Download European Middle Ages - A Cultural Approach

The European Middle Ages
SSWH7:a,c-d.
Time and Geography
ECONOMIC
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The Feudal Serf
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Had replaced slaves, but could not be bought or sold
Bound by law, tradition to given place and occupation
Conditions varied widely from place to place
Had to perform labor for lord and pay dues, taxes
Usually had to work on demesne (lord’s land)
Usually became hereditary position
Wasn’t unusual to gain their freedom by running away,
volunteering to settle new lands, or at death of their lord
Serfs had a tough
life.
Medieval Agriculture
• Productivity improved with use of
• iron-tipped plow, padded horse collar, use
of manure for fertilizer
• Half to a third of land had to be left fallow
each year to restore fertility
• Famines were common
Urban Workers
• Sharply divided in
income, social status
• Craftsmen, shopkeepers
• Semiskilled, unskilled,
casual laborers
• Marginal people never
had steady work
Medieval craftsmen.
SOCIAL
Warriors
• Rights stemmed from patents of nobility: royal
documents granting them noble status
• Noble status was hereditary, included women
• Nobles were normally vassals to someone of
superior rank (suzerain), owed loyalty, specific
duties
• Were sole political factor in medieval life
• Five ranks of nobility
Five ranks of nobility
Warriors
• Claimed their status by being soldiers,
guardians, judges
• Considered themselves as defenders of
society by command of God and king
Warriors
• Noblewomen
– Frequently held positions
of some power
– Ran households, day-today management when
husbands absent
– Expected to produce
legitimate children
Italian noblewoman
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RELIGIOUS
Worshippers
• Parish clergy and regular clergy (monks)
• Monks lived apart from society according to Benedictine
Rule of monastic life
• Believed in mixture of manual and intellectual work
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Operated extensive farms
Many crafts
Ran schools
Spent hours each day in prayer
A medieval priest
Worshippers
• Came from aristocracy or middle
class
• Collective wealth was
considerable; normal to leave
money or property to Church in
wills
A medieval priest
Clergy
• Involvement in business world often led to corruption
• Monks and nuns did much good work
– Welfare for aged, poor, helpless
– Managed hospitals, orphanages, hospices, asylums, shelters
– Provided scholarships for poor students
• New clerical orders
– Appearance of heresies met with brutal force
– St. Francis of Assisi
– St. Dominic, especially wanted to convert heretics peacefully
– Dominican Order was intellectual group, included professors of
law, theology
– Inquisition to combat heresy
– Most heretics pardoned, but in Spain, brutal methods used to
extract confessions with punishments of imprisonment or public
burnings
– Both Franciscans and Dominicans tried to bring about reforms
ECONOMIC
THE ECONOMIC REVIVAL
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Towns revitalized due to rising trade volume
New cities built: Berlin, Moscow, and Munich
Enforced degree of law and order
Steady rise in population
Artist depiction of 17th
century Moscow.
THE ECONOMIC REVIVAL
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Townsmen could purchase freedom from nobles
Reappearance of clerical, professional people
Stable coinage, new financial techniques
Location often Roman market centers
Medieval
coins
More Peaceful Society
• Another reason for economic revival
• Peaceful setting for economic activity
– Increased power of church to enforce condemnation of random
violence
– Peace of God and Truce of God
A random act of violence
between two knights
More Peaceful Society
• Crusades
– Gave young nobles outlet for warlike impulses
– Deepened animosity between Christians and Muslims
– Fourth Crusade was particularly scandalous
A crusader
More Peaceful Society
• Legal procedures replaced
armed action in disputes
– Bologna, law school
– Roman law gradually introduced
back into secular affairs
Bourgeoisie
• Educated, status-conscious people:
doctors, lawyers, officeholders, merchants
• Towns had become source of royal taxes
• Towns could purchase charter to elect
own government, levy taxes
Jews
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Segregated into ghettos
Provided essential financial services
Not allowed to own land, join guilds
13th century pogroms forced migration into
eastern Europe
Star of David
POLITICAL
Royal Kingdoms
Formation of States
What is a state?
• Definite territory with boundaries and own
government
• Recognizes no superior power within its borders
• Suppresses violence, maintains order
• Defends subjects from internal and external
threats
• Exercises power through officials, police, army
England
• Pioneer in creating a state
• William the Conqueror organized new type
of kingdom with king as final authority
• Domesday Book, royal census for taxes
• Had officials, courts and laws, royal army,
single currency
Domesday Book
France
• Developed more slowly
• Phillip II Augustus began unifying, strengthening
the country
• Major difference: England relied on unpaid local
officials, France did not
– French created royal bureaucracy; English had
maximum local variation
– English counties were similar to each other; French
not able to overcome differences
– France remained series of adjoining semiautonomous
countries rather than single nation
German Empire
• Agglomeration of principalities, kingdoms,
free cities
• Investiture Controversy ripped empire
apart
The Investiture Controversy, also known
as the lay investiture controversy, was
the most important conflict between
secular and religious powers in
medieval Europe. It began as a dispute
in the 11th century between the Holy
Roman Emperor Henry IV and Pope
Gregory VII.
German Empire
• Emperors were elected, caused
maneuvering, conspiracy, civil wars
• Frederick Barbarossa tried to unify area,
failed
Myers, Philip Van Ness (1905), A
medieval king investing a bishop
with the symbols of office
INTELLECTUAL
Medieval Universities
• First universities
– Bologna, Salerno: academies for law, medicine
– Paris: law, philosophy, theology
– Much of curriculum devoted to classical Greek works
recovered through Muslims
– St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Christian teacher of
12th /13th centuries
– Students came from all classes; most middle class or
poor who saw degree as social mobility
– No women, either students or professors
– Course of study generally 5 years or longer
AESTHETIC
Gothic Architecture
• Came to be norm for period
• Basic elements
– Lots of light
– Abundance of decoration
– Arches, buttresses, vaulting
• Expression of artistic skill,
deep faith
• Built over generations
The interior of the western
end of Reims Cathedral,
France
Vernacular Literature
• Latin had been common written language
• Common oral languages (vernacular)
became popular
• Dante’s Divine Comedy
• Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
Dante’s Divine Comedy
Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales
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Discussion Questions
1.
2.
Feudalism was the principal organization during
Europe’s Middle Ages. How would you compare
European and Japanese feudalism? How did the lives
of the European feudal serfs compare to the lives of
the Japanese peasants? What comparisons or
contrasts can you make between the Japanese
samurai and the European nobility?
How would you compare the medieval university and
the modern school which you currently attend? What
similarities or differences do you see in curriculum,
governance, student life?