Cultural History of Britain
Lecture 5
Timeline: Late Middle Ages (1350-1485)
 1348-49: Black Death
 1381: The Peasants’ Revolt (Wat Tyler)
 1383: Wycliffe’s Bible translation
 1429: Battle of Orleans, Joan of Arc
 1440: Eton College
 1453: end of the Hundred Years War
 1455-85: War of Roses (Plantagenet Dynasty)
 Lancaster (white rose)
 York (red rose)
 1485- reign of Henry VII (Tudor Dynasty)
Black Death: Economic and Social Changes
 c. 50% of Britain’s population dies in plague→
 Food shortage relieved
 Arable lands turned into pastures (sheep breeding)
 Manufactures (processing of wool)


Broadcloth
Worsted
 Tenants instead of peasants
 Preliminaries of industrial revolution
 Gradual dissolution of feudal society
 Process completed by the War of the Roses
Religion: Foreshadowing
of Reformation
 John Wycliffe (1329-84)
 Outraged by the abuses of power within the
Church
 Radical thinker
 Forerunner of Puritanism
 Bible translation (based on Vulgata)
 His followers spread his teachings in the
Kingdom of Bohemia, to inspire Jan Hus
(burnt at the stake in 1415 as a heretic, at
the Council of Constance
 1420-31 – Hussite Wars in Central Europe
 Forerunners of Protestant Reformation –
Martin Luther, 1517, 95 theses, Wittenberg
 Lollards
Between Medieval Other-Worldliness and
Humanism: the Age of Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
(c.1343-1400)
The Place of Thomas Becket’s shrine in
Canterbury Cathedral
(destroyed in 1538, on Henry VIII’s order)
Joan of Arc: Iconoclastic Medieval Saint or a Forerunner
of Reformation?
 Joan of Arc (1412-31)
 Maid of Orleans
 Burnt at the stake for
witchcraft/heresy
 Canonised in 1920
 G. B. Shaw, Saint Joan
(1923)
Film adaptation of her story (1999, Joan
of Arc, dir. Luc Besson)
Education:
Eton Established (1440)
 “the chief nurse of England’s





statesmen”
Boarding school
Public school
Single-sex school
For pupils aged 13-18
Royal Family
Eton College Chapel
Late 15th c. wall paintings
Infiltration of Renaissance
from the Netherlands
Secularisation of Culture: Medieval Theatre
 Mystery plays – cycles
 York
 Chester
 Wakefield
 Unknown town in Central
England
 Miracle plays
 Morality plays
 Interludes
Film adaptation of Shakespeare’s A
Midsummer Night’s Dream (1999)
The Emergence of Print Culture in Britain: William
Caxton (1476)
 Caxton’s printing house: 1476-91
 About 100 works published,
e.g. Chaucer, Malory
 His own translations from French (20)
 Patron of English literature in the
vernacular
 Books are still the privilege of the wealthy!
 “popular literature” had a completely
different meaning in the 15-18th centuries than today
 Impacts
 Interest in classical Greek and vernacular literature (Renaissance
Humanism)
 Interest in the Bible in the vernacular (Reformation)
 Standardisation of English spelling while the Great Vowel Shift was still in
progress (Middle English → Modern English)
Medieval Architecture: Perpendicular Gothic
 No cathedral built entirely in Perpendicular Gothic (wars)
 Additions to existing churches in the new style (towers)
 Parish churches (new, wealthy middle class as patron of arts and
religion)
 „Definition”: in the Perpendicular style „the buiding is conceived as
a cage defined by a grid of vertical mullions and tracery, glazed,
blind or open” (Watkin 64)
 Features:
 New tracery pattern applied to the walls
 Huge windows of a new design completely




filled the east end of churches
Vault decorated in the most intricate design
(fan and lierne vaults)
Late 15th c.: fan vaulting, lace-like tracery
Standardisation, mass production
Specifically English style
The First Perpendicular Gothic Building
Gloucester Cathedral, Choir vault, c. 1340
Gothic Tracery
Gloucester Cathedral
Imaginative Perpendicular Vaulting: Sherborne Abbey
(end of the 15th century)
Sherborne Abbey,
Dorset, the nave
looking west
Perpendicular Gothic: the Tower
The 15th-century tower of
Worcester Cathedral
Perpendicular Windows
Fairford Church,
Gloucestershire, west
window (c.1500)
The Perfection of Perpendicular Gothic
King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, c. 1450-1500, fan vaulting
Secular Architechture
 Mid-15th century: introduction of brick –
transformation of domestic architecture
 Stone castles
 Manor-houses
 Timber-frame construction
 Mid-15th century: standard college plan
established (Queen’s College, modeled on
manor houses)
Tattershall Castle
Ockwells, manor-house
Works Cited
BBC – History. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history
Gelfert, Hans-Dieter: Nagy-Britannia rövid kultúrtörténete. Corvina,
Budapest, 2005.
Halliday, F. E. An Illustrated Cultural History of England. London: Thames
and Hudson, 1981.
Morgan, Kenneth O., ed. The Oxford History of Britain. Oxford: Oxford UP,
1984.
Jenner, Michael. The Architectural Heritage of Britain and Ireland. Penguin:
London, 1993.
Laing, Lloyd and Jennifer. Art of the Celts. London: Thames and Hudson,
1992.
---. Medieval Britain: The Age of Chivalry. London: Herbert Press, 1998.
Morgan, Kenneth O., ed. The Oxford History of Britain. Oxford: Oxford UP,
1984.
Watkin, David. English Architecture. London: Thames and Hudson, 1992.