LECTURE 4 ENGLAND IN MIDDLE AGES
Plan:
1. William the Conqueror and his successors.
2. Coalition of barons against the king. The first Parliament.
3. Relations between England and Scotland.
4. Capital of England.
5. The system of justice in middle ages.
6. Development of society.
7. The time of wars, plagues and revolts.
8. Social and cultural development of England in Late Middle Ages.
William the Conqueror and his successors
William organised his English kingdom according to the feudal system. The central idea was that all land was owned by the king but it was held by others, called “vassals”, in return for services and goods.
William controlled two large areas: Normandy, which he had been given by his father, and England, which he had won in the war. Both were personal possessions. To William the important difference between Normandy and England was that as duke of Normandy he had to recognize the king of France as a lord, whereas in England he was king with no lord above him. This control of land in both France and England was until the 16th century. It created great problems, as kings of England were obliged to divide their attention between their possessions. Kings of France became annoyed by the fact that English monarchs controlled land in France which, they believed, should belong to the French monarchy. As a consequence, wars between England and France became a common feature of the history from this time on.
William I died in 1087 and left three sons to dispute his inheritance. The middle one, also called William was the first to reach England. He was the King of England known as “Rufus” from the redness of his face. Politically and military successful, Rufus became unpopular with the Church because of his treatment of it, though he had a very high reputation in knightly circles. He was killed by an arrow in 1100, while hunting.
Rufus was succeeded in England by his younger brother Henry I. Robert who had taken part in the capture of Jerusalem (1099), returned to Normandy in 1100 and in 1101 invaded England. The two brothers met in battle in 1106. Robert was beaten and condemned to perpetual imprisonment in England until his death in 1134. Henry became the master of both England and Normandy.
Henry was a powerful ruler. He enforced the law with the help of a team of judges, holding court in the main towns. The circuit system is still in operation today. Henry also set up the Exchequer to supervise monetary and fiscal matters. This is still does. England had the most centrally organized government in Europe.
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Henry had one son, William who died in 1120. The succession to the crown was in dispute. Henry had a daughter Matilda. She was hard and capable but, as a woman, was unacceptable to the barons as their ruler.
In 1136 when Henry I died, Matilda was pushed aside by Stephen, son of Adela, the daughter of William the Conqueror. Stephen was King from 1135-54, but he was opposed by Matilda, who wanted the throne first for herself and then her son Henry. There was Civil War until 1153, when by Treaty of Winchester it was agreed that Stephen should rule until his death. In the death of Stephen, it was agreed that Henry should become King.
In 1154 Henry became the master of England. Henry’s emblem was a plant called Planta genesta; so his dynasty was called the Plantagenet dynasty. Henry held the great empire together by his ability and energy. In England he re-established the authority of the centre after the weak government of Stephen’s reign. He created the common law system, according to which every freeman had a right to plead in royal courts, even against his feudal lords. Henry also remodeled the Exchequer, which, being responsible for the collection of taxes was at the centre of royal government.
When Henry II died in 1189 he was succeeded as King by his son, Richard, called Richard the Lion Hearted. Richard was the military, as a King of England he was a disaster. He spent short period of time in England, other time he was campaigning in France, Sicily and Palestine. He was killed in the struggle in 1199. Having no legitimate children, Richard was succeeded by his brother John. John was faced with three main problems. The power of the English nobility was increasing; the possessions of the English kings in France were daily becoming more difficult to defend; and the Church was eager to gather into its hands as much power as possible.
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