What were the most important political, economical and cultural changes after the Norman Conquest?

1. Some lands were granted to the Normans who took part in the Conquest.

2. All the forest land belonged to the king. Special forest laws about hunting were issued and anyone who dared to hunt in the Royal forest without the King permission was severely punished.

3. Church was given a lot of lands and became one of the great landowners in the country. Many new cathedrals and churches were built.

4. The building of the Abbey is on the exact place of the Battle of Hastings

5. A lot of gold, silver, precious stones were sent to Rome as gifts.

6. The country was organized according to the feudal system.

7. The king abolished the great earldoms Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex and divided it into countries. Each country was ruled by Sheriff who administrated justice.

8. Was written down in the ‘Doomsday book’.

9. Castles were built all over the country to emphasize the Norman presence.

10. Nation becomes slowly unified.

Why was Thomas Becket murdered? How did the Christian world react to Becket's martyrdom?

T.B. refused against interests of the Church considering the Church not the King to be his first loyalty. The conflict was in the murdering of T.B. in Canterbury Cathedral by the king’s servants.

3 years later B. was canonized, he was made a Saint and a year after that Henry had monks had flocked him in the street as a mark of his repentance.

What role did G. Chaucer play for the development of the English language? What languages were books written in before Chaucer in England?

(1343 – 1400), known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages. Chaucer is a crucial figure in developing the legitimacy [lɪ'ʤɪtəməsɪ] of the vernacular [və'nækjulə] Middle English at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were French and Latin. Chaucer's works are sometimes grouped into first a French period, then an Italian period and finally an English period, with Chaucer being influenced by those countries' literatures in turn. The poetry ['pəuɪtrɪ] of Chaucer helped to standardise ['stændədaɪz] the London Dialect of the Middle English language. 

Apart from the irregular spelling, much of the vocabulary is recognisable to the modern reader. Chaucer is also recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary as the first author to use many common English words in his writings. The Canterbury Tales was selected to be one of the first books to be printed in England.

In The Canterbury Tales he described a group of people setting out on a pilgrimage from London to the tomb of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury, Kent. Chaucer wrote 24 complete stories for them to tell, mostly in couplets.

What do you know about the Magna Carta?

Magna Carta (Latin for Great Charter (of Liberties)) is an English legal charter, originally issued in the year 1215. It was written in Latin. Magna Carta required King John  (Lackland) of England to proclaim certain rights (mainly of his barons), respect certain legal procedures, and accept that his could be bound by the law. It explicitly protected certain rights of the. Many clauses were renewed throughout the Middle Ages, and continued to be renewed as late as the 18th century. Magna Carta was the first document forced onto an English King by a group of his subjects (the barons) in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges. In practice, Magna Carta mostly did not limit the power of the King in the Middle Ages, however, it had become an important symbol for those who wished to show that the King was bound by the law. 0

How did Edward I manage to impose English rule on Wales? What is Caernarfon castle famous for?

E. was determined to strengthen his royal authority and his king then. In 1284 he united West Wales with England and made his own son Prince of Wales. From that time the eldest son of ruling king has usually being made Prince of Wales. Caernarfon Castle[kə'nɑːv(ə)n]–a castle in Wales built by Edward I of England to emphasize his power and authority over Wales.

What were the reasons for the Wars of the Roses? (1455-1485) Was it a romantic event?

Henry VI loss of possession in France caused a rebellion by Richard Duke of York.

The ‘Lancastrians’(red) and the ‘Yorkists’(white). Fighting itself took place for only total of 15 months out of the whole period. The War affected rather the noblemen than ordinary folk.

· The 2 dynasties were almost destroyed.

· Henry Tudor was crowned Henry VII of England

· The Black Death, plague

· Blood struggle

In the 19^th century Walter Scott named these wars the ‘Wars of the Roses’. The war wasn’t so romantic because it nearly destroyed the English idea of kingship for ever. (double rose - Tudor rose)

Characterise Henry VIII as a man and a king.

§ Henry VIII was a wasteful and cruel monarch in comparison with his father. When Henry VIII became king at the age of 18, he was slim, athletic and handsome. He spoke several languages, liked to dance and was very musical. As an old man, he was a terrifying figure. He was impatient, unpredictable, and suffered from fits of depression. And he was so fat that a special machine had to take him upstairs.

§ Henry’s second wife Anne Boleyn was arrested on charges of being a witch – she had six fingers on her left hand. His fifth wife Katherine Howard was only about 16 when she married Henry. He was 49!

§ By the time Henry VIII died, he had more than 60 houses. More than 1,000 meals were served there every day. Hampton Court has the oldest and largest grape vine in the world, planted in 1768. It’s also famous for its maze. Nearly a third of a million people pass through it every year… or don’t!

§ His obsession was to have a male heir.

§ He had 6 wives (Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn (Elizabeth), Jane Seymour (an heir), Anne of Cleves, Kathryn Howard, Katherine Parr)

§ Reformation (Defender of the Faith, Clement VII, Supreme Head of the Church, Anglican Church) a religious and political movement inspired by a wish to reform the Roman Catholic Church, resulted in the establishment of the Protestant Church

§ Strengthening of the navy with faster ships and better crews; unification of Wales and England in 1536 by the 1^st Act of Union; utopian vision of Thomas More; poetry and music of the Tudor Court.

Why did the English people dislike Mary I?

~ was determined to re­turn England back to the Pope, as she was a fanatic Roman Catholic.

~ Parliament had to accept Philip (of Spain) as King of England for Mary's lifetime

~ Her marriage was very unpopular and caused several uprisings.

~ She crushed the rebels and pursued an aggressive policy against protestants: more than 300 people were burned

~ England was no better than a province of Spain