England in the Late Middle Ages

The fourteenth century saw the Great Famine and the Black Death, catastrophic events that killed around half of England's population, throwing the economy into chaos and undermining the old political order.

After his death and the taking of the throne by his brother as Richard III, an invasion led by Henry Tudor and his victory in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field marked the end of the Plantagenet dynasty.

John's death and William Marshall's appointment as the protector of the nine-year-old Henry III are considered by some historians to mark the end of the Angevin period and the beginning of the Plantagenet dynasty.

In addition, local violence was such a large problem during his reign overall that justiciars, "sheriffs, burgesses[,]...and knights of the shire" alike, and individuals from other occupations and social classes, often dealt with it in their careers at different periods in Henry III's kingship.

He was also forced to agree to the Treaty of Paris with Louis IX of France, acknowledging the loss of the Dukedom of Normandy, Maine, Anjou and Poitou, but retaining the Channel Islands.

Edward, having pacified the realm, left England to join Louis IX on the Ninth Crusade, funded by an unprecedented levy of one-twentieth of every citizen's movable goods and possessions.

[33] Even though Edward had requested that his bones should be carried on Scottish campaigns and that his heart be taken to the Holy Land, he was buried at Westminster Abbey in a plain black marble tomb that in later years was painted with the words Scottorum malleus (Hammer of the Scots) and Pactum serva (Honour the vow).

By now, however, people were so weakened by diseases such as pneumonia, bronchitis, and tuberculosis, and so much of the seed stock had been eaten, that it was not until 1325 that the food supply returned to relatively normal conditions and the population began to increase again.

With the English heir in her power, Isabella refused to return to England unless Edward II dismissed his favourites and also formed a relationship with Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March.

According to the chronicle of the grey friars at King's Lynn, the plague arrived by ship from Gascony to Melcombe in Dorset – today normally referred to as Weymouth – shortly before "the Feast of St. John The Baptist" on 24 June 1348.

The Plantagenets continued to interfere and John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, the prince's brother, married Peter's daughter Constance, claiming the Crown of Castile in the name of his wife.

[88][89] The French commander, Bertrand Du Guesclin adopted Fabian tactics in avoiding major English field forces while capturing towns, including Poitiers and Bergerac.

Initially, they were successful in establishing a commission to govern England for one year, but they were forced to rebel against Richard, defeating an army under Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, at the skirmish of Radcot Bridge.

When Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge, later plotted to use him to displace Henry's newly crowned son, and their mutual cousin, Edmund informed the new king and the plotters were executed.

[107] French victory at the Battle of Patay enabled the Dauphin to be crowned at Reims and continue the successful Fabian tactics, avoiding full frontal assaults and exploiting logistical advantage.

[117] Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York's attitude to the marriage contract of Henry and Margaret of Anjou, which included the surrender of Maine and extended the truce with France, contributed to his appointment as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

[140] The magnates depended upon their income from rent and trade to allow them to maintain groups of paid, armed retainers, often sporting controversial liveries, and to buy support amongst the wider gentry; this system has been dubbed bastard feudalism.

Married or widowed noblewomen remained significant cultural and religious patrons and played an important part in political and military events, even if chroniclers were uncertain if this was appropriate behaviour.

[169] Dominican and Franciscan friars arrived in England during the 1220s, establishing 150 friaries by the end of the thirteenth century; these mendicant orders rapidly became popular, particularly in towns, and heavily influenced local preaching.

[176] Wycliffe argued that scripture was the best guide to understanding God's intentions, and that the superficial nature of the liturgy, combined with the abuses of wealth within the Church and the role of senior churchmen in government, distracted from that study.

[191] The English economy was fundamentally agricultural, depending on growing crops such as wheat, barley and oats on an open field system, and husbanding sheep, cattle and pigs.

[205] Between 1440 and 1480, however, Europe entered a recession and England suffered the Great Slump: trade collapsed, driving down agricultural prices, rents and ultimately the acceptable levels of royal taxation.

[214] Prominent historical and science texts began to be translated into English for the first time in the second half of the fourteenth century, including the Polychronicon and The Travels of Sir John Mandeville.

[224] In the late thirteenth century Edward I expanded the familia regis, the permanent military household of the king, which was supported in war by feudal levies, drawn up by local nobles for a limited period of service during a campaign.

[231] Battles might be fought when one fleet found another at anchor, such as the English victory at Sluys in 1340, or in more open waters, as off the coast of Winchelsea in 1350; raiding campaigns, such as the French attacks on the south of England between 1338–39, could cause devastation from which some towns never fully recovered.

[239] By the late medieval period, town walls were increasingly less military in character and more often expressions of civic pride or part of urban governance: many grand gatehouses were built in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries for these purposes.

[243] English embroidery in the early fourteenth century was of an especially high quality, and revived its international reputation from Anglo-Saxon times; works produced by nuns and London professionals were exported across Europe, known as opus anglicanum.

[267] By the fourteenth 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.

[272] Late Victorian historians continued to use the chroniclers as sources, but also deployed documents such as Domesday Book and Magna Carta, alongside newly discovered financial, legal and commercial records.

[283] Medieval living history events were first held during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the period has inspired a considerable community of historical re-enactors, part of England's growing heritage industry.

Anthony Woodville , Earl Rivers & William Caxton presenting the first printed book in English to Edward IV
Twelfth-century depiction of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine holding court
Cast of the effigy of Henry III in Westminster Abbey, c. 1272
Death and mutilation of Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham
Caernarfon Castle, the "capital" of English rule in North Wales for two centuries after the conquest. [ 17 ]
Edward imposed his authority over church and feudal society, annexed Wales and invaded Scotland
Scene from the Holkham Bible, shows knights and foot soldiers from the period of Bannockburn
Edward II shown receiving the English crown in a contemporary illustration
Queen Isabella landing in England with her son, the future Edward III in 1326
The victory at Crécy was an important success for the English crown in the Edwardian War in France.
Plaque in Weymouth, noting the entrance of plague into the country
Edward, the Black Prince is granted Aquitaine by his father King Edward III. Initial letter "E" of miniature, 1390; British Library, shelfmark : Cotton MS Nero D VI, f.31
Richard II meets the rebels of the Peasants' Revolt in a painting from Froissart's Chronicles .
The Battle of Agincourt fought on Saint Crispin's Day 1415
Hundred Years' War evolution. French territory: yellow; English: grey; Burgundian: dark grey.
A near-contemporary Flemish picture of the Battle of Barnet in 1471
Bronze boar livery badge thought to have been worn by a supporter of Richard III, often described as the last Plantagenet king
Early fifteenth-century depiction of Edward III , shown wearing the chivalric symbols of the Order of the Garter
Tomb of Elizabeth of York, Duchess of Suffolk at Wingfield, Suffolk (built 1503)
The English Gothic vaulted ceiling of St George's Chapel , Windsor Castle
A pilgrim 's flask, carried as a protective talisman, containing holy water from the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral
Fifteenth-century depiction of an English hunting park
The central hall of a restored thirteenth-century house , originally built with the profits from European trade
A photograph of a sandstone carving, broken into two pieces; on the left is the front half of a donkey, in the middle a fat man with a stick and a whip whilst on the right is a stylised windmill.
A medieval carving from Rievaulx Abbey showing one of the many new windmills established during the thirteenth century
The fifteenth-century Coventry Sallet
A reconstruction of the city of York in the fifteenth century, showing the city walls , the Old Baile (left) and York Castle (right)
The Ellesmere illuminated manuscript of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer , early fifteenth-century, showing the Knight (right)
The west front of York Minster is a fine example of Decorated Gothic
Depiction of England from the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle .
Re-enactments of English medieval events, such as the battle of Tewkesbury shown here, form part of the modern heritage industry