Medieval literature in English

https://www.ancient.eu/article/1345/women-in-the-middle-ages/

https://www.ancient.eu/article/1411/religion-in-the-middle-ages/

Medieval literature is defined broadly as any work written in Latin or the vernacular
between c. 476-1500 CE, including philosophy, religious treatises, legal texts, as well
as works of the imagination. More narrowly, however, the term applies to literary
works of poetry, drama, romance, epic prose, and histories written in the
vernacular (though some histories were in Latin). While it may seem odd to find
histories included with forms of fiction, it should be remembered that many
'histories' of the Middle Ages contain elements of myth, fable, and legend and, in
some cases, were largely the product of imaginative writers.

Language & Audience

Literary works were originally composed in Latin, but poets began writing in
vernacular (the common language of the people) as early at the 7th century CE.
Vernacular literature was further popularized in Britain in the Kingdom of
Wessex by Alfred the Great (r. 871-899 CE) in an attempt to encourage widespread
literacy, and other nations then followed suit.

The Norman Conquest of 1066 CE established French as the language of literature

and transformed the English language from Old English (in use c. 500-1100 CE) to
Middle English (c. 1100-1500 CE). The stories written during both these eras were
originally medieval folklore, tales transmitted orally, and since most of the
population was illiterate, books continued to be read out loud to an audience. The
aural aspect of literature, therefore, affected the way it was composed. Writers
wrote for a performance of their work, not a private reading in solitude.

Literacy rates rose during the 15th century, and with the development of the
printing press, more books became available. The act of reading by one’s self for
personal pleasure became more common and this changed the way writers
wrote. Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur (written 1469, published 1485 CE) is the
earliest novel in the west – a work written for an individual audience with layers of
personal meaning and symbolism which codified the Arthurian Legend, and that
continues to exert influence in the present day.
Early Development
Medieval vernacular literature evolved naturally from the folktale which was a
story recited, probably with the storyteller acting out different parts, before an
audience. Medieval English literature begins with Beowulf (7th-10th century CE)
which was no doubt a story known much earlier and transmitted orally until
written down. This same pattern of development holds for the literature of other
countries as well. The storyteller would gather an audience and perform his or her
tale, usually with variations based on the audience, and members of that audience
would then retell the story to others.

Early written medieval literature is mostly legend or folktale set down on a page
rather than recited but the storyteller still needed to gather and hold an audience
and so wrote in the vernacular to be understood and in poetic meter to be
remembered. Poetry, with its regular cadence, sticks in the mind far better than
prose. Poetry would remain the preferred medium for artistic expression
throughout most of the Middle Ages. Latin prose, except in some outstanding
cases, was reserved for religious and scholarly audiences. For entertainment and
escape from one’s daily life, people listened to a storyteller read from a good book
of verse. Lyric poetry, ballads, and hymns were poetry, of course, but the great
chivalric romances of courtly love and the high medieval dream vision genres
were also written in verse as were epics, and the French and Breton lais (short-
story poems). A lai (or lay lyrique, "lyric lay") is a lyrical, narrative poem written
in octosyllabic couplets that often deals with tales of adventure and
romance. Lais were mainly composed in France and Germany, during the 13th and
14th centuries.

Courtly love or Amour Courtois refers to an innovative literary genre of poetry of

the High Middle Ages (1000-1300 CE) which elevated the position of women in
society and established the motifs of the romance genre recognizable in the
present day. Courtly love poetry featured a lady, usually married but always in
some way inaccessible, who became the object of a noble knight’s devotion,
service, and self-sacrifice, in a way, an idealization of a woman. This kind of
poetry was quite popular in its time and contributed to the development of the
Arthurian Legend, as well as it standardized the central concepts of the western
ideal of romantic love.

Courtly love poetry emerged in southern France in the 12th century CE through
the work of the troubadours, poet-minstrels who were either retained by a royal
court or traveled from town to town. William IX, Duke of Aquitaine (l. 1071-1127
 CE), grandfather of Eleanor of Aquitaine (l. c. 1122-1204 CE). William IX wrote a
new kind of poetry, highly sensual, in praise of women and romantic love. This
love praised by the troubadours had nothing to do with marriage as recognized
and sanctified by the Church but was extramarital or premarital, freely chosen –
as opposed to a marriage which was arranged by one’s social superiors – and
passionately pursued. An upper-class medieval marriage was a social contract in
which a woman was given to a man to further some agenda of the couple’s
parents and involved the conveyance of land. Land equaled power, political
prestige, and wealth. The woman, therefore, was little more than a bargaining
chip in financial and political transactions.

In the world of courtly love, on the other hand, women were free to choose their
own partner and exercised complete control over him. Whether this world
reflected a social reality or was simply a romantic literary construct continues to
be debated in the present day and central to that question is the figure of Eleanor
of Aquitaine.

Other Forms of Literature

Other forms of literature besides poetry included:

 drama
 histories
 fables.

Drama in the Middle Ages was essentially a teaching tool of the Church. Morality
plays, mystery plays, and liturgical plays all instructed an illiterate audience in
acceptable thought and behavior. Passion plays, reenacting the suffering,
crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, were popular Easter entertainments
but morality plays were presented year-round. The best-known of these
is Everyman (c. 1495 CE), which tells the story of a man facing death who cannot
find anyone to accompany him to heaven except his good deeds. This allegory
grew out of an earlier Latin type of literature known as the ars moriendi (art of
dying) which instructed people on how to live a good life and be assured of
heaven.

Histories in the Early Middle Ages (476-1000 CE) frequently rely on fable and myth to
round out and develop their stories. The works of a historian like The
Venerable Bede (673-735 CE) and others all contain mythic elements and repeat fables as
fact. The most famous example of this is Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of
Britain (1136 CE) written in Latin. Geoffrey claimed to be translating an ancient historical
work he recently discovered when in fact he was making most of his 'history' up out of his
own imagination and pieces in older actual histories which lent themselves to the tale he
wanted to tell. His grand vision of the early kings of Britain focuses largely on the story of
the heroic Arthur and it is for this reason that Geoffrey of Monmouth is recognized as the
Father of the Arthurian Legend.

Fables almost always featured anthropomorphized animals as characters in relaying

some moral lesson, satirizing some aspect of humanity, or encouraging a standard of
behavior. The most popular and influential cycle of fables were those featuring Reynard
the Fox (12th century CE onwards) whose adventures frequently brought him into conflict
with Isengrim the Wolf. Reynard is a trickster who relies on his wits to get him out of
trouble or to gain some advantage.

Poetic Forms & Famous Works

Even so, the most popular and influential works were the stories told in verse. The
earliest poem in English whose author is known is Caedmon’s Hymn (7th century
CE) which is a simple hymn praising God composed by an illiterate shepherd who
heard it sung to him in a vision. His song was written down in Old English by an
unnamed scribe at Whitby Abbey, Northumbria and first recorded in the writings
of Bede. The simple beauty of this early verse became the standard of Old English
poetry and evident in works like The Dream of the Rood (a 7th-century CE dream
vision) and later The Battle of Maldon (late 10th century CE).

Between these two works, the epic masterpiece Beowulf was written, which relies
on the same cadence of the alliterative long line rhythm to move the story forward
and impress the tale upon an audience. This verse form resonates in the present
day as well as it must have in the past since recitations and performances
of Beowulf remain popular. The story is the epic tale of the lone hero facing down
and defeating the dark monster that threatens the people of the land; a theme
perennially popular from ancient times to the present day.

A later French work, The Song of Roland (11th century CE), is another epic which
explores the same theme. But in this case, Roland is the fighter against a monster
with human form. The poem was so popular it is said to have been sung by the Norman
troops at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 CE to boost morale.
Romances, which became quite popular with the European aristocracy, began to
flourish in the 12th century CE in southern France. The romance genre, whether
given in poetry or prose, relies on the audience’s acceptance of the concept that
true love can never last or is unattainable. At the end of the story, one or both of
the lovers die or must part. The concept of a happily-ever-after ending, popular in
medieval folklore, rarely concludes a written medieval romance.

By the time of the 14th century CE, however, the medieval view of woman-as-
property had been largely replaced by the novel concept of woman-as-individual
famously exemplified by Geoffrey Chaucer in the character of the Wife of Bath
in The Canterbury Tales. The Wife of Bath is much more rounded and complete
individual who owes her composition as much to the French fabliaux (a short story
told in verse) as to the romances or figures from folklore.

The elevation of womanhood reached its apex in the poetry of Petrarch (l. 1304-
1374 CE) whose sonnets to the persona of Laura continue to resonate in the
modern day. Petrarch’s work was so popular in his time that it influenced social
perceptions not only of women but of humanity in general which is why he is
often cited as the first humanist author.

While the romances entertained and edified, another genre sought to elevate and
console: the high medieval dream vision. Dream visions are poems featuring a
first-person narrator who relates a dream which corresponds to some difficulty
they are experiencing. The most famous of these is The Pearl by an unknown
author, Piers Plowman by William Langland, and Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess, all
from the 14th century CE. The genre usually relies on a framing device by which a
reader is presented with the narrator’s problem, is then taken into the dream, and
is then brought back again to the narrator’s waking life.

In The Pearl, the narrator is grieving the loss of his daughter, has a dream of her
new life in heaven where she is safe and happy, and wakes reconciled to the loss of
his "precious pearl without a price". The father’s grief is relieved by God allowing
him to see where his daughter has gone and how she has not ceased to exist but
has simply found a new and brighter home.

Piers Plowman also reveals the goodness and love of God to the dreamer, a man
named Will, who is taken on a journey in his dreams in which he meets the good
plowman, Piers, who represents Christ and who teaches him how to better live his
life.
Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess (his first major long poem, c. 1370 CE) departs from
the religious theme to focus on grief and loss and how one lives with it. In this
work, the narrator’s true love has left him and he has been unable to sleep for
years. While reading a book about two lovers who have been parted by death, he
falls asleep and dreams he meets a black knight in the woods who tells him of his
own true love, their happy life together, and finally of his grief: his wife has died.
The poem explores a central question of the courtly love romances: was it better to
lose a lover to death or infidelity? The narrator never answers the question. When
he wakes from the dream, he tells the reader he was so amazed by it that he will
write it down as a poem; he leaves it up to the reader to answer the question.

The medieval dream vision reaches its greatest height in Dante Alighieri’ s Divine
Comedy (14th century CE) in which the poet is taken on a journey through hell,
purgatory, and paradise in order to correct the path he was on and assure him of
the truth of the Christian vision. The Divine Comedy is not an actual dream vision –
the narrator never claims he has fallen asleep or that the events are a dream – but
Dante draws on the trappings of the genre to tell his story. So closely does
The Divine Comedy mirror the progression, tone, and effect of the high medieval
dream vision that contemporaries – and even Dante’s own son – interpreted the
piece as a dream.