Historical contexts of English poetry 1400-1500

This chapter provides a brief historical introduction, considering the role that English vernacular poetry could play in the nations of Britain. It opens with a consideration of pandemic and disease, the shadows these cast on communities. It relates those perennial features to the changing structures of education, in so doing emphasising two important factors; first, literacy was the preserve of a small minority, and, second, the English vernacular was one among several languages at use in Britain, and not the most prestigious. At the same time, English had a place in the most élite spaces, being used at princely courts, where verse compositions in English as well as Latin were heard. This relates to the final theme of the chapter: the various milieux in which poetry could be of political or social use.