s history nd the deeds of one or more heroic people.
The Song of Beowulf: Test of Courage – The National Epic of England

This first masterpiece and the most famous work of Old English Literature described the
historical past of the land from which the Angles, Saxons and Jutes came. This is actually an
anonymous heroic epic of 3200 verses talking about pagan tradition blended with Christian
elements. It was written around the year 1000 and composed after 700. The setting of the
poem was about the – 6th – century Scandinavia. The subject matter of the work [Germanic
tribes in Scandinavia] was even older than the 6th one.

Beowulf, a courageous pagan hero of royal blood, sailed to Denmark; and the Danish King
Hrothgar built a great hall Heorot for feasts. The monster Grendel found the feast hall and
came at times to eat food and men. Beowulf settled in the hall with his warriors, everyone
except for him fell asleep. When Grendel came, Beowulf managed to ut one of Grendel’s
arms, the monster disappeared and later died. Grendel’s mother w nted to revenge him, so
she came to a ball, ate some soldiers and went away. Beowulf went after her to the marshes
and killed her with a magic sword. Everybody lived happily after this. 50 years later, when
Beowulf was already old, his own country was attacked by a fire-breathing dragon. Beowulf
managed to kill it with his soldiers, but he was wounded and died. At the end of the song
poem was Beowulf’s funer l.

This work t lked bout the events of people’s history, whi h g in w s to sing bout the
heroic deeds of a man, his courage and his desire for justice, his love for his people and his
self – sacrifice for the sake of his country.

II. The Anglo – Norman Period (11th – 13th centuries)

The Norman (from what is now called France) conquest of England in the 11th century made
a break in the natural growth of the English language and literature. The Old English or
Anglo – Saxon had been purely Germanic language, with a complicated grammar and full set
of infle tions. For the three hundred ye rs, this n tive l ngu ge w s driven from the King’s
court, the courts of law, from parliament, school and university. During all this time, there
were two languages spoken in England. Norman French was the mother tongue for all the
upper classes and English for the lower.

The Normans brought in also new intellectual influences and new forms of literature. They
were a cosmopolitan people and they connected England with the continent. nfr n nd
Anselm, the first two r hbishops t ng gi m m of C nterbury, were le rned nd were
splendid prel tes gi m m of the type quite unknown to the Anglo – Saxons. These two
people introduced the scholastic philosophy taught in University of Paris, and the reformed
disciplines of the Norman abbeys bi tu vi n . They bound the English church more
closely to Rome and officered it with Normans. English bishops were deprived p i,
h h of their sees for illiteracy and French abbots (/æb∂t h tu vi n tr ng were set
over monasteries of Saxon monks.
At this time, a strong feudal monarchy was established in the country. The feudal monarchy
describes a King or a Queen supported by a feudal social system, including the King – the
representative of rule class, and the Serfs – or the lower-class people that were unable to
own land for themselves. The ruling class consisted of the Norman nobility and the clergy –
the church workers. Most of English people were serfs during this period.

This period also witnessed the t it t sit ng m ng m) fight between three languages spoken
separately by three different groups of people: French by the Norman nobility, Latin by the
clergies and churchmen, and Anglo – Saxon or Old English by the serfs, or common people.

After the Norman Conquest, Latin liter ture ir ul ted mong the edu ted l sses. The
development of Anglo – orm n liter ture in the Anglo – orm n re lm relm v ng qu ,
l nh v introdu ed liter ry trends from Continent l Europe. However, the indigenous
development of Anglo – Norman liter ture w s pre o ious pri’kou∫∂s s m r ho , s m
k t qu , s m ph t tri n in omp rison to ontinent l liter ture.

Religious liter ture ontinued to enjoy popul rity. Some f mous works were “The life of
S int Audrey” or “South English egend ry”.

The Normans was a nation of knight – errant, with a passion for prowess and for courtesy.
Their architecture was strong and graceful. Their nation taste for decoration expressed itself
not only in the ceremonious pomp of feast and chase and tourney, but likewise in literature.
The most characteristic contribution of the Normans to English poetry was the metrical
romances or chivalry tales. These were sung or recited by the minstrels, who were among
the retainers of every great feudal baron, or by the jongleurs, who wondered from court to
castle. There is a whole literature of these roman d’ adventure in the Anglo – Norman dialect
of French. Many of them are very long – often thirty, forty or fifty thousand lines – written
sometimes in a strophic form, sometimes in long Alexandrines, but commonly in the short,
eight – syllabled rhyming couplet. Numbers of them were turned into English verse in the
13th, 14th and 15th centuries. These translations were usually inferior to the originals.

The heroes of these romances were of various climes: Guy of Warwick, Richard the Lion
He rt of Engl nd, H velok the D ne, Sir Troilus of Troy, Alex nder… But tu lly, the
favorite hero of English romance was mythical Arthur of Britain, who had been celebrated as
the most formidable enemy of the Sassenach invaders and their victor in 12 great battles.
The long poems – or the so – called epic – th t elebr ted the heroes’ deeds were norm lly
tales (or stories) survived for centuries as oral traditions (spoken by story tellers) before
they were written down. However, they came into existence as spoken words and were
retold by poet after poet from one generation to the next.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late-14th-century Middle English alliterative romance. It
is one of the better – known Arthurian stories, of an established type known as the
"beheading game". Developing from Welsh, Irish and English tradition, Sir Gawain
highlighted the importance of honour and chivalry ( ∫iv∂lri/ tinh th n hi p s , tinh th n
th ng v , ng i h ho phong nh . It is n import nt poem in the rom n e genre, whi h
typi lly involved hero who went on quest th t tested his prowess l ng d ng m .
"Preserved in the same manuscript with Sir Gawain were three other poems, now generally
accepted as the work of its author. These are two alliterative poems of moral teaching,
Patience and Purity, and an intricate intrikit r r i, r i beng elegi (/elidgai∂k/ bi
th ng poem, Pe rl. The uthor of Sir G w in nd the other poems is frequently referred
to s “the Pearl Poet”. Di le t words were used ommonly in the poems; most of them
came from the Midlands, and many of them came from northwest England.

II. The Pre – Renaissance Period (14th – 15th centuries)

In this period, the fight between English, Latin and French came to an end. In the second
half of the 14th century, French had ceased to be the mother – tongue of any considerable
part of the population of England. By the statute of Edward III, in 1362, it was displaced from
the law courts. By 1386, English had taken its place in the schools. The Anglo – Norman
dialect had grown corrupt. The native English genius was also beginning to assert itself,
roused in part, by the English victories in the war of Edward III against French. Heavy taxes
and repeated visitations of the pestilence, or Black Death, pressed upon the poor and
wasted the land. The Church was corrupt, the mendicant orders had grown enormously
wealthy, and the country was eaten up by a swarm of begging friars, pardoners, and
apparitors. The social discontent was fermenting among the lower classes, which finally
issued in the communistic uprising of the peasantry.

During this period, literature works fell for allegory, with the most famous work Vision of
Piers Plowman – which bore some resemblance to the later and more famous allegory of the
Pilgrim’s Progress, and poet which often sang about the world with its various conditions of
men: friars glossing the Gospel for their own profit, pardoners cheating the people with
relics and indulgences, and parish priests who forsook their parishes that had been poor
since the pestilence time. The attack upon the growing corruptions of the Church was made
more systematically, and from the stand – point of a theologian rather than of a popular
moralist and satirist.

Also during this period, English prose gradually being brought into a shape fitting it for more
serious uses. The 15th century was an era of decay and change. The Middle Age was dying;
Church and State were slowly disintegrating under the new intellectual influences that were
working secretly underground. Furthermore, dramas also became common type of
literature in the Pre – Renaissance. The dramas were born in the church. In the early times,
the clergymen explained the truths of religion by using drama. The plays were known as
Mysteries and Miracles. The performance of these stories in church marked the first stage in
the development of dramas. The Morality plays, which came next, were didactic – for
educational purposes.
Vision of Piers Plowman

Piers Plowman was the first extended literary work after the Conquest which was purely English
in character. The poem is full of English moral seriousness, of shrewd humor, the hatred of a lie,
the homely English love for reality. It has little unity of plan, but it is rather a series of episodes,
discourses, parables, and scenes. It is all astir with the actual life of the time.

Geoffrey Chaucer (unknown – 1400) & Canterbury Tales

Chaucer was the greatest of the poets of medieval Europe, and he remained one of the greatest
of English poets, and certainly the foremost of English story – tellers in verse. He was the son of
a London vintner, and was in his youth in service of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, one of the sons of
Edward III. He made a campaign in France in 1359 – 1360, when he was taken prisoner.
Afterward he was attached to the court and received numerous favors and appointments.

Chaucer was a man of business as well as books, and he loved men and nature no less than
study. He knew his world; he “s w life ste dily nd s w it whole.” Ch u er w s n eye –
witness of those feudal pomps which fill the high – colored pages of his contemporary.

Ch u er’s e rlier works, su h tr nsl tions of Boke of the Duchesse, the Parlament of Foules, the
House of Fame and the Legend of Good Women, were later the inspiration of the French court
poetry of the 13th and 14th centuries. Had Chaucer written nothing else, he would still have been
remembered as the most accomplished English poet of his time, as well as one of the greatest
English poets of all time. This position he owes to his masterpiece, the Canterbury Tales. Here he
abandoned the imitation of foreign models and the artificial literary fashions of his age, and wrote
of real life from his own ripe knowledge of men and things. Chaucer was the first great master of
laughter and of tears. His serious poetry is full of the tenderest pathos. His loosest tales are
delightfully humorous and life – like. He is the kindliest of satirists. The knavery, greed and
hypocrisy of the begging friars and the sellers of indulgences were exposed pitilessly by him.

The Canterbury Tales are a collection of stories written at different times, but put together,
probably toward the close of his life. A number of pilgrims who were going on horseb k to
the shrine of St. Thom s Becket, at Canterbury, met at the Tabard Inn, Southwark – a
suburb of London. The jolly host of Tabard – Harry Bailey – proposed that on the way
Canterbury, each of the company should tell two tales, and two more on the way back, and
that the one who told the best tale would have a supper at the cost of the rest when they
returned to the inn. Chaucer just accompanied the pilgrims as judge and reporter. The story
– tellers, or the pilgrims, included a knight, a squire, a yeoman archer, and especially so many
kinds of ecclesiastics: a nun, a friar, a monk, a pardoner, and a sompnour or apparitor.
Although the outward face of the society may have changed, the Canterbury pilgrims remain
living and universal types of human nature. The Canterbury Tales are twenty – four in
number. There were thirty – two pilgrims, so that if finished as designed the whole
collection would have numbered one hundred and twenty – eight stories. The Canterbury
Tales had shown of what high uses the English language was capable, but the curiously
trilingual condition of literature still continued.