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Welcome to the History of English Podcast, a podcast about the history of the English

language. This is Episode 109, The romantic Warriors. In this episode, we're

going to look at the rise of English romance in the late 1200s.

Over the prior century or so, medieval romances had become all the rage in the courts of Europe.

That included stories about Charlemagne and the legends of King Arthur and his knights.

Those stories mixed together themes of bravery and warfare with elements of chivalry,

love, and romance. The stories were popular throughout Europe, including the English court,

but they weren't composed in English. That finally started to change around the current

point in our story in the late 1200s. For the first time, romantic literature started to be

composed in English, and that also included songs with romantic themes. So this time, we'll

explore the birth of English romance, and we'll also look at the early reign of Edward I,

a king who was considered a brutal oppressor by some and a romantic warrior by others.

But before we begin, let me remind you that the website for the podcast is HistoryofEnglishPodcast.com,

and you can sign up to support the podcast at patreon.com slash historyofenglish.

And as always, you can reach me by email at kevinathistoryofenglishpodcast.com.

Now this time, let's return to our overall historical narrative, and the end of the reign of Henry

III. As we saw a couple of episodes back, Henry had to deal with a revolt by his parents late in

his reign. He was forced to agree to the provisions of Oxford, and a letter confirming the new

political arrangement was sent to the counties. That letter was one of the first government

proclamations issued in English since the Norman Conquest. As we saw, the leader of the

parents was Simon De Montfort, and he was later killed in a battle when his forces met those

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