1

Lecture I.
Geographical position of Great Britain. The territory
of Great Britain. Notions of "Great Britain", "England"."UK".
Relief. Climate. Flora and Fauna. Natural resources.
For millions of years, Britain was a part of the
European mainland. But after the melting of the glaciers
[ ] in the last Ice Age the sea level rose. Britain
then became separated from the European continent by the
North Sea at its widest, and by the English Channel at its
narrowest points. The shortest stretch of water between the
two land masses is now the Strait of Dover [ ] between
Dover in southern England and Calais [ ] in France (20
miles; 32 km).
The British Isles lie off the north-west coast of
continental Europe and consist of two large islands, Great
Britain and Ireland, and more than 5,000 smaller islands. The
mainlands of England, Scotland and Wales form the largest
island and they are known politically as Great Britain or
Britain. Northern Ireland (sometimes called the province of
Ulster [ ]) shares the second largest island Ireland with
the Republic of Ireland (the Irish Republic or Eire [ ].
The Republic of Ireland is in the southern part of the
island. It is independent and has its own government in
Dublin [ ], the capital of the republic. Each of them,
Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland has its own
unique culture, history, literature and even language.
So, as we see, the British Isles are divided into two
independent states: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
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Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (the Irish

Republic). The United Kingdom consists of England, Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland. Some of small islands, such as
Anglesey [ ], the Orkneys [ ], the Shetlands
[ ], the Hebrides [ ], the Isle of Wight and the
Isles of Scilly lie in various distances from the coasts and
are also included in the United Kingdom. Other small
islands,such as the Isle of Man, in the Irish Sea, the
Channel Islands off the French coast are not included into
the United Kingdom, however these islands recognise the
Queen, and they are members of the Commonwealth.
They are selfgoverning Crown Dependencies which have a
special historical relationship with the British Crown but
possess their own legislatures, legal systems and
administrative structures. However, British government as a
royal representative is responsible for their defence and
international relations and can interfere if good
administration is not maintained.
The Commonwealth is a free association of Britain and
certain independent states, formerly the colonies of the
British Empire. The British Crown is a symbol of this
association. The Commonwealth has no central government, and
unites a fifth of the world's land and population. Its
members are: Great Britain, Canada [ ], Australia [ ],
New Zealand [ ] (1931), India, Pakistan [ ]
(1947), Ceylon [ ] (1948), Ghana [ ] (1957), Nigeria
[ ] (1960), Cyprus [ ], Sierra Leone [ ]
(1961), Jamaica [ ], Trinidad and Tobago [ ], Uganda
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[ ] (1962), Kenya [ ] (1963), Tanzania [ ],

Malawi [ ], Malta [ ], Zambia [ ] (1964),
Gambia [ ], Singapore [ ] (1965), Guyana [ ],
Botswana [ ], Lesotho [ ], Barbados [ ]
(1966).
Many foreigners say "England" and "English" when they
mean "Britain or the UK or "British". This is unpleasant for
the people who live in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
They are not English, they are all British.
Britain's geographical position is marked by 0
longtitude, which passes through the international time
measure of Greenwich east of London; by latitude [ ]
50 N, which cuts through the Lizard [ ] peninsula in
south-west England; and by latitude 60 N which stretches
across the Shetlands off the north-east coast of Scotland.
Britain thus lies within only 10 of latitude, and has a
relatively small and compact size when compared with many
other European countries. Yet it also possesses a
considerable diversity [ ] of landscape and
geographical features, both natural and manmade, which
sometimes surprises those visitors who expect a mainly urban
and industrialized country.
Britain's physical area amounts to some 94,250 square
miles (244,100 square kilometers). Nearly 99 per cent of this
is land, and the rest comprises [ ] various types of
inland water such as lakes, rivers and reservoirs [ ].
England has 50,052 square miles (129,634 sq.km), Wales has
7,968 squire miles (20,637 sq.km), Scotland has 29,799 squire
 4

miles (77,179 sq.km) and Northern Ireland has 5,206 squire

miles (13,438 sq.km).
The distance from the southern coast of England to the
extreme north of Scotland is under 1000 km. The widest part
of Great Britain (between the Welsh west coast and the
English east coast) is under 500 km. The narrowest part of
Great Britain (between Glasgo and Edinburgh) is 60(?} km.
The British Isles are washed by the Atlantic Ocean in
the western north, the North Sea in the east and eastern
north, the English Channel in the south and by the Irish Sea
in the West. Great Britain's neighbours are: Belgium and
Holland across the North Sea, France - across the English
Channel and the Irish Republic - across the Irish Sea. The
most important straits are: the Strait of Dover (between
Doven in England and Calais [ ] in France; St.George's
Strait (between the Irish Republic and Wales); the North
Strait (between Northern Ireland and Scotland). The seas are
not deep and are often less than 90 km (300 feet) because the
greater part of the British Isles lies on the Continental
shelf, or raised sea-bed adjacent to the mainlands. The coast
line is deeply intented. The British coastlines consist of
bays, inlets, peninsulas [ ] and estuaries [ ].
Consequently most places in Britain are less than 120 km (75
miles) from some kind of tidal water. There is a marked
movement of tides.
Geographically the island of Great Britain is subdivided
into 2 main regions: Lowland Britain and Highland Britain.
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Lowland Britain is in the north-east and Highland Britain is

in the north-west.
Highland Britain includes the whole of Scotland. The
northern part of Scotland is formed by the Highlands, which
are the highest mountains in the British Isles. The highest
peak is Ben Nevis (1,343 m). In Scotland there are 3 distinct
regions.
There are, firstly, the Highlands, then there is the
central plain which is called Lowlands (152 m) and finally
there are the southern Uplands (842 m) which are continued
into the Pennines [ ].
Most of England consists of low plains and rolling
downs, where the land doesn't rise higher than 305 m. The
Cheviot Hills or Cheviots [ ] run from east to west
separating England from Scotland. The Pennines from the
"backbone" of England, alongside the Cumbrian [ ]
mountains run to the south of the Pennine. Range lie the
Central Midlands, a plains region with fertile valleys. The
highest point in England is Scafell Pike [ ] (978 m)
in the Lake District in the north-west.
In the west are the Cambrian mountains which occupy the
greater part of Wales. The highest point, mount Snowdon
(1,085 m) is also there. There are narrow coastal plains in
the South and West and small lowland areas in the North,
including the valley of the Dee [ ].
Northern Ireland consists mostly of low lying plateaus
[ ] and hills from 152 to 183 m high. The Mourne [ ]
mountains include the highest point in Northern Ireland,
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Sleeve Donards [ ] (852 m). In the central depression

lies Lough Neagh [ ] (153 sq.miles), the highest lake
in the Kingdom.
The position of the mountains naturally determined the
direction and length of the rivers and the longest rivers,
except the Severn and Clyde [ ] flow into the North Sea,
and even the Severn flows eastwards or south-east far the
greater part of its length. British rivers are not very long
but they are deep. The longest rivers are the Severn (310km)
and the River Thames (334 km). Big ships can enter ports at
some distance from the coast. In the southern part the Thames
is navigable for big ships as far as the city of London.
Other rivers include the Humber [ ], the Tees [ ], the
Tyne [ ], the Tweed [ ], the Avon [ ], the Exe
[ ] and the Mersey [ ]. In the estuaries [ ] of
some of these rivers there are some of the greatest ports:
Liverpool [ ], Manchester [ ], Bristol [ ],
Middlesbro [ ], Newcasle [ ], Southhempton,
Glasgo.
Lakes are found in the Lake District in England and in
the Highlands of Scotland, where they are called "lochs"
[ ] Loch Ness, which is one of the largest lakes in
Scotland, is famous for the "Loch Ness monster".
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Climate
The United Kingdom has a mild and temperate climate
warmed by the North Atlantic Drift (a combination of the Gulf
Stream) and by Southwestern winds. The climate of UK is
milder than that of other countries.
The three things that chiefly determine the climate of
England are: 1) the position of the island in the temperate
belt; 2) the fact that the prevailing winds blow from the
west and south-west; 3) the warm current - the Gulf Stream
that flows from the Gulf of Mexico along the western part of
Engkand. All combined features make the climate more moderate
- that is, the winters warmer and the summer cooler. That is
why the British ports are ice-free and rivers are not frozen
throughout the year. It seldom gets unbearably hot in summer
as there is generally a cooling breeze from the south-west.
The climate of the South of England is milder than the
climate of Scotland. In the north, the winters are harder.
When there are eight degrees of frost in England, they say
that it is freezing hard and everyone is complaining of the
cold. This is because their damp climate make them feel the
cold more. In general there are few extremes of temperature,
with the temperature rarely above 32 C or below +10 C. Annual
rainfall decreases from west to east and increases with
height. In East Anglia rain falls one day out of three.
Elsewhere in Britain rain falls about one day out of two.
March to June are the driest months and September to
January - the wettest. From October to March there are many
dense mists called fogs or "pea-soupers". In cities where
 8

they mix with smoke, they become "smog" and sometimes

interrupt traffic.
Rain is a familiar feature of the British climate. There
are a lot of jokes and stories about the British climate.
British people say, "other countries have a climate, in
England we have weather".

Agriculture
Woods make up only about 8 per cent of the territory of
Britain. At one time oak forests covered the greater part of
lowland Britain, but there are only a few oak forests left.
In wet, warm regions grass grows best, and we find most
of the cattle-rearing and dairy-farming in the rich pastures
of the plain lands of South-West England, the cities of which
are noted for their cheese, cream and butter.
Agriculture is one of the Britain's most important
industries and is spread over much of the country. Soils vary
considerably in quality from the thin, poor ones of highland
Britain to the rich, fertile land of low-lying areas such as
the fenlands of eastern England and the South-eastern "Garden
of England" in Kent. The climate and rainfall usually allow a
long, productive growing season without extreme drought or
cold. However, weather conditions can sometimes create
problems for farmers, particularly when a drought situation
occurs, or when there is too much rain and too little
sunshine at ripening time. There are some 250,000 farm units
in Britain, varying considerably in size from one-person farm
to huge business concerns, and many of them are now owner -
 9

occupied. They use nearly 77 per cent of the total land area,
in spite of the fact that farming land has been increasingly
used for building programmes.
Britain has had a long history of agricultural
inventions spread over its various agricultural revolutions.
Today it is highly specialized, mechanized and caters for
intensive production. It has modern research programmes in
farm mechanization and management, genetics and embryo
transplants, high technology equipment, animal feeds and
grass improvement.
The majority of the full-time farms today specialize in
dairy farming or in beef cattle and sheep herds. Some farms
in eastern and northern England, and in Northern Ireland,
concentrate on pig production. The poultry meat and egg
industries are similarly widespread. They have greatly
increased their production levels in recent years due largely
to factory farming, so that Britain is now almost self-
sufficient in these foodstuffs. Most of the remaining big
farms tend to specialize in arable crops of various kinds.
Root crops, such as potatoes, sugar beet and vegetables, are
widely grown, but mainly in southern and eastern England and
in eastern Scotland. Cereals or grain crops, such as wheat,
barley, oats and oilseed rape, are cultivated in many areas,
but chiefly in the eastern regions of England. The production
of all these crops has increased substantially in recent
years, although they have sometimes been subject to bad
harvests.
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Horticulture is widely practized, but takes place mainly

in areas like the Vale of Evesham [ ] in the West
Midlands and in Kent. Horticultural product such as apples,
pears, a wide range of berries, tomatoes, lettuce, flowers,
bulbs and nursery stock, are grown either in the open fields
or under glasshouse conditions. This choice often depends
upon the climate, facilities and the quality of the soil.
Horticulture is either mixed in with other agricultural
crops, or becomes a specialized business in its own right.
Fisheries. Britain has always been one of Europe's
leading fishing nations, and has operated in continental
waters, the North Sea, the Irish Sea and the Atlantic. The
fishing industry is of major importance to the national
economy, and has been centred on a number of parts around the
British coasts. The most important catches of inshore and
deep-sea fish are cod, haddock, whiting [ ], herring,
mackerel [ ], plaice [ ], sole and various forms of
shellfish. They are caught by the 8,000 vessels of the
inshore fleet and the 270 vessels of the deep-sea fleet. The
fish-farming industry, unlike the reduced fishing trade
elsewhere, is a large and expanding business, particularly in
Scotland, and is chiefly concerned with salmon, trout and
shellfish. Imports of fresh, frozen, cured and canned fish
continue. But the import of primary whale items has been
banned since January 1982 in an attempt to protect the world
whole population.
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Lecture II
Dawn of British History
1. Primitive society on the territory of the British Isles.
At the dawn [ ] of their history the peoples on this
planet lived in primitive societies. These primitive peoples,
wherever they lived, began their long path of progress with
stone tools, but they did not reach the same level of
civilization at the same time in different countries.
The ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome were
already in existance when the people living in Britain were
only at the first stage of social development. We shall now
learn more about the ancient inhabitants of the British
Isles.
There is no accurate picture of what the prehistoric and
early settlement of Britain was like. Historians and
archeologists are constantly revising the old ideas about the
gradual development of the country, and producing new
theories in the process. The earliest human bones found in
Britain have been dated at 200,000 years old. It is generally
accepted that the first groups of people in Britain were
Palaeolithic [ ] (Old Stone Age) nomads [ ]
from Mainland Europe. They hunted the large migratory wild
animal of the period and travelled to Britain by land and
sea, particularly at those times when the country was joined
to the European land mass. The very oldest things we can find
in this country are some rough stone tools which dropped from
the hands of the earliest men.
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After those men the Cave Men lived, their tools were
better made: they had harpoons to catch fish and arrow-heads
to catch birds. The most interesting things which the Cave
Men left to us are their drawings of animals they saw: the
great long haired mammoth [ ], the rein-deer [ ],
the oxen. Many of such drawings we can see in the caves of
England and France.
Some centuries passed when at last the ground sank in
some places, the sea rushed in over the lowest parts and
formed the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea.
After these men appeared again in this country from over the
sea, now that it was an island.
Later settlers who had a more developed talent in stone
carving [ ], came by sea, from Europe and the
Mediterranean [ ] region in the Mesolithic and
Neolothic (New Stone Age) periods between 8300 and 2000 BC.
About 3000 years BC many parts of Europe, including the
British Isles, were inhabited by a people called Iberians,
whose descendants are still found in the north of Spain (the
Iberian Peninsula). We know quite little about these early
men. The most famous monument of preCeltic civilization in
England is Stonehenge. It was built between 1900 and 1600 BC
and appears to be a kind of Calendar Temple. It is made of
many upright stones, 8,5 m high. They are joined on the top
by other flat stones, each weighing about 7 tons. It remains
a thing of mystery because some stones were brought from
Wales, the distance of some 240 km. What were they used for?
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- As a burial place or a sacred place where early man

worshipped the sun? Nobody can give now exact answer.
During the period from 6th to the 3rd century BC a
people called the Celts spread all over Europe from the east
to the west. More than one Celtic tribe invaded Britain. From
time to time these tribes were attacked and overcome by other
Celtic tribes from the continent. So, we can say that English
history is the history of a people of mixed stock, mainly
Teutons and Celtic. All the great nations of Europe are mixed
in their origins that's why they have a great variety of
their culture. But the English nation is the product of a
greater degree of mixture than most. Teuton were the peoples
who came to the British Isles from around the shores of the
North Sea - Angles, Saxons, Danes, Norse. Celtic were not
only the Celts who came from across the Channel, but also the
peoples of Mediterranean stock, the Iberians (from the north
of Spain), who were in the British Isles before the Celts
came. The Celts influenced the Iberians by their language,
but Iberian language was also absorbed. In fact the English
of today are really an Anglo-Celtic people.
When the Celts came the first place to be conquired was
Kent. Then much of southern England was ocupied, some of the
Iberians were driven into the mountains and forests of Wales,
others, probably, mixed with Celts. Celts spread then north
and imposed [ ] their language on the natives, its
Gaelic [ ] form was used in Ireland and Scotland, the
Brythonic [ ] form was used in England and Wales.
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As you know, the Celtic languages are a subdivision of

the Indo-European language family. They are spoken now by
about 5 million people. They include Gaelic, Welsh, Breton
and Cornish]). In England there are several rivers Avon which
in Celtic means "a river".
So, Celtic tribes called the Picts penetrated into the
mountains on the North, some Picts as well as tribes of Scots
crossed over to Ireland and settled there. Later the Scots
returned to the larger island and settled in the North beside
the Picts. They came in such large numbers that in tune the
name of Scotland was given to that country. Powerful Celtic
tribe the Britons held most of the country and the southern
half of the island was named Britain after them.
These Celtic tribes brought an Iron Age civilization.
Going to the new lands the Celts were armed with metal
spears, swords, daggers and axes.
Celtic people who lived on the shores of the
Mediterranean Sea were very different from the Britons and
other tribes in the islands. They traded with each other;
some of them were very learned, but they still believed that
the part of the world on which they lived round the great sea
was the whole word. Coming to the British Isles they threw a
great light on the country and its people, describing every
thing in detail so that we have now much information about
the Britons and the country.
The people from the Mediterranian Sea, who came to trade
with the Britons often stayed there on the south coast of
England, which is now called Kent. They taught the savage
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Britons some useful arts. Celts were tall and blue-eyed,very

brave and strong men. They wore moustashes [ ] but no
beards. The Celts were acquainted with the use of copper,
tin, iron.
At that time there were many forests in the country, and
many swamps [ ]. The country was misty and cold. There
were no roads, no bridges, no streets, no real houses, only
straw-covered huts in a thick wood. Round several houses the
people made a ditch and a low wall made of mud, or some trees
put on one another. The people planted little or no corn, but
they had cattle and sheep. They made no coins, but they had
metal rings for money. The Celtic tribes of Britons who lived
in the south-eastern parts of the island, made their houses
of wood and clothes - of wool, while the other Celts still
made the houses and the clothes of skins. The people were
very clever in building fortresses. They made boats of twigs,
covered with the skins of animals, but seldom sailed far from
the shore. They made swords of copper, but these swords bent
when the blow was strong because they were soft.
The Celts were divided into 30 or 40 tribes. Each tribe
was rulled by the chief whom all the tribesmen obeyed. The
chiefs were military leaders and some of them were very
powerful. They were sometimes called kings. Wise women were
also very important and if they were made tribal chiefs, they
were called queens. The Britons were very fond of horses.
They taught their horses very well, so that the animals
understood and obeyed every word of command.
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Some of Celtic tribes were quite large and fighting was

common among them. In times of war they wore skins and
painted their faces blue to terrify their enemies.
The Celts worshipped Nature. They believed that
everything was ruled by beings like themselves, but much more
powerful. They had many gods and the gods of one tribe were
unknown to the others. The people sacrificed to their gods
not only animals, but also human beings. They believed in
anothe life after death. They were taught by priests called
druids, who taught that the souls passed after the death from
one body to another. The druids were greatly respected.
Sometimes they were more powerful than chiefs. At the same
time the druids were teachers and doctors as they were wiser
than the other tribesmen. The druids met together in dark
woods, which they called Sacred Groves [ ]. They taught
there young men who came to them as pupils and sometimes
stayed with them for 20 years. The druids built great
Temples, open to the sky, the remains of them we can see now.
Stonehedge is the most extraordinary one.
Both Iberians and the Celts lived under the primitive
system. But the life of the Celts differed greatly from that
of the Iberians. The Iberians knew only stone tools and
weapons; the Celts produced tools of metal - first, of bronse
and later of iron. The Celts began to tame [ ] and breed
animals, they grew more and more corn. They began to build
dwellings and to make clothings. They learned the art of
pottery [ ].
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At all stages of its development primitive society had

very much in common: the primitive people worked collectively
in clans [ ] or family communities; they owned common
property and were all equal. All food was divided equally
among the members of the clan. A tribe was governed by a
council of elders, who distributed hunting- and fishing-
grounds among the family communities and settled all
disputes. They were obeyed and trusted by all. In primitive
society there was no private property;therefore there were no
classes and no exploitation. Since there were no classes,
there was no state system, that is, no armed forces, no
prisons, no courts, no government body.
In the last centuries B.C. and in the first centuries
A.D. the Celts were in a period of transition from primitive
communal [ ] society to class society.

2. Roman Britain
In the 1st century B.C. when the inhabitants of the
British Isles were still living under the primitive communal
system, the Roman Empire became the strongest slave-owning
state in the Mediterranean. It was the last and greatest of
the civilizations of the ancient word. The Romans ruled all
of the civilized world and in the 1st century A.D. they
conquered Britain.
For about 360 years beginning from 55 B.C. lasted the
Roman occupation of Britain. Britain was part of the Roman
Empire: an outlying province, never an intimate part of the
Empire like France or Spain. We shall speak about:
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1) the Roman Empire and the Roman conquest of Britain;

2) Roman influence upon the life of the primitive Celts;
3) traces of Roman rule in Britain.

1) As it was mentioned, in the 1st century A.D. the

Romans conquered Britain. At that time the Celts were living
in tribes. Roman society differed greatly from that of the
Celts. It was a slave society divided into antagonistic
classes, slaves and slave-owners. The slave-owners made up
the minority of the population but they owned the land,
tools, buildings and slaves. The slaves possessed neither
land nor tools and were themselves the property of the slave-
owners. Slavery was the first and the most inhuman form of
exploitation. Government bodies issued acts beneficial to the
exploiters. With the help of army the slave-owners put down
the uprisings of the slaves. The army also helped the slave-
owners to protect their riches against foreign enemies and to
conquer new lands.
One of the last countries to be conquered by Rome was
France, or Gaul [ ], as it was then called. The war
against the Gauls, who were Celtic tribes, lasted for 8
years. The great general and a politician of Rome Julius
Caesar [ ] (100 B.C. - 44 B.C.) was appointed the
Head of the Roman army which was sent to conquer Gaul. In the
course of his campaigns [ ] Caesar reached the Channel
and the Romans saw the white cliffs of the land of the
British Celts. The Romans called it "Albion" [ ] [ ]
(white).
 19

In 55 B.C. a Roman army of 10 thousand men crossed the

Channel and invaded Britain. But Celts rushed to attack the
invaders. Their hair and moustaches dyed [ ] red and their
legs and arms painted blue made a great impression on the
Romans and the Romans under Julius Caesar had to retrurn back
to Gaul. Next year, 54 B.C. Caesar again came to Britain,
this time with larger forces (25 thousand men). The Celts
fought bravely for their independence but they were not
strong enough to drive the Romans off. In several battles the
Celts were defeated. Some of the chiefs obeyed and promised
to pay tribute [ ] to Rome. Caesar then went back to
Gaul to complete his conquest on the continent. Although
Julius Caesar came to Britain twice in the course of 2 years,
he was not able to conquer it. The promised tribute was not
paid and the real conquest of Britain by the Romans was not
begun until nearly a hundred years after Caesar's visits to
the island. In 43 B.C. a Roman Army invaved Britain and
conquered the South-East. Other parts of the country were
taken from time to time during the next 40 years. The hilly
districts in the West were very difficult to subdue, and the
Romans had to set up many camps in that part of the country.
A line of forts was built between the rivers Clyde and Torth
to protect the southern parts from the wild Caledonians,
because from time to time the Picts from the North managed to
raid the Roman part of the island, burn their villages and
drive off their cattle and sheep. To defend their province
the Romans built straight roads so that the legions [ ]
might march quickly, whenever they were needed, to any part
 20

of the country. These roads were made of several layers of

stones, lime, mortar [ ] and gravel [ ]. They were
made so well that they lasted a long time and still exist
today. One of the chief roads was Walting Street which ran
from Dover to London, then to Chester and into Wales. Along
the roads new towns and villages sprang up. Bridges of stone
were built wherever a road crossed a river, some of these
bridges can still be found in Britain today. About 40 years
later, in 122, after the building a line of forts the Roman
Emperor [ ] Hadrian built a double wall between the
rivers Tyne and Solway to protect the province against the
raiding parties of the Picts and Scots. Hadrian encouraged
Roman traditions and building of fine public buildings. The
wall was 118 km in length and 7 km in height with cams, forts
and towers at regular intervals. We can still see the remains
of this wall in our days, a railway runs in that direction
now.
When the Northern Britons were not at war with the
Romans they often came to the wall and traded with the
warriors and the Romans often went hunting in the region
north of the wall.
Little by little, the Romans pushed Britons to the west,
to Cornwall, to the mountains of Wales and Cumberland. In
these parts we now find the people whose forefathers were
Ancient Britons. The Celts fought fiercely against the Romans
who never managed to become masters of the whole island. They
were unable to conquer the Scottish Highlands. History keeps
the name of the queen of one British tribe, who rose up
 21

against the Romans. Her name was Boudicca (Boadicea) [ ].

Her tribe burnt Londonium to the ground and killed all its
inhabitants. When she was defeated she took poison. The
statue of this queen showing her standing in a war charriot [
] with 2 wild horses, stands on Westminster Bridge in London,
facing the Houses of Parliament.
2) As a result of the conquest signs of Roman
civilization spread over Britain. There had been no towns in
Britain before the Romans conquered it. The civilized Romans
were city dwellers and they began to build towns or
fortresses, splendid villas, public baths as in Rome. Romans
built such towns as London, York, Gloucester [ ],
Lincoln, Winchester, Bath, Colchester, Chester. Londonium was
rebuilt after the burning and was gradually surrounded with a
wall of stone and brick which lasted for many centuries.
Inside the Roman wall low houses were built with bright red
roofs. There were probably temples, bathhouses, shops and
market stalls. The most important part of Roman Londonium
were the Basilica [ ] and Forum [ ]. The Basilica
was a business centre, and the Forum was a market place. This
area is now the business district of modern London, called
the City. The Roman towns were military stations surrounded
by walls for defence which ??? guarded by the Roman warriors.
London rose and became an important city in Roman times.
Among the Celts inequality began to grow - the tribal
chiefs and nobility became richer than other members of the
tribe. The noble Celts adopted the mode of life of their
conquerors. They lived in rich houses and dressed as the
 22

Romans. They were proud to wear the toga as Roman citizens.

They spoke Latin, the language of the Romans. But the common
Celts went on living in their huts, they spoke their native
Celtic tongue and didn't understand the language of the
Romans.
In the 3rd-4th centuries the power of Roman Empire
gradually weakened. The unproductive labour of the slaves led
to the economic decline of the Empire. Slavery became an
obstacle to technical progress. The enormous number of slaves
presented a great danger to the Roman Empire. At the end of
the 4th century the Germanic tribes invaded the Western Roman
Empire and the slaves were joining them by thiusand. Early in
the 5th century (407) the Roman legions [ ] were
recalled from Britain to defend the central provinces of the
Roman Empire.
From the 5th to the 9th century, there followed a period
of anarchy [ ], and Roman Britain was completely
demolished.
During the 5th century the Germanic tribes overran the empire
and settled in all parts of it. The fall of the Western Roman
Empire meant the end of the slave-owning system in Western
Europe.
3) There are today many things in Britain to remind the
people of the Romans. The wells which the Romans dug give
water today, and the chief Roman roads are still among the
highways of Modern England. The well-known Walting Street
runs from Dover to London, then to Chester and into Wales.
The road from London to Lincoln and then to Doncaster, York
 23

up to Hadrian’s Wall; the road from York to Chester; from

Lincoln to Bath and other roads were built in Roman times and
they still exist. We can observe today long stretches of
Hadrian's Wall, the ruins of public baths and parts of the
Roman bridges, fragments of the old London wall.
London rose and became an important city in Roman times.
About 20 feet below the pavements of the City of today we
find the remains of its greatness. The strong walls built for
its protection ran on the lines of our Underground Railway.
There are many stations in London Underground with the word
“Gate” in their names – Aldgate [ ], Moorgate [ ]
and so on. In the Roman time from these gates in the walls
started the great roads which passed over the country – like
the great main lines of railway at the present time – they
connected the City with their stations at Lincoln,
York,Colchester, Winchester.
Besides, many words of Modern English have come from
Latin. For example, the word "street" came from the Latin
"strota" which means "road", "port" from the Latin "portus",
"wall" from "vallum".
The names of many modern English towns are of Latin
origin. The Roman town were called "costa" which means
"camps". This word can be recognized in various forms in
which names as Chester, Winchester, Doncaster, Loncaster. The
town-name Lincoln comes from the Latin word "colonx" which
means a "colony", and Colchesten from both "colonio" and
"castra".
 24

The Romans influence upon the Celts, especially those

who lived in western part of the country and in the North,
was insignificant.
Lecture III.
Establishment of the feudal system in Britain in the
early Middle Ages (5th-11th centuries). Conversion to
Cristianity
The fall of the Western Norman Empire, the largest
slave-owning state in the ancient world, is regarded as the
end of ancient history. The historical period between ancient
times and modern times is called the Middle Ages. The Middle
Ages lasted for 12 centuries, from the end of the ancient
world in the latter half of the 5th century till the
beginning of modern history in the middle of the 17th
century.
Slavery predominated in the ancient states. In the
Middle Ages a new social system - feudalism became
predominant. It took 6 centuries for the new social system to
become predominant in Western Europe. In England the gradual
establishment of feudalism [ ] began with the Anglo-
Saxon conquest, which is regarded as the beginning of
medieval history in Britain.
The Anglo-Saxons were the ancestors [ ] of the English.
As a result of the conquest they formed the majority of the
population in Britain.
1. The Anglo-Saxon Conquest of Britain
After the Roman legions left Britain the Celts remained
independent but not for long. From the middle of the 5th
 25

century they had to defend the country against the attacks of

Germanic tribes from the Continent. The Britons quite forgot
by those time how to fight all together, they were used that
the Romans took care of them, but now the Romans left them.
They left even their walls, their cities, camps and theatres.
The Britons were in despair and they even wrote a letter to
Rome, asking soldiers to come back and help them; the letter
was so sad that it is called "the groans of the Britons". So,
in the 5th century, first the Jutes [ ], and then other
Germanic tribes - Saxons and Angles began to migrate
[ ] to Britain. The word "Saxons" means "men of the
knife". Angles took their name from word "angular" - a hook-
shaped district now called Shleswig. (Canpor "angle" –
риболовний гачок. The Saxons came from the territory lying
between the Rhine [ ] and the Elbe [ ] rivers which was
later on called Saxony [ ]. The Jutes and the Angles
came from the Jutland Peninsula [ ]. At
first they only came to plunder [ ]. They were quick in
their actions. They would land from their boats, take off
everything they could, drive off the cattle and be off before
the Celts could attack them. But after some time they
returned again and again in larger numbers, and began to
conquer the country.
In 449 the Jutes landed in Kent and this was the
beginning of the conquest. The British natives fought
fiercely against the invaders. Their resistance was often
stubborn and prolonged. That's why it took more than a
hundred and fifty years for the Angles, the Saxons and the
 26

Jutes to conquer the country. It was only by the beginning of

the 7th century that the invaders managed to conquer the
greater part of the land. The final refuge [ ]of the
Celts was Cornwall and Wales - the mountainous [ ]
districts of the West and the northern part of the island -
Scotland - where the Celts still living in tribes and, later
on, some independent states were formed. The Celts of Ireland
remained independent too. In the course of the conquest many
of the Celts were either killed or made slaves. Some of the
Celts crossed the sea to the North-West of France and settled
on the area which was later on called Brittany after the
Celtic tribes of Britons. Descendants of the ancient British
Celts can be found in Brittany today.
By the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 7th
century several kingdoms were formed on the territory of
Britain conquered by the Germanic tribes. This territory
later on became England proper. Kent was occupied by the
Jutes in the South-East. In the southern and the south-
eastern parts of the country the Saxons formed a number of
kingdoms - Sussex (the land of the South Saxons), Wessex (the
land of the West Saxons) and Essex (the land of the East
Saxons). Farther north were the settlements of the Angles who
had conquered the greater part of the country. In the north
they founded Northumbria [ ], which has left its
name in the present country of Northumberland [ ];
Mercia [ ] was formed in the Middle, and East Anglia
[ ] - in the East England. These kingdoms were hostile
 27

[ ] to one another and they fought constantly for

supreme power in the country.
The new conquerors brought about changes. They disliked
towns preferring to live in small villages. In the course of
the conquest they distroyed the Roman towns and villas. The
roads were broken. All the beautiful buildings and baths and
roads soon fell in ruins. Sometimes the roads were broken up,
the stones were used for building material. Thus the art of
road-making was lost for many hundreds of years.
The Jutes, the Saxons and the Angles were closely alike
in speech and customs and they gradually merged into one
people, which made up the majority of the population in
Britain. The name jute soon died out and the conquerors are
generally referred to as the Anglo-Saxons. They called the
Celts "welsh" which means "foreigners" as they didn't
understand the Celtic language which was quite unlike their
own. But gradually the Celts who were in the minority merged
with the conquerors, adopted their customs and learned to
speak their languages. Only the Celts who remained
independent in the West, Scotland and Ireland spoke their
native tongue.
At first the Anglo-Saxons spoke various dialects but
gradually the dialect of the Angles of Mercia became
predominant. In the course of time all the people of Britain
were referred to as the English after the Angles and the new
name of England was given to the whole country. Many English
towns are called by the old Anglo-Saxon names. The word "ton"
was the Saxon for "hedge" (Ukranian "тин"). Thus there are
 28

Southampton, Brighton, Preston and others. "Burgh" or "bury"

was the Saxon for "to hide", hence - Canterbury, Edinburgh,
Salisbury. The Anglo-Saxon "ham" (home) can also be found in
the names of Nottingham [ ], Birmingham [ ],
Cheltenham [ ]. The word "field" ("open country")
can be found in the names of Sheffield, Chesterfield.
The names of the Anglo-Saxon villages meant as a rule either
their new "home" or a "protected place". A great number of
village names in England today are of Anglo-Saxon origin.
The Anglo-Saxon language, or English, has been the
principal language of the country since then although it has
undergone great change.
2. The life of the Anglo-Saxons
With the coming of the Anglo-Saxons the early medieval
history of Britain begins. We shall learn now how they lived
and worked and at what level of economic development they
were in the 5th-11th centuries.
The Anglo-Saxons lived in small villages, they were an
agricultural people, because they settled far from the Roman
towns. A village had about 20 families, and all the villages
were engaged in cultivating the land. Each village was
surrounded by a hedge to keep the wild animals out of the
village. The distance from one village to another could be
quite long. Besides, a great number of swamps stretched for
miles and miles. So, the Anglo-Saxons had to do a great deal
of pioneer work in clearing the forests and breaking up the
land for agriculture. The Anglo-Saxons cultivated corn on the
 29

arable [ ] land. They used the two-field system, i.e. the

land was given a rest every second year, so that it didn't
lose its fertility [ ]. They knew already plough
[ ], it was made of wood covered with iron. Besides
arable-farming [ ] they continued cattle-breeding,
hunting and fishing. The animals were much smaller than those
of today, and they did not weigh as much. The only fodder
[ ] in winter was hay which was obtained from the meadow
during the summer. As a rule there was not much hay, and it
was not easy to keep the animals alive and healthy throughout
the winter. In autumn the Anglo-Saxons had to kill most of
their animals and salt the meat.
There was very little trading at that time, because the
villages themselves produced most of what they wanted. There
were no shops, the villagers had little or no money, and they
had little need for it. Yet there were some things which the
villargers could not produce. Iron and salt had to be brought
in from outside. Roads were very poor. People didn't travel
much. It is very likely that a person born in a village,
lived in it all his life and died in it without ever having
once left it. They knew nothing of what was going on in the
world.
Thus, natural economy, that is, a system under which
every village was self-sufficient and produced all the
necessities of life not for sale, but for consumption [
], predominated in Britain in early medieval times.
3. Introduction of Serfdom [ ]
 30

The peasants of the village formed a little society - a

community. The land of the village belonged to the whole
community and each villarger had a right to a share of it. On
this land all the members of the community worked together
and helped each other. The free community members settled
matters of common interest, disputes between one village and
another and they also administered justice. Interesting in
the fact, that the presence of 12 people and their taking an
active part in passing the sentence have deep roots in the
times of free community. It were those times, when the
accused was to get 12 well-known people to say that he was
innocent. Now we call these people "jury" [ ] –
присяжні, жюрі (один присяжний - a juror [ ]. So, the
community united the peasants [ ], but not all the
members of the community were equal. Inequality [ ]
had already appeared among the Anglo-Saxons before the
conquest of Britain. The tribal nobility, that is, military
leaders and elders, possessed more land and cattle than
others. Their land was cultivated by prisoners of war who
were their slaves. The elect of the conquest of Britain was
to increase the wealth of the Anglo-Saxons nobility. The
military leaders and the elders distributed the land and the
cattle among the tribesmen in the conquered country. The
famous Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf [ ] tells us about the
life of the Anglo-Saxons at that time. The actual graves
found by archeologists [ ] show how rich the
tribal chiefs became in the course of the conquest. In 1939 a
very important archaelogical [ ] discovery called
 31

"the Sutton Hoo [ ] burial" was made in Britain.

Sutton Hoo is the name of a private estate in south-east
Suffolk on which the discovery was made. It is believed that
the treasure that was found in the gravebelonged to one of
the Anglo-Saxon kings of East Anglia who had probably died
around the year 650. The Sutton Hoo burial is the richest as
compared to any other Germanic grave of that time in Europe
and it's the first royal grave to have come down to us
untouched. The things that were found there are on view in
the British Museum.
The tribal nobility and king's warriors owned such large
estates that they were unable to cultivate them by
themselves. Moreover, they prided themselves on being
fighting men, it was beneath their dignity to engage in
farming. First they made their slaves work their fields.
Gradually the position of the slaves changed. Since slave
labour was of very low productivity, their owners gave them
small plots of land for their personal use.
In the 7th-9th centuries gradual changes were taking
place among the members of the community too. The arable land
which had been held by separate families now became their
private property. It could be not only inherited by the
members of one family as before but it could be sold or
presented or given in return for debts to another owner.
Frequent wars and crop failures ruined many peasants. Nearly
every year some peasants had to give up farming because they
were recruted into the army. A poor peasant had to ask a rich
man for a loan. If he failed to pay his debt back in time,
 32

the rich man took his cattle or his plot of land in payment
for the debt. In this way many peasants fell into bondage.
Sometimes the peasant handed over his land to some great lord
for "protection". The peasant now could live on this land but
it was not his. And the landlord would promise to defend the
peasant's family. The peasant had to cultivate the lord's
field and give him a part of his harvest, he would also
follow the lord in battle. Besides, the Anglo-Saxon nobles
with the help of their warriors began to seize [ ] the
land of the free communities to make the free peasants work
for them. The royal power helped to place the free peasants
under the power of the rich landowners. The kings had the
right to collect dues from the whole population of the
country. Quite often they granted this right to their
warriors. The kings also granted them the right to administer
justice in the neighbourhood. Thus, a considerable number of
peasants gradually lost their freedom. But it was a slow
process in Britain. The majority of the population in the
8th-9th centuries consisted of free peasants who cultivated
their own land.
By the beginning of the 9th century changes had come
about in Anglo-Saxon society. Rich landowners were given
great power over the peasants. At first after the conquest of
Britain folk-moots at which the members of the free
communities gathered were held periodically. The hundred-
moots presided over by an elected elder were held once a
month. The men who were elected at the hundred-moots were
sent as representatives to a shire-moot. (A shire was a
 33

larger district than a hundred). The shire-moots were

presided over by shire-reeves, or sheriffs and were held two
or three times a year. In the 9th century the free members of
the community were not sent to the hundred-moot any longer;
it was the greatest and the most influencial landlords of the
hundred who attended the hundred-moot and administered
justice there. Sheriff became the king's chief official in
the shire. The sheriff was responsible for justice and he
presided over the shire-moots on behalf of the king. The king
himself became the supreme judge. Soon afterwards the moots
lost their importance and now it was the great councie of the
most powerful men in the country, known as Witenagemot [
] (council of the wise men), that gave advice to the king on
all important matters. The Anglo-Saxon kings declared war and
made peace, they passed laws and imposed taxes. But they
always consulted "the wise men", that is, the greatest
landlords of the country.
Thus, with the development of feudal relations, the
status [ ] of a man in society depended on how much
land he possessed. It also depended on the man's rank and his
relation to the king. The kings warriors and officials held
more land and they ruled the country.
4. Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity
The conversion of the English to Christianity was the
most fruitful event in their history before the Norman
conquest. The conversion began at the end of the 6th century
(597) and was completed, in the main, in the second half of
the 7th century. Before this the Angles, Saxons and Jutes [
 34

] had been pagans, that is they believed in many gods. They

worshipped the sun, the moon, the sea, springs and trees and
other pagan gods. They named the days of the week after their
gods. Thus, Sunday meant the Sun's day, Monday - the Moon's
day, Tuesday - the day of the god Tuesco (the god of
darkness); Wednesday was Woden's day (the great god of War);
Thursday was Thor's day (the god of Thunder) and Friday -
Freya's day (the goddess of Peace and Plenty), Saturday was
named after Saturn, a Roman God.
Paganism had developed among the Anglo-Saxons when they
lived under the primitive system and it reflected the life of
the tribal society where all men were equal and where there
was no oppression of man by man. The kings and landlords
needed a religion which would teach the poor people to be
obedient. This religion would teach the peasants that this
order of society in which the land and power belonged to the
king and the lords and that the peasants had to work for
their masters, had been established by God.
In 597 the Roman Pope sent about forty monks to Britain
to convert the Anglo-Saxons. The monks landed in Kent and it
became the first Anglo-Saxon kingdom to be converted. The
first church was built in the town of Canterbury [ ],
the capital of Kent, that is why the Archbishop [ ]
of Canterbury is now Head of the Church of England. Then
Christianity spread among the Anglo-Saxons of the other
kingdoms.
It was the Anglo-Saxon kings and nobles who accepted
Christianity first. Then they began to convert the rank-and-
 35

file to the new faith. But they did not meet with great
success. The people were attached to their old gods and after
a short time they went back to their old religion. Moreover,
the old religion meant freedom for the peasants, while the
new one justified the power of the big landowners over them,
that is why they resisted their conversion into Christianity
stubbornly. It took about a century to compel all the Anglo-
Saxons to accept the new faith.
The spread of Christianity brought about important
changes in the life of the Anglo-Saxons. Many new churches
and monasteries [ ] were built all over the country.
The kings and nobles granted much land to the bishops and
monasteries, and that promoted the growth of the big landed
estates. The kings also granted them the right to collect
dues from the population and to administer justice on their
estates.
Besides, the spread of Christianity was of great
importance for the growth of culture in Britain. There
followed a brilliant period in early English civilization.
The Roman monks who were converting the Anglo-Saxons to
Christianity helped to spread Roman culture in the country
again. The Roman monks brought many books to Britain. Most of
them were religious books and they were all written in Latin
and Greek. The church services were also conducted in Latin.
The Latin language was again heard in Britain. Latin was
of international importance at that time, as it was used by
learned men in all countries. They wrote their books in Latin
so that they could be understood by the learned men of other
 36

countries.
The Anglo-Saxons spoke quite a different language of
Germanic origin and did not understand Latin. The Anglo-Saxon
nobles were ignorant, many of them were quite illiterate and
could not even sign their own names. No one except the monks
knew Latin and the monasteries became centres of knowledge
and of learning in those early times. The first libraries and
schools for the clergy [ ] were set up in monasteries.
The monks copied out many hand-written books and even
translated some books from Latin and Greek into Anglo-Saxon.
The learned men lived and wrote their books in
monasteries. They wrote in Latin and some of their books were
well known in Europe. The most famous writer was the monk
named Bede who lived from 673 to 735. The Venerable Bede
[ ], as he was known in Europe, was brought up
and educated in the monasteries of Northumbria [ ]
where he lived all his life. He wrote "Ecclesiastical History
of the English People" which was studied carefully by
educated people in Europe as it was the only book on Anglo-
Saxon history. From this book we learn much of what happened
in Britain thirteen centuries ago. A copy of Bede's book can
be found at the British Museum in London.
Thus the spread of Christianity promoted a revival of
learning. Such English words of Greek origin as "arithmetic",
"mathematics", "theatre" and "geography", or words of Latin
origin, such as "school", "paper" and "candle" reflect the
influence of the Roman civilization, a new wave of which was
brought about in the 7th century by Christianity. However the
 37

cultural influence of the Church effected only a small number

of people and mainly the clergy. The rank-and-life Anglo-
Saxons remained completely illiterate.
The Christian religion had a tremendous influence over
men's minds and actions. It controlled the most important
events of their life - baptism [ ], marriage and burial.
There was a church in every village and the villages were
compelled to attend the religious services held by the
priests. The priests taught that it was the right of the
nobles due to their position as landlords to keep order and
justice on their estates. They made the villager believe that
it was his duty to obey the landlords. They promised that he
would be rewarded in the after-life for all his sufferings.
And the villager believed that the clergymen had the power to
reward him or to send him to eternal torment after his death.
Thus the church became a powerful instrument in the hands of
the feudal lords. The churchmen who became rich landlords
themselves did their utmost to preach up [ ] the
king, to justify the exploitation of the peasants and the
power of the great landowners over them.
5. Establishment of the kingdom of England
For three centuries a struggle went on between the
little Anglo-Saxon kingdoms set up in the 5th-6th centuries.
From time to time some stronger state seized [ ] the land
of the neighbouring kingdoms and made them pay tribute, or
even ruled them directly. The number of kingdoms was always
changing; so were their boundaries.
 38

The greatest and most important kingdoms were

Northumbria, Mercia [ ] and Wessex. For a time
Northumbria gained supremacy. Mercia was the next kingdom to
take the lead. The struggle for predominance continued and at
last at the beginning of the 9th century Wessex became the
strongest state. In 829 Egbert [ ], King of Wessex, was
acknowledged by Kent, Mercia and Northumbria. This was really
the beginning of the united kingdom of England, for Wessex
never again lost its supremacy and King Egbert became the
first king of England. Under his rule all the small Anglo-
Saxon kingdoms were united to form one kingdom which was
called England from that time on.
The clergy, royal warriors and officials supported the
king's power. It was the king who granted them land and the
right to collect dues from the peasants and to hold judgement
over them. In this way the royal power helped them to deprive
the peasants of their land and to turn them into serfs.
The political unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
was spend up by the urgent task of defending the country
against the dangerous raids of the new enemies. From the end
of the 8th century and during the 9th and the 10th centuries
Western Europe was troubled by a new wave of barbarian
attacks. These barbarians [ ] came from the North -
from Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and were called Northmen. In
different countries the Northmen were known by many other
names, as the Vikings, the Normans, the Danes. They came to
Britain from Norway and Denmark. But more often the British
 39

Isles were raided from Denmark, and the invaders came to be

known in English history as the Danes.
The Danes were of the same Germanic race as the Anglo-
Saxons themselves and they came from the same part of the
Continent. But unlike the Anglo-Saxons whose way of life had
changed greatly ever since they came to Britain, the Danes
still lived in tribes. They were still pagans.
At the end of the 8th century they began to attack
Britain just as the Anglo-Saxons had done themselves four
centuries earlier.
The Danes were well armed - with sword, spear, dagger,
battle-axe and bow. Their ships were sailing-boats but they
were also provided with oars. The sails were often striped
red and blue and green. At the prow of the ship there was
usually a carved dragon's head which rose high out of water.
The Danes were bold and skilful seamen. On their long,
narrow, shallow ships they could sail or row far up a river
into the heart of the country in search of plunder.
In 793 the Danes carried out their first raids on
Britain. Their earliest raids were for plunder only. The
raiders came in three or four ships, each with as many as a
hundred men on board. They sailed along the coasts of the
country and up the rivers thus plundering not only the coasts
but the midlands as well. They came in spring and summer, and
when the ship was loaded with plunder they returned home for
the winter. Every year they went to different places - rarely
to the same place twice. Thus all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
faced the same dangerous enemy.
 40

In later years large Danish fleets (more than three

hundred ships) brought large armies to conquer and settle in
the new lands. They did not go home for the winter but they
made large camps, well-guarded, to which they brought their
booty. From these camps the Danes would make many raids upon
the villages in the area. Thus began the fourth conquest of
Britain. Once more the cattle was driven off, the houses
burnt, churches and monasteries plundered and the people
slain.
The Danish raids were successful because the kingdom of
England had neither a regular army nor a fleet in the North
Sea to meet them. There were no coastguards to watchthe coast
of the island and this made it possible for the raiders to
appear quite unexpectedly. Besides, there were very few
roads, and large parts of the country were covered with
pathless forests or swamps. It took several weeks sometimes
before anyone could reach a settlement from where a messenger
could be sent to the king, or to the nearest great and
powerful noble, to ask for help.
Northumbria and East Anglia suffered most from the
Danish raids. The Danes seized the ancient city of York and
then all of Yorkshire. A chronicler [ ] writes that
the army destroyed the churches and monasteries with the fire
and sword. When it departed from a place, it left nothing
standing but roofless walls. So great was the destruction
that at the present day one can hardly see anything left of
those places, nor any sign of their former greatness." Soon
after, the Danes conquered East Anglia and slew king Edmund.
 41

(The Christians considered him a martyr, and a monastery was

built where he was buried and the town still bears his name -
Bury St.Edmunds.) Then large organized bands of Danes swept
right over to the midlands. At last all England north of the
Thames, that is, Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia, was in
their hands.
Only Wessex was left to face the enemy. Before the Danes
conquered the North, they had made an attack on Wessex, but
in 835 King Egbert defeated them. In the reign of Egbert's
son the Danes sailed up the Tames and captured London. Thus
the Danes came into conflict with the strongest of all the
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Wessex.
In 871 the Danes invaded Wessex again. But it was not so
easy to conquer Wessex as other parts of England. Wessex had
united the small Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and under the reign of
Egbert's grandson, King Alfred (871-899) who became known in
English history as Alfred the Great, Wessex became the centre
of resistance against the invaders.
Alfred managed to raise an army and to stop the
offensive of the Danes. He made new rules for the army, in
which every free man had to serve and to come provided with
the proper weapons. Free peasants were taken to a levy of
infantrymen [ ] and landlords served as in any army
of knights. Alfred granted much land to his warriors and in
this way the number of fighting men who were bound to do
military service in return for their estates grew
considerably.
 42

During the reign of Alfred the Great the first British

Navy was built and a war fleet of ships larger and faster
than those of the Danes protected the island. Besides, many
places which could be easily attacked by the enemy were
fortified. Earthen walls were built around them. These walls,
or forts, were protected by fighting men who owned land in
the neighbourhood.
As a result of all these measures, the Anglo-Saxons won
several victories over the Danes. In the treaty which
followed in 886, the Danes promised to leave Wessex and a
part of Mercia. They settled in the north-eastern part of
England, a region which was from that time called the
Danelaw, because it was ruled according to the law of the
Danes. The Great Roman road, Watling Street, was the boundary
that separated the Danelaw from Wessex. Thus the Danes were
prevented from conquering the whole island and the country
was divided into two parts: the Danelaw (Northumbria, East
Anglia and a part of Mercia), where the Danes spoke their
language and kept to their way of life, and the English
south-western part of the country, that is, Wessex, which was
under Alfred's rule. At the end of the 9th century new Danish
attacks were made, but they were beaten off; the Anglo-Saxons
won their first victories on the sea, and soon the Danes no
longer dared to attack Wessex.
In time of peace Alfred the Great took measures to
improve the laws in the interests of the great landowners and
to raise the standard of culture among them. King Alfred knew
not only how to write and read - an uncommon thing even for
 43

princes in those days - but he was well versed in Greek and

Latin. He read a good deal and he realized how backward the
Anglo-Saxons were compared with the people of France and
Italy, and even more so as compared with the Romans five
hundred years earlier. The Anglo-Saxons, whose ancestors
[ ] had destroyed the Roman civilization in Britain
four centuries before, could build nothing better than rough
timber, dwellings, and wore nothing finer than coarse
homespuns [ ]. Few, even among the clergy,could read
and write and even at Canterbury there were not enough
priests to conduct the services in the cathedral.
The king sent for artisans, builders and scholars from
the Continent. The monasteries and churches which had been
burnt by the Danes were rebuilt and schools were set up in
the monasteries for the clergy.
Alfred demanded that all the priests should learn Latin,
as the Bible and service-books were all in that language, and
it was the duty of the clergy to understand them. He also
ordered all future state officials to learn the Latin
language as well. To those who did not know Latin he said:
"Either at once give up the administration which you possess
or do your best to study the lessons of wisdom. Such are my
commands."
A school was started in the palace itself where the sons
of the nobles learned to read and write. Alfred himself
sometimes taught there. As nearly all the books of that time
were written in Latin, and few people could read them,
translations of some Latin books into Anglo-Saxon were made.
 44

Books on religion, history and philosophy were translated so

that those people who learned to read could understand them
in their own tongue.
Some books were translated from Latin by King Alfred
himself. Among others, he translated "Ecclesiastical History
of the English People" which the Venerable Bede had written
in Latin. The hand-written books were copied out many times
in monasteries. At that time many Latin words came into
Anglo-Saxon. The words "spade", "mill" as well as names of
building materials, such as "tile", "mortar", "marble",
"chalk" were adopted from Latin.
The books which were translated from Latin taught men
mainly about the history and geography of the Continent.
Alfred ordered that the learned men should begin to write a
history of England. In several monasteries the learned monks
collected together all that was known of the early history of
the country and began to keep a record of the outstanding
events of each year. Thus was written a history of England
called "the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" which was continued for
250 years after the death of Alfred. It is mainly from the
"Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" that the books of today get their
information of the events of English medieval history. "The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" is on view now at the British Museum.
Only scholars who have studied the Anglo-Saxon language in
which it was written can understand it and translate it into
Modern English.
King Alfred also ordered that the old customs and laws
followed by the Anglo-Saxons before him in Wessex and Mercia
 45

should be collected. New laws were added to the collection,

and a "Code of English Law" was drawn up. Everybody had to
follow the laws of the kingdom.
In the reign of Alfred the Great the power of the royal
officials strengthened greatly. The whole country was divided
into shires and hundreds as before and through his officials
King Alfred held all parts of the country under strict
control.
Alfred's policy was pursued for the benefit of the big
landowners. The king and the class of the landowners he
represented needed both a literate clergy to talk the poor
into being obediend and literate officials who could rule the
feudal state. In the reign of Alfred the Great, the kingdom
of England became stronger and it helped the big landowners
to defend their property against the invaders and to keep the
exploited in obedience.
 46

Lecture IV.
The development of feudalism in England after the Norman
Conquest. The developments of craft and trade in England in
the 12th-14th centuries
1. The kingdom of England in the 10th-11th centuries.
2. The Norman Conquest of England and its influence.
3. Rise of towns in England in the 11th-12th centuries.
4. Development of trade in the 13th-14th centuries.

1. The kingdom of England in the 10th-11th centuries.

In the second half of the 10th century under the rule
of Alfred's descendants the Saxon monarchy was further
consolidated. The Anglo-Saxons won several victories over the
Danes, took away the Danelaw and ruled over the whole of
England. The Danes were not driven out of the country but
they submitted to the power of the Anglo-Saxon kings and
never tried to make the Danelaw into a separate kingdom.
These descendants of the Danish conquerors gave up piracy and
in the course of time became peaceful peasants and traders.
They were now not very much different from the Anglo-Saxons
among whom they lived because they were also of Germanic
origin. They were far fewer in number and they soon became
 47

Christians like their neighbours, adopted their language and

assimilated gradually with them.
The Danes influenced the development of the country
greatly. They were good sailors and traders and they favoured
the growth of towns and the development of trade in England.
They were skilful ship builders and many grave-goods found in
their ship-burials show their great craftsmanship. The Danes
used a large iron axe to clean the forests and to plough the
large stretches of virgin land. The majority of the Danes in
England were free peasants. Feudal relations began to develop
among them only in the 9th century and on the territory of
the former Danelaw these free peasants remained free
throughout the Middle Ages. Many Scandinavian words came into
the English language at that time and are even used today.
Such adjectives as "happy", "low", "loose", "ill", "ugly",
"weak", such verbs as "to take", "to die", "to call", nouns
like "sister", "husband", "sky", "fellow", "law", "window",
"leg", "wing", "harbour" are examples of Scandinavian
borrowings. The Danes gave their own names to many of the
towns they built. In the region where they used to live many
town-names end in "by" or "toft", for these were the words
meaning Danish settlements. For example, Derby, Grimsby,
Whitby, Lowestoft and others.
The whole country formed a united kingdom. The newly
conquered Danelaw was divided into shires, like the Anglo-
Saxon psrt of the kingdom. Each of these shires had for its
centre one of the market towns which the Danes had
established, and that is the reason why to this day the
 48

midland counties (unlike those of Southern England) are

nearly all named after their country towns. (For example,
Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire and others.)
The general moots did not assemble in the united kingdom
and the king ruled the country with the help of the
Witenagemot, a council of the most powerful landlords. The
power of the Church increased greatly during this period and
the archbishop and bishops began to play an important role in
the government.
Though Alfred, King of Wessex saved Wessex from Danes,
the work of the West Saxons was undone by the second wave of
Danish invasion at the end of the 10th century.
The Anglo-Saxon kings were unable to organize any
effective resistance and they tried to buy off the Danes. The
Anglo-Saxon kings gave them money to leave them in peace. The
result was that they came again in greater numbers the
following year to demand more. In order to make this payment
to the Danes in 991 the government imposed a heavy tax called
Danegeld, or Dane money. And every time the Danes came back
they received more and the government, in its turn, increased
the tax of Danegeld collected from the population.
At the beginning of the 11th century England was
conquered by the Danes once more. The Danish king Canute
[ ] (995-1035) became the king of England (1016-1035)
Denmark and Norway.
He made England the centre of the power. But he was
often away from England in his kingdom of Denmark and so he
divided the country into four parts called earldoms. They
 49

were Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria and East Anglia. An earl was

appointed by the king to rule over each great earldom. The
earls ruled over great territories and gradually they became
powerful.
To secure his position in the conquered country Canute
continued to collect the Danegeld tax, and used the money to
support a bodyguard of professional fighting men and a large
fleet. So the Dane money which had been originally collected
for the struggle against the Danes became now a tax paid for
the benefit of the Danish king. The king's well-disciplined
bodyguard of several thousand horsemen was, in fact, a
standing army; it was always ready to suppress a rebellion
in any part of the country. Besides, Canute tried to win the
support of the big Anglo-Saxon feudal lords. He promised to
rule according to the old Anglo-Saxon laws. As before the
Anglo-Saxon lords had the right to administer justice in the
neighbourhood. The other old laws which gave them great power
over the common people were also preserved. Canute sent back
most of his Danish followers to their own country. He usually
chose Anglo-Saxon nobles for the high posts of earls and
other royal officials. Canute himself became a Christian and
he sent monks from Canterbury to convert his subjects in
Scandinavia to Christianity too. He was the protector of the
monasteries and learning that developed there. The clergy
grew more powerful in his reign. Supported by the Anglo-Saxon
feudal lords Canute ruled in England till he died. After the
death of Canute his kingdom split up and soon afterwards an
 50

Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Confessor (1002-1066) came to the

throne (1042) and the line of Danish kings came to the end.
So, as we see, Canute's policy was to reconcile
[ ] - English and Danes upon a basis of equality and
acceptance of Christianity.
The Danish invasions during the 9th and 10th centuries
hastened the process of the development of feudal relations
in England. The peasantry which made up the bulk of the
population suffered very much from the raids of the Danes.
The wars and heavy taxes collected by the government
improverished many peasants. In the 10th-11th centuries the
peasants lived in individual families (parents and their
children), and such a small family had not more than one-
fourth of the former hide. But many impoverished peasants had
much smaller plots of arable land. After a Danish raid
thousands of peasants were ruined and most of them had to
give their arable land away in payments for debts. They could
never again become an independent as they had been before.
In the 10th-11th centuries the nobility was seizing the
peasants' land by force on a large scale. A considerable part
of the peasants' lands fell into the hands of the big
landlords and many peasants lost their freedom.
The class of feudal landlords grew in number too. Large
feudal estates grew at the expense of the peasants who were
deprived of their land either by force, or in payment for
debts or for protection. The landlord class grew also as a
result of the formation of the new army of military nobles,
who were granted landed estates in return for their military
 51

service. The Church, the importance of which increased

greatly in the 10th-11th centuries, became a great landlord
too. Anglo-Saxon kings supported the big landlords. In 930 a
law was passed that said:"Each man must have a lord." Anglo-
Saxon kings granted the nobles special charters which gave
them the right of private ownership of the land they had
seized from the free peasants. The big landlords gradually
became very powerful and quite independent in their domains.
They had their own armed forces and their own courts on their
estates. The rich, powerful earls became so independent that
quite often they did not obey the king of England himself.
The peculiarity of the development of Feudalism in
England in the Early Middle Ages is that it was a slower
process than in other countries.
During the three centuries after the Anglo-Saxon
conquest (the 7th-9th centuries), the bulk of the population
in Britain consisted of free peasants while among the Franks
who had settled on the Continent the majority of the peasants
had already become serfs by the beginning of the 9th century.
It can be accounted for, first of all, by the fact that the
Romans had a stronger influence on the Continent than on
Britain. The Romans did not bring about many changes in the
life of the Northern tribes and it was only among the Celts
of the South that the tribal nobility became richer than the
other members of the tribe. As a result by the 5th century
when the Germanic tribes began to conquer the Roman Empire
inequality among the Gauls was much more pronounced than
among the Britons.Besides, the conquerors themselves, that
 52

is, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, before the conquest of

Britain had little contact with Rome and the Roman influence
upon them was very weak too. Right after the conquest the
survivals of the communal way of life were very strong among
them. The free community survived in Britain longer than on
the Continent and it united the Anglo-Saxon peasants and
strengthened their resistance to the establishment of seldom.
The Danish raids sped up the impoverishment of the
Anglo-Saxon peasants. In the 10th-11th centuries the Anglo-
Saxon free communities weakened and many peasants were turned
into serfs. However, not all the peasants of England became
serfs in the 10th-11th centuries. A considerable number of
peasants were still free in the north-eastern parts of the
country where the Danes used to live. Feudalism developed
slower in the region of the Danelaw than in the south-western
shires, because the Danes were at a lower stage of social
development than the Anglo-Saxons at the moment of the
conquest of Britain (the 9th century). Among the Anglo-Saxons
feudal relations were already developing, while among the
Danes tribal life still predominated. After the conquest the
Danes remained free peasants. For about three centuries the
Danes kept migrating from the Continent to Britain. The
warriors were followed by their wives and children. They
settled in the Danelaw as free peasants and most of their
descendants in the north-eastern counties remained free
throughout the Middle Ages.
Thus, feudal relations among the Anglo-Saxons developed
in the same way as they did among the Germanic tribes which
 53

settled on the continent of Europe. However, the process of

turning the free peasants into serfs, which had begun after
the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain, was not completed by the
11th century. On the Continent the majority of the peasants
had become serfs by the 10th-11th centuries, whereas in
England many peasants were still free.

2. The Norman Conquest

As you already know four different peoples invaded
England. First came the Celts in the 6th century B.C., then
the Romans in the 1st century A.D.; they were followed by the
Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century; after them came the Danes at
the end of the 8th century. In the 11th century England was
invaded by the Normans. This was the 5th and the last
invasion of England.
We shall speak about the following points:
1)The Normans.
2) The Norman Invasion.
3)The Changes brought by the Norman Conquest.
4) The Domesday Book
5) Effects on the language
1) The Normans. The name "Normans" is a variation of the
word "Northmen". The Danes, as you remember, settled down in
the conquered part of England known as the Danelaw. And the
Normans settled down on land conquered from the French king -
a territory which is still called Normandy after these
Normans. Both, the Danes and the Normands were Germanic
branches, but they differed greatly from each other. By the
 54

11th century the Danes had gradually mixed with the Anglo-
Saxons among whom they lived. They retained their Germanic
language and many of their customs were very much like those
of the Anglo-Saxons. But the Normans lived among the French
people, who were quite different in their manners, customs
and language.The Normans had learned French and, in many
ways, they had become like the French themselves.
The establishment of the feudal system in France had
been completed by the 11th century and the Norman Barons had
come into possession of large tracts of land and a great
number of serfs.
The Normans lived under the rule of their own duke. By
the 11th century the dukes of Normandy had become very
powerful. Though they acknowledged the king of France as
their overlord, they were actually as strong as the king
himself, whose domain was smaller than the Duchy of Normandy.
Like other French dukes and counts they made themselves
practically independent. They coined their own money, made
their own laws, held their own courts, built their own
castles. They could start wars against other dukes and even
against the king himself. As a well-armed and well-trained
cavalry[ ], the Norman knights were the best in
Europe. They became the new conquerors of England.
2) The Norman Invasion. In 1066 king Edward the
Confessor died. His reign was relatively peaceful. But, the
worst that can be said against Edward, is that he failed to
provide an heir to his throne and left England open to
aggression. According to the English law it was the
 55

Witenagemon [ ]that chose the next king. In such

cases, when there was not a grown up son to become a king,
the king's Council of wise men offered the Crown to some
other near relative of the dead king. So the Anglo-Saxon Earl
Harold II of Wessex became the king. But there was one more
claimant to the throne of England. It was Duke William of
Normandy, who was also a relative (a nephew) of the dead
king. William of Normandy claimed that England belonged to
him and he began preparations for a war to fight for the
Crown. The warriers of Western Europe were invited to join
William, they were promised English lands. So, numerous army
was mustered [ ].
William landed in the south of England and the battle
between the Normans and the Anglo-Saxons took place on he
14th of October 1066 at a little village in the neighbourhood
of the town now Hastings [ ]. The battle went on all
day. And the Normans won. There were several reasons for
their victory:
1) the Normans outnumbered the Anglo-Saxon forces;
2) the Normans were skilful fighters, fightings were the
main occupation in their life;
3) they were well-armed;
4) they had a heavy-armoured cavalry and archers;
5) William had firm power over his vassals [ ], and
king Harold's power over the Anglo-Saxon earls was very
weak. The earls moved slowly towards Hastings, so as to
arrive after the battle and then join the victor, either
Harold or William. As a result, when Harold met William
 56

at Hastings, he had under his command only the men of

Wessex;
6) the superior military tactics of Normans were unknown in
England, but the Anglo-Saxons stood firm. At the end of
the battle they were encircled. Then the Normas shot
their arrows high in the air, so that they fell on the
Anglo-Saxons. One of the arrows struck Harold in the eye
and killed him. So died the last Anglo-Saxon king of
England.
In the museum of the Norman town of Bayeux [ ] one can
see a strip of canvas about 70m long and half a meter wide,
the famous Bayeux Tapestry [ ]. It is embroidered
with very well-defined pictures which tell the whole history
of the Norman Conquest.
Soon after the victory at Hastings the Normans encircled
London and William was acknowledged as the lawful king of
England - William I or William the Conqueror. He ruled
England for 21 years.
3)The Changes brought by the Norman Conquest.The Norman
Conquest brought about (спричинило) very important changes in
the life of the Anglo-Saxons. We have seen what little power
King Harold had over the great lords. The Anglo-Saxon earls
did not even join their king at Hastings. After the Conquest
the royal power in England strengthened greatly. William was
now not only the duke [ ]of Normandy but the king of
England as well and he received great incomes from both
Normandy and his rich domain [ ]in England. As king of
England, William the Conqueror was determined (був рішучий,
 57

непохітний) that his nobles should not be able to make

themselves independent of him as he had made himself
independent of his overlord, the king of France.
1) William declared that all the lands of England belong
to him by right of conquest. The estates of all the Anglo-
Saxon lords who had supported Harold or acknowledged
[ ]him as king were confiscated. The Anglo-Saxon
landowners, great and small, and the Anglo-Saxon clergy were
turned out of their houses, and estates, and churches.
One-seventh of the country was made the royal domain.
The other lands the king granted to the Normans and Frenchmen
who had taken part in the Conquest and to the Anglo-Saxon
landlords who supported him.
The Conqueror claimed that the forest lands which made
up one-third of the country belonged to him too. Large
forests were turned into reserves for the royal hunting.
Special Forest Laws about hunting were issued. Anyane who
dared to hunt in the royal forests without the king's
permission was threatened with severe punishment. Thus the
king of England became the richest feudal lord of all.
Each baron received with the grant of land the promise
of the king's protection, but in return he had to render
military service to his overlord bringing a number of fully
armed knights with him in time of war.
The great barons granted some part of their land to
lesser feudal lords and the barons' vassals frequently
granted land to still lesser vassals. When the king went to
war he called upon his chief vassals, they in their turn
 58

called upon theirs, and as a result, all the landowners were

in arms.
2) William demanded that military service should be
rendered for all the lands even for those in the possession
of the church, and the abbot [ ]or bishop was obliged to
grant some of the estates to men who would do this for them.
3) Not only the great landowners, but also their vassals
took a special oath to be true to the king against all his
enemies. Thus a knight who had a land from a great baron
became the king's vassal. It is interesting to note that in
France a vassal had to obey his immediate overlord only from
whom he received the land and not the king. And it often
happened that the smaller vassals joined their lord against
the French king. In England the rule "My vassal's vassal is
not my vassal" was broken now and it became the duty of all
the landlords, great and small, to support the king against
all his enemies, both foreign and domestic. In other words,
if a great lord rebelled against the king the lesser vassals
were to fight for the king, against their immediate overlord.
4) For greater security, when William the Conqueror
rewarded his important supporters with a larger number of
estates, he did not give them large blocks of land but gave
them a number of small estates scattered about the country.
For example, he granted to one of his relatives 790 estates,
which were scattered about in twenty countries. William
granted land in this way to make it difficult for the great
nobles to collect their forces and to offer resistance to the
royal power. Any great lord who planned to rebel against the
 59

king would have to collect his vassals from all over England
instead of having them ready in one part of the country, and
while he was doing this the king would march against him and
defeat him.
5) Another change which William I introduced to reduce
the power of the great lords was the abolition of the great
earldoms - Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex, that had been
established in the reign of the Danish King Canute.Now the
country was divided into shires, or counties, as the Normans
called them. William I appointed a royal official in each
shire to be his "sheriff". The royal sheriffs became of great
importance. Through the sheriffs the king exercised control
over all his vassals. The sheriff administered justice in the
shire. He presided in the king's name over the shire-courts.
Each landowner was allowed to hold his court on the estate,
but the sheriff kept a check on him. The sheriff also
collected taxes paid to the royal treasury and his duty was
to see that all the royal dues were paid in full and in time.
Besides, the sheriff was responsible for the gathering of an
army for the king. He was well acquainted with all the king's
vassals living in the shire and what military service they
owed the king. It was his duty to see that they were ready to
perform military service for the king when they were called
up. If necessary the sheriff could call up an army for the
king in two or three days. The great landlords, on the other
hand, would require a much longer time to collect their
vassals from all the scattered estates.
 60

6) To make himself stronger than any of his nobles,

William the Conqueror ordered that many castles should be
built in different parts of the country. At first these
castles were built of wood and later of stone. The first of
these stone castles was the Tower of London. The Conqueror
ordered it to be built on the north bank of the Thames to
protect London. The great castle of Durham [ ]was built
to protect northern England from the raidsof the Scots.
Another fortress was built on the river Tyne and was called
Newcastle. Many other castles were built in the reign
[ ] of William the Conqueror. The many splendid
architectural monuments of the Norman period are almost
exclusively churches and castles. The style is known in
England as Norman. The finest specimen [ ] of Norman
architecture in England is Durham Cathedral. They were nearly
all royal castles. No other person was allowed to build a
castle without the king's permission. The king's castles were
garrisoned [ ]by his own men-at-arms who were always
ready to ride out and destroy anyone who disobeyed the king.
7) William I replaced the Witenagemot [ ]by
a Great Council, made up of bishops and barons. The bishops
and barons met together to talk over governmental problems
and to give their advice to the king. One of the functions of
the Great Council was to act as the king's Supreme Court and
it presided over all serious trials. The right to belong to
the Great Council depended on the holding of land granted by
the king.
 61

The king's laws were in force everywhere. Only the king

had the right to have money coined. Nobles were not allowed
to make war on one another; all men had to keep "the king's
peace".
4) The Domesday Book. [ ]Soon after the Conquest
several great rebellions [ ]against William the
Conqueror broke out. In order to find out the financial and
military strength of the country in 1086 William ordered to
prepare a great book called Domesday Book [ ].It
was a very detailed, village-by-village record of the people
and their possessions throughout his kingdom. The book was
written in Latin. To make these notes the commission (which
consisted of the sheriff, the lord of estate, the priest, the
hundred-elder( ) and six peasants) included the
official who knew both French and English. After taking an
oath to tell "the whole truth and nothing but the truth" the
royal official began to ask question and the interpreter
translated the question into English and answers into Latin.
The Anglo-Saxons were afraid of the registration and hated
it. The villagers used to say that nothing could be concealed
from the king's officials just as you would not conceal
anything from God on doomsday. That is why probably the book
in which all the accounts were written was called by the
people of England the Domesday Book. All the kings' vassals
were registered in this book. As the names of all the owners
of the estates were written down in the official state
document, the Domesday Book, the Norman lords were considered
now the lawful owners of the English lands. Thus the feudal
 62

registration of 1086 consolidated the position of the

conquerors.
Great changes were brought about in the life of the
Anglo-Saxon peasantry as a result of the registration
organized by William the Conqueror. Before the Conquest many
peasants were serfs, or villeins [ ], as they were
called in England. The villeins were "bound to the soil and
to the lord". They belonged to the feudal estate, or to the
manor [ ], as it was called in England. They were not
allowed to leave the lord of the manor. However, alongside
with the villeins [ ]there were many semi-bondsmen
whose services to the lord of the manor were much lighter
than those of the villeins. There were also many peasants who
cultivated their own land but whose freedom was slightly
curbed [ ]- , because they could be tried only
in the lord's court. Now all those semi-bond peasants were
registered in the Domesday Book as villeins [ ]. Many
of those who before the Conquest had been tried in the lord's
court and owed some minor services were also registered as
unfree peasants. To cite just one example: in the country of
Sussex 10,400 peasant families were registered, of which
9,800 were registered as unfree families and only 600 as
free.
In addition to everything else, the peasants had to pay
heavier taxes. Before the registration William the Conqueror
collected all the old taxes which had been imposed in England
before the Conquest. He continued to collect even the old
Danegeld, a tax which had been imposed to organize resistance
 63

to the raids of the Danes. As a result of the registration

the Conqueror had the exact data for taxation and he
increased the old taxes considerably. Moreover, a heavy
property tax was imposed on the population of England.
Thus the Norman Conques aggravated [ ] feudal
exploitation and it hastened the process of turning the free
peasants into serfs. The Norman conquerors became not only
the owners of the English lands but also the masters of the
people who lived on it.
The original of the Domesday Book is kept now in the
Public Record Office in London. In the reign of the Conqueror
it was looked upon as a tax book for it gave the data for
taxation. But its actual value is much greater. No other
written document before or after has given us such a clear
picture of the period.
5) Effects on the language. The victorious
[ ]Normans made up the new aristocracy and the Anglo-
Saxon people became their servants. The Norman aristocracy
spoke a Norman dialect of French, a tongue of Latin origin,
while the Anglo-Saxons spoke English, a tongue of Germanic
origin. Thus there were two different languages spoken in the
country at the same time. Norman-French became the official
language of the state. It was the language of the ruling
class spoken at court; it was the language of the lawyers,
and all the official documents were written in French or
Latin. The learned clergy whom the Normans brought into the
country used Latin for the most part. The richer Anglo-Saxons
found it convenient to learn to speak the languageof the
 64

rulers. But the peasants and townspeople spoke English. The

Normans looked upon English as a kind of peasant dialect, and
continued to speak their own language. They despised anyone
unable to speak their language.
But the Normans could not subdue [ ] the popular
tongue which was spoken by the majority of the population,
those who cultivated the land and produced goods. The
conquerors who settled down on English estates had to
communicate with the natives of the country and they
gradually learned to speak their language. Many of them
married Anglo-Saxon wives and their children and
grandchildren grew up speaking English. In a few generations
the descendants of the Normans who had come with William the
Conqueror learned to speak the mother tongue of the common
people of England. In time English became the language of the
educated classes and the official language of the state.
This was a gradual process, however, and many years
passed before the Normans forgot their old tongue. At the
time when the two languages were spoken side by side the
Anglo-Saxons learned many French words and expressions which
gradually came into the English language. They borrowed many
French words the equivalents of which did not exist in their
own language. For example, the wife of an English earl is
called "countess", a French word, because there was no Anglo-
Saxon word meaning the wife of an earl. Many synonyms
appeared in the English language, because very often both
French and English words for the same thing were used side by
side.
 65

Words of Germanic origin make up the basic vocabulary of

Modern English.The Anglo-Saxons spoke the simple countryman's
language and in Modern English simple everyday words are
mostly Anglo-Saxon, like "eat", "land", "house" and others.
But as there were no English words to describe the more
complicated feudal relations many words were adopted from the
French language. Thus the vocabulary of the English language
was enlarged due to such Norman-French words dealing with
feudal relations as "manor" [ ], "noble", "baron"
[ ], "serve", "command", "obey"; or words relating to
administration and law, such as "charter", "council"
[ ], "accuse", "court", "crime"; or such military terms
as "arms", "troops", "guard", "navy", "battle", "victory" and
other words characterizing the way of life and customs of the
Norman aristocracy.
As a result of the Conquest, the English language
changed greatly under the influence of the French language.
The two languages gradually formed one rich English language
which already in the 14th century was being used both in
speech and in writing. Gradually the Normans mixed with the
Anglo-Saxons and the Danes and from this mixture the English
nation finally emerged.
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3. Rise of towns in England in the 11th-12th centuries

In the course of the Anglo-Saxon conquest (5th-7th
centuries) the few Roman towns and villas that had been built
in Britain were in the main destroyed and abandoned. Since
then the Anglo-Saxons lived in villages and each village was
self-sufficient.
During the Early Middle Ages both agriculture and crafts
gradually developed and became more productive. By the 11th
century the heavy iron plough was being used everywhere. The
peasants also learned how to produce better implements of
labour and armour, better foorwear and cloth. As a result,
both agriculture and crafts required much more time and
special knowledge and skill.
In the 10th-11th centuries handicrafts began to separate
from agriculture. Carpenters made ploughs, rakes and the
rough furniture for the house. Tanners turned hides into
leather. Thatchers mended roofs. Smiths worked at the forge.
These craftsmen could spend very little time on agriculture.
Most of their time they devoted to their craft. As they
improved their crafts they became more skillful and their
labour became more productive. The greater portion of their
 67

produce was paid to the lord of the manor as quit-rent. The

peasants paid them in kind. In return for his work the
craftsman would be given a sack of flour, butter and eggs and
other agricultural products. In time, the serf craftsmen
began to produce some surplus above what was paid to the lord
and could be sold in the village. The serf craftsmen wanted
to make goods to order and for sale and some of them left
their native villages. Sometimes they got the lord's
permission to leave the manor but as before they were to pay
the quit-rent with their articles. They would stroll from one
village to anther in search of customers. Handicrafts were
their main occupation now. Many serf craftsmen would run away
from the manor and settle in places where they could sell
their articles and buy raw materials, foodstuffs, and other
necessities of life. The settlements of runaway serfs
gradually grew into towns.
Such towns sprang up at cross-roads where markets would
be held and people would come from the surrounding country-
side to buy and sell their animals and food, and merchants
would come from far and wide to sell their goods. Often a
peasant village on a lord's estate which was well situated at
a cross-road or at a place where the main road crossed a wide
river would become a traiding sport. As time passed more and
more merchants and craftsmen settled here. They built earthen
walls round their settlement to protect themselves. Later on
the earthen walls gave place to walls of stone. In this way
many small centres of trade gradually grew into towns.
 68

The runaway peasant craftsmen, working with wood, metal

or lather would also settle near a monastery or a famous
cathedral or near a feudal castle. They carried on a brisk
trade with the feudal lords, the clergymen and their
servants. Merchants would build their dwellings here too as
trade was always good where many people gathered. In time of
danger the settlers could seek protection behind the stone
walls of castles and monasteries. Towns grew up at places
like Bury St. Edmunds, Canterbury and Durham where there were
great monasteries, cathedrals or castles.
It is interesting to note that almost all the towns were
built on rivers which supplied the inhabitants with water and
were an important means of communication. The town was built
at some distance from the mouth of a river: a river-port was
safer from attack than a port on the cost. Dover,
Southampton, Plymouth, Boston grew up as ports. Grimsby,
Scarborough and Yarmouth grew up as fishing centres.
Many towns sprang up near bridges, like Bristol which
grew up near a bridge over the Avon. But there were very few
bridges and people had to cross a river by a ford or by a
ferry. Near these places towns sprang up too. Horseferry
Street, a street in London, marks the place where once there
used to be a great ferry. The same is true of many English
towns the names of which end in "ford". Take Oxford for
example, a town which grew up near a great ford for oxen
driven for sale to the town. Hence the name "Oxen-ford" which
later became Oxford. Such towns as Cambridge, Hereford,
 69

Bedford and many others grew up at places near big bridges or

fords.
Thus as a result of economic development the crafts
began to separate from agriculture, and this led to the rise
of new towns which became the centres of crafts and trade.
How did the towns look like?
By the end of the 10th century new towns had sprung up
in England. Such old towns as London, Winchester, York which
had become small trading settlements after the Romans had
left Britain also grew into centres of trade and crafts. The
Domesday Book mentions about 80 towns where 5 per cent of the
population lived. In the 11th-12th centuries the towns were
very small. London had only 20,000 people but it was
considered a large centre of population. An average town had
from six to four thousand people.
By the 13th century there were already more than 160
towns in England. But most of the towns were still quite
small. There were only a few large centres of population,
such as London, Bristol, Norwich and York. By the 14th
century London had 40,000 people, York and Bristol had
12,000. Some other towns had only a few thousands of people,
like Oxford, for example, with a population of 5,000 men. And
there were many other towns which had less than a thousand
people.
Most of these early towns did not differ very much from
the villages. They were surrounded by walls which had a
number of gates, guarded by gate-keepers, who opened them at
dawn and locked them at sunset. Outside the town were the
 70

fields which came right up to the walls of the town. Three

arable fi elds were divided into strips and the towns-people
grew crops in them. There were common pastures and meadows
where they fed their cattle and geese. Inside the walls there
were also a good many kitchen-gardens and orchards.
London was then the largest city in the country. But
many districts which are now in the heart of London were then
separate villages or forests. Even Westminster area where
many Government offices and the Houses of Parliament are
situated today was not a part of London. There were green
fields between these villages and the city, and the Londoners
used to go out on Sundays and holidays for walks in the
fields.
The medieval town grew in the small area within its
walls. This growth was not planned. The buildings were
crowded together and the streets were often very narrow. Many
houses had two or three stories. The upper stories projected
above till the houses of the opposite sides of the narrow
strret nearly met which made the downstairs rooms very dark.
There were many dark corners and backyards where robbers
could lurk. The streets were not lit at night and the robbers
would attack the passer-by who dared to be out late. It was
the duty of the watchmen to go through the streets at night
and ring a bell, calling out the time and the state of the
weather - "past two o'clockand a fine night", "past three
o'clock and raining heavily". But the watchmen could not keep
order in the streets; the back streets were dangerous even in
broad daylight.
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Nearly all the houses in town were made of wood and

frequent fires would destroy whole districts. Very few houses
had their own water-supply. Water was fetched from the
nearest well or stream and the lack of water made fires still
more dangerous in the narrow streets. Special orders were
issued to secure the safety of towns. With the last stroke of
the church bell in the evening all the towns people had to
put out their fires and lights and the town used to sink in
darkness.
The shops where different goods were sold were on the
ground floor. As a rule, all the shops of one trade were next
to each other and this is still reflected in the names of
such London streets as Milk Street, the Poultry, Fish Street
and Haberdashers' Row. Corn was for sale on Cornhill, meat in
Butchers' Row, and hay in the Haymarket.
The workshop where the craftsmen worked was also on the
ground floor and the owner and his family lived upstairs. The
craftsmen of one occupation lived in their own district too.
For example, tailors worked in Threadneedle Street and
bakers in Bread Street.
There were no pavements at the sides of the street.
Along the street ran a gutter into which people threw their
rubbish. The passers-by preferred to walk under the
overhanging parts of the houses so as not to run the risks of
being drenched with dirty water or hit by things thrown by a
housewife out of a top window. There was no collection of
house refuse and other rubbish and like in the villages it
was a common thing to find poultry, dogs and even pigs
 72

grubbing among the refuse which lay rotting in the streets,

giving off bad smells. There was no proper drainage system.
It is not surprising therefore that such fatal diseases as
the plague, cholera, fever and others were very common in
medieval towns. These infectious diseases spread very quickly
both in villages and in towns and many people died from them.
In fact, very few people lived till old age.
All the same, there was an important difference between
the first towns and the villages; while the villagers
produced the necessities of life mainly for consumption the
townspeople produced goods for sale. Crafts and trade began
to develop now on a larger scale than before. The growth of
towns was a new and very significant stage in the development
of feudal society.
The Town's Charter [ ]
The people of the first towns were not free. All the
land in feudal England was divided into manors and the lord
of the manor governed the townspeople who lived on his land
and made them perform feudal services.Now we shall learn
about the privileges the medieval towns gained that made them
independent of the lord's power and how this came about.
The land on which the towns grew belonged either to the
king, baron, or abbot, and the people of the first towns had
to pay for it by working for the lord of the manor. Like the
serfs of the manor the town craftsmen and merchants were
obliged to work three days a week for their lord and to
perform boon-work and to pay quit-rent in money or in corn,
herrings, honey and other things. They also paid to have
 73

their corn ground at the lord's mill. It was the king's

sheriff or the baron's steward who administered justice in
the town and collected dues from the townsmen.
The lord's power over the towns greatly hampered the
development of crafts and trade and the townspeople wanted to
free themselves of the services for the lord. They also
wanted the right to manage their own affairs, that is, to
choose their own officials and not to be under the king's
sheriff or the lord's steward. They also wanted to administer
justice themselves. In the 12th and the 13th centuries
throughout England towns were fighting for their freedom
against the feudal lords.
Most of the English towns grew up on the land belonging
to the king. The king was too powerful for the townspeople to
begin an open struggle against him. Unlike the many towns on
the continent of Europe which gained their independence by
means of bloody wars and uprisings, in England, as a rule,
the townspeople came to terms with the king. The merchants
and craftsmen agreed to pay for the use of land in money
instead of services. Bit by bit the townspeople gained other
rights in exchange for money payments.
In return for the money paid, the king would grant the
townspeople a charter. This was a written agreement listing
the things the townspeople could do without asking permission
from the king. Some towns paid a large sum of money for the
charter only once, others had to make a certain payment every
year.
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The charter stated that the townsmen were free from the
services they had formely rendered and they had the right to
choose their own council with a chairman at the head who was
called the mayor. The charter granted to London in 1215
stated: "Know you that we have granted to our citizens of our
city of London that they may elect for themselves a mayor of
themselves every year who shall be faithful to us ... and
that it shall be lawful to them to remove him at the end of
the year, and substitute another if they so wish, or retain
the same man." The town council made laws and punished those
who destroyed them. Now the townsmen had their own judges who
administered justice in the town and their own officials who
collected the dues for the king.
The townsmen were also allowed to carry on trade, and to
hold markets and fairs. Here is an extract from the charter
to Portsmouth granted in 1194: "Know you that the citizens of
Portsmouth have every week in the year on one day in the
week, on Thursday, a market with all the liberties and free
customs which our citizens of Winchester or Oxford or others
of our lands have..." "And we have established and given and
granted a fair to continue, once a year, for fifteen days..."
Many towns gained the right of free trade. The charter
granted to Oxford in 1156 says that the citizens of Oxford
"shall be quit of toll and passage and all the customs
throughout all England and Normandy by land and water, by the
coast of the sea..."
Such charterd were often won not only from the king, but
from other owners of the town lands too. If a baron or an
 75

abbot of a neighbouring monastery was in need of money he

would sell his rights to the townsmen. But from the great
monasteries near which towns had grown up in many places,
charters were won, as a rule, with great difficulty. The
histories of such towns were marked with bitter conflicts,
sometimes with armed uprisings of the townsmen. A chronicler
wrote in 1327 that the townsfolk of Bury supported by the
villeins of the surrounding villages, stormed the monastery
and set up a town commune. It took the abbot six months to
suppress the commune and re-establish his power over the
town. In the 12th century many English towns such as London,
Canterbury, Dover, Lincoln, Nottingham, Norwich, Oxford,
Newcastle, Southampton, Bristol and others had charters and
exercised self-government. The king granted many privileges
to the capital of the country. The Londoners took over the
local government not only of the city itself but also of the
whole country of Middlesex in which a considerable part of
the city was situated. They appointed a sheriff and a judge
and collected all the dues which formely had been paid by the
inhabitants of the country to the king. In return, every year
the Londoners paid 300 pounds sterling to the king. Besides,
court trails for Londoners were held only in London. They
were also released from military service and were granted the
right of free trade throughout England. All these privileges
favoured the growth of the capital and in the 12th century it
became one of the greatest centres of trade in Europe. By the
end of the 13th century almost all towns of any size, except
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a few under monastic rule, had won a certain measure of self-

government.
The most important right gained by the townsmen was
freedom. At first when villeins ran away to the towns the
lord had the right to demand the villein's return. But soon
the growing towns felt the lack of labourers and eventually
they began to ignore the lord's orders. Gradually the
towns'charters made it a rule that a serf who had run away
from his lord could become free after having lived a year and
a day in town. The landlord was forced to regard all runaway
serfs as free citizens of the town.
Here is how the charter of 1157 goes: "I confirm to the
citizens that if any remain in my city of Lincoln for a year
and a day without challenge from any claimant and pay the
customs of the city... he shall remain peacefully in the city
of Lincoln as my free man."
Thus, in the 12th-13th centuries the townsmen of many
English towns became free. They became free from the old
feudal obligations and they themselves were responsible for
the order and government in the town.
Liberation from feudal power sped up the growth of towns
and many of them became important centres of crafts and
trade.

4. Crafts in the medieval town

The townspeople who lived on the lord's land were quite
often harassed by the landlord who at the head of a body of
retainers attacked and plundered the town. What could be done
 77

to defend the town against the predatory raids of the feudal

lord?
The town craftsmen produced goods only to order and for
sale. Where and how could customers be attracted? These and
other problems faced the townspeople. Now we shall read:
1) how the townspeople organized their life and work to
solve the problems that faced them;
2) what progress was made by the town craftsmen in the
11th-13th centuries.

The Artisan's Workshop

The medieval workshop was a small-scale enterprise. It
occupied a small room and only a few people worked in it.
They were the master-craftsman, one or two journeymen and two
or three apprentices. As a rule, the members of the master's
family worked in the workshop too.
There was no machinery in the workshop. Only primitive
had instruments. The medieval workshop was based on manual
labour.
Although the master-craftsman was the owner of these
tools and instruments, raw materials and ready articles, he
himself worked side by side with the men whom he employed. He
knew all the secrets of his trade and he could produce goods
of high quality with these primitive instruments. The
craftsman devoted all his life to one craft; the blacksmith
knew only his articles and the armoured would never try to
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produce what the blacksmith produced. As a rule, sons

inherited their fathers' trade, and the secrets of the trade
passed from one generation to another. Through long training
and experience the craftsman acquired great skill and
mastered his craft to perfection: his skilful fingers made up
for the imperfection of his instruments.
It took many years to become a good craftsman. Any young
boy who wanted to learn a craft had to become an apprentice
to a master. The apprentice had no right to leave his master
before he completed the term of his appreticeship. He lived
with his master who gave him food, clothes and shoes and
promised to teach him all the secrets of the craft. The
apprentice did the less skilled jobs in the workshop and had
to help with the house work in his master's home.
The life of the apprentice was very hard. He was bound
to work for his master for seven or even more years and
during these years he was at the mercy of his master who
often scolded and beat him hard.
If the apprentice protested and refused to serve his
master, he was tried by the town court.
Sometimes the apprentice boys ran away from their
masters. If the master found his runaway apprentice he would
make him return and work until the term of apprenticeship was
completed.
After seven years the apprentice would become a workman
and for his hard work he would receive wages. The workmen
were called journeymen - from the French "journee", meaning
"day", because they were paid by the day. They were free to
 79

change their master and even to look for work in another

town. Often, however, they worked for a few years in the
workshop of the same master. The journeymen hoped to become
masters after a few years. They hoped to save up enough money
to open their own workshops, in which they would employ other
skilled workmen and take on apprentices.
The journeyman who had already mastered the trade became
the master's right hand. He helped his master and and all the
work from beginning to end was done by each. Only a few men
worked in the workshop and the working process was not
divided into separate operations among them, in other words,
there was no division of labour in the workshop. For example,
the armoured himself performed all the operations beginning
with the smelting and finishing with the design which
involved highly elaborate metalwork.
The medieval workshop was, thus, a small-scale
enterprise where there was no division of labour and only
manual labour was used. The labour productivity of the
medieval craftsman was very low. For example, it took a
skilled locksmith fourteen days to make a good lock.
At first there was no clear division between the
craftsmen who made the goods and the trader who sold them -
both functions were performed by the same person. The
customers of a master-craftsman ordered what they wanted from
him, and the work was done to order. But there were also some
finished articles in the workshop. Any customer who called
could see them, and could buy them if he wished. In this way
the workshop became a kind of shop for the sale of goods.
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The earliest shops in a town were the craftsmen's

workshops.
As the population of the towns grew and more goods were
demanded, both crafts and trade grew too and they required
more time and energy and skill. The craftsmen began to devote
themselves entirely to their crafts. They began to free
themselves not only from agricultural work but also from the
duty of selling ready articles. Alongside with the traveling
merchants, who had already existed during the Anglo-Saxon
period and who brought goods from other countries, tradesmen
engaged in home trade appeared. They made up a special class
of men who devoted all their time and energy to the business
of trading. Thus trade and handicrafts gradually became the
occupations of different groups of people.
Medieval Guilds
The master-craftsmen of the same trade who lived in the
same town united into societes which were called craft
guilds. Each craft had its own guild: there were guilds of
weavers, dyers, shoemakers, hatters, bakers, glassmakers and
many others. There were many guilds of smiths. Their craft
was very important especially at a time when things were made
by hand. Already in the Domesday Book six forges in the town
of Hereford are mentioned as well as those of the ironsmiths
and coppersmiths. Later on, there were guilds of armourers,
goldsmiths, locksmiths and many others. The merchants of a
town formed a society known as a merchant guild. Many English
surnames refer to the trades or occupations of those to whome
they were given. Such names as Baker, Butcher, Chapman,
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Wright, Fletcher, Tailor, Smith, are occupational surnames,

and there are dozen of others. It was in the time of the
guilds that the use of these occupational surnames became
common. The right to organize a guild was granted to the
first towns by the owner of the land who might be the king,
an abbot or some other powerful lord. Nobody had the right to
produce or sell goods in a town if he was not a member of a
guild. A stranger, even if he came from another town only
fifty miles away, was looked upon as a foreigner. At the gate
he would questioned by the gate-keepers very closely about
his business before being admitted. If he came with anything
to sell in the market, he would have to pay a heavy toll. In
this way many "foreigners" were kept away and trade was
reserved for the townsmen.
Each guild in the town had its guildhall where the
master-craftsmen met from time to time. The charter they
adopted for their guild obliged all the guild-members to
follow its rules. The rules for good worksmanship set up a
certain standard for the finished product. These rules stated
that all the members of the guild had to use high-quality raw
materials and to produce goods to meet the guild's standard.
For example, the weavers' guild determined exactly the width
of the cloth, its colour, the number of threads in the wrap
of the cloth, the quality of raw materials and so on. And all
the articles produced by the weavers were supposed to meet
the same standard. Bad or hastily made goods were forbidden
and there were severe punishments for those who broke the
rules. The master-craftsmen elected the elders who headed the
 82

guild and who saw to it that all the guild-members followed

the rules and produced goods of the right quality. If a
member of a guild did bad work it would be taken and
destroyed, and he would be fined. If he did it again he was
expelled from the guild. This would ruin him as he could no
longer work at his trade.
The guild fixed prices on the articles and the guildsmen
had no right to sell them at any other price. The guild
officials saw to it that the customer was charged a fair
price. The guild charter designated how many journeymen and
apprentices the master could employ and how many hand-
operated tools could be kept in the workshop. Other rules did
not allow the craftsmen to work at night and on holidays.
These rules were made in order to help each small producer to
sell his goods and to prevent the craftsmen from competing
with one another.
The Progressive Role of the Guilds In the 11th-13th Centuries
In the 11th-13th centuries when the town crafts began to
grow the guild system was of great importance. The life of
the craftsmen was bound up with the guilds. The guild was a
military organization as each guild formed its municipal
guard detachment and a levy of guildsmen fought together
against the enemies of the town.
It was also a religious society. A merchant or a
craftsman was supposed to be a Christian. The guildsmen went
to church together. They had their own saint that was
considered the patron of their craft. Often they built their
own chapel where a priest conducted services in honour of
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their patron saint. On holy days the guild arranged joint

festivities. All the guildsmen contributed to the Church.
The guild had a special fund to help needy craftsmen and
their families. If a guildsman fell into debt through illness
or accident the guild would help him to start anew. If he
died his guild would take care of his wife and children.
Besides, the guild protected its members from the
competition of the non-guildsmen. In the 11th-13th centuries
natural economy still existed in England and the bulk of the
population produced all the necessities of life themselves.
That is why the demand for goods at the market was very low
and the competition of the non-guildsmen was dangerous. It
was very important for the townsmen to produce articles of
higher quality than those produced by the village artisans
and to exercise absolute control over the town market. The
guild made all its members produce goods of high quality and
the high tolls exacted from the artisans and merchants coming
from other towns protected the guildsmen from competition.
The guild also tried to prevent competition among the
guildsmen themselves. It forbade them to win over each
other's customers; it limited the production of each workshop
so as to ensure the sale of goods for every craftsman. Thus
the guild system secured favourable conditions for the
development of crafts and trade in the 11th-13th centuries.
It united the town artisans and helped them to defend their
town from the predatory raids of the feudal lords.
As a result, the number of craftsmen in towns increased
and new crafts appeared. English craftsmen became highly
 84

skilled and some of the goods they produced were among the
best in Europe. For instance, at foreign markets, the scarlet
that was produced in Lincoln or the blue woollen stuff of
Beverley were famous for their high quality alongside with
the best well-known Italian and Flemish articles.
5. The development of commerce between England and the
continent of Europe in the 12th-14th centuries
Wool Trade
Of all trades the most important to England was the wool
trade. From early times wool was exported from England to
Flanders. The Flemish artisans were the greatest of all the
cloth-artisans in the world and they depended largely on
England’s high quality wool for their work. Already in 1102
and 1103 England concluded the first trade agreements with
Flanders and from that time on throughout the Middle Ages the
best of the wool crop was exported to them.
In the 12th century England began to export wool on a
large scale. It exported 45 varieties of raw wool to other
countries. The wool trade was a very profitable business to
be in. Wool was sold by feudal lords, by monasteries, and by
the peasants. Many wool merchants made fortunes this way. By
the 13th century this trade had grown so much that it
exceeded in bulk and value all other exports combined.
The king was always interested in this trade, for the
taxes on wool were an important source of the royal revenue.
Foreigh merchants had to pay a tax on every sack of wool they
bought. The king forbade the selling of wool to foreign
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buyers except in certain towns so as to make it easier for

his officials to collect the tax.
Main Sea Routes
London merchants drew great incomes from the wool trade,
as the capital was a centre of trade for Northern Europe. It
established commercial contacts with the trading towns of the
Mediterranean which was a link in the trade between Western
Europe and the eastern countries. After the crusades
[ ]began, people learned more about the products of
the East, and trade with the oriental countries grew rapidly.
First the English merchants brought their goods to the
mouth of the Rhine, which was the main highway for trade
between the Mediterranean and the North. At the end of the
12th centuty England established direct and permanent
connections with the North Italian towns of Venice [ ]
and Genoa [ ] which dominated over the Mediterranean
Sea.
Every year a fleet of Venetian galleys laden with spices
and silks of the East, sailed from Venice through the Strait
of Gibraltar and up to the English Channel to Flanders. On
their way the Venetian ships called at ports on the southern
coast of England, and much buying and selling went on.
English merchants bought oriental articles of luxuru and sold
them again at a high profit to the feudal lords and rich
townspeople. The trade in spices was particularly profitable.
Spicesc were weighed out very carefully and sold in small
quantities at enormous prices. Often they cost their weght in
gold.
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An important sea route ran across the North Sea and the
Baltic England carried on a brisk trade with the Baltic and
Scandinavian countries. The towns situated on the banks of
navigable rivers or close to sea harbours increased their
trade rapidly. Apart from London a lively trade across the
Channel from the ports of the southern coast to Flanders
(Flanders is one of the French counties. The Count of
Flanders was actually independent of his overlord, the King
of France. Now Flanders is a part of Belgium) and the Baltic
grew up. Boston, Dover, Newcastle, Southhampton had become
important trade centres already in the 12th century.
Closer contact with the continent of Europe made more
articles available for exchange. The list of imports was
cosiderably increased: from France wine, salt and building
stone for castles and churches, a greater quantity and
variety of fine cloths and spices from the East. Besides
wool, England exported tin, lead, cattle. At first the bulk
of the export trade was in the hands of Italian and Flemish
merchants. With the growth of trade at the end of the 13 th
century more than half the trade was in the hands of English
merchants.
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Lecture VIII
England in the Middle Ages
(12th-15th centuries)
1) Henry II Plantagenet
2) The Great Charter (Magna Carta) (1215)
3) The Hundred Years' War (1337-1453)
4) The Peasants' Revolt of 1381 under the head of Wat
Tyler
5) A Bloody period in English history. Wars of Roses
(1455-1485)
6) Tudors: Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I
Tudor (Bloody Mary), Elizabeth I.
7) Scotland in the 16th century.

With the Norman Conquest finished the period of early

Middle Ages. The period from 12th up to the 17th century was
a period of the Middle Ages proper.
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The Middle Ages in England was a period of feudal wars,

a period of struggle for power between the kings and the
Church, the king and powerful barons. The Norman Conquest
brought the English Church into the mainstream of reform
directed by the papacy. In 1073 Hildebrand became Pope
Gregory VII. He was a great pope, and his reforms helped to
establish the authority of the medieval church, particularly
in England.
William the Conquere (1027-1087) died in Rouen [ ],
in Normandy in 1087. He had ruled both Normandy and England.
This control of land in both France and England was patterned
until the 16th century. It created great problems, as kings
of England were obliged to divide their attention between
their widely scattered possessions. Kings of France became
increasingly annoyed by the fact that English monarchs
controlled the land in France which, they believed, should
belong to the French monarchy. As a consequence, wars between
England and France became a common feature throughout history
from this time on.
1.Henry II Plantagenet
William I left three sons to dispute his inheritance.
Robert, William ("Rufus" - for redness of his face) and
Henry. The middle one, William was killed while hunting. So
the eldest and the youngest sons met in battle for the crown
in 1106. Henry, the youngest, won and Robert was imprisoned
until his death in 1134. Henry (1100-1135) was a powerful
ruler. He set up a team of judges to enford the law, who each
toured [ ] a region of England, holding court in the main
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towns that came to. The circuit system is still in operation

today. Henry also set up the Exchequer to supervise monetary
and fiscal matters. This is still does. England had the most
centrally organized government in Europe.
Feudal anarchy increased after Henry I died. For 19
years, until 1153, the wars continued between his daughter
and nephew. These wars impoverished the peasants and enrished
the barons who gave their support now to one and then to the
other selling it for land and privileges. At last in 1153 by
Treaty of Winchester it was agreed that Stephen, Henry's
nephew, was to be the king, and after his death the throne
was to be left to Henry, Henry's I grandson. A year later
Stephen died and a new dynasty, doubly French was begun in
1154 by Henry II Plantagenet (1154-1189). Henry's emblem was
a plant called Planta genesta; that's why his dynasty was
called the Plantagenet dynasty. (He liked to wear a sprig of
flowering broom (Gene in French) in his cap for a feather.
Henry II ruled the country for 35 years, and that was very
long for that time.
Henry held his great empire together by his ability and
energy. As his wife was a French princess, Henry II was both
King of England and Duke of Normandy. So his dominions
stretched from the north of England to the Pyrenees, the
great mountains which separate France from Spain. In England
he re-established the authority of the centre, he created the
common law system, according to which every freeman had a
right to plead in royal courts, even against his feudal
lords. Henry also remodelled the Exchequer, whuch, being
 90

responsible for the collection of taxes, was at the centre of

royal government. (This system exists today).
Henry II is best remembered by his quarrel with Thomas
Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, which led to Becket's
murder in 1170. Becket was initially a friend of the
monarch's. He made a stand on the rights of the clerics to
trial in church courts; Becket at once put his loyalty to the
Church before his loyalty to Henry. Becket condemned Henry
for his action against the Church, and in 1164 Henry exhiled
Becket. (The Church claimed that the appointment of bishops
was its own exclusive right. Kings, however, believed that
they should have some say in the appointment of Church
leaders, as these men exercised a great deal of authority in
the state).
Becket did not return to England until 1170. Returning
in 1170, however, he was unwilling to abide by the spirit of
compromise that was necessary both in his return was to be a
success and more generally, gor successlul royal-papal and
church- state relations. Henry's outraged explosion, "Will no
one rid me of this turbulent priest?", was taken at face
value by the four of his knights, who killed the Archbishop
in his cathedral. Becket was canonized, and his shrine at
Canterbury became a major centre of pilgrimage, but his death
changed little: the balance of compromise had not shifted
greatly, though restrictions on appeals to Rome were lifted
and the basic immunity of criminous clerics from lay
jurisdiction was confirmed.
 91

The murder of Becket shook the whole of Christendom.

Henry was faced with an angry Church and an angry people. The
King was obliged to do penance in public for Becket's death.
In 1172 it was agreed that the Church would invest the
bishop, but the King would have to be consulted on the choice
of candidates. The King and the English Church continued to
work together until the Reformation in the 1530s.
2. The Great Charter (Magna Carta) 1215
When Henry II died in 1189 he was succeeded as King by
his son, Richard I (1189-1199), called Richard the Lion
Hearted. One of the historians says: "Few English Kings have
played so small a part in the affairs of England and so large
a part in the affairs of Europe as Richard I." Richard was
the complete cosmopolitan military adventurer - tough,
glamorous, a brilliant general and a restless wanderer. As a
King of England he was a disaster. He spent only two short
spells in the country, one of three months and one of two
months; otherwise, he was campaingning in France, Sicily and
Palestine, where in 1191 he fought his way to within 12 miles
of Jerusalem.
Robin Hood is a legendary folk hero. King Richard I
(1189-1199) spent most of his reign fighting in the crusades
(the wars between Christians and Muslims in the Middle East).
While Richard was away, England was governed by his brother
John, who was unpopular because of all the taxes he imposed.
According to legend, Robin Hood lived with his band of 'merry
men' in Sherwood Forest outside Nottingham, stealing from the
rich and giving to the poor. He was constantly hunted by the
 92

local sheriff (the royal representative) but was never

captured.
He was killed in this struggle in 1199. Having no
legitimate children, Richard was succeeded by his brother
John (1199-1216). John was faced with three main problems.
The power of the English nobility was increasing; the
possessions of the English kings in France were daily
becoming more difficult to defend; and the Church was eager
to gather into its hands as much power as possible. In 1204
England lost Normandy and Anjou.
In John's attempt to maintain his position, he rode
roughshod over the Church and many of the nobility. His clash
with the clergy caused England to be placed under Papal
interdict between 1208 to 1213. John became the vassal of the
pope. The pope became John's closest ally. Meanwhile, the
English nobility had become tired of the demands King John
had been making on them. The war with the papacy and the
French war had meant that John had increased taxation and had
used every available means of collecting the money. The
Church had been angry, first at the war with the papacy, and
secondly at the King's surrender to the pope. Thus, in 1215
the richest and most powerful sections of English society -
the aristocracy, the Church and the merchants - formed a
coalition against the King. At Runnymede, a small island in
the Thames, near Windsor, John's opponents obliged him to
agree to the terms of Magna Carta, or the Great Charter. 1215
is one of the most important dates in British history: it
rivals 1066 in fame. This charter of liberties was a
 93

condemnation of John's use of feudal, judicial and other

governmental powers, for it defined and limited royal rights.
Magna Carta was in effect an enormous list of everything that
was wrong with government as John applied it. It covered
practically everything. Baronial liberties were protected and
freemen were provided with some guaranties against arbitrary
royal actions. The crown alone would not be able to determine
its rights. So Magna Carta could be called "The cornerstone
of English liberties."
John had no intention of agreeing Magna Carta without a
fight. The war with the barons continued. John died in 1216.
England was deep in war. His son Henry became the King Henry
III (1216-1272). The reign of Henry III saw constitutional
developments of the utmost importance. These came about more
the weaknesses of the King than because of his strengths.
Throughout his reign, noble factions struggled for control
over the crown. Under the pressure of their rivalries, the
concept of absolute royal power was modified to accommodate
the principle of consultation. The years of Henry's rule were
marked by a series of minor crises in which the baronage
tried to strengthen their position, often on the basis laid
by Magna Carta.
Since his childhood (Henry became the King at nine)
Henry had depended on papal advisers, and so in 1254 he
accepted the crown of Sicily from the pope. For an English
king to defend his claim to a distant country required vast
expenditure of money. Henry raised enormous sums through the
Church. There were bad harvests in the three years following
 94

1255 and hence economic hardship in the country. The taxes

were bitterly resented, and the king's actions aroused great
anger in the country.
At Easter 1258 a group of barons rebelled. Henry was
obliged to abandon the Sicilian crown and to consent to the
Provisions of Oxford. These proposals were intended to remedy
the abuses of Henry's government. A panel of four knights was
set up in each country to supervise local government. The
King's chief official in the country, the sheriff, was to be
appointed for only one year at a time. At the royal court
"traditional" offices were to be restored and their positions
more clearly defined. In addition, in 1259 the Provisions of
Westminster were passed by the gentlemen or knights. These
demanded reforms in baronial administration which were
similar to the reforms that had been undertaken at the royal
court.
A council of 15 people was appointed to direct the
government of the country. Increasingly, however, it became
difficult to rule through this council and the panels in the
counties. The pope condemned the barons and gentry and
supported Henry. St Louis, King of France, also strongly
backed Henry, his fellow sovereign, in this time of crisis.
Inevitably there was war. Henry and his son, Prince
Edward, commanded the royalist forces, and Simon de Montfort,
Earl of Leicester, led the barons. In April 1264 the King and
Edward were badly defeated, and they were taken prisoner by
the barons. Simon was effectively ruler of England.
 95

To help him in the task of government, Simon summoned

knights and burgesses to his parliaments in June 1264 and
January 1265. Parliaments had first been established as a
regular form of government by the Provisions of Oxford in
1258. Parliaments were meetings of the most important man in
the country to exchange views and offer advice. Parliament's
origins are unclear but the calling together of barons and
prelates to exchange views and give advice to the monarch was
not a great departure from the King's traditional practice of
consulting the great men of the Kingdom. The barons disliked
the great power Simon wielded. Simon was defeated and killed
in 1265. Henry's energies were devoted to directing the
rebuilding of Westminster Abbey, where was buried when he
died in 1272. The Abbey remains his best memorial.
So the 13th century saw the emergence of parliaments,
the forerunners of modern parliaments, and also the
establishment of universities at Oxford and Cambridge.
Similarly Inns of Court were established in London, to teach
and look after law students. More lawyers were needed to
serve an increasingly complex society. Secular lawyers were
useful servants and officials for the King.
Edward I (1272-1307), the son and successor of King
Henry III, might be taken as a pattern of the medieval King.
He is remembered on the whole for his achievements rather
than by his personality. He attempted to live by the ideal of
Cristian Knighthood - devoultry gallant and heroically
chivalrous. There was little of the fanatic in Edward: he was
a pragmatic Englishman. He was a determined monarch, firm in
 96

the defence of his rights. After establishing himself in

England he devoted his first years as King to Wales. The
turbulent princes of Wales, under their leader Llywylyn, were
defeated and brought to order in the first ten years of
Edward's reign. By the Statute of Wales (1284) the
principality was finally annexed to the English crown. As a
gesture of reconciliation, the King's new-born son was
proclaimed Prince of Wales and the title has been held by
successive heirs to the throne ever since.
In 1296 Edward I secured considerable success in
Scotland and again in 1298 when he defeated Wallace and
carried off the Scottish coronation stone of Scone. Scottish
resistance continued under the leadership of Robert Bruce.
Edward died in 1307.
Apart from his achievements in strengthening the unity
of what became Great Britain, Edward was a powerful and
effective law-giver. He was also a formidable administrator,
a great builder and a statesman of European reputation.
Edward II (1307-1327), the son of Edward I, ran into
severe difficulties with the barons. The barons rose against
Edward in 1311. Edward's ineptitude as a soldier was
demonstrated at Bannockburn in 1314, when Robert Bruce
destroyed the English army with humiliating completeness.
This battle assured Scottish independence for a further three
centuries and condemned northern England to be a barren
borderland ruled by war lords. Edward's extravagant
behaviour, his addiction to favourites led to strong baronial
opposition, and from 1322 there was open civil war.
 97

In 1327 Edward's queen, Isabella, with the Earl

Mortimer, gained custody of her apparent, Prince Edward, and
then took over the government from Edward II. The King was
brutally murdered.
Isabella and Mortimer ruled for the first years of the
reign of Edward III (1327-1377), but when parliament met in
Nottingham in 1330, Edward and his friends entered the castle
through and underground passage and seized Mortimer. He was
hanged, Isabella was confined in Castle Rising. Edward III
possessed the ability and determination to restore royal
authority in England. He was also notably successful in his
details with the barons; he had no favorites, and he brought
many of the leading barons into the royal circle as Knights
of the Order of the Garter, which he established in 1348.
3. The Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453)
Like his grandfather, Edward III was a great and popular
soldier. His war was wholly with France. In 1337 he claimed
the throne of France through his mother. Thus began the
Hundred Years' War. English sovereigns did not formally
renounce their claim to the French throne until the Peace of
Amiens in 1802.
In 1346 Edward inwaded France. The English were trapped
by the French at Crecy, but the English archers were equipped
with the long-bow, and this proved a deadly weapon. The
English archers cut down the French knights, and the outcome
of the Battle of Crecy (1346) was another great English
victory, Edward went on to take the important coastal city of
Calais.
 98

In 1355 war was renewed. At the Battle of Poitiers in

1355 Edward's son, Edward, the Black Prince, defeated the
French decisively, and John, king of France, was taken
prisoner. In May 1360 England and France concluded the Treaty
of Bretigny, by which England's ownership of Gascony was
confirmed and England was also granted Aquitaine. John was
returned to France on the payment of the gigantic ransom of
&500,000. The most significant point to emerge from the first
phase of the Hundred Years' War was that the French army
could not beat the English; at the same time, however,
England could never conquer France.
The second half of Edward's reign was a sadder story.
The plague (called the "Black Death") struck England in 1348-
49 killing roughly one-third of the population within ten
years, and radically altering society. Feudalism was already
breaking down before the arrival of the plague. The reduction
of the work-force to between two-thirds and half of what it
had been meant that there was a severe shortage of labour. It
was not possible to keep peasants on one estate when a
neighbouring lord was willing to offer employment at higher
wages. The feudal system, which had obliged each labourer to
stay in the village where he was born, was upheld by the
Statute of Labourers, passed in 1351. Enforcement of the
Statute was sporadic but harsh. The Act was detested by the
peasantry, which also suffered from terribly heavy taxes,
which the govenment imposed to pay for the costs of the war
and for an increasingly expensive administration.
4. The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 under the head of Wat Tyler
 99

The position of the crown became more serious under

Edward III's successor and grandson Richard II (1377-1399).
The grievances of the peasantry came to a head in 1381. Led
by Wat Tyler, angry peasants marched to London, where they
beheaded Simon Sudbury, the archbishop of Canterbury and
Chancellor, and Sir Robert Hales, the Treasurer. At
Smiethfield the young King Richard II met the rebel leaders.
They demanded the repeal of oppressive statutes, the
abolition of serfdom and the division of Church property.
Thinking Wat Tyler was going to kill the king, the mayor of
London struck Tyler down and killed him. Richard II took
charge of the situation, riding forward and putting himself
at the head of the rebels. The crowds dispersed quietly.
Richard had no intention of giving way to rebel demands, and
all who had bebelled were punished.
In addition, the monarchy and the aristocracy undertook
a campaign against the followers of a religious reformer,
John Wyclif. He wished to cleanse the Church of corruption
and to reform it. Wyclif's followers were known as Lollards.
Their policy of reform seemed to be turning into revolution,
and they were therefore persecuted by both Church and state.
5. Lollards -
In July 1399 Henry of Lancaster came back to England and
defeated and captured Richard. Henry had himself declared
king in 1399. In 1400 Henry ordered the murder of Richard,
who had been kept in prison since his overthrow.
Richard's ruthless behaviour began a bloody period in
English history. After Henry's seizure of the crown, the
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House of Lancaster, to which Henry IV belonged, was not

allowed to rule in peace. The House of Lancaster sprang from
John of Gault, son of Edward III. But Edward III had had 11
children, and the House of York, through the House of
Mortimer, had a stronger claim to the crown. The battles
between the Houses of Lancaster and York, which lasted from
1455 till 1485, are known as the Wars of the Roses. The
emblem of the House of Lancaster was a red rose, and that of
the House of York was a white rose.
Henry IV was a capable administrator and a fine soldier.
He was succeeded as king by his son. Henry, who became the
famous Henry V (1413-1422).
In the attempt to seal the divisions in the rulling
class, Henry had Richard II's body brought to London and
reinterred in Westminster Abbey. Partly to occupy the
nobility and partly to enlarge England's French empire, Henry
reopened war with France. In 1415 Henry crushed a generally
superior French army at Agincourt. In 1420, by the Treaty of
Troyes, Henry was recognized as heir to Charles VI, the
French king. But Henry died suddenly in 1422, just two months
before King Charles VI. Thus by two months Henry's ambition
to rule both England and France was thwarted.
Prince Henry was just nine months old when his father,
Henry V died. In France there was a new king, Charles VII,
who was determined to expel the English from France. He was
helped by a peasant girl, Joan of Arc, whom the French
claimed to be a saint. Although Joan was burnt to death by
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the English in 1431, the luck she had brought the French
persisted. The English empire in France was finished.
Henry VI was a gentle and pious man, but weak both
physically and mentally. In 1461 Edward, the new duke of York
and leader of the Yorkist cause, marched on London at the
head of an army. Henry VI was put to the Tower of London and
Edward himself crowned king.
Edward ruled only one interruption until 1483. In 1470
the Lancastrians revolted against Edward IV, and Henry VI was
briefly reinstated as king. The Lancastrians were totally
defeated in Battle, and Henry, a pathetic figure, was
murdered in 1471.
Edward IV was succeeded by his twelve-year-old son,
Edward V. Edward IV had nominated his brother, Richard of
Gloucestor, as protector of the realm in the event of his own
early death. Edward could not have foreseen that Gloucester
would stage a coup and take the throne for himself. Richard
seized Edward V and put him in the Tower. The duke claimed
that Edward's marriage had been unlawful and that his
children were bastards. Edward was doubtless murdered by the
duke's men, though no conclusive evidence has ever been
produced to prove that Richard was guilty. In 1674 the
skeleton of Edward was discovered during the alterations in
the Tower.
Richard's only son died in 1484. The heir to the throne
was a Lancastrian, Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond. Henry
struck against Richard in 1485. At the battle of Bosworth in
Leicestershire Henry defeated and killed Richard III. The
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earl of Richmond became Henry VII. The Wars of the Roses came
to an end. England now had a new dynasty, the Tudors.
6. Tudors
Henry VII came to the throne after a period of weak
monarchy and Civil War. His considerable achievement was
threefold: he made the monarchy strong; he brought stability
to England; and he earned the respect, if not affection of
his subjects. His basic aim was to avoid having to "go on his
travels" again. To that end he manoeuvred skillfully, both at
home and abroad, and improved the effectiveness of the
existing governmental machinery. Henry took an active role in
government, personally supervising the administration and
reasserting monarchial control over the nobility. The crown's
feudal rights and judicial authority were both reasserted,
and was its control of the localities. Henry understood that
this recovery of royal authority was essential for the re-
creation of political stability. The king had not only to be
respected, feared and obeyed, but also to be in a position
where it was expedient for nobles to treat him thus. The
peaceful country that he left Henry VIII was a testimony
to Henry VII's ability and success.
Henry VIII's reign (1509-1547) was to be most notable
for the "break from Rome", the nationalization of the English
Church and the beginnings of the English Reformation.
Henry VIII spent his early years devoting most of his
energies to the highly competitive international relations of
the period, especially war with France.
 103

Henry was bored with the routine of government and was

quite willing to leave the affairs of state to his
Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey, who was a remarkable man. He was
the archbishop of York, cardinal and ultimately legate a
Latere (the permanent representative of the pope in England),
a position which gave him complete control of the English
Church.
Henry's failure to have a legitimate son was a question-
mark against the achievement of Tudor stability, for though
his wife Catherine of Aragon, had born him five children,
only a daughter Mary had survived. Henry decided to divorce
his queen, because he considered it essential to have a son
to succeed him, fearing that a female succession would bring
the return of Civil War.
Henry therefore sought the annulment of his marriage to
Catherine of Aregon on the grounds that the Pope lacked the
power to dispense with the biblical injunction against
marrying a brother's widow, as Henry had done. Catherine,
however, was the aunt of the Emperor Charles V, and the
papacy proved unyielding. This led to first the fall of
Wolsey and later to a break with papal jurisdiction over the
English Church; Henry became its "Supreme Head" (Act of
Supremacy, 1534). He married Anne Boleyn, whom he described
as a "rose without a thorn", had a daughter, Elizabeth, by
her and bastardized Mary by the Act of Succession; and then,
suspecting Anne of adultery, had her executed and declared
his marriage to her void, thus bastardizing Elizabeth (1536);
before marrying Jane Seymore and having a son, Edward (1537).
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In 1536 a second Act of Succession allowed Henry an

extraordinary and unprecedented freedom to name his heir.
Meanwhile, the direction of Henry's ecclesiastical policies
was creating serious problems. As a result of the royal
supremacy, all religious questions became political and royal
will was central to the often hesitant process of
Reformation. Opponents were treated harshly and sometimes
unjustly, for Henry brooked no opposition and took the
customary wilfulness of monarchs very far indeed. Sir Thomas
More, who had vigorously persecuted Protestants, resigned as
Lord Chancellor (1532) in protest at Henry's divorce, was
imprisoned for refusing to swear the oath demanded under the
Succession Act, and executed for treason in 1535. From 1534
church courts were obliged to enforce parliamentary
legislation. The personal and political views of the monarch
took precedence over doctrinal clarity. As a young man Henry,
a second son initially intended for the church, had been
doctrinally conservative and had written against Luther,
earning the title Fidei Defensor ("Defender of the Faith") as
a result. In the 1530s his breach with the papacy, and the
growing influence of Protestantism in circles close to him,
led Henry to move in the direction of Lutheranism, while Anna
Boleyn actively sponsored Protestants.
Lutheranism -
An official English Bible was produced (1537), and every
parish church was instructed to have a copy (1538). It could
only serve to encourage the Protestants, for the Protestant
faith was based on the authority of the Scriptures, on the
 105

belief that the truth aboun the Christian religion was to be

found in the Bible, particularly in the New Testament, and
that any man could discover the truths of religion for
himself. According to Protestant doctrine, salvation was
personal and could not be achieved through the Sacraments, as
the Roman Catholic Church taught.
Between 1536 and 1539 Henry mounted an attack on the
monasteries, as they owned vast wealth. Cromwell had a scheme
to use the monastic lands as a source of income on which the
monarchy could life forever, but the king desperately needed
the money from the quick sale of monastic property to pay for
government expenditure. (Thomas Cromwell was the most
powerful of the king's ministers). The land went both to old
landowners and to new men with money, who were establishing
themselves for the first time. Their ownership of this
property gave landowners an interest in maintaining the
Reformation settlement.
The reputation of the Church was at a low ebb, and all
agreed that some reform of the Church was needed. However,
the hierarchy of the Church was dominated by one of the
strongest rulers in English history, who enjoyed devoted
loyalty even from people who were deeply offended by his
policies. This was illustrated late in 1536, when the most
serious rebellion on the king's reign, the Pilgrimage of
Grace (which demanded a return to the Church of Rome and was
supported widely in the north of England) failed because its
leaders believed the king when he promised that he would
 106

reverse his religious policies. Henry had no intention of

keeping his promise, but the rebellion was abandoned.
Thomas Cromwell reformed the financial administration of
the country and established six courts, or departments, each
responsible for collecting a particular sort of revenue.
Cromwell chose to be Principal Secretary rather than
Chancellor, as Wolsey had been; he thus elevated the
Secretaryship to new importance in government, which position
was retained until 19th century. Most important, he made the
Privy Council the greatest of the king's councils. It became
the centre of government under the Tudors and Stuarts and
later developed into the modern Cabinet Cromwell's reforms
laid the foundation for the machinery of government of the
modern state.
After Catherine of Aragon, Henry married five more
times. His last wife outlived him, but by then two had been
divorced, one had died in childbirth, and two more were
executed. Henry was cruel and egoistic. For reasons of state
he executed Thomas More, the leadind humanist scholar of the
day and, later, a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. Henry
dispensed with his two great ministers, Wolsey and Cromwell,
without regret.
Yet Henry's authority was supreme, even though he had no
permanent army or local bureaucracy. He had great presence.
He was the king to his fingertips. He struck at the Roman
Church when it was weak and without friends, and his
unwitting creation of a National Church provoked a favourable
 107

response from a nationalistic people. From 1534 one can refer

to the Church of England instead of the Church in England.
The only son of Henry VIII, Edward became King Edward VI
in 1547. He was only nine. The regency council set up by
Henry before his death to rule during Edward's minority was
dominated by Protestants. In 1549 Archbishop Cranmer wrote
the "Book of Common Prayer" (in English), which gave the
Church of England a very moderate Protestant form of worship.
However, by 1552 extreme Protestant thinking had prevailed
and Cranmer wrote a second prayer book, together with 42
articles stating Church doctrine. This was the high point of
radical Protestantism in the Church of England's History.
Henry VIII had excluded a number of powerful men from
the regency council to prevent any one man from assuming
complete control, but this very thing happened almost at
once. The duke of Somerset became the effective head of
government, and when a deteriorating economy let to a serious
peasants' rebellion in 1549, the duke of Northumberland took
advantage of the situation and seized power. Somerset was an
idealist who became a martyr in the eyes of the ordinary
people after the execution in 1552. But this lack of firm
government deeply alarmed the rulling classes. Northumberland
was an unattractive power-seeker, but he restored a measure
of strong government. He had the complete confidence of the
young king, but, unfortunately for Northumberland, Edward was
a sickly boy, and in 1552 it was clear that he would not live
much longer. Northumberland had good reason to be afraid of
 108

the succession of Edward's half-sister, Mary, the daughter of

Catherine of Aragon. Northumberland had forced through the
change to extreme Protestantism, while Mary remained an
ardent Catholic.
Northumberland persuaded the king to name Lady Jane Grey
Heir to the throne. She was the granddaughter of Henry VII.
She was also the wife of Nortumberland's son, and it was
clear that her succession to the throne was a means to allow
her father-in-law to retain control of government. When
Edward died in 1553 Jane was proclaimed queen, but she
received barely any support, and Mary Tudor took the Throne
with little trouble. Lady Jane, an innocent and tragic
figure, was executed, as were her husband and the duke of
Northumberland. Edward VI had not impressed history; the
indications are that he would have been a cruel and arrogant
ruler.
Mary devoted herself to the restoration of the Catholic
religion in England. It was not difficult to restore the old
services and doctrines, but it was impossible for the Church
to regain the property it had lost during the Reformation. A
number of Protestants refused to change their religion, and
those who openly defied Mary were executed. Among those who
were burnt at the stake were the bishops of London and Oxford
and, most important, Thomas Cranmer, the archbishop of
Canterbury. This harsh policy did not put out Protestantism:
it only served to nourish it, and the queen earned the title
of "Bloody Mary".
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In 1553 Mary married Philip II of Spain. Mary hoped that

Philip would bring the resources of Spain and of the Habsburg
family to her aid in the difficult task of Catholicising
England. Philip in turn looked for the support of English
military and sea power. He was troubled by discontent in the
Netherlands, which at that time was part of the Spanish
empire, and he was engaged in war with France. Philip had
little liking for England and the English. They also disliked
him and saw in the connection with Spain only trouble and
expense.
Habsburg -
English fears were realized when war was declared on
France in support of Spain. The English were no match for the
French, who in 1557 took Calais, the only English possession
left in France. Mary was deeply moved by the loss, but in
fact England was better off without Calais, for English
possessions in France only served as a source of troubles
between the two countries.
Both Mary and Philip wanted a son, and when, 14 months
after their marriage, it was quite clear that Mary was not
goin to have any children Philip went back to Spain, never to
return to England nor to see Mary again. For Mary this was
the severest of many blows in her reign. She was faced with
the unpleasant fact that when she died she would be succeeded
by her half-sister, Elizabeth. Mary was deeply suspicious of
Elizabeth's hasty conversion to Catholicism, and feared - as
it turned out, with justification - that on her death
Elizabeth, and England with her, would abandon Rome.
 110

Elizabeth I's reign (1558-1603) was notable for its

longevity [ ]. She was Queen for 44 years.
Elizabeth came straight to the throne aged 25 out of near-
imprisonment. It is not clear where Elizabeth stood
theologically, but she judged that if a religious settlement
were not quickly reached, England, like other European
countries, could be consumed by religious wars. Elizabeth
aimed to accomodate the views of as many people as possible
in a national Church. Continued adherence to Rome was
impossible. The Roman Catholic Church had condemned the
marriage of her mother, Anne Boleyn, to Henry VIII, and
Elizabeth was their offspring. Elizabeth had indicated at the
beginning of her reign that the Catholic service was not to
her liking. She took the title of Supreme Governor of the
Church rather than Supreme Head, as Henry VIII had done,
hoping that Catholics would be able to accept their monarch's
lesser claim to governorship of the church.
Elizabeth was obliged by the House of Commons and
pressure from within the Church to adopt a prayer books
similar to that of 1552. This was distinctly Protestant, as
were the Thirty-nine Articles, which set out Church doctrine.
She hoped that Catholics might in time come to prefer the
national Anglican Church service to Latin mass. Elizabeth
enjoyed a long reprieve before being excommunicated in 1570;
even then her excommunication was clumsily handled and
Elizabeth appeared to be the aggrieved party. The Roman
Catholic Church did not, in fact, launch a serious missionary
 111

programme in England until the 1580s, by which time the

Catholic cause was lost.
Elizabeth believed that it was a royal prerogative to
decise Church matters. The Commons, which had been involved
in all major questions of religion since 1529, believed
otherwise. Though Puritan opposition had abated by the end of
1580s, the Puritan party remained a strong minority in the
Church and in Parliament.
The Commons was concerned for the Queen to marry and to
secure the succession. Marriage never came. Elizabeth used
marriage as a diplomatic weapon, gaining the friendship of
countries whose rulers thought she would be a good match.
Marriage with an English nobleman was impossible, as the
Tudors considered themselves ordained by God to rule and
therefore very distant from even the noblest house. Elizabeth
had a succession of affairs most notably with the Earl of
Leicester and Essex. The Earl of Essex had a rebellion
against Elizabeth, which led to his execution and contributed
to the queen's deep melancholia at the end of her reign.
Elizabeth realized that Catholic Europe - and in
particular Spain, the leading Catholic nation - could never
be expected to support her religious settlement. Her foreign
policy was designed to ensure that Spain's many problems were
never solved. She helped the Dutch, who were in rebellion
against Philip II of Spain, and on the whole maintained a
policy of friendship toward France, Spain's greatest rival in
Europe.
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The strongest reason for not executing Mary, Queen of

Scots, who fled to England in 1568 and was the centre of
Catholic conspiraces while she was in Elizabeth's custody,
was that she was the recognized Catholic claimant to the
English throne. On her death their claim would pass not to
her son, who was being brought up a Protestant, but to Philip
II of Spain. Mary's part in the plot to kill the queen in
1587 persuaded Elizabeth to agree to the House of Commons
demand to Mary's execution.
In 1588 Philip launched the Spanish Armada against
England. It comprised 130 ships and 8,000 seamen, and it was
intended to support a Spanish army from the Netherlands to
England. But though the Spanish fleet was larger than the
English one, its ships were less effective in northern
waters. The English were at home off their own coasts, and
they were led by Sir Francis Drake. In July the English
defeated the Spanish fleet, and the remaining Spanish ships
limped home after being further savaged by storms. The defeat
of the Armada was hailed as a great victory in England. Both
Elizabeth and Protestantism had been saved. However, the war
with Spain continued, and English successes thereafter were
infrequent and often unspectacular. Of great concern
to Elizabeth was the fact that the war, like all other
ventures in Foreign policy, was costing a lot of money.
It was financial considerations that held up Elizabeth's
conquest of Ireland, which was completed until 1603, the year
of her death. The English controlled the Pale, the area
around Dublin, but felt that the rest of Ireland should be
 113

under their control, if only to stop Irish attacks on their

territory and to prevent Ireland from being used as a base
for enemy attacks against England. The English presence in
Ireland served to consolidate Irish support for Roman
Catholicism. On the other hand, Elizabeth had considerable
sucess with Scotland. The two countries shared the same
relifion, and, most important, King James hoped to succeed
Elizabeth and did not wish to endanger his inheritance by
anti-English moves.
Elizabeth was confronted with serious economic problems.
First there was her own financial weakness, which was caused
by a reliance on a fixed income at a time of high inflation.
Perpetual meanness and a willingness to increase royal funds
by whatever means available, from parliamentary grants to
shares in pirate ventures, saved the monarchy from
bankruptcy. But it was a hard job, and it is amazing that
Elizabeth's government achieved what it did on an income of
about @200,000 a year (Philip of Spain must have had at least
four times as much). The gentry and merchants who did well
out of speculation in monastic lands and foreign trade were
often, as Members of Parliament, the least sympathetic to
royal demands for increased revenues, believing the monarchy
should live on its traditional sources of income. Nobody
clearly understands the reasons for inflation in Tudor
England, but Elizabeth's stabilization of the currency by
refusing to debase the coinage any further (as Henry VIII and
Northumberland had done) eased inflation considerably.
 114

Some of the distress in the countryside among the poor

(at least 90% of the population lived in the country) was
caused by the consolidation (enclosure) of land under the
ownership of one man or a group of landowners in each
district, a measure desidned to improve arable farming or to
introduce sheep farming.
The results of enclosure were a drop in employment in
the countryside and the drift of men to towns which could not
absorb the surplus labour. Enclosures happened throughout the
Tudor period and continued until the 18th century, when they
were most numerous. Although Elizabeth's government took a
strong line against enclosures, in practice the momentum of
the enclosure movement was little affected.
Elizabeth's government instituted two social measures of
great importance. In 1563 the Statute of Artificers made
masters responsible for the welfare and education of their
apprentices for a period of seven years. The Poor Laws of
1597 and 1601 obliged the parished to provide for the sick
and unemployed. These were attempts by the government to
regularize conditions in the craft industries and to look
after the poor who could not help themselves. The state did
not pity those who were considered ablebodied and idle, and
often men who were unemployed as a result of the general
state of the economy were harshly treated. As with all Tudor
and later legislation, the responsibility for enforcing it
was laid on the parished, which were controlled by the local
landowners and merchants. As (virtually) unpaid Justices of
the Peace were responsible for law, order, welfare and
 115

adherence to the true religion in their locality. If the

justices did not co-operate, there was little that could be
done about it. Elizabeth's reign saw the founding out of
local funds, of many grammar schools, hospitals and alms
houses to look ater the aged. The Cristian conscience has
demanded in all ages that the rich should help the poor, but
the need was sharper after the dissolution of the
monasteries, which had for centuries helped both the local
community and travellers. Some of the money available as a
consequence of the confiscation of Church property was used
to found professorships at the universities of Oxford and
Cambridge and for other educational purposes, but the sum was
a tiny fraction of the whole.
Elizabeth's reign was full with religious tensions and
serious economic problems, but the achievements of a
religious settlement which avoided warfare and the defeat of
Spain were considerable. Elizabeth was well served by her
principal minister, William Cecil, Lord Burghley [ ],
but her own talents, intelligence and charm were ultimately
responsible for the success of her monarchy.
There was an effervescent spirit in Elizabethan England.
London was a lively, though insanitary, city of 200,000
people, Oxford and Cambridge universities were great centres
of Classical and theological study (Cambridge inclined to
Puritanism). Elizabeth's reign coincided with a highly
productive phase in English literature, which was to continue
throughout James I's reign. Edmund Spenser, for example,
wrote the lyric poem "The Faerie Queene" in honour of
 116

Elizabeth. In the theatres that sprang up just outside London

(to escape the jurisdiction of the City) plays by
Shakespeare, Marlowe and Ben Jonson were performed. William
Shakespeare dominated the theatre. Though little is known
about his life, he received the patronage of both Elizabeth
and James I.
The growing wealth of Tudor England was reflected in a
vast building programme. Defence considerations were minimal,
except on the Scottish borders, and windows were therefore
large, looking out on to the estates of property owners.
Often monasteries were converted into local great houses or
local churches. Elizabeth's reign saw a flourishing of the
half-timbered style of building. Also ideas from Italy had a
marked influence on English building.
Elizabeth's reign produced a crop of adventurers, who
continued the exploration of the New World. From 1577 to 1580
Sir Francis Drake completed the circumnavigation of the globe
- the first by an Englishman. By Elizabeth's reign the
territory of Newfoundland, claimed during Henry VII's reign
for England, was recognized as one of the world's great
fisheries. Attempts to establish colonies in America failed,
despite the efforts of, among others, Sir Walter Raleigh. It
was he who perpetuated his sovereign's name by calling his
proposed colony Virginia, in honour of Virgin Queen.
7.Scotland in the 16th century.
In 1503 James iv married Margaret Tudor? the eldest daughter
of Henry VII. The marriage was intended to stabilize
relations between England and Scotland. But Henry IV and
 117

Henry VIII who had succeeded his father to the English throne
in 1509, were in different alliances. James backed Scotland’s
old ally, France, and England supported the Holy Roman
Empire. There was war between England and Scotland in
1513.James IV was killed. James V, the next Scottish king,
proved ambitious, assertive and energetic. He exploited the
church’s funds shamelessly, knowing that, with Protestantism
on the attack, the Church would not wish to give up his
friendship. James V’s marriage was to Marie de Guise. Her
family was one of the most powerful in France and would
shortly be the leaders of the Catholic cause in that country.
James foolishly embarked on war with Henry VIII, as his
father had done. The Scots were defeated at Solway Moss in
1542, and James died in the same year. The new monarch became
his one-week-old daughter Mary, Queen of Scots. The war with
England continued, as the regency (headed by the extremely
capable queen mother, Marie de Guise) would not assent to
Henry’s demands for custody of the queen, her marriage to his
son Edward or the ultimate control of Scotland by the
English. Rather,the queen mother preferred to send Mary to
France, to contract a French marriage for her and to maintain
Scotland’s alliance with France.
Scotland had remained within the Roman Catholic Church
while Henry VIII broke ties with Rome. But it was impossible
for the Scottish Church to prevent Protestant literature and
ideas from crossing the border, particularly when, after
Henry VIII’s death in 1545, England became a fully Protestant
country.
 118

The most ardent of Protestants was John Knox.After

serving a sentence in the French galleys, Knox continued his
work, which he saw as the task of converting Scotland to
Protestantism. He was tough and determined. He preached
Calvinism, the most severe form of Protestantism. It placed
great emphasis on the authority of the Bible and on extreme
simplicity in church services. Two tenets of Calvinism were
predestination and assurance: according to Calvinist
doctrine, there was a group of the faithful which was
foreordained (predestined) to be saved by God, and this
predestined elite knew, or was assured, that its members were
the “elect”, or the “chosen”. In practical terms Calvinism
gave its followers a tough, fighting creed and the absolute
certainty that they were right.
Calvinism spread like fire through Scotland, and the
queen mother, Marie de Guise, was obliged to call in a French
army to confront the Protestants. Queen Elisabeth of England
intervened at this point to prevent a French victory and the
defeat of her co-religionists. In 1560 an English fleet and
army were sent to support the Scottish Protestant rebels. The
French were defeated and withdrew, and in June Marie de Guise
died. The Scottish Parliament, meeting in August 1560,
abolished the authority of the pope in Scotland, and the
Latin mass was outlawed. Decisions about the details of
worship were left to a group of reformers led by John Knox,
who agreed on a strictly Calvinist doctrinal settlement. The
severity of Calvinism extended to moral and social life. It
gave piety and purpose to the Scottish people, but it also
 119

robbed them of what would now be considered innocent

pleasures, like organ music in church and Christmas
celebrations. However, Catholicism continued to be a major
religious force in the highlands, just as it endured in the
poorer and wilder north of England after the English
Reformation.
Mary, Queen of Scots, had married the Dauhpin Francis
(the heir to the French throne) in 1558 and was queen of
France during his brief reign from April 1559 to December
1560. After Francis II’s death there was no place for Mary at
the French court, and she returned to Scotland in August
1561. Mary was, of course, Catholic, but she wisely accepted
the fact that Protestantism was the religion of most of the
Scots.
In 1565 Mary married her cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord
Darnley, who was also a Catholic. The marriage quickly ran
into trouble, principally because Darnley wanted the
authority of kingship, which Mary could not and would not
give him. In 1566 Darnley and others murdered the queen’s
secretary, David Riccio, who, as a confidant of Mary’s, had
aroused Darnley’s intense jealousy. In 1567 Darnley’s house
in Edinburgh was blown up; he was killed. It was common
knowledge that this was the work of James Hepburn, earl of
Bothwell. Two months later Mary married Bothwell, according
to the rites of the Protestant Church. The nobility had been
alarmed, at first Darnley and then Bothwell grabbed power by
marrying mary, and they decided to force Mary to abdicate in
favour of her baby son, whose regency could be arranged to
 120

her satisfaction. Mary’s conduct had outraged the Scottish

nation, and she could have expected no popular support.
Mary escaped from captivity in 1568, fought a battle and
lost, and then fled to England, where she became a prisoner
of Queen Elizabeth. Her son, James VI, remained in Scotland
and finally proclaimed himself king in 1583. He had found the
regency very irksome and was determined not to let himself be
controlled by the nobility again. His main aim was to secure
his succession to the English throne. When Mary was executed
in 1587 for complicity in the Babington plot James kept
quiet. He ensured that Scotland remained neutral during the
attack of the Spanish Armada in the following year. In 1603
James went to England to become king on Elizabeth’s death. He
was eager to possess his new inheritance, which was vastly
rich compared with Scotland.