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Chapter 7: The Rise of Europe The so-called Middle Ages span roughly the years 500-1500, beginning with the fall of the western half of the Roman Empire and ending with a series of developments that ushered Western Europe toward the forefront of global expansion. The title of this chapter, then, refers to the arc of history that eventually led Western Europe to the brink of its world domination. The first half of this period – 500-1000 – used to be known as the “Dark Ages” because Western Europe slipped into a long period of decline that saw it politically divided, decentralized and generally rural, with little trade or contact with other regions. Historians now view it somewhat more favorably as a period of vital blending of Greco-Roman, Germanic and Christian traditions. Germanic tribes that conquered parts of the Roman Empire included Saxons, Goths, Vandals and Franks, the last of which settled into what would later become France. These peoples at first had no cities or written laws, governing according to tribal customs. Between 400 and 700, they carved Western Europe into numerous small kingdoms. When the Frankish warrior king Clovis converted to Christianity in 496, it set an important precedent helping to solidify what would later be called Christendom (the land of Christians). And a later Frankish ruler, Charlemagne, put together an empire temporarily uniting Germany, France and the northern half of Italy in the 8th and 9th centuries. He ruled his empire by appointing nobles to rule local regions, or provinces, and kept an eye on them by sending out missi dominici – officials that traveled around to ensure grievances were being heard and justice was being carried out. But because his grandsons fought one another for control of the empire, it was split into three separate regions by the Treaty of Verdun in 843 – and Western Europe again became politically fragmented and decentralized. __________________________________________________________ Read “A New Emperor of the Romans” (p. 30) and explain what long-term complications arose after Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the Romans. __________________________________________________________ Because Western Europe was politically fragmented and decentralized (i.e., there was no powerful empire in charge of it all), it was susceptible to repeated waves of invasions coming from the north (by Vikings), the south (by Muslims), and the east (by Magyars). The Vikings were expert sailors from Scandinavia (modern Norway, Denmark and Sweden) whose vessels could sail the oceans as well as navigate down through Europe’s major rivers. They raided as well as traded, eventually settling in England, Ireland, northern France and parts of Russia, where they mixed with local populations. Because law and order was fragile in this fragmented world threatened by constant invasion, a loosely organized system of rule called feudalism emerged. Feudalism was a set of legal and economic customs held together by the mutual obligations between lords and their vassals, or lesser lords. These obligations among nobles were outlined by an exchange of pledges known as the feudal contract. A lord would grant his vassal a fief, or landed estate, that could be anywhere from a few acres to hundreds of square miles and would include not only the land but also peasants to work the land and any towns or buildings that might exist on it. The lord promised to protect his vassal, and in return, the vassal pledged loyalty to his lord and agreed to provide the lord with 40 days of military service each year, as well as money payments and advice. The sons of lesser lords often trained to become mounted warriors called knights. ________________________________________________________ Read the handout “A Vassal Pledges His Loyalty” and explain the weakness in the feudal system that John of Toul’s pledge shows. ________________________________________________________ The economic component of feudalism was anchored by the lord’s estate, or manor, which was a self-sufficient community that usually included the lord’s manor house, a village church, workshops, a water-powered mill for grinding grain, fields for growing grain and vegetables, pastures for animals, and woodlands for lumber. Almost everything needed for daily life – crops, milk and cheese, bread, beer, cloth, leather goods, fuel – could be produced within the manor. The only outside purchases were for things unavailable locally, such as salt and iron. Providing the labor were serfs, which were peasants who were bound to the land. These people could not be bought and sold like slaves, but they could not leave the manor without the lord’s permission, and if the manor was granted to a new lord, the serfs went with it. They seldom ventured beyond 10 or 20 miles from birth to death. ________________________________________________________ Explain why you think a serf during the Middle Ages might have been content to live without the basic freedoms we now take for granted. ________________________________________________________ The only unifying institution in Europe during the Middle Ages was the Roman Catholic Church, whose missionaries converted Anglo-Saxons in England and Germanic peoples on the continent so that by the late Middle Ages, Western Europe was a Christian civilization that viewed with suspicion anyone who didn’t belong to the faith. ______________________________________________________ Read and summarize “The Role of the Parish Priest” (p. 39-40) and “The Importance of the Village Church” (p. 40) ... and answer the map skills questions at the top of p. 40. ______________________________________________________ During the Middle Ages, some men and women withdrew from worldly life to live as monks and nuns in monasteries or convents. Under the Benedictine Rule, which was created by a monk named Benedict for the monastery of Monte Cassino in central Italy around 530 but later was used to regulate monastic life across Europe, monks and nuns took vows of obedience, poverty and chastity. They worked in fields as farmers and in libraries as scholars, copying Greek and Roman works into Latin, the language of the Church. Some became missionaries spreading Christianity throughout western and central Europe. The pope was the spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church. During the Middle Ages, they claimed papal supremacy – authority over all secular rulers, including kings and emperors – and thus exercised great secular (non-religious) power as well. Anyone who disobeyed the Church’s canon law faced excommunication, meaning they could not receive the sacraments and were therefore condemned to hell for eternity. Nobles and kings were kept in line with the interdict, an order excluding an entire town, region or kingdom from receiving sacraments and proper Christian burials. ______________________________________________________ Read “An Agricultural Revolution” (p. 45-46) and explain why agricultural production began to improve in medieval Europe. ______________________________________________________ As population began to rise and the threat of invasion began to diminish, there was a revival of trade and travel by the 1100s. Chinese silks, Asian spices and Byzantine gold jewelry began to filter into western Europe by way of Venice. In the 1200s, German towns along the Baltic Sea formed the Hanseatic League, a voluntary association designed to protect their trading interests by taking action against robbers and pirates, building lighthouses and training ships’ pilots. The sites of seasonal trade fairs eventually evolved into Europe’s growing list of medieval cities, a few topping 100,000 inhabitants by the 1300s. A legal document called a charter was established with the local lord or king outlining a town’s rights and privileges, and the town’s merchants would in turn pay the lord or king a yearly fee. Most charters stipulated that runaway serfs that had lived in the town for a year and a day were now legally free – a development that hastened the end of serfdom. ______________________________________________________ Read “A Commercial Revolution” (p. 48-49) and describe what characterized the beginnings of modern business practices. ______________________________________________________ By the year 1000 the social order was beginning to change with the beginnings of the middle class, made up of merchants, traders and artisans. The middle class clashed with the nobles and clergy as its members began to assert their political will. Merchants and artisans then formed associations called guilds, which dominated town life. Each guild represented workers in one occupation, such as weavers, bakers or goldsmiths. They made rules to protect the quality of their goods, regulate hours of labor, and set prices. They taxed their members and spent the money on town improvements or social services, such as operating schools and hospitals, and providing support for the widows and orphans of their members. Women were included, dominating some trades and in some cases having their own guilds. _____________________________________________________ Read “Town and City Life” (p. 50) and explain what medieval cities were like. _____________________________________________________