Download Struggle for Power in England

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ight to grant a bishop or an abbot a fief and to make
'im a vassal. The church did object, however, to
mgs and nobles naming bishops and abbots, Church
leaders firmly believed that only a church member
tould grant spiritual authority to another member of
the church. In the case of a bishop, a ring and a
~rosier, or staff, symbolized this authority. A king or
lord who granted a new bishop his fiefs often insisted
on giving him his ring and crosier as well.
Worldly lives' of the clergy. Some members of
the clergy lived in luxury. People criticized them
because they seemed more interested in wealth than
in holy living.
Simony. In feudal times, people could pay to assume
high positions in the church, a practice called
simony. The purchaser expected to make money
through his position, either from church income or by
charging high fees for performing religious services.
Heresy. The church did not permit anyone to
question the basic principles, or doctrines, that
were the foundation
of the Christian religion.
People who denied the truth of these principles or
, preached unauthorized doctrines were considered
heretics-unbelievers
guilty of the unpardonable
sin of heresy, which brought eternal damnation.
Heresy threatened the church itself, as treason does
a modern government.
Attempts at church reform were made by many
church leaders and lay rulers, who tried to solve
church problems through various measures. Two
religious groups, or orders, established in the 1200s
dedicated themselves to reform. They were the
Franciscans, founded by Saint Francis of Assisi in
1209, and the Dominicans,
founded by Saint
Dominic in 1216. Members of these religious orders,
known as friars, lived and preached among the people instead of secluding themselves in monasteries as
members of most other religious orders did.
In the mid-1200s
the church ordered the
Dominicans to seek out heretics and to eliminate
heresy.
During
this search,
known
as.' the
Inquisition,
anyone suspected of heresy could
be tried in secret and tortured in order to force a
confession. Heretics who confessed that they had
done wrong were required to perform penarrce.
The Inquisition
condemned
heretics who did
not confess and turned them over to the civil
government to be punished, sometimes by burning
at the stake. The church thought that these severe
penalties were necessary to prevent the spread of
heresy throughout Christendom.
Section 3 Review
1. Define sacraments, monasticism, abbot, canon
law, interdict, tithe, simony, Inquisition
2. Identify curia, cardinals, Saint Benedict,
Saint Patrick
3. Summarizing Ideas List the positions in the
church hierarchy and briefly describe the
duties of each position.
4. Interpreting Ideas How did the church affect
political, economic, and social life in the
Middle Ages?
5. Evaluating Ideas (a) What four major problems
faced the church during the Middle Ages? (b)
How do you think each problem hurt the power
and status of the church?
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Focus Questions
• What contributions did the Anglo-Saxons and
the Normans make to England?
• How did Parliament and common law develop
in England?
• How were the Capetian kings able to increase
their power?
In Europe before the A.D. 1000s, kings and lords
often struggled for power in a kind of feudal tug of war.
Some great lords were as powerful as the kings themselves and served them only when it was convenient.
However, a number of kings were able to impose their
will on their subjects. From this struggle gradually
emerged such kingdoms as England and France, where
the king's authority grew stronger than that of the lords.
Anglo-Saxon England
Around A.D. 450, not long after the last Roman
legions left Britain, several Germanic tribes invaded
the island. Although they first came as raiders, they
soon began to settle. Two of these tribes, the Angles
and the Saxons, became so powerful that we refer ,to
their descendants as Anglo-Saxons even today. The
THE RISE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
1239
name England means '~land of the Angles," and refers
to the eastern island of the British Isles, except for
Scotland in the north and Wales in the west.
The Anglo-Saxons in Britain formed several small
independent kingdoms. Later these kingdoms combined into three important ones: (1) Northumbria, in
what is now southern Scotland and northern England;
(2) Mercia, in central England; and (3) Wessex, in
southern England. In time the Anglo-Saxons divided
these kingdoms into governmental districts called
shires. Officials known as shire-reeves (which became
the word sheriffs) governed these districts.
Alfred the Great. By the early 800s the Wessex
kings controlled practically all of England. However,
their rule was soon challenged by the ferocious raiders
from the north, the Vikings. At first the Danes-as
the Anglo-Saxons called the Vikings-met little resistance, and they quickly conquered much of England.
Then, in 871, Alfred the Great came to the throne of
Wessex, determined to drive the Danes from English
soil. First he persuaded them to leave Wessex by paying them a huge tribute, or sum of money. He spent
the next five years reorganizing his army and building
a fleet of ships. In 876, when he felt that his forces
were strong enough, he attacked the Danes. The war
raged for a decade, and in 886 the Danes sued for
peace. The peace treaty limited Danish settlement to
northeast Mercia and much of Northumbria. In this
region, called the Danelaw, the Danes could live under
their own laws and govern themselves.
Although best known as a warrior-king, Alfred the
Great made many contributions to learning. An educated and scholarly man, he wanted his people to be
educated also. To this end he established schools and
invited the best scholars from Wales and continental
Europe to teach in them. Alfred himself undertook
the translation of certain books from Latin to AngloSaxon. At his command, too, scholars began a history
of England from the earliest times. Work on tbis history, known as the Anglo-Saxon Chronic.le, continued
for some 250 years after Alfred's death in 899.
Danish rule. During the 900s Alfred's successors won
back much of the remaining Danish-held laAd in
England. At the same time, they unified the country,
strengthened its government, and spread Christianity
throughout the land. However, near the end of the century, England once again came under attack from the
Danes. By 1013 they had conquered the whole country.
In 10 16, under the rule of King Canute of
Denmark, England became part of a large kingdom
that included most of Scandinavia. Canute, who
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CHAPTER
10
ned-the translation of many
'"d:philosophical texts.
-_~n Chronicle, begun during Alfred's
" s c:enturies of English history.
spent much of his time in England, ruled wisely.
Canute's sons, however, had neither his intelligence
nor his skill, and they proved to be weak rulers. By
1042 the Danish line had died out, and the AngloSaxon nobles had chosen Edward the Confessor as
their new king.
The Norman Conquest
Edward the Confessor's background-part
AngloSaxon and part Norman--created
problems upon his
death. When he died childless in 1066, Duke William
of Normandy, a distant relative, claimed the English
throne. The Anglo-Saxon nobles refused to recognize
William's claim and selected Edward's brother-in-law,
Harold of Wessex, instead: In 1066 William gathered
a fleet of ships and an: army of nobles and landed near
Hastings, on the ~outheaStern coast of England. In the
Battle of Hastings, the Norman horsemen defeated the
determined Anglo-Saxon defenders. King Harold was
shot through the eye with an arrow and died on the
battlefield. The victorious William declared himself
King William I of England.
It took William, usually called William the
Conqueror, several years to overcome Anglo-Saxon
resistance ·entirely. It took many more years for the
Norman conquerors to overcome the hatred of the
defeated Anglo-Saxons. The Anglo-Saxons did not
willingly adopt Norman ideas, customs, or language.
Anglo-Saxon, a Germanic language, remained the
language of the people. Norman French, a Romance
language based on Latin, became the language of the
nobles. As time went on, however, the culture of
. England, including laws and customs, became as
much Norman as Anglo-Saxon.
feudalism
in England
William the Conqueror, who ruled from 1066 to
1087, brought feudalism from France to England.
However, he carefully altered the system in England
so that the king, rather than the nobles, held the
authority. To weaken the lords and prevent them from
uniting, William gave his followers fiefs scattered
widely throughout England.
William the Conqueror laid the foundation for a
centralized government by requiring each feudal lord
. to swear allegiance directly to him. Thus all feudal
lords became vassals of the king.
To determine
the population
and wealth of
England, William sent out commissioners to gather
information on everyone in the country. This information helped to determine his system of taxation.
The survey became known as the Domesday Book (or
Doomsday Book).
so that he could keep careful accounts of the government's financial affairs.
Henry II made great use of the traveling judges. He
established definite circuits, or routes, on which the
judges were to travel. Thus they became known as circuit judges, and they enforced the king's law throughout England.
In the 1200s the 12-member jury developed in the
court system. Juries decided civil cases, such as disputes over land, as well as criminal cases. Trial by jury
replaced the old feudal procedures of ordeal and combat to determine guilt or innocence.
In his efforts to increase royal authority, Henry II
sought to hold trials of certain members of the clergy
in the royal courts afrer the parties had been judged in
the church courts. The archbishop of Canterbury,
Thomas Becket, refused to allow a second trial in the
royal court. Becket and King Henry, once the best of
friends, became bitter enemies. Four of the king's
knights, thinking that they were doing the king a
great favor, murdered the archbishop in his cathedral.
Henry II denied any part in the assassination of
Thomas Becket. Faced with papal excommunication,
however, he was forced to abandon further attempts
to reduce the power of the church. Thomas Becket
became a saint, and his shrine in Canterbury became
a very popular destination for pilgrims .
The last years of Henry II's reign were troubled.
His sons conspired against him. His marriage to
Eleanor of Aquitaine was stormy. Because he had
received lands in France as part of Eleanor's dowry,
England became further embroiled in wars in France.
Nevertheless, Henry II helped consolidate the powers
of the crown over the feudal lords. Later kings built
upon his governmental and judicial institutions.
Reforms Under William's Successors
One of William the Conqueror's sons, Henry I, ruled
King John and Magna Carta
One son of Henry II, King John, is famous for bringing
from 1100 to 1135. He made the central government
more efficient by setting up a new department called
on a revolt among the nobles of the realm. This revolt
.occurred when King John forced them to pay taxes that
the exchequer to handle the kingdom's finances.
they considered unjust. On June 15, 1215, the English
Henry's other important contribution was to the legal
system. He wanted to weaken the feudal lords by hav-'
nobles forced John to accept a document known as
Magna Carta (Latin for "great charter"), which proing cases tried in the king's courts rather than in feudal courts. He sent out traveling judges to hold court ' tetted the liberties of the nobles. Some provisions of
Magna Carta, however, dealt with the rights of
sessions throughout the country.
England's ordinary people. These provisions have come
Henry II, who reigned from 1154 to 1189, further
to be considered the most important parts of the docuincreased royal authority. He allowed nobles to pay
him a fee instead of doing military service for him;
ment. King John made several promises. He agreed not
to collect any new or special tax without the consent of
then he used the money to hire mercenaries. In this
the Great Council, which was a body of important
way he had an army that was loyal to him rather than
nobles and church leaders who advised the king. He
to the nobles. Henry also reorganized the exchequer
THE RISE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
[241
promised not to take property without paying for it,
and he agreed not to sell, refuse, or delay justice. The
king also promised to grant any accused person a trial
by a jury of his peers, or equals. Magna Carta meant
that the king was not above the law-the king had to
obey the law just as his subjects did, or they would be
free to rebel against him.
Although the charter was not considered significant at the time, later political thinkers regarded
many of its clauses as important precedents. Today
Magna Carta is considered one of the world's great
documents, spelling out the basic principles of limited
government and the rule of the law.
Parliament and Common Law
In the century that followed the signing of Magna
Carta, the two most important developments in
English history were the evolution of Parliament and
the growth of common law.
Parliament. In the 1260s, nobles revolted against
King Henry III. The leader of the nobles, Simon de
Montfort, ruled England for several months. He
hoped to get greater support for the nobles' cause by
broadening representation in the Great Council.
In 1265 de Montfort summoned representatives of
the middle class to meet with the higher nobles and
clergy in the Great Council. There were four knights
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CHAPTER
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n June of 1215, King John rode to meet his
angry nobles at Runnymede, a wide meadow
on the banks of the Thames River. No one
present on that day could have guessed that the
.nobles' demands, written in the form of the document we now call Magna Carta, would later
become the cornerstone of constitutional government and representative democracy.
The original purpose of Magna Carta was to
limit the powers of the king. Most of its 63 clauses
'were designed to protect the feudal rights of the
nobles; eventually, English legislative and judicial
decisions extended these rights. Magna Carta
included such concepts as church freedom, trial by
jury, and "due process of law"-the orderly, consistent working of law.
Over the centuries, Magna Carta gradually
increased in importance as later kings reaffirmed
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from each shire and two burgesses, or citizens, from
each of several towns.
De Montfort was killed in battle and the nobles'
revolt was crushed, but the precedent of including
knights and burgesses in the Great Council had been
set. In time this representative body came to be called
Parliament. It was eventually divided into two parts,
or houses. The upper house consisted of nobles and
clergy and was called the House of Lords. The lower
house was made up of knights and burgesses and was
called the House of Commons. Within a few years,
this was the accepted form of representation, as it is in
England today.
The early Parliament did not have the power ,to
pass laws, 'but it did have the important right of
refusing to agree to new and special taxes. As the
cost of running the central government increased,
new taxes were necessary, and Parliament's approval
became vital. Over the years Parliament used this
power to its advantage.
Common law. One of England's greatest monarchs
was Edward I, who ruled from 1272 to 1307. Edward
divided the king's court into three branches. The
Court of the Exchequer kept financial accounts and
tried tax cases. The Court of Common Pleas tried
cases between private citizens. The Court of the
its principles. Eventually it became a symbol of the
fight against oppression. Magna Carta forms part
of the British Constitution, and the ideas that origi~
nated in Magna Carta can be found in the
Constitution of the United States.
King's Bench heard cases that concerned the king or
the government.
Each of the three royal courts handed down many
verdicts. These decisions became the basis for future
decisions made in the king's courts and in the circuit
courts. This type of law, based on judges' decisions
rather than on a code of statutes like Roman law, is
known as common law. It was given this name
because it was common to all the people of England.
Common law forms the basis for the present-day legal
systems in the United States and in England.
Rise of the Capetian Kings in France
French kings were also engaged in struggles with their
nobles during these centuries.
When the last
Carolingian king of France died in 987, an assembly
of nobles chose Hugh Capet, a French noble, as king.
Capet and his descendants, called the Capetians,
ruled for more than 300 years.
As king, Hugh Capet ruled only a small
region around Paris which was called the lle-de-France
(eel·duh·FRAHNS). lie is the French word for "island,"
and this region was indeed an island of royal authority
in the midst of feudal lands. Even in the lle-deFrance, the king's v~ssals resisted his authority. The
rest of what is now France was divided into provinces
THE RISE OF THE MIDOLE AGES
1243
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Learning
•
Azimuthal
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French royal domain
from Mapa
-RegIOn
Projection
Tile French royal domain grew outward from the Ile-de-France .
What lands did the English possess in France in 13287
ruled by feudal lords. (See map on page 244.) The
Capetians set out to unite these provinces and to
develop a strong central government.
The history of the Capetian kings demonstrates
the feudal struggle for power. Strong kings increased
royal lands and authority. Weak kings allowed nobles
to regain power. Later Capetian kings added to the
royal lands and strengthened the central government.
The growth of royal territory. Kings sometimes
married the daughters of great feudal lords to add to
the royal lands. In this way, they gained fiefs that were
often included in the daughters' dowries. Kings also
increased their royal territory by claiming the lands of
noble families that died out.
.,»
After 1066, when William of Normandy conquered
England, the territorial problems of the Capetians
became even more complicated. For centuries the
English kings had owned vast territories in France.
Strong Capetians watched for a chance to regain these
lands. The shrewd Philip II, also called Philip Augustus,
king of France from 1179 to 1223, seized much Englishowned land in France. By 1328, when the last Capetian
2441
CHAPTER
10
king died, the only major English landholdings in
France were parts of the provinces of Aquitaine and
Gascony. (See map on this page.)
Strengthening the central government To maintain a strong government, the Capetians sought out
loyal, well-trained officials. They could not rely on
the nobility. In addition, the Capetians extended the
jurisdiction of their courts. The Parlement of Paris
became a supreme court, hearing appeals from all
parts of the kingdom.
The Capetian Philip the Fair, who ruled from 1285
to 1314, was able to gain control over the clergy,
thereby strengthening his own power. Early in his
reign Philip imposed a tax on the clergy. When the
pope at the time, Boniface VIII, opposed him, Philip
had Boniface arrested, and the pope died soon afterward. Philip was able to influence the election of the
next pope, Clement V. Philip also convened the
Estates General in 1302. The Estates General was a
representative body that was drawn from the three
major classes of French society of the time: clergy,
nobility, and commoners. Convening the Estates
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CHAPTER
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I
3?O Mile,
Azimuthal
Equal-AIea
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Projection
Tile French royal domain grew outward from the Ile-de-France.
Wh~t lands did the English poss~ss in France in 13287
ruled by feudal lords. (See map on page 244.) The
Capetians set out to unite these provinces and to
develop a strong central government.
The history of the Capetian kings demonstrates
the feudal struggle for power. Strong kings increased
royal lands and authority. Weak kings allowed nobles
to regain power. Later Capetian kings added to the
royal lands and strengthened the central government.
The growth of royal territory. Kings sometimes
married the daughters of great feudal lords to add to
the royal lands. In this way, they gained fiefs that were
often included in the daughters' dowries. Kings also
increased their royal territory by claiming the lands of
noble families that died out.
..•
After 1066, when William of Normandy conquered
England, the territorial problems of the Capetians
became even more complicated. For centuries the
English kings had owned vast territories in France.
Strong Capetians watched for a chance to regain these
lands. The shrewd Philip II, also called Philip Augustus,
king of France ftom 1179 to 1223, seized much Englishowned land in France. By 1328, when the last Capetian
2441
o
10
king died, the only major English landholdings in
France were parts of the provinces of Aquitaine and
Gascony. (See map on this page.)
Strengthening the central government To maintain a strong government, the Capetians sought out
loyal, well-trained officials. They could not rely on
the nobility. In addition, the Capetians extended the
jurisdiction of their courts. The Parlement of Paris
became a supreme court, hearing appeals from all
parts of the kingdom.
The Capetian Philip the Fair, who ruled ftom 1285
to 1314, was able to gain control over the clergy,
thereby strengthening his own power. Early in his
reign Philip imposed a tax on the clergy. When the
pope at the time, Boniface VIII, opposed him, Philip
had Boniface arrested, and the pope died soon afterward. Philip was able to influence the election of the
next pope, Clement V. Philip also convened the
Estates General in 1302. The Estates General was a
representative body that was drawn from the three
major classes of French society of the time: clergy,
nobility, and commoners. Convening the Estates
eneral helped Philip to gain the support of the people in his conflict with the church.
By the early 1300s, the power of the king was
greater than that of the nobles in France. However,
the three sons of Philip IV died without a male heir,
and in 1328 the long line of the Capetians ended.
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Section 4 Review
1. Define shires, Magna Carta, common law
2. Identify Alfred the Great, Edward the Confessor,
William the Conqueror, Thomas Becket, Simon
de Montfort
3. Locate and Explain the Significance Hastings,
Canterbury, Ile-de-France,
Aquitaine
Focus Questions
•
How did German rulers threaten the power of
the medieval popes?
• How did the Concordat of Worms propose to
divide power between popes and emperors?
• Why is Pope Innocent III considered one of the
church's greatest political leaders?
4. Summarizing Ideas Summarize the contributions that the Anglo-Saxons
made to England.
and Normans
5. Explaining Ideas Explain how the following
developed in England: (a) Parliament,
(b) common law.
6. Analyzing Ideas How does the rise of the
Capetian kings in France illustrate the feudal
struggle for power? How were the Capetians
able to add to their power?
Although people throughout Europe recognized
the spiritual authority of the church, many conflicts
arose over the church's temporal authority, or its role
in worldly affairs. The greatest threat to the power of
the medieval popes came from the German rulers of
the revived Holy Roman Empire.
The Holy Roman Empire
Charlemagne's empire had included part of Italy, but
after Charlemagne's death in 814, Italy fell into a
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THE RISE OF THE MIDDLE
AGES
1245