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Early Middle Ages Again. Part II. Feudalism. Feudalism arose when local lords began to govern their own lands in the absence of a strong central government. To get needed military help, weak kings granted powerful lords the use of land from the royal estates.
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Early Middle AgesAgain Part II
Feudalism • Feudalism arose when local lords began to govern their own lands in the absence of a strong central government. • To get needed military help, weak kings granted powerful lords the use of land from the royal estates. • Strong lords, with more land than they needed, granted the use of part of it to lesser lords in return for military aid and other services. • Each man who granted land was a lord: each man who held land in return for services was a vassal. • The grant of land was called a fief. (Fife or Feef)
Feudalism & Fiefs • The Latin word for fief is feudum, from which come the word feudal. • In times the fief became hereditary. • Legal ownership passed from the lord to his son, while legal possession and use passed from the vassal to his son. • Only the oldest son inherited for a fief was never divided. • Many lords held more than one fief, often in widely scattered locations.
The Feudal Relationship • In order to understand the relationship between lord and vassal, it is helpful to remember three things. • Only nobles could be vassals. • It was an honorable relationship between legal equals. • A man could be a vassal and a lord. • It was a very personal relationship. • Each man’s loyalties and obligations were owed only to the lord immediately above him or to the vassal below him.
Obligations of Feudalism • The granting and holding of a fief was really a contract between lord and vassal. • The lord granted the fief – that is, use of the land. • He also guaranteed the vassal protection and justice. • The obligations of a vassal were more numerous. • Promised the lord a certain number of fully equipped horsemen and foot soldiers. • Military service was usually limited to 40 days. • Other obligations involve aids to the lord.
Feudal Justice and Warfare • Feudal justice was quite different from Roman ideas of law. • Trial decisions were made in any one of three days. • Trial by battle (the winner is innocent) • Compurgation (oath-taking) • Ordeal (tests used to determine innocence or guilt.) • War was the usual rather than the unusual state of the feudal world. • Most wars were between feudal lords or between lords and vassals. • Few wars were between kings, or kings fighting vassals.
Armor and Weapons • In the early Middle Ages, the armor of the fighting man was simple. • Soldiers wore an iron helmet and a shirt of chain mail. • He also carried a sword, a large shield, and a lance. • Armor became complicated in later medieval times, with metal plates replacing chain mail. • Because the armor was so heavy, a knight often had to be hauled or boosted onto his horse. • The greatest sport of the feudal lord was the tournament, or mock battle.
“The Truce of God” • For nobles, wars were fascinating affairs, but they brought suffering and famine to the peasants. • The Church tried to improve conditions by limiting private wars. • It issued decrees, known together as the Peace of God, which set aside certain places, such as churches, where fighting was not permitted. • The Church also tried to get all lord to accept another decree, known as the Truce of God, which forbade fighting on weekends and holy days. • Eventually, only 80 days a year was fighting allowed.
Chivalry • During the 1100’s, feudal society was changed by the development of chivalry, a code of conduct for knights. (brave, loyal, and true to their word) • To become a knight, a boy had to pass through two preliminary stages of training supervised by a knight. • At age 7, a boy became a page. • Learn knightly manners and begin his training. • In his early teens, he became a squire. • Became a knight’s assistant. • After proving yourself as a squire you were worthy to become a knight. • Knighted in a ceremony called a dubbing. • Chivalry made a great improvement in the rough and crude manners of early feudal lords. • The system was not perfect because the courtesy of the knights was only extended to those of noble class.
Territory of the Empire • In the year 500, the Roman Empire in the east included Greece, and the northern Balkan peninsula, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine,Egypt, and Cyrenaica. • Though also attacked by the by the Goths the Eastern empire was able to survive the attacks. • The Rome had collapsed in the West, the eastern empire was ready for a great political, economic, intellectual, and artistic revival.
Emperor Justinian • Emperor Justinian • The leader of the revival was the Emperor Justinian, (527-65). • Under Justinian, the Byzantine Empire will expand to dominate the majority of the Mediterranean area. • Under Justinianthe Byzantines reached their greatest glory. • Great accomplishments were made in the fields of: • Government, religion, art, architecture, and law.
Strengths of the Empire • The Byzantine Empire survived for a long time because its people were skilled at adapting themselves to change. • It also had other strengths: • Political Strength – the government was highly centralized, efficient bureaucracy, highly skilled diplomats and autocratic. • Military Strength – good natural frontiers that were easily defensible. They had excellent leadership and a good intelligence system. • Economic Strength – the wealth of the region was based on a sound mixture of agriculture, manufacturing, and trade.
Religion • The two branches began to drift apart and in 1054, the final split came when the pope and patriarch at Constantinople excommunicated each other. • The church in the west became the Catholic Church. • The church in the east became the Orthodox Church.
Orthodoxy • The Orthodox faith was a source of both weakness and strength for the Byzantine Empire. • Conflicts over interpretation tended to divide and weaken the empire. • However, the Church provided the basis for a kind of patriotism that strengthened the government and the emperor was head of the Church without little question.
Byzantine Culture • The Byzantine Empire performed a great service for civilization. • Its scholars did not produce much that was original, but they did preserve and pass on classical writings of Greece and Rome. • For a thousand years, while the states of Western Europe were struggling to develop a new way of life, Constantinople was the center of a brilliant civilization. • Through missionary work, the Byzantines were also able to expand their culture beyond their borders.
Art • Byzantine art is noted for its use of color and ornamentation. • Made beautiful tapestries and jewelry. • At its best, Byzantine art glorified religion. • The walls and ceilings of churches were covered with murals. • Brightly colored mosaics covered the walls and floors also. • The subjects in their art style were stiff and unemotional.
Architecture • Architecture, especially religious architecture, was the greatest of Byzantine arts. • The finest building built during this period was the Santa Sophia which was begun in 532. • The central feature of the Santa Sophia is its large dome. • When Santa Sophia was completed in 537, one Byzantine writer said that it was a church “the like of which had never been since Adam, nr ever will be.”
Law • Of all the Byzantine contributions to civilization , the greatest was probably the preservation of Roman law. • Emperor Justinian ordered his scholars to collect and organize, all Roman law. Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil law). • It is made up of four parts: • The Code • A collection of Roman laws. • The Digest • Summary of the great legal experts of the Romans • The Institutes • The basic principles of Roman law. • The Novels. • Justinian's Code forms the basis of many modern European legal systems.
Decline of the Empire • In the 1000s, the Seljuk Turks, originally a nomadic people captured most of Asia Minor. • The Byzantine Empire appealed to the West for aid in defending itself against the Turks. • Emperor Alexius I asked for aid from the West, which marked the beginnings of the Crusades. • The First Crusade drove the Muslims out of Palestine, but eventually the city will fall to members of the Fourth Crusade. • Eventually, the Byzantine Empire will come to an end when Constantinople is captured in 1453, by they Ottoman Turks.
