Engletere and the Inglis Conflict and Construction

This chapter discusses the rise of conflicted, multilingual ideas of Englishness and nationhood in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Extended discussion is offered of the Middle English romance Havelok, in terms of its representations of power and justice; the French and English Brut histories, and their vernacular views of the recent past; philosophies of kingship and their role in the Barons’ Wars and the deposition of Edward II; the rise of parliament, the importance of Magna Carta, and the idea of constitutional government; the role of the vernaculars in spreading critical and historical ideas; a rise in class conflict, and social and public discourse of complaint.