In order to appreciate more fully middle English literature we need a basic understanding of the significant social and religious conditions of the period. The literature of 1100-1500 reflects clearly two things. First, a response to the change in social structure-specifically, the rise and fall of the feudal order, and, second, a response to the emergence of a Christian civilization that was in the cultural mainstream of Western Europe, yet particularly English in its relatively democratic basis.

Feudalism as we conceive of it today traces its origins to France and to the systematic introduction by William the Conqueror (1066-1087) of land tenure by knight service, and the formalizing of all other feudal obligations. Briefly, feudal society consisted of a rich knight or lord who held a good deal of land and maintained a large house or castle, typically surrounded by a protective wall or situated in a strongly defensible position. Surrounding the castle were small plots of land worked by peasants who paid the knight rental of the land with a portion of their harvest or work days (so many days a week they had to labor specifically for the knight-cutting wood, plowing, harvesting, smithing, etc.). Peasants, though not technically slaves, were nonetheless powerfully bound to the land, and, thus the knight who owned the land.

Although feudalism was the dominant social force for four centuries, a series of historical events worked to undermine it almost from the beginning. The first of these was a revolt of the baronage (the collective knights) against Henry I (1100-1135); at length Henry was able to suppress his barons, but the warfare illustrates the basic instability of feudalism. Second, in the late twelfth and the first two-thirds of the thirteenth centuries, a series of kings attempted to wield the authority granted them by the traditions of William the Conqueror and Henry II. While some of these kings were successful in this effort, others, most notably John who in 1215 signed the first "human bill of rights," the Magna Carta, were not.

Also during this time framework the kings began to identify themselves less as Frenchmen and more as Englishmen. Gradually a number of peasants drifted away from their feudal ties and the formation of a small but increasingly powerful "middle class" occurred. Towns and boroughs sprang up and enjoyed growing populations and increasing economic clout. Trade and craft guilds organized themselves and eventually began effective governing of towns; often their acquisition of political power was linked to concessions granted by kings who needed liberal grants of money to fund wartime expeditions and so on. Additionally, Oxford and Cambridge emerged as organized seats of learning, Franciscan and Dominican friars came to England in large numbers, and literature written in English (as opposed to French or Latin) became popular.

From 1272 to 1500 the movements just mentioned matured and other events contributed to the dismantling of the feudal order. Under the reign of the three Edwards, the crown continued to expand its authority, often seizing through legal means lands once held by barons. In effect these kings consolidated their power and influence over the feudal societies. Most damning to feudalism was the repeated appearance of the Black Death-three times in the fourteenth century, 1348-49, 1362, and 1369-which reduced the population in England by one third. For instance, in 1348 the population was 3.7 million; thirty years later it was 2.2 million; life expectancy went from 31 to 17 years. Feudalism was directly undermined since the large labor force necessary to continue its support was decimated. Wages rose and the peasants increasingly left the countryside for the towns and boroughs. Finally, there was a movement toward the wholesale enclosure of lands for sheep pasture, and, thus, the reduction of available land for tenant farming.

Understanding the role of class or one's position in society is also important for our study of middle English literature. The aristocracy, including the king, the nobles, and even the simple knights comprised 1%; the clergy, including all persons engaged in religious work comprised 2%; the commoners, including both freemen (the "middle class"-merchants, tradesmen, yeoman farmers, and skilled workers) and peasants comprised 97%. Several points should be noted here. First, before the devastating impact of the plague, roughly 50% of the population lived under some form of servitude; nine out of ten people were rural. Second, cities were by today's standard tiny; London, for instance, in 1377 had a population of 35,000. Most, however, were under 8,000.

Third, rural life was narrow, mean, filled with labor, and difficult. All such people knew of life was focused in a ten square mile area; that was their universe. There were virtually no schools and the parish church was the center of cultural activity. Families lived in one-room mud hovels covered by thatch or straw; there was no running water, no indoor plumbing, no windows, no soft bedding, no daily change of clothes, no emphasis on personal hygiene. Indeed, one bath a year, one change of clothes a year, and one thorough cleaning of the hut was the rule, not the exception.

Fourth, the rise of a merchant "class" indicates that these people probably obtained the ability to read and write, at least at a rudimentary level. Actual literary statistics are not available, and how they learned to read and write is not clear since formal education was difficult at best to achieve. As an indication for the progress of literacy, books figure with increasing frequency in wills and inventories beginning in the 14th century; of course the vast majority of these books were linked with moral and/or religious instruction. Gradually, however, the rising number of readers in the "middle class" encouraged the composition and writing down of purely secular literature, such as tales, lyrics, and some romances. Still, most of the literature was moral and didactic.

The English Church in the Middle Ages contain approximately 9,500 parishes and 18 dioceses; about 500 parishes lay within towns, leaving 9,000 as rural parishes with the number of parishioners averaging between 50 and 300. When speaking about church offices we need to clarify the term "clerk." The term primarily applied to men in minor orders; that is, those planning to become priests or holding the office of porter, lector, exorcist, or acolyte. The general practice of the church was to ordain for the priesthood only those who received financial support from a local landowner or town. Such clerks could not administer the sacraments. In addition, most students (since the church was responsible for formal education) were referred to as clerks as well as workers who lived in monasteries, friaries, priories, and nunneries, and the whole of the learned and professional classes, including lay professors and theologians, physicians, and lawyers. A visiting Italian around 1500 wrote back home that any man with learning was called a clerk.

Moving from one class to another was very difficult although the church was open to all and a surprising degree of democracy in this regard prevailed in England. On the one hand, most women who entered nunneries tended to come from upper classes, probably because their fathers could not afford a large enough dowry necessary to marry them off. In like manner, monasteries were often staffed by second and third sons of well-to-do families, since only the eldest son could inherit land and property. On the other hand, aristocratic birth or the wealth of a merchant family was not an indispensable requisite to advancement in the church hierarchy since a number of notable men worked their way up from lowly origins (Robert Grosseteste, the great Bishop of Lincoln, 1235-1253, and Robert de Insula, Bishop of Durham, 1274-1283). Roughly two-thirds of the bishops in the 14th century were university graduates.

The inferior clergy-the thousands of poor vicars and their assistants, the chantry priests and singers, and the domestic chaplains-emerged by and large from the lower class. These poor clergy received only a marginal education and were often staggeringly ignorant. For example, one archbishop wrote in 1281: "The ignorance of priests casts the people into the pit of error; and the stupidity and naivete of clerks who are enjoined to instruct minds in the Catholic faith conduces more to error than to doctrine."

In actual practice the church was a center of life, especially in the rural villages. As a rule, no opportunity was given for communion to be given to layfolk except on Easter, representing the culmination of a long decline from the practice of the primitive church which provided lay communion for every Mass. Daily services seem excessive to the modern mind: 1) Matins (said at midnight): 3) Lauds (said in succession very early in the morning); 3) Prime (at 6:00 a.m.); 4) Terce (shortly after Prime); 5) Sext (either immediately after Terce or with; 6) None (12:00 noon); 7) Vespers (midafternoon); and Compline (7:00 or 8:00 p.m.).

One of the objectives of church reform of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries was to improve the guidance provided the laity concerning faith and morals. To this end, priests were enjoined more strictly than before to preach sermons several times each year on certain clearly defined elements of the faith, including the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Gospel, the works of bodily and spiritual mercy, the seven cardinal virtues, the seven deadly sins, and so on. Apparently the priests did not follow through on these injunctions as few sermon texts or allusions to them exist. A second measure by which the church hoped to bring about a more Christian laity was formulated as follows by Pope Innocent III's great council of 1215:

Let each of the faithful of either sex, after he has reached the age of discretion, confess alone all his sins to his own priest at least once a year and strive with all his strength to fulfill the penance enjoined him, receiving reverently the sacrament of Eucharist at least at Easter . . . Otherwise let him be denied entrance to the church while living and Christian burial when he is dead.

Humble parish priests like Chaucer's parson were probably rare in the Middle Ages although there is no doubt many carried out faithfully their responsibilities, including carrying out liturgical duties, observing the sixty or more feast days in the calendar, dressing according to clerical standards, keeping the secrets of confession, presenting confirmation candidates to their bishop, visiting the sick, administering alms, collecting tithes, forbidding the grazing of cattle, dancing, and the playing of games in the churchyard and cemetery, serving as legal advisors and scribes.

From at least the late Old English period through the fifteenth century, English society at all levels was permeated with a religious world view to a degree for which no modern parallel in the Western worlds exists. Indeed, the cultural domination of the church was virtually unchallenged. The church conducted and controlled formal education and the parish priest provided typically the sole source of enlightenment for at least 90% of the population. In effect, a community of belief existed in England and other European countries to which literary men could appeal with confidence and to which many people today look back upon with fond reverence.