Download The Middle Ages

The Middle
Ages
By David Adams Leeming
Instructed by
BJ Rogers
The Norman Conquest
October
1066, William,
Duke of Normandy, France,
defeated and killed King
Harold of England, the last
Anglo-Saxon king.
William the Conqueror
 Illegitimate
son of the previous
duke of Normandy who was
cousin to King Edward the
Confessor.
 Edward died childless and
Harold, earl of Wessex, was
crowned king the next day.
William’s Reign
 William
claimed that King
Edward had promised him the
throne and attacked with a
large army.
 He wanted to rule the AngloSaxons, not eliminate them.
Because of William
 He
combined the Norman and
Anglo-Saxon elements of
culture where the language
was Anglo-Saxon but the law
and order, cultural unity, and
administrative abilities of the
Normans were present.
The Domesday Book
 One
of William’s great
administrative feats was an
inventory of nearly every piece
of property in England– land,
cattle, buildings– in the
Domesday Book.
 He
considered it a judgment of
his subjects’ financial worth
and God’s final judgment of
their moral worth.
 For the first time in European
history, people could be taxed
based on what they owned.
What the French brought
to England
 French
language
 Feudalism
A social, caste, property, and
military system based on a
religious concept of hierarchy,
with God as the supreme
overlord and the king held land
as a vassal by “divine right”.
King William
Barons (as his vassals)
Who were given land in return for
their economic and military
allegiance
Landless knights
Serfs
who were not free to leave the
land they tilled.
Did the Feudal System
Always Work?
No
Vassals
did not always
obey, especially if the
overlord was weak.
Chivalry
From
the French word
cheval which means “horse”
Means a knight on a horse
Defined as a complete code
of conduct…
Where the knight’s first
obligation was to defend his
lord, the king and the Christian
faith, but the code also
covered how to treat a lady,
how to help others, and how to
resist the urge to run away if
captured.
Chivalry also defined as…
A
system of ideals and
social codes governing the
behavior of knights and
gentlewomen.
Chivalry demanded
 That
one’s oath of loyalty to the
overlord and observing certain
rules of warfare, such as never
attacking an unarmed opponent
and adoring a particular lady was
seen as a means of achieving
self-improvement.
Courtly love
 Revering
and acting in the name
of a lady would make a knight
braver and better.
 Nonsexual ideally
 Knight might wear his lady’s
colors in battle
 Might
glorify her in words and
be inspired by her.
 Lady always remained pure
and out of reach. She was “set
above” her admirer
 Provided built in drama
 Brought about an idealized
attitude toward women.
Knights
Primary
duty of males
above the serf class was
military service to their
lords, boys were trained
from an early age to
become warriors.
 When
training was complete,
the boys were “dubbed” or
ceremonially tapped on the
shoulder (originally a hard
testing blow).
 Once knighted, the youth
became a man with the title
“sir” and the full rights of the
warrior caste.
Women in Medieval Society
Had
no political rights
Always subservient to a man,
whether husband, father, or
brother.
Her husband’s or father’s social
standing determined the
degree of respect she
commanded.
 Peasant
women led a life of
ceaseless childbearing,
housework, and hard
fieldwork.
 Women of a higher station
took charge of managing the
entire estate while the
husband was gone, but
relinquished all power once he
returned.
A
woman’s perceived value was
tied to the value of the lands
she brought to a marriage.
 Chivalry gave rise to a new form
of literature, the romance.
The greatest English example
of a romance is Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight
Medieval
society centered
around the feudal castle, but
the population grew, causing
many to live in towns and cities.
The development of the city
classes – lower, middle and
upper-middle form because of
the increase in population.
 The
merchant class formed
when people of the cities who
were free (not tied to the land or
to knighthood and chivalry)
moved away from the castle.
 The merchant class had a
distinct style of art and their
point of view was expressed in
ballads and mystery plays (or
miracle plays).
The Crusades
A
series of wars waged by
European Christians against the
Muslims, with Jerusalem and the
Holy Land as the prize.
 Though they did not win, they
benefited from contact with
Eastern mathematics, astronomy,
architecture, and crafts
St. Thomas a Becket
 Thomas,
a Norman, was prime
minister under his friend King
Henry II
 All Christians belonged to the
Catholic Church
 King Henry was a vassal to the
pope, who was very powerful and
controlled most of the crowned
heads of Europe.
 King
Henry appointed Thomas
as Archbishop of Canterbury
(head of the Catholic Church
in England), hoping to gain an
upper hand in disputes with
the Church.
 Thomas took the pope’s side
more and this angered Henry.
In
1170, King Henry said,
“Will no one rid me of this
turbulent priest.”
Four of Henry’s knights took
him literally and killed
Thomas in his own
cathedral.
This created a backlash
against Henry.
 Clergymen
began to take advantage
of the situation and corruption ran
unchecked.
 The positive effects of the church
were:
Fostered cultural unity
Was the center of learning
Its monasteries were libraries and
publishers of the time
Its language, Latin, remained the
international language of educated
Europeans.
The Magna Carta
 In
1215, King John was forced by
the barons to sign the Magna
Carta which safeguarded the
nobles rights, thus keeping papal
power from unjust actions.
 It became the basis for English
constitutional law where trial by
jury and legislative taxation were
established.
The Hundred Years’ War
 From
1337-1453 was waged
by England against France.
 Two English Kings made false
claims to the French throne
(Edward III & Henry V)
 English lost
English yeoman
 After
the war, the English were
no longer best represented by
the knight in shining armor, but
rather by the green-clad
yeoman (small- landowner) with
his longbow who formed the
nucleus of the English armies in
France.
The Black Death
 Also
called the bubonic
plague, struck England in
1348-1349.
 Spread by fleas from infected
rats, the disease reduced the
nation’s population by a third.
Decrease in Population
due to the Plague
 Caused
a labor shortage
 Gave the lower classes more
leverage than ever before
against their overlords
 The freedom of the serfs was
one long-term result which
knocked out feudalism’s last
support.
The end is in sight
King
Henry VII’s 1486
marriage which reconciled the
Houses of York and
Lancaster (and began the
Tudor line) brought the Middle
Ages to an end. Thus began
the Renaissance in England.