Home > Work > Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)
21 " Those who pursue the process of living are those who create the history "
― Peter Ackroyd , Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (The History of England, #1)
22 " The writing of history is often another way of defining chaos. "
23 " In 1076 he decreed that none of the English clergy would be allowed to marry. "
24 " The Orkney islands and the Shetlands were in fact not surrendered to Scotland until the latter half of the sixteenth century, and Norwegian was still being spoken in the Shetlands at the end of the eighteenth century; the island accent is still much closer to Norwegian than to Scots or English. "
25 " Here is another vignette of medieval England. John and Agnes Page, from a village in Kent, took John Pistor to the manor court. Agnes Page had purchased John Pistor’s wife in exchange for a pig worth 3 shillings; John Pistor was happy with the arrangement for a while, but eventually he asked that his wife be returned to him on payment of 2 shillings. The bargain was agreed, but Pistor did not pay the sum. The jury found against him. "
26 " Slavery was in fact a legal punishment inflicted on those, for example, who could not pay their fines. "
27 " Slaves, like oxen and sheep, were known as ‘live money’. "
28 " our goods and money are consumed by taxation; our land is stripped of its harvest to fill their granaries; our hands and limbs are crippled by building roads through forests and swamps under the lash of our oppressors’. "
29 " was ruled on behalf of the king by a shire-reeve whose name became sheriff. "
30 " the king was still vengeful. ‘Tell the archbishop,’ he said, ‘that I hated him yesterday and that I hate him even more today. Tell him that I will hate him more and more tomorrow and every day. "
31 " The English were indeed noted for their superstitious credulity as well as their piety; "
32 " purlieus of London, "
33 " murrain, "
34 " At the beginning of the twelfth century, the rabbit was introduced to England. "
35 " The parish priests themselves were often illiterate, and many complaints were made about their drunkenness and violence. "
36 " 50 per cent of the people died before the age of thirty, and 90 per cent before the age of fifty. "
37 " But ‘if ’ is not a word to use in history. "
38 " The Normans also gave to the English the concept of the inherited surname that came to define a unified family and its property. "
39 " parlous state "
40 " The Cistercian monks were known for their practice of eviction. "