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UNIT 2. THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD
Historical Context
KEY IDEA With the Norman Conquest, England entered the medieval period, a time of innovation in the midst of war.
In 1066, a new group of warriors landed on England’s shore from Normandy, an independent state in France. The ruler of Normandy, Duke William, had claimed to be heir to England’s throne, but the throne had gone instead to Harold of Wessex. So William led his army to England, where the Normans soon defeated and killed King Harold and overran much of the country. This event—the Norman Conquest—changed the course of English history, language, and literature.
The Monarchy
After his victory at Hastings, William the Conqueror lost no time taking full control of England. He was a new kind of king—powerful, well-organized, determined to exert his authority down to the smallest detail. To secure his rule over all of feudal England, King William established a strong centralized government. One of his most significant acts was to order a detailed survey of all the estates in England either held directly by him or in fief from him. The resulting inventory, known as the Domesday Book, was used to determine taxes as well as feudal rights and duties.
Many people resented innovations such as the Domesday Book,an extraordinary tax record of every bit of property owned, from fish ponds to litters of pigs. Still, no one could deny that William brought law and order to the land, “so that,” as one scribe wrote shortly after William’s death, “any honest man could travel over his kingdom without injury with his bosom full of gold.” Power struggles in the decades after William’s death left England in a state of near-anarchy until 1154, when his great-grandson Henry Plantagenet took the throne as Henry II.One of medieval England’s most memorable rulers, Henry reformed the judicial system by setting up royal courts throughout the country, establishing a system of juries, and beginning to form English common law out of a patchwork of centuries-old practices.
Henry’s son Richard I, known as Richard the Lion-Hearted,spent most of his ten-year reign fighting wars abroad. During his absence, his younger brother, John, plotted against him. The villain of Robin Hoodlegends, King Johnwas treacherous and bad-tempered, quarreling with nobles and raising their taxes until they threatened to rebel. In 1215 he was forced to sign the Magna Carta(“Great Charter”), which limited royal authority by granting more power to the barons—an early step on the road to democracy.