Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages (1000 years from the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Ad 500 to the beginning of the Renaissance in the 14th 15th Boss 16th century.)
English in the middle age
Concerns the history of England during the medieval period, from the end of the 5th century through to the start of the early modern period in 1485. A rich and artistic culture flourished under Anglo-Saxons producing Epic poems such as Beowulf. The Anglo-Saxons converted to Christianity in the 7th century and a network of monasteries and convents was built across England. In the 8th and 9th century England faced fierce Viking attacks, and the fight lasted for many decades, eventually established Wessex as the most powerful Kingdom and promoting the growth of an English identity. Despite the repeated crisis of succession and a Danish seizure of power at the start of the 11th century, it can also be argued that by the 1060s England was a powerful centralized state with a strong military and successful economy.
Invasion of England
The Norman invasion of England in 1066 led to the defeat and replacement of the Anglo-Saxon elite with Norman and French nobles and their supporters. The ruler introduced a feudal approach to governing England, eradicating the practice of slavery, but creating a much wider body to earn free laborers called serfs. The position of women in society changed as laws regarding land and lordship sifted. England’s population more than doubled during the 12th and 13th century fuelling an expansion of the town, cities, and trade. In the 14th century in England a great famine and the Black Death catastrophic events killed around half of England’s population throwing the economy into chaos and undermining the old political orders. Social unrest followed, resulting in the peasants’ revolt of 1381, while the changes in the economy resulted in the emergence of a new class of gentry and nobility who began to exercise power through the system term bastard feudalism. Nearly 1500 villages were deserted by their inhabitants and many men and women sought new opportunities in the town and cities.
End of Middle Age English
English king, in the 14th and 15th centuries, laid claim to the French throne resulting in a hundred-year war. At times England enjoyed its military success, with the economy beyond by profit from the international wool cloth trade, but by 1450 the country was in crisis, facing military failure in France and an ongoing recession. Social unrest broke out followed by the war of the Roses and fought between rival factions of the English nobility. Henry VII’s victory in 1485 conventionally marks the end of the Middle Age in England and the start of the early modern period
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