The Renaissance, A Reawakening

During the 1300's, life in Europe had been affected by wars, peasant revolts, and the Black Death. Remember the Black Death? 1 out of every 3 Europeans died from this horrible disease brought to Europe from Asia on flea-ridden rats. Yuck! The old order was dying, and people were seeking something new. In medieval times, the Church had dominated the arts, education, and learning. People had accepted what they were told without asking questions. Then, in the 1300s, Italian scholars began to take an interest in the writing of the ancient Greeks and Romans – ideas that arrived in Europe from Byzantium and the Arab world. This interest grew when, in 1397, Manuel Chrysoloras, a scholar from Constantinople, became the first professor of Greek at the University of Florence in northern Italy. Scholars (people who like to study) became fascinated by the questions that ancient philosophers dealt with. From these studies grew a belief system called humanism. Suddenly people, not God, were considered responsible for choosing the course of their lives. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire and Muslim Spain in the 1400s, many scholars moved to Italy and northwestern Europe, taking many old manuscripts and ideas with them.

The Renaissance affected art and science, architecture and sculpture. Ideas became more realistic, more human, and less dominated by religion. Paintings and statues were more lifelike, music explored new feelings, and books asked real-life questions. Rich families such as the Medicis and the Borgias in Italy and the burghers of Holland became patrons of the arts and sciences. Printed books helped spread new ideas. The Renaissance reached its peak in the 1500s, mainly in cities such as Venice, Florence, Antwerp, and Haarlem. People looked closely at the world, made detailed scientific observations, collected exotic objects, and considered new ideas.

Some people studied plants and animals. Others investigated astronomy and geology. Sometimes their findings brought them into conflict with the Church. When Nicolaus Copernicus realized that the Earth moved around the sun, he dared not publish his views until he was actually on his deathbed. He feared the reaction of the Church, which continued to insist that the Earth stood at the center of the universe.

What?!?!?!  The sun does NOT revolve around the Earth, Nicolaus! Are you kidding me?

This new spirit of inquiry and interest in humanity eventually led some people to question the authority of the Church. Thinkers such as Jan Hus in Bohemia and John Wycliffe in England began to question the Church openly. People's own opinions became more important – rulers and the Church could no longer do just as they pleased.

John Wycliffe, a brazen spokesman for reform of the Catholic church. He was at the forefront of the reawakening of European civilzation, and one of the very early leaders of the Reformation.  Wycliffe wanted the Bible translated into English!

Demand for change led to advances in science and art, and even caused some people to set sail for unexplored lands. New universities encouraged new ideas. Money and trade also became significant. Foods and products such as coffee, sugar, tobacco, potatoes, pineapples, porcelain, and cotton were imported to Europe from Africa, America, India, and China.

No longer bound to the land by feudalism, people began to move around. Many of them went to cities to seek their fortune. Northwestern Europe grew in importance, and power shifted slowly from the nobles and clerics to the bankers and politicians. These changes marked the beginning of a modern world that was to develop rapidly over the next 400 years.

**Excerpt from The Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, Houghton Mifflin 2004, p. 202-203

Our studies this semester put us right in the middle of this big change, this great awakening. Europeans had been in a deep, dark sleep for centuries, but now was the time to wake up! Yes, the Black Death was a horrible tragedy and it forever changed the world. You can definitely say it was bad, but then again, it was a good thing as well. Because this is when the rebirth of humanity began. And one thing is for sure, people who have power and are sitting at the top looking down on everyone DO NOT like change. You just wait and see what kind of change was coming.

But change was inevitable, and just like it says in the introduction, one thing that was huge in promoting change started with a man from Mainz, Germany, named Johannes Gutenberg. He invented a way to print books quickly and cheaply. Before Gutenberg, books were written out by hand. It was so expensive, that only the very rich, like kings, could actually afford to own a book. But it all changed by the end of the 1400s. Ideas began to spread quickly around Europe because books became available for common people. Johannes Gutenberg's invention was called moveable type, kind of like Scrabble letters put together, but really small. And if people could spread ideas and communicate with one another, they would start to figure things out and demand change. And they did. They would be able to advance new ideas that would make life better for everyone.

Yes, the medieval times of the past were quickly fading. And one of the reluctant leaders of this change was a bigger-than-life figure in the annals of history. His name was Henry VIII, King of England.

The Bubonic Plague

It was a sad, sad class last week.  Unfortunately, most of our classmates didn't make it through the plague. They all dropped DEAD!  


You see, I, the horrible teacher, had some "infected" lotion (full of red glitter) that I put all over my hands. Some of the kids wanted to know what it was and they touched it, too. Then we played some games like Ring Around the Rosies, London Bridges, and Round the House. 


When we sat down, and I checked everyone, there were only THREE kids who did not have any germs (red glitter) on them. They were the lucky ones.  Everyone else perished.


Okay, they didn't really perish, but what was it like to get the plague? How did you get it? Where did it come from?


Think of chickenpox, mumps, and measles with flu, fever, whooping cough and really, really bad acne and you still haven't got anywhere near the yucky, scary horridness of the dreaded Black Death.


In 1348, when the dreaded bubonic plague first sailed into London from China there weren't any microscopes or scientists in white lab coats. They didn't know what had hit them. In England a million people died, about on in every three people. In some poorer areas of London the plague could come knocking on every door in the street.


Life in the Middle Ages was an ideal breeding ground for diseases: and London life, where families were packed together like sardines, without a nice field or forest to use as their toilet, was even dirtier.


Most families squashed in together in one smelly, filthy room. Often their pigs and chickens or cows might keep them company in the house. The mud floor would be covered with a greasy, slimy mess of scraps from the family dinner, decaying old bones, ancient straw, and assorted garbage. The roofs of their homes were made of mud and straw and the whole structure was made of wood. They didn't have toilets so they would use their living room as one! (Even the rich didn't mind pooing in the corner of their banquet room and getting a serf to take it away!) 


But these houses were great for rats and fleas. In fact, it couldn't have been better.


Here is how you would have caught the Black Death in 1348.


A flea carrying the deadly plague bacillus visits one of the rats living in your filthy house. The flea infects the fat, which dies horribly. Then the flea jumps to another rat. Soon all the rats are dead so the flea jumps to you. It finds a fleshy part of your body, like the groin, armpit, or neck.


Now what happens?


You get a high fever (105 F), followed by aches, vomiting, and convulsions.


Black boils appear in your groin, neck and armpits. They start olive-sized, then grow to egg size, and can get as large as an apple.  You start coughing and sneezing.


The boils (or buboes) soon begin to spread over your arms, thighs, legs and stomach.


They ooze with blood and putrid pus.


You start to stink. Your breath, sweat and spit are so rancid that your family can't be near you without the urge to vomit. Your urine forms a thick blackish red liquid.


You start coughing up blood. This means that the bacillus is now in your blood stream. You are probably dead within three days.






No one knew what to do. They had a lot of strange ideas on how to cure you, but of course nothing worked.  Doctors would wear these strange costumes when they visited patients.






The beaks would be full of sweet herbs, to avoid catching the plague.  One doctor complained that the head-to-toe robes he wore to keep the infection off were useless as they only kept off the fleas!  Ha!

Here were some of the doctors theories on how you got the plague...

Poisonous gases let off by the belly of the earth


Looking at an infected person


Dogs and cats (In London thousands of dogs and cats were rounded up and killed. There was even an official dog-killer. Unfortunately it meant that all the rats the cats and dogs might have killed were left scot-free)


Drinking from poisoned wells. Prejudices flourished in times of fear and in many places they blamed Jews for poisoning the wells.


God's vengeance for their wicked ways.

**This is an excerpt from a fascinating book on plagues called The Black Death and Other Putrid Plagues of London by Natasha Narayan.




And now, not to be outdone, here is a Horrible Histories plague song.  Take a look.


Bring out your dead!  Bring out your dead!

Knights and Chivalry

Norman Rules for being a knight...


1. Go to church often.
2. Choose his friends carefully
3. Be brave in battle
4. Always be ready for battle
5. Spend his money wisely
6. Not go hunting too often
7. Take revenge if his is insulted
8. Take revenge if his sister is insulted
9. Do brave deeds for his lady
10. Die for his lady


How did someone become a knight?





Becoming a knight could take up to 14 years to accomplish. This is what you had to do...


1. Age 7 - Work as a page to a knight (sort of a cheap servant)
2. Age 14 - Become a squire, and a knight teaches you how to ride and kill.
3. Clean the knight's armor because it was always going rusty.
4. Help the knight dress and undress himself, down to the smelly socks.
5. Protect your lord sometimes by sleeping in front of the door, on the floor.
6. Help the knight during tournaments and battles by handing him weapons and fresh horses.
7. Go with your master into battle and fight at his side.
8. Bandage your lord's wounds.
9. Sometimes move your knight away from danger.
10. Make sure he gets a good funeral.




**This is an excerpt from the fun book, Knights (Horrible Histories Handbooks) by Terry Deary.


Enrichment Activity


Make a coat-of-arms.  I ordered blank coat-of-arms from Oriental Trading. They come in packets of twelve and are a good size. Then I used decals from the book The Big Book of Medieval Activities.  They designed their own coat-of-arms.

Knights and Chivalry

We are going to learn about knights and chivalry this week.  Take a look at this silly knight song.

Illuminated Complaints

 Do you remember how books were made in Medieval times?  Well, monks didn't always like illuminating books and they would put their complaints in the margin of the books they made. Take a look at some of the things they wrote, way back then.


This is pretty cool.

The Medieval Church

The Christian Church was at the center of medieval life. There were two main branches in the West: the Catholic Church based in Rome, and the Orthodox Church based in Constantinople. With its own laws, lands, and taxes, the Catholic Church was a powerful institution. It governed almost every aspect of people's lives, from the practical to the spiritual. Most men and women, rich and poor, were baptized and married in church and attended mass every Sunday of their lives. When they died, their priest read them the last rites, and they were buried on church grounds. For many, life on Earth was hard and short, but the Church stated that if they followed the teachings of Christ, they would at least be rewarded in heaven. This idea gave the Church great power over people's hearts and minds.

Archbishops were powerful men who sat on the king's council and played a leading role in government.

The Church taught that when a person died, the good and bad deeds of their life were literally weighed in the balance by God. Their soul was either carried to heaven by angels or dragged off to hell by demons. 

Last Judgement, this would have been above the door of a cathedral

Hell was a real and terrifying place for people in medieval times, and its torments were pictured in vivid detail by numerous painters.

The Last Judgement: Hell (Fra Angelico 1431)

Descent to Hell, detail (Duccio, 1308)

Few people challenged the authority of the Church, but those who did were severely punished. People who disagreed with the Church's teachings were called heretics. They faced being brought to trial in a Church court and, under its special laws, could be condemned to be whipped or burned at the stake. The Cathar sect of southern France rejected the beliefs of the Catholic Church by claiming that everything on Earth was created by the devil. In 1208, the Pope ordered a crusade against them. Over the next 26 years, thousands of Cathars were tortured and burned in huge bonfires until they were completely wiped out.

This image depicts the eradication of some Cathars.

 Until 1200, books were rare and were usually found only in monastery libraries. Everything was written by hand and monks spent many hours in the "scriptorium" copying out religious texts. 

A monk copying a manuscript in a scriptorium.

 A long manuscript such as the Bible might take a scribe a year to complete. As a way of glorifying God, many manuscripts were beautifully decorated, or illuminated, with jewel-like paints and precious gold leaf. After 1200, books became more common, especially when the first universities opened in Paris and Bologna. Professional scribes and illuminators started producing books as well.

Most people in the Middle Ages hoped to go on a pilgrimage to a holy shrine at some point in their lives. They went for many reasons - proof of their devotion to God, as an act of penance for their sins, or to find a cure for an illness. The holy city of Jerusalem was a favorite destination, as were Rome, where both St. Peter and St. Paul were believed to be buried, and the Canterbury Cathedral in England. On the road, rich and poor traveled together and, for many, pilgrimages were a sort of vacation. To pass the time, people sang songs and hymns, played the pipes, and told stories over their evening meals in roadside taverns.

 

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales was set with this premise: a variety of people going on a pilgrimage telling each other stories.

**This excerpt was taken from the book Medieval Life by Andrew Langley. It is a great book to get a visual image of things medieval and would be a great addition to any personal library.

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

People in the Middle Ages were pretty suspicious. They believed in almost anything supernatural, including...

Relics

Monasteries collected religious articles. They attracted visitors and were often said to perform miracles. Relics like...

    - a tooth of Saint Apollonia, the patron saint of toothache. Hundreds of monasteries had a tooth from her mouth.

St Apollonia is the patron saint of dentistry

 

    - fingernail clippings said to belong to St Edmund

    - a piece of St Eustace's brain

St. Eustace head reliquary, c. 1200, made in the Upper Rhineland, on view in "Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe," 

 

    - wood from the manger in which Jesus was born and the cloth that the baby Jesus was wrapped in

    - the coals on which St Lawrence was roasted

     - one of the stones used to stone St Stephen to death (bloodstained, naturally)

    - a piece of the stone on which Jesus stood as he ascended to heaven

    - a piece of bread chewed by Jesus

    - the head of John the Baptist (Angers and Amiens Cathedrals both had one!)

Crusaders brought this back to Amiens Cathedral, the supposed head of John the Baptist

 

    - the crown of thorns placed on Jesus' head at his crucifixion

    - a piece of wood from Jesus' cross (thousands of these)

Genuine fakes, but the believers took them seriously. Dead seriously. The monks of Conques stole a saint's body from another monastery!

One saintly monk was terrified to hear that a monastery was planning to kill him and boil his body down so they could have his bones as relics - he changed his mind about visiting them.

Pay as you pray

In 1303 King Philip of France argued with the Italian Pope Boniface about who people should obey - kings or popes. Philip decided the matter by kidnapping 86-year-old Boniface from Rome. The Pope never recovered from the shock and died.

Pope Boniface VIII

The next pope was a Frenchman called Clement. Wise Clement decided to stay in France - after all, the Italians might get their own back and kidnap him if he went to Rome.

Once the Pope and his headquarters moved to France they set about cashing in on their power. If you ever become Pope then here are a few measly Middle Ages ways of making money...

1. If you commit a sin (like stealing a penny or pinching the bum of the girl in front of you) then the church can "pardon" you...if you pay.

2. If you want to be important in the church (say, a cardinal because they get to wear a red cloak and you think red suits you) then you can have the job... if you pay.

3. If a church owns some very holy object (like the toe-nail of a saint of the feather from an angel's wing) then you can have it...if you pay.

4. If you give a gift to your local church (maybe money so the church will say prayers after you are dead), the Pope will take a share.

5. The Pope may raise a tax to pay for a Crusade (to fight against the non-Christians in the Holy Land)...you fork out, but he won't actually spend it on a Crusade.

6. If you want to be buried in two places at once (your heart in one place and your body in another, like Richard III) then you can have permission...if you pay.

7. If you want to marry a close relative (like your dead husband's brother) then you can have permission...if you pay.

8. If you are a nun and want to keep two maids (one to do your cleaning and one to do your praying, maybe?) then you can have permission...if you pay.

9. If you want to trade with those 'awful' non-Christian guys from the East (and after all we do want their delicious spices, don't we?) then you can have permission...if you pay.

Potty Plays

The local craftsmen formed themselves into groups called guilds. Around Easter the guilds came together to produce plays for the people - the masses. These plays were based on Bible stories: Miracle Plays and Mystery Plays. That doesn't sound too measly - yet. The guilds performed the plays depending on their own mastery - so they called them mystery plays. Mastery-mystery, geddit?

At first these were performed at the altar of the church - but they became too popular and the churches were full of smelly people. So the plays were moved into the churchyards. But people began trampling on the graves to get a better view. In the end they were taken out of the churches and on to the streets.

The plays were always religious - but that didn't stop them being fun and horribly dangerous! In those days there was no one to give a 'rating' to the plays. Nowadays you know a film is a bit scary if it has a PG rating. In the Middle Ages a lot of the plays were PG - Pretty Gruesome! Which of these horrors could be seen on stage in the Middle Ages?

1. John the Baptist having his head cut off. (true, at the last moment the actor was switched for a dummy. The fake neck was chopped, splitting a bag of ox blood that splashed the audience.)

2. Jesus being crucified. (true, nails through hands was fake but the actor who played Jesus almost died because he was on the cross for like 3 hours!)

3. Jesus rising from the dead and ascending into heaven (or the roof of the stage). (true)

4. The tigers eating the hamsters of Noah's Ark. (false)

5. The donkeys of the Three Wise Men leaving piles of dung droppings on the stage. (true, the 'donkeys' were actors and they pushed piles of manure out from under the tail!)

6. The Roman Emperor Nero slitting open his mother's stomach. (True, fake stomach, but they used pig guts that would spill onto the stage)

7. Adam and Eve appearing naked in the garden of Eden. (false, all the actors were men.)

8. Judas hanging himself from a tree. (true, and the actor almost died because he did it so well!)

In 1326 the people of London turned against the Church because of the taxes it collected. They grabbed a bishop, cut his head off and left his naked body in the street - that was for real; no acting involved!

Batty Beliefs

Medieval people believed that in faraway lands there were...

- forests so high they touched the clouds

- tribes of people with horns who grow old in seven years

- men with the heads of dogs and six toes

- trees that grow wool

-cyclopeans with one eye and one foot who moved faster than the wind (when told to hop)

- 100-meter snakes with jewels for eyes

Miserable Monks

Life was unpleasant for peasants. As the Middle Ages went on, some were able to move from the land to the towns which were starting to grow. After the Black Death the Feudal System began to fall apart. Peasants became free to sell their labor or to move.

In towns they could become craftsmen or traders. They weren't tied to the land by the old Feudal System and some grew rich as merchants. But for others the only way out of the measly miserable life on the land was to join the church. Boys and girls as young as seven could be taken on as monks or nuns.

 

At first the young trainee monks were called novices - a bit like learner drivers in cars today, they weren't allowed to go out on their own. But it was a very hard life ... even harder than school today! Some of the mini-monks must have had a miserable time...

Dear Mom,

Hope you can get someone in the village to read this to you. The fact is, I want to come home. It's horrible here and I miss your rabbit pies.

It all starts at 2 in the morning. First prayers. That awful bell wakes up, and I have to put on my sandals. I don't have to dress because we sleep in our robes - and they're rotten and itchy. Last night I stumbled into the back of old Brother Benedict. He whipped me with a cane. Have you ever tried praying for two hours with a burning backside?

I got back to bed at 4 and slept 2 hours - on my face, of course - then that bell's ringing again to call us off to Prime service at 6. Brother Benedict breaks the ice on the water trough and makes me wash. He says it will stop me falling asleep. It just freezes my cheeks. Did you know the Benedictine monks pray at least 8 times a day? I asked old Benedict if God wouldn't want us to stop so he could get some sleep. He whipped me - Benedict, that is, not God.

We get breakfast at 7. It's usually porridge. Thin, cold, gritty porridge. Except this morning brother Edward stood on my toe and I cried out. We aren't allowed to make a noise at meals. I was whipped and told I'd eat bread and water for three days. I'd rather have your rabbit pies.

At 8 it's the meeting in the Chapter House - but the novices don't get a word in while the old goats groan on about money and work. It ends with prayers for the dead. But Mom...I don't know anybody that's dead. I sometimes wish I was dead though. Heaven has to be warmer than this place.

After Terce service at 9 we work. It was writing practice in the scriptorium for me. Brother Eamon makes us write on vellum - that's skins taken from the bellies of calves. I wonder why God wants us to do that? This letter's written on the belly of a calf, but I didn't kill it. I can't hold the goose-feather pen in my cold hands. I make smudges and Brother Eamon beats me.

It's High Mass at 11 then off to the fields to work. I had to dig cow much into the soil. The smell would have made me sick, if I'd had any food in my stomach. 

I'm almost glad to get indoors for the None service at 3 then it's lessons till Vespers at 6. I had to sit next to Anthony and I argued with him. He gets beaten as hard as me so I didn't feel too bad. Just hungry.

Compline at 7 and I have bread and water while the other monks eat peas with herbs. That tastes worse than bread and water. Every day, peas and herbs, peas and herbs. Sometimes I imagine I have herbs and peas for a change.

At 8 I have a little time to write this before I go to bed and it starts all over again at 2 tomorrow morning. Just let me come home, Mom, and I promise I'll be the best son you've ever had. I'll walk all the way, I'll pay back the gift you gave to the monks when they took me in. Just let me come home Mom. I do miss your rabbit pies. Please, Mom.

Your loving son,

Arthur

Mischievous Monks

The monks can't all have been saints because rules were written down to say what monks must NOT do. So somebody must have done these terrible things or they wouldn't have had the rules! Some of the rules look rather similar to school rules!

A good monk...

- will not think too much of his own comfort

- will not be tempted by rich food

- will not make a noise in the cloister

- will not argue with brother monks

- will not be disorderly in church

- will not be careless

- will not disobey senior monks

- will not become lazy as an old monk

- will not want his own way

- will not think of the world outside

Rules for nuns were very similar. How would you have survived?

St Roch

St Roch

 People who caught the plague used to call upon the spirit of St Roch for help. Roch caught the plague when he was a young man and went to a wood to die. A dog brought him food and he recovered. When he returned to the town, however, he was suspected of being a spy and thrown into jail where he died. A strange light filled the cell as he died and his captors believed it was a miracle. They decided that if you called for his help then you'd be cured of the plague. On the other hand you may not be cured of the plague! This was not St Roch's fault. This was because God decided you had been too wicked.

St Charles

Charles of Blois (in France) was a saintly man. He...

- never washed his clothes so he carried crawling with lice, put pebbles in his shoes and knotted cords tightly round his body so he suffered pain at all times.

- slept on the straw at the side of his wife's bed.

- made a pilgrimage to a holy place, barefoot in the snow. When his admirers covered the path with blankets he took another road and walked till his feel were frozen and bleeding.

Charles of Blois was a vicious and cruel man. He...

- used large catapults to hurl the heads of dead prisoners into an enemy city.

- massacred 2,000 men, women, and children when he captured a town called Quimper.

Cruelty alongside saintliness. That pretty well sums up the measly Middle Ages. 

**This passage was copied almost verbatim out of a fabulous and funny book called The Measly Middle Ages by Terry Dreary

 

King John and the Magna Carta

Since Richard the Lionheart got killed at Castle Chalus, in France, England needed a new king. After some debate, officials decided that the rightful succession should go to his brother John Lackland, instead of Richard and John's nephew Arthur. After his coronation, King John wanted to secure the lands of his father in Normandy and other areas in France.

King John

 King John soon went to France and met with Philip, the King of France. The two did not get along and soon they were at war, taking each others' castles.

King Phillip II of France

In one instance, King John's mother Eleanor of Aquitaine was living at the Castle of Mirebeau. It was soon under siege by her own grandson Arthur and King Philip. She sent for help to King John, who was 80 miles away in Le Mans. She anxiously watched for his arrival and sure enough! He was coming to her rescue. They could hear the trumpet blasts and the cavalry charging to aid her against the French. The knights pressed forward crying, “A rescue! A rescue!”

In the end, King John was victorious. The English got lots of rich booty for their captors, nobles of Poitou and Anjou, 200 knights, and Prince Arthur himself. The prisoners were chained and sent to damp dungeons to await liberation by ransom.

“Ah my son, my son,” cried the old Queen through her tears to John, “I knew you would not fail me. God hath wrought for us a glorious victory and overthrown our enemies by His mighty arm.”

What to do with his nephew Arthur was a very serious problem for King John, for Arthur boldly claimed the throne of England and the whole of Angevin dominions as Richard the Lionheart's lawful heir.

King John's advisers proposed a solution that would remove the danger. “Put out the boy's eyes,” they suggested. It would be momentarily painful but not fatal, they pointed out, and would be entirely effective in removing Arthur as an active threat to King John's throne. King John agreed to this plan and sent three experienced retainers to execute it. King John's executioners were not squeamish men but when it actually came to touching the hot iron to Arthur's eyes, they refused.

Arthur, Duke of Brittany

 However, word was sent to King John that the order had been carried out and that Arthur had died from the ordeal. When this rumor reached the barons of Brittany, they threatened vengeance and immediate war. This was prevented only by the confession of the King's executioner's that Arthur was still alive and unharmed.

Thinking that his nephew might now listen to reason, King John call Arthur before him. He wished to befriend and honor him, he said gently, and would do so if Arthur would forsake the evil company of the French and their king and adhere to his loving uncle and lord. But Arthur would not bend, and still claimed to be the rightful heir to the throne of England.

For a few moments, King John, checking his wrath, bit his lip and drummed on his chair with his fingers. Arthur gave him no choice. He would have to do away with him.

Arthur was sent to Rouen Castle and was never seen again. There was a rumor that King John had gotten into a drunken rage and murdered his nephew with his own hands.

Rouen Castle, Normandy, France

 But King John had troubles in Normandy. King Philip kept taking his castles and with each success, more nobles started to pledge loyalty to King Philip. Soon King John realized that he was running out of money and supplies, and that he no longer had the means to defend his Angevin dominions.

When King John was angry, he threw himself down and rolled on the floor, yelling and chewing the expensive oriental rugs that Crusaders had brought back from the East. If there were no rugs about, he chewed straw and sticks that littered the floor. It was bad for his teeth. At such times the dogs, servants, and hostages fled from the palace and the nobles left town.

And King John was furious with the barons who had abandoned him in Normandy. They would not give him their loyalty and even worse, King John had no money. So at the moment, he was powerless. What to do?

He levied a tax of one-seventh of all movable goods on the whole kingdom-barons, bishops, and commoners. A high tax of this sort amounted almost to confiscation. But in time his sheriffs were able to collect most of it. King John was worried that King Philip would conquer all English lands in France so he assembled a huge fleet to invade France.

But King John was a bit paranoid. He didn't know if his barons were loyal to him or to King Philip. The barons tried to dissuade King John to invade France. They fell down before him and, embracing his knees, restrained him from leaving them, declaring that of a surety, “if he would not yield to their prayers, they would detain him by force, lest by his departure the whole kingdom be brought to confusion.”

King John was now weeping with rage and furiously demanded what the barons proposed to do to save the King's honor and aid his friends beyond the sea.

It was finally decided to disband the army and just send a task force to aid King John's friends.

To punish the stubborn barons, King John now laid a heavy tax upon the whole land, for he was firmly determined that he would yet recover his lost heritage across the Channel.

Later, the Archbishop of Canterbury died and King John did not like the new Archbishop that the Pope appointed to the position. He forbid him to come to England. In response, the pope banished the church from giving sacraments and sacred rites. People did not get last rites, no one received the sacraments: the church was closed for business. To believers, this was a calamity.

King John did not want Stephen Langton to be the new  Archbishop of Canterbury.

King John responded to the church by confiscating church lands and seizing revenues from rich monasteries. He filled the treasury with church property. He was showing the church, King Philip, and his own barons and bishops who was King of England. In his boldness and pride he laid heavier burdens on the people and increased their griefs beyond measure.

As King John's power and wealth increased, his wickedness grew. He inflicted unjust fines on the barons, banished some and confiscated property, he even took children and relatives hostages for those who stayed away from his evil court.

The church responded by excommunicating King John. People stayed away and resentful barons began corresponding with King Philip, wanting him to invade England. Even the pope wanted King Philip to invade and proclaimed a universal crusade against King John.

King John realized he was in a desperate situation. He prepared England for war. But at the last minute, he made peace with the church and eventually was absolved from his argument with them. But he did not have peace with the barons. Their enmity for him was growing quickly. King John had shown unrestrained and reckless power. The barons were the only ones with enough power in England to restrain the king at all. For many years, the nobles had endured King John's insults until now their hidden enmity was smoldering beneath the surface ready to burst into rebellion. Now the time had come to enlist their power to force a charter from the King.

All King John wanted to do was beat King Philip and reclaim old English lands in France. This cost a lot of money, taxes that were an unbearable burden to England. So King John marched off to France with an army and while he was gone, the barons organized and planned a means of checking the king's power with a charter.

While in France, King John was betrayed by the barons he was always suspicious of for years. They would not help and actually sided with King Philip. “Nothing has gone prosperously with me, and everything unlucky has happened to me,” muttered John bitterly.

King John returned to England after his defeat in France, in a very bad Angevin temper. It was not improved by what he found awaiting him at home. The barons had ceased fighting among themselves and were united against him and on the verge of rebellion. What was this rumor about a charter? John wondered. No doubt someone had been putting ideas into their thick heads.

He was practically alone, with only a handful of knights he could trust. King John swore he would never sign a charter. But there was no use rolling on the floor and chewing wood. He must settle with the barons face to face. He summoned them to meet him after Christmas and to bring their demands to him. King John tried to out maneuver the barons, but could not.

He had made too many enemies and the barons were now in open rebellion. They were going to take over all of his castles. If King John wanted their loyalty and support, he would have to sign a charter protecting their rights. He did not want to sign it.

But when he finally realized that he could not defend his castles, and when King John lost control of London, he knew he had no choice.

King John met with the barons at Runnymeade. There he begrudgingly signed the Great Charter, known as the Magna Carta. Grim lords bore themselves proudly, for never had the nobles of England so restrained their King.

 

The clearly defined rights stated in the charter now stood above the will of the King. The love of right and justice of the old Anglo-Saxon freemen lived again in the spirit of the Magna Carta. It was a signpost pointing the way on the beginnings of liberty, equality, fraternity and democracy in later centuries.


**This was summarized or directly quoted from the wonderful book Magna Carta by James Daugherty.  I highly recommend this book for any student of history.


 



Enrichment Activity


As we read this story, the kids listened for key words and then did an action or noise as soon as they heard it.


King John-temper tantrum (shaking fists)
King Philip - "Oui, oui!"
taxes - ka-ching
church - bong, bong (with prayer hands)
barons - exasperated sigh
France - "Ooh-lah-lah!
charter - scribble, with hand motion




We also briefly talked about Robin Hood and his place in this story. Then we made a bow-n-arrow out of a pen. Take the pen apart, drill a hole in the middle body of the pen, put rubber band on each end secured by pen caps, and then use inside of the pen as the arrow.