Download Changes in Medieval Society

Changes in Medieval Society
• A Medieval Town
• “…Jam-packed wooden houses, each a potential
tinderbox, sought extra room through upper stories
jutting out over the street. The streets themselves were
mere alleys, 6 to 10 ft. across. Sewers were open and
sanitation scant. The stroller had to dodge slops (human
wastes) from above and swilling pigs below; scabrous
(covered with scabs or rough patches of skin) beggars
jostled him. Except when he raised his eyes to the
Gothic grace of town belfry or church spire, signs of filth
and disease assailed him everywhere.”
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Why were medieval towns prone to disastrous fires?
What danger from above did passerby face?
Why do you think people chose to live in towns despite the filth?
The passage describes the scene that assailed one’s eyes. What
other sense would have been assailed?
Other Stuff
• While Church reform, cathedral building, and Crusades
were taking place…..
• Advances in:
▫ Agriculture
▫ Trade and finances
▫ Population growth and growht of towns
▫ Cultural interaction with Muslim and Byzantine worlds
Changes in Agriculture
• From 800 to 1200 the
climate warms,
opening more land to
farming
• Changes in
technology result in
more food production
Switch to Horsepower
• Harnessed horses replace
oxen in pulling plows and
wagons
• Horses plow three times
as much a day, increasing
food supply
Watermills and Windmills
• Most important device
for harnessing power
before the steam engine
• Watermills were used to
grind grains for flour,
make cloth, sawmills to
cut wood
▫ Located by streams
• If didn’t have access to
rivers, they used
windmills
▫ Windmills used to
pump water & cut
wood
The Three-Field System
• Around 800 three-field system used-plant two fields, let
one rest
• This produces more food and leads to population
increase
The Guilds
• Guild-organization of people in the same occupation
▫ Merchant guilds begin first; they keep prices up,
provide security
▫ Skilled artisans, men and women, form craft guilds
Training
• Apprentice: trained 2-7 years; parents paid for
training; lived with master and his family; not
allowed to marry
• Journeyman or Day Worker: Worked for a
master for pay; worked 6 days a week; needed to
produce a masterpiece to become a master; had
to be accepted by the guild to be a master
• Master: Owned his own shop; worked with
other masters to protect their trade
European Women at Work
This manuscript painting shows women and men cooperating in the baking
of bread, long a staple of European diets.
Guild Services
• Guilds set standards for
quality, prices, wages,
working conditions
• Guilds supervise training of
new members of their craft
• Built almshouses for victims
of misfortune
• Provided dowries for poor
girls
• Took turns policing the
streets
• The wealth of guilds
influences government and
economy
Commercial Revolution
• Fairs and Trade
• Europe sees Commercial
Revolution-changes in
business and trade
• Trade fairs are held
several times a year in
towns
• Trade routes open to
Asia, North Africa, and
Byzantine ports
Trade
• Cloth was most
important trade item.
▫ Others: bacon, salt,
honey, cheese, wine,
leather, dyes, knives,
and ropes
• No longer was everything
produced on a selfsufficient manor.
Business and Banking
• Merchants develop credit to avoid carrying large sums of
money and made trading easier.
▫ Also take out loans to purchase goods, and banking
grows
• Usury - lending money at interest
▫ Church did not like this
• Jews become moneylenders with lack of Christians
• Church later relaxed its rule on usury and Christians
entered the banking business.
Cities Make a Comeback
• Growing Urban
Population
• 1000-1150 Europe’s pop.
rises from 30 million to
42 million
• Paris-60,000 by 1200
• Most towns - 1,500 to
2,500 people
Change is Not Good for Everyone
• Towns are uncomfortable
▫ Crowded, dirty, full of fire
hazards, filled with
animals and their waste
▫ No sewers
• Houses were built of
wood with thatched roofs
• Serfs can become free by
living in a town for a year
and a day
Merchants take over
• Feudal lords tax and
govern towns, causing
resentment
• Burghers
▫ Merchant-class town
dwellers who take
control of towns and
cities
What’s in a Name??
3. Occupation or social status.
1. Patronymic (from the first
Examples:
name of father).
Cooper - barrel maker
Examples:
Wagner or Waggoner - wagon
Peters - son of Peter (English,
maker
German)
Knight - knighthood
Peterson - son of Peter (Swedish)
Smith - blacksmith
Petersen - son of Peter (Danish)
O'Reilly - grandson of Reilly
4. Nicknames describing
(Ireland)
person or personality.
2. Lives near locality or place.
Examples:
Examples:
Reid - red, ruddy complexion or
KirkPatrick - Church (kirk) of St.
red hair
Patrick
Stout - Body size
Cliff - steep hill
Small - Body size
Fairholm - the fair island
Armstrong - strong arms
Ashley - field surrounded by ash
Sharpe - sharp, smart
trees
Learning Also Makes a Comeback
• The Muslim
Connection
• Christian scholars
read translations of
Greek works made by
Muslims
• Crusaders return with
Muslim knowledge of
navigation, ships, and
weapons
Scholars
• Groups of scholars
gather and develop
universities.
• Vernacular—everyday
language
• Dante Alighieri— The
Divine Comedy, which is
about…
• Geoffrey Chaucer—The
Canterbury Tales, which
is about…
European University
Life in the Middle
Ages
This 14th century manuscript
painting shows a classroom
scene from the University of
Bologna in Italy. Note the
sleeping and disruptive
students. Some things never
change.
Europe’s First Universities
• University of Bologna, Italy
▫ Attracted students from all of
Europe
▫ Most were administrators for
kings & princes
• University of Paris
• Oxford and Cambridge
▫ In the 12th century, after they
were expelled from the
University of Paris because of a
war between France and
England, some English students
and tutors settled at Oxford, and
others at Cambridge. From this
beginning evolved the two
universities. They were the only
ones in England until 1836,
when the University of London
was chartered.
Aquinas and Medieval Philosophy
• St. Thomas Aquinas
• He is a scholastic-university
man; debates issues to
increase knowledge
• Accepted the existence of
God on faith, but
believed it was subject to
logical proof.
• He taught that governments,
as well as the individuals they
served, were morally
responsible for acting in
accordance with divine law.
Fill in the blanks
• 1. The first ____________was a group of
merchants who worked to improve the economic
and social conditions of its members.
• Guild
• 2. Merchants and craftspeople who lived in the
towns and who demanded privileges such as
freedom from tolls and the right to govern their
town were called___________.
• Burghers
• 3. ____________were documents given by a
bank to an individual allowing that person to
withdraw an amount of money from that bank or
one of its branches.
• Letters of credit
• 4. The ______________allowed villages to
grow more food by organizing land into three
fields instead of two.
• Three-field system
• 5. In the 1100s, poets began to use the everyday
language of their homeland, or
the_______________.
• Vernacular
• 6. Scholars who met together at universities
were known as schoolmen,
or_____________.
• Scholastics
• 7. The expansion of trade and business as
agriculture was expanding is called the
__________________.
• Commercial Revolution
• 8. In many European countries, you
_______________ could also label your
profession.
• surname
• 9. A scholar in the 1200s named ________said
that logic could prove many religious truths.
• Thomas Aquinas
• 10. A day worker, known as a _______
• had to complete several steps in order to become
a master in his craft.
• journeyman
• 11. __________wrote the Canterbury Tales
which describes a pilgrimage to the shrine of St.
Thomas a Becket, around 1387 in English
• Chaucer
• 12. _________wrote The Divine Comedy.
• Dante
• 13. When the harness was improved,
_____could be successfully used for plowing
and for pulling wagons.
• Horses