HIST 216A Medieval England
This lecture course will cover the history of Britain between the end of Roman rule in the early fifth century and the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 that brought the Tudor dynasty to power. During this period, Britain experienced three major waves of colonization and conquest (Anglo-Saxon, Viking, and Norman) that profoundly transformed the lives of the peoples who inhabited the island. We will examine the rise of a unified English kingship; the often troubled relationship between England and its neighbors across the Channel on the one hand and the peoples of the "Celtic Fringe" on the other; the role of the Church in England, both at the level of high ecclesiastical politics (the conflict between St. Thomas Becket and King Henry II) and at the level of the ordinary lay Christian; and the changes in English economic, social, and cultural life that occurred against a backdrop of dramatic events such as the crusades, the Black Death, and the Hundred Years War.