title: Cloud9

text: In the 2018 season, the Spitfire became the first-ever stage playoffs champions after defeating the New York Excelsior in the 2018 Stage 1 playoffs. In March, London parted ways with head coach Lee "Bishop" Beom-joon for undisclosed reasons. The team qualified for the Stage 2 playoffs, but they fell to the Philadelphia Fusion in the semifinals. London failed to reach the Stage 3 and Stage 4 playoffs and finished the regular season with a record and the fifth seed in the 2018 Overwatch League playoffs. London defeated the Los Angeles Gladiators in the quarterfinals by a series score of 2–1 to advance to the semifinals. London won both games against the Los Angeles Valiant in the semifinals, advancing them to the 2018 Overwatch League Grand Finals. London faced the Philadelphia Fusion in the Grand Finals on July 27 and 28; in the best-of-three series, the Spitfire won the first two matches by scores of 3–1 and 3–0 to claim the inaugural Overwatch League title.


title: Cloud9

text: London began their 2019 season failing to qualify for the Stage 1 playoffs. The team qualified for the Stage 2 playoffs; however, they were knocked out in the quarterfinals by the Hangzhou Spark. The Spitfire parted ways with head coach Kwang-bok "Coach815" Kim in the middle of Stage 3, leaving the team without a head coach. London failed to qualify for the Stage 3 playoffs and finished the regular season with a 16–12 record, qualifying them for the 2019 Play-In Tournament for a chance to qualify for the 2019 season playoffs. London defeated the Shanghai Dragons, 4–3, in the Play-In Tournament in an OWL record eight-map series and qualified for the season playoffs. In the first round, London was defeated by the New York Excelsior, 1–4, sending the team to the lower bracket. A 0–4 loss to the San Francisco Shock the following match ended the Spitfire's 2019 playoff run.


title: Cloud9

text: Cloud9 first entered Fortnite competitively in 2018, and formally re-entered the circuit in the summer of 2019. The team is currently managed by Krissi Waters.


title: Cloud9

text: Cloud9 announced its entry into "Valorant" on April 12, 2020, by signing its first player, Tyson "TenZ" Ngo. Later Cloud9 would sign Skyler "Relyks" Weaver in June, Mitch "mitch" Semago and Josh "shinobi" Abastado in July, and the final member Daniel "vice" Kim in August


title: Cloud9

text: On January 12, 2021, TenZ, stepped down from the competitive scene to pursue content creation (while remaining as part of Cloud9).


title: Cloud9

text: In the same month Cloud9 Blue sign players Nathan "leaf" Orf from Chaos Esports Club's CS:GO Division and Son "xeta" Seon-ho from their former Korean team "Cloud9 Korea" as well as signing head coach Yoon "Autumn" Eu-teum and Manager Robin Lee On February 5, 2021, Michael "poiz" Possis joins as the 6th player of the team. On March 11, 2021, TenZ is loaned to Sentinels for Masters Stage 1 in replacement of suspended player, Sinatraa. On March 16, 2021, Daniel "vice" Kim parts ways with the team. On April 16, 2021, Skyler "Relyks" Weaver parts ways with the team. On April 19, 2021, Cloud9 transfers Ricky "floppy" Kemery and Erick "Xeppaa" Bach from their CS:GO division. On June 1, 2021, TenZ, who was previously on loan from Cloud9 Blue, is acquired by Sentinels. On March 13, 2021, Cloud9 Blue acquire Anthony "vanity" Malaspina from Version1. On September 10, 2021, floppy, parts ways with the team. On October 19, 2021, poiz is transferred to their Academy team. After failing to qualify for Masters Reykjavík in stage 2 and Masters Berlin in stage 3 they would qualify for the 2021 Valorant Champions in the North American Last Chance Qualifier beating Rise 3–0. At the Valorant Champions 2021 they would be put into Group D with FNATIC, Vision Strikers and FULL SENSE, they would make it out of the group stage 2-1 before losing to Team Liquid in the quarterfinals.


title: Cloud9

text: On May 15, 2022, Cloud9 traded xeta and Autumn to T1 for Rahul "curry" Nemani. Later on May 26, Cloud9 would sign assistant coach Joshua "m1cks" Micks.


title: Cloud9

text: In October 2020, Cloud9 signed orgless all-female team "MAJKL" to compete in First Strike under Cloud9 White. (with the all-male team rebranding to “Cloud9 Blue"). In November 2020, Dream joins as a head coach and MoonChopper as a strategic coach of Cloud9 White. Later in the month Cloud9 White would fail to quality for First Strike: North America.


title: Cloud9

text: In January and February 2021, Cloud9 White would fail to qualify for the VCT 2021: North America Stage 1 Challengers 1, 2 and 3 Main Events. On March 12, 2021, Kaitlin "Keiti" Boop joins after being on trial. Later in March, Cloud9 White would qualify for the VCT 2021: Game Changers North America Series 1 in the first seed and later winning the tournament without losing a single map, a week later they would fail to qualify for VCT 2021: North America Stage 2 Challengers 1 Main Event. On April 13, Cloud9 White would release Keiti. In June, Cloud9 White would qualify for and win VCT 2021: Game Changers NA Series 2. The next month, Cloud9 White would fail to qualify for the VCT 2021: North America Stage 3: Challengers 1 and 2 Main Events before qualifying and winning VCT 2021: Game Changers North America Series 3. It was later announced head coach Dream and Cloud9 parted ways a week prior to Series 3 qualifiers.


title: Cloud9

text: In February 2022, Cloud9 White would fail to qualify for VCT 2022: North America Stage 1: Challengers 1 Main Event but would go on to qualify and win VCT 2022: Game Changers North American Series 1. In June, Cloud9 would sign Reid "x0tek" Johnson as the new head coach while Annie would leave the team to pursue streaming, with Bob "Bob" Tran replacing her.


title: Cloud9

text: Cloud9 created their "Rocket League" division in July 2017 after acquiring DreamHack Atlanta champions team The Muffin Men. With a roster consisting of players Kyle "Torment" Storer, Mariano "SquishyMuffinz" Arruda, and Jesus "Gimmick" Parra, the team began play in the North America Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) Season 4. After winning the North America playoffs, the team qualified for the RLCS World Championship tournament, where they eventually was eliminated by Scottish team Method in the lower bracket finals. Cloud9 made it to the RLCS Season 5 World Championship tournament but were eliminated by eventual champions Team Dignitas.


title: Cloud9

text: In Season 6, Cloud9 qualified for their third consecutive RLCS World Championship tournament. The team lost their first match of the tournament to We Dem Girlz, dropping them to the lower bracket of the tournament. Cloud9 won five consecutive elimination matches in the lower bracket and advanced to the Grand Finals, where they faced undefeated European team Team Dignitas on November 11, 2018. Cloud9 took down the defending champions by a series score of 4–1, marking the first time that a North American team had won the RLCS World Championship since Season 1.


title: Cloud9

text: Cloud9 followed up their Season 6 run with a semifinals loss in the Season 7 RLCS World Championship. Between seasons, Cloud signed former NRG Esports player Jayson "Fireburner" Nunez as the team's coach. Cloud9 finished North America RLCS Season 8 in seventh place, which put them at risk of being relegated to the Rocket League Rival Series, a lower division for the RLCS. The team made it through the promotion playoffs to avoid relegation and participate in North America RLCS Season 9, but they did not perform well. On June 10, 2020, Cloud9 disbanded their "Rocket League" division.


title: Cloud9

text: On September 1, 2016, Cloud9 acquired Nemesis Hydra from Team Nemesis, getting their feet into the mobile esports scene. Nemesis Hydra had been one of the "first" competitive teams of Vainglory, having first appeared in March 2015. In their short year and a half of existence, Hydra had made it to the third tournament day, at least semi-finals, in each live championship. While never winning a championship, they completed a 14-game win streak in Split One of the 2016 Summer Season tournament "Evil 8."


title: Cloud9

text: In the Vainglory Summer Live Championships, under the blue and white of Cloud9, the team beat Phoenix Reborn in the first round, falling to Team SoloMid in the second round, and Phoenix Reign in the loser's bracket, missing their first day three of live finals in their history. Cloud9 would not qualify for the 2016 Vainglory World Championship. The team overcame Team SoloMid in the semifinals of the First Vainglory Unified Championship in London and were crowned winners after taking down Gankstars in Finals. In the 2017 Summer Unified Championships in Los Angeles they would once again be crowned Unified Champions, defeating Immortals in the final. At the 2017 World Championship, Cloud9 would make it all the way to the semifinal, before losing to Tribe Gaming, the former roster of Immortals.


title: Cloud9

text: Cloud9 announced that they were adding Rainbow Six Siege to their competitive roster on Twitter on June 18, 2018. However, the team that was originally put together by Cloud9 was eventually moved to Team Reciprocity, announced by Team Reciprocity on January 7, 2019. Cloud9 announced that it was re-entering the Rainbow Six Siege competitive circuit on April 6, 2019, with a new team of five players, one coach, and one assistant coach. They have since changed their roster of players to swap two of their players for the upcoming season. On August 15, 2021, Cloud9 announced that the organization would part ways with their Rainbow Six roster.


title: Charitable organization

text: A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good).


title: Charitable organization

text: The legal definition of a charitable organization (and of charity) varies between countries and in some instances regions of the country. The regulation, the tax treatment, and the way in which charity law affects charitable organizations also vary. Charitable organizations may not use any of their funds to profit individual persons or entities. (However, some charitable organizations have come under scrutiny for spending a disproportionate amount of their income to pay the salaries of their leadership).


title: Charitable organization

text: Financial figures (e.g. tax refund, revenue from fundraising, revenue from sale of goods and services or revenue from investment) are indicators to assess the financial sustainability of a charity, especially to charity evaluators. This information can impact a charity's reputation with donors and societies, and thus the charity's financial gains.


title: Charitable organization

text: Charitable organizations often depend partly on donations from businesses. Such donations to charitable organizations represent a major form of corporate philanthropy.


title: Charitable organization

text: In order to meet the exempt organizational test requirements, a charity has to be exclusively organized and operated.


title: Charitable organization

text: In order to receive and pass the exemption test, a charitable organization must follow the public interest and all exempt income should be for the public interest.


title: Charitable organization

text: For example, in many countries of the Commonwealth, charitable organizations must demonstrate that they provide a public benefit.


title: Charitable organization

text: Until the mid-18th century, charity was mainly distributed through religious structures (such as the English Poor Laws of 1601), almshouses and bequests from the rich. Christianity, Judaism and Islam incorporated significant charitable elements from their very beginnings and "dāna" (alms-giving) has a long tradition in Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. Charities provided education, health, housing and even prisons. Almshouses were established throughout Europe in the Early Middle Ages to provide a place of residence for poor, old and distressed people; King Athelstan of England (reigned 924–939) founded the first recorded almshouse in York in the 10th century.


title: Charitable organization

text: In the Enlightenment era, charitable and philanthropic activity among voluntary associations and rich benefactors became a widespread cultural practice. Societies, gentleman's clubs, and mutual associations began to flourish in England, and the upper-classes increasingly adopted a philanthropic attitude toward the disadvantaged. In England this new social activism was channeled into the establishment of charitable organizations; these proliferated from the middle of the 18th century.


title: Charitable organization

text: This emerging upper-class fashion for benevolence resulted in the incorporation of the first charitable organizations. Captain Thomas Coram, appalled by the number of abandoned children living on the streets of London, set up the Foundling Hospital in 1741 to look after these unwanted orphans in Lamb's Conduit Fields, Bloomsbury. This, the first such charity in the world, served as the precedent for incorporated associational charities in general.


title: Charitable organization

text: Jonas Hanway, another notable philanthropist of the Enlightenment era, established The Marine Society in 1756 as the first seafarer's charity, in a bid to aid the recruitment of men to the navy. By 1763 the Society had recruited over 10,000 men; an Act of Parliament incorporated it in 1772. Hanway was also instrumental in establishing the Magdalen Hospital to rehabilitate prostitutes. These organizations were funded by subscription and run as voluntary associations. They raised public awareness of their activities through the emerging popular press and were generally held in high social regard – some charities received state recognition in the form of the royal charter.


title: Charitable organization

text: Charities also began to adopt campaigning roles, where they would champion a cause and lobby the government for legislative change. This included organized campaigns against the ill treatment of animals and children and the campaign that eventually succeeded at the turn of the 19th century in ending the slave trade throughout the British Empire and within its considerable sphere of influence. (This process was however a lengthy one, which finally concluded when Saudi Arabia abolished slavery in 1962.)


title: Charitable organization

text: The Enlightenment also saw growing philosophical debate between those who championed state intervention and those who believed that private charities should provide welfare. The Reverend Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), the political economist, criticized poor relief for paupers on economic and moral grounds and proposed leaving charity entirely to the private sector. His views became very influential and informed the Victorian "laissez-faire" attitude toward state intervention for the poor.


title: Charitable organization

text: During the 19th century a profusion of charitable organizations emerged to alleviate the awful conditions of the working class in the slums. The Labourer's Friend Society, chaired by Lord Shaftesbury in the United Kingdom in 1830, aimed to improve working-class conditions. It promoted, for example, the allotment of land to labourers for "cottage husbandry" that later became the allotment movement. In 1844 it became the first Model Dwellings Company – one of a group of organizations that sought to improve the housing conditions of the working classes by building new homes for them, at the same time receiving a competitive rate of return on any investment. This was one of the first housing associations, a philanthropic endeavour that flourished in the second half of the nineteenth century brought about by the growth of the middle class. Later associations included the Peabody Trust (originating in 1862) and the Guinness Trust (founded in 1890). The principle of philanthropic intention with capitalist return was given the label "five per cent philanthropy".


title: Charitable organization

text: There was strong growth in municipal charities. The Brougham Commission led on to the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, which reorganized multiple local charities by incorporating them into single entities under supervision from local government.


title: Charitable organization

text: Charities at the time, including the Charity Organization Society (established in 1869) tended to discriminate between the "deserving poor" who would be provided with suitable relief and the "underserving" or "improvident poor" who were regarded as the cause of their own woes through their idleness. Charities tended to oppose the provision of welfare by the state, due to the perceived demoralizing effect. Although minimal state involvement was the dominant philosophy of the period, there was still significant government involvement in the shape of statutory regulation and even limited funding.


title: Charitable organization

text: Philanthropy became a very fashionable activity among the expanding middle classes in Britain and America. Octavia Hill (1838-1912) and John Ruskin (1819-1900) were an important force behind the development of social housing, and Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) exemplified the large-scale philanthropy of the newly rich in industrialized America. In "Gospel of Wealth" (1889), Carnegie wrote about the responsibilities of great wealth and the importance of social justice. He established public libraries throughout the English-speaking countries as well as contributing large sums to schools and universities. A little over ten years after his retirement, Carnegie had given away over 90% of his fortune.


title: Charitable organization

text: Towards the end of the 19th century, with the advent of the New Liberalism and the innovative work of Charles Booth on documenting working-class life in London, attitudes towards poverty began to change, which led to the first social liberalwelfare reforms, including the provision of old age pensions and free school-meals.


title: Charitable organization

text: During the 20th century charitable organizations such as Oxfam (established in 1947), Care International and Amnesty International greatly expanded, becoming large, multinational, non-governmental organizations with very large budgets.


title: Charitable organization

text: With the advent of the Internet, charitable organizations established a presence in online social media and started, for example, cyber-based humanitarian crowdfunding such as GoFundMe. Another charitable organization is Beyond the Crisis. This organization distributes food and resources to housing communities and homeless shelters in the U.S. It was established by young philanthropists Camden and Colton Francis.


title: Charitable organization

text: The definition of charity in Australia is derived through English common law, originally from the Charitable Uses Act 1601, and then through several centuries of case law based upon it. In 2002, the federal government established an inquiry into the definition of a charity. The inquiry proposed a statutory definition of a charity, based on the principles developed through case law. This resulted in the "Charities Bill 2003", which included limitations on involvement of charities in political campaigning, which many charities saw as an unwelcome departure from the case law. The government appointed a Board of Taxation inquiry to consult with charities on the bill. As a result of widespread criticism from charities, the government abandoned the bill.


title: Charitable organization

text: The government then introduced what became the "Extension of Charitable Purpose Act 2004", which did not attempt to codify the definition of a charitable purpose, but merely sought to clarify that certain purposes were charitable, whose charitable status had been subject to legal doubts. These purposes included childcare, self-help groups, and closed/contemplative religious orders.


title: Charitable organization

text: To publicly raise funds, a charity in Australia must register in each Australian jurisdiction in which it intends to raise funds. In Queensland, for example, charities must register with the Queensland Office of Fair Trading. Also, any charity fundraising online must have approval in every Australian jurisdiction that requires them to do so, which is currently New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia, and the Australian Capital Territory. Many Australian charities have called on federal, state, and territory governments to enact uniform legislation to enable charities registered in a state or territory to be allowed to raise funds in all other Australian jurisdictions.


title: Charitable organization

text: The Australian Charities and Not-For-Profits Commission (ACNC) commenced operations in December 2012 and regulates the approximately 56,000 non-profit organizations with tax exempt status, and about 600,000 other NPO in total and seeks to harmonise state-based fund-raising laws.


title: Charitable organization

text: A Public Benevolent Institution (PBI) is a particular type of charity whose main purpose is to relieve suffering in the community, whether though poverty, sickness, or disability. Examples of institutions which might qualify include hospices, providers of subsidised housing and some not-for-profit aged care services.


title: Charitable organization

text: Charities in Canada must be registered with the Charities Directorate of the Canada Revenue Agency. According to the Canada Revenue Agency:


title: Charitable organization

text: A registered charity is an organization established and operated for charitable purposes, and must devote its resources to charitable activities. The charity must be resident in Canada, and cannot use its income to benefit its members.


title: Charitable organization

text: A charity also has to meet a public benefit test. To qualify under this test, an organization must show that:


title: Charitable organization

text: To register as a charity, the organization has to be either incorporated or governed by a legal document called a trust or a constitution. This document has to explain the organization's purposes and structure.


title: Charitable organization

text: Most French charities are registered under the statute of "loi d'association de 1901", a type of legal entity for non-profit NGOs. This statute is extremely common in France for any type of group that wants to be institutionalized (sports clubs, book clubs, support groups...) as it is very easy to set up and requires very little documentation. However, for an organisation under the statute of "loi 1901" to be considered a charity, it has to file while the authorities to come under the label of ""association d'utilité publique"" which means "NGO acting for the public interest". This label gives the NGO some tax exemptions.


title: Charitable organization

text: In Hungary, charities are called "Public benefit organizations" (). The term was introduced on 1 January 1997 by the Act on Public Benefit Organizations.


title: Charitable organization

text: Under Indian law, legal entities such as charitable organizations, corporations, and managing bodies have been given the status of the "legal person" with legal rights, such as to sue and be sued, and to own and transfer property.


title: Charitable organization

text: In Ireland, the Charities Act (2009) legislated for the establishment of a "Charities Regulatory Authority", and the Charities Regulator was subsequently created (via a ministerial order) in 2014. This was the first legal framework for the registration of charities in Ireland. The Charities Regulator maintains a database of organizations which have granted charitable tax exemption, a list which was previously maintained by the Revenue Commissioners. Such organizations would have a CHY number for the Revenue Commissioners, a CRO number for the Companies Registration Office and a charity number for the Charities Regulator.


title: Charitable organization

text: The Irish Nonprofits Database was created by Irish Nonprofits Knowledge Exchange (INKEx) to act as a repository for regulatory and voluntarily disclosed information about Irish public benefit nonprofits.


title: Charitable organization

text: Charitable organizations in Nigeria are registerable under "Part C" of the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020. Under the law, the Corporate Affairs Commission, Nigeria being the official Nigerian Corporate Registry, is empowered to maintain and regulate the formation, operation and dissolution of charitable organisations in Nigeria. Charitable organisations in Nigeria are exempted under §25(c) of the Companies Income Tax Act (CITA) Cap. C21 LFN 2004 (as amended) which exempts from income tax corporate organizations engaged wholly in ecclesiastical, charitable or educational activities. Similarly, §3 of Value Added Tax Act (VATA) Cap. V1 LFN 2004 (as amended), and the 1st Schedule to the VATA on exempted Goods and Services goods zero-rates goods and services purchased by any ecclesiastical, charitable or educational institutions in furtherance of their charitable mandates.


title: Charitable organization

text: Public benefit organization (, often abbreviated OPP) is a term used in Polish law, introduced on 1 January 2004 by the statute on public good activity and volunteering. Charitable organizations of public good are allowed to receive 1% of income tax from individuals, so they are "tax-deductible organizations". To receive such status, an organization has to be a non-governmental organization (political parties and trade unions do not qualify), involved in specific activities related to public good as described by the law, and be sufficiently transparent in its activities, governance and finances. Also data has shown that this evidence is to the point and makes sense.


title: Charitable organization

text: Polish charitable organizations with that status include Związek Harcerstwa Polskiego, Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity, KARTA Center, Institute of Public Affairs, Silesian Fantasy Club, Polish Historical Society, and Polish chapter of Wikimedia Foundation.


title: Charitable organization

text: The legal framework in Singapore is regulated in the Singapore Charities Act (Chapter 37). Charities in Singapore must be registered with the Charities Directorate of the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports. One can also find specific organizations that are members of the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) which is operated by the Ministry of Social and Family Development.


title: Charitable organization

text: Legislation of charitable activity and obtainment of charitable organization status is regulated by the Civil Code of Ukraine and by Law of Ukraine Charitable Activities and Charitable Organizations.


title: Charitable organization

text: The Ministry of Justice of Ukraine is the main registration authority for charitable organization registration and constitution. Individuals and legal entities, except for public authorities and local governments, can be the founders of charitable organizations. Charitable societies and charitable foundations may have (besides founders) other participants who have joined them in the way prescribed by the charters of such charitable associations or charitable foundations. Aliens (non-Ukrainian citizens and legal entities, corporations or non-governmental organizations) can be the founders and members of philanthropic organization in Ukraine.


title: Charitable organization

text: All funds received by a charitable organization that were used for charity purposes are exempt from taxation, but it requires obtaining of non-profit status from tax authority.


title: Charitable organization

text: Charity law within the UK varies among (i) England and Wales, (ii) Scotland and (iii) Northern Ireland, but the fundamental principles are the same. Most organizations that are charities are required to registered with the appropriate regulator for their jurisdiction, but significant exceptions apply so that many organizations are "bona fide" charities but do not appear on a public register. The registers are maintained by the Charity Commission for England and Wales and for Scotland by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator. The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland maintains a register of charities that have completed formal registration (see below). Organizations applying must meet the specific legal requirements summarized below, and have filing requirements with their regulator, and are subject to inspection or other forms of review. The oldest charity in the UK is The King's School, Canterbury established in 597.


title: Charitable organization

text: The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 subjects charities to regulation by the Electoral Commission in the run-up to a general election.


title: Charitable organization

text: Before the Charities Act 2006, which introduced the definition now contained in the 2011 Act, the definition of charity arose from a list of charitable purposes in the Charitable Uses Act 1601 (also known as the Statute of Elizabeth), which had been interpreted and expanded into a considerable body of case law. In "Commissioners for Special Purposes of Income Tax v. Pemsel" (1891), Lord McNaughten identified four categories of charity which could be extracted from the Charitable Uses Act and which were the accepted definition of charity prior to the Charities Act 2006:


title: Charitable organization

text: Charities in England and Wales – such as Age UK, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) – must comply with the 2011 Act regulating matters such as charity reports and accounts and fundraising.


title: Charitable organization

text: The unincorporated association is the most common form of organization within the voluntary sector in England and Wales. This is essentially a contractual arrangement between individuals who have agreed to come together to form an organization for a particular purpose. An unincorporated association will normally have as its governing document a constitution or set of rules, which will deal with such matters as the appointment of office bearers, and the rules governing membership. The organization is not though a separate legal entity, so it cannot start legal action, it cannot borrow money, and it cannot enter into contracts in its own name. Its officers can be personally liable if the charity is sued or has debts.


title: Charitable organization

text: A trust is essentially a relationship among three parties: the donor of some assets, the trustees who hold the assets, and the beneficiaries (those people who are eligible to benefit from the charity). When the trust has charitable purposes, and is a charity, the trust is known as a charitable trust. The governing document is the trust deed or declaration of trust, which comes into operation once it is signed by all the trustees. The main disadvantage of a trust is that, as with an unincorporated association, it does not have a separate legal entity and the trustees must themselves own property and enter into contracts. The trustees are also liable if the charity is sued or incurs liability.


title: Charitable organization

text: A company limited by guarantee is a private limited company where the liability of members is limited. A guarantee company does not have a share capital, but instead has members who are guarantors instead of shareholders. In the event of the company being wound up, the members agree to pay a nominal sum which can be as little as £1. A company limited by guarantee is a useful structure for a charity where it is desirable for the trustees to have the protection of limited liability. Also, the charity has legal personality, and so can enter into contracts, such as employment contracts in its own name.


title: Charitable organization

text: A small number of charities are incorporated by royal charter, a document which creates a corporation with legal personality (or, in some instances, transforms a charity incorporated as a company into a charity incorporated by royal charter). The charter must be approved by the Privy Council before receiving royal assent. Although the nature of the charity will vary depending on the clauses enacted, generally a royal charter will offer a charity the same limited liability as a company and the ability to enter into contracts.


title: Charitable organization

text: The Charities Act 2006 legislated for a new legal form of incorporation designed specifically for charities, the charitable incorporated organization, with powers similar to a company but without the need to register as a company. Becoming a CIO was only made possible in 2013, with staggered introduction dates, with the charities with highest turnover eligible first.


title: Charitable organization

text: The word "foundation" is not generally used in England and Wales. Occasionally, a charity will use the word as part of its name, e.g. British Heart Foundation, but this has no legal significance and does not provide any information about either the work of the charity or how it is legally structured. The structure of the organization will be one of the types of structure described above.


title: Charitable organization

text: Charitable organizations that have an income of more than £5,000, and for whom the law of England and Wales applies, must register with the Charity Commission for England and Wales, unless they are an "exempt" or "excepted" charity. For companies, the law of England and Wales will normally apply if the company itself is registered in England and Wales. In other cases, if the governing document does not make it clear, the law which applies will be the country with which the organization is most connected.


title: Charitable organization

text: When an organization's income does not exceed £5,000, it is not able to register as a charity with the Charity Commission for England and Wales. It can, however, register as a charity with HM Revenue and Customs for tax purposes only. With the rise in mandatory registration level, to £5,000 by The Charities Act 2006, smaller charities can be reliant upon HMRC recognition to evidence their charitable purpose and confirm their not-for-profit principles.


title: Charitable organization

text: Some charities which are called exempt charities are not required to register with the Charity Commission and are not subject to any of the Charity Commission's supervisory powers. These charities include most universities and national museums and some other educational institutions. Other charities are excepted from the need to register, but are still subject to the supervision of the Charity Commission. The regulations on excepted charities have however been changed by the Charities Act 2006. Many excepted charities are religious charities.


title: Charitable organization

text: The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland was established in 2009 and has received the names and details of over 7,000 organizations in Northern Ireland that have previously been granted charitable status for tax purposes (the "deemed list"). Compulsory registration of organizations from the deemed list began in December 2013, and it is expected to take three to four years to complete. The new Register of Charities is publicly available on the CCNI website and contains the details of those organizations who have so far been confirmed by the commission to exist for charitable purposes and the public benefit. The Commission estimates that there are between 5,000 and 11,500 charitable organizations to be formally registered in total.


title: Charitable organization

text: The 24,000 or so charities in Scotland are registered with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR), which also publishes a register of charities online.


title: Charitable organization

text: Charitable organizations, including charitable trusts, are eligible for a complex set of reliefs and exemptions from taxation in the UK. These include reliefs and exemptions in relation to income tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, stamp duty land tax and value added tax. These tax exemptions have led to criticisms that private schools are able to use charitable status as a tax avoidance technique rather than because they offer a genuine charitable good.


title: Charitable organization

text: In the United States, a charitable organization is an organization operated for purposes that are beneficial to the public interest. There are different types of charitable organizations. Every U.S. and foreign charity that qualifies as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code is considered a "private foundation" "unless" it demonstrates to the IRS that it falls into another category. Generally, any organization that is not a private foundation (i.e., it qualifies as something else) is usually a public charity as described in Section 509(a) of the Internal Revenue Code.


title: Charitable organization

text: In addition, a private foundation usually derives its principal funding from an individual, family, corporation, or some other single source and is more often than not a grantmaker and does not solicit funds from the public. In contrast, a foundation or public charity generally receives grants from individuals, government, and private foundations, and while some public charities engage in grantmaking activities, most conduct direct service or other tax-exempt activities. Foundations that are generally grantmakers (i.e. they use their endowment to make grants to other organizations, which in turn carry out the goals of the foundation indirectly) are usually called "grantmaker" or "non-operating" foundations.


title: Charitable organization

text: The requirements and procedures for forming charitable organizations vary from state to state, as do the registration and filing requirements for charitable organizations that conduct charitable activities, solicit charitable contributions, or hire professional fundraisers. In practice, the detailed definition of "charitable organization" is determined by the requirements of state law where the charitable organization operates, and the requirements for federal tax relief by the IRS.


title: Charitable organization

text: Federal tax law provides tax benefits to nonprofit organizations recognized as exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). The benefits of 501(c)(3) status include exemption from federal income tax as well as eligibility to receive tax deductible charitable contributions. There was a total of $281.86 billion tax deductible donations by individuals in 2017.


title: Charitable organization

text: To qualify for 501(c)(3) status most organizations must apply to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for such status.


title: Charitable organization

text: Several requirements must be met for a charitable organization to obtain 501(c)(3) status. These include the organization being organized as a corporation, trust, or unincorporated association, and the organization's organizing document (such as the articles of incorporation, trust documents, or articles of association) must limit its purposes to being charitable, and permanently dedicate its assets to charitable purposes. The organization must refrain from undertaking a number of other activities such as participating in the political campaigns of candidates for local, state or federal office, and must ensure that its earnings do not benefit any individual. Most tax exempt organizations are required to file annual financial reports (IRS Form 990) at the state and federal level. A tax exempt organization's 990 and some other forms are required to be made available to public scrutiny.


title: Charitable organization

text: The types of charitable organization that are considered by the IRS to be organized for the public benefit include those that are organized for:


title: Charitable organization

text: A number of other organizations may also qualify for exempt status, including those organized for religious, scientific, literary and educational purposes, as well as those for testing for public safety and for fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals.


title: Charitable organization

text: Charity has received criticism. These criticisms include charity only addressing the symptoms of a problem instead of the causes of a problem, charity being a worse substitute for change that does not fix the fundamental injustices in the structures and values of a society, charity not providing the best solutions to problems in a society, charity resulting in less state funding of essential services, charity leading to favoritism instead of fairness, tax incentives for charity resulting in the worsening of social inequalities by reducing the revenue a state has available for social projects, inefficient charitable giving, charities misusing their funds, and some charities attaching conditions to their giving of aid.


title: Charitable organization

text: Economist Robert Reich criticized the practice of billionaires giving some of their money to charity, calling it mostly "self-serving rubbish". Mathew Snow of American socialist magazine "Jacobin" criticized charity for "creating an individualized 'culture of giving'" instead of "challenging capitalism's institutionalized taking."


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: England in the Middle Ages concerns the history of England during the medieval period, from the end of the 5th century through to the start of the Early Modern period in 1485. When England emerged from the collapse of the Roman Empire, the economy was in tatters and many of the towns abandoned. After several centuries of Germanic immigration, new identities and cultures began to emerge, developing into kingdoms that competed for power. A rich artistic culture flourished under the Anglo-Saxons, producing epic poems such as "Beowulf" and sophisticated metalwork. The Anglo-Saxons converted to Christianity in the 7th century and a network of monasteries and convents were built across England. In the 8th and 9th centuries England faced fierce Viking attacks, and the fighting lasted for many decades, eventually establishing Wessex as the most powerful kingdom and promoting the growth of an English identity. Despite repeated crises of succession and a Danish seizure of power at the start of the 11th century, it can also be argued that by the 1060s England was a powerful, centralised state with a strong military and successful economy.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The Norman invasion of England in 1066 led to the defeat and replacement of the Anglo-Saxon elite with Norman and French nobles and their supporters. William the Conqueror and his successors took over the existing state system, repressing local revolts and controlling the population through a network of castles. The new rulers introduced a feudal approach to governing England, eradicating the practice of slavery, but creating a much wider body of unfree labourers called serfs. The position of women in society changed as laws regarding land and lordship shifted. England's population more than doubled during the 12th and 13th centuries, fueling an expansion of the towns, cities, and trade, helped by warmer temperatures across Northern Europe. A new wave of monasteries and friaries was established while ecclesiastical reforms led to tensions between successive kings and archbishops. Despite developments in England's governance and legal system, infighting between the Anglo-Norman elite resulted in multiple civil wars and the loss of Normandy.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The 14th century in England saw the Great Famine and the Black Death, catastrophic events that killed around half of England's population, throwing the economy into chaos, and undermining the old political order. Social unrest followed, resulting in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, while the changes in the economy resulted in the emergence of a new class of gentry, and the nobility began to exercise power through a system termed bastard feudalism. Nearly 1,500 villages were deserted by their inhabitants and many men and women sought new opportunities in the towns and cities. New technologies were introduced, and England produced some of the great medieval philosophers and natural scientists. English kings in the 14th and 15th centuries laid claim to the French throne, resulting in the Hundred Years' War. At times England enjoyed huge military success, with the economy buoyed by profits from the international wool and cloth trade, but by 1450 the country was in crisis, facing military failure in France and an ongoing recession. More social unrest broke out, followed by the Wars of the Roses, fought between rival factions of the English nobility. Henry VII's victory in 1485 conventionally marks the end of the Middle Ages in England and the start of the Early Modern period.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: At the start of the Middle Ages, England was a part of Britannia, a former province of the Roman Empire. The local economy had once been dominated by imperial Roman spending on a large military establishment, which in turn helped to support a complex network of towns, roads, and villas. At the end of the 4th century, however, Roman forces had been largely withdrawn, and this economy collapsed. Germanic immigrants began to arrive in increasing numbers during the 5th and 6th centuries, establishing small farms and settlements, and their language, Old English, swiftly spread as more settlers arrived and those of the previous inhabitants who had not moved west or to Brittany switched from Common Brittonic and British Latin to the migrants' language. New political and social identities emerged, including an Anglian culture in the east of England and a Saxon culture in the south, with local groups establishing "regiones", small polities ruled over by powerful families and individuals. By the 7th century, some rulers, including those of Wessex, East Anglia, Essex, and Kent, had begun to term themselves kings, living in "villae regales", royal centres, and collecting tribute from the surrounding "regiones"; these kingdoms are often referred to as the Heptarchy.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: In the 7th century, the Kingdom of Mercia rose to prominence under the leadership of King Penda. Mercia invaded neighbouring lands until it loosely controlled around 50 "regiones" covering much of England. Mercia and the remaining kingdoms, led by their warrior elites, continued to compete for territory throughout the 8th century. Massive earthworks, such as the defensive dyke built by Offa of Mercia, helped to defend key frontiers and towns. In 789, however, the first Scandinavian raids on England began; these Viking attacks grew in number and scale until in 865 the Danish "micel here" or Great Army, invaded England, captured York and defeated the kingdom of East Anglia. Mercia and Northumbria fell in 875 and 876, and Alfred of Wessex was driven into internal exile in 878.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: However, in the same year Alfred won a decisive victory against the Danes at the Battle of Edington, and he exploited the fear of the Viking threat to raise large numbers of men and using a network of defended towns called "burhs" to defend his territory and mobilise royal resources. Suppressing internal opposition to his rule, Alfred contained the invaders within a region known as the Danelaw. Under his son, Edward the Elder, and his grandson, Æthelstan, Wessex expanded further north into Mercia and the Danelaw, and by the 950s and the reigns of Eadred and Edgar, York was finally permanently retaken from the Vikings. The West Saxon rulers were now kings of the "Angelcynn", that is of the whole English folk.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: With the death of Edgar, however, the royal succession became problematic. Æthelred took power in 978 following the murder of his brother Edward, but England was then invaded by Sweyn Forkbeard, the son of a Danish king. Attempts to bribe Sweyn not to attack using danegeld payments failed, and he took the throne in 1013. Swein's son, Cnut, liquidated many of the older English families following his seizure of power in 1016. Æthelred's son, Edward the Confessor, had survived in exile in Normandy and returned to claim the throne in 1042. Edward was childless, and the succession again became a concern. England became dominated by the Godwin family, who had taken advantage of the Danish killings to acquire huge wealth. When Edward died in 1066, Harold Godwinson claimed the throne, defeating his rival Norwegian claimant, Harald Hardrada, at the battle of Stamford Bridge.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: In 1066, William, the Duke of Normandy, took advantage of the English succession crisis to start the Norman Conquest. With an army of Norman followers and mercenaries, he defeated Harold at the battle of Hastings and rapidly occupied the south of England. William used a network of castles to control the major centres of power, granting extensive lands to his main Norman followers and co-opting or eliminating the former Anglo-Saxon elite. Major revolts followed, which William suppressed before intervening in the north-east of England, establishing Norman control of York and devastating the region. Some Norman lords used England as a launching point for attacks into South and North Wales, spreading up the valleys to create new Marcher territories. By the time of William's death in 1087, England formed the largest part of an Anglo-Norman empire, ruled over by a network of nobles with landholdings across England, Normandy, and Wales. England's growing wealth was critical in allowing the Norman kings to project power across the region, including funding campaigns along the frontiers of Normandy.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Norman rule, however, proved unstable; successions to the throne were contested, leading to violent conflicts between the claimants and their noble supporters. William II inherited the throne but faced revolts attempting to replace him with his older brother Robert or his cousin Stephen of Aumale. In 1100, William II died while hunting. Despite Robert's rival claims, his younger brother Henry I immediately seized power. War broke out, ending in Robert's defeat at Tinchebrai and his subsequent life imprisonment. Robert's son Clito remained free, however, and formed the focus for fresh revolts until his death in 1128. Henry's only legitimate son, William, died aboard the "White Ship" disaster of 1120, sparking a fresh succession crisis: Henry's nephew, Stephen of Blois, claimed the throne in 1135, but this was disputed by the Empress Matilda, Henry's daughter. Civil war broke out across England and Normandy, resulting in a long period of warfare later termed the Anarchy. Matilda's son, Henry, finally agreed to a peace settlement at Winchester and succeeded as king in 1154.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Henry II was the first of the Angevin rulers of England, so-called because he was also the Count of Anjou in Northern France. Henry had also acquired the huge duchy of Aquitaine by marriage, and England became a key part of a loose-knit assemblage of lands spread across Western Europe, later termed the Angevin Empire. Henry reasserted royal authority and rebuilt the royal finances, intervening to claim power in Ireland and promoting the Anglo-Norman colonisation of the country. Henry strengthened England's borders with Wales and Scotland, and used the country's wealth to fund a long-running war with his rivals in France, but arrangements for his succession once again proved problematic. Several revolts broke out, led by Henry's children who were eager to acquire power and lands, sometimes backed by France, Scotland and the Welsh princes. After a final confrontation with Henry, his son Richard I succeeded to the throne in 1189.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Richard spent his reign focused on protecting his possessions in France and fighting in the Third Crusade; his brother, John, inherited England in 1199 but lost Normandy and most of Aquitaine after several years of war with France. John fought successive, increasingly expensive, campaigns in a bid to regain these possessions. John's efforts to raise revenues, combined with his fractious relationships with many of the English barons, led to confrontation in 1215, an attempt to restore peace through the signing of the "Magna Carta", and finally the outbreak of the First Barons' War. John died having fought the rebel barons and their French backers to a stalemate, and royal power was re-established by barons loyal to the young Henry III. England's power structures remained unstable and the outbreak of the Second Barons' War in 1264 resulted in the king's capture by Simon de Montfort. Henry's son, Edward, defeated the rebel factions between 1265 and 1267, restoring his father to power.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: On becoming king, Edward I rebuilt the status of the monarchy, restoring and extending key castles that had fallen into disrepair. Uprisings by the princes of North Wales led to Edward mobilising a huge army, defeating the native Welsh and undertaking a programme of English colonisation and castle building across the region. Further wars were conducted in Flanders and Aquitaine. Edward also fought campaigns in Scotland, but was unable to achieve strategic victory, and the costs created tensions that nearly led to civil war. Edward II inherited the war with Scotland and faced growing opposition to his rule as a result of his royal favourites and military failures. The Despenser War of 1321–22 was followed by instability and the subsequent overthrow, and possible murder, of Edward in 1327 at the hands of his French wife, Isabella, and a rebel baron, Roger Mortimer. Isabella and Mortimer's regime lasted only a few years before falling to a coup, led by Isabella's son Edward III, in 1330.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Like his grandfather, Edward III took steps to restore royal power, but during the 1340s the Black Death arrived in England. The losses from the epidemic, and the recurring plagues that followed it, significantly affected events in England for many years to come. Meanwhile, Edward, under pressure from France in Aquitaine, made a challenge for the French throne. Over the next century, English forces fought many campaigns in a long-running conflict that became known as the Hundred Years' War. Despite the challenges involved in raising the revenues to pay for the war, Edward's military successes brought an influx of plundered wealth to many parts of England and enabled substantial building work by the king. Many members of the English elite, including Edward's son the Black Prince, were heavily involved in campaigning in France and administering the new continental territories.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Edward's grandson, the young Richard II, faced political and economic problems, many resulting from the Black Death, including the Peasants' Revolt that broke out across the south of England in 1381. Over the coming decades, Richard and groups of nobles vied for power and control of policy towards France until Henry of Bolingbroke seized the throne with the support of parliament in 1399. Ruling as Henry IV, he exercised power through a royal council and parliament, while attempting to enforce political and religious conformity. His son, Henry V, reinvigorated the war with France and came close to achieving strategic success shortly before his death in 1422. Henry VI became king at the age of only nine months and both the English political system and the military situation in France began to unravel.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: A sequence of bloody civil wars, later termed the Wars of the Roses, finally broke out in 1455, spurred on by an economic crisis and a widespread perception of poor government. Edward IV, leading a faction known as the Yorkists, removed Henry from power in 1461 but by 1469 fighting recommenced as Edward, Henry, and Edward's brother George, backed by leading nobles and powerful French supporters, vied for power. By 1471 Edward was triumphant and most of his rivals were dead. On his death, power passed to his brother Richard of Gloucester, who initially ruled on behalf of the young Edward V before seizing the throne himself as Richard III. The future Henry VII, aided by French and Scottish troops, returned to England and defeated Richard at the battle of Bosworth in 1485, bringing an end to the majority of the fighting, although lesser rebellions against his Tudor dynasty would continue for several years afterwards.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were hierarchical societies, each based on ties of allegiance between powerful lords and their immediate followers. At the top of the social structure was the king, who stood above many of the normal processes of Anglo-Saxon life and whose household had special privileges and protection. Beneath the king were "thegns", nobles, the more powerful of which maintained their own courts and were termed "ealdormen". The relationship between kings and their nobles was bound up with military symbolism and the ritual exchange of weapons and armour. Freemen, called "churls", formed the next level of society, often holding land in their own right or controlling businesses in the towns. "Geburs", peasants who worked land belonging to a "thegn", formed a lower class still. The very lowest class were slaves, who could be bought and sold and who held only minimal rights.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The balance of power between these different groups changed over time. Early in the period, kings were elected by members of the late king's council, but primogeniture rapidly became the norm for succession. The kings further bolstered their status by adopting Christian ceremonies and nomenclature, introducing ecclesiastical coronations during the 8th century and terming themselves "Christ's deputy" by the 11th century. Huge estates were initially built up by the king, bishops, monasteries and "thegns", but in the 9th and 10th centuries these were slowly broken up as a consequence of inheritance arrangements, marriage settlements and church purchases. In the 11th century, the royal position worsened further, as the "ealdormen" rapidly built up huge new estates, making them collectively much more powerful than the king—this contributed to the political instability of the final Anglo-Saxon years. As time went by, the position of the "churls" deteriorated, as their rights were slowly eroded and their duties to their lords increased.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The kingdom of Wessex, which eventually laid claim to England as a whole, evolved a centralised royal administration. One part of this was the king's council, the "witenagemot", comprising the senior clergy, "ealdormen", and some of the more important "thegns"; the council met to advise the king on policy and legal issues. The royal household included officials, "thegns" and a secretariat of clergy which travelled with the king, conducting the affairs of government as it went. Under the Danish kings, a bodyguard of housecarls also accompanied the court. At a regional level, "ealdormen" played an important part in government, defence and taxation, and the post of sheriff emerged in the 10th century, administering local shires on behalf of an ealdorman. Anglo-Saxon mints were tightly controlled by the kings, providing a high-quality currency, and the whole country was taxed using a system called hidage.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The Anglo-Saxon kings built up a set of written laws, issued either as statutes or codes, but these laws were never written down in their entirety and were always supplemented by an extensive oral tradition of customary law. In the early part of the period local assemblies called moots were gathered to apply the laws to particular cases; in the 10th century these were replaced by hundred courts, serving local areas, and shire moots dealing with larger regions of the kingdom. Many churchmen and "thegns" were also given permission by the king to hold their own local courts. The legal system depended on a system of oaths in which the value of different individuals swearing on behalf of the plaintiff or defendant varied according to their social status – the word of a companion of the king, for example, was worth twelve times that of a "churl". If fines were imposed, their size similarly varied accord to the oath-value of the individual. The Anglo-Saxon authorities struggled to deal with the bloodfeuds between families that emerged following violent killings, attempting to use a system of "weregild", a payment of blood money, as a way of providing an alternative to long-running vendettas.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Within twenty years of the Norman conquest, the former Anglo-Saxon elite were replaced by a new class of Norman nobility, with around 8,000 Normans and French settling in England. The new earls (successors to the ealdermen), sheriffs and church seniors were all drawn from their ranks. In many areas of society there was continuity, as the Normans adopted many of the Anglo-Saxon governmental institutions, including the tax system, mints and the centralisation of law-making and some judicial matters; initially sheriffs and the hundred courts continued to function as before. The existing tax liabilities were captured in the Domesday Book, produced in 1086.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Changes in other areas soon began to be felt. The method of government after the conquest can be described as a feudal system, in that the new nobles held their lands on behalf of the king; in return for promising to provide military support and taking an oath of allegiance, called homage, they were granted lands termed a fief or an honour. Major nobles in turn granted lands to smaller landowners in return for homage and further military support, and eventually the peasantry held land in return for local labour services, creating a web of loyalties and resources enforced in part by new honorial courts. This system had been used in Normandy and concentrated more power in the king and the upper elite than the former Anglo-Saxon system of government. The practice of slavery declined in the years after the conquest, as the Normans considered the practice backward and contrary to the teachings of the church. The more prosperous peasants, however, lost influence and power as the Normans made holding land more dependent on providing labour services to the local lord. They sank down the economic hierarchy, swelling the numbers of unfree villeins or serfs, forbidden to leave their manor or seek alternative employment.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: At the centre of power, the kings employed a succession of clergy as chancellors, responsible for running the royal chancery, while the "familia regis", the military household, emerged to act as a bodyguard and military staff. England's bishops continued to form an important part in local administration, alongside the nobility. Henry I and Henry II both implemented significant legal reforms, extending and widening the scope of centralised, royal law; by the 1180s, the basis for the future English common law had largely been established, with a standing law court in Westminster—an early Common Bench—and travelling judges conducting eyres around the country. King John extended the royal role in delivering justice, and the extent of appropriate royal intervention was one of the issues addressed in the "Magna Carta" of 1215. The emerging legal system reinvigorated the institution of serfdom in the 13th century by drawing an increasingly sharp distinction between freemen and villeins.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Many tensions existed within the system of government. Royal landownings and wealth stretched across England, and placed the king in a privileged position above even the most powerful of the noble elite. Successive kings, though, still needed more resources to pay for military campaigns, conduct building programmes or to reward their followers, and this meant exercising their feudal rights to interfere in the land-holdings of nobles. This was contentious and a frequent issue of complaint, as there was a growing belief that land should be held by hereditary right, not through the favour of the king. Property and wealth became increasingly focused in the hands of a subset of the nobility, the great magnates, at the expense of the wider baronage, encouraging the breakdown of some aspects of local feudalism. As time went by, the Norman nobility intermarried with many of the great Anglo-Saxon families, and the links with the Duchy began to weaken. By the late 12th century, mobilising the English barons to fight on the continent was proving difficult, and John's attempts to do so ended in civil war. Civil strife re-emerged under Henry III, with the rebel barons in 1258–59 demanding widespread reforms, and an early version of Parliament was summoned in 1265 to represent the rebel interests.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: On becoming king in 1272, Edward I reestablished royal power, overhauling the royal finances and appealing to the broader English elite by using Parliament to authorise the raising of new taxes and to hear petitions concerning abuses of local governance. This political balance collapsed under Edward II and savage civil wars broke out during the 1320s. Edward III restored order once more with the help of a majority of the nobility, exercising power through the exchequer, the common bench and the royal household. This government was better organised and on a larger scale than ever before, and by the 14th century the king's formerly peripatetic chancery had to take up permanent residence in Westminster. Edward used Parliament even more than his predecessors to handle general administration, to legislate and to raise the necessary taxes to pay for the wars in France. The royal lands—and incomes from them—had diminished over the years, and increasingly frequent taxation was required to support royal initiatives. Edward held elaborate chivalric events in an effort to unite his supporters around the symbols of knighthood. The ideal of chivalry continued to develop throughout the 14th century, reflected in the growth of knightly orders (including the Order of the Garter), grand tournaments and round table events.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Society and government in England in the early 14th century were challenged by the Great Famine and the Black Death. The economic and demographic crisis created a sudden surplus of land, undermining the ability of landowners to exert their feudal rights and causing a collapse in incomes from rented lands. Wages soared, as employers competed for a scarce workforce. Statute of Labourers 1351 was introduced to limit wages and to prevent the consumption of luxury goods by the lower classes, with prosecutions coming to take up most of the legal system's energy and time. A poll tax was introduced in 1377 that spread the costs of the war in France more widely across the whole population. The tensions spilled over into violence in the summer of 1381 in the form of the Peasants' Revolt; a violent retribution followed, with as many as 7,000 alleged rebels executed. A new class of gentry emerged as a result of these changes, renting land from the major nobility to farm out at a profit. The legal system continued to expand during the 14th century, dealing with an ever-wider set of complex problems.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: By the time that Richard II was deposed in 1399, the power of the major noble magnates had grown considerably; powerful rulers such as Henry IV would contain them, but during the minority of Henry VI they controlled the country. The magnates depended upon their income from rent and trade to allow them to maintain groups of paid, armed retainers, often sporting controversial livery, and buy support amongst the wider gentry; this system has been dubbed bastard feudalism. Their influence was exerted both through the House of Lords at Parliament and through the king's council. The gentry and wealthier townsmen exercised increasing influence through the House of Commons, opposing raising taxes to pay for the French wars. By the 1430s and 1440s the English government was in major financial difficulties, leading to the crisis of 1450 and a popular revolt under the leadership of Jack Cade. Law and order deteriorated, and the crown was unable to intervene in the factional fighting between different nobles and their followers. The resulting Wars of the Roses saw a savage escalation of violence between the noble leaderships of both sides: captured enemies were executed and family lands attainted. By the time that Henry VII took the throne in 1485, England's governmental and social structures had been substantially weakened, with whole noble lines extinguished.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Medieval England was a patriarchal society and the lives of women were heavily influenced by contemporary beliefs about gender and authority. However, the position of women varied considerably according to various factors, including their social class; whether they were unmarried, married, widowed or remarried; and in which part of the country they lived. Significant gender inequities persisted throughout the period, as women typically had more limited life-choices, access to employment and trade, and legal rights than men.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: In Anglo-Saxon society, noblewomen enjoyed considerable rights and status, although the society was still firmly patriarchal. Some exercised power as abbesses, exerting widespread influence across the early English Church, although their wealth and authority diminished with the monastic reforms of the 9th century. Anglo-Saxon queens began to hold lands in their own right in the 10th century and their households contributed to the running of the kingdom. Although women could not lead military forces, in the absence of their husbands some noblewomen led the defence of manors and towns. Most Anglo-Saxon women, however, worked on the land as part of the agricultural community, or as brewers or bakers.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: After the Norman invasion, the position of women in society changed. The rights and roles of women became more sharply defined, in part as a result of the development of the feudal system and the expansion of the English legal system; some women benefited from this, while others lost out. The rights of widows were formally laid down in law by the end of the 12th century, clarifying the right of free women to own property, but this did not necessarily prevent women from being forcibly remarried against their wishes. The growth of governmental institutions under a succession of bishops reduced the role of queens and their households in formal government. Married or widowed noblewomen remained significant cultural and religious patrons and played an important part in political and military events, even if chroniclers were uncertain if this was appropriate behaviour. As in earlier centuries, most women worked in agriculture, but here roles became more clearly gendered, with ploughing and managing the fields defined as men's work, for example, and dairy production becoming dominated by women.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The years after the Black Death left many women widows; in the wider economy labour was in short supply and land was suddenly readily available. In rural areas peasant women could enjoy a better standard of living than ever before, but the amount of work being done by women may have increased. Many other women travelled to the towns and cities, to the point where they outnumbered men in some settlements. There they worked with their husbands, or in a limited number of occupations, including spinning, making clothes, victualling and as servants. Some women became full-time ale brewers, until they were pushed out of business by the male-dominated beer industry in the 15th century. Higher status jobs and apprenticeships, however, remained closed to women. As in earlier times, noblewomen exercised power on their estates in their husbands' absence and again, if necessary, defended them in sieges and skirmishes. Wealthy widows who could successfully claim their rightful share of their late husband's property could live as powerful members of the community in their own right.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: An English cultural identity first emerged from the interaction of the Germanic immigrants of the 5th and 6th centuries and the indigenous Romano-British inhabitants. Although early medieval chroniclers described the immigrants as Angles and Saxons, they came from a much wider area across Northern Europe, and represented a range of different ethnic groups. Over the 6th century, however, these different groups began to coalesce into stratified societies across England, roughly corresponding to the later Angle and Saxon kingdoms recorded by Bede in the 8th century. By the 9th century, the term the "Angelcynn" was being officially used to refer to a single English people, and promoted for propaganda purposes by chroniclers and kings to inspire resistance to the Danish invasions.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The Normans and French who arrived after the conquest saw themselves as different from the English. They had close family and economic links to the Duchy of Normandy, spoke Norman French and had their own distinctive culture. For many years, to be English was to be associated with military failure and serfdom. During the 12th century, the divisions between the English and Normans began to dissolve as a result of intermarriage and cohabitation. By the end of the 12th century, and possibly as early as the 1150, contemporary commentators believed the two peoples to be blending, and the loss of the Duchy in 1204 reinforced this trend. The resulting society still prized wider French cultural values, however, and French remained the language of the court, business and international affairs, even if Parisians mocked the English for their poor pronunciation. By the 14th century, however, French was increasingly having to be formally taught, rather than being learnt naturally in the home, although the aristocracy would typically spend many years of their lives in France and remained entirely comfortable working in French.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: During the 12th and 13th centuries, the English began to consider themselves superior to the Welsh, Scots and Bretons. The English perceived themselves as civilised, economically prosperous and properly Christian, while the Celtic fringe was considered lazy, barbarous and backward. Following the invasion of Ireland in the late 12th century, similar feelings were expressed about the Irish, with the distinctions clarified and reinforced in 14th-century English legislation. The English also felt strongly about the foreign traders who lived in the special enclaves in London in the Late Middle Ages; the position of the Jews is described below, but Italian and Baltic traders were also regarded as aliens and were frequently the targets of violence during economic downturns. Even within England, different identities abounded, each with their own sense of status and importance. Regional identities could be important – men and women from Yorkshire, for example, had a clear identity within English society, and professional groups with a distinct identity, such as lawyers, engaged in open fighting with others in cities such as London.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The Jewish community played an important role in England throughout much of the period. The first Jews arrived in England in the aftermath of the Norman invasion, when William the Conqueror brought over wealthy members of the Rouen community in Normandy to settle in London. The Jewish community expanded out across England and provided essential money-lending and banking services that were otherwise banned by the usury laws. During the 12th century, the Jewish financial community grew richer still, operating under royal protection and providing the king with a source of ready credit. All major towns had Jewish centres, and even the smaller towns saw visits by travelling Jewish merchants. Towards the end of Henry II's reign, however, the king ceased to borrow from the Jewish community and instead turned to extracting money from them through arbitrary taxation and fines. The Jews became vilified and accusations were made that they conducted ritual child murder, encouraging the pogroms carried out against Jewish communities in the reign of Richard I. After an initially peaceful start to John's reign, the king again began to extort money from the Jewish community and, with the breakdown in order in 1215, the Jews were subject to fresh attacks. Henry III restored some protection and Jewish money-lending began to recover. Despite this, the Jewish community became increasingly impoverished and was finally expelled from England in 1290 by Edward I, being replaced by foreign merchants.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Christianity had been the official imperial religion of the Roman Empire, and the first churches were built in England in the second half of the 4th century, overseen by a hierarchy of bishops and priests. Many existing pagan shrines were converted to Christian use and few pagan sites still operated by the 5th century. The collapse of the Roman system in the late 5th century, however, brought about the end of formal Christian religion in the east of England, and the new Germanic immigrants arrived with their own polytheistic gods, including Woden, Thunor and Tiw, still reflected in various English place names. Despite the resurgence of paganism in England, Christian communities still survived in more western areas such as Gloucestershire and Somerset.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The movement towards Christianity began again in the late 6th and 7th centuries, helped by the conversion of the Franks in Northern France, who carried considerable influence in England. Pope Gregory I sent a team of missionaries to convert King Æthelberht of Kent and his household, starting the process of converting Kent. Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury and started to build new churches across the South-East, reusing existing pagan shrines. Oswald and Oswiu, kings of Northumbria, were converted in the 630s and 640s, and the wave of change carried on through the middle of the 7th century across the kingdoms of Mercia, the South Saxons and the Isle of Wight. The process was largely complete by the end of the 7th century, but left a confusing and disparate array of local practices and religious ceremonies. This new Christianity reflected the existing military culture of the Anglo-Saxons: as kings began to convert in the 6th and 7th centuries, conversion began to be used as a justification for war against the remaining pagan kingdoms, for example, while Christian saints were imbued with martial properties.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The Viking invasions of the 8th and 9th centuries reintroduced paganism to North-East England, leading in turn to another wave of conversion. Indigenous Scandinavian beliefs were very similar to other Germanic groups, with a pantheon of gods including Odin, Thor and Ullr, combined with a belief in a final, apocalyptic battle called Ragnarok. The Norse settlers in England were converted relatively quickly, assimilating their beliefs into Christianity in the decades following the occupation of York, which the Archbishop had survived. The process was largely complete by the early 10th century and enabled England's leading Churchmen to negotiate with the warlords. As the Norse in mainland Scandinavia started to convert, many mainland rulers recruited missionaries from England to assist in the process.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: With the conversion of much of England in the 6th and 7th centuries, there was an explosion of local church building. English monasteries formed the main basis for the church, however, and were often sponsored by local rulers, taking various forms, including mixed communities headed by abbesses, bishop-led communities of monks, and others formed around married priests and their families. Cathedrals were constructed, staffed either with secular canons in the European tradition or, uniquely to England, chapters of monks. These institutions were badly affected in the 9th century by Viking raids and predatory annexations by the nobility. By the start of the 10th century, monastic lands, financial resources and the quality of monasteries' religious work had been much diminished. Reforms followed under the kings of Wessex who promoted the Benedictine rule then popular on the Continent. A reformed network of around 40 monastic institutions across the south and east of England, under the protection of the king, helped re-establish royal control over the reconquered Danelaw.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The 1066 Norman conquest brought a new set of Norman and French churchmen to power; some adopted and embraced aspects of the former Anglo-Saxon religious system, while others introduced practices from Normandy. Extensive English lands were granted to monasteries in Normandy, allowing them to create daughter priories and monastic cells across the kingdom. The monasteries were brought firmly into the web of feudal relations, with their holding of land linked to the provision of military support to the crown. The Normans adopted the Anglo-Saxon model of monastic cathedral communities, and within seventy years the majority of English cathedrals were controlled by monks; every English cathedral, however, was rebuilt to some extent by the new rulers. England's bishops remained powerful temporal figures, and in the early 12th-century raised armies against Scottish invaders and built up extensive holdings of castles across the country.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: New orders began to be introduced into England. As ties to Normandy waned, the French Cluniac order became fashionable and their houses were introduced in England. The Augustinians spread quickly from the beginning of the 12th century onwards, while later in the century the Cistercians reached England, creating houses with a more austere interpretation of the monastic rules and building the great abbeys of Rievaulx and Fountains. By 1215, there were over 600 monastic communities in England, but new endowments slowed during the 13th century, creating long-term financial problems for many institutions. The Dominican and Franciscan friars arrived in England during the 1220s, establishing 150 friaries by the end of the 13th century; these mendicant orders rapidly became popular, particularly in towns, and heavily influenced local preaching. The religious military orders that became popular across Europe from the 12th century onwards acquired possessions in England, including the Templars, Teutons and Hospitallers.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The Church had a close relationship with the English state throughout the Middle Ages. The bishops and major monastic leaders played an important part in national government, having key roles on the king's council. Bishops often oversaw towns and cities, managing local taxation and government. This frequently became untenable with the Viking incursions of the 9th century, and in locations such as Worcester the local bishops came to new accommodations with the local "ealdormen", exchanging some authority and revenue for assistance in defence. The early English church was racked with disagreement on doctrine, which was addressed by the Synod of Whitby in 664; some issues were resolved, but arguments between the archbishops of Canterbury and York as to which had primacy across Britain began shortly afterwards and continued throughout most of the medieval period.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: William the Conqueror acquired the support of the Church for the invasion of England by promising ecclesiastical reform. William promoted celibacy amongst the clergy and gave ecclesiastical courts more power, but also reduced the Church's direct links to Rome and made it more accountable to the king. Tensions arose between these practices and the reforming movement of Pope Gregory VII, which advocated greater autonomy from royal authority for the clergy, condemned the practice of simony and promoted greater influence for the papacy in church matters. Despite the bishops continuing to play a major part in royal government, tensions emerged between the kings of England and key leaders within the English Church. Kings and archbishops clashed over rights of appointment and religious policy, and successive archbishops including Anselm, Theobald of Bec, Thomas Becket and Stephen Langton were variously forced into exile, arrested by royal knights or even killed. By the early 13th century, however, the church had largely won its argument for independence, answering almost entirely to Rome.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: In the 1380s, several challenges emerged to the traditional teachings of the Church, resulting from the teachings of John Wycliffe, a member of Oxford University. Wycliffe argued that scripture was the best guide to understanding God's intentions, and that the superficial nature of the liturgy, combined with the abuses of wealth within the Church and the role of senior churchmen in government, distracted from that study. A loose movement that included many members of the gentry pursued these ideas after Wycliffe's death in 1384 and attempted to pass a Parliamentary bill in 1395: the movement was rapidly condemned by the authorities and was termed "Lollardy". The English bishops were charged to control and counter this trend, disrupting Lollard preachers and to enforcing the teaching of suitable sermons in local churches. By the early 15th century, combating Lollard teachings had become a key political issue, championed by Henry IV and his Lancastrian followers, who used the powers of both the church and state to combat the heresy.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Pilgrimages were a popular religious practice throughout the Middle Ages in England, with the tradition dating back to the Roman period. Typically pilgrims would travel short distances to a shrine or a particular church, either to do penance for a perceived sin, or to seek relief from an illness or other condition. Some pilgrims travelled further, either to more distant sites within Britain or, in a few cases, onto the continent.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: During the Anglo-Saxon period, many shrines were built on former pagan sites which became popular pilgrimage destinations, while other pilgrims visited prominent monasteries and sites of learning. Senior nobles or kings would travel to Rome, which was a popular destination from the 7th century onwards; sometimes these trips were a form of convenient political exile. Under the Normans, religious institutions with important shrines, such as Glastonbury, Canterbury and Winchester, promoted themselves as pilgrimage destinations, maximising the value of the historic miracles associated with the sites. Accumulating relics became an important task for ambitious institutions, as these were believed to hold curative powers and lent status to the site. Indeed, by the 12th century reports of posthumous miracles by local saints were becoming increasingly common in England, adding to the attractiveness of pilgrimages to prominent relics.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Participation in the Crusades was also seen as a form of pilgrimage, and indeed the same Latin word, "peregrinatio", was sometimes applied to both activities. While English participation in the First Crusade between 1095 and 1099 was limited, England played a prominent part in the Second, Third and Fifth Crusades over the next two centuries, with many crusaders leaving for the Levant during the intervening years. The idea of undertaking a pilgrimage to Jerusalem was not new in England, however, as the idea of religiously justified warfare went back to Anglo-Saxon times. Many of those who took up the Cross to go on a Crusade never actually left, often because the individual lacked sufficient funds to undertake the journey. Raising funds to travel typically involved crusaders selling or mortgaging their lands and possessions, which affected their families and, at times, considerably affected the economy as a whole.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: England had a diverse geography in the medieval period, from the Fenlands of East Anglia or the heavily wooded Weald, through to the upland moors of Yorkshire. Despite this, medieval England broadly formed two zones, roughly divided by the rivers Exe and Tees: the south and east of England had lighter, richer soils, able to support both arable and pastoral agriculture, while the poorer soils and colder climate of the north and west produced a predominantly pastoral economy. Slightly more land was covered by trees than in the 20th century, and bears, beavers and wolves lived wild in England, bears being hunted to extinction by the 11th century and beavers by the 12th. Of the 10,000 miles of roads that had been built by the Romans, many remained in use and four were of particular strategic importance—the Icknield Way, the Fosse Way, Ermine Street and Watling Street—which criss-crossed the entire country. The road system was adequate for the needs of the period, although it was significantly cheaper to transport goods by water. The major river networks formed key transport routes, while many English towns formed navigable inland ports.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: For much of the Middle Ages, England's climate differed from that in the 21st century. Between the 9th and 13th centuries England went through the Medieval Warm Period, a prolonged period of warmer temperatures; in the early 13th century, for example, summers were around 1 °C warmer than today and the climate was slightly drier. These warmer temperatures allowed poorer land to be brought into cultivation and for grapevines to be cultivated relatively far north. The Warm Period was followed by several centuries of much cooler temperatures, termed the Little Ice Age; by the 14th century spring temperatures had dropped considerably, reaching their coldest in the 1340s and 1350s. This cold end to the Middle Ages significantly affected English agriculture and living conditions.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Even at the start of the Middle Ages the English landscape had been shaped by human occupation over many centuries. Much woodland was new, the result of fields being reclaimed by brush after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Human intervention had established wood pastures, an ancient system for managing woods and animals, and coppicing, a more intensive approach to managing woodlands. Other agricultural lands included arable fields and pastorage, while in some parts of the country, such as the South-West, waste moorland remained testament to earlier over-farming in the Bronze Age. England's environment continued to be shaped throughout the period, through the building of dykes to drain marshes, tree clearance and the large-scale extraction of peat. Managed parks for hunting game, including deer and boars, were built as status symbols by the nobility from the 12th century onwards, but earlier versions of parks, such as hays, may have originated as early as the 7th century.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The English economy was fundamentally agricultural, depending on growing crops such as wheat, barley and oats on an open field system, and husbanding sheep, cattle and pigs. In the late Anglo-Saxon period many peasants moved away from living in isolated hamlets and instead came together to form larger villages engaged in arable cultivation. Agricultural land became typically organised around manors, and was divided between some fields that the landowner would manage directly, called demesne land, and the majority of the fields that would be cultivated by local peasants. These peasants would pay rent to the landowner either through agricultural labour on the lord's demesne fields or through rent in the form of cash and produce. By the 11th century, a market economy was flourishing across much of England, while the eastern and southern towns were heavily involved in international trade. Around 6,000 watermills were built to grind flour, freeing up labour for other more productive agricultural tasks.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Although the Norman invasion caused some damage as soldiers looted the countryside and land was confiscated for castle building, the English economy was not greatly affected. Taxes were increased, however, and the Normans established extensive forests that were exploited for their natural resources and protected by royal laws. The next two centuries saw huge growth in the English economy, driven in part by the increase in the population from around 1.5 million in 1086 to between 4 and 5 million in 1300. More land, much of it at the expense of the royal forests, was brought into production to feed the growing population and to produce wool for export to Europe. Many hundreds of new towns, some of them planned communities, were built across England, supporting the creation of guilds, charter fairs and other medieval institutions which governed the growing trade. Jewish financiers played a significant role in funding the growing economy, along with the new Cistercian and Augustinian religious orders that emerged as major players in the wool trade of the north. Mining increased in England, with a silver boom in the 12th century helping to fuel the expansion of the money supply.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Economic growth began to falter at the end of the 13th century, owing to a combination of overpopulation, land shortages and depleted soils. The Great Famine shook the English economy severely and population growth ceased; the first outbreak of the Black Death in 1348 then killed around half the English population. The agricultural sector shrank rapidly, with higher wages, lower prices and diminishing profits leading to the final demise of the old demesne system and the advent of the modern farming system centring on the charging of cash rents for lands. As returns on land fell, many estates, and in some cases entire settlements, were simply abandoned, and nearly 1,500 villages were deserted during this period. A new class of gentry emerged who rented farms from the major nobility. Unsuccessful government attempts were made to regulate wages and consumption, but these largely collapsed in the decades following the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The English cloth industry grew considerably at the start of the 15th century, and a new class of international English merchant emerged, typically based in London or the South-West, prospering at the expense of the older, shrinking economies of the eastern towns. These new trading systems brought about the end of many of the international fairs and the rise of the chartered company. Fishing in the North Sea expanded into deeper waters, backed by commercial investment from major merchants. Between 1440 and 1480, however, Europe entered a recession and England suffered the Great Slump: trade collapsed, driving down agricultural prices, rents and ultimately the acceptable levels of royal taxation. The resulting tensions and discontent played an important part in Jack Cade's popular uprising in 1450 and the subsequent Wars of the Roses. By the end of Middle Ages the economy had begun to recover and considerable improvements were being made in metalworking and shipbuilding that would shape the Early Modern economy.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Technology and science in England advanced considerably during the Middle Ages, driven in part by the Greek and Islamic thinking that reached England from the 12th century onwards. Many advances were made in scientific ideas, including the introduction of Arabic numerals and a sequence of improvements in the units used for measuring time. Clocks were first built in England in the late 13th century, and the first mechanical clocks were certainly being installed in cathedrals and abbeys by the 1320s. Astrology, magic and palm reading were also considered important forms of knowledge in medieval England, although some doubted their reliability.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The period produced some influential English scholars. Roger Bacon, a philosopher and Franciscan friar, produced works on natural philosophy, astronomy and alchemy; his work set out the theoretical basis for future experimentation in the natural sciences. William of Ockham helped to fuse Latin, Greek and Islamic writing into a general theory of logic; "Ockham's Razor" was one of his oft-cited conclusions. English scholars since the time of Bede had believed the world was probably round, but Johannes de Sacrobosco estimated the circumference of the earth in the 13th century. Despite the limitations of medieval medicine, Gilbertus Anglicus published the "Compendium Medicinae", one of the longest medical works ever written in Latin. Prominent historical and science texts began to be translated into English for the first time in the second half of the 14th century, including the "Polychronicon" and "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville". The universities of Oxford and Cambridge were established during the 11th and 12th centuries, drawing on the model of the University of Paris.