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LECTURE 1: AN OVERVIEW OF ROMAN AND MEDIEVAL ENGLAND I. 1.

Let us begin by saying that the most important population until the advent of the Romans in England was formed by the Celtic tribes, always at strife with each other. They dominated much of Europe in the last six centuries before Christ, expanding up to todays Romania as well, and were known as both skilful warriors and craftsmen, which comes as no surprise. As to their civilization their trevs or hamlets consisted of light structures of timber, wattles, or mud, easily destroyed. (G. M. Trevelyan, A Shortened History of England, p. 27) 2. The Romans in Britain The Roman occupation occurred between the coming of the Celt and the coming of the Saxon. Unlike the Saxon, Celt, and Dance who came over to slaughter or expel the inhabitants and settle in their place, the Romans made an effort to induce their Western subjects to assimilate Latin life in all its aspects. However, citing Haverfield, Trevelyan points out that the Britons have inherited practically nothing from the Romans. Yet we know about Hadrians Wall and other sites. For one, architecture in the real sense of the word appeared for the first time in the island with the Romans. Fine public buildings, both religious and secular, were built and embellished with statues and carved relieves. The walls were painted and the floors were of tesserae (square mosaic tiles) set in various designs. The great pavement at Woodchester, in Gloucestershire, shows Orpheus playing his lute to the beasts of field. The Mildenhall treasure, to be found at the British Museum proves the quality of the silversmiths work. The Romans brought, it seems, a whole lot of their civilization facilities. For instance, the pottery for the table was embellished with a wealth of design. Moreover, and against Trevelyans argument, there was a connection between the Celtic and Roman craftsman. The former deserted his curvilinear patterns (much enjoyed by the 19th and 20th century artists) for the new classical style, and yet carried on some of the old tradition. An example of it is the Gorgons head, from the pediment of the temple of Sulis-Minerva at Bath (Bath Museum). Even when the Romans deserted the island a mixture of Roman-Celtic designs survived. Modified to suit the Nordic taste, these took their place in the pattern-books of Anglo-Saxon craftsmen. Let us consider now some facts regarding the history of London and its origin as a city. Finds have been made in the river bed which suggests that the first edition of London Bridge may have been erected in timber before the Roman Conquest. The name of London, Trevelyan argues, is Celtic, though some say it is Latin (Londinium). Yet, it was not a great center of either Iberian or Celtic civilization. There was a forest and a marsh that covered much of the area. It was the Romans who found the geographic potential of the place. Roads connecting north and south were built. According to the historians and archeological finds, London became larger and richer under the Romans. The Roman walls enclosed an area corresponding very closely to the walls of the City in medieval times, which were in fact only the Roman walls restored. (pp. 31-32) 3. The Nordic Roots Another important chapter in Englands history is the settlement of the Nordic peoples, the Anglo-Saxons, the Jutes, the Danes, and Norsemen. They started to plunder the coast of Roman Britain before 300 A. D. and the conquest was

completed by Canute in 1020, who reconciled the kindred races of Saxon and Dane. The racial basis was fixed by the time of Canute. Trevelyan insists on this fact, arguing that The distinctive character of the modern English is Nordic tempered by Welsh, not Welsh tempered by Nordic (p. 36). The historian carefully notes that this use of Nordic does not imply the ideological meaning of the word in Nazi Germany, which is founded neither in history nor biology. Secondly, he maintains that the attempt of the Norman-French aristocracy and clergy to Gallicize England, though it had great and permanent consequences, was gradually abandoned in face of the facts of race, just as the attempt to anglicize Ireland has recently been abandoned for the same cause. (p. 37) Now, if compared to the Goth and Frank invasions, in Saxon England city life, Christian religion (later restored) and Roman-Celtic language all disappeared. It took almost one thousand and five hundred years to re-establish the benefits of the Roman civilization. So, as Trevelyan points out: The first result of the conquest was the loss of the crafts, science, and learning of Rome. However, the withdrawn Celts, once civilized, became barbarous, while the Saxons grew more civilized. Nonetheless, the Romans left behind three things as permanent legacies the traditional site of London, the Roman roads, and Welsh Christianity. (p. 51) Romes missionaries kept coming to Wales, and among them the famous Saint Germanus, a former Roman soldier, who won a battle against the Picts and Saxons. Similarly, the Celtic Christianity developed in Cornwall. 4. Christianity and Architecture Since we are going to talk later about the architecture of the cathedrals, it is worth discussing about Christianity itself, because the Christian conquest of the island was the return of Mediterranean civilization in a new form and with a new message. Two figures are of utmost importance: Augustine of Rome and Theodore of Tarsus. They brought here a hierarchy similar to the former Roman Empire, and interestingly enough, the English kings borrowed forms and policies fitted to the need of the incipient state. In Ireland a tremendously important role was played by Saint Patrick who brought to Ireland the Latin language and the scholarly work. Moreover, the acceptance of Christianity in Ireland as later in England was in part due to the admiration felt by the barbarians for the Empire even in its fall, and for all things appertaining to Rome. (p. 57) It is worth noting that the Irish did not imitate the Roman hierarchy, thus theirs was not parochial, it was monastic mainly. The normal Irish monastery was connected with a single tribe and acknowledged no ecclesiastical superior. Yet, this monasticism cannot be compared to the continental one. In my opinion, it was somewhat similar to the one on our territory. It was a congregation of hermits living each in his own beehive hut of wattle clay and turf. They were hermits, scholars, artists, warriors, and missionaries. They would go and preach copy and illuminate manuscripts in the monastery or seek for more complete seclusion like St Cuthbert, who left the remote Lindisfarne for the Farne Islands. It is to them that the English owe the wonderful manuscript art of Lindisfarne Gospel, wherein Celtic and Saxon nature ornamentation were blended in perfect harmony with southern Christian traditions. Moreover, far from the Papal censorship, they revived knowledge of classical secular literature, which had almost died in Western Europe.

If we cannot speak about a proper secular architecture earlier than the 11 th century, not many Anglo-Saxon churches are left either. There are some reasons to it. Firstly, most of them were built of wood. Secondly, the Normans demolished them just to rebuild them after the conquest. However, a handful has remained. The typical Anglo-Saxon church has a simple plan: two rectangles of unequal size linked by an arch, with a smaller rectangle to the east (see slides and pictures of Bosom). An additional chamber or porticus could be attached to the church. The buildings tended to be of a much greater height than width, as at Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire. The windows were small and round-headed, set high in the walls. Interiors were often decoratively painted, with little architectural ornament. The external decoration was often elaborate, usually pilaster-work (vertical strips of stone on the outside walls). The exterior might also have round-headed or triangular blank arcading. In some of these churches, as it happened in most parts of Europe, the builders used bricks from the Roman ruins or, as it is the case of the crypt at Hexam, Northumberland, and the abbey built by Wilfrid in the 7 th century, using stone from the ruined Hadrians Wall. And there are other examples in Yorkshire. As to the other arts, there are two examples that have been known. Firstly, St Cuthbert Vestments in Durham Cathedral. Secondly, the 11th century Bayeux Tapestry, a long strip of linen, embroidered in colored wools with lively, detailed scenes from the life of King Harold, the battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest, which is exhibited in Bosom Church. II. The Norman Conquest and its outcome 1. Introduction There is one fact which is less highlighted, namely, that the Norman aristocracy, Scandinavian by origin, retained all the Viking energy in colonization and in war, but had become converts to Latin culture. (p. 93) And so, the culture that the Normans imported into England was indeed Franco-Italian, but the monarchy brought over by the Normans was the monarchy of their own strong Dukes, and not of the weak French kings at Paris. (p. 94) We should not wonder, because culture was mostly monastic, while the tribal organization was still present at that time. However, Normandy was better organized than France, having what we call today administration. Thus England was invaded by the most highly organized continental state of the day (p. 96), which also sustained the Church power. They brought to England the greatest intellects of the day, like Lanfranc of Pavia and Anselm of Aosta, who became Archbishops of Canterbury. Moreover, Lanfranc and Anselm brought the knowledge of Roman and Canon Law, and the latest theology and philosophy of the day. Remember that that happened before the age of Universities, when the monasteries served as chief centers of learning. Meanwhile, architecture was already laying its massive impress on the Norman landscape. Though the great age of stone castles was delayed till the 12 th century, the Norman Abbeys and Cathedrals that we know were already beginning to rise when the Conqueror sailed for England (p. 97). You do not have to imagine that the average Norman aristocrat was a man of letters, a civilized person. Except for some learned priests, they were as barbaric as the Anglo-Saxons. Sometimes their methods of warfare were as cruel as ever. This Christian convert was ruthless and primitive as his Viking ancestor. However, the Church taught them to organize society, and as G. M. Trevelyan thinks, it was this better organization of society, even more than the precept and example of

the Church herself, that eventually taught men to take the first halting steps in the direction of humanity and justice. (p. 98) 2. Edward the Confessor and his role in the development of London; William the Conqueror and the effects of invasion Though less important as a political figure, Edward the Confessor, the Anglo-Saxon king, half monk, since he grew up in exile in a monastery in France, it was him who prepared for Westminster the high place that it holds in ecclesiastical history and its supreme place in the political development of England. He moved his residence on the rural island of thorns to be near the church he was building to St Peter. Besides, during his reign London regained the place it held in the Roman times, that of a great center of North European commerce. As concerns Westminster Abbey, which plays a tremendously important role in the history of England, one should notice that on its site was a Benedictine Monastery. The first monks were brought to Westminster in about 960 AD by St Dunstan, the then Bishop of London. No trace of the building to which they came has been found. Edward the Confessors Abbey was consecrated on 28 December 1065 and one year later, following the battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror forced his way and reached the Abbey for coronation. That was granted to him and he was crowned there on Christmas Day as lawful heir of the Confessor. Here is how Trevelyan describes the event: his followers, on a false alarm of treachery, were setting fire to the houses of the English outside. The noise of strife and outrage interrupted the service, and all save William and the officiating priests rushed out of the Minster to take part. Here were grim realities, in dramatic contrast to Williams theory of a lawful and natural passage of the Crown. The claim to be heir to the Confessor and guardian of his good laws thinly covered over the brute facts of conquest, and seemed of little avail to protect the country against French and violence (p. 106). In fact William was a bastard, and it was through a chain of tricks and force that he deprived Harold, the Confessors heir, that he got hold of the crown). Now let us consider some consequences of the Norman Conquest. Firstly, William the Conqueror chased away the Anglo-Saxon priests and replaced them with French ones. During his reign, Lanfranc, whom I mentioned before, was his right hand. Naturally, continental architecture was brought to England by Norman builders who hastened to replace the largest Saxon churches with structures yet more magnificent. Another result of the Conquest was the making of the English language. The language was spoken and written by King Alfred and Bede, was despised as a peasants jargon, the talk of ignorant serfs. Now the clergy talked Latin and the gentry talked French. Some think it was a chance for the language as such because it lost its clumsy inflexions and elaborate genders, acquiring the grace, suppleness and adaptability which are among its chief merits. At the same time it was enriched by many French words and ideas. The English vocabulary is mainly French in words relating to war, politics, justice, religion, hunting, cooking and art. As for architecture it is only partially French. That was a singular example in history and, as Trevelyan puts it, It is symbolic of the fate of the English race itself after Hastings, fallen to rise nobler, trodden under foot only to be trodden into shape. (p. 117) 3. Some facts about Norman art and architecture in England The Norman Conquest had little immediate effect on the style of English illumination I referred to earlier, but there was some influence on detail. Some decorative features

became more common, such as historiated initial letters (decorated with figures of men and animals), and inhabited scrolls, showing arabesques of foliage with animals inhabiting the branches. During the first half of the 12th century a new style, the Romanesque, entered the country. This grew up alongside the surviving Anglo-Saxon style. It derived from Byzantium and the East and its characteristics were firmness of line, boldness of execution, and a rigid, monumental dignity in the portrayal of the human figure. A rare example surviving from this time is the wall-painting in St Anselm Chapel of Canterbury Cathedral, namely St Paul and the Viper. The most important English contribution to Romanesque painting is the development of the technique of pictorial narrative and of a complete cycle of ceremonial Bibles which were produced in the 12th century, in particular the Winchester Bible (Winchester Cathedral), the Lambeth Bible from Canterbury (Lambeth Palace), and the Bury Bible (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge). They all are the greatest achievements in European painting in the 12th century. At the end of the Norman period they won for England the pre-eminence in the graphic arts which in sculpture belonged to France. The Norman or Romanesque style in architecture is magnificent in scale, simple and inventive. Today we cannot see the churches as they were then. However, three large churches have stood as they were in Norman times: the cathedrals of Durham, Norwich, and Peterborough. Durham Cathedral, considered as one of the finest Romanesque churches in Europe, was begun by Bishop William of St Carilief in 1093 and completed by 1133, and it was the first large building in northern Europe to be rib-vaulted in stone. Formally, it has stood so, I would say, but changes of details still occur. A good example is the stained glass window on the theme of the Last Supper painted in the eighties of the last century. As to castle building, the first Norman forts were simple earth mounds with ditches and palisades. Their characteristic feature is the square Norman keep combining fortress and residence. Two examples survive from the 11th century: Colchester, Essex, and the white Tower in the Tower of London, completed by 1097. It is a fourstorey building divided by an internal wall into two parts. One half of the building was again subdivided to the plain but beautiful Chapel of St John, which is the oldest complete Norman church in England.

LECTURE 2: HISTORY AND CULTURE IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND III. Some facts about the English history in the Middle Ages 1. Introduction The medieval period begins about the time of the First Crusade (1096), which also marks the first signs of anti-Semitism in Europe. Feudalism was the characteristic institution of the Middle Ages; it opposed the anarchy of the Dark Ages, meaning that barbarism grew into civilization. On the one hand there was the disintegrated secular society of feudal barons and knights, each with an outlook limited to his province or

his manor, while on the other hand there was the pan-European Church, tightly organized from Rome. Furthermore, since the clergy enjoyed an almost complete monopoly of learning and clerkship, the control of Church over State in the early Middle Ages was very great. If for a period of time it was a king who appointed the Bishops, for instance, in the end it was the Pope who did it, yet with the tacit recommendation of the king. The true merit of medieval Christendom, Trevelyan argues, was that as compared to Islam and Brahmanism it was progressive, and that society moved constantly forward from 1100 to 1500 towards new things, out of uniformity into variety, out of feudal cosmopolitanism into national monarchy, out of hegemony of the priesthood into lay emancipation, out of the rule of the knight into the world of the craftsman, the capitalism and the yeoman. The spirit of medieval Europe was not static but dynamic. (p. 119) Behind the fortified walls of the monasteries the monks were re-interpreting the works of Plato and Aristotle, while beyond the very same walls there was barbarism mixed with flashing lights of civilization. After the Norman Conquest England acquired great institutions: representative assemblies, universities, juries. Some of these institutions, like the universities, the legal profession, the city guilds and companies, and Parliament itself, had their origin or analogy elsewhere because they were characteristic products of medieval Christendom as a whole. But the English Common Law was a development peculiar to England. Parliament and the Common Law gave England in the end a political life of their own in strong contrast to the later developments of Latin civilization. 2. Major kings You should not imagine that England was the land of milk and honey, of stories of knights courting ladies or ladies waiting for their knights back from the crusade. The worst happened during the conflict between Stephen of Blois, a distinguished knight, and Matilda, wife of the great Plantagenet Count, Geoffrey of Anjou. That torn the country apart. For instance, an English monk wrote about the tortures invented to oppress the common people. They took those whom they suspected to have goods, by night and by day, seizing both men and women, and they put them in prison for their gold and silver, and tortured them with pains unspeakable, for never were any martyrs tormented as these were. Finally, an agreement was reached: Stephen was to wear the crown till his death, while Matildas son was to succeed as Henry II (1154-89). He was a great king, the first who tried to separate the church and secular powers. He had an administrative mind trained in the best European learning of his day. He was not merely Duke of Normandy but the ruler of Western France. By marriage, diplomacy, and war, the House of Anjou had accumulated such vast possessions that the monarchy at Paris and the Holy Roman Empire were of less account. Henrys ever-moving court was filled with men of business, pleasure, and scholarship from every land in Western Europe. He was a great Angevin king after all. During his reign and that of his sons, the English knight became less interested in fighting, because he could buy the military service through what was known as shield money. So, more and more knights turned into what came to be known as the country gentleman. For these reasons the stone castle, typical of Stephens reign was gradually replaced by the stone manor-house, typical of the Plantagenet era. The movement was hastened by Henry IIs demolition of unlicensed castles and his

unwillingness to grant new licenses. The donjon-keep was replaced by a highceilinged stone hall, the lineal descendant of the high timber hall of the Anglo-Danish thong. In front of it there was a walled courtyard partly surrounded by buildings. The manor-house was only to be entered through the gateway of the courtyard, and was often protected by a moat. That was true for southern and midland counties, while on the Welsh or Scottish borders, there dwelt the Marcher Lords in high castles. They participated in the chief fights during the troublesome times of the Plantagenet period. There is one significant fact that distinguishes the English upper-class from the continental one. The feudal law of primogeniture, or the right to the land of the first born, turned into an advantage, because the other sons were sent out into the world to seek for their fortune. Unlike the continental upper-class, who married inside their own order, and despised merchants and commerce, the English never became a closed caste, and that was a rapid way of escaping from feudalism. The great benefit of Henrys reign was the legal reform, that is, a native system common to the whole land, in place of the various provincial customs. It meant a step forward towards the emancipation from the feudal and ecclesiastical courts. He established the jury system that became the boast of England, contrasting the French procedure, where torture was freely used. King Richard the Lion-Hearted (1189-99) distinguished himself in the Third Crusade as the greatest of knight-errant, the popular figure in the Middle Ages. He took with him other men of an adventurous disposition, but not the solid part of the baronage. As for the English common folk, the emotions of the Third Crusade touched them just enough to produce some shocking pogroms of Jews, of which the one in York was appalling. To put it in a nutshell, Richard left England at the mercy of his treacherous brother, John. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter, whom Richard had appointed, backed by the official baronage, the Mayor and citizens of London, suppressed Johns treason and purchased Richards deliverance from the Austrian prison into which his fellow crusaders had thrown him. But he had just returned home that he left again and never returned to England. King John (1199-1216) had no broad political strategy or foresight. He extorted money from all classes of his subjects and then spent it in clumsy attempts to defend his inheritance against the kings of France. The loss of Normandy to Philip Augustus took place in 1204, and ten years later, his scheme to recover it through a grand European coalition against France was shipwrecked by the defeat of his German allies. King John had problems with the Pope as well (he struggled with Pope Innocent III over the election of Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, to which he eventually surrendered). In The Life and Death of King John by W. Shakespeare, King John sadly notices: It is the curse of kings to be attended By slaves that take their humours for a warrant To break within the bloody house of life, And on the winking of authority To understand a law, to know the meaning Of dangerous majesty, when, perchance, it frowns

More upon humour than advisd respect. Oscar Wilde once wrote that children should learn history of Shakespeares historical plays. Yet Shakespeare himself missed to dramatize one important event of the Middle Ages: Magna Carta. An important role on the constitutional role, representing the tension between the king and the people, was Magna Carta, the first English Constitution that led in the end to yet undreamt of liberties for all. More than the barons, it was Archbishop Stephen Langton whose brain and moral strength helped the movement. His action was all the more remarkable considering that Pope Innocent III who supported him to be appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, disagreed with him and backed instead King John and declared Magna Carta null and void. The new English baronial policy, as designed in Magna Carta, was meant to obtain public liberties and to control the king through the Common Law, baronial assemblies, and alliance with other classes. It was the first text setting a democratic legal law in general. Here it is how Article 1 reads: In the first place we have conceded to God, and by this our present charter confirmed for us and our heirs for ever that the English church shall be free, and shall have her rights entire, and her liberties inviolate; and we wish that it be thus observed. This is apparent from the fact that we, of our pure and unconstrained will, did grant the freedom of elections, which is reckoned most important and very essential to the English church, and did by our charter confirm and did obtain the ratification of the same from our lord, Pope Innocent III., before the quarrel arose between us and our barons. This freedom we will observe, and our will is that it be observed in good faith by our heirs for ever. We have also granted to all freemen of our kingdom, for us and our heirs for ever, all the underwritten liberties, to be had and held by them and their heirs, of us and our heirs for ever:

Naturally, not all the terms used then have preserved the same meaning. For instance, free and freemen have to be understood as follows: Free here particularly liberty to obey the canon law of the Western Church which, amongst other things, insisted on ecclesiastical elections being free from lay pressure. [Article 1] Freeman those of free status in the eyes of the law (that is, not villains) and as such having certain rights denied to villains, such as access to the Kings courts in certain actions, freedom to move about and marry and exemption from certain onerous duties. [Article 1] One interesting aspect, as it appears in Magna Charta is the problem of Jews, which the authors gave special attention, meaning that that was a hot issue and brought about discrimination among the population: And if any one die indebted to the Jews, his wife shall have her dower and pay nothing of that debt; and if any children of the deceased are left underage, necessaries shall be provided for them in keeping with the holding of the deceased. The debt shall be paid out of the residue, save the

service due to feudal lords. Let debts due to others than Jews be dealt with in similar manner. As to architecture, we find here the first reference to castles which: before the reign of Henry II even major castles were mostly built of wood, as were the less important buildings and auxiliary defences long after his time. The reference sounds rather funny today: Neither we nor our bailiffs shall take, for our castles or for any other of our works, wood which is not ours, except with agreement from the owner of that timber. As Trevelyan says: Throughout the Thirteenth Century the struggle for the Charter, with its constant reissues, revisions, infringements, and reassertions, was the battleground of parties, until the Edwardian Parliaments were fully established, the Charter remained in the foreground of mens thoughts (p. 148). However, when the Parliament was established and in the 16th century, for instance, the Charter was out of fashion. Shakespeares King John shows that the author knew little about it. But when, under James I, Prince and people again began to take up opposing ground, Magna Carta came quickly back as the goddess of English freedom. It always happened so when the battle for freedom was looming. Henry III (1216-1272). During his long reign (though he was under age when he became a king) the discontent continued leading to another period of civil war and constitution making. The hero of the day was Simon Monfort. This time the target of the struggle for the Charter was the middle classes of town and country, the gentry and burghers, led by friars. Monforts ideas formed the conception of Law as something above the king. In 1264 he won a victory at Lewes, while after one year he was defeated and murdered at Evesham. In the very same year (1265) the Merton and Balliol colleges were founded at Oxford. However, his ideas outlived him because he had made a convert of his conqueror, the kings son, Edward. When the latter became the king of England he had already learnt that the king must reign under and through the Law, and that the Crown opposed to the nation was less strong than the Crown in Parliament. The name parliament was firstly applied during Henry IIIs reign to the feudal assemblies and kings Council. It carried no idea of election or representation. What did Monfort do after his victory? He summoned not only the knights of the shire, but for the first time two representatives from each of the chartered boroughs. That particular Parliament was a revolutionary assembly to which only those Barons were summoned who were of Simons party, but it set a precedent for the summoning of burghers, imitated more closely the Parliament of Edward I. Edward I (1272-1307). It was during his reign that the Parliament was established. I would like to insist here on Trevelyans opinion of the nature of the English Parliament: No man made it, for it grew. It was the natural outcome, through long centuries, of the common sense and the good nature of the English people, who have usually preferred committees to dictators, elections to street fighting, and talking shops to revolutionary tribunals. (p. 152)

And heres another valid remark, in my opinion: The English people have always been distinguished for the Committee sense, their desire to sit round and talk till an agreement or compromise is reached. This national peculiarity was the true origin of the English Parliament. (p. 153) There is one essential fact that characterized the Parliament life: it abolished the distinctions of feudalism. The knights of the shire, a semi-feudal class were acting as elected representatives of the rural yeoman, and were sitting cheek by jowl with the citizens of the boroughs. Neither was any House of the Clergy formed as part of the English Parliament. They voluntarily abandoned their seats among the Commons and the Lords. That explains why the English couldnt understand what in the world the French Revolution was about.

* Ireland, Wales, and Scotland What happened to Ireland during the period after the Conquest? It mainly remained disorganized, while the majority of its inhabitants preferred the country life to town life. Their towns were easily captured and transformed into English ones. The citizens of Bristol were given the right to inhabit Dublin. Dublin Castle, first built by the Vikings, became the centre of Saxon rule in Ireland from the 12th century. To put it in a nutshell, England proved too weak to conquer and govern Ireland, but strong enough to prevent her from learning to govern herself. It is significant that the island that once was the lamp of learning in a barbarous Europe, had no university when the Middle Ages came to an end. Before the coming of the Anglo-Normans, the Welsh had been a pastoral rather than an agricultural people. They lived rather in huts than in towns and villages, that is, they did not have a community life. When the occupation occurred and they saw their valley dominated by a Norman castle of timber or stone, with an agricultural village attached to it, a part of them fled higher into the hills, while the others remained vassals of the new lord. All through the Middle Ages the native Welsh, in imitation of the English lords and neighbors, were slowly taking to agriculture, erecting permanent houses, trading in market-towns. Yet they preserved their own tongue [] and developed their bardic poetry and music destined in our own days to save Welsh intellect and idealism from perishing in the swamp of modern cosmopolitan vulgarity, says Trevelyan (p. 168), which means they are stark traditionalists, yet very creative. As you can see, in England there are people living at a different pace and within a different history. While Wales and Ireland were forced to submit to Englands rule more completely and for a longer time than Scotland, both remained to this day far more Celtic. For at least two centuries Scotland fought for her independence from England, and remained an extremely poor, savage, bloodstained land of feudal anarchy, 10

assassination, private wars, and public treason, with constant Border warfare against England, with peculiarly corrupt Church, no flourishing cities, no Parliament or other institutions that could promise her a great future. (Of course, this is an Englishmans opinion). England could have given her wealth and civilization.

The One Hundred Year War meant a period in which England, equipped with administrative machinery and national self-consciousness, exercised these new powers at the expense of the French feudal kingdom. In fact, the English kings tried to regain their possessions. In 1337, when the Hundred Years War began, Edward III and his nobles spoke French and were more at home at Gascony than in Scotland. In fact the Hundred Years War was a label of the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. What the One Hundred Years War did was to intensify the patriotic feeling of the English, which outlasted the war, and helped to put an end to the subordination of the English to the French culture which the Norman Conquest had established. In Henry VIIs reign, for instance, the Venetian envoy noted: They think that there are no other men than themselves, and no other world but England; and whenever they see a handsome foreigner, they say he looks like an Englishman and that it is a great pity that he should not be an Englishman, and when they partake of any delicacy with a foreigner they ask him whether such a thing is made in his country (apud, Trevelyan, p. 189). Moreover, a law was passed by the Parliament declaring that since the French tongue was much unknown in this Realm, the judgment in the law courts should be spoken in English and enrolled in Latin. A more profound revolution took place regarding the language used in schools. English became once more the tongue of the educated and of the upper classes, as it had never been since Hastings. The Bible was translated into English by Wycliffes followers, and soon Chaucer was to write his works. Their work circulated first in manuscript, and then, in the 15th century came Caxtons printing press at Westminster, which popularized Chaucer and spread through the land translations of the Bible and Prayer Book in the same dialect, already regarded as the Kings English, which formed the standard English.

The Lollardry and Other Cultural Issues In the 14th century there was a movement resembling Protestantism. It was called Lollardry and it owed its existence to John Wycliffe, the Oxford scholar, the initiator of the translation of the Bible in English. After his denial of the doctrine of Transubstantiation1 he and his followers were expelled from Oxford in 1382 by a
1

Doctrine of Transubstantiation involves the miraculous change by which according to Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox dogma the Eucharistic elements at their consecration become the body and blood of Christ while keeping only their appearance of bread and wine.

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combined action of Church and State. So, he initiated a popular movement spread by itinerant preachers. Though persecuted and suppressed, Lollardry never wholly died out; it revived and merged in the Lutheran movement of early Tudor times. The copies of the Bible translation were destroyed when possible by the Church authorities. However, they could not prohibit the lay study of the Scriptures. The end of the Middle Ages and the emergence of the New Learning was a great period for the foundation of schools, besides Winchester or Eton. Guilds and private persons were endowing chantries with priests and schools. Reading and writing ceased to be the monopoly of the clergy. Chaucer, who died in 1400, had a tremendous influence on the English letters. All the poets of the age followed him. In their verse they express their admiration for the beauty of natural sights and sounds in the orchards and artificial gardens. As you can notice, landscape architecture is very old in England, and that can be explained psychologically. From the 15th to the early 18th centuries they liked artificial gardens because they had so much wild nature. At that time the beauty of domestic architecture of the manor houses, then coming to perfection in stone and brick, the artistic originality in dress, furniture, and homestead utensils enriched life with joys, we like to think. The everyday objects have acquired through time an esthetic value, quite different from the one given by the simple craftsman.

The End of the Middle Ages. Historians think that the Middle Ages ended in England in a curious way, and through the wars of Roses. These wars involved the families of Lancaster and York. On each side was ranged a group of nobles, and each noble had its clientele of knights, gentry, captains, lawyers, and clergy. Of course, there were cases when they changed sides. London remained neutral in this civil strife. The fighting nobles were savage in their treatment of one another, and there were many sudden turns of the fortunes wheel, leading to confiscations of great estates. The Crown was enriched by these confiscations, while the nobles were impoverished and their number reduced. The way was prepared for the Tudor policy of suppressing over mighty subjects. The Wars of Roses were a bleeding operation performed by the nobility upon their own body and a blessing in disguise for the rest of the people. The Renaissance lights were shining already.

LECTURE 3: SOME REMARKS ABOUT ENGLAND DURING THE TUDORS (RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION) Introduction Let us start with a conclusion, so the other way round. It is G. M. Trevelyans and it reads: The era of private enterprise and expanding genius associated with Drake and Raleigh, Shakespeare and Bacon, was the outcome of two hundred years of social disruption and rebirth, of the appeal of Renaissance and Reformation to the individual mind and conscience, and the subjection of corporate power to the national will be embodied in Crown and Parliament. (p. 201)

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On the one hand, the Renaissance in England like anywhere else, set religion in the light of the scholarly examination of the Scriptures, while on the other hand it revealed the ancient Greek and Roman ideals, long forgotten. Moreover, it encouraged man to explore the New World and thus changed the intellectual outlook on the world. All these tendencies dissolved the fabric of the medieval society in England. There is one thing; however, that distinguishes England from the rest of the Continent. While in France, Spain, and Portugal the monarchy was allied with the old Church, in England, it was allied with the Parliament and the country was a constitutional monarchy. Yet most institutions remained intact on condition of submitting to the sovereign authority of the state, including universities, nobles, lawyers, Bishops, secular clergy, and town corporations. Cosmopolitan church went down before the new idea of a national state with a national church attached. A sort of labour regulation, started by the Plantagenet Parliament was carried further in Tudor times, meaning a national control over economy (one emerging from the Middle Ages, of course!). For instance, the law of apprenticeship was regulated no longer by each guild but by the Statute of Artificers, passed by Queens Elizabeths Parliament. Many functions once performed by the feudal barons were taken over by the Justices of Peace who thus became the link between the views of the central authority and the facts of local administration. Renaissance in England, called Tudor Renaissance, was the time of the nation assertion of its strength, its claim to do whatever it liked within its own frontiers. The King exercised his power, while the Parliament played a lesser role. By putting himself at the head of the Anti-clerical revolution that destroyed the medieval power and privilege of the Church, Henry VIII (1491-1547), the son of the first Tudor King, Henry VII, set the new monarchy in alliance with the strongest forces of the coming age: London, the middle class, the seagoing population, the Protestant preachers. They all formed a powerful opposition to the forces of the old world: the monks, the friars, the feudal nobility and gentry in the north and popular Catholic piety which was stronger in the districts far from London. However, both the Catholics and the Protestants were feeble and neither dared to defy the Crown as the Puritans afterwards defied it in England. Renaissance was not an age of religious zeal in England, like the age of Becket, for instance, or that of Cromwell. So long as men persisted in the medieval error that there should be only one religion tolerated, so long the alternative was the Erastian state. (The term Erastian comes from Thomas Erastus, a 16th c. German Swiss physician and theologian who advocated the doctrine of state supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs). So, the liberty of conscience slowly grew up out of the struggles between the Erastian state and the various phases and sects of religious enthusiasm. The Tudors gave new directions to the external and expansive energies of the English. On the one hand, a new school of diplomacy was set, which from the Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (1475-1530) to William Cecil (1520-98), the famous statesman, pursued the Balance of Power as Englands only chance of security in face of great continental states. On the other hand, Henry VIII made a really fine Royal Navy that stood against the powerful Spanish one in the decades to come. Furthermore, the Celtic Welsh were reduced to order and Wales was annexed on terms of equality to England. That was possible due to their common Protestant interests. At the same time, the conquest of Ireland was undertaken in earnest.

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The individuals were free to wander and seek for either adventure or new ways of commerce as the new map of the world unfolded itself yearly. One chief advantage that England had over Spain in the New World was that England had cloth to sell in exchange for goods, while the Spaniards had nothing to send except soldiers, priests and colonists. The cloth industry had deep roots in the English medieval industry and developed later as well.

I.

The Sources and Developments of the English Renaissance

All through the 15th c Oxford suppressed the freedom of thought, mainly represented by Wycliffism. However, in early 16th c the echoes of Italian Renaissance come to Oxford. The English scholars and poets like John Lily (1554-1606), the euphuist, William Grocyn (1446-1519), the first to teach Greek and Latin at Oxford, and Thomas Linacre (1460-1524), the physician and professor of Greek and Latin, they all brought a new interest in Greek literature, Latin grammar and scientific medicine. The famous Dutch philosopher, Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) was a friend of the no less famous English thinker, Thomas More (1478-1535), the author of Utopia, first written in Latin and then translated into English, and the author of the first biography of King Richard III. They both gave a new character to the Renaissance studies, making them moral and religious, yet not severe, which would have contradicted the Renaissance spirit, so different in various parts of Europe but showing an all embracing openness. For Erasmus and More, Renaissance meant the New Testament in Greek and the Old Testament in Hebrew, apart from the ancient philosophers and poets. This approach is different from the ones taken by the Italians. In England the men of the Renaissance used to study Greek and Latin to reform not only the schools but the church itself, calling on both the clergy and laity to act together. Another leading figure was the scholar John Colet (1467-1519). He and Erasmus were the Oxford Reformers who, in the name of scholarship, religion, and morality, began a series of bitter attacks on the monks and obscurantism, on the worship of images and relics and the worldliness of the clergy. Their influence reached London and, certainly, Cambridge. Colet also founded, in the shadow of St Pauls Cathedral, whose Dean he was, St Pauls School, where John Lily, the poet, was the headmaster and taught Greek and Latin. That was to become the prototype of the reformed grammar school. What was the attitude of the Crown to the New Learning, as it is currently called? Henry VII paid less attention to it. For him the clergy were useful servants, while the Pope, and important person on his personal diplomatic agenda. Henry VIII had a different story. He succeeded to the throne and married Catherine of Aragon, promised to his brother Arthur, who died prematurely. He exceeded his subjects both in body and in brain. He was the paragon of Princes, the patron alike of sportsmen (he was a champion at tennis and a mighty hunter) and the men of the New Learning. But just like his father, he continued to encourage the burning of Lollards, wrote a book against Luther (Erasmus and More were against Luther as well), for which the Pope named him Fidei Defensor (Defender of Faith). At the same time he

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made friends with Colet and More, whom he forced to take up the profession of courtier. He also defended Colet against the obscurantist clergy by saying: Let every man have his doctor, this is mine, although Colet had denounced him in a song: For Henry loved a man. Henry, the young king was a good musician and played well on all known instruments. Another prominent figure at Henrys Court was Thomas More. Erasmus, in a letter to Ulbrich von Hutten, where he draws a marvelous portrait of Thomas More, described Henrys court as follows: You will scarcely find a court so well-ordered, as not to have much bustle and ambition and pretence and luxury or to be free from tyranny in some form or another. And he continues by praising Thomas More and his role in the Court: But as this excellent monarch was resolved to pack his household with learned, serious, intelligent and honest men, he especially insisted upon having More among them, - with whom he is on such terms of intimacy that he cannot bear to let him go. (Thomas More, Utopia, A Norton Critical Edition, p. 113). I would like to discuss Mores Utopia because it had a tremendous impact on the 19th century thinkers and artists, from William Morris to Karl Marx. My question is whether we can hold More responsible for the manner in which his book was read later. It was published in 1516 in Latin and translated in English in 1556. The word itself comes from two Greek words: ou and topos, meaning no place. Many of the ideas of More come from Platos famous dialogue Republic, while the description of extravagant places is due to the recent geographic discoveries of new worlds. It is composed of two books, two long chapters; the first debates present or recent ideas and events, mainly referring to the social conditions in England inherited from Henry VII. For instance, it is a long debate around the matter of crime; in fact, we can read Mores opinions on law and ethics and the role of the philosopher (read: intellectual) in attending a Prince. So, there is a cause and he builds an argument for the Ideal Commonwealth. The traveler who tells the story about Utopia is Raphael Hythloday. The etymology of his name is quite significant: hythloday means to distribute nonsense, while Raphael means God heals; consequently, the translation would be God heals through nonsense. Having said that, I hope you can better understand its purpose: to cure people through an invention. But the 19th century socialists and communists interpreted it literally and tried to transfer it on earth. So, what is all about? First, Utopia is an island where there is no private property, where people despise gold (which is worn only by slaves and kids play with it for fun), and has a rather complicated and picturesque government system. For instance, people have to change house every ten years not to develop attachment to things. People are educated in farming and other practical professions since their childhood. However, there are several symbols underlying the entire construction. For instance, Utopia is shaped like a new moon, very much like England; a post-Freudian would interpret it as an image of the maternal womb. The founder, Utopos, changed the name of the island from Abraxa, which has a mystical connotation alluding to the 365 days of the year, into Utopia. There are fifty-four similar cities built on the same plan, and the capital is Amaurot, meaning dark city in Greek. However, it was also interpreted as a derivation from Amaury of Bne, a medieval heretic from Flander, whose teachings were responsible for several communist sects of the Free Spirit. Amaurots plan is similar to that of London, so More in speaking about Utopia has England in his mind. From the description of the city life you can understand something about the nature of utopia:

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Every house has a door to the street and another to the garden. The doors, which are made with two leaves, open easily and swing shut automatically, letting anyone enter who wants to and so there is no private property. Every ten years, they change houses by lot [lottery]. And he goes into further details: Their houses are all three stories high and handsomely constructed; the fronts are faced with stone, stucco, or brick, over rubble construction. The roofs are flat, and are covered with a kind of plaster that is cheap but fireproof, and more weather resistant even than lead. Glass is very generally used in windows to keep out the weather; and they also use thin linen cloth treated with oil or gum so that it let in more light and keeps out more wind (p. 38). There are two sorts of utopias: one refers to the political and social system, and the values/virtues attached to them, and the other to technical dream. The latter is less dangerous, and from the last part I have quoted, you could notice Mores ideas about his dream house that, in fact, bears some resemblance with Tudor constructions. As for the first, it only bogged down when it was read literally. If you read it from the 15th century point of view, it emphasizes the Ideal Commonwealth based on Catholic and ancient virtues, which makes his satire upon contemporary European abuses more pointed. After all, Thomas Mores Utopia is a satire of an ideal sort: you read the negative through the positive discourse. a) Politics The last and the most famous Cardinal who labored over the state business was Wolsey, who was of humble family but behaved like a Prince of Blood. In his hands, the Balance of Power in Europe first became clearly defined as the object of Englands foreign policy. For several years, he kept the balance with perfect, consummate skill, and with a minimum of expense to English treasure. In 1513, the victory against the Scots and French raised England to a strong position. After 1521 his skill and foresight failed him. A new era began in Europe, with a strong Spain and a weak Italy, while the Habsburg supremacy became visible in Europe. Against this background, England herself was on the brink of destruction, had not been for the growth of popular, maritime, and religious forces in the island which, in fact, Wolsey had opposed. For one, he discouraged maritime adventure. Though Henry VIII himself did not encourage it in particular, he founded the Royal Navy. Not only did he create ships especially commissioned to fight, but his architects (read designers) designed many of these royal ships on an improved model that made them more adaptable to sea conditions than the ones built by the Mediterranean powers. In 1545, at the end of Henrys reign, a French army attempted to invade England, but it was smashed and in the very same year a baby called Francis Drake was born. To put it briefly, Henry VIIIs creation of the Royal Navy saved him and later his daughter, Elizabeth, when they had to oppose the European Catholic powers. By comparison, Wolsey was a man of the old school, a diplomatist of the old type, very good at pulling strings but of a lesser vision. Furthermore, the Tudors were the prototype of modern man who sought for adventure. b) The Royal and Parliamentary Reformation under Henry VIII

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One important aspect during Henry VIIIs reign was the bitter struggle between the Catholics and the Protestants who acted against the backdrop of Luthers revolt. Yet some amazing things did happen. One of the Kings friends and a great scholar, Sir Thomas More, a scathing critic of religious order, became a martyr of Papal Supremacy when Henry broke with Rome, while others, known as famous papalists defended the kings option. Things were not very clear back then, because Henry VIII burnt Protestants, while hanging and beheading the Catholic opponents of an anticlerical revolution. Later on, under Elizabeth the English anti-clericals defended themselves against the Catholic reaction by alliance with the Protestants. However, how did it happen? The Lutheran doctrines became very powerful in England and acted like a reactive; for instance, men like Erasmus feared Protestantism, More, as I said, opposed it and wrote against it. Oxford held back in doubt, but Cambridge stepped in. From 1521 students met at the White Horse tavern in the town to discuss Luther. The tavern was nicknamed Germany and those haunting it Germans, but they were the makers of the new England. Under such hazy circumstances, Henry decided to divorce Catherine. This request that the Popes had granted to other monarchs for government reasons was denied to him because the Pope himself was at the mercy of Charles V, Catherines nephew. So, the whole matter became one of national pride. And it was then that the King remembered the Parliament. So, the instrument chosen by Henry to effect his Royal Reformation was the Parliament. Unlike his predecessors, this one set for seven years and in the course of its eight sessions acquired a continuity of personal experience among its members, which helped to build up the traditions of the modern House of Commons as a great instrument of government. I think that you remember Louis XIV famous phrase, Ltat, cest moi! (I am/embody the state). Henry VIIIs authority was of a different sort. In 1543 he told the House of Commons: We be informed by our Judges that we at no time stand so high in our estate royal as in the time of Parliament, when we as head and you as members are conjoined and knit together in one body politic (see Trevelyan, 223). The Reformation Parliament suppressed the order of monks and friars, and secularized their property. Henry sold great part of their lands to peers, courtiers, public servants who resold them to smaller men, and so we can clearly see a case of real estate speculation. Many an Abbey had become a manor house or a quarry out of which a manor house was being built. In London, as in every other towns, valuable and conspicuous sites of religious houses and much house property belonging to them passed into lay hands, removing the last check on the ever-increasing Protestantism, anti-clericalism, and commercialism of the capital. At Oxford and Cambridge the monks and friars had been very numerous and resisted the New Learning. They gradually disappeared and were soon replaced by an increased proportion of gentlemens sons. Such graduates were to govern the Elizabethan England. People like Francis Bacon (1561-1626), the great experimentalist and philosopher, fostered a new development of intellectual ideas which would have never taken roots if these universities had been left to the guidance of monks and friars.

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The anti-clericalism under Henry VIII led to the destruction of country relics and miracle-working images were taken down, while their crude machinery exhibited to the people on whose credulity it had imposed. The shrine and cult of Thomas a Becket, the center of English and continental pilgrimage, were suppressed. The English Reformation, which had begun as a Parliamentary attack on church fees, and proceeded as a royal confiscation of Abbey lands, found at last its religious basis in the popular knowledge of the Scriptures, which was Wycliffes dream. However, both Wycliffe and the Lollards would have been burnt because the Act of Six Articles was passed decreeing death against anyone who denied Transubstantiation, the need of confession and clerical celibacy. II. The Elizabethan Era a). Main Ideas When Henry VIII died the State was heavily in debt and the religious feuds which he seemed to have suppressed by violence were bound to break out afresh. Elizabeth I (1558-1603) came at a right time to prevent civil war caused no less by Queen Mary Tudor, her sister, who had almost yielded England to Spain through her marriage with Philip of Spain. What was more, the other possible successor to the throne of England was Mary Stuart, married to the Dauphin of France, a staunch catholic. However, throughout Elizabeths reign it was the rivalry of the two catholic powers, France and Spain, that saved England, the heretic island, from conquest, till it was strong enough to defend itself. Elizabeth was a cunning queen who knew how to fuel the internal fights in Spain and France by sending men and money to keep the rebellious movements alive. Elizabeth learned the lesson of her youth and understood that private affections and passions are not for Princes. So, she left to her rival, Mary Stuart, to lose the world for love. Elizabeth put all her strength and talent in the service of state. Her public appearances and progresses through the country were no dull and formal functions, but works of art, meant to strengthen the relation between the Queen and the people. She did not build palaces, but palaces were built to entertain her. Whenever she addressed the Parliament, her speeches were neither stern nor dry. She could also discourse in Greek and Latin to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and was fluent in Italian. She was a child of the Renaissance than of the Reformation. I will not go into the complex details of the relation between Scotland and England during Elizabeths reign. However, I would like to emphasize that the incessant fight between the Catholics and the Protestants in both countries played an important role. Mary Stuart was executed in 1587, but her son ruled England as James I after Elizabeths death. However, at the beginning of her reign the anti-clerical party still consisted of both Catholics and Protestants. When she died, the majority of the English regarded themselves as ardent Protestants. b) The English Sea Power If France had not been torn apart by religious strives, it might have become a mighty sea power. Nevertheless, while the massacre of St Bartholomews night was taking place, Francis Drake (1540-1596) and his Protestant sailors whom he led became the servants of the English monarch. We can refer further to the causes of the English supremacy over France and Spain, and emphasize that it was their medieval order that kept them from free enterprise. G. M. Trevelyan insists on the differences

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between the English and the Spaniards, for instance, those leading to the former victory over the Armada. The new spirit of private enterprise, individual initiative and good-humored equality of classes were on the increase in the defeudalized England and manifested themselves even stronger among the commercial and maritime population. Francis Drake understood that discipline was needed on the board ship, but not feudalism and class pride. Richard Hakluyt (?1552-1616) a lecturer of geography or cosmography, who introduced the use of globes into the English schools, put together the stories of Drakes sailors in his book Principal Navigation, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation. There you can read about Drakes robbing of the Spaniards and opening trade with their colonies at the canons mouth. The English gave the Black people a better treatment than they got from the Portuguese and tried to avoid conflicts with either black or white. By comparison, the Spaniards would hand over English merchants and sailors to the Inquisition. Thus the fight between England and the Catholic countries did not take place only in Europe, but also in the colonies. Nevertheless, England was aggressive, but hadnt she been so, she would have been forced to accept exclusion from the trade of every continent save Europe and abandon her maritime and colonial ambitions. c) Tudor Architecture, Arts and Literature Tudor architecture is also labeled as the age of the country house (1485-1603), because it is at this time that the country house first emerged as an architectural form. As you could have seen from the above presentation, church building had virtually ceased with the Reformation. The house retained tones of Gothic, and some of its characteristics persisted until mid 17th c. Fortified gateways, grand courtyards, battlemented parapets, towers and turrets stayed for ornament rather than defense. The ornamented chimneys alluded to the interior comfort. In fact they are an important feature of the Tudor house. Often elaborately carved and decorated, they offered the bricklayers the chance to exploit their skills. The hall became a symbol of grandeur, with its carved fireplace, oak-paneled walls and timber roofs. Hampton Court is a famous surviving example. The original part of the palace is built of red brickwork in diamond pattern (also called diaper) and has battlemented parapets, a turreted gatehouse, many courtyards, and ornamental chimneys. Later on, to the end of Henry VIIIs reign, the new Classicism of Renaissance came to England from France and continued to be superimposed on Tudor Gothic. An example must have been the Somerset House, now destroyed. Sir Thomas Gresham (1519-79), the founder of the Royal Navy imported from Antwerp Classicism more flamboyant than the French style, overloaded with bulbous detail, cartouches or scroll ornament. About 1580, during the Elizabethan Age, architecture took another course. It rejected the classical and returned to the glories of the English Perpendicular, with huge windows and a striking skyline. Although architects did not exist as a professional group before Inigo Jones, at the beginning of the 17th c, two creators of style could be singled out Robert and John Smython, father and son. They designed Longlet and other castles in the neo-medieval style: Woolaton Hall, Hardwick Hall (more window than wall, as it is characterized), and Bolsover Castle. The Elizabethan buildings were impressive, set in a dramatic setting, often on hilltops. Their startling effect is enhanced by symmetry, and by areas of glass, making them look like lanterns twinkling across the countryside.

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Sculptors were mostly employed to overlay and garnish a building or to carve a tomb with effigies. They did not carve portraits, busts or mythological groups as in Italy. Painting in Renaissance England began quite abruptly with the arrival of a foreigner, the German Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543). He brought with him all the discoveries of the high Renaissance in Italy: skill in perspective and illusionism, knowledge of Classical antiquity and acute psychological observation as can be noticed in his portrait of Henry VIII. Another exiled painter was Hans Eworth who portrayed Mary I. His style is indebted to Holbein, and so is Nicholas Hillard (15471619), Queen Elizabeths miniaturist. He portrayed the queen, the romantic Raleigh, and other courtiers. In the Middle Ages, as you already know, England was famous for its embroideries. During Elizabeths reign, this decorative art revived. But it was no longer applied to vestments but to curtains, bed hangings, cushions, etc. In the Elizabethan period tapestry was woven in England for the first time under the auspices of the Sheldon family. It would take long to talk about William Shakespeare (1564-1616), not only the genius of Elizabethan England but of all times. Yet, there were other artists of not a lesser scope at that time. For one, Christopher Marlowe (1564-93), the author of Faustus, who is said to have become greater than Shakespeare has if he had not died young (they were born in the same year!). Shakespeare looks at him as his master. Another prominent literary figure was Philip Sidney, the author of Astrophel and Stella, that brought with it a flood of Petrarchan sonnet sequences, and so one model of Italian Renaissance. Yet Sidneys verse is less sensuous and closer to NeoPlatonism. Ben Jonson was the comic playwright of the age who successfully speculated the theory of humors in his plays, such as Everyman in his Humor. However, Shakespeare surpassed them all. He was not only an author of tragedies but also of comedies and historical plays. He is universal as much as he created both villains and sublime characters, both Iago and Hamlet, both King John and Prospero. The essence of this insightful remark belongs to Oscar Wilde, yet he gave other examples. Shakespeare perceived the philosophical and political ideas of his age with an inescapable eye and shaped them into art. I shall quote and briefly comment a passage from Troilus and Cressida, more precisely from Ulysses discourse: The heaven themselves, the planets, and this centre Observe degree, priority, and place, Insisture [persistency] course, proportion, season, form, Office, and custom, in all line of order; And therefore is the glorious planet Sol In noble eminence enthrond and spherd Amidst the other; whose medcinable eye Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil, And posts, like the commandment of a king, Sans check, to good and bad: but when the planets In evil mixture to disorder wander, What plagues, and what portents, what mutiny, What raging of the sea, shaking of earth,

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Commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors, Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixture! O! when degree is shakd Which is the ladder to all high designs, The enterprise is sick. The idea of sick universe, of sick humankind is sustained against the Renaissance idea of universal symmetry and harmony, and only a genius like Shakespeare could have articulated it so powerfully in this age of restless pursuits and conflicts. Shakespeare himself paid his homage to the great Elizabeth in The Famous History of the Life of King Henry VIII, when in the last act of the play Henry VIII speaks about his newly born infant: Though in her cradle, yet now promises Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings, Which time shall bring to ripeness: she shall be But few now living can behold that goodness A pattern to all princes living with her. So, the greatest playwright ever described Elizabeth as a pattern to all princes. It was then, in the 16th c, that an exceptional queen was the contemporary of the unparalleled Shakespeare, whose work competes with the Bible.

LECTURE 4: ENGLAND UNDER THE STUARTS AND THEIR SUCCESSORS I Introduction In the Stuart era the English developed for themselves a system of Parliamentary government, local administration and freedom of speech and person, contrary to the absolutist tendencies on the continent that subjected the individual to the state. (Under Henry VIII England had known that sort of movement, but rejected it). The Stuart kings were James I (1603-25), Charles I (1625-49), Charles II (1660-85) If the power of the Tudors was not material but somehow metaphysical because they appealed sometimes to the love and loyalty of their subjects, struck by awe, in the 17th century the people showed a less obliging temper. The Stuarts claimed greater powers, higher than the English law and custom. At the same time the Parliament made their own claims. The Parliamentary emerged as a profession under these two kings. They convinced their fellow citizens that they only claimed ancient privileges deriving from the spirit and the letter of Magna Charta. Men like Eliot, Hampden and Pym were not adventurers, and had more to lose than to gain by quitting the tranquility of their private gardens, for Parliament was not the road to power but to prison.

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James I, the offspring of Mary Stuart and Darneley, was a good-natured and conceited person, who knew almost nothing of the English Law. Yet, his election as heir to Elizabeth mediated by the famous political leader Robert Cecil is described in a hyperbolical language in the Preface of the Bible (also known as King James Bible): Great and manifold were the blessings, most dread Sovereign, which Almighty God, the Father of all mercies, bestowed upon the people of England, when first he sent your Majestys Royal Person to rule and reign over us. For whereas it was the expectation of many, who wished not well onto our Sion, that upon the setting of that bright Occidental Star, Queen Elizabeth of most happy memory, some sick and palpable clouds of darkness would so have overshadowed this Land, that men should have been in doubt which way they were to walk []. The appearance of Your Majesty as of the Sun in his strength instantly dispelled those supposed and surmised mists However, James I brought with him the union with Scotland (he was also James VII of Scotland). He knew Scotland but never knew England, and his son Charles never knew either of the lands. He could not understand the ways of the Parliament or the position of the Roman Catholic group who formed the conspiracy to destroy both the King and the Houses of Parliament (you remember the story of Guy Fawkes). Since then the anti-Roman passion in England remained a constant and often a determining factor in the history of the House of Stuart. Under James I the Navy was neglected and the buccaneers had degenerated from the traditions of Drake, developing towards the villains of Teach and the black-flag pirates. However, because of Drakes victories, North America was in practice open to English, French, and Dutch settlement. Chased from other parts of the world and places of commerce, the English in James I time pushed their trade on the Indian mainland. During Charles I reign they built a fort at Madras and set up other trading stations in Bengal. This is how the British rule began in India. Nevertheless, the abandonment of the mariners haunted King James and Charles I to the scaffold. James I was a sort of dreamer seeking to bring peace to Europe by marrying his son to the Spanish Infanta. The English saw it as a menace to the whole work Elizabeth had done. In the end, Charles I was mated to Henrietta Maria of France, destined to be the mother of many troubles to England and to the House of Stuart. II The everyday life under the Stuarts To meet the increased demands for houses, London expanded westwards towards Westminster. Though for the most part it remained the haphazard, overcrowded town, described by John Stow (1525-1605, a tailor who devoted himself to antiquarian pursuits and became a well-known chronicler), the Italianizing of Londons architecture began under Inigo Jones. The great trading companies were based in the City, the cloth trade including. There was also the market for raising loans and buying and selling land.

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The reasons for the magnetic influence of London were not only economic but political, social, and legal. Every session of Parliament brought over 400 members, sometimes with their families, to London. King James was one of those who denounced those swarms of gentry, who through the instigation of their wives did neglect their country hospitality and cumber the city. The beginnings of London season can be found in the early seventeenth century; parks, pleasure gardens, theaters, and transport (hackney coaches and sedan chairs existed under Charles I) were developed to meet the demand. The king even issued a proclamation stating that these countrymen haunting London should return to their estates, and in 1632, some 250 were prosecuted for disobeying it. In his diary, Sir Humphrey Mildmay described what he was doing in London. Besides swimming and boating on the Thames, dicing and card-playing and going to Hyde Park, he went to wrestling matches and to the theatre (sometimes three times a week), seeing Fletchers or Shakespeares plays. Like everybody else he watched the spectacles of the Court and the city activity, the reception of an ambassador, the progress of a knight of the Garter, and the Lord Mayors show. The Court played a central role within society; contact with it could give power, office and wealth. Both humble people and intellectuals sought for the kings favors. The Court imitated the tastes of the sovereign, and Elizabeths successor lacked her dignity. However, Charles I described as being tempered, chaste, and serious succeeded in astonishing Rubens for his luxurious Court. Van Dycks portraits (almost of the people in the court circle) reveal the way in which Charles and his Court liked to be portrayed. Charles was a lover of art and did patronize artists like Rubens and Van Dyck. He got involved in art collecting-diplomatic ties with the Catholic monarchs and the Pope. His collection included Mantegna cartoons, the Leonardo sketchbooks, the Raphael cartoons, and others. The king was an ambitious man, who wanted England to be in the forefront of artistic taste and achievement. However, Charles competed with another art collector (as you may notice art collection became fashionable in the 17th century), Earl of Arundel, who had Holbeins portrait of Erasmus and antique marbles in his collection. The two universities were at this period in the orbit of the Crown and government. During the two Stuarts one could see the royal interference not only in the election of the Chancellors, but also in the Colleges: the curriculum of the universities was matters of concern to the Crown. Several Chairs were founded at Oxford (Geometry, Astronomy, History, Music, Natural Philosophy), while its library, through the donation of books and manuscripts became the second after that of the Vatican. However, the core of education remained the theological studies. London gained the character of a university town from the Inns of Court. They taught law, but not only that. Ben Jonson, for instance, praised the Inns as the noblest nurseries of humanity and liberty in the kingdom. Cromwell was but one of those who went to an Inn. The core of the legal education until after the Restoration was the readings and public disputations on matters of law. Moreover, the Inns delighted in dramatic entertainments combining music, poetry, and spectacle. There were the so-called masques by Chapman and Francis Beaumont that were played along with Shakespeares plays, mostly his comedies.

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The country life, with both gentry and nobleman interested in literature, arts, optics, experiments was the foundation of the cultivated society to be found in London, at Court, and in the universities and Inns of Court, forming the milieu of the artistic life before the Civil War. They were the people for whom the architects designed manors and villas. III The Civil War No simple explanation could account for the way men divided in early 1640; political and religious issues, social distinctions played their part, but equally personal characteristics, family traditions, and local feuds. The broad division into Royalist north and west and Parlamentarism south and east obscures the substantial minorities in each area. In 1642, there were 300 Parliamentarians and 230 Royalists, which reflected the real division among the gentry. The issue was the establishment of common law monarchy. The indecisions and changes of sides at the beginning and the splits within many families, were the essence of the English War. Cromwell led the Parliament army, which was better organized and made up mostly of Puritans. The Civil War lasted for ten years, and the number of country houses destroyed was considerable. Many members of the gentry and Parliament went into exile or were killed during sieges. The Fellows of the universities were expelled and many of them went into exile. As Parliament extended its control, taxation and heavy fines forced many Royalists to sell part of their estates, while many had their estates confiscated. Broadly the forties saw the destruction of the traditional structure of authority in Church and State. The symbolic climax was the execution of the king and the abolition of the House of Lords. It started with what was also named the period of Long Parliament. That was the true turning point in the political history of England. It not only prevented the English monarchy from hardening into an absolutism of the type then becoming general in Europe, but it made a great experiment in direct rule of the country by the House of Commons. In the course of that experiment the Long Parliament successfully organized, the largest military operation ever till then conducted by Englishmen, in a four years war against the king. After all those memorable years, the House of Stuart might be restored; it would never again be possible to govern the country without the participation of the House of Commons. But let us return to the problems of the Civil War. Religion played a major role in the widespread of visionary Utopianism. People behaved as if the kingdom of God was waiting behind the door. Cromwell opened the Parliament of Saints in 1653 with the words Why should we be afraid to say or think, that this way may be the door to usher in the things that God hath promised and prophesized of? In social terms the religious activity of the forties meant that elements of society, so far silent, were becoming vocal in preaching, organizing, and writing. The zeal for radical reform that had its roots in religion was soon applied to secular concerns, and many aspects of society came under debate. Church democracy led on easily to state democracy. During the Civil War period The Levellers led by the famous publicist John Lilburne, have been described as the only truly democratic party of the Civil War. Lilburnes Calvinist-based individualism was spiced with rational tendencies coming from classical writers (Montaigne, for one). The Levellers

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demanded manhood suffrage, a fairer distribution of Parliamentary seats, and protection of the peoples rights by a fundamental law binding their representatives. Despite their name, they were not egalitarians; it was the other party, the Diggers, whose program was essentially agrarian. They were in favor of common property. One of their representatives, Winstanley had communist ideas that sprang from the study of the Bible, combined with a mystical temper, close to that of the Quakers. There were other modern ideas, such as the suggestions for womans suffrage and free medical care for the poor. The pamphlets of the age, including Miltons Aeropagitica, spoke of liberty and improving education, even state-aided education. IV The Beginning of Restoration Cromwells refusal of the crown did not prevent him from assuming many of its attributes, including the hereditary succession of his son. The Puritan zeal for righteousness led him to attempt moral reform. Thus, after dissolving the Parliament of Saints, he worked for the ideal he set before his last Parliament, to bring the repairs of breaches, and the restorers of paths to dwell in. Charles II (1660-1685) made every effort to put the clock back to the somewhat carefree days of the 1630s. Theatres reopened, racing started at Newmarket, clothes blossomed out into ruffles and ribbons. Charless brother, James II (1685-88) had to flee the country in 1688 for promoting the interests of his Catholic supporters. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 set on the throne William of Orange from Netherlands, and his wife, Jamess daughter Mary, and established Parliamentary monarchy. Under William and Mary, and their successor Queen Anne (1702-14), Britain gained a political and constitutional equilibrium never again upset. Intellectual life continued with vigour surprising in view of the purges of Church and universities. Some were in exile, but at home an active group met first in London and then in Oxford to discuss science in the Baconian tradition. After the Restoration, it was formally instituted as the Royal Society, whose member was Christopher Wren. Later he was elected chairman. V The Age of Inigo Jones and Wren Inigo Jones (1573-1652) was the outstanding figure of the English art. He was the arbiter of taste in James I and Charles I Courts almost for 20 years. He designed stage designs for the Court ballets and buildings. He worked in Italy and admired the work of the 16th century Venetian architect Palladio, whose style he introduced into England. His Banqueting House is thought to have revolutionized the English architecture through the classical facades and pediments rising among the shambling black and white timbered houses of Stuart London, almost rural. He also designed the Queens House at Greenwich on a H-plan in the Palladian manner. Briefly speaking, Inigo Jones greatly influenced the evolution of the English country houses. Charles II imposed his own artistic taste inspired from the French baroque. The second half of the 17th century witnessed the attempt to adapt it to the English taste. In fact, this tendency was crystallized in the career of Sir Christopher Wren (16321723). He rebuilt 51 churches and St Paul after the Great Fire. He was also

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extremely skilful in planning buildings on awkward sites. Under the later Stuarts, Wren worked on frustrating palace projects > Whitehall, Greenwich, Kensington, and Hampton Court. Wren was not fundamentally a domestic architect; his followers Nicholas Hawksmoor (1661-1739) and Sir John Vanbrough (1664-1726) were particularly interested in great houses. LECTURE 5: I. The Aftermath of the Civil War: New Parties and Ways of Life When Charles II came to the thrown, he issued the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, which was stigmatized by the Cavaliers (members of the future Whig Party Liberals) as Indemnity for the Kings enemies and Oblivion for the Kings friends. The royalists who had suffered under Cromwell never forgot Clarendon, who had followed the royal family in exile and then became the Kings Chancellor, for advising him on the act. So, they failed to recover the lands which they had been forced to sell. In the 1661 elections, the majority formed a party, later known as Tory (the Conservatives). The latter were more Anglican than the royalists were and followed their own interest rather than of the Court. All along there was a bitter fight between the Puritans and the Protestant Dissenters. After the restoration, the religious settlement was not conceived in the spirit of compromise that marked the political and social life. This led to the variety of competition among the religious bodies, characteristic of modern England. The Whig Party had affinities in its rank and file with Puritanism and in its higher grades with latitudinarianism and rationalism of the new age. The scientific and latitudinarian movement, to which Sir Isaac Newton belonged, slowly created an atmosphere favorable to the doctrine of religious toleration as propounded by the famous Whig philosopher John Locke. Within the national Church, latitudinarianism had a party, respectable for its learning and eloquence rather than for its numbers. That was the Low Church party, a name that then denoted not evangelicalism but what should now be called as broad or liberal views. They were advocates of toleration and friends of the Protestant Dissenters. The name of High Church given to the great majority of the clergy did not mean ritualism; they upheld the doctrine of non-resistance to kings and their hereditary right, and a high view of the authority of the Church in politics and society. This is how the social and political stage was shaped in late 17th century. There were other apparently less important consequences that worked at the level of the average man. For instance, before the execution of Charles I, Sunday was a day of amusement, a day in which various plays and games were performed. During Cromwells years and after, Sunday became a day for rest and religious meditation, showing how profound the changes were at the grass roots level.

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II. The Cultural and Social setting of the Augustan Age According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Augustan derives from the prestige of Latin literature in the age of Augustus and it is applied to the period of highest refinement of any national art. Normally it refers in England to the years from about 1680 to 1750, yet some researchers stretched it from 1660 to 1780, so almost one hundred years. The Augustan Age, roughly corresponding to the reign of the Hanoverian House, is looked upon as a decorative and elegant period, unadventurous and rather dull; briefly, an age of prose and reason. In fact, it set a new model: the normal. The authors addressed to an extended public, and a new relation appeared between the artist and his patron, who supposedly dictated the public taste. A new system of interests appeared, sometimes politically oriented, and so taste was established in circles where social distinction, political importance, and classical reading predominated. However, the Augustan artists were freer to express themselves than their predecessors. That was also encouraged by the circulation of the early periodicals, like Addisons and Steels The Spectator. These editors took seriously their task of educating the public morality and criticism, as well as amusing it by satire and portraiture. Why did the English embrace the ways of reason? One simple answer would be the effects of the Civil War and the persecution of the Dissenters. The events provoked a wish for harmony. They discovered that in normality lay novelty. They satirized, and I would mention Jonathan Swift in particular, the departures from the general bank and capital of reason, of decent responsible humanity. Originality lies somewhere else and it is a source of strength. Old ideas of harmony were given new interpretations. For instance, the medieval and Elizabethan idea of organic harmony between the parts of the body politic was reinforced and interpreted in terms of economic independence. So, the nations concern was the organization of its practical affairs. The philosopher John Locke desired man to be well-skilled in knowledge of material and effects of things in his power; directing his thought to the improvement of such arts and inventions, engines, and utensils. In his opinion, such improvements had a precise aim: conveniency and delight. Important elements of business organization came into being: the Bank of England (1694), insurance and trading companies, including Lloyds coffeehouse from which emerged the great shipping agency, and the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. Encyclopedias of the arts and sciences began to appear, while periodicals ran columns of useful projects. A new character appeared on the stage: the businessman. Trade is defended as a liberal pursuit, while men of all sects and creeds were, in fact, taking to business as to a philosophy of life. London was the heart of this change. Between 1660 and 1789, it was transformed from a late medieval town into an early modern one, not only by the fire of 1666 but by the steady replacement of medieval brick and timber houses with neoclassic brick and Portland stone ones. The intellectual centers of debate were the coffee-houses, taverns, clubs, book-and print chops, while the landscape architects and architects created pleasure-gardens and new residential squares. Daniel Defoe enthused on London, describing it as the most glorious sight, without exception, that the whole world at present can show.

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However, for most of the century rural England seemed busy and prosperous. It is the sense of local vigour that to some extent counterbalances the dominance of London and gives Augustan culture a healthy wide basis. Again, it is Daniel Defoe who celebrates the great houses, which were the economic and cultural centers of local life, and a whole series of country towns, with particular praise for their social advantages. If at the beginning of the 18th c it was Defoe who was delighted by the blooming country, at the end of the very same century, Horace Walpole, the dilettante architect and writer, wrote to his cousin of the felicity of my countrymen and of such a scene of happiness and affluence in every village and amongst the lowest of the people New streets, new towns, are rising everyday and everywhere; the earth is covered with gardens and crops of grain. Augustan England as it as was described by these authors and later by Jane Austen and Trollope featured the detailed beauty of enclosed meadows and hedgerows, the enthusiasm for landscape gardening, new manors, great houses with classical porticoes and far-spreading symmetrical wings set against the undulating park-lands. I mentioned the emergence of the businessman as a social figure. The role and concept of gentlemen is of now lesser importance. Gentlemanliness was not mere outward decorum or the show of courtesy; it included all the qualities, including religious faith, moral and physical courage, and mental and physical energy, which make up the force of the social life. The 34th issue of The Guardian describes him as the most uncommon of all the great characters of life [] a Man completely qualified as well for the Service and Good, as for the Ornament and delight, of society. A gentleman had a reasonable knowledge of Latin authors and some skill in Latin composition. He was educated in the spirit of humanism, which selected its tradition to produce social man according to the canons of the best models of the past that showed how to live well in this world. You should not infer that the gentleman or the philosopher or the artist was just a reasonable creature, governed merely by the physical world. Religion was the center of their world and architects like Wren, Hawksmoor, Gibbs and their fellows, served it with passion. The Augustans were closer to the Middle Ages in this respect than to the 20th century rationalism. To better understand the Romantic reaction, let me tell you something about the Augustan style. It was extremely clear and the word meant what at first sight appeared to mean. As the great rationalist of the age, John Locke recommended, the word was used lucidly and without mystifying aura. Those who tried to find similarities between the Augustans and the Postmodern have failed to some extent, because the postmodern clarity is laid on a maze of connotations. They have not failed as concerns the approach to Reason. Reason is a powerful talisman in the Augustan understanding of the world. Maybe they resented too much the turmoil of feelings that had governed the 17th century. There is one more thing to be added about the centurys evolution from reason to sensitivity. An increasing pleasure in natural landscape, after the geometrical French and Dutch gardens of the late 17th century; a reviving interest in Gothic architecture, a fashion of twilight or graveyard poetry, a taste for pre-Restoration styles (the return to

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Palladianism, for one) and pseudo-medievalism, and interest in the Celtic and Norse art they all marked the shift to the 19th century rich background.

Bibliography: Trevelyan, G. M., A Shorten History of England, Penguin Books, 1980 A Pelican Guide to English Literature (vol. 1-3), Penguin Books, 1980 The Works of Shakespeare, Oxford University Press Sir Thomas More, Utopia, A Norton Critical Edition, W. W. Norton & Company

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