
- •Часть 1
- •2) Celtic religion
- •3). Ancient celtic society
- •4). Celtic art and celtic storytellers
- •2). The end of the roman rule
- •Questions:
- •1). The celtic church and the roman church
- •On the basis of this text enumerate the special features of the Celtic church in comparison with the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Church
- •What does the text say about the relations of the Roman and Celtic churches?
- •2). The triumph of the picts Ecgfrith, the king, rashly led an army to ravage the kingdom
- •3). The british celtic kingdoms
- •In the following text find the information about the further development of relations between the Celts and Anglo-Saxons and about the fate of the main Celtic kingdoms in Britain and Ireland
- •Questions:
- •2). Mutiny of the mercenaries
- •1.Describe the situation that caused the coming of the first Germanic warriors to Britain
- •2. Read the following text and make a short report analysing the early stage of development of relations between the Celts and Germanic invaders
- •3). The coming of the saxons
- •4). Artur: fact or fiction?
- •Report the main facts conserning the real and legendary Arthur
- •Compare your information with what the following extract states a wild boar’s fury was Bleiddig ab Eli…
- •5). First steps of the roman church in england
- •What do you know about the Roman Church and its role in bringing christianity to Britain?
- •Find out about the history of relations of the Roman and Celtic Churches
- •6). Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms.
- •1. What were the names of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms?
- •2. Find out in the following extract what the main political, social and cultural events took place in this period
- •7). The venerable bede and gens anglorum
- •8). Social structure of the anglo-saxon kingdoms
- •Unit 5. The vikings
- •1). The history of the danish invasion
- •2). King alfred – the leader of anglo-saxon resistance to the danes
- •Trace the main events in Alfred’s life.
- •What is the Twelveth night mentioned in the text?
- •3). The battle of brunanburh
- •4). The saxons lose the crown
- •What distinguished Edgar from other Saxon kings?
- •What was Gunnhild and how is she connected with the loss of the crown by Saxon kings?
- •5). Restoration of the anglo-saxon kingship
- •What was the name of the king who restored the Anglo-Saxon kingship?
- •Why was Edward called the Confessor?
- •Try to remember how the Norman Conqest took place and what were its principal results for England and its people
- •Read the following extracts and make reports about the reign of King William I, his sons and his grandson Stephen
- •1)William I (1066- 87)
- •Laws of King William
- •2) William II (1087-1100)
- •3) Henry l (1100-35)
- •4) Stephen (1135-54)
- •What can you say about the reign of King Henry II and his sons Richard and John?
- •On the basis of the following extracts report about the development of the social, political and legal systems in England in the late 12th - early13th c.
- •1). Henry II (1154-89) and Thomas Becket
- •3). King John the Lackland (1199-1216)
- •2). Edward I (1272-1307)
- •3.) Edward II (1307- 1327)
- •What famous order was founded by the king?
- •What war was begun in his reign?
- •5). Richard II (1377-99)
- •The Supression of the Peasants’ Revolt
- •Part 4 learning, lollardy, and literature (XIV century)
- •Oxford and Cambridge
- •William of Ockham
- •John Wyclif
- •The Lollards
- •The Lollard Bible
- •Resurgence of English
- •Piers Plowman
- •John Gower
- •Chaucer
- •Unit 7. The house of lancaster
- •Henry IV (1399-1413)
- •2). HenryV (1413-22)
- •3). Henry VI (1422-71)
- •King Edward IV
- •Edward V
- •Richard III
- •References
- •Contents
- •Part 9. Social Structure of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms 122
- •Part 1. The Normans
- •Part 3. The Plantagenets
- •Tests 329
Piers Plowman
Yet the greatest of all the alliterative poems is of southern origin. Piers Plowman, which survives in three distinct versions (the so-called A-text, composed 1362-3; the B-text, 1377; and the C-text, c, 1393), has presented its critics with many problems. Expert opinion tends, on the whole, to favour belief in a single author, William Langland, who may have been born about 1333, had his schooling at Great Malvern priory, and taken minor orders before, having completed the A-text, he removed to London to live on Cornhill with his wife Kitte and his daughter, Calotte. In the Б-text Langland altered and greatly expanded his original poem; in the C-text he undertook a final revision, not generally regarded as an improvement. The book is divided into two main parts – the ‘Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman’ and the 'Life of Dowel, Dobet and Dobest' (Do Well, Do Веtter and Do Best). Though little of it is easy reading, the persistant reader will not lack reward; for the poem is of compelling sincerity and power, its sombre landscape lit with gleams of beauty. Langland is a bitter critic of the whole top-heavy ecclesiastical system – ‘we han so manye maistres’ - and of the rich and proud; but he is not a demagogue, still less a revolutionary. He is learned, austere, a seeker after truth and a teacher of righteousness. In his lovely lines on Charity he evokes an ideal which has nothing in common with the rantings of John Ball:
'Charite,’ quod he, ‘ne chaffareth nougte, ne chalengeth, ne craueth.
As proude of а реny, as of a pounde of golde,
And is as gladde of a goune, of a graye russet
As of a tunicle of Tarse, or of trye scarlet.
He is gladde with alle gladde, and good tyl alle wykked And leueth and loueth alle, that owre lorde made.
Curseth he no сгеature, ne he can bere no wratthe,
Ne no lykynge hath to lye, ne laughe men to scorne.
Al that men seith, he let it soth, and in solace taketh,
And alle manere mischiefs, in myldenesse he suffreth;
Coueitelh he none earthly good, but heuene-riche blisse.'
Piers Plowman offers us a congested canvas of late fourteenth-century society. The value of the poem as a source for social history has been widely recognised, more widely, perhaps, than its poetic quality. Yet, in contrast with Troilus, or the Canterbury Tales, or even with Confessio Amantis,the figures are two-dimensional, we do not see them in the round; we seem to look at a medieval fresco, rather than to mingle with a medieval crowd. Perhaps by reason of its form—for the Old English alliterative line was burning itself out - the whole poem has an archaic air. It is none the less impressive for that. But, whereas Gower presents us with the conventions of a polite society, and Chaucer with human nature as we know it, Langland speaks to us from a forgotten world, drowned, mysterious, irrecoverable.
John Gower
John Gower, who came of a family of Kentish squires, was a Londoner by adoption, a friend of Chaucer’s, and a generous benefactor of the priory of St. Mary Overy in Southwark (now the cathedral), where his effigy may still be seen, the head resting on his three principal works—the French, Speculum Meditantis (or Mirour de I'Homme), the Latin, Vox Clamantis, and the English, Confessio Amantis. Gower's will was proved in 1408, but we know neither the date of his birth nor much about his life, though this may be presumed to have been leisurely. There are 10,000 lines in the Latin book, over 29,000 in the French, 33,000 in the English—and some minor works as well. Gower was essentially a stylist, whom the ordinary reader probably underrates. He is distinguished principally by his 'correctness' and by the ease and lucidity of his French and English verse. But he was also a perceptive and skilful narrator and, though inordinately addicted to moralizing, he does not lack humour. For historians, much of the interest of his work lies in what he tells us of his own reactions to contemporary history. In the first book of Vox Clamantis, for example, Gower succeeds, despite (or, perhaps, by reason of) what W. P. Ker called the 'detestable verse', in conveying an idea of the horror and panic aroused in the minds of the gentry by the rising of 1381:
Quidam sternutant asinorum more ferine,
Mugitus quidam personuere boum;
Quidam porcorum grunnitus horridiores
Emittunt, que suo murmure terra tremit.
The same poem, believed to have been composed in 1382 or 1383, also reveals something of the poet's attitude to Richard II. Having begun by declaring the king too young to be held responsible for the corruption of his court, Gower, in a slightly later revision of the poem, takes it upon himself to read Richard a lecture on his kingly duties, urging him to be worthy of his famous father and reminding him that the God-given beauty of his person ought to be matched by the virtue of his soul. It says much for Richard's forbearance that when, two or three years later, he met his surly critic on the Thames, he should have invited him into the royal barge and encouraged him to write something more palatable:
He hath this charge upon me leid,
And bad me doo my besynesse
That to his hihe worthinesse
Some newe thing I scholde boke,
That he himself it mihtc loke
After the forme of my writynge.
Gower was naturally flattered: and it seems likely that his laudable decision to write in English and to season edification with love-stories was taken on the king's advice. The first recension of Confessio Amantis, completed in 1390, opens with a prologue which describes it as
A bok for king Richardes sake,
To whom belongeth my ligeance
With al myn hertes obeissance
In al that evere a liege man
Unto his king may doon or can.
Oddly enough, it seems not to have been the events of 1386-8 which shook Gower's loyalty to Richard, but something that occurred in or after 1390. By 1391 he had cut out the compliments to Richard and, by 1393 at latest, had substituted a dedication to Henry of Lancaster. Whatever brought about this metamorphosis, it can hardly have been the gift from Henry of an inexpensive collar,' valued at 26s.8d.; all that is clear is that henceforward Gower became increasingly critical of Richard II. The Сrопicа Tripertita, which he added to his Vox Clamantis early in the next reign, recapitulates the story of Richard's last years from the Lancastrian standpoint; and one of the last poems that he ever wrote—perhaps the last, for he went blind shortly afterwards—is addressed 'In Praise of Peace' to Henry: God hath the chose in comfort of ous alle.
Though he seems to have had no particular attachment to Gaunt, Gower must have had Lancastrian affiliations before 1399. It is interesting to find that Confessio Amantis was translated into Portuguese by an English canon of Lisbon, probably in Gower's own lifetime, when the queen of Portugal was Henry's sister, Philippa of Lancaster.