Early Middle Ages

Middle Ages: 500-1500

  • Between the Roman Empire and the Early Modern Period.
  • 500-800: Dark Ages: little cultural or scientific advancement.
  • 1050 - 1450: High Middle Ages: social institutions matured; era of greater creativity.
  • The culture of Western Europe was a blend of classical (Greco-Roman), Christian, and Germanic elements.

Feudalism

  • Through interdependence and mutual responsibilities, feudalism provided people with protection and stability.
  • A lord gave each of his vassals a parcel of land called a fief in exchange for military serviceand payments called relief.
  • A vassal protected the inhabitants of his fief, collected revenue (taxes), and dispensed justice.

Manor System

  • A great fief was subdivided into hundreds of smaller estates called manors, which were the basic social and economic units of the Middle Ages.
  • Most were about 1,000 acres and supported 200-300 people.
  • Peasants were not allowed to leave the manor.
  • The lord could not evict them from the land.
  • They were required to do any labor the lord demanded.
  • They also had to work a plot of land for the church, God’s acre.
  • The lord of the manor traditionally took half the produce.

Roman Catholic Church

  • With both spiritual and secular power, the church dominated life and was the primary institution of medieval society.
  • The church was believed to be the only way to salvation and possessed great influence.
  • Secular clergy were the parish priests.
  • Regular clergy lived in monasteries and kept literacy alive.
  • It was a time of Church corruption.
  • Vows of poverty and chastity were ignored.
  • Nobles often sold the offices of Bishops and Archbishops.

Rise of Monarchies - England

  • Feudal monarchs increased their power by gaining the support of townspeople.
  • Growth of a money economy allowed monarchs to hire soldiers.

England

  • Battle of Hastings - 1066
  • Duke William of Normandy gains the English throne.
  • He maintains firm control over his vassals.
  • Recorded a census in the Domesday Book to make tax collecting more efficient.
  • Common law was extended to all people and a jury system developed.
  • Magna Carta - 1215
  • Barons forced King John to sign the “Great Charter,” which was later used to limit the power of the monarchy.
  • Granted rights to the nobility, which were later extended to all citizens.
  • Forced the monarch to abide by the law.
  • Required the monarch to consult with the Great Council of lords and clergy before raising taxes.
  • In the 1200s, meetings of the Great Council began to include representatives from the towns and lesser knights.
  • These meetings became known as Parliament.
  • Two groups eventually formed.
  • House of Lords: nobles and high clergy (bishops)
  • House of Commons: lesser knights and middle class citizens (townspeople)
  • A limited monarchy developed as Parliament increased its financial and legislative powers.

Rise of Monarchies – France, Holy Roman Empire & Spain

France

  • Hugh Capet, Count of Paris, elected king by feudal lords in 987.
  • Established the Capetian dynasty that lasted 300 years.
  • Increased royal lands through diplomacy, marriage, and war.
  • Established efficient bureaucracy.
  • Districts were administered by educated clergy, lesser knights, and townspeople.
  • 1302 - Estates General formed to represent the clergy, the nobility, and the townspeople (bourgeoisie).
  • It never became as powerful as the Parliament.

Holy Roman Empire

  • Otto I, Duke of Saxony, elected king of the Germanic states in 936.
  • He centralized power over the German and Italian states and formed close ties with the Church.
  • Pope John XII crowned Otto “Emperor of the Romans” in 962.
  • Title claimed by Otto’s successors.
  • Not holy, Roman, nor an empire. The emperors never had as much control as the nobility.
  • The power struggle between emperors and popes was an ongoing affair throughout the Middle Ages.
  • The practice of lay investiture, wherein the emperor gave a new bishop the symbols of his office (a ring and a staff), became a big issue in the 1000s.
  • In 1122, at the Concordat at Worms, a compromise was reached where church officials elected bishops and abbots and invested them with spiritual authority and the emperor granted them lands and secular powers.

Spain

  • Reconquista- Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille finally drove out the Muslims in 1492.
  • Crusade to bring political and religious unity followed.
  • Religious toleration ended.
  • Muslims and Jews who refused to convert to Christianity were tried by the Inquisition and often killed.
  • Many skilled and educated people emigrated.

Crusades

  • Goal: to liberate the Holy Land.
  • 1071: Seljuk Turks took over Palestine and were torturing Christians.
  • 1095: Byzantine Emperor asked Pope Urban II for help.
  • Thousands of knights and peasants sewed large crosses on their tunics and set out for the Holy Land. Few would return.
  • For many, the crusades appealed to their desire for wealth, honor, sense of adventure, freedom from serfdom, freedom from debts, and hope for spiritual salvation.
  • Between 1096 and 1204, there were 4 major crusades, a peasant’s crusade, and 2 children’s crusades. Minor crusades continued until 1270.
  • Only the 1st Crusade was successful. In 1099, after Muslims and Jews were massacred in Jerusalem, the crusaders divided the captured lands into four Crusader States: Edessa, Antioch, Tripoli, and Jerusalem. Within 50 years, the Muslims began regaining control.
  • After the fall of Edessa in 1144, the 2nd Crusade was called by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. It was a total failure.
  • After the 3rd Crusade, the Muslim leader Saladin allowed Christians to go to Jerusalem for religious pilgrimages.
  • Encouraged by Venetian merchants, the 4th Crusade attacked and looted Constantinople.
  • By 1291, the city of Acre, the last Christian outpost, was captured by Muslims, who massacred their defeated enemies, the Christians.
  • The Crusades failed in their chief goal - the conquest of the Holy Land.
  • Outcome :
  • briefly increased the power and prestige of the pope
  • increased the power of monarchs who levied taxes to support the Crusades
  • increased trade between east and west
  • rise of towns
  • encouraged the growth of a money economy in Western Europe
  • selling goods for a profit became acceptable
  • Italian merchants and shipbuilders got rich by maintaining the supply lines and transportation to the Holy Land.
  • contact with other civilizations opened minds to new ideas
  • sparked an interest in exploration
  • increased persecution of Jews
  • thousands were slaughtered & much property was destroyed

Learning, Literature, and the Arts

  • 1100s - first universities evolved out of cathedral schools
  • Literature began to be written in the vernacular (everyday language of the people) rather than in Latin only.
  • Scholasticism was developed by Christian scholars to resolve the conflict between faith and reason.
  • Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologica - brought classical Greek philosophy together with Christian faith
  • Chanson de geste - long narrative poems that portrayed the ideals of chivalry - such as the Song of Roland and the Poem of the Cid
  • Christine de Pizan: The City of Ladies - examined the achievements of women and men’s negative views of women
  • troubadour poems of love were popular among the nobility
  • Dante : Divine Comedy - Roman poet Virgil leads Dante on a visit to hell, purgatory, and later heaven
  • Geoffrey Chaucer : The Canterbury Tales - pilgrims on their way to the tomb of Thomas Becket in Canterbury in southern England
  • The theme of all medieval art was religion.
  • Illuminated manuscripts
  • Great cathedrals were built:
  • Romanesque style: 1000 - 1150
  • thick walls, rounded arches and domed roofs
  • narrow slits for windows
  • simple, solid, dark, gloomy fortress
  • flat, masculine, and simply adorned
  • Gothic style: 1150 - 1300
  • tall, light, and airy
  • flying buttresses
  • large stained glass windows
  • complex, lacy, richly embroidered, feminine
  • Despite the lack of scientific observation and experimentation and the unquestioned authority of the Catholic Church, some scientific progress was made.
  • 1200s - Roger Bacon : founder of experimental science
  • Medicine was still poor - illness was the work of the devil
  • herbal folk medicine, prayer, and pilgrimages to holy shrines

Late Middle Ages

1200s - rise of towns

  • The growth of towns and a middle class weakened the position of the nobility.
  • Increased trade created a money economy, which replaced the barter economy.
  • Monarchs were able to hire soldiers for standing armies to protect the people and they no longer relied on vassals for support.
  • Strong monarchs undermined feudal nobility.

1300s - challenging century

  • social unrest - peasant revolts
  • bad weather & crop failures early in the century - hunger and starvation
  • divisions in the Church
  • Babylonian Captivity: 1309 - 1378
  • heresies : Wycliffe and Hus
  • military conflict - Hundred Years’ War ~ 1337-1453 ~ England v. France
  • New weapons such as the longbow and cannons made armored knights obsolete and castles indefensible.
  • Many nobles died during the war.
  • illness and death - the Black Plague killed 1/3 of the population
  • economic transformation
  • growth of banking and capitalism
  • decline of feudal and manorial systems
  • weakening of the guild system
  • emergence of the domestic system - merchants hired laborers who were paid for piecework

1400s - time of change

  • Strong national monarchies arose in England, France, and Spain to form centralized governments.
  • Most serfs were emancipated.
  • There was a flourishing in the arts and literature - the Renaissance.
  • Inquisition - court established by the Catholic Church in the 1200’s to locate and try heretics - actively persecuted Jews, Muslims, and alleged witches.

Renaissance: 1350-1550

rebirth of interest in classical learning

Humanism

  • intellectual movement that focused on worldly subjects rather than religious issues
  • promoted the study of grammar, rhetoric, poetry, and history

Golden Age of the Arts: painting, sculpture, architecture

  • realism of the Romans and idealistic beauty of the Greeks
  • perspective - making distant objects appear smaller than objects closer to the viewer
  • rejected Gothic architecture in favor of the columns, arches, and domes of classical times

Why Italy?

  • center of Roman civilization
  • wealthy and powerful merchant class stressed education and individual achievement and had the financial resources to support the arts
  • patron - financial supporter of the arts
  • Florence - center of the Renaissance

Leonardo da Vinci: Renaissance Man

  • person of wide interests and an expert in many areas
  • artist and student of botany, anatomy, optics, music, architecture, and engineering

Northern Renaissance

  • 1400s - Flanders : northern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands
  • 1500s- Spain, France, Germany, and England
  • emphasis on religious themes

Printing Press

  • 1456 - Johann Gutenberg of Germany printed the Bible using movable metal type

Scientific Revolution

  • 1600s - Scientific Method used rather than reliance on the Bible, Aristotle, Ptolemy
  • heliocentric (sun-centered) model of the universe
  • gravity theorized by Isaac Newton
  • advances in chemistry and medicine

Reformation

Martin Luther - German monk and professor of theology (religion)

  • 1517 - wrote the 95 Theses arguing against the sale of indulgences (pardon of sins) and nailed them to the door of the WittenbergChurch
  • Main Ideas
  • salvation comes through faith alone - not by good works
  • Bible is the sole source of truth
  • priests are not needed to interpret the Bible
  • Spread of Luther’s ideas
  • many people in Germany and Scandinavia unhappy with Catholic Church corruption became Protestants
  • German princes saw the movement as an opportunity to throw off the rule of the Church and the Holy Roman Emperor
  • they were tired of giving money to Rome and wanted to seize Church property
  • Peace of Augsburg - 1555
  • princes in the Holy Roman Empire could chose their religion
  • south stayed Catholic (Italy)
  • north became Protestant (Germany)

John Calvin: 1536

  • accepted Luther’s idea of salvation through faith alone
  • original sin - humans are born sinful
  • predestination - God predetermined who would be saved
  • believers led moral lives and had a strong work ethic
  • set up as a theocracy in GenevaSwitzerland - govt. ruled by church leaders
  • Huguenots - French Calvinists
  • John Knox led Calvinists in Scotland

English Reformation

  • King Henry VIII wanted to annul his marriage - pope refused
  • 1534 - Act of Supremacy : king became the head of the Church of England (Anglican Church)
  • maintained Catholic rituals - but services were conducted in English and priests could marry

Radical Reformers

  • Anabaptists rejected infant baptism
  • Amish, Mennonites, Quakers, Baptists

Catholic Reformation

  • revived moral authority of the Church and ended corruption
  • Council of Trent (1545-1563) - reaffirmed traditional views
  • salvation - faith and sacraments
  • Bible and pope are sources of truth

Effects of the Reformation

  • religious wars in Europe for 100 years
  • Inquisition becomes stronger
  • many Jews are forced into Eastern Europe