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High middle ages and medieval
civilization:
the rise of western Europe
1000-1300 ad
High middle ages
• Church and State
• Out of the dark ages
• Monarchies
• The University
High middle ages
• 1: Church and State
– Period of great religious vitality: crusades, new orders (e.g.
Franciscans and Dominicans), intellectual creativity, missionary
work, papal leadership
– These factors lead to the Church being the most advanced
centralized government in Western Europe during the High Middle
Ages
– The basic problem from the point of view of the church reformers:
• Bishops must be secular, so the spiritual realm suffers sometimes
• Church is controlled by the state: $$$ talks (private donations of land to
monasteries, sale of offices, etc.)
• Popes head progress to moral reform, but it begins with monasteries
– Reform begins with Cluny (Benedictine monastery, founded 910)
• 1500 Cluniac monasteries throughout Europe
• Demand high moral standard for clergy, including celibacy
• Insist on separation of Church and State, including elimination of simony
and lay investiture
High middle ages
• Church and State
– Pope is a monarch
• Church unity = gathering around what is universally practiced and
believed (= “catholicism” and its evolution into what we know as
“Roman Catholicism” from the 16th century to the present); unity
in the high middle ages consisted of conformity in RITES and
OBEDIENCE to the pope
• Hildebrand (1020-1085) = Pope Gregory vii (1073-1085)
• Decreed against simony and married priests
• Forwarded papal supremacy, most in the “investiture controversy”
versus Henry iv (German emperor 1056-1106)
• Gregory deposes Henry and excommunicates him over failed
negotiations regarding the apptmt. of the Bishop of Milan
• Leads to rebellion in Germany
• Henry begs for absolution at Canossa
• Investiture not resolved until 1122 Concordat of Worms (formal
treaty): Emperor has right to nominate bishops, but pope alone
has privilege of ceremonial investiture
High middle ages
• Church and State
– Papal rule
• Papacy becomes supreme court (canon law): rule over
clergy, church property, donations, marriages and families,
inheritance, etc.; papal dispensation was a way around
canon law
• Popes gradually rise not from the monasteries but from
training in canon law
• Curia (created under Gregory’s watch) served as bank of the
West also (church had become financial capital of Europe)
• Pope holds sway with power of excommunication and
interdict
High middle ages
• Church and State
– Pope Innocent iii considers himself overlord of the world
• 1198-1216
• Founder of the “Papal State,” the historic precursor to Vatican City
today
• Called the 4th Crusade (bungled in Constantinople, 1204), also
against heresy in the West (Cathars and Waldensians): Inquisition
and military method to enforce unity
• Assumed right to veto imperial election
• Through excommunication and interdict, forced European kings to
become vassals of Rome
• Codified Roman rites (liturgy) and dogma: 4th Lateran Council
(1215)
– Papal monarchy fades with Boniface viii (1294-1303)
High middle ages
• Church and State
– Lay society
• Saints and relics
• Orders:
– Cluniac (frequent and lengthy church services)
– Cistercians (private prayer and manual labor)
– Mendicants (Dominicans: conversion of the Muslim and heretic
through argument; Franciscans: devotion to poor and
abandoned)
• Christian piety: a life defined by the sacraments
– Eucharist (concomitant)
– Baptism
– Penance
High middle ages
• 2: Out of the Dark Ages
– Agricultural revolution
• 600’s ad: 14 million people in Europe
• 1300: 74 million
• Watermills and windmills, metal horseshoes, horse and
ox collar, the heavy plow (6-8 horses or oxen)
• 3-field system
• Effects: villagers cooperated (plow teams and village
council), more and better food (population growth)
• Leads to migration and growth of cities
High middle ages
• 2: Out of the Dark Ages
– Cities
• Lords, bishops, and kings have trouble with newly expanding
cities (why?)
• Create institutions and culture of self-rule
• Rise of the new class: the merchant
• Agricultural revolution and city growth contribute to
economic boom in the 12th and 13th centuries
• Also: advances in transportation: new roads and repairs,
luxury trade (silk and spices)
• Also: business technique: new minted coins, partnerships
(banks), fairs
• All of this sets the stage for a change from feudal economy
High middle ages
• 3: Monarchies
– France
• Centralized French government, king on top, new royal officials in
court (the baillis): a powerful bureaucracy
• Louis ix 1226-1270 (St. Louis): renowned for piety
• Philip iv (1285-1314): brings church under his control
– England
• William kept 20% of the land for himself in 1066 and parceled out
the rest
• Centralization is based on everyone else in England holding a fief
from the king (all are vassals to the English crown)
• Henry ii (1154-1189) reforms judiciary through use of sheriffs (cf.
Robin Hood stories)
• Creates circuit courts, grand juries, and trial by jury, the basis for
law in the US, England, Canada today
• Universal justice for all – even the clergy (backfired on him with
the assassination of Thomas à Becket 12/29/1170)
High middle ages
• 3: Monarchies
– England and France
• John (1199-1216) loses Normandy to Phillip ii of France
• Barons of England, financing John’s losing wars, force
him to sign Magna Carta (1215)
• Fundamental principle: even kings must respect the law
• Beginning of English Parliament
– Holy Roman Empire (German states)
• Subdivided and fragmented
• Emperors rule through dukes (imperial vassals)
High middle ages
• 4: The University
– New ideas flourished because of contact with the
ancient world (Roman law, Greek philosophy),
Muslims (science, love poetry), and spread of
education
– Western distinctive art and learning develops:
drama, literature, music, architecture
– Literacy
• 1050: 1% of population is literate (priests)
• 1450: 40% of men in cities literate
High middle ages
• 4: The University
– Literacy
• 1050: only monasteries and cathedral schools are
educating (reading and writing, analysis)
• 1100: curriculum of cathedral school expands: Roman
masters, the beginning of the Liberal Arts
– Scholasticism
• Develops out of training in logic
• Leads to use of Aristotle to interpret Bible and Fathers
• Lectures and disputation provide framework for
modern debate
• Peter Abelard (1079-1142)
High middle ages
• 4: The University
– University begins from cathedral schools
• Students (collected in guilds) bargain with professors
for education
• Charters granted for the work the students and
professors do
• Curriculum is basis for what we still do
• Liberal arts: Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic (trivium) and
Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, Music (quadrivium)
• Principally training to become priests (therefore
women do not attend much till 19th century)
High middle ages
• 4: The University
– 12th century Renaissance
• 1140-1260, new Latin translations of Greek classics from Sicily and
Spain (Christian contact with Muslims and Jews)
• Muslims translated Greek philosophy and science into Arabic
• Jews translated the Arabic into Latin
• Some Latin catholic scholars translated Greek to Latin from
Byzantium too
• Greek philosophy raises questions about reasoning and faith – for
the Christian (Bible), Jew (Torah), and Muslim (Qu’ran)
• Muslim Averroes (1126-1198): purpose of philosophy is to explain
religious revelation
• Jew Maimonides (1135-1204): synthesized philosophy, science,
and Judaism
• Christian Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274): draws distinction between
natural truth and revealed truth; start with faith and use reason to
reach conclusions (begins systematic theology)