Download The Medieval Catholic Church

Europe in 800
Europe in 1346
European Rivers  Barriers or Highways?
Pope Crowned Charlemagne
Holy Roman Emperor: Dec. 25, 800
Charlemagne’s Empire Collapses:
Treaty of Verdun, 843
Feudalism
• Relationships between lord and vassal
based on specific contractual obligations
of loyalty and protection
• Peasants provided labor in return for
security
– Controlled through an intricate set of
obligations, fees, rituals and taxes
• Only the wealthy could engage in
warfare, and society became divided
– Those who fought (nobles and knights)
– Those who prayed (the clergy)
– Those who worked (peasants and artisans)
Feudalism
A political, economic, and social
system based on loyalty and
military service.
Feudalism
National Monarchies
• City-states lacked complexity of
modern nations
• Rulers began to establish hereditary
claims to the thrones
• Bureaucracy of modern nation-state
can be seen in several nations
• Monarchs had to establish the power
to tax subjects
– Usually had to get support and approval
from other political bodies
Magna Carta
 “Great Charter”
 Signed in 1215
 Monarchs were not
above the law
 Eventually led to
the creation of
Parliament
 Other nation-states
created councils and
representative bodies
to limit power of
monarchs
The Hundred Years’ War
1337 to 1453
• A series of wars fought by England
and France over the French throne
– Challenged ideas of medieval warfare as
English longbows and infantry destroyed
French mounted knights
• 1429 – Joan of Arc helped the French
Army break the siege of Orleans
– Her success threatened the French
Dauphin, so Joan was killed
• By 1453, England held only the city of
Calais
Schools and Universities
• Growth of cities quickened
intellectual life
• Universities taught a variety of
subjects, without the separation of
spiritual and material subjects
• Theology was the “queen of the
sciences” and liberally borrowed
from other disciplines to elaborate
its truths
• Led to the creation of Scholasticism
Medieval Universities
Scholasticism
• Mid-13th Century: Aristotle’s philosophies
were rediscovered
• Pagan ideas regarding logic and the
natural world were synthesized into
Christian dogma to explain divine truths
• This intellectual system came to dominate
the universities until the 18th century
• St. Thomas Aquinas – Christian scholar
who embraced scholasticism
– Note: much of the Renaissance was directed
against what was perceived as the Scholastics’
focus on stale logic and impractical learning
The Medieval Catholic Church
• At the height of its political,
spiritual and cultural influence
• Pope and Holy Roman Emperor vied
for power in Central Europe,
essentially checking each other
– Growing criticisms of the behavior of
the clergy and the lack of regularity
in church doctrine and practice
• Led to the crisis of the Babylonian
Captivity
The Babylonian Captivity and the
Great Schism
• 1307 – Pope began exile in France
• Not a captive of the French, but prestige
of the pope decreased due to increased
bureaucratic apparatus necessary to run
the Church and increased material wealth
• Great Schism (1378-1417) resulted from
efforts by French and Italian cardinals to
elect a pope
– Ended up with two popes, then three
– Nations of Europe were forced to chose
sides
Opposition to the Catholic Church
• Reformers used the Great Schism as
an example of why the Church had
to change
• John Wyclif (the Lollards) – England
• Jan Hus (the Hussites) – Bohemia
– Attacked the institutional power and
wealth of the church and began a call
for a simpler Christianity
• Council of Constance ended the Great
Schism, but the foundation was laid
for the Protestant Reformation
Illuminated Manuscripts
Gothic Architectural Style
• Pointed arches.
• High, narrow
vaults.
• Thinner walls.
• Flying
buttresses.
• Elaborate,
ornate, airier
interiors.
• Stained-glass
windows
– Designed to
educate the
illiterate population
“Flying” Buttresses
Obsession with
Death and Dying
• Representations of
death became a
prominent theme in
European arts
throughout the
plague years
• Apocalyptic images
featuring the
allegoric figure of
Death attempted to
explain the
importance of the
Black Death for
European society
The “Danse Macabre”
Cannons
• Petrarch wrote "these instruments which
discharge balls of metal with most
tremendous noise and flashes of fire...were a
few years ago very rare and were viewed with
greatest astonishment and admiration, but
now they are become as common and familiar
as any other kinds of arms.“
• Beginning of the end for walled fortifications
• Allowed New Monarchs to consolidate power
by eliminating fortified towns and castles of
nobility
Longbow
• High rate of fire and
penetration power
• Contributed to the
eventual demise of the
medieval knight
• Used particularly by the
English to great effect
against the French
cavalry during the
Hundred Years' War
(1337-1453).
• Longbow helped New
Monarchs to create costeffective standing
armies, to maintain and
expand power
Printing Press
• Developed in 1439 by
Johann Gutenberg
• Made possible the
dissemination of
knowledge to a wider
population
– Lead to more
egalitarian society
• Laid the foundation
for the Renaissance,
Reformation and
Enlightenment
Towns and Commerce
• Towns acted as magnets for skilled
labor, ideas, and goods
• Typically lay outside of the feudal
structure
• Banded together in leagues to
protect independence and promote
commerce
– Hanseatic League – German trading
centers in the Baltic region, controlled
the herring market
Hanseatic League
Medieval Trade
Medieval Guilds
Guild Hall
Medieval Guilds: A
Goldsmith’s Shop
Central institutions of most towns
Commercial Monopoly:
 Controlled membership
apprentice  journeyman  master craftsman
 Controlled quality of the product [masterpiece]
 Controlled prices [No Free Market!]
Agricultural Improvements
• Three-crop field rotation
• Iron plow
• Windmills
• More land brought under cultivation
– Helped produce a food surplus
– Increased trade networks
By 1300, population at an all-time
high of 75 million
Social Order
• A new social order had evolved by 900 that
was distinctively medieval.
– Alfred the Great of England: a kingdom
needs “men of prayer, men of war, and men
of work.”
• Tripartite view of society
– The Clergy
– The Landed Nobility (knights)
– The Peasantry and Village Artisans
• A fourth emerged after the 13th century:
middle class merchants & townspeople
– burgesses in English, bourgeoisie in French,
burghers in German
Gender Roles
• Women’s roles limited by legal and
economic prescriptions
• Many women did find ways to express
autonomy, initiative, and talent within
these parameters
– Noblewomen often ran the manors in the
absence of their warrior husbands
– Younger noblewomen joined convents
• Allowed them to pursue intellectual and spiritual
pursuits outside the control of men
– Ideal of courtly love and chivalry placed
women at the center of an important cultural
tradition
Chivalry: A Code of Honor and Behavior
• Chivalry began as
the code of conduct
for mounted
warriors.
• Chivalry highly
esteemed certain
masculine, militant
qualities.
– Military prowess
– Generosity
– Loyalty, the glue
that held feudal
society together.
Gender Roles
• Cities and towns relied upon the
labor of women in the food
preparation, brewing and the
production of cloth
• Peasant and serf women labored
alongside husbands in mowing hay,
tending the vegetables, or
harvesting
– Domestic chores actually played a
minor role for most women
The Medieval Manor
• A powerful lord controlling the lives of an
often large number of dependents.
• He required payments and services from
them and regulated their ordinary
disputes.
– The structure of individual manors, and the
dues owed by peasants, varied tremendously
across Europe.
– Parallel sets of vertical bonds of
associations:
• Feudal lords and vassals entered into
political bonds
• Lords and peasants entered into economic
bonds.
The Medieval Manor
Life on the Medieval Manor
Serfs at work
The Black Death: Causes
• By 1300, the large population explosion
had outgrown the food supply.
– Progressively weakened by
malnutrition, Europe’s population was
highly vulnerable to disease
• Devastation resulted from the Black
Death (1348-1351)
– Killed about 40% of the European
population
– More important were the
psychological and social costs of the
disease
The Black Death
• Disease carried by fleas on rats, so
urban areas were devastated
• Many believed that this was God’s
punishment for living too well
– 60% of the
clergy died
treating the
disease, causing
people to
question the
power of the
church
The Black Death
• Led to persecution
of Jews, who were
blamed for
poisoning the wells
• Caused a labor
shortage that undermined the feudal
structure
– Allowed peasants to bargain for
improved labor conditions and payment
– Note: Did not affect Eastern Europe
as much as Western/Central Europe,
which allowed the feudal system to
last much longer
Attempts to Stop the Plague
Flagellants:
Self-inflicted “penance” for our sins!