chapter3chaucerPPT教学课件

The church owned almost a third of all the land in the country and the clergy as feudal landlords were often terrible and extortionary 勒索的.
They also made use of their ecclesiastical 神职的 courts to oppress the common people and to squeeze as much money as possible out of them.
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---the difference between the rich
and the poor
Commerce and manufacture grew apace and brought wealth to the towns and cities and consequently also power to the more wealthy burghers 市民, especially to the citizens of London who began to play an important role in national politics and to be feared by the king.
After Richard II became king, three times he asked the parliament to pass new poll taxes人头税.
All these events led to the great peasants’ rising in 1381.
Though the rising was quelled 镇压 by the treacherous king, the popular discontent had its effect in the abolition of enforced services on the land as well as other laws of medieval serfdom, so that there was actually no more serfdom in England by the end of the 14th century.
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--- in the church
The misdeeds and atrocities 残暴 committed by the royal family and the big feudal nobles against the peasants were matched by those perpetrated by the clergy at the time.
The long drawn-out Hundred Years’ War begun in 1377 called for extra taxes.
The Black Death that came first in 1349-50 and then again and again in the 1360’s reduced the whole population by almost a third and with the dearth of available farmhands their original wages were naturally doubled and trebled.
Section II English Literature of the Second Half of the 14th
Century
Chapter 3
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The background: political and social
Mounting feudal oppression in the second half of the 14th century led to the peasants’ revolts.
The corruption of government officials was also rife at the period.

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---the fate of chivalry and superstition
Chivalry was rapidly losing its glamour though romances were still written in the latter part of the 14th century to celebrate the knightly deeds of the past.
In the cities the distinction between the rich and the poor gradually became more marked, and the wealthy citizens together with the rich noblemen and the royal household led lives of extravagance while many poor people starved and lived in extreme destitution.
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Heavy land-rents and enforced services were practised as before, and consequently many peasants fled from the land to the towns while some went to the forests and organized themselves as bandits or outlaws.