Download 4.The Early Middle Ages

1.Prehistoric Britain
 Was part of the European land mass until around 6000 BC, then,
after the end of the last Ice Age, melting ice formed the English
Channel and Britain became an island
 At the time people lived in the limestone caves
 In 3000 BC The GB was inhabited by the Iberians - first roads,
dwellings and megalithic monuments
 Stone axes and leather-working tools and weapons, skeletons,
dwellings are the only source for information about them
 Stonehenge is situated on Salisbury Plain and is the best known
megalithic monument in
Britain, it’s considered to
be connected with the
sun and the passing of the
seasons

The Bronze Age
reached Britain between
2100 – 1650 BC, findings
hint that Bronze Age
tribes
were
wealthy
(gold)

The technique of
smelting iron came to
Britain around 700 BC
with the Celts, who
invaded Britain in two
waves: the Gaels in 600
BC and Cymri or Britons
around 300 BC
The Stonehenge
 The Iberians were unable to fight back the Celts with their metal
spears, swords, daggers and axes
 The Celts lived in villages, they had no private property, no classes,
built forts on hilltops protected , were very clean
 Women had more independence and power – for example 2
biggest tribes were ruled by a women (one of them Boudicca)

Created largescale artwork on the
chalk hills of southern
England

The basic unit of
family life was the clan,
a sort of extended
family

The Celts were
great warriors and took
tremendous pride in
their appearance in
battle

The Celtic tribes
didn’t see themselves,
as one people at the
time, tough the Romans
called these people
Britons
 The Celtic languages are
Welsh, Cornish, Irish,
Manx, Scottish, Irish,
Breton
Queen Boudicca
2. Roman Britain
 2000 years ago while the Celts were still living in tribes the
Romans were the most powerful people in the world and
conquered all the countries around
 Roman society was a slave society divided into antagonistic classes
– the slaves and the slave owners
 Julius Ceasar made two raids (55 and 54 BC) across the Channel
to punish the Britons for helping their relatives against him
 Ceasar defeated the Celts because of better trained army and
better armour but he had to withdraw his soldiers because a
rebellion in France
 The proper invasion didn’t start until 43 AD under the emperor
Claudius
 Troughout the 350-year Roman occupation, Britain was ruled as a
colony and the Celts were not turned into slaves tough they had to
pay heavy taxes and work for the conquerors
 The Iceni joined forces to defeat a rival tribe, but the Romans
turned on the Iceni, torturing Queen Boudicca

In AD 61 Queen Bouddica’s
followers burned down London,
Colchester and St Albans and
Boudicca took poison rather to
submit

Romans built a network of
towns, forts and camps connected
by paved roads that are still being
used nowadays
Queen Boudicca
 Hadrian’s Wall was built in 122 to keep out the raiding Picts and
Scots
 Romans established many towns, including York, London, Bath
and St. Albans
 Place names ending in –caster, or –chester reveal the places of
Roman military camps
 The Roman baths in Bath, known as Aquae Sulis, were built
between the 1st and 4th centuries around a hot spring
Aqua Sulis
 Roman soldiers and traders brought Christianity, and in the 4th
century the Christian Church was established in Britain
3. Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms
 After the Roman legions left Britain in 410 the Celts didn’t remain
independent for long - by the mid-5th century Angles, Saxons and
Jutes from Denmark and Northern Germany started to raid the
eastern shores of Britain
 Saxons disliked Roman villas and towns, preferring to live in small
farming communities
Anglo-Saxon Village
 Saxon kings were supported by nobels, but most of the population
were free peasants; the Celts were enslaved or driven away to
upland (Wales, Cornwall, the Scottish Highlands)
 By the 7th century towns began to spring up, many towns have
names ending in ‘ham’(Anglo-Saxon ‘home’)
 The English language is the descendant of the language used by the
Saxon invaders
 The Angles gave England the name and the Saxons the language
and mythology
 Saxons were an agricultural people, villages were self-sufficient,
because arable-farming, cattle-breeding satisfied the needs of the
people, there was very little trading
 The legends about King Arthur and his knights are based on a
Celtic leader who defended his country against Saxon invasion
 The conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity began at the
end of 6th century when St Augustine from Rome became the
Archbishop of Canterbury (579)
 The Roman monks brought many books to Britain written in Latin
and Greek, the first schools and libraries were set up for the clergy

A monk named The
Venerable Bede wrote
“Ecclesiastical History of the
English People” – the only
book
on
Anglo-Saxon
history

The
epic
poem
“Beowulf”

King Egbert became
st
the 1 king of England –
under his rule the small
kingdoms were united to
form one kingdom called
England

During the 9th and
10th centuries more and
more Vikings came, first to
plunder, then to stay
“Ecclesiastical History of the English People”
 The ending ‘–by’ is the Danish word for ‘town’, other Viking words
loanwords are frequently used everyday words – eye, leg, sky, take
 Vikings came from Skandiavia - Denmark, Norway and Sweden
 The Viking Age was AD 700-1100
 Vikings settled the most part in Scotland and Eastern England,
founded Dublin in Ireland
 Vikings still lived in tribes and were pagans, they were bold and
very skilful seamen
 In 871 the Danes invaded Wessex, tough under the reign of King
Alfred, Wessex became the centre of resistance against invaders

The first British
Navy was built and
many places fortified

The Danes were
allowed to settle in the
northern
boundary
that separated the
Danelaw from Wessex,
York became their
capital

Alfred valued
reading in their own
tongue: he ordered a
book on the history of
England – The AngloSaxon Chronicle that
gives an overview of
1,200 years of English history
 In 1016 Engkand was conquered by the Danish king Knut/Canute
 He was an effective ruler; he divided England into territorial
lordships, ended the practice of paying Danegeld
 His sons did not reign long and the throne was passed to Edward
the Confessor
4.The Early Middle Ages
 After the Norman conquest had begun, there was an Anglo-Saxon
rebellion every year until 1070
 William, and the kings after him, thought of England as their
personal property
 William organised the kingdom according to the feudal system
 Strong monarchy, state system
 He made a complete economic survey called the “Domesday
Book” that was very unpopular among the people




Domesday Book
William had to recognize the king of France as his lord, while there
was no lord above him in England
After his dealth Normandy was left to Robert and England to
William (Rufus)
The third son, Henry, unfairly took the throne and king’s treasury
while Robert was in Holy Land
In 1106 Henry captured Robert and reunited Normandy and
England

Henry’s only son was drowned,
so his daughter Matilda followed him

Henry married Matilda to
Geoffrey Plantagenet, but the marriage
lead to a terrible civil war when the
throne was seized by Stephen of Blois
and Matilda invaded England; neither
side won

Agreed that Matilda’s son Henry
would succeed Stephen of Blois, who
conveniently for Matilda died a year
later
Stephen of Blois
 In 1154 Henry succeeded
Matilda and became the
first unquestioned ruler of
England for a hundred
years
5. The reign of Henty II, Richard I, John I Magna Carta and the
Decline of Feudalism
 Henry II inherited Normandy and the English kingdom from his
mother Matilda and Anjou, Maine and Tourraine from his father
Geoffrey of Anjou and acquired vast areas in France through his
wife Eleanor of Aquitaine
Henry II

Henry had more land on the
continent than the king of France
 He was very tough and athletic,
which enabled him to travel a lot

Henry II was generous to the
poor, a pillar of justice and the
gratest of Plantagenets, but he
quarreled a lot with his wife and his
sons, Richard and John, and
took Eleanor’s side so he died
broken and defeated by his
sons and king of France
Matilda
 This period is marked as the
period of the struggle between
the Church and the state
The murder of Thomas Becket
‘
 It had started in 1066, when William had created Norman bishops
and given land to them, but the crisis came when Henry II
appointed Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162,
after Becket’s canonization Canterbury became a major centre of
pilgrimage

Henry’s was followed by his
rebellious son Richard who reigned for
10 years and was very popular even
tough he hardly spent any time in
England

He was educated, brave and a
good soldier who spent a lot of time in
the Holy Land and got the nickname
“Coeur de Lion” (Lionheart)

His younger brother John I
Lackland inherited the throne after his
death.

He was very unpopular because
he taxed heavily his nobles but didn’t
protect their land in France
Magna Carta
 John had a quarrel with the Pope in 1209 and he was forced to sign
Magna Carta in 1215; it contained 63 clauses defining the rights
and responsibilities of the crown and its subjects, also limited the
king’s power
 Feudalism was beginning to weaken, but it took another 300 years
before it disappeared completely
 During John’s reign the 1st stone bridge across the Thames was
completed in 1206, it included a drawbridge, a double row of
house and some 140 shops.
6. England under the Reign of Henry III and Edward I
100 Years’ War
 John’s son Henry III reigned for a long time but was not able to get
back his father’s lands in France
 He spent heavily and his advisors upset the nobles
 Henry III inspired the improvements to Westminster Abbey and
construction
of
Salisbury Cathedral

During his reign
st
the 1 parliament was
summoned in 1265

His son Edward I
was
interested
in
bringing the rest of
Britain
under
his
control
Westminister Abbey
 Edward brought together the 1st real parliament, annexed Wales to
England in 1282 and brought Scotland under English control for a
time (until 1314)
 Edward I tried to have good relations with the powerful king of
France Philip IV and they decided to marry their children (Isabella
+ Edward II), but the consequences of this marriage were
disastrous for both countries
 Isabella together with his lover Roger forced Edward to abdicate in
favour of his 14-year-old son (Edward III) in 1327
 Isabella and Roger ruled in the name of Edward III, but in 1330
Edward seized the power
 Edward III was one of the most successful English monarchs of
the Middle Ages, his reign saw vital developments in military
legislature and government
 Edward’s reign was dominated by the 100 Years’ War (13371453) with France that started with his claim to the French throne
 The war began well for England and Henry IV (of Lancaster) was
crowned King of France, but with the help of Joan of Arc the French
became
successful
and
finally the war
ended in 1453

England
lost all its French
possessions in the
100 Years’ War
except Calais
The 100 Years’ War
 During the war the English noblemen and kings started to speak
English and English literature was born with Geoffrey Chaucer’s
“Canterbury Tales” and the Bible’s translation into English
 The first large school, Winchester College, was established in
1382, giving the start to lay education
 Oxford University is the oldest in the English-speaking world
7. The Age of Chivalry and The Poor Revolt
 Edward III and his oldest son Edward/the Black Prince were
greatly admired in England, they became the symbols of the “code
of chivalry”
 Edward III also gave England a new patron saint, St. George, and
was the founder of the Order of the Garter, that have given the
motto to the royal family: Honi soit qui mal y pense

The
English
never
rebelled against Edward III,
though he was an expensive king
and many people were miserably
poor

Edward III was followed
by his grandson Richard II, who
became king at the age of 11, so
others governed for him

Richard II didn’t have the
diplomatic
skill
nor
the
popularity of his grandfather

When a new taxed was
introduced (for the third time), it caused The Peasants’ Revolt in
East Anglia and Kent that only lasted for weeks
 When the leader Wat Tyler was killed, Richard skillfully managed
to calm down the angry crowd, promising to meet all the people’s
demands, but his officers killed the other leading rebels
 During the next century discontent with the Church also grew, the
most important reason being the greed of the Church
8. The Crisis of Kingship
 When the 100 Years’ War ended in 1453, the English nobleman
returned to England with their soldiers, many whom became
unemployed; they knew no craft but fighting
 Two groups of nobles fought for the control of the throne –
Lancasters and Yorks
 When Richard II became king he was placed under the control of
his uncle John, duke of Lancaster, who prepared the throne for
his son Henry (IV)
 Henry was stronger and took the throne by force, soon after that
Richard died mysteriously
 There was another possible
successor for the throne - the Duke
of York
 Yorks –white rose, Lancasters –red
rose

Although Henry IV passed the
crown to his son Henry V, 50 years later
the nobility were divided between those
who remained loyal to Henry VI, the
“Lancastrians”, and those who supported
the duke of York, the “Yorkists”

The war began in 1455 with the
battle of Saint Albans, six years later, the
York forces crushed the Lancaster army
and Edward of York became king as
Edward IV
Richard III
 Edward V succeeded Edward IV at the age of 12
 Richard, the duke of Gloucester, uncle of the young king, had
Edward and his little brother killed in the Tower of London and
became king as Richard III
 Richard III reigned for two years and was the last king of the
House of York and the last of the Plantaganet dynasty
 “A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!” – a famous quote from
Shakespeare’s Richard III - king Richard had lost his horse on the
battlefield and he offers his kingdom for a horse
 At Bosworth Field Richard III was killed and defeated and Henry
Tudor, a descendant of the House of Lancaster, defeated the royal
army and after the
battle was crowned
King Henry VII
 Henry united the
rival
houses
of
Lancaster and York
by marrying Edward
IV’s daughter
Henry Tudor/ Henry VII
‘

9. The Tudors
 The Tudors reigned 1485-1603
 The Tudor period is known as the most glorious - the time of
strong monarchy, reformation and strong British navy
 Henry VII Tudor :
 ended the War of the Roses
 married Elizabeth of York – united the families
 kept England out Wars, avoided quarrels
 made important alliances
 wealthy state, powerful monarchy
 Arranged marriages between his son Arthur and Catherine of
Aragon(Spain), also between Margaret and James VI of
Scotland
 Henry VIII:
 married his brother’s
widow, Cathrine of
Aragon, who bore five
children, only Mary lived;
later they divorced
 secretly married Anne
Boleyn, who bore
Elisabeth I; Anne Boleyn
was beheaded
 married Jane Seymour,
who died shortly after
giving birth to Edward VI
 married a German princess
Anne of Cleves, six
months later divorced
Henry VIII
 married Cathrine Howard, who was soon beheaded
 lastly he married Cathrine Parr, who outlived him




Henry VIII separated fully English Church from RomanCatholic (1534) the Act of Supremacy
 he had a magnificent court
 durning his reign was reformation
 Thomas Cromwell became the chief minister and together they
closed more than 500 monasteries and other religious houses
Edward VI: died at the age of 16 - England was ruled by a council;
protestant
Lady Jane Grey: reigned for 9 days, then was executed; protestant
Mary I (Bloody Mary):
 married king Phillip of Spain
 was catholic - enacted a policy persecution against Protestants
 restored the Roman pope’s authority over the Church of England
Elisabeth:
 never married and had no
direct heir
 kept England out of wars
 Spanish Armada
 led England back to
Protestantism
 supported theatre, culture,
arts
 England started to expand
(India)
 England became powerful
and flourishing country
with strong navy
 she was the head of the
chuch
 prosperous time
‘
Elisabeth I
‘
10. The Stuarts
 Mary Stuart:
 was the queen of Scotland,
alsoclaimed the crowns of
France, England and Ireland
 was married to Francis I (prince
of France), Lord Darnley and
Bothwell, who was believed to be
the murderer of Lord Darnley
 fled to England in seeking the
protection, but was executed by
Elisabeth
 had a son with Lord Darnley James VI, who later became the king of England
 James I (James VI of Scotland):
 reigned 1603-1625
 sad clever things, but wasn’t really wise
 Scottish catholic
 was the first joint ruler of England and Scotland
 was a Scottish Catholic who believed in the “Divine Right”
 had a conflict with the English Parliament
 Gunpowder Plot in 1605 that led to anti catholic riots, but laws
were made very severe after this, therefore there were no
more plots to kill James
 the Authorised King James’s Version of the Bible in 1611
 Charles I:
 was born in 1600 as the second son of James and Anne of
Denmark
 his wife was Catholic

he dissolved Parliament three times between 1625 and 1629 –
tension with Parlament over
money
 the country split between the
supporters of the king
(Cavaliers) and supporters of
the Parliament (Roundheads)
 he wanted to rule alone and this
led to civil war (1642-1645)
 Oliver Cromwell’s army
defeated the Royalist army and
Charles was executed
Charles I
 Charles II:
 was invited back durning Cromwell’s reign
 the new king was careful to make peace with his father’s
enemies, only those who had been responsible for the
execution of Charles I, were punished
 the Plague in 1665 and the Great Fire of London in 1666.
 he resulted in the first political parties in Britain - the “Whigs”
and “Tories”
 His brother James II succeeded him.
 James II:
 was a Catholic king in a fiercely Protestant country
 his daughter Mary was Protestant and married to the ruler of
Holland, William of Orange, who was invited to invade Britain
 was defeated and forced to depose
 William III:
 Parliament made William king by choice not by inheritance
 Was married to Mary II
‘
 the political events in 1688 are called the Glorious Revolution
 William was not very popular, but Mary was
 had no heirs
 Queen Anne:
 was the 1st monarch to rule over the Kingdom of Great Britain Act of Union (Scotland was united with England and Wales)
 had 17 children by George of Denmark, but none survived
 during her reign,
parliamentary elections
had a decisive effect on
the life of the country
for the 1st time
 Died in 1714; was the
last Stuart
11. The Georgian Age
 The growth of the industries –new trading empire
 Britain had the strongest navy in the world
 For the 1st time, the king’s ministers were the real policy and
decision-makers
 While a few people became richer, many others lost their land,
their homes and their way of life, due to enclosures and industrial
revolution
 Britain had the most
advanced economy in
the world
 The
invention
of
machinery
created
factories – people
moved to towns and
became “proletariat”
Industrial Revolution
 “Cottage Industries” were destroyed
 Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow suddenly started to
grow rapidly
 In France the misery of the poor and the power of the trading
classes led to a revolution in 1789.
 Britain was saved from revolution partly by the high level of local
control of the ruling class and by Methodism, a new religious
movement which offered hope to the new proletariat
 When Queen Anne, the last of Stuarts, died in 1714, James II’s son
returned to Britain as James III
‘
Queen Anne
‘
 James III was unwilling to change his mind and he would not give
up his religion, so he tried to win the throne by force
 In 1715 a rebellion started against George I, who had just arrived
from Hanover, but Stuart supporters, known as “Jacobites”, were
defeated easily
 The new king George I only spoke German and was not very
interested in his kingdom, so as
a result of his financial ability,
Robert Walpole came to power
and he is considered Britain’s
first Prime Minister
 In 1694 a group of financiers
who lent to the government
decided to establish a bank
known as the Bank of Englant,
that had the authority to print
“bank notes”
 In other European countries
kings and queens had absolute
power; Britain was unusual and
Walpole was determined to
keep it that way
George I
 Walpole’s idea: Government ministers worked together in a small
group – the “Cabinet” and any minister who disagreed deeply with
other Cabinet members was expected to resign
 The limits to monarchy: the king could not be a Catholic, he could
not remove or change laws and was dependent on Parlament
 Walpole put taxes on luxury goods (tea, coffee, chocolate etc.)
 One of Walpole’s political enemies was William Pitt, later Lord
Chatam, who feared that an alliance with Spain would give France
a trade advantage over Britain
 War with France broke out in 1756 and went on all over the world
and gave the British control over important trades
 India became the “jewel in the crown” of Britain foreign
possessions
 New king George III came to throne in 1760 and in 1763 he made
peace with France, because the war was too expensive
 George III was the first Hanoverian king to spoke English without
an accent
 In 1764 there was a serious quarrel over taxation between Britain
and America
 In 1773 “the Boston tea party”
‘
The American war of Independence 1775 – 1783
 In the 4 of July 1776 the Declaration of Independence
 Many Brittish colonies were lost durning the American war of
Indepencence
 Some British politicians openly supported the colonists called
“Radicals”
 In 1793 1st coalition - Austria, Sardinia, Naples, Prussia, Spain, GB
vs France; in 1798 the 2nd coalition– Austria, GB, Naples, Ottoman
Empire, Portugal, Russia, Sweden
 In 1799 Napoleon seized
control
of
the
French
government, declared France
an Empire in 1804 and
crowned himself Emperor
 Nelson won in Trafalgar in
1805
 Wellington invaded France and
Napoleon surrendered in 1814
 Napoleon was defeated in 1815
at Waterloo
The battle of Trafalgar
 When peace was made in 1815, there was no longer such need for
factory-made goods and many people lost their jobs
 A new law made the poor live in workhouses, only then they were
given any help
 When the Tories collapsed over the question of Catholic
Emancipation in 1829, the Whigs were able to take over, and they
were willing to implement parliamentary reform
 Led by Earl Grey, the Whigs wanted to enact a moderate reform
that would make the system fairer without actually giving in to the
demands of the working classes
 George IV reigned 1820-1830, after that his more liberal brother
William IV came to the throne
 It took very long time for the Great Reform Act actually to become
law
 The Act increased the number of individuals entitled to vote
 The King William IV, supporting the reformers, proved to be the
only king to keep his throne at the time
 William was secceeded by his niece Queen Victoria, because he
head no surviving legimate children
William IV
‘
12.Victorian Age
 Victoria became queen at the age of 18 after her uncle William IV
died and she reigned for 64 years
 She married at the age of 23 with
German prince Albert
 When Albert died Victoria went into
deep and permanent mourning
 The ‘Widow of Winsor’
 During this time Britain ruled one
fifth of the world’s surface - ‘the
Empire, where sun never sets’
 In the end of Victoria’s life she was
constantly ill and in a wheelchair
 She was loved and her death was
marked as the end of the greatest
age in British history
Prince Albert
 Durning 1800s, the Industrial Revolution spread troughout Britain,
espesically in the textile industry
 Many factory workers were children, who worked long hours and
were treated harshly
 In 1880 school education was made compulsory, which helped to
end child labour
 Most people were helped by private charity
 Many important discoveries and inventions were made: antiseptic
surgery, electric lightning, railways, steam tube engines, oil and
diesel engines etc.
 Christianity was very important influence – ‘Victorian Values’
 In 1851, Albert planned the Great Exhibition
 Writers: Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Stevenson, Bronte sisters,
Kipling, Thomas Hardy, etc.
Charles Dickens
Oscar Wilde
13.The Edwardian Age
 After queen Victoria’s death Edward VII came to the throne, he
was 59 and a grandfather at the time
 He held the title of Prince of Wales
 He has spent all his life in mother’s shadow
 He reigned only 1901-1910

The Edwardian period is
sometimes extended beyond
Edward’s death.

Edward was a part of
fashionable elite which set a style
influenced by the art and fashions
of Continental Europe

During that time the
British class system was very
rigid, one third of the population
lived in poverty

In
1903
Emmeline
Pankhurst founded the Women’s
Social and Political Union that
fought for women’s suffrage
Edward VII
 Corresponds to the French Belle Époque period
 The church no longer played a vital role
 At the beginning of the 1900s military rivalry grew between Great
Britain and Germany
 In May 1910 E VII was succeeded by his son George V
 George V changed
his family name to
Windsor
 Durning his reign
was the First World
War, the Russian
Revolution, the Irish
troubles, votes for
women, the general
strike etc.
 The assassination of
Archduke Ferdinand
started World War I;
country
was
unprepared for the
power
of
the
modern weapons
 George V was loved
by people for his tours
 In 1931 dominions’ gained complete independence from Britain