9-RED

Middle Ages

BIG QUESTIONHow historical and cultural developments during the Middle Ages still influence us today?

  • Women are underrepresented
  • Women could not advance in life because they were busy with taking care of their family along with domestic duties.
  • Women also had many babies and they had to take care of the babies.
  • Music and literature flourished and rude warriors were forced to learn etiquette under Eleanor of Aquitaine.
  • This happened during the time of William the ninth
  • She married the King of France.
  • After her first marriage was annulled she married Henry and she inherited the English throne (so she was queen for the second time). The marriage was annulled because they had no sons.
  • She had five sons and three daughters with Henry. One of the sons became Richard the Lionhearted and the other was John Lackland.
  • Generally women were able to support their families through writing and could get jobs.
  • 450- 1300 AD – “The Middle Ages”
  • Between fall of Romans and Renaissance
  • Rome taken by the Visigoths
  • Western part of empire destroyed
  • Renaissance starts in southern Europe
  • Italy first
  • Rest of Europe followed
  • Goes back to classical roots
  • A New European Structure
  • Rome had great power in 3rd century
  • Empire was pressured by Germanic tribes
  • Led to need for territory
  • Invaded Roman territory
  • Volkerwanderung - “Wandering folk”
  • Germanic Contribution
  • Tribes began to settle and form individual kingdoms
  • Code of Chivalry
  • Lords had knights to serve them in battles
  • Weapons
  • Double edged sword
  • Lance
  • Crusades fought to retake Jerusalem from Muslims
  • Perfect knight under Code would be unidealistic – bulky armor made easy targets

Birth of Feudalism

  • Vassalage- one lord swears allegiance to another in exchange for privileges or feuds
  • Germanic tribes converted to Christianity
  • Many learned Latin
  • Romance languages descended from Latin
  • Variants due to different Germanic dialects

Feudalism and Peasants

  • Feudal systems involved peasants who lived on a lord’s manor
  • Owed service to the lord in exchange for protection
  • Raised sheep and cattle and grew grain and vegetables

The Moors Threaten Europe

  • 711 A.D. conquered Spain, Middle East, North Africa
  • Advance into Europe and was not stopped until 732 A.D. by Charles Martel (“The Hammer”)

A New Stability: The Reemergence of Learning

  • December 25, 800 A.D. Charles I King of the Franks crowned Holy Roman Emperor
  • Integration of Germanic peoples into European society

A Crusade

  • Israel was a Muslim stronghold
  • Due to Islamic threat in Europe Christian rulers of Europe focused on the Holy Land because of its sacred associations
  • 1095- Pope Urban II urged European knights to participate in a crusade to win back the Holy Land

A Powerful Sermon

  • At first crusades had great success
  • Regained Jerusalem in 1099
  • Arabs exploited the divisions of the crusaders
  • By 1187 Jerusalem was under Islamic control

Stirrings of Nationalism

  • Natural antagonism between Catholic Church and various kingdoms
  • Great Italian Poet – Dante
  • Exiled because pope didn’t like him because he was outspoken about Catholic’s worldly pursuits
  • Wrote Divine Comedy

The Impact of the Crusades

  • Crusades impacted medieval civilization
  • Returned to Middle East  brought back spices, textiles, etc.
  • New merchant class in Italian city-states of Genoa, Florence, and Venice
  • New markets
  • Small towns  large trading centers  education + universities
  • Brought back stories, culture, art  opened up world!!!!!!
  • Transformation of Medieval life
  • -rediscovery of classical literature
  • -exploration
  • -expanding of knowledge

Literature in Native Languages

-Latin was spoken in government, schools, etc.

-high culture literature was all in Latin

-vernacular had its own literature

Reforms in Latin

-Carolingian miniscule-neater script and breaks between words

-eliminated vernacular elements

New Kind of Vernacular Epic

-oral tradition was very important

-long narrative heroic poems developed in Germany

-these had irregular verses

-stimulated a warrior’s courage

Epic Heroes of Diff. Nations

  • Descendants of Germanic tradition

-Song of My Cid (Spanish)

-Song of Roland (French)

Icelandic Sagas

  • Conflicts between Europeans and Viking raiders from Scandinavia
  • 9th to 11th century
  • Vikings (Normans) settled in
  • England
  • northern France
  • Iceland

-Produced works like Njáls saga and Egils saga

-Draws upon oral traditions and historical events

  • William the Conqueror
  • Norman army conquered England in 1066
  • Troubadours: group of poets writing verses in Provencal in 11th century; associated with courts of certain lords
  • Provencal: romance language from southern France
  • Trobar: “find”/”invent”
  • Poetry: new ways to sing about love – courtly love
  • Praised unattainable lady

Courtly Love

  • Poets wrote about courtly love in native languages
  • Eleanor of Aquitone helped popularize this end of poetry
  • Chreten de Troyes wrote about King Arthur
  • He also invented the courtly romance which combined courtly love with the longer form of a Romance

Dante Makes a Fateful Choice

  • Cultures and traditions combined
  • Dante wrote Divine Comedy in early 1300s
  • Expressed a Christian vision of the world, based on Latin culture
  • Wrote poem in Italian for prestige
  • Dante’s guide through Hell is Virgil, a great Roman poet
  • Inspired others to write in Italian

The Dark Side

  • Urbanization had benefits and negatives
  • Benefits
  • Social rebirth
  • The dark side
  • Negatives
  • City-dwellers had a hard time surviving because of crime and disease
  • Black plague

Defining Romance

  • Romance-narrative that tells of strange, sometimes supernatural, events in exotic settings
  • Term originally referred to tales about heroic deeds/courtly love of nobles in Middle Ages
  • Expanded to include any idealized characters in exotic settings
  • Saga: long story of adventure or heroic deeds

Origin and Development of the Term

  • Romance comes from the French word roman
  • No connection to love
  • Romance sagas also known as chivalric romances and courtly romances
  • Over time, romance became more about love

Romance and Legend

  • Medieval romance sagas = legends
  • Legends – traditional stories about the past based on history
  • Talks about a hero who did something extraordinary.
  • i.e. King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table was based on the 20th century story Perceval

Features of the Medieval Romantic Saga

Key Features

  • romance hero
  • -has adventures,
  • raised in humble surroundings
  • Follows chivalric code
  • Performs good deeds
  • Hero goes on quest
  • Quest- dangerous journey for something valuable
  • Romance genre blends realistic & fantasy elements (supernatural)
  • Symbols- represent broader and more important things
  • Archetypes- symbolic narrative elements that appear across different literature