Britain-the Middles Age

Church and state.

The struggle for both power and money, between the church and the state, in England, had begun in 1066 when the pope claimed that William had promised to accept him as his feudal lord. William refused to accept this claim. He had created Norman bishops and given them land on condition that they paid homage to him. So the bishops should obey the church or the king.

The main quarrel was when Thomas becket suddenly was chosen archbishop of Canterbury by the Henry II in 1162 for was under his control, but he refused and fought against the king. As result of this; becket was killed, he became a saint of the church. For hundreds of years afterwards people not only from England but also from Europe travelled to Canterbury to pray at becket´s grave.

However in the john´s reign marked the end of the long struggle between church and state.

The growth of towns as centres of wealth.

England was an agricultural society. Towns and city involved in trade or industry and farmed small holdings of land on the edge of town, so England was self- sufficient, but in the middles ages England needed thing from abroad, such as salt and spices, wool-growing areas and food-producing areas imported.

Important points:

• International trade like Gascony and the Low Countries.

• The manufacture of woolen cloth

• New towns: Newcastle, Hull, Boston, Lynn and others than had good connections with Europe, so the cloth was the most important trade.

• The main place of the wool industry was built up by monasteries, which kept large flocks of sheep on their great estates.

• Chapmen or hucksters, travelling traders, would by wool at particular village markets.

• Brotherhoods that controlled the cities, society and the economy.

Language, literature and culture.

The growth of literacy in England was connected with the twelfth-century renaissance, a cultural movement which had first started in Italy.

• Schools of learning were established in many towns and cities, some schools attached to a cathedral and they taught Latin.

• Most people spoke neither Latin the language of the church and education, nor French. It was a long time before English became the language in the classes.

• By the 1220 there were two universities established, oxford and Cambridge were the intellectual leaders of the country.

...