MIDDLE ENGLISH
Early Literature
Very little English literature survives from the period between the Norman Conquest (1066) and the early 13th century. But this does not mean the English writing tradition stopped completely. In the 12th century, copies of older texts were still being made, and one of the most important prose works of the period appeared: Ancrene Riwle (A Guide for Nuns).
Layamon’s Brut and the Birth of the Arthur Legend
One of the most important
bridges between Old English and Middle English is the poem Layamon’s Brut, written around
1205. It keeps the Old English alliterative
metre alive, and it is also the first English text to tell the legend of King Arthur.
According to the legend,
Britain’s origins go back to Brutus,
a descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas. Layamon took French sources that told
this legend and developed them, leaving a great legacy to English literature.
There is also a nice irony here: the Arthur legend was originally Celtic (Welsh
and Irish). It was made immortal by French writers such as Chrétien de Troyes, and only later
became the traditional hero of the English.
From Epic
to Romance
Layamon’s treatment of Arthur was very different from a classic epic like Beowulf. At this time, literature was moving toward the most popular genre of the Middle Ages: the romance. Unlike epics, romances were adventure stories in which heroes, usually knights, both fought and fell in love, and supernatural events were common. Heroes and villains were so standardised that they could easily be moved from one romance to another.
French Elegance, English Practicality
Middle English romances
often disappoint modern readers. Most of them were clumsy English versions of
elegant and complex stories written for the French aristocracy. (Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight is a major exception.)
Uneducated minstrels tried to adapt the refined chivalric codes of French nobles for
their middle-class or lower-class English audiences, and this created funny
situations. A knight who should look very noble would suddenly act like a
practical, rough, ordinary Englishman while eating, fighting, or falling in
love. Still, these absurdities often feel entertaining and warm.
A Few Sparks Before Chaucer
Among the
few secular works that survive outside the romances, the most striking is The Owl and the Nightingale, a
debate poem from the late 12th century. It tells of two birds attacking each
other with a natural, unintellectual hatred. This witty and earthly text is an
early sign of Chaucer’s sense of humour.
There are
a few other secular poems and stories before Chaucer, such as Dame Sirith.
But to understand why Chaucer’s later impact was so revolutionary, we only need
to look at how little literature existed before him.
The Golden Age of Middle English: The Late 14th Century
Middle
English literature truly bloomed in the last quarter of the 14th century.
Within just a few decades, three literary geniuses appeared at almost the same
time: the Gawain Poet, the
author of Piers Plowman,
and Geoffrey Chaucer, author of
the Canterbury Tales.
The Gawain Poet: The Voice of Faith and Elegance
We do not
know his name, but literary history calls him the Gawain Poet. He wrote Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the
finest romance in Middle English, but he was also a brilliant religious poet.
His alliterative poem Patience,
which retells the story of the prophet Jonah, is one of the best Bible
adaptations written since the Anglo-Saxon period. Even more moving is Pearl, which mixes an elegy with theology. Many consider it
the most touching and finely crafted religious work of the late Middle Ages.
William Langland and Social Criticism
Another
giant of the period, William Langland,
made a powerful impact on both literature and history with Piers Plowman. He dealt with the
most urgent social and religious problems of his time with great poetic
courage. His anti-church satire and his character “Piers” were so influential
that for the next century and a half, many writers imitated him. His work even
helped prepare the intellectual ground for the Reformation, which he never predicted and would probably have been
shocked by.
Geoffrey Chaucer: A Genius Beyond the Middle Ages
The
greatest of all these names was, of course, Geoffrey Chaucer. His roots were firmly planted in medieval
England, but his artistic genius carried him far beyond the limits of the
Middle Ages and made him one of the greatest English poets of all time.
The New Patrons of Literature
This
sudden literary explosion was not an accident. It came largely from wealthy
people beginning to support literature through patronage. Chaucer was a court poet, supported not only by the
powerful John of Gaunt, but also
by Edward III, Richard II, and, in his last years, Henry IV. The Gawain Poet probably
wrote for a local aristocratic court, far from London but fond of the arts.
Even Langland was probably supported by monasteries. Wherever the money came
from, it was a rare piece of luck for English literature that all three masters
found support.
In the Shadows: John Gower and After
History
is often cruel to writers who lived at the same time as great geniuses. This
was exactly the fate of John Gower,
Chaucer’s close friend. Gower was a much more “typical” medieval writer than
Chaucer. He wrote three huge works, one in Latin, one in Norman French, and one
in English, which together summarise the linguistic world of medieval England.
His English work, Confessio Amantis
(The Lover’s Confession), was a collection of stories like Chaucer’s. If
readers did not have to compare it with a masterpiece like the Canterbury
Tales, it would be valued much more highly today.
Even so,
despite his sometimes dull style, Gower was far better than poets of the next
generation such as John Lydgate
and Thomas Hoccleve. Writing at
the very end of the Middle Ages, they seemed determined to keep alive the worst
medieval habits: endless moral advice and bad poetry. They called Chaucer their
“master”, but he had far more to teach than they were able to learn.
The 15th Century
The End of the Middle Ages, the Printing Press, and Anonymous Folk
Literature
In
England, the 15th century was not an age of great names. It was a golden age of
folk literature and anonymous
works. During the chaotic years of the Wars
of the Roses, England produced only one major writer: Sir Thomas Malory (died 1471).
Malory
had lived through the chaos of his time first-hand. During his long years in
prison, he wrote his immortal work Morte
Darthur, the greatest collection of King Arthur stories in English
literature. In fact, prison was a surprisingly productive place for literature
at that time. Early in the century, King
James I of Scotland, held prisoner in London from 1406 to 1424, wrote The Kingis Quair (The King’s
Book), a love poem that is a perfect imitation of Chaucer, at a quality his
English contemporaries could not reach. In fact, the best poets of the 15th century
were not English at all, but Scots known as the Scottish Chaucerians, such as Robert Henryson and William
Dunbar, who kept Chaucer’s satirical spirit and energy alive.
Folk Literature, Mystery Plays, and Ballads
Despite
the lack of great names, folk literature in 15th-century England was
surprisingly alive. Some of the most beautiful secular and religious lyric poems belong to this period. It
was also the century when many English ballads,
passed on by word of mouth, were composed.
Literature came alive not only on the page but also on the stage.
Mystery Plays, whose foundations were probably laid in the previous century, reached
their peak in the 15th century. The play cycles of towns like York, Chester, and Wakefield,
performed by ordinary townspeople, survive to this day. Toward the end of the
century, Morality Plays,
in which moral ideas become characters, developed, and their peak was the
famous play Everyman.
But the
creators of these poems, ballads, and plays are anonymous. The play texts were kept only in the archives of the
towns where they were performed, and the anonymous poems and ballads were
mostly passed on orally and written down by chance.
The Arrival of Printing and the End of an Era (1485)
The
greatest piece of luck for the future of English literature was that Malory’s
huge Morte Darthur did not have to depend on fragile manuscripts to
survive. It was printed in 1485 by William
Caxton, who had brought movable-type
printing to England only about ten years earlier. Without Caxton,
the world might not have known Malory until a manuscript was found by chance in
1934.
For
historians, giving an exact end date to an age that lasted eight centuries is
always a little arbitrary. Still, 1485
has very strong reasons to be seen as the end of the English Middle Ages.
In
literature, the printing presses founded by Caxton and his followers broke the
centuries-old relationship between “speaker and listener” (oral tradition) and
built the modern relationship between author
and reader. In politics, the stability that came with the rise of Henry VII in 1485 gave people
the free time and peace needed for intellectual work.
Henry’s
court attracted humanist
scholars, who brought Ancient Greek knowledge and thought, the so-called New Learning, to England. This
awakening would bring English culture back to life. Under the next king, Henry VIII, England would break
away from the Roman Church and, for better or worse, separate itself from a
vital part of its medieval heritage. Still, beneath the bright surface of the
coming Renaissance, a careful
reader will always notice the dark traces left by the Middle Ages.
In less than four centuries,
English had gone from a silenced language to the voice of Chaucer, Langland,
and Malory. Then, in 1485, a printing press and a new dynasty quietly closed
the Middle Ages. The age of manuscripts and minstrels was ending, and a new age
of readers, books, and ideas was about to begin. In our next post, we step into Medieval English.
