Middle English Period
(1066 - 1400)
IMPORTANT DATES
1096-9 The first Crusade, the capture of Jerusalem
1138 Geoffrey of Monmouth: Historia Regum Britanniae (Latin) -the most important source of the Arthurian legends
1152 Marriage of future Henry II to Eleanor of Aquitaine
1154 Last entries in the Peterborough copy of Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
1155 Wace dedicates Anglo-Norman Roman de Brut to Eleanor
1170 Murder of Thomas Becket in Canterbury
c.1200 The Owl and the Nightingale,
1204 Loss of Normandy: division of Angevin kingdom
1215 Magna Carta, Fourth Lateran Council: annual confession obligatory
c. 1220 Layamon's Brut
1224 Arrival of Franciscan friars in England
1235-75 Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun (basic book
of courtly literature, translated by Chaucer)
1249 First college at Oxford founded
1258 First official use of English since the Conquest (Provisions of Oxford designed to limit royal power)
c. 1280 Legenda Aurea (Latin) of Dominican, Jacobus de Voragine (Collection of Saints’ Lives)
c. 1290 Early romances, e.g. Havelok, Guy of Warwick, Richard Coeur de Lion
1309-78 The captivity of the Papacy at Avignon
c. 1320 Dante: The Divine Comedy
c. 1320-1384 John Wyclif, early reformer of the church, translator of the Bible into
English
1330-1408 John Gower
c.1330 Auchinleck MS, MS Harley 2253 Important collections of romances, religious
and didactic poems, Anglo-Norman verse and prose, satirical poems, love poems.
The former one contains Sir Orfeo.
1338 Boccaccio: Il Filostrato (The source of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde)
1337-1453 The Hundred Years' War between England and France
1343-1400 Geoffrey Chaucer
c. 1400 BL Cotton Caligula A II. This MS contains Sir Launfal
1348-9 Black Death (one of the greatest European plague epidemics)
1362 Langland: Piers Plowman, A-text
1378 -1417 Great Schism (two popes)
1381 Peasants' Revolt, led by John Ball and Wat Tyler...