Textbook Notes (pg. 2-14)

Conquest of Britain
AD 449-1485

• Brythons (Britons) settle on Britain; Gales settle on Ireland > Celts (farmers, hunters)

>Druids to settle disputes.

• Romans rule Britain 300+years (end in 407 AD)
• Anglo-Saxons took over England
• 4th Century > accept Christianity (late 6th Cent. > monasteries in North) > church prompted peace & unity
• Norse of Norway & Danes of Denmark > Vikings (rising pop. caused them to go to sea)
• Norse> Northumbria, Scotland, Wales, Ireland
• Danes> S. England
• Alfred the Great> truce between Danes and Anglo

Magna Carta
- restrict royal power
War of Roses> 1455- 1485> York vs Lancaster >> Tudor kills Richard York, crowns Henry VII & marries Richard's niece, UNITES houses

Feudalism
Black Death (1348- 1349) > plague causes labor shortage, peasants revolt against serfdom (crushed)

Literature:

Anglo-Saxon> spoken verse, incantations
Poetry> heroic and elegia (lament deaths) < Beowulf & The Wanderer>
Prose> Latin

English Middle Ages > dramas emerged ~ Geoffrey Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales, modern writer, keen observer
Medieval Drama> church sponsored plays> early dramas= religious
15th Century> morality plays (ordinary people, moral lessons)

Printing press> started 1454, improved 1476

Romances, Lyrics, & Ballads:
1. describe adventures of knights (King Arthur most popular)
2. English>> secular (love, nature) & religious (hymns, supplications)
3. folk song that told a story

ENGLISH: Angles, Saxons, Jules > spoke German which became old English> gains sophisticated words from other languages (Latin, Greek)
>Middle: conquest of England by Norman French caused an infusion of French words into English