In a nutshell:
The Fourteenth Century (1307-1399):
•War with France (100 Years’ War begins)
•Plague (1347- )
•Rebellion (1381) and Deposition (1399)
•Heresy
•Schism
•Chaucer and Gawain; Richard II and Henry IV
The Fifteenth Century (1399-1485):
•War with France (100 Years’ War concludes)
•Civil War (Wars of the Roses)
•Printing (1470s)
•Henry V and Richard III
The Sixteenth Century (1485-1603):
•Reformation (and Counter-Reformation)
•Humanism
•Sidney and Shakespeare; Henry VIII and Elizabeth
ENGLAND IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
1327
1337
1346
1348
1356
1377
1378
1381
1399
1401
Edward III accedes to the throne
Beginning of Hundred Years’ War
English victory at Crecy
Black Death arrives in England
English victory at Poitiers; French king John II captured
Death of Edward III; accession of grandson Richard II at age nine
Beginning of Great Schism (competing Popes, until 1415-18)
June uprising (“Peasant’s Revolt”)
Henry Bolingbroke deposes Richard, rules as Henry IV
Statute De haeretico comburendo enacted; John Badby burned at
the stake, 1410
Coronation of Edward III (1327)
Battle of Crecy (1346)
Battle of Poitiers (1356)
Course of the plague, 1346-53
A doctor examining a patient’s urine
Burial of plague victims at Tournai, 1349
Bibliotheque Royale de Belgique MS 13076-7, f. 24v
Death of Wat Tyler, June 1381
BL MS Royal 18.E.I, f.175
Knights killing peasants during the Jacquerie rising, 1358
BL MS Royal C.vii, f.133
Richard II surrenders the crown to
his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, 1399
John Wyclif
(c.1324-1384)
John Badby’s execution, 1410
(from John Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 1563 edition)
Rome as a mourning widow
Paris, BN MS Ital. 81, f. 18
Chaucer portrait in MS Harley 4866
(Hoccleve’s Regement of Princes, c.1412)
ENGLAND IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY, part one
1413
1415
1420
1422
Death of Henry IV; Henry V accedes
English victory at the battle of Agincourt
Treaty of Troyes makes Henry V heir to French throne
Death of Henry V; accession of Henry VI at 9 mos. Minority
begins.
1431
Joan of Arc captured and executed, though England is steadily
losing its French possessions.
1437
End of Henry’s minority
1453-54 Henry VI mad; Richard Duke of York Protector
1455
Battle of St. Albans opens civil war (Wars of the Roses)
1461
Battle of Towton: Henry VI deposed; Edward of York reigns as
Edward IV
1469-70 Warwick’s rebellion-- Henry VI is restored to the throne
Execution of Joan of Arc, 1431
ENGLAND IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY, part two
1471
Edward returns; Henry again deposed and murdered.
1476
William Caxton sets up a printing press in Westminster
1483
Death of Edward IV; his son Edward V succeeds him, but through
the machinations of Richard, duke of Gloucester, he is declared illegitimate
and Richard takes the throne as Richard III. Edward and his younger
brother vanish.
1485
Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, defeats Richard at Bosworth Field,
where Richard is killed. Henry accedes as Henry VII.
A leaf from the
Gutenburg Bible (c. 1450)
A page from William
Caxton’s edition of the
Canterbury Tales
(1476/1483)
Battles in the War of the Roses,1455-71
From http://www.richardiii.net/battles%20submenu.htm
Edward Duke of York,
later King Edward IV
Henry VI
Richard, Duke of York, later
King Richard III
Henry Tudor, later
King Henry VII
ENGLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
1509
1517
1533
1534
15361547
1553
1558
1576
1577
1588
1603
Death of Henry VII; Henry VIII becomes king.
Luther’s 95 Theses begin the Reformation
Henry divorces Catherine of Aragon, marries Anne Boleyn
Act of Supremacy: Henry VIII makes himself head of the Church
of England
Henry VIII dissolves the monasteries and confiscates their
property
Death of Henry VIII; Edward VI, age 10, becomes king.
Death of Edward VI; Mary becomes queen and returns the
country to Catholicism, persecuting Protestants.
Death of 'Bloody Mary'; Elizabeth I becomes queen.
Protestantism again!
The first public theatre (The Theatre!) opens in London
Sir Francis Drake begins voyage around the world
Defeat of the Spanish Armada
Death of Elizabeth; James I becomes king.
Henry VIII
Martin Luther
Elizabeth I
The Swan Theatre,
circa 1596
Sir Philip Sidney
(1554-1586)
Baldassare Castiglione, Il Cortegiano (The Courtier), 1528
English translation by Sir Thomas Hoby, 1561
on Sprezzatura:
But I, imagynyng with my self oftentymes how this grace
commeth, leaving a part such as have it from above, fynd one rule
that is most general whych in thys part (me thynk) taketh place in all
thynges belongyng to man in worde or deede above all other. And
that is to eschew as much as a man may, and as a sharp and
dangerous rock, Affectation or curiousity and (to speak a new word)
to use in every thyng a certain Reckelessness, to cover art withall, and
seeme whatsoever he doth and sayeth to do it wythout pain, and (as it
were) not myndyng it. And of thys do I beleve grace is muche
deryved, for in rare matters and wel brought to passe every man
knoweth the hardnes of them, so that a redines therin maketh great
wonder. And contrarywise to use force, and (as they say) to hale by
the hear, geveth a great disgrace, and maketh every thing how great
so ever it be, to be litle estemed. Therfore that may be said to be a
very art To cover art. that appeereth not to be art…
Captain Marvel’s Magic Word: Shazam!
S The wisdom of Solomon
H The strength of Hercules
A The stamina of Atlas
Z The power of Zeus
A The courage of Achilles
M The speed of Mercury
Poetry is therefore an art of imitation….to speak
metaphorically, a speaking picture—with this end, to
teach and delight.
Sidney, Defense of Poesy, 1579
Aut prodesse uolunt aut delectare poetae
aut simul et iucunda et idonea dicere uitae.
(Poets wish to either benefit or delight us, or, at one and
the same time, to speak words that are both pleasing and
useful for our lives.)
Horace, Ars poetica (c. 18 B.C.E.), ll. 333-34 (trans. Leon Golden, 1995)
Romans 15 1-7
1 We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings
of the weak, and not to please ourselves. 2 Let each of us please
his neighbor for his good, to build him up. 3 For Christ did not
please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who
reproached you fell on me.” 4 For whatever was written in
former days was written for our instruction, that through
endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we
might have hope. 5 May the God of endurance and
encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one
another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may
with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. 7 Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed
you, for the glory of God.
For these [poets], indeed, do merely make to imitate, and
imitate both to delight and teach, and delight to move men to
take that goodness in hand, which without delight they would
fly as from a stranger; and teach to make them know that
goodness whereunto they are moved:—which being the
noblest scope to which ever any learning was directed, yet
want there not idle tongues to bark at them.
(Defence of Poesy, 958)
…since our erected wit maketh us know what perfection is,
and yet our infected will keepeth us from reaching unto it.
(Defence of Poesy, 957)
Now, as in geometry the oblique must be known as well as the right, and in
arithmetic the odd as well as the even; so in the actions of our life who
seeth not the filthiness of evil, wanteth a great foil to perceive the beauty of
virtue. This doth the comedy handle so, in our private and domestical
matters, as with hearing it we get, as it were, an experience what is to be
looked for of a niggardly Demea, of a crafty Davus, of a flattering Gnatho,
of a vain-glorious Thraso; and not only to know what effects are to be
expected, but to know who be such, by the signifying badge given them by
the comedian. And little reason hath any man to say that men learn evil by
seeing it so set out; since, as I said before, there is no man living, but by the
force truth hath in nature, no sooner seeth these men play their parts, but
wisheth them in pistrinum, although perchance the sack of his own faults
lie so behind his back, that he seeth not himself to dance the same
measure,—whereto yet nothing can more open his eyes than to find his
own actions contemptibly set forth.
(Defence of Poesy, 964)
….so think I none so simple would say that Æsop lied in the
tales of his beasts; for who thinketh that Æsop wrote it for
actually true, were well worthy to have his name chronicled
among the beasts he writeth of. What child is there that,
coming to a play, and seeing Thebes written in great letters
upon an old door, doth believe that it is Thebes? If then a
man can arrive at that child’s-age, to know that the poet’s
persons and doings are but pictures what should be, and not
stories what have been, they will never give the lie to things
not affirmatively but allegorically and figuratively written.
(Defence of Poesy, 967)