Textbook Reading Yay! Part 1 (Notes p. 2-14)

History of England

• zeitgeist: spirit of the era
• Celts, Druids, Gaels, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Danish Invasion (Norse - Vikings), Normans
• Christianity in England arises by Roman cleric Saint Augustine, converts King Ethelbert of Kent
• Alfred "The Great" resists Danish encroachment
• William "The Conqueror" - feudalism is instilled in Anglo-Saxon society
• Henry Plantagenet - ablest kings (Thomas Becket - religious devotion)
• King Richard I (Crusades), then King John signed the Magna Carta; first beginning of a constitutional government
• Lancasters (Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI), Yorks, Tudors
• War of Roses (1455-1485)
• Black Death = No more Feudalism; land owners pay peasants

Anglo-Saxon Literature

• Anglo-Saxon Poetry - "The Wanderer" and "Beowulf"
• "Beowulf" - long poem describing a warrior featuring qualities of dignity, strength, and courage
• Anglo-Saxon Prose: 'vulgar tongue', England's greatest Latin scholars was Venerable Bede wrote History of the England Church
• The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles

Literature of the English Middle Ages

• first true dramas were initially started by Geoffrey Chaucer
• Medieval Drama: miracle plays or mystery plays, religious stories into dramas, then morality play
• An Emerging National Identity: Movable Type concocted by Johann Gutenberg and issued by William Claxton
• Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales, fabliaux (French saying "short stories")