Download 5. The Black Death

Pre-Renaissance History Summary
MEDIEVAL EUROPE:
FROM THE FALL OF ROME TO THE RENAISSANCE
A BACKGROUND READING LINKING CLASSICAL TO MODERN TIMES
1. The Fall of Rome
From approximately 200 B.C. to 476 A.D., the "civilized" areas of Europe and the Near
East were dominated, ruled, and imprinted with a lasting influence from the Roman
Empire. At its greatest extent, the Roman Empire stretched east to include Greece,
Turkey, Syria, Mesopotamia and Persia; it stretched south to encompass Africa north of
the Sahara from Egypt to the Atlantic; and, it stretched north and west in Europe with its
frontiers on the Danube and the Rhine and included Great Britain south of Scotland and
Hadrian's Wall. This great empire crumbled for a variety of reasons including: internal
political corruption; economic and social difficulties arising from ruling such a vast
territory; the high cost of warfare to maintain the empire; labor surplus problems largely
caused by slavery; overindulgence by the citizenry; and immorality, indolence, and
reduced production causing heavy public welfare expenses. Religious and ethnic strife
caused division of the people of Rome from within while Germanic tribes invaded the
Empire from the North and East. The fall of Rome actually occurred gradually over a
period of many years, but is usually set at 476 A.D., the year a German chieftain,
Odoacer, seized the city and proclaimed himself emperor.
Although the Western Roman Empire and the government in Rome itself fell, the Empire
lived on in the East. The Emperor Diocletian (reigned, 284-305) divided and reformed
the Empire during his reign to increase administrative efficiency. The Emperor
Constantine (reigned, 324-337) had erected a new capital on the site of the Greek city of
Byzantium, which controlled the passage from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean,
calling it Constantinople. Theodosius I (r. 378-395) was the last emperor to actually rule
both portions of the Empire. The Eastern, or Byzantine, Empire contained more diverse
nationalities than the West. The dominant language of the Byzantine Empire was Greek
rather than Latin and it featured a much stronger influence from Hellenistic, Semitic, and
Persian cultures. The Byzantine Empire contained most of the Roman Empire's rich
commercial centers including Alexandria, Athens, and Damascus, as well as
Constantinople. While Rome and the western Empire fell, the Byzantine Empire survived
at Constantinople (the modern city of Istanbul) until 1453 when it was conquered by the
Ottoman Turks. Only then did the city cease to be the cultural and economic center of
Byzantine rule in the East.
During the centuries of Roman rule, all of the civilized European world was united under
a single government. (The Romans called everyone who was not a Roman a barbarian.)
When Rome fell, that union also vanished: For centuries there was no unity and there
were no nations as we know them today. As the many nomadic Germanic tribes from
northern Europe moved across the continent during this period, sometimes called the
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"Dark Ages", what political organization did exist in Europe was based on the tribal
organization of these peoples. Only a few of these tribes were of much lasting
importance. The Angles and Saxons established their rule and culture in Great Britain
(hence the name "Angleland") and the Franks (as in "France") dominated northern and
western Europe. The Vandals are remembered for their especially destructive behavior,
and the word Gothic (from the Goths) was later used to describe these tribes collectively.
Charlemagne (French for Charles the Great) was King of the Franks from 768-814 and
was able to unite most of Western Europe into the Frankish Kingdom which lasted from
800-860. On Christmas Day, 800 A.D., after restoring Pope Leo III (reigned, 795-816) in
Rome from which he had been driven by invaders, Charlemagne (reigned, 768-814) was
crowned by the Pope as "Emperor of the Romans". From that point until it was dissolved
in 1806 by Napoleon, this Frankish Kingdom was known as the Holy Roman Empire.
At this time in history, without modern communication methods and with travel more
difficult and hazardous than ever, it was difficult even for good rulers to maintain strict
control over wide-spread lands. Thus, governing rested mainly in the hands of the local
nobility. When Charlemagne died, his empire passed to his son, Louis I, "the Pious"
(reigned, 814-840), who in turn divided the empire among his three sons in the Treaty of
Verdun in 843 A.D. These sections roughly became the main divisions of Western
Europe we find today: France, Germany and the middle kingdom of northern Italy.
However, Charlemagne's grandsons, the rulers of these three kingdoms were less than
competent. Between their poor rule and the continuing invasions of Europe by Muslims,
Slavs, Magyars and Vikings (or Norsemen), Charlemagne's empire was lost except in
name and tradition.
2. Feudalism
After the breakup of Charlemagne's empire, European political organization was
characterized by weak kings and strong nobles or lords who ruled their estates rather
independently. This kind of political organization is known as feudalism. Feudalism was
also a social and economic organization based on a series of reciprocal relationships. The
king in theory owned the land which he granted to lords who in return would give
service, usually in the form of military aid, to the king. Each of these lords was part of the
nobility and therefore above the level of true labor. The actual farming and other
necessary labor on the land were performed by serfs who were bound to the land and
actually transferred from one landlord to another with its title. They produced the
necessities of the estate. In return, they received protection by the nobles and a share of
the produce of the land. The serf was not a slave in the true legal sense, for a class of
slaves, usually non-Christian prisoners, did exist. A small class of free men also existed
having won their freedom for themselves and their descendants for service to some past
lord. They usually performed the special skills of craftsmen, artisans, and merchants and
were the beginning of a middle class.
During the Middle Ages, warfare was almost constant between lords who fought for
power, land, or wealth. Probably hardest hit by this near-constant warfare were the serfs
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whose homes and fields were often the scenes of battles and suffered the damages.
Indeed, the very slave-like status of the serf was due to his need for protection from this
warfare. Feudal manors provided both political and social organization, as mentioned
above. They also were individual economic units, nearly self-sufficient due to medieval
warfare, the difficulties of travel, and the resultant lack of trade. The feudal estate
featured a manor-home, usually a fortified castle surrounded by protective walls,
belonging to the lord, surrounded by fields, herds and villages where serfs lived and
worked. The serfs by their labor provided everything needed on the estate.
An important economic characteristic of the period was the decline in travel,
communication and trade. Under the Roman Empire, there had been a great amount of
trade between the widespread areas of the Empire. Legions patrolled the roads and the
roads linked the provinces. After the fall of Rome, with no government to supply
protection or to keep the roads and bridges repaired, travel became difficult and
dangerous. This danger, coupled with ignorance and lack of desire to change the situation
by the powerful lords, whose manors required little trade, led to the decline in travel and
trade.
One reason for the early Middle Ages being designated as the Dark Ages is that
education and learning also declined. People were busy with their roles in life. There was
no government to sponsor education. Because of the lack of trade and travel, contact with
the scholars of the ancient world was lost. However, while civilization in Europe
declined, learning and discovery was progressing in Asia and the Middle East.
Europeans were about to rediscover the wealth and more advanced civilizations of Asia.
3. The Crusades
Feudal Europe was a self-perpetuating society for almost a millennium. The lack of
learning and education and the lack of travel and trade tended to keep society as it was.
Even if new ideas, products, and methods were discovered, they were not widely
introduced. More than any other factor, it was a series of religious wars known as the
Crusades that were responsible for bringing Europe out of the Dark Ages into the high
Middle Ages and eventually the Modern Age. These wars were fought by northern
European Christian lords and kings who were responding to a call from Pope Urban II
(reigned, 1088-1099) to drive the Muslims from the Holy Land in Palestine after the
Turks began to restrict religious pilgrimages and persecute Christians in the Middle East.
The threat from invading tribes had lessened along with the opportunity to gain new
lands. Also, the Pope promised salvation to all who fought in these religious wars. Many
of these lords went to the Middle East to fight for God and glory. The Crusades went on
over a period of time beginning in 1095 and lasting for over 300 years. They were
militarily unsuccessful, and many of the soldiers seemed more interested in looting and
fortune hunting. Also, the native Muslims proved a formidable foe. However, the
Crusades were a turning point in the history and development of Europe. The Crusades
brought tremendous economic, social, and political changes to Europe. First, trade was
gradually re-established. During the Crusades, soldiers brought back many of the
products of the East including spices and textiles. As Europeans became more and more
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accustomed to having these luxuries, they began to expand their trade. With increasing
trade, there came a need for new products to sell and people to carry on these
transactions. Therefore, a whole new class in society was created: the merchants and
craftsmen of the middle class. Cities also began to grow as centers of population and
trade. Venice, Genoa, and Pisa in Italy became great port cities as the trade between the
Middle East and Western Europe passed through them. Italy thus became the gateway to
Europe in the late Middle Ages. Neither the independently wealthy cities nor the
growing, newly wealthy, but non-noble, middle class fit into the political or social
structure of feudalism. Land had been the only real source of wealth in the Middle Ages.
However, the expanding use of money for trade made land ownership less important, as
land does not bring wealth unless it produces a surplus for sale. Thus, the feudal system
was breaking down and would eventually be replaced. The only question was what way
of life would arise to take the place of this long-entrenched system. Feudalism had
dominated Europe politically, socially and economically since the return of order after
the fall of Rome.
4. Hundred Years' War
The 100 Years’ War (1337-1453) extended over the reigns of five English and five
French kings who fought for control of France. This struggle between England and
France actually consisted of a succession of wars broken by truces and treaties. The war
had several contributing causes. Efforts of the French kings to control the English-held
province of Guyenne in southwest France angered the English. The French supported the
Scots against England, and the French attempted to control Flanders and the English wool
trade there. English and French sailors and fishermen quarreled over rights in the English
Channel.
The war began in 1337. That year, King Philip VI of France declared he would take over
Guyenne, and King Edward III of England, whose mother was the sister of three French
kings, claimed the French throne.
In the fighting that followed, the English won most of the battles. But the French won the
war. English resources were about a third as great as those of the French. Several events
hindered the course of the war. These events included peasant rebellions; pillaging in
France by unemployed soldiers; outbreaks of plague, now known as the Black Death,
which struck both countries; and a peasants' revolt in England in 1381. The war
weakened the powers of the nobility and strengthened centralized government in both
countries. The war also marked the decline of feudalism, the rise of French unity, the
development of new military tactics, and the growth of English sea power.
English archers and infantry won the war's greatest victory in the Battle of Crecy (1346).
The English also won the Battle of Poitiers (1356). The Treaty of Bretigny in 1360 began
a brief period of peace. But Henry V of England renewed the fighting and emerged
triumphant at the Battle of Agincourt (1415). The Treaty of Troyes in 1420 made Henry
V heir to the French crown.
After Henry V died in 1422, the French disputed the English claim to the throne, and war
flared. By 1428, the English had swept through northern France and laid siege to Orleans.
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Joan of Arc led a French army and ended the siege in 1429. She became a prisoner of the
English, who later burned her to death. The French continued to win battles. By 1453,
England had lost all its territory on the continent of Europe, except Calais. The French
took Calais in 1558.
5. The Black Death
The pandemic of bubonic plague that swept across Europe between 1347 and 1353 is
known today as the Black Death, though contemporaries called it the "Great Pestilence,"
and the disease itself was generally known as peste. During these years, plague affected
the lives of all Europeans, and killed nearly half of them. Its impact was enormous, not
only because of the tremendous loss of life, but because of the pessimism, fear, suspicion,
and even persecution of Jews (who were blamed for the disease) that followed.
In the long term, the Black Death may have increased economic opportunities and
promoted a higher standard of living for those who survived. Its rapid spread gave rise to
the medical theory of contagion. This scientific observation, in fact, is one reason that the
epidemic is often cited as a turning point from the medieval era to the Renaissance.
Plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, is usually a disease of rats, not of man.
Named for Alexander Yersin, the nineteenth-century scientist who first isolated it, the
bacillus is found naturally in rodent populations, among which a small number of cases at
any given time is common. Occasionally, however, the disease becomes endemic, killing
off large numbers of rats. When this happens, the rat flea, Xenopsylla cheopis, which
normally feeds on rodent hosts, turns to people instead. Their bite transmits the plague
from infected rat to man.
In medieval times, plague was most often carried by the common black rat, Rattus rattus,
which lived among the populace, feeding on grain stores and other foodstuffs. Some
historians argue that the human flea, Pulex irritans, may also have played a significant
role in transmitting the disease, as it will feed on any available blood source, moving
indiscriminately between rats and humans.
Symptoms of plague develop quickly after infection. In man, the disease takes one of
three forms: bubonic (involving the lymphatic system), pneumonic (centered in the
respiratory system), and septicemic (involving the blood-stream).
The best-known symptom of bubonic plague were buboes—hard, extremely painful,
swollen lymph nodes—which filled with blood and pus, turned black, and often burst,
giving the disease its common name. The buboes were accompanied by a high fever,
headache, chills, body aches, and sensitivity to light. At least half the people who
contracted this form of the plague died.
Those who suffered from pneumonic plague usually had no buboes, but their lungs filled
with fluid and blood, and they too endured raging fevers, sweats, and pain. Almost no
one survived infection with this form, and unlike bubonic plague, pneumonic plague
could be transmitted directly from one person to another. The septicemic form of the
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disease, which occurred when the bacillus invaded the blood stream, often killed its
victims so quickly that symptoms rarely even had time to develop.
Impact
The plague wreaked enormous and long-lasting consequences. After the initial pandemic,
known as the Black Death, it remained an active health threat for over 500 years. (The
last pandemic started in Asia in 1894; by the time it ended in 1908, over 6 million people
had died.) In the centuries that followed, port cities were most often affected, but all areas
faced at least some risk. Subsequent epidemics prompted many negative but predictable
reactions, including fear, blame, suspicion, and isolation.
Firsthand accounts of the Black Death refer repeatedly to the social breakdown that
occurred as people tried to protect themselves, neglecting traditional ties and obligations
to friends, neighbors, and even children and family. Plague victims and their families
were isolated, sometimes even walled up inside their houses and left to die. It is clear that
contemporaries were profoundly fearful, not only of the disease itself, but of the changes
it produced in morality, beliefs, and social relations.
The people of the time believed that one or more factors had caused the plague,
particularly divine punishment for mankind's sin. Many communities prayed, made
pilgrimages, and held ritual processions in attempts to appeal for God's mercy. Patron
saints of plague victims emerged, the first being the ancient martyr Saint Sebastian; later
Saint Roch, himself a victim of the disease, was canonized. An extreme religious group,
the flagellants, roamed the cities and towns of Central Europe holding public confessions
and performing displays of piety in which they used whips, known as flagella to scourge
themselves.
The most extreme response to the terror of the plague was the scapegoating of Jews, who
were rumored to have poisoned communal wells to spread disease. This produced a
hysterical campaign of ferocious violence against Jewish communities, many of which
were entirely destroyed in mass executions.
An important result of the Black Death was the development of a crude theory of
contagion. Until the advent of germ theory in the nineteenth century, disease was
believed to result from an imbalance of the four basic humors within the body (blood,
phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile or choler). The humoral theory held that just as the
world was composed of four basic elements (earth, air, fire, water), the human body was
composed of four constituents, called humors, which were maintained in individual
proportions in each body. Since disease was thought to result from humoral imbalance,
there was little thought that one person could "give" disease to another.
When plague began to spread in the mid-fourteenth century, observation and experience
seemed to point to a form of contagion. The disease spread quickly within households,
often taking entire families. Those in closest contact to the sick, such as caretakers,
clergy, and medical professionals were frequently the next to fall ill, seemingly because
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of their simple proximity to the disease. Thus, a belief in the transmissibility of plague
developed long before a formal medical theory was proposed. It was not until 1546 that
the Italian physician Girolamo Fracastoro (c. 1478-1553) argued that illness could be
spread directly from person to person via "seeds" that could travel short distances or
become embedded in textiles for longer trips.
This belief in contagion reinforced people's natural tendency to flee in the face of in
impending epidemic, but it also gave weight to municipal responses that emphasized
exclusion and isolation. By the late fourteenth century, the Italian town of Ragusa
required arriving ships to wait at sea for a period of 40 days in order to confirm the health
of the crew. Thus the quarantine (from the Italian quaranti giorni, or 40 days) was born.
In subsequent decades, cities and towns began to restrict entry in times when plague
threatened, often requiring health "passports" for admittance. Once plague broke out
within cities, they employed a practice of isolation, building plague hospitals, called
lazarettos, outside the city walls and placing those diagnosed with the disease in them,
using force if necessary. While certainly a rational response to contagion, it did little to
prevent the movement of rats and their fleas, which continued to roam the city freely.
If any good can be said to have come from the Black Death, it's that those who survived
were able to improve their place in society afterward. The tremendous loss of population
created much economic opportunity, and many scholars believe that it hastened the end
of serfdom by making labor both scarce and valuable. The plague's most surprising result,
however, was the intellectual and artistic flowering of the Renaissance, which followed
quickly on its heels. The intellectuals who emerged as the first generation of Renaissance
humanists, such as Frances Petrarch (1304-1377), were survivors of the Black Death;
their successors continued to strive and achieve despite the constant threat of plague.
6. The Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages
The Roman Catholic Church was the only center of knowledge during the Middle Ages
and learning was mostly religion-centered. True scholarship lived on in the monasteries
where devout monks had withdrawn from the corruption and violence of the outside
medieval world. There they preserved the ancient writings of the advanced civilizations
of Greece and Rome. This treasure trove of knowledge from the Classical Age awaited its
discovery by people in the future who cared more for these achievements. The dominant
philosophy of the late Middle Ages was best articulated by St. Thomas Aquinas (12241274) and known as scholasticism. Although Aquinas' scholasticism attempted to
reconcile all new knowledge with accepted Christian dogma, it ran into many problems.
Learning emerged from the Dark Ages and the long conflict between science and religion
was about to begin. Under scholasticism, if reason and religious dogma clashed, reason
must always give way because religious knowledge was considered to be without error.
In fact, nearly everything in feudal Europe seemed to be religiously centered. Religion
and the after-life became the focal point of thought and living. The influence of religion
can also clearly be seen in the art, architecture, literature, and music of the time. Perhaps
because life was so hard on earth, the peasants endured it concentrating on and longing
for their reward in the afterlife.
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The Roman Catholic Church remained the only stable and unifying institution left over
from the old Roman days and therefore came to dominate the lifestyle of the feudal era.
The late-medieval church was vast and complex, the single largest and most diverse
political institution of the Renaissance. In theory, the church's governmental structure
was a pyramid in which the papacy sat at the top. The pope and his officialdom at Rome
supervised the activities of scores of bishops and archbishops throughout Europe, who, in
turn, oversaw thousands of priests and their parishes. Numerous religious orders of
monks, nuns, and friars scattered throughout Europe often stood outside the structure of
the provinces of the church known as diocese. Over the centuries, these orders had
amassed significant wealth, and many enjoyed exemptions from the control of Europe's
bishops and archbishops. Most owed allegiance to their order, which the papacy
ultimately supervised; that tie could be tenuous when hundreds of miles separated an
abbey or a monastery from the church's capital. The administrative complexities of the
Roman Church may have been considerable, but so were the numerous roles the
institution fulfilled in society. In the spiritual realm, the church provided a necessary link
between God and humankind by virtue of its performance of the sacraments and rituals.
For the orthodox, there was no salvation outside the church. In the political realm, the
institution was an international force that jealously maintained its power against the
encroachment of kings and princes. And locally, the church performed numerous
practical functions in society. It administered an effective and sophisticated judicial
system to which, in theory, all Europeans could bring cases. As Europe's largest
landholder, it was a financial powerhouse, levying taxes and collecting revenues that
were the envy of many princes. Its monasteries and convents produced rich storehouses
of agricultural goods that were sometimes sold on the urban market; many of these
institutions ran breweries and distilleries that could compete more successfully against
private concerns because of the church's widespread exemption from local taxation. And
finally, religious orders like the Carthusians and the Cistercians were important breeders
of sheep and livestock who influenced the international market in wool.
Anticlericalism
Its worldly wealth and power, though, subjected the church to criticism. A general
anticlerical spirit, motivated by the hatred of the clergy's special rights and privileges,
grew as well. The corruptions people identified—sexual immorality among the clergy,
the holding of multiple offices by clerics, and the selling of dispensations from church
law, to name just a few—had long existed.
The Papacy at Avignon
For most of the fourteenth century both the possibilities and limitations of papal power
were brilliantly displayed, not in Rome, but in the city of Avignon, just inside the
southern borders of France. The period in which the papacy ruled from Avignon lasted
from 1309 until 1378 and was known even in the fourteenth century as the "Babylonian
Captivity," a phrase that likened the papacy's relationship to France with Israel's bondage
in Babylon. During this period the cost of papal government steadily rose. To create
sufficient revenue to meet their expenses, the popes moved to centralize their
administration of the church and to identify new sources of revenue. The papacy, for
instance, reclaimed its rights of reservation, that is, the power to appoint clerics to key
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offices in the church. While vacant, the income from these offices flowed to the popes,
and the papacy began to levy fees on those who wished to be appointed to them. To
manage this system, a large bureaucracy developed in Avignon, and bribes became
commonplace. For these reasons, Avignon became synonymous in the minds of Europe's
rulers with corruption. Such feelings produced measures like the Statutes of Provisors
(1351) in England, an act of Parliament that prohibited the pope from appointing nonEnglish subjects to church offices. At Avignon, the church's dependence on revenues
from the sale of indulgences grew, too. All these innovations in papal finance and
government caused a decline in papal prestige and a growing distaste for the rising flow
of wealth into the church's coffers.
The Great Schism
These problems paled in comparison to the dilemmas that arose after the papacy's return
to Rome in 1378. Soon after he re-established papal government in the city, Pope
Gregory XI died, and the College of Cardinals elected an Italian to assume the office as
Urban VI. Within months, Urban's attacks on the worldliness and corruption of the
church's cardinals had alienated many, and a faction of the college met to depose him. In
his place they elected Cardinal Robert of Geneva who took the name Clement VII.
Urban, for his part, refused to resign, and instead he excommunicated the rebel cardinals
and their pope. He created a number of new, mostly Italian cardinals to replace them.
Clement VII now refused to step down, and he left Rome for Avignon, where he and the
majority of the original College of Cardinals set up a rival papal court. For almost forty
years this Great Schism prevailed in the European church, with international politics
determining which pope a specific nation recognized. England, Ireland, parts of
Germany, and most of Italy remained loyal to the pope at Rome, while France, Castile,
Aragon, Portugal, and Scotland recognized Avignon. The resulting confusion eroded the
notion of the church as the sacred instrument of God on earth. Instead more and more
people saw the church as a human institution. The schism thus helped to create an
audience for the teachings of figures like John Wycliffe in England and John Huss in
Bohemia, both of whom attacked the wealth and secular power of the church and instead
insisted that Rome would do better to concentrate on its spiritual mission.
In 1409, representatives of both papal governments and church officials from throughout
Europe met in the Italian city of Pisa to consider ways of healing the breach in the
church. After deliberating, the council decided that both papal governments were invalid
and it called for the resignations of the Avignon and Roman popes. When neither would
resign, it declared them antipopes and elected a new pope, Alexander V. For a time both
Avignon and Rome held out against the new Pisan pope, and factions throughout Europe
supported each of the three papal governments. Thus the Council of Pisa, which had been
called to heal the breach, inadvertently worsened the crisis for a time. In 1413, a second
council convened at Constance in Germany. There church officials successfully obtained
resignations from the Pisan and Roman popes, and deposed the Avignon pope when he
refused to resign. They elected Martin V to serve as the indisputable leader of the church,
who now enjoyed loyalty from all parts of the church.
7. Conclusion: Middle Ages to Renaissance
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The increasing wealth, wider travel, and a greater knowledge of the outside world -- led
to a new philosophy and outlook on life. Whereas during the Middle Ages, the Church
provided the main source of inspiration, now there was a new interest in and
concentration on man himself and the world in which he lived. This new age we call the
Renaissance, the rebirth of the human spirit. We find this changing outlook on life
reflected in the art, the architecture, the literature, the music, a new interest in learning
and scientific discovery, the rediscovered curiosity about the world bringing exploration
and discovery, and in new political ideas. This new philosophy which was humancentered and emphasized human reason was called humanism and dominated the period
of the Renaissance.
This new age brought many lasting changes to Europe. Most of the changes, however,
did not come quickly or easily. For many centuries, much of the history of Europe would
feature a clash between the old traditions of the Middle Ages and the new ways of the socalled modern world.
Reading adapted from the following sources:
APEC Summer Reading Article A Background Reading Linking Classical to Modern
Times
The 100 Years’ War: Allmand, C. T. "Hundred Years' War." World Book Advanced.
World Book, 2010. Web. 12 Aug. 2010.
The Black Death: Science and Its Times. Ed. Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer. Vol. 2: 700
to 1449. Detroit: Gale, 2001. p129-132.
The Roman Catholic Church: World Eras. Ed. Norman J. Wilson. Vol. 1: European
Renaissance and Reformation, 1350-1600. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. p391-394.
IDENTIFICATIONS / VOCABULARY TERMS (Optional)
Identify each of the following terms: What is it and what is the significance of the
term related to the Middle Ages in Europe?
1)Roman Empire; 2)Fall of Rome; 3)Germanic tribes; 4)Byzantine Empire; 5)Dark
Ages; 6)Angles and Saxons; 7)Franks; 8)Charlemagne; 9)Holy Roman Empire;
10)Muslims; 11)Slavs, Magyars, and Vikings; 12)feudalism; 13)lord (landlord);
14)vassal; 15)fief; 16)serf; 17)manor (manorialism); 18)monasteries and monks;
19)St. Thomas Aquinas; 20)Scholasticism; 21)Roman Catholic Church; 22)Pope;
23)bishops and archbishops; 24)anticlericalism; 25)Avignon; 26)The Great Schism;
27)Council of Pisa; 28)Council of Constance; 29)Martin V; 30)Crusades;
31)Renaissance; 32)humanism; 33)Black death; 34)theory of contagion
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