Seminar 3: The sixteenth century
Your task is not so much to know the exact data (though you are to be aware of the major figures, dates and events) but to understand the influence
upon the present day Anglo-Saxon cultural heritage. As the seminar goes along you’re to draw a “historical line”: period (people, events) and what
traces of the period are found in British life today.
1. Speak about social structure of Medieval England
2. The Plantagenet kings were often forced to make compromises such as
Magna Carta. Speak about the “Magna Carta”
3. The War of Roses. When did it happen? Speak about the
war and its consequences.
The House of Plantagenet
A royal house which originated from
the lands of Anjou in France. The
name Plantagenet is used by
modern historians to identify four
distinct royal houses: the Angevins,
who were also counts of Anjou; the
main body of the Plantagenets
following the loss of Anjou; and the
Plantagenets' two cadet branches,
the houses of Lancaster and York.
The family held the English throne
from 1154, with the accession of
Henry II at the end of The Anarchy
crises, until 1485, when Richard III
died in battle.
4. The House of Tudors is an English royal dynasty of
Welsh origin.
The origins of the Tudors can be traced to the 13th
century, but the family’s dynastic fortunes were
established by Owen Tudor (c. 1400–61), a Welsh
adventurer who took service with Kings Henry V and
Henry VI and fought on the Lancastrian side in the Wars
of the Roses.
Look at the phases of the Tudor era and say what happened
during them.
1485
1485
1502 – 1503
1502 - 1503
1509
1509
1534-1539
1547
1553
1558
1585
1587
1603
5. Speak about:
 Henry VIII (his wives, Reformation)
 Queen Elizabeth I: the policy of the Virgin Queen: social
reforms, cultural life, geographical discoveries and the
extension of borders and royal treasury