История Великобритании

      This was the result of the Norman Conquest, after which England looked away from the northeast, Scandinavia and Germany, and towards the south, France, the Low Countries, and beyond. The royal family had links with Gascony in southwest France, and this led to an important trade exchange of wine for cloth and cereal. However, easily the most important link was once again with the Low Countries, and the basis of this trade was wool.

      England had always been famous for its wool, and in Anglo-Saxon times much of it had been exported to the Low Countries. In order to improve the manufacture of woollen cloth, William the Conqueror encouraged Flemish weavers and other skilled workers from Normandy to settle in England. They helped to establish new towns: Newcastle, Hull, Boston, Lynn and others. These settlers had good connections with Europe and were able to begin a lively trade. However, raw wool rather than finished cloth remained the main export. As the European demand for wool stayed high, and since no other country could match the high quality of English wool, English exporters could charge a price high above the production cost, and about twice as much as the price in the home market. The king taxed the export of raw wool heavily as a means of increasing his own income. It was easily England's most profitable business. When Richard I was freed from his captivity, over half the price was paid in wool. As a symbol of England's source of wealth, a wool sack has remained in the House of Lords ever since this time. Much of the wool industry was built up by the monasteries, which kept large flocks of sheep on their great estates.

      The wool trade illustrates the way in which the towns related to the countryside. "Chapmen" or "hucksters", travelling traders, would buy wool at particular village markets. Then they took the wool to town, where it would be graded and bundled up for export or for local spinning. Larger fairs, both in town and country, were important places where traders and producers met, and deals could be made. These were not purely English affairs. Foreign merchants seeking high quality wool frequently attended the larger fairs.

      Such trade activities could not possibly have taken place under the restrictions of feudalism. But towns were valuable centres to nobles who wanted to sell their produce and to kings who wished to benefit from the increase in national wealth. As a result, the townspeople quickly managed to free themselves from feudal ties and interference. At the end of the Anglo-Saxon period there were only a few towns, but by 1250 most of England's towns were already established.

      Many towns stood on land belonging to feudal lords. But by the twelfth century kings were discouraging local lords from taking the wealth from nearby towns. They realised that towns could become effective centres of royal authority, to balance the power of the local nobility. The kings therefore gave "charters of freedom" to many towns, freeing the inhabitants from feudal duties to the local lord. These charters, however, had to be paid for, and kings sold them for a high price. But it was worth the money. Towns could now raise their own local taxes on goods coming in. They could also have their own courts, controlled by the town merchants, on condition that they paid an annual tax to the king. Inside the town walls, people were able to develop social and economic organisations free from feudal rule. It was the beginnings of a middle class and a capitalist economy.

      Within the towns and cities, society and the economy were mainly controlled by "guilds". These were brotherhoods of different kinds of merchants, or of skilled workers. The word "guild" came from the Saxon word "gildan", to pay, because members paid towards the cost of the brotherhood. The merchant guilds grew in the thirteenth century and included all the traders in any particular town. Under these guilds trade was more tightly controlled than at any later period. At least one hundred guilds existed in the thirteenth century, similar in some ways to our modern trade unions. The right to form a guild was sometimes included in a town's charter of freedom. It was from among the members of the guild that the town's leaders were probably chosen. In the course of time entry into these guilds became increasingly difficult as guilds tried to control a particular trade. In some cases entry was only open to the sons of guild members. In other cases entry could be obtained by paying a fee to cover the cost of the training, or apprenticeship, necessary to maintain the high standard of the trade.

      During the fourteenth century, as larger towns continued to grow, "craft" guilds came into being. All members of each of these guilds belonged to the same trade or craft. The earliest craft guilds were those of the weavers in London and Oxford. Each guild tried to protect its own trade interests. Members of these guilds had the right to produce, buy or sell their particular trade without having to pay special town taxes. But members also had to make sure that goods were of a certain quality, and had to keep to agreed prices so as not to undercut other guild members.

      In London the development of craft guilds went further than elsewhere, with a rich upper level of the craft community, the so-called livery companies, controlling most of the affairs of the city. Over the centuries the twelve main livery companies have developed into large financial institutions. Today they play an important part in the government of the City of London, and the yearly choice of its Lord Mayor.

      Language, literature and culture

      The growth of literacy in England was closely connected with the twelfth-century Renaissance, a cultural movement which had first started in Italy. Its influence moved northwards along the trade routes, reaching England at the end of the century. This revolution in ideas and learning brought a new desire to test religious faith against reason. Schools of learning were established in many towns and cities. Some were "grammar" schools independent of the Church, while others were attached to a cathedral. All of these schools taught Latin, because most books were written in this language. Although it may seem strange for education to be based on a dead language, Latin was important because it was the educated language of almost all Europe, and was therefore useful in the spread of ideas and learning. In spite of the dangers, the Church took a lead in the new intellectual movement.

      * In England two schools of higher learning were established, the first at Oxford and the second at Cambridge, at the end of the twelfth century. By the 1220s these two universities were the intellectual leaders of the country.

      Few could go to the universities. Most English people spoke neither Latin, the language of the Church and of education, nor French, the language of law and of the Norman rulers. It was a long time before English became the language of the ruling class. Some French words became part of the English language, and often kept a more polite meaning than the old Anglo-Saxon words. For example, the word "chair", which came from the French, describes a better piece of furniture than the Anglo-Saxon word "stool". In the same way, the Anglo-Saxon word "belly" was replaced in polite society by the word "stomach". Other Anglo-Saxon words ceased to be used altogether. 

      TASK 1.

      Answer the following questions.

1. What do you know about the first inhabitans at the teritory of British Island?
2. Stonehenges civilization. Why did it rise at first and why did it fail?
3. What do you know about Celts.
4. Why did it become possible for Romans to occupy the teritory of Britain so quisqly and so easy?
5. The Roman occupation. Do you think that in was a disaster or an advantage for Britains? Prove your answer.
6. Saxons occupation. What did they do for organization of the Government and Society?
7. Christianity. What was the difference between the Celtic Church and the Roman Church? Why did the Royal Power support the Roman Church?
8. Who were The Vikings? Why did the Witan choose the leader of the Danish Vikings fs the king of England?
9. Did Wales, Ireland and Scotland also suffer from different waves of foreign invaders?
10. How did the foreign invaders influence the development of English Language?
11. From what point of view the Norman Conquest was an advantage for the development of British Society?
12. Why did the years of Norman Conquest become extremely difficult for common people?
13. What were the main principls of William”s Feudalism. Why did it become possible to create an absolutely different social society in England?
14. Explain the significance of Magna Carta.
15. First serious quarrels with Cherch. Do you think quarrelling will go on? Why?
16. Why did it become nessasery to create the Parliament? The changing in tax system, why did Edward I call the House of Representatives?
17. How did Edward I make Wales the part of England? Who is the Prince of Wales?
18. How do you understand the words on the Edward’s grave “Edward, the Hummer of the Scots”?
19. They say about the Middle Ages “The air was full of religion”, why? Did it make the life of monks and bishops much easier?
20. What do you know about the life of common people in Middle Ages? Would you like to live during this time?
21. How the economic was developing? What was the most profitable business?
22. The development of English language. How did French, Scandinavian, Latin, German, Italian influense the development of English language?

 

Task 2.

Explain the meaning of the following statements. 

1. Britain is an island, and Britain's history has been closely connected with the sea.

      2. Their arrival is marked by the first individual graves, furnished with   pottery beakers, from which these people get their name: the "Beaker" people.

3.The Celts are important in British history because they are the ancestors of many of the people in Highland Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and Cornwall today.

      4. The Romans brought the skills of reading and writing to Britain. The written word was important for spreading ideas and also for establishing power.

        5. The Saxon kings began to replace loyalty to family with loyalty to lord and king.

      6. Anglo-Saxon technology changed the shape of English agriculture.

      7. It was the Celtic Church which brought Christianity to the ordinary people of Britain.

      8. The two Christian Churches, Celtic and Roman, could hardly have been more different in character. One was most interested in the hearts of ordinary people, the other was interested in authority and organisation.

      9.Although William was now crowned king, his conquest had only just begun, and the fighting lasted for another five years.

10.William was careful in the way he gave land to his nobles.

      11. There were two basic principles to feudalism: every man had a lord, and every lord had land. The king was connected through this "chain" of people to the lowest man in the country.

      12. As a result it was not clear whether the bishops should obey the Church or the king.

      13. Edward I brought together the first real parliament.

      14. Henry I introduced the idea that all crimes, even those inside the family, were no longer only a family matter but a breaking of the "king's peace".

      15. The law administered by these travelling judges became known as "common law", because it was used everywhere.

      16. Even at village level the Church wished to replace the lord's authority with its own, but it was only partly successful.

      17. People worked from dawn to dusk every day of the year, every year, until they were unable to work any longer.

      18. In London the development of craft guilds went further than elsewhere, with a rich upper level of the craft community, the so-called livery companies, controlling most of the affairs of the city.

Task 3.

Comprehention – true or false.

1. Celtic languages, which have been continuously used in some areas since that time, are still spoken.
2. The Celts brought the skills of reading and writing to Britain.
3. Hardly anything is left of Celtic language or culture in England, except for the names of some rivers, Thames, Mersey, Severn and Avon, and two large cities, London and Leeds. 
4. In the Celtic areas Christianity continued to spread, bringing paganism to an end.
5. The Celtic bishops went out from their monasteries of Wales, Ireland and Scotland, walking from village to village teaching Christianity.
6. In 965 the Vikings invaded Britain once it was clear that the quarrelling Anglo-Saxon kingdoms could not keep them out.
7. The noble kept "serfs" to work on his own land. These were free to leave the estate, and their level of life was much better than slaves.
8. When Henry died in 1272 his son Richard I took the throne without question.
9. The king, of course, was responsible for law and justice.
10. England was unlike the rest of Europe because it used common law.

 

Task 4.

Find the right explanation of the following words. 

To be considered, to be obvious, greedy, an expectancy, a graveyard, to be established, a troublesome, to claim, to accept, to be established, monks, an authority, in addition, probably, ordinary people, royal succession. 

Task 5.

Look up in a dictionary and write short definitions of the following words. 

An evidence, an inhabitant, henges, weapons, a settlement, an earthwork, to be conducted, ancient, a priest, a peasantry, to be encouraged, a treaty, a claim, to deny, a valley, a challenge, a solution, to spread, to increase, reasonably.  

Task 6.

Summarise your factual knowledge of the subject. 

1. Stonehenge civilization.
2. The Celts.
3. The Romans.
4. The Saxon invasion.
5. Cristianity.
6. Vikings.
7. The Celtic kingdoms.
8. The Norman Conquest and feudalism.
9. Magna Carta.
10. The beginning of Parlament.
11. Government and society.
12. Life in country and towns.
13. Language, culture, Literature.

      Lecture II.

       Part 1. The late Middle Ages 

      1. The century of war, plague and disorder

      The fourteenth century was disastrous for Britain as well as most of Europe, because of the effect of wars and plagues. Probably one-third of Europe's population died of plague. Hardly anywhere escaped its effects.

      Britain and France suffered, too, from the damages of war. In the 1330s England began a long struggle against the French Crown. In France villages were raided or destroyed by passing armies. France and England were exhausted economically by the cost of maintaining armies. England had the additional burden of fighting the Scots, and maintaining control of Ireland and Wales, both of which were trying to throw off English rule.

      It is difficult to measure the effects of war and plague on fourteenth-century Britain, except in deaths. But undoubtedly one effect of both was an increasing challenge to authority. The heavy demands made by the king on gentry and merchants weakened the economic strength of town and countryside but increased the political strength of the merchants and gentry whenever they provided the king with money. The growth of an alliance between merchants and gentry at this time was of the greatest importance for later political developments, particularly for the strength of Parliament against the king in the seventeenth

      century, and also for the strength of society against the dangers of revolution at the end of the eighteenth century. Finally, the habit of war created a new class of armed men in the countryside, in place of the old feudal system of forty days' service. These gangs, in reality local private armies, damaged the local economy but increased the nobles' ability to challenge the authority of the Crown. Already in 1327 one king had been murdered by powerful nobles, and another one was murdered in 1399. These murders weakened respect for the Crown, and encouraged repeated struggles for it amongst the king's most powerful relations. In the following century a king, or a king's eldest son, was killed in 1461, 1471, 1483 and 1485. But in the end the nobles destroyed themselves and as a class they disappeared.

      War with Scotland and France

      England's wish to control Scotland had suffered a major setback at Bannockburn in 1314. Many of the English had been killed, and Edward II himself had been lucky to escape. After other unsuccessful attempts England gave up its claim to overlordship of Scotland in 1328. However, it was not long before the two countries were at war again, but this time because of England's war with France.

      The repeated attempts of English kings to control Scotland had led the Scots to look for allies! After Edward I's attempt to take over Scotland in 1295, the Scots turned to the obvious ally, the king of France, for whom there were clear advantages in an alliance with Scotland. This "Auld [old] Alliance" lasted into the sixteenth century. France benefited more than Scotland from it, but both countries agreed that whenever England attacked one of them, the other would make trouble behind England's back. The alliance did not operate the whole time. There were long periods when it was not needed or used.

      England's troubles with France resulted from the French king's growing authority in France, and his determination to control all his nobles, even the greatest of them. France had suffered for centuries from rebellious vassals, and the two most troublesome were the duke of Burgundy and the English king (who was still the king of France's vassal as duke of Aquitaine), both of whom refused to recognise the French king's overlordship.

      To make his position stronger, the king of France began to interfere with England's trade. Part of Aquitaine, an area called Gascony, traded its fine wines for England's corn and woollen cloth. This trade was worth a lot of money to the English Crown. But in 1324 the French king seized part of Gascony. Burgundy was England's other major trading partner, because it was through Burgundy's province of Flanders (now Belgium) that almost all England's wool exports were made. Any French move to control these two areas was a direct threat to England's wealth. The king of France tried to make the duke of Burgundy accept his authority. To prevent this, England threatened Burgundy with economic collapse by stopping wool exports to Flanders. This forced the duke of Burgundy to make an alliance with England against France.

       England went to war because it could not afford the destruction of its trade with Flanders. It was difficult to persuade merchants to pay for wars against the Scots or the Welsh, from which there was so little wealth to be gained. But the threat to their trade and wealth persuaded the rich merchant classes of England that war against France was absolutely necessary. The lords, knights and fighting men also looked forward to the possibility of winning riches and lands.

      Edward III declared war on France in 1337. His excuse was a bold one: he claimed the right to the French Crown. It is unlikely that anyone, except for the English, took his claim very seriously, but it was a good enough reason for starting a war. The war Edward began, later called the Hundred Years War, did not finally end until 1453, with the English Crown losing all its possessions in France except for Calais, a northern French port.

         At first the English were far more successful than the French on the battlefield. The English army was experienced through its wars in Wales and in Scotland. It had learnt the value of being lightly armed, and quick in movement. Its most important weapon was the Welsh longbow, used by most of the ordinary footsoldiers. It was very effective on the battlefield because of its quick rate of fire. An experienced man could fire a second arrow into the air before the first had reached its destination. Writers of the time talk of "clouds" of arrows darkening the sky. These arrows could go through most armour. The value of the longbow was proved in two victories, at Crecy in 1346 and at Poitiers in 1356, where the French king himself was taken prisoner. The English captured a huge quantity of treasure, and it was said that after the battle of Poitiers every woman in England had a French bracelet on her arm. The French king bought his freedom for £500,000, an enormous amount of money in those days.