general decline in literature, and the most obvious causes were:
the Wars of the Roses, which destroyed many of the patrons of
literature; the Reformation, which occupied the nation with
religious controversy; and the Renaissance or Revival of Learning,
which turned scholars to the literature of Greece and Rome rather
than to English works.

In our study of the latter part of the period we reviewed: (1) the
rise of the popular ballad, which was almost the only type of
literature known to the common people. (2) The work of Malory, who
arranged the best of the Arthurian legends in his _Morte
d'Arthur._ (3) The work of Caxton, who brought the first
printing press to London, and who was instrumental in establishing
the East-Midland dialect as the literary language of England.

SELECTIONS FOR READING. Typical selections from all authors of the
period are given in Manly, English Poetry, and English Prose;
Newcomer and Andrews, Twelve Centuries of English Poetry and Prose;
Ward, English Poets; Morris and Skeat, Specimens of Early English.

Chaucer's Prologue, Knight's Tale, and other selections in
Riverside Literature, King's Classics, and several other school
series. A good single-volume edition of Chaucer's poetry is Skeat,
The Student's Chaucer (Clarendon Press). A good, but expensive,
modernized version is Tatlock and MacKaye, Modern Reader's Chaucer
(Macmillan).

Metrical version of Piers Plowman, by Skeat, in King's Classics;
modernized prose version by Kate Warren, in Treasury of English
Literature (Dodge).