The "Middle Ages" was a term coined in the early modern era to describe that period of history, and its attendant cultures, that was defined by the demise of the classical world and the beginning of the "Renaissance," although these lines of demarcation can be challenged. This cluster explores the literature and language of England from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries, as well as the roots that contributed to it (Classical and Scriptural Backgrounds) and modern adaptations of it (what we call "medievalism").