Middle English or

Anglo-Norman Period (1100-1500)

-                    The Norman (France) defeated the Anglo-Saxons King in 1066 and conquered England.

-                    The Norman Conquest inaugurated a new epoch in the literary and politic history of England.

-                    The Anglo-Saxon authors were displaced and the foreign types of literature was introduced.

-                    The Anglo-Saxon lost their hostility to the new comers and became part and parcel of one nation.

-                    The Normans brought with them soldiers, artisans and traders.

-                    English language was thrown in the background and Latin and French languages were used.

-                    The conquest of Anglo-Norman led to the invigoration of the monasteries.

-                    Clergy and Church were powerful in this period.

-                    It was a period of theo-centricism, related to God, church and Christ.

-                    People were confined to religion and religious knowledge.

-                    Worldly or secular knowledge was not acquired.

-                    The Romance was the most popular form of literature.

-                    Most of these Romances were borrowed from Latin and French sources.  

-                    The stories of King Arthur, the war of troy, and of Alexander the Great.

-                    Miracle plays also became very popular, they were based on Biblical stories, about the creation of man, his fall and banishment from Eden, the life of Christ and the day of judgement.

-                    Morality plays also flourished during the Middle age.

-                    These plays have uniform theme of the struggle between good, and ‘evil’, with the intent to teach right living and uphold religion.

-                    The parsonages were abstract virtues or vices, e.g., truth, honour, courtesy, loyalty, and evil abstract characters, e.g., pride, lust, greed, e.t.c, it was the start of allegory.

-                    William Lang land, John Gower and Jeoffery Chaucer were the prominent poets of this period.