The Early Middle Ages

1
The Early Middle Ages
William I.

• The Norman Conquest
• England under the Norman and Plantagenet Kings
• 14th century

Battle of Hastings
Domesday Book
Economic Prosperity and Baronial Revolt
Reforms and English Parliament
The Lancastrian and Yorkist Kings
The War of Roses
2
The Norman Conquest

• About 1064, the powerful English noble, Harold,
  earl of Wessex, was shipwrecked on the Norman
  coast and taken prisoner by William. He secured
  his release by swearing to support Williams
  claim to the English throne. When King Edward
  died, however, the royal council elected Harold
  king.
• William secured the sanction of Pope Alexander II
  for a Norman invasion of England. The duke and
  his army landed at Pevensey on September 28,
  1066. On October 14, the Normans defeated the
  English forces at the celebrated Battle of
  Hastings, in which Harold was slain. William then
  proceeded to London, crushing the resistance he
  encountered on the way. On Christmas Day he was
  crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey.
• The English did not accept foreign rule without a
  struggle. William met the opposition, which was
  particularly violent in the north and west, with
  strong measures he was responsible for the
  devastation of great areas of the country,
  particularly in Yorkshire, where Danish forces
  had arrived to aid the Saxon rebels. By 1070 the
  Norman conquest of England was complete.
• William invaded Scotland in 1072 and forced the
  Scottish king Malcolm III MacDuncan to pay him
  homage. During the succeeding years the Conqueror
  put down series of uprisings in Normandy led by
  his eldest son Robert, who later became Robert
  II, duke of Normandy.

3

• Normans, Viking invaders from Scandinavia who
  began to settle in Normandy in northern France
  before the middle of the 9th century AD. The
  Normans then went on to conquer England, southern
  Italy, and Sicily.
• .

• During the Middle Ages, the Belgian heavy draft
  horse was known as the Flanders Great Horse and
  the Great War Horse. William the Conqueror, who
  invaded England in 1066, led his army mounted on
  a Belgian heavy draft horse. William and his
  horse each wore about 440 kg of armour.
• .

4

• Born in Falaise, France, William was the
  illegitimate son of Robert I, duke of Normandy,
  and Arletta, a tanners daughter, and is
  therefore sometimes called William the Bastard.
  Upon the death of his father, the Norman nobles,
  honouring their promise to Robert, accepted
  William as his successor.
• Rebellion against the young duke broke out almost
  immediately, however, and his position did not
  become secure until 1047 when, with the aid of
  Henry I, king of France, he won a decisive
  victory over a rebel force near Caen.
• During a visit in 1051 to his childless cousin,
  Edward the Confessor, king of England, William is
  said to have obtained Edwards agreement that he
  should succeed to the English throne. In 1053,
  defying a papal ban, William married Matilda of
  Flanders, daughter of Baldwin V, count of
  Flanders and a descendant of King Alfred the
  Great, thereby strengthening his claim to the
  crown of England.
• Henry I, fearing the strong bond between Normandy
  (Normandie) and Flanders resulting from the
  marriage, attempted in 1054 and again in 1058 to
  crush the powerful duke, but on both occasions
  William defeated the French kings forces.

William I The Conqueror (1027-1087), first Norman
king of England (1066-1087).

William I of England









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• The year 1066 was a turning point in English
  history. William I, the Conqueror, and his sons
  gave England vigorous new leadership. Norman
  feudalism became the basis for redistributing the
  land among the conquerors, giving England a new
  French aristocracy and a new social and political
  structure. England turned away from Scandinavia
  toward France, an orientation that was to last
  for 400 years.
• William was a hard ruler, punishing England,
  especially the north, when it disputed his
  authority. His power and efficiency can be seen
  in the Domesday Survey, a census for tax
  purposes, and in the Salisbury Oath of
  allegiance, which he demanded of all tenants. He
  appointed Lanfranc, an Italian clergyman, as
  archbishop of Canterbury. He also promoted church
  reform, especially by the creation of separate
  church courts, but retained royal control.
• When William died in 1087, he gave England to his
  second son, William II (Rufus), and Normandy to
  his eldest son, Robert. Henry, his third son, in
  due time got bothEngland in 1100, when William
  II died in a hunting accident, and Normandy in
  1106 by conquest. Henry I used his feudal court
  and household to organize the government. The
  exchequer (the royal treasury) was established at
  this time.
• Henry wanted his daughter, Matilda, to succeed
  him, but in 1135 his nephew, Stephen of Blois,
  seized the throne. The years from 1135 to 1154
  were marked by civil war and strife. The royal
  government Henry had built fell apart, and the
  feudal barons asserted their independence. The
  church, playing one side against the other,
  extended its authority.

6

• Battle of Hastings, was fought on October 14,
  1066, between a national army led by Harold II,
  Saxon king of England, and an invasion force led
  by William, Duke of Normandy, afterward William I
  (the Conqueror). Harolds brother, Tostig, earl
  of Northumbria, supported Williams claim, and at
  the Battle of Stamford Bridge on September 25 in
  Yorkshire, was slain by Harold. The English army
  of about 7000 soldiers then marched from
  Yorkshire and occupied a height (later called
  Senlac Hill) on the Hastings-London highway about
  10.5 km northwest of Hastings. The royal force
  was composed exclusively of infantry, armed with
  spears, swords, and battle-axes. Meanwhile,
  Williams seaborne forces, which included
  infantry armed with crossbows and contingents of
  heavily armed cavalry, landed on the English
  coast near Hastings on September 28, 1066.
• The initial Norman attack, launched in the
  morning of October 14, failed.The English axmen
  turned back a Norman cavalry charge and several
  units of the English army broke ranks, contrary
  to Harold's orders, and followed the retreating
  Normans. Other Norman troops quickly surrounded
  and annihilated these units. Taking advantage of
  the lack of discipline among the English
  soldiers, William ordered a retreat. Severely
  weakened by these reverses and demoralized by the
  mortal wounding of Harold by an arrow, the
  English were forced to abandon their strategic
  position on the crest of Senlac Hill. Only small
  remnants of the defending army survived the
  subsequent onslaughts of the Norman cavalry.
  William's victory at Hastings paved the way for
  Norman subjugation of all England.

7

• Domesday Book, sometimes called just Domesday,
  written record of a statistical survey of England
  ordered by William the Conqueror. The survey,
  made in 1086, was an attempt to register the
  landed wealth of the country in a systematic
  fashion, to determine the revenues due to the
  king. The previous system of taxation was of
  ancient origin and had become obsolete. By
  listing all feudal estates, both lay and
  ecclesiastical, the Domesday Book enabled William
  to strengthen his authority by exacting oaths of
  allegiance from all tenants on the land, as well
  as from the nobles and churchmen on whose land
  the tenants lived. The survey was executed by
  groups of officers called legati, who visited
  each county and conducted a public inquiry. The
  set of questions that these officers asked of the
  town and county representatives constituted the
  Inquisitio Eliensis the answers supplied the
  information from which the Domesday Book was
  compiled. Domesday is a corruption of Doomsday
  (the day of the final judgment) the work was so
  named because its judgments in terms of levies
  and assessments were irrevocable.

8
England Under the Norman and Plantagenet Kings.

• 1.Henry II
• Matilda's son, Henry Plantagenet, Count of Anjou,
  succeeded, as Henry II, in 1154. Henry II and his
  sons, Richard and John, expanded royal authority.
  Henry ended the anarchy of Stephen's reign,
  banishing mercenaries and destroying private
  castles. He strengthened the government created
  by Henry I. Most important, he developed the
  common law, administered by royal courts and
  applicable to all of England.
• Henry attempted to reduce the jurisdiction of
  church courts, especially over clergy accused of
  crimes, but was opposed by Saint Thomas à Becket,
  his former chancellor, whom he had made
  archbishop of Canterbury. His anger at Becket's
  inflexibility led ultimately to Becket's
  martyrdom in 1170.
• Henry's empire included more than half of France
  and lordship over Ireland and Scotland. His skill
  at governing, however, did not include the
  ability to placate his sons, who rebelled against
  him several times, backed by the kings of France
  and by their mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine.

9
born 1133, Le Mans, Main,
died July 6, 1189, near Tours By name Henry
Of Anjou, Henry Plantagenet, Henry Fitzempress,
or Henry Curtmantle (Short Mantle) duke of
Normandy (from 1150), count of Anjou (from 1151),
duke of Aquitaine (from 1152), and king of
England (from 1154), who greatly expanded his
Anglo-French domains and strengthened the royal
administration in England. His quarrels with
Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, and with
members of his family (his wife, Eleanor of
Aquitaine, and such sons as Richard the
Lion-Heart (1157-1199) and John Lackland)
ultimately brought about his defeat.
10
This map shows the extent of the English and
French possessions of king Henry II. Significant
amounts of modern France were under the control
of (or at least claimed by) Henry. France itself
was very limited in size. Disputes over land led
to frequent warfare, something Pope Gregory VIII
hoped to stop by calling the Third Crusade.
These disputes also kept Richard the Lionheart
and Philip Augustus of France from uniting
completely when they went on the Crusade.
11

• 2.Richard and John
• Richard I, the Lion-Hearted, was in England only
  briefly. He was busy fighting in the Crusades and
  later for the land lost in France during his
  absence, especially while he was a captive in
  Germany. Even during Richard's absence, however,
  the government built by Henry II continued to
  function, collecting taxes to support his wars
  and to pay his ransom.
• John lost Normandy in 1204, and in 1213, after a
  long fight with Pope Innocent III over the naming
  of Stephen Langton as archbishop of Canterbury,
  John capitulated and acknowledged England to be a
  papal fief. All this caused a quarrel with his
  barons over his general leadership and their
  refusal to follow him into war in Normandy. The
  barons, led by Langton, forced John in 1215 to
  accept the Magna Carta, or Great Charter, by
  which he admitted his errors and promised to
  respect English law and feudal custom. He died
  the next year, still at war with the barons.
  Although the loss of Normandy seemed a disgrace
  at the time, it left England free to develop its
  unique institutions without outside interference.

12
Think no more of it, John you are only a child
who has had evil counsellors. Richard
I (1157 - 1199)Said at his reconciliation, at
Lisieux in May 1194, with his brother John, who
had attempted to overthrow him while he was held
prisoner in Germany (1193-1194).
13
the Magna Carta
14

• 3.Economic Prosperity and Baronial Revolt
• When John died in 1216, the barons accepted his
  nine-year-old son as King Henry III. They assumed
  control of the government and confirmed the Magna
  Carta in 1225, as did Henry when he came of age
  two years later. Thus began the tradition of
  royal confirmation of the Magna Carta and the
  idea that it was the fundamental statement of
  English law and of limited government.
• England prospered in the 12th and 13th centuries.
  Land under cultivation increased sheep raising
  and the sale of wool became extremely important.
  London and other towns became vital centres of
  trade and wealth, and by royal charters they
  acquired the right to local self-government. The
  universities of Oxford and Cambridge were
  established. The population probably doubled from
  about 1.5 million to more than 3 million.

15
Oxford University
Henry III
Cambridge University
16

• The monasteries, especially those of the
  Cistercians, led the rural expansion and became
  wealthy in the process. More than a dozen
  cathedrals were built, as well as scores of
  abbeys and parish churches, all attesting to the
  wealth of England and of its church. In the 1220s
  the friars, Franciscans and Dominicans, arrived
  in England, improving the quality of preaching
  and becoming the leading scholars in the
  universities.
• Henry III was not an able king, however. He
  quarrelled with the barons, who thought that
  they, rather than his favourites, should have the
  major offices. In 1258 the Provisions of Oxford
  attempted to give control of the government to a
  committee of barons. Civil war broke out in 1264,
  and the baronial leader Simon de Montfort came
  briefly to power. Montfort, however, was killed
  in the Battle of Evesham in 1265, and power
  returned to Henry and his able son, Edward.

17

• 4.Reforms and the English Parliament
• Edward I restored royal control and made several
  reforms He limited the barons' right to hold
  their own courts of law he gave English common
  law and most important, he used and developed
  Parliament, which was essentially the king's
  feudal council with a new name and an enlarged
  membership.
• The Model Parliament of 1295, following
  Montfort's pattern of 1265, consisted of great
  barons, bishops, abbots, and representatives of
  counties and towns. In 1297, to get money for his
  wars, Edward accepted the Confirmation of
  Charters, agreeing that taxes must be agreed by
  the Parliament. In the following century,
  Parliament divided into two houses, Lords and
  Commons, and made good its claim to control
  taxation and to participate in the making of
  statutes.

18
Sir WilliamWallace Its all for nothing if you
dont have freedom.
Edward I, called Longshanks, king of England
(1272-1307), of the house of Plantagenet
THE WELSH / ENGLISH LONGBOW
19

• Edward conquered northwest Wales, ending the rule
  of its native princes. He built stone castles,
  adopted the Welsh longbow as an English weapon,
  and named his oldest son the Prince of Wales.
• He intervened in Scottish affairs, even claiming
  the Scottish throne. Having fought the Scots
  often but with little effect, Edward died in 1307
  without having subdued the northern kingdom.
• On Edwards grave was writtenEdward, the Hammer
  of the Scots He intended to hammer them into the
  ground, but in fact he had hammered them into a
  nation.

20

• His son, Edward II, gave up the campaign. In
  1314, at the Battle of Bannockburn, King Robert
  Bruce made good Scotland's claim to independence.
  One cost of the war was the long-lasting
  hostility of Scotland, backed by its alliance
  with France.
• Edward II was a weak king, partly influenced by
  favourites and partly dominated by the ordinances
  of 1311 that gave the barons the ruling power.
  Although he freed himself of baronial rule in
  1322, he was forced to abdicate in 1327.

21
Robert I, the Bruce (1274-1329) is surely the
greatest of all the great Scottish heroes
Edward II (1284 - 1327)
22
The 14th century

• His son, Edward III, got on well with the barons
  by keeping them busy in France, where England
  continued to hold extensive territory.
• In 1337 he initiated the Hundred Years' War to
  prove his claim to the French throne.
• The English had some initial success at Crécy
  (1346) and Poitiers (1356), where they used the
  English longbow with deadly effect against the
  French. By 1396, however, England had lost all
  its previous gains. The expense of the war
  repeatedly forced Edward to go to Parliament for
  taxes, enabling it to bargain for concessions and
  to establish its rights and privileges.

23
Battle of Crécy between the English and French in
the Hundred Years' War. From a 15th-century
illuminated manuscript of Jean Froissart's
Chronicles
24

• Edward was born on 13 November 1312, possibly at
  Windsor, the son of Edward II and Isabella of
  France. Edward himself became king in 1327 after
  his father was deposed by his mother and her
  lover, Roger Mortimer. A year later Edward
  married Philippa of Hainault - they were to have
  13 children. Isabella and Roger ruled in Edward's
  name until 1330, when he executed Mortimer and
  banished his mother.
• Edward's primary focus was now war with France.
  Ongoing territorial disputes were intensified in
  1340 when Edward assumed the title of king of
  France, starting a war that would last
  intermittently for over a century. In July 1346,
  Edward landed in Normandy, accompanied by his son
  Edward, the Black Prince. His decisive victory at
  Crécy in August scattered the French army. Edward
  then captured Calais, establishing it as a base
  for future campaigns. In 1348, he created the
  Order of the Garter.

25

• War restarted in 1355. The following year, the
  Black Prince won a significant victory at
  Poitiers, capturing the French king, John II. The
  resulting Treaty of Bretigny in 1360 marked the
  end of the first phase of the Hundred Years War
  and the high point of English influence in
  France. Edward renounced his claim to the French
  crown in return for the whole of Aquitaine.
• In 1369, the French declared war again. Edward
  left the fighting to his sons. They enjoyed
  little success and the English lost much of the
  territory they had gained in 1360.
• After the death of his queen, Philippa, in 1369,
  Edward fell under the influence of Alice Perrers,
  his mistress, who was regarded as corrupt and
  grasping. Against a backdrop of military failure
  in France and outbreaks of the plague, the 'Good
  Parliament' of 1376 was summoned. Perrers and
  other members of the court were severely
  criticised and heavy taxation attacked. New
  councillors were imposed on the king. The death
  of the Black Prince, Edward's heir, interrupted
  the crisis and the king's younger son, John of
  Gaunt, who had ruled the country during Edward's
  frequent absence in France, later reversed the
  Good Parliament's reforming efforts.
• Edward died on 21 June 1377, leaving his young
  grandson Richard as king

26
Hundred Years' War 1337-1453
27
Although Edward never became king - he died
before his father, Edward III - he is remembered
as a great medieval military hero, withnotable
victories against the French in the Hundred Years
War.
Edward the Black Prince (1330 - 1376)

• During his lifetime he was known as Edward of
  Woodstock the title of Black Prince developed
  after his death and may refer to black armour
  that he wore.

28

• The Black Death struck England in 1349, reducing
  the population by as much as a third.

29
The Peasants' Revolt

• The Peasants' Revolt in 1381 reflected the
  continuing unrest
• Tyler's Rebellion
• There were outbreaks of violence among the
  peasantry throughout England. In London, Tyler,
  Ball and Straw targeted the two people most
  responsible for the poll tax Archbishop Sudbury,
  the chancellor and Sir Robert Hailes, the
  treasurer. These two they found hiding in the
  Tower of London and that is where they were
  beheaded. But the rebels, still in the grip of
  the myth of the "divine right" of kings, believed
  Richard a natural ally of the poor.
• It was a time of economic and social
  changemanorial service was being commuted to
  cash payments, and serfdom was on the way to its
  end in the following century.

30

• The move of the popes from Rome to Avignon in
  France (1309-1376) and the Great Schism
  (1378-1417), in which rival popes opposed one
  another, caused a loss of English respect for the
  papacy. John Wycliffe, an Oxford professor,
  criticized corruption in the church and had ideas
  similar to those of the later Protestant
  reformers. In 1382 he was removed by an
  ecclesiastical court to the country parish at
  Lutterworth, and his ideas were declared
  heretical. His followers, the Lollards, were
  persecuted but not stamped out
• Richard II, the grandson of Edward III, began his
  reign when he was ten years old, with rival
  factions fighting for control of his government.
  As an adult he governed moderately until 1397,
  when he became involved in a struggle with the
  leading nobles. In 1399 his cousin, Henry
  Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, forced him to
  abdicate and became king in his place as Henry
  IV.

31
Richard II
January 6, 1367 February 14, 1400) was King of
England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399
Richard II watches Wat Tyler's death and
addresses the peasants in the background
32
The Lancastrian and Yorkist Kings

• Since 1216 the royal succession had always gone
  to the king's eldest son. By this rule, Henry IV,
  the son of John of Gaunt, Edward III's fourth
  son, had no claim to the throne. The rightful
  heir was Edmund, earl of March, who was descended
  from Edward's third son. Because of the
  irregularity, Henry and his Lancastrian
  successors were not secure in their claim to the
  throne. This weakness was manifest in his
  concessions to Parliament and to the church as
  well as in his wars with powerful and rebellious
  families in Wales and the north.
• Henry V, who succeeded his father, had one
  ambition to duplicate Edward III's military
  exploits in France. He won a brilliant victory at
  Agincourt in 1415 and had his success confirmed
  in the Treaty of Troyes (1420). He married the
  daughter of the mad French king, Charles VI,
  assumed control of the French government,
  although not the entire country, and could expect
  a son of this marriage to inherit both kingdoms.

33
Henry IV (of England) (1367-1413)
During his reign Henry IV persecuted the
religious sect known as the Lollards.
Henry V of England (16 September 1387 31 August
1422)
He was the most influential ruler in western
Europe at the time of his death in Vincennes,
France, August 31, 1422

34

• In 1422 both Henry and Charles VI died, bringing
  the nine-month-old Henry VI to the throne of both
  countries. For a time, Henry's able uncles, John
  of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford, and Humphrey of
  Gloucester held things together, the former in
  France, the latter in England.
• In 1429, however, Joan of Arc appeared, inspiring
  French resistance to English rule. Although Joan
  was captured and burned as a heretic in 1431, the
  English position in France became increasingly
  unstable.

35
Henry VI (of England) (1421-1471)
He had suffered attacks of insanity all his life
and was often completely incapacitated. Henry,
who founded Eton College and King's College,
University of Cambridge, was venerated by many as
a saint because of his piety
Joan of Arc, (c. 1412 May 30, 1431) was a 15th
century national heroine of France. She was tried
and executed for heresy when she was only 19
years old. The judgment was broken by the Pope
and she was declared innocent and a martyr 24
years later. She was beatified in 1909 and
canonized as a saint in 1920.
36
The Wars of the Roses

• Henry VI was not capable of ruling during his
  reign, control of the kingdom passed from one
  noble faction to another. The war in France only
  emphasized Henry's inability at home. The loss of
  Normandy in 1450 and the corruption of the
  government, the loss of everything in France,
  except Calais, in 1453, was a prelude to the
  dynastic conflict called the Wars of the Roses
  (1455-1485).
• The wars were fought between two branches of the
  royal family, the Lancastrians, who in the person
  of Henry VI possessed the throne but lacked the
  ability to rule, and the Yorkists, led by
  Richard, Duke of York, who had a valid claim to
  the throne and greater ability. The issue was
  complicated in 1453, when the king's wife,
  Margaret of Anjou, gave birth to a son,
  destroying Richard's status as heir apparent.

37
Lancashire rose
Yorkshire rose
38

• The turning point in the wars came in 1460. That
  year Richard was killed in battle, and his cause
  was taken up by his son, Edward. Assisted by
  Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, he defeated the
  Lancastrians in 1461, took Henry captive, and so
  overawed Parliament that it acclaimed him king as
  Edward IV.
• Henry, however, escaped, and Edward's subsequent
  marriage (1464) to Elizabeth Woodville and his
  alliance with Burgundy alienated Warwick, who
  then joined forces with Margaret of Anjou to
  depose Edward and restore Henry to the throne
  (1470).
• Edward returned the following year, supported by
  his brother-in-law, Charles the Bold of Burgundy,
  and decisively defeated the Lancastrians.
  Thereafter, he was secure on the throne and
  restored some degree of sound government. When
  Edward died in 1483, the throne went to his
  12-year-old son, Edward V, but it was usurped
  three months later by the boy's uncle, Richard,
  Duke of Gloucester, who became king as Richard
  III. Two years later, Henry Tudor, asserting a
  weak Lancastrian claim, defeated Richard at
  Bosworth and became Henry VII.

39
Richard III (1452-1485), king of England
(1483-1485)
Although Richard, the last king of the house of
York, did usurp the throne, little doubt exists
that his unscrupulousness has been overemphasized
by his enemies and by Tudor historians seeking to
strengthen the Lancastrian position. His
immorality is strongly exaggerated in
Shakespeare's play Richard III.
King Richard's Field
Richard made a last attempt to win victory by
directly attacking Henry with is personal guard,
and almost succeeded, having cut down Henry's
standard bearer. Richard's gamble failed, and he
was struck down. The battle ended because his
followers had no other definite leader. Richard
was the last king of England to die on the
battlefield. His death effectively ended the Wars
of the Roses, and Henry VII started a new
dynasty, the Tudors.