These JPs as they became known, were usually less important lords or members of the landed gentry. They were & still are chosen for their fairness & honesty. This made the middle classes still stronger. The JPs remained the only form of local government to the countryside until 1888. They still exist to deal with small offenses. In the 15th cent. grew discontent with the Church. The greed of the Church was one reason. Another was that Ed III's wars had made the English conscious of their ,,Englishness". Pope was a foreigner, and what was worse, he had been driven out of Rome & was living in France. The taxes they paid to the Church seemed to be help to France. In this the king & people agreed. The bishops & clergy did not oppose the king either. The peasants stormed London in 1381 & executed the Archbishop of Canterbury. Another threat was the private prayer books. At the end of the 14th cent. ,,Lollardy". These ideas were condemned as heresy. The leader
It became the language of the educated classes for the next two or three centuries. English continued to be spoken mainly by ordinary, uneducated people but was no longer written. By the end of the fourteenth century, however, English was once again a written language, because it was used instead of French by the ruling classes. During the Hundred Years’ War Edward III (1327–1377) actually forbade the speaking of French in his army. It was a way of making the whole army aware of its Englishness, which was important during the war. Two writers, above all others, helped in the rebirth of English literature: William Langland (1330–1400), a priest and poet, whose poem ‘Piers the Ploughman’ [«Петр Пахарь»] gives a powerful description of his time, and Geoffrey Chaucer (1340– 1400), a poet who has become much more famous: ‘The Canterbury Tales’ [«Кентерберийские рассказы»], etc. Middle English is Different
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