Craftsmanship
Medieval England produced art in the form of paintings, carvings, books, fabrics and many functional but beautiful objects. A wide range of materials was used, including gold, glass and ivory, the art usually drawing overt attention to the materials utilised in the designs. Anglo-Saxon artists created carved ivories, illuminated manuscripts, embroidered cloths, crosses and stone sculpture, although relatively few of these have survived to the modern period. They produced a wide range of metalwork, frequently using gold and garnets, with brooches, buckles, sword hilts and drinking hornsparticularly favoured designs. Early designs, such as those found at the Sutton Hoo burial, used a zoomorphic style, heavily influenced by German fashions, in which animal shapes were distorted into flowing shapes and positioned alongside geometric patterns. From the 7th century onwards more naturalistic designs became popular, showing a plasticity of form and incorporating both animals and people into the designs. In the 10th century, Carolingian styles, inspired by Classical imagery, began to enter from the continent, becoming widely used in the reformed Benedictine monasteries across the south and east of England.
The Norman conquest introduced northern French artistic styles, particular in illuminated manuscripts and murals, and reduced the demand for carvings. In other artistic areas, including embroidery, the Anglo-Saxon influence remained evident into the 12th century, and the famous Bayeux Tapestry is an example of older styles being reemployed under the new regime. Stained glass became a distinctive form of English art during this later medieval period, although the coloured glass for these works was almost entirely imported from Europe. Little early stained glass in England has survived, but it typically had both an ornamental and educational function, while later works also commemorated the sponsors of the windows into the designs. English tapestry making and embroidery in the early 14th century were of an especially high quality; works produced by nuns and London professionals were exported across Europe, becoming known as the opus anglicanum. English illuminated books, such as the Queen Mary Psalter, were also famous in this period, featuring rich decoration, a combination of grotesque and natural figures and rich colours. The quality of illuminated art in England declined significantly in the face of competition from Flanders in the 14th century, and later English illuminated medieval pieces generally imitated Flemish styles.
Literature, drama and music
The Anglo-Saxons produced extensive poetry in Old English, some of which was written down as early as the 9th century, although most surviving poems were compiled in the 10th and early 11th century. Beowulf, probably written between 650 and 750, is typical of these poems, portraying a vivid, heroic tale, ending with the protagonist’s death at the hands of a dragon, but still showing signs of the new Christian influences in England. Old English was also used for academic and courtly writing from the 9th century onwards, including translations of popular foreign works, including The Pastoral Care.
Poetry and stories written in French were popular after the Norman conquest, and by the 12th century some works on English history began to be produced in French verse.[ Romantic poems about tournaments and courtly love became popular in Paris and this fashion spread into England in the form of lays; stories about the court of King Arthur were also fashionable, due in part to the interest of Henry II. English continued to be used on a modest scale to write local religious works and some poems in the north of England, but most major works were produced in Latin or French. In the reign of Richard II there was an upsurge in the use of Middle English in poetry, sometimes termed “Ricardian poetry”, although the works still emulated French fashions. The work of Geoffrey Chaucer from the 1370s onwards, however, culminating in the influential Canterbury Tales, was uniquely English in style. Major pieces of courtly poetry continued to be produced into the 15th century by Chaucher’s disciples, and Thomas Malory compiled the older Arthurian tales to produce Le Morte d’Arthur.
Music and singing were important in England during the medieval period, being used in religious ceremonies, court occasions and to accompany theatrical works. Singing techniques called gymel were introduced in England in the 13th century, accompanied by instruments such as the guitar, harp, pipes and organ.[ Henry IV sponsored an extensive range of music in England, while his son Henry V brought back many influences from occupied France. Carols became an important form of music in the 15th century; originally these had been a song sung during a dance with a prominent refrain — the 15th century form lost the dancing and introduced strong religious overtones. Ballads were also popular from the late 14th century onwards, including the Ballad of Chevy Chase and others describing the activities of Robin Hood. Miracle plays were performed to communicate the Bible in various locations. By the late 14th century, these had been extended into vernacular mystery plays which performed annually over several days, broken up into various cycles of plays; a handful have survived into the 21st century. Guilds competed to produce the best plays in each town and performances were often an expression of civic identity.
Architecture
In the century after the collapse of the Romano-British economy, very few substantial buildings were constructed and many villas and towns were abandoned. New long- and round-houses were constructed in some settlements, while in others timber buildings were built imitating the older Roman styles. The Germanic immigrants constructed small rectangular buildings from wood, and occasionally grander halls.[ However, the conversion to Christianity in the 6th and 7th centuries reintroduced Italian and French masons, and these craftsmen built stone churches, low in height, following a narrow, rectangular plan, plastered inside and fitted with glass and colourful vestments. This Romanesque style developed throughout the period, featuring characteristic circular arches. By the 10th and 11th centuries, much larger churches and monastery buildings were being built, featuring square and circular towers after the contemporary European fashion. The palaces constructed for the nobility centred on great timber halls, while manor houses began to appear in rural areas.
The Normans brought with them architectural styles from their own duchy, where austere stone churches were preferred. Under the early Norman kings this style was adapted to produce large, plain cathedrals with ribbed vaulting. During the 12th century the Anglo-Norman style became richer and more ornate, with pointed arches derived from French architecture replacing the curved Romanesque designs; this style is termed Early English Gothic and continued, with variation, throughout the rest of the Middle Ages. In the early 14th century the Perpendicular Gothic style was created in England, with an emphasis on verticality, immense windows and soaring arcades. Fine timber roofs in a variety of styles, but in particular the hammerbeam, were built in many English buildings. In the 15th century the architectural focus turned away from cathedrals and monasteries in favour of parish churches, often decorated with richly carved woodwork; in turn, these churches influenced the design of new chantry chapels for existing cathedrals.
Meanwhile, domestic architecture had continued to develop, with the Normans, having first occupied the older Anglo-Saxon dwellings, rapidly beginning to build larger buildings in stone and timber. The elite preferred houses with large, ground-floor halls but the less wealthy constructed simpler houses with the halls on the first floor; master and servants frequently lived in the same spaces. Wealthier town-houses were also built using stone, and incorporated business and domestic arrangements into a single functional design. By the 14th century grander houses and castles were sophisticated affairs: expensively tiled, often featuring murals and glass windows, these buildings were often designed as a set of apartments to allow greater privacy. Fashionable brick began to be used in some parts of the country, copying French tastes. Architecture that emulated the older defensive designs remained popular. Less is known about the houses of peasants during this period, although many peasants appear to have lived in relatively substantial, timber-framed long-houses; the quality of these houses improved in the prosperous years following the Black Death, often being built by professional craftsmen.
Bibliography
Attribution
The text of this page was adapted from “England in the Middle Ages” on the English language website Wikipedia, as the version dated 9 August 2018, and accordingly the text of this page is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Principal editors have included Hchc2009, Eixo and Dbachmann, and the contributions of all editors can be found on the history tab of the Wikipedia article.
Photographs on this page are drawn from the Wikimedia website, as of 22 July 2018, and attributed and licensed as follows: “Sutton.Hoo.ShoulderClasp2.RobRoy“, author Rob Roy, released under CC BY-SA 2.5; “Ellesmere Manuscript Knight Portrait” (Public Domain); “All Saints Brixworth“, author Alan Simkins, released under CC BY-SA 2.0
