England in the Middle Ages

[7] By the 7th century, some rulers, including those of Wessex, East Anglia, Essex, and Kent, had begun to term themselves kings, living in villae regales, royal centres, and collecting tribute from the surrounding regiones; these kingdoms are often referred to as the Heptarchy.

[16] Under his son, Edward the Elder, and his grandson, Æthelstan, Wessex expanded further north into Mercia and the Danelaw, and by the 950s and the reigns of Eadred and Edgar, York was finally permanently retaken from the Vikings.

[37] Henry had also acquired the huge duchy of Aquitaine by marriage, and England became a key part of a loose-knit assemblage of lands spread across Western Europe, later termed the Angevin Empire.

[48] Uprisings by the princes of North Wales led to Edward mobilising a huge army, defeating the native Welsh and undertaking a programme of English colonisation and castle building across the region.

[59] Despite the challenges involved in raising the revenues to pay for the war, Edward's military successes brought an influx of plundered wealth to many parts of England and enabled substantial building work by the king.

[61] Edward's grandson, the young Richard II, faced political and economic problems, many resulting from the Black Death, including the Peasants' Revolt that broke out across the south of England in 1381.

[68] The future Henry VII, aided by French and Scottish troops, returned to England and defeated Richard at the battle of Bosworth in 1485, bringing an end to the majority of the fighting, although lesser rebellions against his Tudor dynasty would continue for several years afterwards.

[78] Huge estates were initially built up by the king, bishops, monasteries and thegns, but in the 9th and 10th centuries these were slowly broken up as a consequence of inheritance arrangements, marriage settlements and church purchases.

[79] In the 11th century, the royal position worsened further, as the ealdormen rapidly built up huge new estates, making them collectively much more powerful than the king—this contributed to the political instability of the final Anglo-Saxon years.

[83] At a regional level, ealdormen played an important part in government, defence and taxation, and the post of sheriff emerged in the 10th century, administering local shires on behalf of an ealdorman.

[90] The Anglo-Saxon authorities struggled to deal with the bloodfeuds between families that emerged following violent killings, attempting to use a system of weregild, a payment of blood money, as a way of providing an alternative to long-running vendettas.

[108] Successive kings, though, still needed more resources to pay for military campaigns, conduct building programmes or to reward their followers, and this meant exercising their feudal rights to interfere in the land-holdings of nobles.

Statute of Labourers 1351 was introduced to limit wages and to prevent the consumption of luxury goods by the lower classes, with prosecutions coming to take up most of the legal system's energy and time.

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

[177] The collapse of the Roman system in the late 5th century, however, brought about the end of formal Christian religion in the east of England, and the new Germanic immigrants arrived with their own polytheistic gods, including Woden, Thunor and Tiw, still reflected in various English place names.

[201] The Dominican and Franciscan friars arrived in England during the 1220s, establishing 150 friaries by the end of the 13th century; these mendicant orders rapidly became popular, particularly in towns, and heavily influenced local preaching.

[205] The early English church was racked with disagreement on doctrine, which was addressed by the Synod of Whitby in 664; some issues were resolved, but arguments between the archbishops of Canterbury and York as to which had primacy across Britain began shortly afterwards and continued throughout most of the medieval period.

[212] 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.

[252] Jewish financiers played a significant role in funding the growing economy, along with the new Cistercian and Augustinian religious orders that emerged as major players in the wool trade of the north.

[261] 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.

[285] Anglo-Norman warfare was characterised by attritional military campaigns, in which commanders tried to raid enemy lands and seize castles in order to allow them to take control of their adversaries' territory, ultimately winning slow but strategic victories.

[287] At the heart of these armies was 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.

[297] Naval forces played an important role during the rest of the Middle Ages, enabling the transportation of troops and supplies, raids into hostile territory and attacks on enemy fleets.

[300] 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 and 1339, could cause devastation from which some towns never fully recovered.

[312] 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 14th and 15th centuries for these purposes.

[327] 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.

[345] 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.

[357] 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.

[363] 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.

[374] Medieval living history events were first held during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the period has inspired a considerable community of historical re-enactors, part of England's growing heritage industry.

Clockwise, from top left: Detail of the 11th-century Bayeux Tapestry , showing Harold Godwinson ; 15th-century stained glass from York Minster , showing a scene from the Apocalypse ; Salisbury Cathedral , built in the 13th century; the 9th century Ormside Bowl .
Ceremonial Anglo-Saxon helmet from the Sutton Hoo burial, 7th century
Section of the Bayeux Tapestry showing the final stages of the Battle of Hastings
Richard II meets the rebels calling for economic and political reform during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381
An Anglo-Saxon mancus , showing the face of Æthelred the Unready
Anglo-Norman 12th-century gaming piece , illustrating soldiers presenting a sheep to a figure seated on a throne.
Walters Art Museum , Baltimore .
Early 15th-century depiction of Edward III , shown wearing the chivalric symbols of the Order of the Garter
A depiction of an English woman c. 1170 using a spindle and distaff , while caring for a young child
The English Gothic vaulted ceiling of St George's Chapel , Windsor Castle
A photograph of a small castle on top of a green mound; the castle has three circular walls visible. Behind the castle the sky is overcast and dark grey.
Clifford's Tower in the city of York , the site of an anti-Jewish pogrom in 1190
Anglo-Saxon reliquary cross , with English-carved walrus ivory Christ and German gold and cedar cross, c. 1000
A photograph of a ruined abbey; a river passes by in the lower left hand of the picture, overhung with dark trees. A ruined abbey building in stone makes up the midground of the right side of the photograph.
Fountains Abbey , one of the new Cistercian monasteries built in the 12th century
Mid-13th-century depiction of the death of Archbishop Thomas Becket
A pilgrim 's flask, carried as a protective talisman, containing holy water from the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral
15th-century depiction of an English hunting park
The central hall of a restored 13th-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 13th century
The 15th-century Coventry Sallet
A photograph of a small wooden ship with white sail traversing an estuary; behind the ship is a wooded shoreline.
A reconstruction of a medieval cog
A reconstruction of the city of York in the 15th century, showing the city walls , the Old Baile (left) and York Castle (right)
Anglo-Saxon shoulder clasp , with geometric designs and zoomorphic boars on the ends
The Ellesmere illuminated manuscript of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer , early 15th-century, showing the Knight (right)
The Romanesque All Saints' Church, Brixworth , late 7th–8th century
A page of Domesday Book for Warwickshire ; a key source for historians
Re-enactments of English medieval events, such as the battle of Tewkesbury shown here, form part of the modern heritage industry