BALLADS

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The successor of John Lackland was Henry III, a king extremely devoted to the Church of Rome and an instrument of the Pope against the interests of English people, that increased its hostility towards The Roman Church.

In fact , under the leadership Simon de Monfort , there was a little reaction supported by the Barons, the city of London and by the Clergy. In 1264 he defeated the king's forces at Lewes and imprisoned him; but when Simon de Monfort was murdered in the next year , the king returned to his power.

After him, remained the idea that despotism was to be opposed, that England couldn't be dependent on the foregin power of the Roman Church and the idea to make a new form of Parliament.

Parliament was a feudal assembly of nobles and high clergy, but after the 1264 were introduced two rapresentatives from the borough : these were the first seeds of the Commons , present in the regular form of parliament under the three Edwards.

The first Edward was Edward I . He conquered Wales and tried to conquer the Scotland too, but it remained independent for other several centuries.

He was the English Justiniane because he began to issue the statutes of Kingdom; besides he wanted that the latter were elected by the inhabitants of the boroughs , summoned two knights for each shire and two burgesses from every city of each kingdom.

His parliament, was called the Model Parliament, because was divided into House of Commons and lords.

Edward II was opposed by the barons, deposed in 1327 and then murdered.

Edward IV was the king that initiated the Hundred years' War , against France to defend his French territories and to claimed his own right to the vacant throne of France.

Besides England wanted to recover and defend his markets in Flanders (the merchants of Flander  were the best buyers of English wool ) . The war broke out in 1337 and the english king obtained two victories at Crecy ( 1346) and at Poitiers (1356) ; in 1360, the Treaty of Bretigny recognized the English propriety of these french territories; but within ten years the French had recovered many lost territories.

In the same years there were the first open attacks on the Church of Rome about the wealth and the corruption of the higher clergy and these attacks began to undermine the authority of the Pope with John Wycliffe and the Lollardy.

John Wycliffe criticized the Curch doctrine, expressed heretical views, attacking the Pope and the payment for masses.

The lollards were poor priests that attacked the corruption of the Curch and demanded social reforms. These attacks were the basis of the Protestantism of the 16^Th century.

Richard III was a bad king: during his reign the peasants were more oppressed with the imposition of a new tax: the poll tax. The revolt broke out in the Peasant's Revolt , under the guidance of Wat Tyler. But his revolt resolve the condition of the poor villeins who didn't want to serve their lords only in the next century.Richard III was deposed by the Parliament.

THE DECLINE OF FEuDALISM

In these years the feudal period began to decline: the two great institution of feudalism, the Church and the Chivalry lost their prestige and power because many of the clergy were corrupt and besides England was in war against the France and was reached by the Black Death in 1348 that caused enormous economic an social effects: the number of the pesantry decreased and there weren't men able to work so the importance of labour rose. The lords  were obliged to pay free labourers who demanded high wages and many arable lands were replaced by pasture, increasing the export of raw wool to Flanders and expanding the importance of cloth manufacture in England.

The causes of the peasants' revolt was the Statute of Labourers by the Parliament, that fixed scales of wages and prices.

The Hundred years'war brought some benefits to England: in fact the trade routes were kept open giving prosperity and more power to the merchant class . this new social class was concentrated in the towns and here some association of merchants created The Guild Merchant to protect their own right and interests.

Then craftsmen decided to protect themselves too and created the Craft guilds and only the members of these guilds could exercise a certain craft in town.

BALLADS

Ballads were poems with a strictly popular character and were oral composition made by unlettered person in simple language and were also accomned by music and dances.

After several centuries, these production were written down by word of mouth.

The ballads can be TRADITIONAL (folk, popular) or LITERARY (written by poets).

There were five types of ballads in basis of their subjects:

- of love and jealousy;

- about religious subjects;

- about supernatural events;

- about outlaws;

- about the rivalry between English and Scots.

The stories were told simply for an illiterate audience, there was the incremental repetition (the repetition of the same phrase in every stanza) and climaxes.

The ballads was composed by four lines stanza or by quatrains.

LORD RANDAL

This ballad tells about the story of Lord Randal, a young man who comes back home from the greenhood, where he met his true-love, and speaks with his mother that fears that he is poisoned and ask him about his will. Lord Randal at last understand that was his true-love to poison him and in his will he wants to leave her fire and hell.

The ballad is divided in quatrains in which there is the dialogue between Lord Randal and the mother. The stanza are divided in two parts: the question (incremental repetition) and the answer.

There are two climaxes: the first when lLord randel's mother understand that he was poisoned and the second when he condamns his true-love to fire and hell.