History of England — Fall

Introduction to our year studying the history of England.

Paleolithic and Neolithic Britain

Stonehenge 3000 BC

Skara Brae (Scotland, Orkney Islands)

THE FIRST INVASION: Celts

THE SECOND INVASION: Romans

THE THIRD INVASION: Anglo-Saxons

THE FOURTH INVASION: Danes

THE FIFTH INVASION: Normans

 

 

REQUIRED READING:

No required reading for our first week.

RECOMMENDED READING:

1) This is the best one-volume treatment of all of British history. The price for a new paperback is now $58.00, which is too much for our class. So I recommend that you buy a used HARDCOVER. If you check the prices you will find good ones starting at about $10.00 which is a great deal. There are about 50 copies right now so that means that anyone in our class who wants a copy will be able to own one. This is a general background book for the whole year.

 

Britain as a Roman Colony.
How "Romanized" was Britain?
The limits of the Roman conquest.
And how the limits influenced all of later British history.
Romans versus the Britons.
Remnants of Roman Britain.

 

RECOMMENDED READING:

 

Saint Patrick (Latin: Patricius) was a fifth-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland. Known as the "Apostle of Ireland", he is the primary patron saint of Ireland. The dates of Patrick's life cannot be fixed with certainty, but there is general agreement that he was active as a missionary in Ireland during the fifth century. A recent biography on Patrick shows a late fourth-century date for the saint is not impossible. According to tradition dating from the early Middle Ages, Patrick was the first bishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland, and is credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland, converting a pagan society in the process. He has been generally so regarded ever since. According to Patrick's autobiographical Confessio, when he was about sixteen, he was captured by Irish pirates from his home in Britain and taken as a slave to Ireland. He writes that he lived there for six years as an animal herder before escaping and returning to his family. After becoming a cleric, he returned to spread Christianity in northern and western Ireland. In later life, he served as a bishop, but little is known about where he worked. By the seventh century, he had already come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland. (Wikipedia)

 

REQUIRED READING:

The Confessio of Saint Patrick

 

RECOMMENDED READING:

King Arthur and the "Matter of Britain."
King Arthur is an important figure in the mythology of Great Britain, where he appears as the ideal of kingship both in war and peace. He is the central character in the cycle of legends known as the Matter of Britain. There is disagreement about whether Arthur, or a model for him, ever actually existed. In the earliest mentions and in Welsh texts, he is never given the title 'King'. An early text refers to him as a dux bellorum ('war leader'), and medieval Welsh texts often call him ameraudur ('emperor'; the word is borrowed from the Latin imperator, which could also mean 'war leader')." (Wikipedia)

 

You also may want to consult the Wikipedia: King Arthur which is very useful.

RECOMMENDED READING:

READING MALORY:
Read the editor Helen Cooper's Introduction on p. vi. It is very good and very helpful and I recommend that you also read the few pages she provides on this text (pp. xxiii-xxvi). And yes I know you will all remind me that I always say don't read the introduction, but that is exactly why I am writing this all out in detail. This introduction is useful. Then you will move forward with Malory's text beginning on p.3. This text is very long, running to more than 500 pages, and I do not expect you will want to read all of it. So, how much? I would say read through the story of Lancelot which ends on p. 119. That will give you a very good idea of what the tale of Arthur is all about and what Malory cared about.

RECOMMENDED READING:

Beowulf is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. The date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars; the only certain dating is for the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025 AD. Scholars call the anonymous author the "Beowulf poet". The story is set in pagan Scandinavia in the 5th and 6th centuries. Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall Heorot has been under attack by the monster Grendel for twelve years. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother takes revenge and is in turn defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland and becomes king of the Geats. Fifty years later, Beowulf defeats a dragon, but is mortally wounded in the battle. After his death, his attendants cremate his body and erect a barrow on a headland in his memory. Scholars have debated whether Beowulf was transmitted orally, affecting its interpretation: if it was composed early, in pagan times, then the paganism is central and the Christian elements were added later, whereas if it was composed later, in writing, by a Christian, then the pagan elements could be decorative archaising; some scholars also hold an intermediate position. Beowulf is written mostly in the Late West Saxon dialect of Old English, but many other dialectal forms are present, suggesting that the poem may have had a long and complex transmission throughout the dialect areas of England.(Wikipedia)

Britain in the Dark Ages.
Beowulf.
Discussion.

 

REQUIRED READING:

Europe and the Year 1000.
Europe emerging from the Dark Ages.
The new European states.
1066 and the Norman Conquest.

The Battle of Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William, Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson, beginning the Norman Conquest of England. It took place approximately 7 mi (11 km) northwest of Hastings, close to the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, and was a decisive Norman victory. The background to the battle was the death of the childless King Edward the Confessor in January 1066, which set up a succession struggle between several claimants to his throne. Harold was crowned king shortly after Edward's death, but faced invasions by William, his own brother Tostig, and the Norwegian King Harald Hardrada (Harold III of Norway). Hardrada and Tostig defeated a hastily gathered army of Englishmen at the Battle of Fulford on 20 September 1066, and were in turn defeated by Harold at the Battle of Stamford Bridge five days later. The deaths of Tostig and Hardrada at Stamford Bridge left William as Harold's only serious opponent. While Harold and his forces were recovering, William landed his invasion forces in the south of England at Pevensey on 28 September 1066 and established a beachhead for his conquest of the kingdom. Harold was forced to march south swiftly, gathering forces as he went. The exact numbers present at the battle are unknown as even modern estimates vary considerably. The composition of the forces is clearer: the English army was composed almost entirely of infantry and had few archers, whereas only about half of the invading force was infantry, the rest split equally between cavalry and archers. Harold appears to have tried to surprise William, but scouts found his army and reported its arrival to William, who marched from Hastings to the battlefield to confront Harold. The battle lasted from about 9 am to dusk. Early efforts of the invaders to break the English battle lines had little effect. Therefore, the Normans adopted the tactic of pretending to flee in panic and then turning on their pursuers. Harold's death, probably near the end of the battle, led to the retreat and defeat of most of his army. After further marching and some skirmishes, William was crowned as king on Christmas Day 1066. There continued to be rebellions and resistance to William's rule, but Hastings effectively marked the culmination of William's conquest of England. Casualty figures are hard to come by, but some historians estimate that 2,000 invaders died along with about twice that number of Englishmen. William founded a monastery at the site of the battle, the high altar of the abbey church supposedly placed at the spot where Harold died.(Wikipedia)

 

 

PART TWO: PICTURES:

The Bayeux Tapestry. The Bayeux Tapestry (French: Tapisserie de Bayeux) is a 50 cm by 70 meters (20 in by 230 ft) long embroidered cloth. It depicts scenes before and during the Battle of Hastings in 1066, with annotations in Latin. It is presently exhibited in a special museum in Bayeux, Normandy, France.

RECOMMENDED READING:

The Plantagenets: Henry II, Richard I, John I, Henry III, Edward I, Edward II, Edward III.
The formation of the English state.
Henry II and the creation of English Common Law.
How did he do it?
Common Law vs. Continental Law (Roman)
The Rights of Englishmen.

This week we begin to study the extraordinary family to which King Henry II belonged: the Plantagenets. Henry descended on his mother's side from the kings of England, and on his father's side (Geoffrey of Anjou) from the great Norman dukes of Normandy and Anjou. The name Plantagenet came from the yellow flowery plant that Geoffrey put into his hat or helmet so that his men would know where he was in a battle. It was both courageous and challenging. His son Henry inherited Normandy, Anjou and Brittany from him, and then young Henry married Eleanor of Aquitaine and added the huge duchy of Aquitaine to his titles. Then in 1154, he was crowned King of England. Dan Jones' great book about the whole family is a good place to start if you would like to know more about these amazing people.

RECOMMENDED READING

From Booklist
They may lack the glamour of the Tudors or the majesty of the Victorians, but in Jones’ latest book, the Plantagenets are just as essential to the foundation of modern Britain. As he chronicles the entire dynasty, beginning with Geoffrey of Anjou (commonly adorned with a sprig of Planta genista, which gave his line their moniker), familiar dramatis personae emerge. Of course, there’s the recklessly brave Lionheart and the incomparably inept John, but Jones devotes ample time to the forces at work that shaped the kingdom. The great battles against the Scots and French and the subjugation of the Welsh make for thrilling reading but so do the equally enthralling struggles over succession, the Magna Carta, and the Provisions of Oxford. Many of these early inklings toward a permanent parliament and the rule of law would find a much fuller and fraught expression under the Stewarts, but they begin here. Written with prose that keeps the reader captivated throughout accounts of the span of centuries and the not-always-glorious trials of kingship, this book is at all times approachable, academic, and entertaining. --James Orbesen

Reviews
“Like the medieval chroniclers he quarries for juicy anecdotes, Jones has opted for a bold narrative approach anchored firmly upon the personalities of the monarchs themselves yet deftly marshaling a vast supporting cast of counts, dukes, and bishops. . . . Fast-paced and accessible, The Plantagenets is old-fashioned storytelling and will be particularly appreciated by those who like their history red in tooth and claw. Mr. Jones tackles his subject with obvious relish.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“Delicious . . . Jones has produced a rollicking, compelling book produced a rollicking, compelling book about a rollicking, compelling dynasty, one that makes the Tudors who followed them a century later look like ginger pussycats. . . . The Plantagenets is told with the latest historical evidence and rich in detail and scene-setting. You can almost smell the sea salt as the White Ship sinks, and hear the screams of the tortured at the execution grounds at Tyburn.”
—USA Today

“Jones has brought the Plantagenets out of the shadows, revealing them in all their epic heroism and depravity. His is an engaging and readable account—itself an accomplishment given the gaps in medieval sources and a 300-year tableau—and yet researched with the exacting standards of an academician. The result is an enjoyable, often harrowing journey through a bloody, insecure era in which many of the underpinnings of English kingship and ¬Anglo-American constitutional thinking were formed.”
—The Washington Post

“Outstanding . . . Majestic in its sweep, compelling in its storytelling, this is narrative history at its best. A thrilling dynastic history of royal intrigues, violent skullduggery, and brutal warfare across two centuries of British history.”
—Simon Sebag Montefiore, bestselling author of Jerusalem: The Biography

“This is history at its most epic and thrilling. I would defy anyone not to be right royally entertained by it.”
—Tom Holland

THANKSGIVING IS NEXT WEEK
WE ARE OFF THE WHOLE WEEK FOR THANKSGIVING

 

From Henry II to John I, The Plantagenets
The reign of King John
The Rights of Englishmen.
June 1215.
Crisis of the political order.
The most important document in all of Western Civilization.
The origins of all legal protections of the individual in Western Civilization.
England, America, Canada, Australia etc. and human rights.

RECOMMENDED READING:

The best edition of the Magna Carta comes from A. E. Dick Howard of the University of Virginia. Professor Howard has produced an excellent small economical edition with the whole text of the Magna Carta along with excellent analysis.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED BOOK

The best book that we have now on the Magna Carta is a new book from Dan Jones, the expert on the Plantagenets. Jones has given us the perfect overall study of the Plantagenet family Henry II, Richard, John, and all the relationships that contributed to the situation in England in 1215. And also he gives us an account of the social and political context of the great document. It is good history and as always with Dan Jones, a good read.

Reviews:
"Lively and excellent."
—The New York Times

"By putting the Magna Carta in its proper historical context, the brilliant young historian Dan Jones triumphantly answers the questions he poses in his Introduction, about how it came to be granted, what it meant at the time, and what it should mean to us today."
—Andrew Roberts, New York Times bestselling author of Napoleon

"Excellent and very well-crafted."
—The New York Review of Books

"Dan Jones has an enviable gift for telling a dramatic story while at the same time inviting us to consider serious topics like liberty and the seeds of representative government."
—Antonia Frasier

Parliament is one of the three great achievements of the Middle Ages: parliaments, universities, and monasteries. All European nations tried to build parliaments, but only England entered into the seventeenth century with a parliament healthy enough to challenge inevitable monarchical overreach. Spain lost hers in the terrible dynastic wars that ripped Iberia apart. France lost hers to the insatiable appetite of the Bourbon kings. Thus by the late seventeenth century only England still had a working effective parliament. The builders of this great achievement were the Medieval kings who came after Henry II and it included the Henrys (II, III, IV & V) and the Edwards (I, and III). Then in the Tudor era, Parliament moved into real live form during the crisis of the "divorce." Henry needed a divorce and Parliament could give it to him: for a price. He accepted the bargain reluctantly, and then regretted it immediately. But it was too late. And his prime minister was maneuvering all the time in the background to bring about exactly this outcome. Cromwell paid the ultimate price. And we all won the prize.

RECOMMENDED READING:

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. The tales (mostly written in verse, although some are in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return. It has been suggested that the greatest contribution of The Canterbury Tales to English literature was the popularization of the English vernacular in mainstream literature, as opposed to French, Italian or Latin. English had, however, been used as a literary language centuries before Chaucer's time, and several of Chaucer's contemporaries—John Gower, William Langland, and Julian of Norwich also wrote major literary works in English. (Wikipedia)

REQUIRED READING:

Read: Prologue (p. 1), The Knight's Tale (p. 26), The Miller's Tale (p. 88),
The Reeve's Tale (p. 108), The Wife of Bath Prologue (p. 258), The Wife of Bath's Tale (p. 281).

RECOMMENDED READING READING:

There is no better book on the Fourteenth Century than A Distant Mirror. Barbara Tuchman was a master of history. And as the reviewers say: this is her greatest book. It is a big book and you will be sad when it ends.

Reviews:

“Beautifully written, careful and thorough in its scholarship . . . What Ms. Tuchman does superbly is to tell how it was. . . . No one has ever done this better.”—The New York Review of Books

“A beautiful, extraordinary book . . . Tuchman at the top of her powers . . . She has done nothing finer.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Wise, witty, and wonderful . . . a great book, in a great historical tradition.”—Commentary

Christmas Vacation (2 Weeks Dec 22-Jan 4)

next class THURSDAY JAN 9, 2025.

Introduction to our year studying the history of England.

Paleolithic and Neolithic Britain

Stonehenge 3000 BC

Skara Brae (Scotland, Orkney Islands)

THE FIRST INVASION: Celts

THE SECOND INVASION: Romans

THE THIRD INVASION: Anglo-Saxons

THE FOURTH INVASION: Danes

THE FIFTH INVASION: Normans

 

 

REQUIRED READING:

No required reading for our first week.

RECOMMENDED READING:

1) This is the best one-volume treatment of all of British history. The price for a new paperback is now $58.00, which is too much for our class. So I recommend that you buy a used HARDCOVER. If you check the prices you will find good ones starting at about $10.00 which is a great deal. There are about 50 copies right now so that means that anyone in our class who wants a copy will be able to own one. This is a general background book for the whole year.

 

Britain as a Roman Colony.
How "Romanized" was Britain?
The limits of the Roman conquest.
And how the limits influenced all of later British history.
Romans versus the Britons.
Remnants of Roman Britain.

 

RECOMMENDED READING:

 

Saint Patrick (Latin: Patricius) was a fifth-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland. Known as the "Apostle of Ireland", he is the primary patron saint of Ireland. The dates of Patrick's life cannot be fixed with certainty, but there is general agreement that he was active as a missionary in Ireland during the fifth century. A recent biography on Patrick shows a late fourth-century date for the saint is not impossible. According to tradition dating from the early Middle Ages, Patrick was the first bishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland, and is credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland, converting a pagan society in the process. He has been generally so regarded ever since. According to Patrick's autobiographical Confessio, when he was about sixteen, he was captured by Irish pirates from his home in Britain and taken as a slave to Ireland. He writes that he lived there for six years as an animal herder before escaping and returning to his family. After becoming a cleric, he returned to spread Christianity in northern and western Ireland. In later life, he served as a bishop, but little is known about where he worked. By the seventh century, he had already come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland. (Wikipedia)

 

REQUIRED READING:

The Confessio of Saint Patrick

 

RECOMMENDED READING:

King Arthur and the "Matter of Britain."
King Arthur is an important figure in the mythology of Great Britain, where he appears as the ideal of kingship both in war and peace. He is the central character in the cycle of legends known as the Matter of Britain. There is disagreement about whether Arthur, or a model for him, ever actually existed. In the earliest mentions and in Welsh texts, he is never given the title 'King'. An early text refers to him as a dux bellorum ('war leader'), and medieval Welsh texts often call him ameraudur ('emperor'; the word is borrowed from the Latin imperator, which could also mean 'war leader')." (Wikipedia)

 

You also may want to consult the Wikipedia: King Arthur which is very useful.

RECOMMENDED READING:

READING MALORY:
Read the editor Helen Cooper's Introduction on p. vi. It is very good and very helpful and I recommend that you also read the few pages she provides on this text (pp. xxiii-xxvi). And yes I know you will all remind me that I always say don't read the introduction, but that is exactly why I am writing this all out in detail. This introduction is useful. Then you will move forward with Malory's text beginning on p.3. This text is very long, running to more than 500 pages, and I do not expect you will want to read all of it. So, how much? I would say read through the story of Lancelot which ends on p. 119. That will give you a very good idea of what the tale of Arthur is all about and what Malory cared about.

RECOMMENDED READING:

Beowulf is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. The date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars; the only certain dating is for the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025 AD. Scholars call the anonymous author the "Beowulf poet". The story is set in pagan Scandinavia in the 5th and 6th centuries. Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall Heorot has been under attack by the monster Grendel for twelve years. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother takes revenge and is in turn defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland and becomes king of the Geats. Fifty years later, Beowulf defeats a dragon, but is mortally wounded in the battle. After his death, his attendants cremate his body and erect a barrow on a headland in his memory. Scholars have debated whether Beowulf was transmitted orally, affecting its interpretation: if it was composed early, in pagan times, then the paganism is central and the Christian elements were added later, whereas if it was composed later, in writing, by a Christian, then the pagan elements could be decorative archaising; some scholars also hold an intermediate position. Beowulf is written mostly in the Late West Saxon dialect of Old English, but many other dialectal forms are present, suggesting that the poem may have had a long and complex transmission throughout the dialect areas of England.(Wikipedia)

Britain in the Dark Ages.
Beowulf.
Discussion.

 

REQUIRED READING:

Europe and the Year 1000.
Europe emerging from the Dark Ages.
The new European states.
1066 and the Norman Conquest.

The Battle of Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William, Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson, beginning the Norman Conquest of England. It took place approximately 7 mi (11 km) northwest of Hastings, close to the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, and was a decisive Norman victory. The background to the battle was the death of the childless King Edward the Confessor in January 1066, which set up a succession struggle between several claimants to his throne. Harold was crowned king shortly after Edward's death, but faced invasions by William, his own brother Tostig, and the Norwegian King Harald Hardrada (Harold III of Norway). Hardrada and Tostig defeated a hastily gathered army of Englishmen at the Battle of Fulford on 20 September 1066, and were in turn defeated by Harold at the Battle of Stamford Bridge five days later. The deaths of Tostig and Hardrada at Stamford Bridge left William as Harold's only serious opponent. While Harold and his forces were recovering, William landed his invasion forces in the south of England at Pevensey on 28 September 1066 and established a beachhead for his conquest of the kingdom. Harold was forced to march south swiftly, gathering forces as he went. The exact numbers present at the battle are unknown as even modern estimates vary considerably. The composition of the forces is clearer: the English army was composed almost entirely of infantry and had few archers, whereas only about half of the invading force was infantry, the rest split equally between cavalry and archers. Harold appears to have tried to surprise William, but scouts found his army and reported its arrival to William, who marched from Hastings to the battlefield to confront Harold. The battle lasted from about 9 am to dusk. Early efforts of the invaders to break the English battle lines had little effect. Therefore, the Normans adopted the tactic of pretending to flee in panic and then turning on their pursuers. Harold's death, probably near the end of the battle, led to the retreat and defeat of most of his army. After further marching and some skirmishes, William was crowned as king on Christmas Day 1066. There continued to be rebellions and resistance to William's rule, but Hastings effectively marked the culmination of William's conquest of England. Casualty figures are hard to come by, but some historians estimate that 2,000 invaders died along with about twice that number of Englishmen. William founded a monastery at the site of the battle, the high altar of the abbey church supposedly placed at the spot where Harold died.(Wikipedia)

 

 

PART TWO: PICTURES:

The Bayeux Tapestry. The Bayeux Tapestry (French: Tapisserie de Bayeux) is a 50 cm by 70 meters (20 in by 230 ft) long embroidered cloth. It depicts scenes before and during the Battle of Hastings in 1066, with annotations in Latin. It is presently exhibited in a special museum in Bayeux, Normandy, France.

RECOMMENDED READING:

The Plantagenets: Henry II, Richard I, John I, Henry III, Edward I, Edward II, Edward III.
The formation of the English state.
Henry II and the creation of English Common Law.
How did he do it?
Common Law vs. Continental Law (Roman)
The Rights of Englishmen.

This week we begin to study the extraordinary family to which King Henry II belonged: the Plantagenets. Henry descended on his mother's side from the kings of England, and on his father's side (Geoffrey of Anjou) from the great Norman dukes of Normandy and Anjou. The name Plantagenet came from the yellow flowery plant that Geoffrey put into his hat or helmet so that his men would know where he was in a battle. It was both courageous and challenging. His son Henry inherited Normandy, Anjou and Brittany from him, and then young Henry married Eleanor of Aquitaine and added the huge duchy of Aquitaine to his titles. Then in 1154, he was crowned King of England. Dan Jones' great book about the whole family is a good place to start if you would like to know more about these amazing people.

RECOMMENDED READING

From Booklist
They may lack the glamour of the Tudors or the majesty of the Victorians, but in Jones’ latest book, the Plantagenets are just as essential to the foundation of modern Britain. As he chronicles the entire dynasty, beginning with Geoffrey of Anjou (commonly adorned with a sprig of Planta genista, which gave his line their moniker), familiar dramatis personae emerge. Of course, there’s the recklessly brave Lionheart and the incomparably inept John, but Jones devotes ample time to the forces at work that shaped the kingdom. The great battles against the Scots and French and the subjugation of the Welsh make for thrilling reading but so do the equally enthralling struggles over succession, the Magna Carta, and the Provisions of Oxford. Many of these early inklings toward a permanent parliament and the rule of law would find a much fuller and fraught expression under the Stewarts, but they begin here. Written with prose that keeps the reader captivated throughout accounts of the span of centuries and the not-always-glorious trials of kingship, this book is at all times approachable, academic, and entertaining. --James Orbesen

Reviews
“Like the medieval chroniclers he quarries for juicy anecdotes, Jones has opted for a bold narrative approach anchored firmly upon the personalities of the monarchs themselves yet deftly marshaling a vast supporting cast of counts, dukes, and bishops. . . . Fast-paced and accessible, The Plantagenets is old-fashioned storytelling and will be particularly appreciated by those who like their history red in tooth and claw. Mr. Jones tackles his subject with obvious relish.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“Delicious . . . Jones has produced a rollicking, compelling book produced a rollicking, compelling book about a rollicking, compelling dynasty, one that makes the Tudors who followed them a century later look like ginger pussycats. . . . The Plantagenets is told with the latest historical evidence and rich in detail and scene-setting. You can almost smell the sea salt as the White Ship sinks, and hear the screams of the tortured at the execution grounds at Tyburn.”
—USA Today

“Jones has brought the Plantagenets out of the shadows, revealing them in all their epic heroism and depravity. His is an engaging and readable account—itself an accomplishment given the gaps in medieval sources and a 300-year tableau—and yet researched with the exacting standards of an academician. The result is an enjoyable, often harrowing journey through a bloody, insecure era in which many of the underpinnings of English kingship and ¬Anglo-American constitutional thinking were formed.”
—The Washington Post

“Outstanding . . . Majestic in its sweep, compelling in its storytelling, this is narrative history at its best. A thrilling dynastic history of royal intrigues, violent skullduggery, and brutal warfare across two centuries of British history.”
—Simon Sebag Montefiore, bestselling author of Jerusalem: The Biography

“This is history at its most epic and thrilling. I would defy anyone not to be right royally entertained by it.”
—Tom Holland

THANKSGIVING IS NEXT WEEK
WE ARE OFF THE WHOLE WEEK FOR THANKSGIVING

 

From Henry II to John I, The Plantagenets
The reign of King John
The Rights of Englishmen.
June 1215.
Crisis of the political order.
The most important document in all of Western Civilization.
The origins of all legal protections of the individual in Western Civilization.
England, America, Canada, Australia etc. and human rights.

RECOMMENDED READING:

The best edition of the Magna Carta comes from A. E. Dick Howard of the University of Virginia. Professor Howard has produced an excellent small economical edition with the whole text of the Magna Carta along with excellent analysis.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED BOOK

The best book that we have now on the Magna Carta is a new book from Dan Jones, the expert on the Plantagenets. Jones has given us the perfect overall study of the Plantagenet family Henry II, Richard, John, and all the relationships that contributed to the situation in England in 1215. And also he gives us an account of the social and political context of the great document. It is good history and as always with Dan Jones, a good read.

Reviews:
"Lively and excellent."
—The New York Times

"By putting the Magna Carta in its proper historical context, the brilliant young historian Dan Jones triumphantly answers the questions he poses in his Introduction, about how it came to be granted, what it meant at the time, and what it should mean to us today."
—Andrew Roberts, New York Times bestselling author of Napoleon

"Excellent and very well-crafted."
—The New York Review of Books

"Dan Jones has an enviable gift for telling a dramatic story while at the same time inviting us to consider serious topics like liberty and the seeds of representative government."
—Antonia Frasier

Parliament is one of the three great achievements of the Middle Ages: parliaments, universities, and monasteries. All European nations tried to build parliaments, but only England entered into the seventeenth century with a parliament healthy enough to challenge inevitable monarchical overreach. Spain lost hers in the terrible dynastic wars that ripped Iberia apart. France lost hers to the insatiable appetite of the Bourbon kings. Thus by the late seventeenth century only England still had a working effective parliament. The builders of this great achievement were the Medieval kings who came after Henry II and it included the Henrys (II, III, IV & V) and the Edwards (I, and III). Then in the Tudor era, Parliament moved into real live form during the crisis of the "divorce." Henry needed a divorce and Parliament could give it to him: for a price. He accepted the bargain reluctantly, and then regretted it immediately. But it was too late. And his prime minister was maneuvering all the time in the background to bring about exactly this outcome. Cromwell paid the ultimate price. And we all won the prize.

RECOMMENDED READING:

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. The tales (mostly written in verse, although some are in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return. It has been suggested that the greatest contribution of The Canterbury Tales to English literature was the popularization of the English vernacular in mainstream literature, as opposed to French, Italian or Latin. English had, however, been used as a literary language centuries before Chaucer's time, and several of Chaucer's contemporaries—John Gower, William Langland, and Julian of Norwich also wrote major literary works in English. (Wikipedia)

REQUIRED READING:

Read: Prologue (p. 1), The Knight's Tale (p. 26), The Miller's Tale (p. 88),
The Reeve's Tale (p. 108), The Wife of Bath Prologue (p. 258), The Wife of Bath's Tale (p. 281).

RECOMMENDED READING READING:

There is no better book on the Fourteenth Century than A Distant Mirror. Barbara Tuchman was a master of history. And as the reviewers say: this is her greatest book. It is a big book and you will be sad when it ends.

Reviews:

“Beautifully written, careful and thorough in its scholarship . . . What Ms. Tuchman does superbly is to tell how it was. . . . No one has ever done this better.”—The New York Review of Books

“A beautiful, extraordinary book . . . Tuchman at the top of her powers . . . She has done nothing finer.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Wise, witty, and wonderful . . . a great book, in a great historical tradition.”—Commentary

Christmas Vacation (2 Weeks Dec 22-Jan 4)

next class THURSDAY JAN 9, 2025.