MEDIEVAL HISTORY NOTES: GRADE 7
CHAPTER 5 EUROPE IN THE MIDDLE AGES
Section 1: Feudalism and the Manor System (page 118)
- I. Introduction
-A knight was expected to be loyal to the lord who knighted him. His lord was loyal to a more powerful lord or king. Knights and lords protected the less powerful people loyal to them. This system held society together.
- II. The Middle Ages
-The Middle Ages were the times of knights in shining armor, lords and ladies, and castles and cathedrals. These were the years between ancient times and modern times.
-Historians usually say that the ancient times lasted until about A.D. 500 and that modern times started about 1500. The period in the middle, the Middle Ages, is also called the medieval period. Medieval comes from the Latin words medi meaning “middle” and aevum meaning “age.”
-The Middle Ages began with the collapse of the Roman Empire in Western Europe. For centuries, the Roman Empire had provided order and stability in the region.
-It had spread its culture, the Latin language, and Christianity across the continent. Over time, however, the Roman Empire grew weak. It suffered economic and social troubles. Worse, the Roman Empire also suffered from invasions by peoples from the north.
-In wave after wave, the invaders destroyed Roman towns and cut off trade routes. They claimed parts of the empire for themselves. Because these people kept their own languages and laws, they broke the bonds that had held the Roman Empire together.
-By about A.D. 500, the Roman Empire in Western Europe had completely collapsed. It was replaced by a patchwork of small kingdoms. Reading and writing were in danger of disappearing from Europe because many of the invading groups could do neither.
-One of the invading groups was the Franks. They claimed the area called Gaul, which is now in France. In fact, the name France comes from the word “Franks.”
-In 768, a skilled military leader named Charlemagne (Charles the Great) became king of the Franks. At that time, the many small kingdoms of Western Europe were often at war with one another.
-Charlemagne expanded his kingdom by conquering these weaker kingdoms. Soon, he ruled an empire that stretched across most of Western Europe.
-Charlemagne ruled his empire for nearly fifty years. During that time, he worked hard to keep Western Europe united. He established schools throughout the land to promote learning and culture. He spread the Christian religion. He issued money and improved the economy.
-Western Europe had not been so prosperous or united since the time of the Roman Empire.
-After Charlemagne’s death, his empire was divided among his three sons. They fought one another, weakening the empire. Other groups also attacked the weakened empire. Perhaps the fiercest attacks were made by the Vikings.
-The Vikings came from the north of Europe—present-day Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. They were skilled sailors and tough warriors.
-Their attacks began around 800 and continued for about 300 years. Relying on surprise, the Vikings burned and looted European towns. But they also reopened trade routes to the Mediterranean lands and beyond.
-And they settled in other parts of northern Europe, mixing with the local populations. Even so, the Vikings did not unite these lands into a lasting empire.
- III. Feudalism: A New Kind of Government
-Charlemagne’s empire was gone. Western Europe was again divided into many kingdoms. Viking attacks were a constant threat. Life was dangerous.
-The people of Europe had to find a way to defend themselves and to organize their communities. Slowly they worked out a new system of government.
-The system that developed was called feudalism. Under feudalism the land was owned by kings or lords but held by vassals in return for their loyalty. By about 1000, feudalism was the way of life throughout Western Europe. It would last for hundreds of years.
-In medieval Europe, power belonged to those who controlled the land. The landowners were nobles, such as barons and princes. They gave a share of land called a fief to each of their vassals, who promised to follow each landowner’s laws and to fight for him. A vassal could also be a lord.
-The chief duty of lords was to protect their vassals and their lands. Vassals were expected to raise and lead armies that would fight for their lord. Many of these vassals were knights-professional soldiers who led other men into battle.
-Vassals also appeared at the lord’s court when commanded to do so. And they paid taxes, often in the form of crops, to their lords.
- IV. The Manor System
-Feudalism was the way medieval Europeans organized power and government. Manorialism was the way they organized their economy. This system was based on the manor, a large estate that included farm fields, pastures, and often an entire village.
-It included a large house, called the manor house, where the lord, or ruler, of the manor lived. The lord of the manor was typically a vassal of a king or of a more powerful lord. The manor was part of his fief.
-Most manors were far from towns, villages, and other manors. Therefore, they had to be self-sufficient, or able to supply their own needs. Food, clothing, and other things needed by the people who lived on the manor were made there.
-A lord depended on the wealth his manor provided. He ruled over his manor—and the poor people who lived there. He made rules and acted as judge. He decided who would oversee the farming and other daily work. And he collected taxes from the peasants who lived on the manor.
-Women of the noble class also played an important part in feudal society. Like the men in her family, a noblewoman went to other noble families for training. Then, she took her place as lady of the household.
-She managed the household, performed necessary medical tasks, and supervised servants.
- V. Peasants and Serfs
-The majority of the people of medieval Europe were not lords, ladies, or knights. They were peasants, a group of people who made their living as farmers and laborers. Their lives were often very different from the lives of the nobles.
-Peasants were often very poor. They did all of the work on the manors of the Middle Ages. They farmed the lord’s fields to raise food for his household. They were only allowed a small strip of land for themselves. Even so, they had to give part of their own harvest to their lord.
-Most peasants were also serfs. Serfs were peasants who were considered to be part of the manor. When a noble was given a manor as part of his fief, its serfs became his. They could not leave the manor, or even get married, without his permission.
-Although serfs were property, they were not quite slaves. A serf who saved enough money to buy a plot of land could become a free peasant. A serf who escaped to a city and lived there for a year and a day without being caught also became free. Most serfs, however, remained serfs their whole lives.
-Medieval peasants worked hard for most of their lives. They farmed their own fields and those of their lord. Men, women, and children were all required to work.
-Peasants lived in one-room huts that often had only a single opening for a window. For heating and cooking, they built a fire on the dirt floor. Smoke filled the dark, cramped interior before drifting out of a hole in the roof.
-Peasants ate mostly simple foods such a black bread, cabbage, and turnips. They rarely ate meat since the animals of the manor and surrounding land were reserved for their lord. Peasants even suffered when they slept: their mattresses were cloth sacks stuffed with straw.
Section 2: The Church and the Rise of Cities
- I. Introduction (page 126)
-During the Middle Ages, cathedrals were built not only to glorify God but also to be a credit to their city. Entire communities worked for decades to build the biggest, tallest, most beautiful cathedrals.
-Once completed, a cathedral served as a house of worship, a gathering place, and even as a religious school. Its beautiful glass windows and sculptures told Bible stories and presented the lives of the saints to a population that could not read or write.
-II. The Church in the Middle Ages
-Most Gothic cathedrals were built in Western Europe between 1100 and 1400. Gothic refers to the style of architecture.
-A cathedral was the church of a bishop, an important leader of the Roman Catholic Church. During the Middle Ages, nearly all people in Western Europe were Roman Catholic.
-During the Middle Ages, life was short and hard for most people. They were comforted by the Christian belief that they would enjoy the rewards of heaven after death if they lived according to Church teachings.
-The Church also held that if people didn’t obey those rules, they would be punished after death. The promise of reward combined with the threat of punishment made most people follow the teachings of the Church.
-The Church also had great economic power. It gained great wealth by collecting taxes. It also took fiefs from lords in exchange for services performed by clergy, or persons with authority to perform religious services. In fact, the Church was the single largest owner of land in Europe during the Middle Ages.
-The combination of religious and economic power enabled the Church to take on many of the roles that government performs today. It even made up laws and set up courts to enforce them.
-People who did not obey the Church were threatened with being excommunicated. Excommunication means being expelled from membership in the Church and participation in Church life. This was a very serious threat. Few people would associate with someone who had been excommunicated.
-High Church officials were advisors to kings and lords. The ever-present threat of excommunication gave Church officials great influence in political matters. The Church used its authority to limit feudal warfare. It declared periods of truce, or temporary peace. That was one reason warfare began to decline during the 1100s.
-The Church was highly organized. Almost every village had a priest. A bishop supervised several priests and an archbishop supervised several bishops. Finally, archbishops were under the authority of the pope.
-The papacy or government of the Church, was based in Rome. The Church had power in every kingdom, every fief, and every village.
-The medieval Church touched nearly all aspects of life. Think of any major event—the birth of a child, a serious illness, a marriage, or a death. During the Middle Ages, the clergy were almost always in attendance to offer a blessing or to perform a service.
- The clergy helped people follow Church rules about how to live. They also listened when people came to church to confess their sins. In the name of God, the clergy then forgave them for the wrongs to which they had confessed.
-Some religious men felt that they should dedicate their lives to God by living together in religious communities called monasteries. Religious women, called nuns, lived in similar communities called convents. This form of religious life is called monasticism.
-These religious communities developed better ways of growing crops and tending livestock. In this way, the Church helped improve the economy of the Middle Ages, which was based mostly on farming.
-Monks and nuns also looked after the sick and set up schools. Monks were more educated than most people. Because they copied books from ancient times, they preserved knowledge that otherwise would have been lost.
-Some Christian scholars studied ancient Greek texts that said people should use reason to discover truth. However, the Church taught that many ideas had to be accepted on faith. These medieval scholars worked out a system that tried to resolve the two philosophies. Called scholasticism, it used reason to support Christian beliefs.
- III. Trade Revives and Towns Grow
-By about A.D. 1000-the middle of the Middle Ages—feudalism was well established in Europe and the Church was a stabilizing force. Europe was becoming a safer place, and the population was growing.
-As people felt safer, they began to travel more and learn about distant places. Europeans began to demand such things as spices and cloth that they could get only from Africa and Asia.
-Ancient trade routes came back into use again. European merchants traveled abroad to buy and sell valued goods.
-At first, local goods were traded in the markets of small villages. As trade grew, so did these markets. Some developed into major trade fairs.
-Traders also gathered at convenient places for travelers, such as river crossings and along highways. They chose important monasteries and fortified places built by nobles. Before long, towns developed in these locations, too.
-Also during this time, many manors were becoming overcrowded. Providing food and clothing for everyone on the manor became difficult. Many lords gladly allowed peasants to buy their freedom and move to the new, growing towns.
- IV. Life in Towns and Cities
-By about 1300, many towns in Western Europe were growing into cities. Paris, with a population approaching 300,000, was the largest city in the world.
-Town life was not at all like farm or manor life. Towns and cities were not self-sufficient. Instead, their economies depended on the exchange of money for goods and services.
-A new class of people developed, made up of merchants, traders, and crafts workers. In status, it was between nobles and peasants, and so it was called the middle class.
-In many towns and cities, the merchants, traders, and crafts workers began to form associations called guilds. A guild included all the people who practiced a certain trade or craft.
-Guilds set prices and prevented outsiders from selling goods in town. They set standards for the quality of their goods. Guild members paid dues. This money was used to help needy members or to support the families of members who had died.
-It took a long time to become a member of a guild. Between the ages of 8 and 14, a boy who wanted to learn certain trade became an apprentice, or an unpaid worker being trained in a craft.
-He lived and worked in the home of a master of that trade for as long as seven years. Then he could become a journeyman, or salaried worker. In time, if guild officials judged that the journeyman’s work met their standards, he could join the guild.
-Medieval towns and cities were extremely crowded. Their lack of sanitation, or procedures for keeping the town clean, bred disease, and the overcrowded conditions meant that disease spread quickly.
-One disease, the bubonic plague, wiped out one third of Europe’s population between 1347 and 1351. Called the Black Death, it was spread by fleas living on the rats that thrived in the unsanitary conditions.
- V. Medieval Culture
-Despite its hardships, medieval life was not all a struggle for survival. The growing cities attracted traveling scholars, and young men flocked to cathedral schools. Many of these schools became great centers of learning.
-Stories, poems, and songs about chivalry were also very popular. Chivalry is the code of honorable conduct by which knights were supposed to live.
-Throughout Western Europe, traveling poets and musicians went from place to place singing about the brave deeds performed by knights to win the love of a beautiful and worthy woman.
Section 3: The Crusades
- I. Introduction (page 133)
-On November 18, 1095, a crowd gathered in the town of Clermont, located in present-day France. They came to hear an urgent message from the pope.
-Pope Urban II was calling the people of Europe to war. The purpose of the war was to capture the Holy Land, a region sacred to Christians because Jesus lived and taught there.
-It was a small region on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, in present-day Israel, Jordan, and Palestine. Now, said the pope, the Holy Land has fallen to an enemy. Christians must win it back.
- II. Causes of the Crusades
-Over the next 200 years, the Church launched eight military expeditions, called the Crusades, to capture the Holy Land.
-The word comes from crux, the Latin word for “cross.” People who carried the Christian cross into battle against the non-Christian enemy were called crusaders.
-Since about A.D. 200, European Christians had been traveling to Jerusalem, a city in the Holy Land regarded as sacred by Christians, Muslims, and Jews. These people were pilgrims-people who journey to a sacred place.
-Nobles and peasants alike made the long and difficult journey. They wanted to visit the places written about in the Bible.
-For centuries, Jerusalem had been controlled by Arab Muslims who generally welcomed Christian pilgrims. Then, in the 1000s, the Seljuk Turks took control of the Holy Land. This Muslim group sometimes attacked Christian pilgrims from Europe. They then closed the pilgrimage routes to Jerusalem.
-At the same time, the Turks were also conquering much of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople asked Pope Urban II to send knights to defend his Christian empire. The pope agreed and called on the people of Europe to fight the Muslim Turks.
-Pope Urban II wanted the Holy Land to be under the control of Christians. He wanted Christian pilgrims to be able to visit Jerusalem and other religious sites.
-The pope thought a crusade would unite Europeans against a common enemy-the Muslim Turks-and they would stop fighting among themselves. He also hoped to gain power and prestige for himself and the Church.
-Some Europeans had other reasons for encouraging the Crusades. They wanted to control not only the Holy Land but also key trade routes between Africa, Asia, and Europe.
- III. A Series Of Crusades
-The pope’s best hope for capturing the Holy Land rested with European lords and their knights. But before these armies could assemble, a band of common people set out for Jerusalem.
-Peter, a small man who wore monk’s robes, gathered an “army” of common people. They set out in 1096. When they got to Constantinople, the Byzantine emperor advised them to wait for help from an army of knights from Europe. Peter agreed, but his followers rebelled.
-His soldiers attacked the Turks, who easily defeated them. Only a small part of his army survived.
-At last, the European armies sent by Pope Urban II reached Constantinople. Joined by what remained of Peter’s army, the knights fought their way to Jerusalem and captured it in 1099.
-While taking control of the city, the crusaders killed about 10,000 of its Muslim, Christian, and Jewish inhabitants.
-After the capture of Jerusalem, most of the crusaders returned to Europe. Those who stayed in the Holy Land set up four Christian kingdoms. The Muslim Turks attacked these kingdoms repeatedly. European Christians then launched more Crusades to keep control of the region.
-The Second Crusade had little success. Then a strong Arab Muslim leader rose to power. He was known to the Europeans as Saladin. By 1187, Saladin had retaken Jerusalem. King Richard I of England tried to persuade Saladin to return the Holy City to the Christians.
-Saladin refused saying, “To us Jerusalem is as precious…as it is to you, because it is the place from where our prophet [Muhammad] made his journey by night to heaven. Do not dream that we will give it to you.”
-Even so, Saladin signed a treaty with King Richard. He agreed to reopen Jerusalem to Christian pilgrims.
- IV. The Results of the Crusades
-Although crusaders did capture the Holy Land for a while, they were never able to gain firm control of it. Still the Crusades brought lasting and important changes to Europe.
-The European ships that carried crusaders and their supplies to the Holy Land returned with rugs, jewelry, glass, and spices. Soon, these goods were in great demand in Europe.
-Thus, the Crusades helped revive trade, which in turn led to the growth of towns and cities.
-The Crusades also encouraged the use of money in Europe. For much of the Middle Ages, most people bartered, or traded goods for other goods or for land or for protection. But the crusaders went far from home, where they needed to buy supplies. In that case, it was easier to use money than it was to barter.
-Returning crusaders also brought new ideas and technology back to Europe. You have read about the advances made by Arabs in medicine, mathematics, and technology. The crusaders helped increase European knowledge of these techniques.
-Europeans learned how to make better ships and maps--skills that would help them become worldwide explorers.
Section 4: The Power of Kings
- I. Introduction (page 140)
-For three days, the king waited outside the castle where Pope Gregory IV was staying. Barefoot in the winter cold, the king begged forgiveness. Would the pope forgive King Henry IV?
-During the Middle Ages, kings and popes quarreled over who should select bishops. Because bishops were Church officials, popes claimed the right to choose them. Kings wanted this right because bishops often controlled large areas of their kingdoms. They also wanted to play a role in the Church.
-In 1077, Henry IV of Germany ruled much of Europe. He had been choosing bishops even though Pope Gregory had ordered him not to. In response, the pope had excommunicated the king and declared that his people no longer had to obey him.
-However, after putting Henry off for three long, cold days, the pope gave in. He allowed Henry to rejoin the Church.
-Pope Gregory had made a serious mistake. In 1081, King Henry invaded Italy, where the pope lived. By 1084, Henry had replaced Pope Gregory with a new pope, who crowned Henry emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
Gregory was sent into exile.
- II. Nation Building
-Henry’s success in overthrowing the pope was a hint of things to come. As later kings gained power, they often dared to put their own wishes before those of the Church. They would soon increase their power in other ways as well.
-When the 1200s began, Europe was still a feudal society. While kings reigned over kingdoms, the wealthiest lords also had great power. Many saw themselves as nearly the king’s equal. In fact, it was not unusual for a noble to have more land, vassals, and knights than his king.
-But the nobles’ power was based on the feudal system. If the feudal system began to decline, so would the nobles’ power.
-One reason for the decline of the feudal system was the growth of trade and towns. Kings began to support the new towns in exchange for money. They agreed to protect towns and made laws to help towns grow rich. Then, with the money paid by townspeople, kings hired armies and used them to attack troublesome nobles.
-The Crusades also weakened the nobles. Many gave up land to raise money so they could join the Crusades. Other nobles were killed in the Crusades, and kings claimed their land.
-Over time, kings became more and more powerful. Instead of a patchwork of fiefs ruled by many nobles, large areas of Europe became united under a single king. The kings became strong enough to challenge the Church.
-Gradually, these larger kingdoms began to turn into nations. A nation is a community of people that shares territory and a government. A common language and culture also often unite the people of a nation.
-The process of combining smaller communities into a single nation with a national identity and a national government is called nation building.
-In the late Middle Ages, the idea of nationhood was taking hold in Europe. A royal marriage united the two largest kingdoms in Spain. In Russia, rulers called tsars were expanding their territory and their power over other nobles.
-In France, a long line of kings slowly but surely increased royal power.
- III. Changes in England
-By the 1200s, England was already on its way to becoming a unified nation. In 1066, William of Normandy, a duke from France, had conquered England in what came to be called the Norman Conquest.
-As king of England, was a strong ruler who made sure to keep more power than his nobles. The kings who followed William—especially Henry I and Henry II—further increased the power of the king.
-Of course, the nobles began to resent this power. King John, a son of Henry II, would soon face their anger.
-When John became king of England in 1199, he quickly moved to increase his wealth and power. He taxed people heavily. He jailed his enemies unjustly and without trial.
-John also clashed with the pope by objecting to the appointment of a bishop he did not like. The king seized Church property. The pope struck back by excommunicating John and declaring that he was no longer king.
-John was now at the mercy of the nobles and clergy whom he had angered. With the backing of the bishops, English nobles demanded a meeting with the king.
-On June 15, 1215, about 2,000 English nobles gathered at Runnymede, a meadow along the Thames River. They presented John with a list of their demands. John was forced to place the royal seal on the document, and it became law.
-Called the Magna Carta, or the “Great Charter,” it limited the king’s power over the nobles. The king could no longer jail any freeman without just cause, and he could not raise taxes without consulting his Great Council of lords and clergy.
-This council later became the Model Parliament, which included common people as well as lords and clergy. Eventually, Parliament evolved into a powerful legislature. As it gained power, Parliament also helped unify England.
-At the same time, however, the Magna Carta also strengthened the power of the king. Because nobles now had a say in government, they were more likely to support what the king did.
- IV. The Hundred Years’ War
-Despite the growth of nations, Western Europe was not at peace. Now, instead of nobles fighting each other, the emerging nations went to war.
One long series of clashes between England and France was called the Hundred Years’ War. It lasted from 1337-1453.
-In the 1300s, the borders of England and France were not the ones we know today. As a result of marriage and inheritance, the English king had come to be the lord of many countries in present-day France.
-William the Conqueror, who became king of England in 1066, was also Duke of Normandy in France. The 1152 marriage of King Henry II of England and the French noblewoman Eleanor of Aquitaine brought more French land under English control.
-Then in 1528, the French king died. King Edward III of England, whose mother had been a French princess, claimed to be king of France under feudal law. The French nobles did not agree. Determined to get his way, Edward III invaded France—and began the Hundred Years’ War.
-There were other causes of the war. Both England and France wanted to control the English Channel, the waterway that separates their countries. Each nation also wanted to control trade in the region and the wealth it brought.
-The Hundred Years’ War dragged on, fought by one king after another. England won most of the battles, but the French continued to fight. However, the tide turned in 1429 when a peasant girl called Joan of Arc took charge of the French forces at the battle of Orleans.
-Under Joan’s command, the French defeated the English at Orleans. She then led her forces to victory in other battles. In 1430, Joan was taken prisoner by allies of the English. England tried Joan for witchcraft. She was convicted and burned at the stake.
-The French saw Joan of Arc as a martyr, and her death inspired them to many victories. By 1453 (the same year Constantinople fell), the English had been driven from most of France. With the English troops in retreat, France was on her way to becoming a strong and united nation.
-The Hundred Years’ War affected the balance of power in England and France. On the battlefield, new weapons such as the longbow and cannon increased the importance of footsoldiers.
-Armored knights, on the other hand, became less valuable in battle. Feudal castles could not stand up to the firepower of the new cannons. Kings now needed large armies, not small bands of knights, to fight for them.
-The Hundred Years’ War also led to national feeling. People began to think of themselves as citizens of England or of France, not simply as loyal to their local lords. Kings who had led their nations in battle became more powerful as the influence of nobles declined.
-On the other hand, the English king had been forced to ask Parliament for more and more money to fund the war. This helped parliament win “the power of the purse” and increased its power in relation to the king. These two developments helped unify England.
-The Hundred Years’ War helped set the modern boundaries of England and France. Forced to give up their dream of empire in Europe, the English began to look to more distant lands for trade and conquest. Leaving feudalism behind, Europe was becoming a continent of nations. And some of these nations would soon rule much of the world.