 Friends, welcome to my channel and welcome to another video in the history of British Literature video series where I am looking at each and every age of British Literature looking at Prological background at the major works written and also giving you guidelines on what to read and what to skip. Now I have already made one video in which I have discussed Old English Literature. I would love to hear what you are thinking about this series if this series is helping in helping you in your preparation put that in the comments below so that I can get a feedback and I can make some improvements if you want in the video series. Moving on to this particular lecture where we are going to start our discussion on middle English period. Now, middle English period basically begins from 1066 AD, 1066 AD this goes up till the renaissance that is somewhere around 1500 AD. Now this entire period of 500 years approximately is divided in 3 parts. First part is before Chaucer, then we have Age of Chaucer and then we have Age of Revival that is basically Middle English Literature after Chaucer. Even if you go to my website arpitaakarwa.com and check out the list you will find that I have added 3 sections in one of the sections I am dealing with Middle English Literature then I have another chapter on Age of Chaucer and then I have a chapter on Age of Revival after which we finally move on to Elisabethan Age. So in this particular video I am going to look at the first chunk, first part which is the Middle English Literature before Age of Chaucer. Now to begin with the history we need to first understand that there was a man called William the Conqueror who was Duke of Normandy. Normandy is basically a place which is located in France. So William the Conqueror was Duke of Normandy. He defeated the King of England who was ruling at that time and his name was Harald. So King Harald was defeated by William the Conqueror in a battle called Battle of Hastings in 1066 AD and now when the King of England was defeated finally who got the throne of England it was William the Conqueror and he started what we know today as the Anglo-Norman period because he was from Normandy we now know it as Anglo-Norman. Angles, Saxons and Jews were already living there so we take something from their angles and then who started ruling England, Normans. So Anglo-Norman period became the name of this period. Now another interesting thing that you need to understand and pen down is the fact that this battle of Hastings divided the English literature period into two sections, Anglo-Saxons and then after battle of Hastings came Anglo-Norman. So 1066 we had Anglo-Saxons, 1066 we had Anglo-Normans. Now what happened was that France became the ruler of England so what will be the official language then Anglo-French became the official language because all the aristocratic people they were speaking French and all the middle class or lower middle class people were speaking Old English so what happened was that Middle English language was formed by including words from French and including words from Old English. So both of these languages combined to form what we today know as Middle English Literature and there were so many French words that were added into the dictionary like mansion, nobody knew what is mansion it is a term which has been taken from French language and added into English literature even if you ever go to see the root of any word you will find that most of the words in English language are either having root of Latin or French Latin because Romans had a very important influence and Christianity was spread all across England during Old English period or Anglo-Saxon period so Latin words were added into the dictionary and then after French invasion after French became the ruling class what happened was that French words were added. So most of the words that English has today are either Latin or French in origin. Another important thing that you must remember about the Anglo-Norman period is that this was a period when schools and colleges were set up all across England. How so? Let me tell you there was a war that went between Eastern part of the world and the European countries that war was known as Crusades. Crusades were basically religious war so we all know that the authority of Christianity is in the hands of Pope. So Pope said that all the people all the Christians they have to go and convert Eastern countries into Christianity. Now when these people went there they started reading their texts so a lot of Greek and Roman texts were taken by these European people and these texts were read by the people of England when the Crusades returned so when Crusades people went there came back with these texts people started reading them. So earlier what happened was that clergymen were the only people who were educating people now that people had access to other texts they started learning themselves so education move ahead and education move outside the church and that is how schools and universities started building up. Now there were two major institutions that was set up Cambridge and Oxford the two main colleges was set up during this period. They were set up somewhere in 12th century I want you to Google and give me the exact dates so that you can get it nailed in your head because this can be a very important question coming up in the net exam when was Cambridge and Oxford set up so put that in the comment section below I will be reading each of those comments. Now we know that Crusades ki wajase a lot of universities and colleges was starting up. Now London became the main centre of education and that is the reason why if in case you ever visit London you will find that almost all great writers of British history were there in London because just like in India we have certain hubs like Bangalore is said to be the IT hub similarly in England London was said to be the educational hub. Now that we have looked at the history of Middle English literature it is important to look at certain important literary works that were produced during this period and one such work is Shanshe Day Jeste. Shanshe Day Jeste is of old French word which stands for songs of deeds. Now what are songs of deeds? Songs of deeds are poetry that were written to praise nobles and knights who went to save their country and one prominent legend which was written by a lot of Middle English writers were on Arthurian legends. So Arthurian legends are basically stories that revolves around King Arthur and his knights so it was said that sometime long back there was a King Arthur who lived in Britain and this King had 12 knights these knights used to sit in a round table and they all went on different quest to find Holy Grail. Now what is this Holy Grail? Holy Grail is basically a bowl in which Jesus Christ had his last supper. So all these knights they went in order to find that Holy Grail. The entire ring of King Arthur came down when one of his knights had an affair with his own wife. So King Arthur's wife along with that one of the knights had an affair and that is how the entire kingdom was destroyed. So that was the story behind Arthurian legends. It was spoken by a lot of writers specially Thomas Mallory's Les Mortes de Arthur and Joffrey Manmott's important work Historia Regum Britannia. Make sure you read these important works because a lot of questions are asked from these particular portions. As time is less I have to squeeze a lot of things in just this 10 minutes video. But if you are looking for a detailed course in which I explain each and every work and also look at all the important previous year question papers, the questions that were asked from these topics then you can join our online course with the details of which are available on my website arpitaakarva.com or you can even contact on the number given there. So with that note I take your leave, we will meet very soon in the next video lecture, till the time we meet next, happy learning, keep loving literature and stay tuned to arpitaakarva.com.