-
In this year William I, duke of Normandy, won the Battle of Hastings defeating Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon king. Then he was crowned king of England and named William the Conqueror. It was a turning point in English history, because it marked the end of Anglo-Saxons reign and the beginning of Norman’s era. This invasion brought many radical changes to England in language, culture and social structure.
-
In his reign, William I established widespread control over the country, thanks to the introduction of the feudal system and of the Domesday Book, a record of information on the English people and country. It helped also to collect the geld, the property tax.
-
The Norman churches were built to show the Normans’ supremacy and to glorify God and their creation was possible thanks to the construction of new roads and bridges. The Norman architecture was characterized by huge columns, large piers, massive walls, heavy rounded arches, small windows and a simple structure made up of a nave and two aisles
-
Henry II ascended to the throne. At that time he was the most powerful monarch in Europe because his territories stretched from the Scottish border to the south of France.
-
In those years Henry II introduced travelling royal judges, people who administered the “common law”, so the same law was used everywhere.
-
King Henry II appointed Thomas Becket as the new Archbishop of Canterbury
-
The Constitution of Clarendon was written by Henry II and claimed that the king was supreme in civil matters, even compared to the clergy.
-
Thomas Becket, The Archbishop of Canterbury, refused to accept the Constitution of Clarendon so the king had him killed by four knights in Canterbury Cathedral.
-
When Henry II died Richard I became king.
-
Richard I was one of the leaders of the “Third Crusade”, so in 1190 he left England for the Holy Land, where he died in 1199.
-
This other type of architecture, called Gothic style, evolved in France during the 12th century and then was gradually absorbed in England. This style had bigger windows than Romanesque one, the steeples were very high, usually the high roof was graced with fan vaulting, arches where pointed and the wall surfaces were covered with a vertical pattern of geometrical panels.
-
After Richard I’s death, the English kingdom passed to king John. In 1215, as a result of a rebellion of barons, knights, clergy and townspeople, he signed the “Magna Carta”, a charter giving specific liberties to them.
-
The Black Death was a plague which put nearly half of the European population to death during the 14th century. England was deeply damaged by this pandemic, because it killed one and half million people out of about 4 million only from 1348 to 1350. We can understand a people’s common way of thinking at the time looking at the picture above, called Danse Macabre. It’s an allegory on the universality of death: no matter what do you do in life, Death unites us all.
-
John of Gaunt, who ruled the kingdom during the absence of King Richard II, introduced the Poll tax. That led to an outbreak of Riots, because the tax was the same for everybody, not depending on incomes. This uprising is called “The Peasants’ Revolt” and ended with the executions of the revolt’s leaders
-
“The Canterbury Tales”, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, gives us a portrait of the English society of that time and it is very popular because the language used was the base for the Modern English, another point that we have to underline is that this is the most important English medieval narrative poem.
-
The rivalry between the two families of York and Lancaster, both claiming the throne, brought to a civil war.
-
Richard III, the last Yorkist king, was killed in the Battle of Bosworth, ending his dynasty.
-
Henry became king as Henry VII and united England, marrying Elizabeth of York.
