In terms of English history,
the time span between the collapse of the
Roman Empire and the Renaissance is called
the Middle Ages, and the adjective "medieval" refers
to whatever was made, written, or thought
during the Middle Ages. The
Middle Ages was a period of enormous historical,
social, and linguistic change, despite the
continuity of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Anglo-Saxon invaders,
who began their conquest of southeastern
Britain around 450, transcribed and transliterated
works into Old English. Linguistic
and cultural changes in Britain were accelerated
by the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066,
when words from French began to enter the
English vocabulary. Until the close
of the fourteenth century, French was the
language of conducting business in Parliament
and in a court of law. Awareness of a uniquely
English literature did not actually exist
until the end of the war begun
by Edward III in 1336 to enforce his claim
to the French throne. Geoffrey Chaucer's
decision to emulate French and Italian poetry
in his own vernacular prompted a changed
in the status of English.
Britain was largely Christian
during the Roman occupation. After the collapse
of the Roman Empire, peoples belonging primarily
to three Germanic tribes invaded Britain:
the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes. Christian
missionaries were sent from Kent in southern
England and from Ireland to consolidate religious
control of Britain. The conversion of the
people was completed in 731, according to
Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the
English People. Before the Christian
conversion, there had been no books. Anglo-Saxon
heroic poetry was part of an oral tradition. The Beowulf poet
and other Christian writers were fascinated
with the conflict between the heroic code
of their pagan ancestors, which stressed
blood revenge, and the Christian religion's
emphasis on forgiveness. Formulaic
phrases, irony, and harsh struggles characterize
Old English poetry.
The Normans, an Anglo-Saxon
tribe of Germanic ancestry whose name is
a contraction of "Norsemen," conquered
England in the Battle of Hastings. They adopted
the French language and Christian religion
of the land. Henry II, the first of England's
Plantagenet kings, acquired vast provinces
in southern France through his marriage to
Eleanor of Aquitaine, the divorced wife of
Louis VII of France. Linguistic
and cultural exchange characterized the period
of a French-speaking ruling class in England. Latin
remained the "international" language
of learning, theology, science, and history.
The Norman aristocracy spoke French, but
intermarriage with native English nobility
and everyday exchange between masters and
servants encouraged bilingualism. Celtic
languages were spoken in Ireland, Wales,
Cornwall, and Brittany. Many literary texts
written in Anglo-Norman England were adapted
from French and Celtic sources.
The growth of international
trade and influence of the merchant class
came amidst calamities and upheavals of the
fourteenth century. To finance his wars,
Edward III was obliged to negotiate for revenues
with the Commons in the English Parliament,
allowing the institution to replace the church
as a major political force. The
linguistic, political, and cultural climate
in Britain by the 1360s allowed for a "flowering" of
Middle English literature in the writings
of Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, and
the Gawain poet. Chaucer drew
from the work of ancient Roman poets, yet
he never achieved the laurels accorded to
Petrarch during his own time. William Langland,
author of Piers Plowman, presented
a clear-sighted vision of social and religious
issues in his writing. In the fifteenth century,
morality plays personified the vices and
virtues as they struggle for the soul of "mankind" and "everyman." Julian
of Norwich and Margery Kempe provided insights
into the female perspective of the church
and its doctrines. Sir Thomas Malory defined
the English form of the sage of King Arthur
and his knights in Morte Darthur.