Does The Canterbury Roll Reflect Political Culture?

Henry II was educated in England and by the year 1150, he became a duke of Normandy and the counts of Maine, Touraine, and Anjou after his father Geoffrey Plantagenet, who was a wealthy London merchant, died in 1151. Due to his mother’s entitlement to the royal family tree, he claimed the throne and by the High Middle Age, there was a struggle for power between the State and the Church. Moreover, an influx of royal power and crusade expeditions portrayed the seesaw power balance between the two foundations that resulted in the conflict of King Henry II as the King of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket, as the head of the Church. The given study brings to light the reforms King Henry II brought during his reign and the impact they had on his rule and the conflict that arose between Thomas Becket because of the reforms the King made.

Personally, when thinking of the middle Ages, I tend to have the misconception that it is a period of darkness with no progress. However, R.W. Southern’s book, ‘The Making of the Middle Ages’, offers an in depth study of the development of history in the world today. Observing that this book was published during the 1950s, Mr. Southern’s interpretation of the ‘Middle Ages’ was very distinctive in comparison to other historians of his time. He explores the significance of the Middle Ages as a separate sector in the study of history by which the audience will notice that previous categories of studied history is set aside, as we are no longer focusing on the usual ‘Classical Greece’ and ‘Rome’

For Gerald of Wales, religion was one of the most essential aspects of being a civilized human being. Therefore, when he wrote, The History and Topography of Ireland, he portrayed its inhabitants as subhuman and barbaric during his apparent travels to Ireland. As a colonizer, Gerald picked a far away place in which many had not been to, in order to establish them as the “other”. Unfortunately, for Gerald, he may have ridiculed the Irish for their lifestyle conveyed in his writing, but his exploitation of them most likely was done because he could in fact relate to them. In the book, The Postcolonial Middle Ages, Jeffery Jerome Cohen’s analysis in his chapter, “Hybrids, Monsters, Borderlands: The Bodies of Gerald of Wales”, closely focuses

Ian Mortimer uses his book The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century to describe how one might live in the fourteenth century. This book covers a wide range of topics from what one might see and smell when approaching a city, to what one might wear, to how to stay alive. Mortimer’s clever use of a travel guide inspired book lends itself to a much wider audience. The evidence presented in this book is both engaging and intriguing, and provides easy reading for academics and non-academics both.

On Friday, May 19, 1536, Anne Boleyn, former Queen of England, was executed for high treason and adultery, her head severed from her body by an expert swordsman, the only concession given her by her ex-husband King Henry VIII. How, in so short a time, had the woman that Henry had defied the religious tradition of England for, divorcing his wife and changing the history of religion in his country, whom he pursued relentlessly for years, fallen so far, so quickly? To understand one must examine Henry’s desperate need for a male heir, understand the politics of the time, and the personality of Anne Boleyn herself. Anne’s involvement with religion, politics, foreign affairs and fashion are still being seen centuries after her death. Filled

What can Historians learn from this document about how as married man saw his role as head of the family in mid-17th century?

The concept of a ‘mid-Tudor crisis’ arrived under the scrutiny of modern scholarship largely through a priori reasoning and was first broadly promulgated by W.R.D. Jones in his 1973 book “The Mid Tudor Crisis1539-1563”. Jones attested a series of problems that “seem to have been ever-present in mid-Tudor England” (Jones, 1973, p. 6), exhibiting a “close relationship” (Jones, 1973, p. 6) with one another as a ‘crisis’. This compounded succession of agricultural volatility, deficiencies in administrative decree, specifically “the troubled shadowed reigns of Edward VI and Mary I,” (Jones, 1973, p.19) and divisive religious reformation, as Jones was to surmise, directly resulted in fluctuations

During the Tudor Dynasty it is easily thought that the years between 1547 and 1558 were ones of crisis. With the succession of a child and the first woman within England, people have assumed that the years between Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were an unproductive interlude. The mid Tudor period is seen as negative years within the Tudor Dynasty. It is regarded that Henry VIII and Elizabeth I’s reputations were a factor in why historians such as A.F Pollard and S T Bindoff supported the ‘Mid Tudor Crisis’ . The ‘two little Tudors’, referring to Edward and Mary, seemed colourless in comparison to their surrounding

Religion can be argued as a more important factor in determining whether people supported Lady Mary’s or Lady Jane’s succession, because of the comfort and personal security having a faith provided, which collectively would result in a more balanced and efficient society. Given the political turbulence of the era: as in the previous decade, England was still recovering from the protestant reformation, wars with France and Scotland, the Somerset crises which almost led the nation to bankruptcy, if there was any moment where the people needed a sense of stability in the form of religion- it had to be this era. This means that because this essay is evaluating the factors why people- including laymen or “commons”, made the ultimate decision in

Arden of Faversham, an anonymous play thought to be a collaboration between prominent Early Modern playwrights, is based on Hollinshed’s account of “a gentleman named Arden most cruelly murdered and slain by the procurement of his own wife” in Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (Arden, “Appendix” 113). Even though Hollinshed is giving an account of what happened thirty years ago, in a society so concerned with possession of land, by using familiar tropes such as class anxiety and social climbing, correspondences of trade and exchange, patrilineal pressures, premonitory dreams, and the poison and knife as murder weapons, the domestic tragedy successfully displays the politics of domestic space, infidelity, ownership and male same-sex

Sir Thomas Wyatt’s defence covered two major areas; the possible insulting of the king and conspiring with Catholics in a newly decided protestant country. His 1541 defence guards his actions on both parts, however due to the lack of historical evidence it is impossible to know if this defence was ever used, even if we do know he somehow did manage to get himself off the charges. Nevertheless, it offers great insight to the mind and feelings of an otherwise elusive and ambiguous historical figure. It is this, that being Wyatt writing about his own biography, that offers vital importance to his poetry, and more importantly his satires like ‘Myne Owne John Poyntz’. Through Wyatt’s own work we can examine the possible emotion, and tie it down to its own specific historical moment.

Henry VIII was the King that would change England’s religious system and make it his legacy. The religious system would carry on after his reign and become the predominant religion of England. The question is: How did events connected to key historical figures during Henry VIII’s reign cause for a permanent shift in the religious system of England? This question will be answered by analyzing events related to key historical figures during Henry VIII’s reign. These events will not be a biographical representation of any one historical figure, but relayed in connection to the topic of this paper in order to provide an answer for the essay question. This method is being utilized because it provides an analytical perspective, while also providing a personal appeal by tying the facts in with historical figures. History is not just facts, it is a story, and like any good story it should pull a reader in and make them interested. The historical figures utilized will be Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Thomas Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell, and Thomas Cranmer due to their direct correlation to the change in the religious system of England. The sources utilized were chosen and implemented in relation to how they encompassed concepts related to historical

There is not a single work along English History that could have been more determinant and indispensable than Bede's Ecclesiastical History. By describing the story of the English people through their experience of Christianity he became our intermediary with the world of Anglo-Saxon England and their believes. Therefore, in what follows an attempt will be made to describe the main contributions of Bede's Ecclesiastical History as a source for early English history.

In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer gives a detailed description of what life was like in Medieval times . In the “Prologue”, the reader comes to better understand the people of the time period through the characters words and actions. Chaucer uses a variety of groups of society to give the reader a deeper insight into the fourteenth century Pilgrims customs and values. Through the Court, Common people and the Church, Gregory Chaucer gives a detailed description of ordinary life in the medieval times.

When one thinks of the word medieval, there appear to be almost an instantaneous reaction. Some may see the period associated with the gothic architecture, Crusades, brutalism, death, the Black Plague, illiteracy, or the Dark Ages. Others may interpret the period as one full of valiant knights, princesses waiting to be saved, jousting, castles, and noble kings and queens. From video games such as The Legend of Zelda and the popular HBO television series A Game of Thrones, to accounts of medieval torture or treatment in the newspapers, the Middle Ages seems to be more relevant than ever. However, it can be argued that much about what we know about the real Middle Ages was constructed in the nineteenth century due to a comparative lack of records and the imaginative portrayal of the period by the Victorians. Due to the tumultuous period that was the Industrial Revolution, many social critics and artists turned back to the Middle Ages in order to reflect their anxieties of the present and the hopes and expectations of the future. I began to note that the medievalist movement was built upon medieval studies through a desire to create, rather than retrieve the past, which in turn lead to academic debates about authenticity and furthered the tension between the two fields leading to an almost insurmountable break. Those in medieval studies look towards medievalism as a misguided attempt to contemplate history which in turn changed the public’s understanding towards the era away