5. From the Norman invasion to 1485

History Links to Literature and Architecture)

[For a timeline of the Middle Ages, click here (century by century)]

The most famous date in English history is 1066, when with the Battle of Hastings the Norman colonisation of England began. The story of the Conquest and the events leading up to it are recorded on the famous Bayeux Tapestry, probably woven in Kent and here shown in its entirety.  The impact of the Conquest is still controversial (see your Longman's history), but the English language lost its literary function and was little written, which probably allowed it to change and develop unchecked by normative standards.  Naturally, it came to absorb many new influences from the French of the ruling classes and the Latin of the Church.  For those of you going to our course in Chester, this note on Norman (and Viking) Chester may be of interest.  The effect of the Conquest on London can be found here together with information on the subsequent status of this crucial city.

For the conquest of Wales, see below under Edward 1.  For the abortive attempts of Edward and his son Edward II to take over Scotland, see the Scottish history site.  The (brief) tale of the ever-maltreated Ireland can be found at this site.

The first king of the Angevin line (i.e. from Anjou) was John 1, infamous as one of the villains of the Robin Hood legend.  He was forced to sign the famous document Magna Carta in 1215 [text in modern English here] - for a rather long-winded and cynical but unusual account of the events of this time, see the site 'Where did history go astray?'

A major event which frightened the ruling classes of the time was the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, a violent protest against taxes (Oh, where are the peasants of yesteryear...?).  The king, Richard II, managed the revolt rather 'well' (i.e. he cheated the basically loyal peasants), but came to a nasty end himself.

The French inheritance of the Kings of England strengthened by political marriages meant that for centuries England was embroiled in wars on the continent, culminating in the so-called  Hundred Years War, beginning in 1336 and eventually leading to the loss of the French possessions.  Battle descriptions in the Chronicles of Froissart.

The French wars and the later Wars of the Roses  1455-1485 and struggles for the throne are the background to many of Shakespeare's history plays.

The period ends in 1485 with the death at the Battle of Bosworth of the last king of the Plantagenet line, Richard III, who was later vilified by the Tudors who replaced him. Shakespeare's play Richard III transmits the traditional picture of this king, but in recent times there have been attempts to save Richard's honour, and there are in both Britain and America Richard III societies (sometimes called after his emblem, the white boar) devoted to this perhaps unlikely hero. Anyone interested in the case for Richard should read the fascinating historical detective story The Daughter of Time by the fine (and dead) writer Josephine Tey.

Literature

The domination of Norman French at court and in the aristocracy and Latin in the Church and among the learned meant that for over 200 years the English tongue largely lost its status as a written and literary language. Gradually, the English kings and nobles came more and more to identify themselves with their island kingdom, while continuing to struggle over land rights and claims in France (see The Hundred Years War and the Chronicles of Froissart above), and by the 14th c. a new language had evolved, Germanic at the core but with an extensive Latin/French vocabulary (a more extensive research site here).

The largely mythical figure of King Arthur appeared c. 1140 in a Latin work, Historia Regum Britanniae (The History of the Kings of Britain) by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who located Arthur among the kings of Britain (excerpts here). Arthur (and the Knights of the Round Table, a later addition to the legend) now became heroic figures in Norman and French chivalric literature, but were seen to provide all the people of England and Wales with a common heroic past. They appear in the mid-fourteenth c. in a predominantly Anglo-Saxon version of Sir Gawayn and the Green Knight, which still uses the old head-rhyme (the site given here is one of many very fine 'Luminarium' sites on the Web). The last important poet to use this form, but with a language recognizably Middle English with the new vocabulary, is William Langland who died, like his contemporary Chaucer, at the end of the fourteenth c. (exact date uncertain). His poem The Vision of Piers Plowman is an allegory attacking the many abuses of the medieval Church.

The finest of English medieval poets and the first great figure in English literature was Geoffrey Chaucer, whose Canterbury Tales (illustrated text with commentary) was not only extremely influential in the development of the new English but was also unique in showing a cross-section of medieval society, often with great humour.

This was also the period of the ballad, popular until the 16^th century (and revived in the 18^th) with especially the so-called Border Ballads and other anonymous poems such as Sir Patrick Spens.

During the Middle Ages, drama gradually developed from the so-called Mystery Plays (<the Divine Mystery) or Miracle Plays performed typically on the Feast of Corpus Christi (link to the York site), to the Morality Plays and the Interludes. Texts and comments are available on the site medieval drama.

A vital step forward in the 15th c. was the establishment in England of printing, through William Caxton in 1476. Although he printed a lot of trivia, the most important early work was probably Sir Thomas Malory's Morte D'Arthur, a compilation of stories and legends about King Arthur which was the basis of many later works on this theme.

Architecture

Castles

Castles developed from the early mound surrounded by a fence and topped by a keep or donjon (motte and bailey type /motte = mound, bailey = outer or inner defensive wall/). These we see at the heart of both the Tower of London, William's "White Tower" (once painted white) which dominated the City of London, and royal Windsor Castle, [pictures], reputedly now the largest inhabited castle in the world.

By the 13th c., when Edward 1 established control over Wales, castle design had advanced to highly elaborate concentric castles with a keep surrounded by both inner and outer baileys and where possible a moat [click here for another Welsh castle site]. One such surrounded by elaborate water defences is Caerphilly Castle in South Wales. In North Wales, Conwy is also of the concentric type, while nearby Caernarfon is the largest in Wales.  The last Welsh prince to resist the English conquest with some success was Llewelyn ap Gruffydd ('Llewelyn the Last').  Another Welsh castle site will be found here, with a more general survey of castles here.

One of the last castles to be built in England for defensive purposes was Bodiam in Kent; the relative peace of the country and the coming of gunpowder meant that great defensive works were gradually replaced by more comfortable great houses.

Cathedrals and Churches

Anglo-Norman/Romanesque

The Normans were great builders, both in Normandy and in their new kingdom. William's policy was to fill all important church posts with Continental clergy as vacancies occurred, so that by the end of his reign there were only four native-born Englishmen in high places. This also established contact with the main currents of Continental architecture, strengthening a trend begun under Edward the Confessor. Saxon cathedrals and major churches were quickly replaced with Norman structures. Typical of the first generation of Norman cathedrals, all begun in the 1070s and 1080s, are:

Lincoln: the Norman cathedral was mostly destroyed by a later earthquake, but the centre of the West facade shows the older church.

St Albans Abbey: the crossing tower, transepts, choir and eastern part of the nave originate from the 1070s-1080s, and are, uniquely for English medieval cathedrals, built of brick taken from the local ruins of the Roman town of Verulamium. Note the wall paintings, rarely preserved in cathedrals. Owing to later (Gothic) additions, St Albans is now the second longest medieval cathedral in Britain (and probably in the world). The Norman fashion of having the main tower over the crossing, as seen here, remained the standard layout of the English medieval cathedral.

Winchester: begun 1079; only the transept arms now remain of the original. The transepts show the typical feature of first generation Norman cathedrals: the three elevations are almost equal in height. Here the arches are very simply constructed and there is a minimum of decoration, but the cushion capital typical of the Anglo-Norman style is in evidence. In the clerestory one can see the walkway in the wall, built in the thick-wall technique with an inner and outer skin filled with rubble for strength. Winchester cathedral, with its nave, crossing, choir, retrochoir and Lady Chapel all in line (aerial view here) is now the longest medieval cathedral in Europe, at 169 metres roughly 1 metre longer than St Albans (though Old St Paul's, destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, was 196 metres long, roughly the length of the present cathedral). Here is an illustrated walk round the cathedral.

Ely: Begun by the brother of the Bishop of Winchester in the 1080s; the nave from the early 1100s. It shows decorative development with roll mouldings over the arches and an alternating system, i.e round or drum piers alternate with composite piers in the nave.

Norwich: begun 1096 (a personal favourite, with what is claimed to be the biggest cathedral close in England (44 acres) - but see Salisbury below). (Alternative summary of features) The choir/presbytery and apse show the Norman work from 1096-1120 surmounted by the beautiful 14th c. clerestory. Among the many wonderful roof bosses is perhaps the most beautiful 'Green Man' I know - illustrated here.

Peterborough: the interior shows again the typical early Norman elevation.

Some general features of Romanesque architecture can be found here.

The second generation of Norman churches is best typified by the truly breath-taking Durham Cathedral, begun in the year that Norman Winchester was finished (1093) and the most splendid of them all. This is a building of massive construction with a confident boldness in the detailing, as for example in the alternating incised and composite piers of the nave. The bold chevron pattern is visible on the central pier, while the diaper or diamond pattern is clear in the following picture, which also shows the common interlaced arch pattern in the blind arcade. The most notable feature of the second generation is the change in the proportions of the elevation, where the arcade rises much higher, thus reducing the size of the gallery and clerestory, as seen in this view of the nave, where the common chevron pattern is visible on the massive drum piers.

This view also shows the nave vault, unique for its time (1128-33). For the first time, a stone rib vault construction was used over so large a space as a nave. There are also some pointed arches, used presumably to reach the same height with the transverse ribs as with the diagonal ribs (the latter, having a greater radius, reach higher than the transverse ribs if the Romanesque round-arched style is used).

Second generation Norman churches in the West Country show their own features, for example the huge bare drum pillars found in the naves of Tewkesbury Abbey and Gloucester Cathedral. In Gloucester, the chevron pattern is much in evidence in the arches [click on the nave picture to enlarge it], and the reduction in the gallery size points the way forward to the later triforium.

Early English Gothic

Transitional buildings such as the Cistercian Fountains Abbey [alternative site] (now a beautiful ruin 'thanks to' Henry VIII and his dissolution of the monasteries) show a combination of round and pointed arches, as does Durham. Although a thoroughly Romanesque church, this latter has the three engineering principles which together make up Gothic architecture, though not used in any consistent way, namely the buttress, the pointed arch and the rib vault. These were first deliberately combined in the Ile de France, and brought to England by the French master builder William (Guillaume) of Sens, engaged to rebuild the burnt out Norman choir of Canterbury cathedral. The rather strange shape is the result of the monks' desire to keep the old shell, which can be seen behind the pointed arches of the new choir [other pictures if you click on the arrows]. The choir shows the use of black Purbeck marble (actually a polished limestone) on separate shafts round columns, which was to become a common feature of the Early English style of Gothic.

The West Country developed an independent style of Gothic owing little to the French, seen at its best in the beautiful Wells Cathedral. Its west front (begun c. 1220) shows typical English features: the twin, rather squat west end towers placed at the corners combined with a central tower over the crossing, the screen front wider than the nave with (formerly) some 400 carved figures in niches, and insignificant portals, the main entrance being on the north side. The statues were painted in bright primary colours in the middle ages, as were many parts of the churches of the time. Note too the three linked lancet windows in the centre of the façade, typical of the early English style (and of the south-east and north-east portals of Linköping cathedral, where the work was led by English master masons).

The nave [many pictures at this site] in particular shows the horizontal emphasis so common in 13th c. English churches whereas in France the vertical is stressed. The nave vault (one of many good pictures here) shows the simple quadripartite rib vault which is the basic form of the Gothic roof.

The tower of Wells Cathedral seemed in danger of collapsing in the following century (a far from uncommon problem) and the four gigantic strainer or scissor arches that were built in the crossing to support it make one of the most impressive pieces of medieval architecture.

A complete contrast to the west front of Wells is provided by Peterborough Cathedral, completed somewhat earlier than Wells. This, the most impressive and original of west fronts, out-Frenches the French with its enormous portals. It was not copied elsewhere in England.   Other details can be seen here in enlargable pictures. Probably the greatest of Early English cathedrals is that of  Lincoln, which used ideas from both Canterbury and Wells. An earthquake in 1185 broke the back of the previous Anglo-Norman church, and the new west front [scroll down for the plan] is constructed around the Norman, producing again a screen facade with twin west end towers, over the aisles in this case, and small towers or pinnacles at the corners.

Like Canterbury, Lincoln has two transepts, but decoration is taken further. In the nave we see the use of black Purbeck marble (actually a polished limestone) on separate shafts round the arch supports, as at Canterbury; the deep-cut arch mouldings of the period; the stiff-leaf pattern on the capitals, the blind arcades along the aisle walls. In the gallery or triforium, the spandrels above the arches are pierced by plate tracery, holes like a three-leaf clover (trefoils), four-leaf (quatrefoils) or even five-leaf (cinquefoils). These point the way forward to the more compicated windows of later Gothic.

The most important contribution of Lincoln was in the vaulting.  After the experiment in St Hugh's Choir, which produced a strange irregular system (the 'Crazy Vault'), there was the triumph of vault of the nave, the so-called Lincoln roof, where the simple quadripartite system seen at Wells was replace by a complicated system of tierceron ribs (=sekundärribbor) with a ridge rib running the length of the roof. These were the first tiercerons in Europe, though widely adopted, while the ridge rib remains typically English. The idea of the vault as being a site for patterns rather than merely a support accords with the English taste for decoration.

The most extreme example of the use of ribs in Lincoln is found in the chapter-house, composed around a cone of 20 ribs. Here, too  we see the simple window shape of the Early English period, the so-called lancet.

A rival to Lincoln in this period is Salisbury Cathedral, [many images here in this very informative site!] unique in being (with the exception of the tower and spire) entirely of the Early English period. It too has twin transepts. It represents an attempt to break away from the influence of Lincoln and the nave is very much simpler [another site with images - click for enlargements]. The vault is of the simple quadripartite type. The main decoration was colour, especially from the windows. Unfortunately, relatively little medieval glass remains, so we no longer see the church as it was meant to be seen; Lincoln makes a greater decorative impression.

The greatest charm of Salisbury cathedral is its position in a large green close, also claiming to be the largest in England (see Norwich above), and containing many attractive houses, for instance the home of Edward Heath, the former British prime minister. Also the beautiful spire, the highest still standing in England, added in the 14th c.. The addition of this spire [picture] was the inspiration (no pun intended) for William Golding's novel, The Spire. Until his death, Golding, winner of the Nobel prize for literature in 1983, lived within sight of the cathedral spire.

Decorated Gothic

The transition to the second phase of English Gothic is seen first and foremost in the development of window tracery. In 1245 Henry III took over the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey at his own expense, the start of a period when the King and his court became the most important source of architectural patronage. This helped to establish a national, rather than a regional style and encouraged contact with continental influences. The architect at Westminster was Henry of Reynes (Rheims in France? Reynes in Essex?), whose work was continued by Henry Yevele, and the nave has typically French proportions, being at 31.3 metres higher than any other medieval English church (Lincoln is 22.5 m, Rheims 35.6). The triforium is narrow, there is no wall passage in the upper storey and the upper walls are supported by flying buttresses - see photo 2 here.

In the transepts we find rose windows [scroll down through these images], a French fashion, also a development of the lancet that is repeated in the triforium and clerestory of the Angel Choir at Lincoln (the carved angels were introduced in Westminster, too). This is the Early Decorated geometrical style of tracery, a considerable advance on the lancet. It is seen at its most impressive in the great east window of the choir, the largest single window then in existence and the first to occupy the full height and width of a cathedral facade. This was possible because of the flattened east end of the cathedral, an English feature instead of the usual apse or the French chevet of chapels. After Lincoln, the great east window became a dominant feature of church facades.

The next development in windows was the curvilinear style, as seen for instance in the west window of Exeter Cathedral. This is based on the so-called ogee shape (introduced about 1290), an S-curve which produced shapes like candle flames in the tracery. This was some 50 years later taken up in France, where the style was known as flamboyant (flaming). For 100 years or more, the designing of tracery patterns became one of the chief forms of artistic activity in England.

During the Decorated period, spires became very popular as at Salisbury or Lichfield Cathedral, which has three. Spires are a distinguishing mark of the English landscape, especially in the limestone belt.

Perpendicular Gothic

While Perpendicular has its origin in French tracery developments, there is no real counterpart in France, and Perpendicular Gothic has been regarded as a largely English style (hence the choice of Perpendicular for the new English Parliament building in the 19th century after the old one burnt down).

It began while the Decorated style was in full vigour, the choir of Gloucester Cathedral, begun as early as the 1330s, being the earliest example still preserved. The huge east window (replacing the former Norman apse) is actually wider than the choir itself, as the walls curve outwards to meet it. The rows of stained glass standing saints are a typical motif of this period. Another important development found in the cloister roof at Gloucester was fan vaulting [scroll down here] , repeated elsewhere,the high point of experiments with roof decoration. [Click on the above pictures for enlargement].

The nave of Winchester shows the clean upward sweep of the Perpendicular, but the style is seen at its best in three chapels:

1. St George's Chapel, Windsor, the chapel of the Knights of the Garter. Unfortunately, I can find no better picture of the interior on the Internet than this, and those I have are copyrighted!

2. King's College Chapel, Cambridge. Here is a close-up of the fan-vaulted ceiling, the work of John Wastell and thought to be the best ever produced on a large scale. This chapel is a glass box, with the original glass preserved, and remarkably beautiful.

3. Henry VII's Chapel (also known as the Lady Chapel), Westminster Abbey [outside view here - note the vertical stress and delicate tracery]. Begun by Henry VII for the tomb of Henry VI, a Lancastrian king, as Henry's dubious claim to the throne rested on his Lancastrian blood. However, Henry VII himself is entombed here. The chapel roof has a highly elaborate fan vault with pendants. The chapel of the Order of the Bath.

This has taken us beyond our period date of 1475, but Perpendicular elements remain part of the building style, even in secular buildings, for much of the 16th century. The 15th century was a busy time for building or extending country churches, and the countryside is full of delightful churches from the period.