MEDIEVAL ENGLAND. The Foundation and Growth of a European Power (en Inglés)
Reseña del libro "MEDIEVAL ENGLAND. The Foundation and Growth of a European Power (en Inglés)"
In "MEDIEVAL ENGLAND: The Foundation and Growth of a European Power", the author renders a succinct account of the transformative era that Medieval England was, forged from the collapse of Roman rule in the early 5th century, when Germanic tribes-Angles, Saxons, and Jutes-migrated to Britain, replacing the Romano-British culture with Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, a period during which the gradual unification of these territories took place with Wessex as the dominant power, heavily impacted by Viking invasions from the late 8th century. Great kings like Alfred the Great reformed the military and law, while Æthelstan consolidated the first true unified Kingdom of England in 927.
The Norman conquest of England brought an end to the Anglo-Saxon/Viking era during which a rigid feudal system was imposed, centralizing power through the Domesday Book and widespread castle construction. This era produced the notorious Plantagenet dynasty and saw immense conflict and change, driven by "great kings" like Henry II, who revolutionized law by establishing common law and traveling royal courts, and Edward I, who established Parliament, raised taxes, and conquered Wales. From the ashes of the Plantagenet dynasty was born the Tudor dynasty.
The author takes the reader through the major reforms and events that reshaped the social fabric of England, including the Magna Carta, which set crucial precedents limiting royal authority. He introduces us to the catastrophe of the 14th century---the Black Death that killed nearly half the population, thus sparking off massive labor shortages that weakened the feudal system and led to the 1381 Peasants' Revolt. We also get to understand how English, a West-Germanic language with over 50% of its vocabulary coming from French and Latin, replaced Norman French in government, how intense nationalism was generated by the "Hundred Years' War " against France, and how the " Wars of the Roses" set the stage for the Renaissance under the Tudors, a Welsh-English dynasty.