Western Europe During the High Middle Ages

1. Western Europe During the High Middle Ages

2. The Establishment of Regional States • The Holy Roman Empire • Regional Monarchies in France and England • Regional States in Italy and Iberia • Economic Growth and Social Development • Growth of the Agricultural Economy • The Revival of Towns and Trade • Social Change • European Christianity During the High Middle Ages • Schools, Universities and Scholastic Theology • Popular Religion • Reform Movements and Popular Heresies • The Medieval Expansion of Europe • Atlantic and Baltic Colonization • The Reconquest of Sicily and Spain • The Crusades

3. A Quick Review… • Recall Western Europe during the early middle ages (500-1000): • Violent and disorderly following collapse of Roman empire and invasions by migratory peoples • Little role in hemispheric economy • But foundations laid for more dynamic society • Regional states as basis for political order • New tools and technologies  increased agricultural production and economic growth • Strong western Christian (Catholic) Church brought cultural and religious unity

4. The Establishment of Regional States

5. The Holy Roman Empire • Unity of the Roman Empire never returned to Christian Europe during the Middle Ages • Otto I of Saxony takes advantage of decline of Carolingian Empire to establish kingdom in north Germany, mid 10th century CE • Military forays into eastern Europe • Twice enters Italy to aid Roman Catholic church • In appreciation, Pope John XII names Otto Emperor of Holy Roman Empire, 962 CE

6. The medieval expansion of Europe, 1000-1250 C.E.

7. Tensions between Emperors and the Church • Conflict with papacy prevented HRE from developing into a strong and dynamic state (papal claims of authority over monarchs, emperors seeking to control Italy and Church) • Investiture Contest, late 11th-early 12th centuries • Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085) attempts to end practice of lay investiture • Excommunicates Emperor Henry IV (1056-1106 CE) • German peoples take opportunity to rebel • Quashed with difficulty

8. Frederick Barbarossa (r. 1152-1190 CE) • Frederick I, “red beard” • Attempt to absorb Lombardy (northern Italy) • Popes did not want him to gain that much power, enlisted aid from other states • Frederick forced to back down • Thus, papal policies again keep HRE from transforming into a powerful state

9. Holy Roman Empire? • Voltaire: Holy Roman Empire was “neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.” • Was he right? • “Holy?” Nope, secular. • “Roman?” Nope, German. • “Empire?” Nope, a regional state.

10. Regional Monarchies: France and England • Without an effective imperial power, regional states emerge through medieval Europe. • Capetian France • Hugh Capet succeeds last Carolingian Emperor, 987 CE • Slowly expands authority out from Paris • Normans in England • Descendants of Vikings, settled in France • Invade England in 1066 under William the Conqueror • Dominate Angles, Saxons, and other Germanic groups

11. Italy • No single regime controls entire peninsula • Series of competing ecclesiastical states, city-states, and principalities • Papal State directly controlled by Pope, good-sized territory in central Italy • By 12th century, city-states wealthy from trade increasingly displace church control in northern Italy • Normans invade southern Italy and displace Byzantine and Muslim authorities, bringing southern Italy into the Catholic orbit and laying foundation for emergence of powerful kingdom of Naples

12. Iberian Peninsula • Muslims control most of Iberian peninsula from 8th to 11th centuries • From 11th century on, Christians from small Christian states in northern Spain attack Muslim territories and enlarge Christian holdings • By the late 13th century, only the small kingdom of Granada remains in Muslim hands

13. Economic Growth and Social Development • Effective political organization of regional states contributed to economic growth and social development in medieval Europe. • Process similar to that which had already strengthened China, India and the Islamic world. • Increased agricultural production, urbanization, manufacturing and trade made Europe powerful and drew it back into commercial relationships with distant lands.

14. Growth of the Agricultural Economy • Increase in agricultural yields was the foundation of economic growth and social development. • Factors leading to increased agricultural production: • Expansion of arable lands • Improved agricultural techniques • New Tools and Technologies • Introduction of new crops

15. Increasing development of arable lands • Local lords pacified territories in the late 10th Century, ending threat of invasions • Population pressure emerges in Europe • Draining of swamps and clearing of forests by serfs and monks increases arable land • Improved agricultural techniques • Crop rotation, increased cultivation of beans especially • Increase in domestic animals, fish ponds • Horseshoes, horse collars (horses faster than oxen) • Addition of meat, dairy, fish, vegetables, legumes to European diet

16. European Population Growth, 800-1300 CE

17. Revival of Towns and Trade • Urbanization follows increase in food supply; cities begin to play a major role in European economic and social development for the first time since the fall of the western Roman empire • Urbanization brings specialization of labor, which results in dramatic expansion of manufacturing and trade • Main manufactured product: wool textiles • Mediterranean Trade • Italy well-positioned for sea trade • Italian colonies established in major ports of Mediterranean, Black seas

18. The Hanseatic League • “Hansa,” association of trading cities • Trade in Baltic and North seas • Poland, northern Germany, Scandinavia

19. Social Change • The Three Estates • Those who pray: clergy • Those who fight: knights • Those who work: peasants • Oversimplification of complex social reality • Chivalry encouraged warriors to become cultivated leaders of society • Initiation as a knight involved a promise of service to God

20. Chivalry • Code of conduct for nobles • Sponsored by Church to minimize fighting among Christians • Technically, knight to dedicate his efforts to promotion of Christianity • Protection of women

21. Troubadours • Class of traveling poets, minstrels, entertainers • Borrowed Islamic traditions of love poetry • Spread of cultural ideas to Europe • Popular among aristocratic women • Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204) major supporter • Popularization of idea of romantic love, refinement of European knights

22. Independent Cities • Additions to class of “those who work” • Merchants, artisans, physicians, lawyers, etc. • Awkward fit into tripartite caste system • By late 11th century, towns demand charters of incorporation for greater self-government and lower taxes

23. Guilds • Urban nobles often dominate city affairs, yet medieval towns and cities also reflected the interests and contributions of the working classes. • Organizations of merchants, workers, artisans organize guilds to regulate production and sale of goods. • By 13th century guilds control good portion of urban economy • Price and quality control • Membership • Created social support network

24. Urban Women • Women in the countryside perform the same kinds of tasks as their ancestors in the early middle ages • But towns and cities offer new economic opportunities for women • Dominated textiles and decorative arts • Representation in wide variety of trades • Admitted to most guilds • Some guilds for women only • Increasing prominence of women illustrates significance of towns and cities as agents of social change in medieval Europe

25. European Christianity During the High Middle Ages

26. Cathedral Schools • During early middle ages, European society too unstable to provide institutions of advanced learning • Some rudimentary education at monasteries, occasional scholars at courts, but few schools offered formal education beyond elementary level • High middle ages (1000-1300 CE) increasing wealth makes resources available for education • 11th Century: bishops and archbishops in France and northern Italy organize schools based in cathedrals • Curriculum of Latin writings • Literature, philosophy, some law, medicine, theology, works of Plato and Aristotle

27. Universities • Academic guilds formed in 12th century • Both student and faculty organizations • Student guilds were concerned with treatment of students in town and quality of instruction • Faculty guilds give teachers the right to bestow academic degrees, which serve as licenses to teach, and the right to control the curriculum • Guilds help transform cathedral schools into universities

28. The Influence of Aristotle • Latin translations of Byzantine Greek texts circulate in Europe • Jewish and Muslim scholars provide other translations from Arabic translations • St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), major proponent of Scholasticism • Synthesis of Christianity and Aristotle • University of Paris

29. Popular Religion • Population at large remained unaffected by Scholasticism, which was aimed at intellectual elites. • For most, Christianity was important as a set of beliefs, rituals and observances that gave meaning to life and coherence to communities. • The Seven Sacraments gain ritual popularity, especially the Eucharist. • Devotion to Saints and prayers for heavenly intercession; veneration of relics and physical remains, pilgrimages • Most popular saint: The Virgin Mary

30. Religious Movements • Rebellion against perceived materialism of Roman Catholic Church • Dominic (1170-1221) and St. Francis (1182-1226) create orders of mendicants (“beggars”), known as the Dominican and Franciscan friars • Vows of poverty • Popular preachers • Religious zealots, very opposed to heretical movements, tried to get heretics to return to the Roman Catholic Church

31. Popular Heresy (southern France, northern Italy) • Dominicans and Franciscans worked within the Church, while others rejected the church and organized alternative movements • Waldesians • Despised Roman Catholic clergy as immoral and corrupt • Advocated modest and simple lives • Urged more lay control of preaching and sacraments

32. The Cathars (Albigensians) • Influenced by religious movements in eastern Europe (Byzantine empire) and elsewhere in Mediterranean basin • Considered material world evil, and advocated asceticism: Chastity, vegetarianism, poverty • Considered the Roman Catholic Church hopelessly corrupt • Pope Innocent III virtually destroys Cathar movement with military campaign in 13th century

33. Medieval Expansion of Europe • Atlantic and Baltic Colonization • Regional states began to emerge in the 9th and 10th Centuries to protect Europe from Viking raids. • Thus, Scandinavian seafarers turn attention to North Atlantic Ocean • Iceland • Eric the Red: Greenland • Leif Ericson (Eric the Red’s son): Vinland (Newfoundland, Canada) • Canadian settlements do not succeed • Christianity in Scandinavia: Kings of Denmark nominally convert to Christianity, Sweden and Finland follow

34. Crusading Orders • Christian authority in the Baltic arrived following military conquest • Religious Christians form military-religious orders during the Crusade era (Templars, Hospitallers, Teutonic Knights) who took religious vows of opposition to Islam and paganism • Teutonic knights most active in Baltic, waging military campaigns against pagan Slavs in 12th and 13th Centuries; founded churches and monasteries in subdued territories • By 13th Century, Roman Catholic church had established presence in Baltic region, which became absorbed into Christian Europe

35. The Reconquest of Sicily and Spain • Christian Europe also expanded in Mediterranean basin • Muslims had conquered Mediterranean islands and most of the Iberian peninsula between 8th and 10th Centuries • As European society grew stronger, Europeans sought to reconquer those territories and reintegrate them into Christian society

36. Most important island was Sicily • Taken by Muslims in 9th century, reconquered by Normans in 11th century • Slow, gradual displacement of Islam • Cross-cultural fertilization occurs during transition: Muslim scholars in Sicily introduce Christian scholars to translations of Aristotle

37. Spain/Iberian Peninsula • Reconquista of Spain took much longer than recapture of Sicily • After Muslim invasion and conquest of early 8th Century, caliphate of Cordoba ruled almost all of Iberian peninsula • Two small Christian states survive Muslim conquest, and they become the nucleus of reconquest, 1060s-1492 • Rapid, forceful assertions of Christian authority and displacement of Islam would begin as soon as reconquered territories fell into Christian hands

38. The Beginning of the Crusades • “Crusade:” Holy war (Latin crux: cross) • 1095: Pope Urban II calls for Christian knights to liberate Jerusalem from Muslim control • Salvation promised for casualties • Rapid, enthusiastic response • Peter the Hermit raises popular frenzy, recruiting poor knights and peasants; ragtag mob destroyed on way to Jerusalem

39. The First Crusade • 1096-1099: French and Norman nobles organize a more respectable military expedition to Holy Land • Captures Jerusalem in 1099, largely due to poor Muslim organization • Crusaders’ successes encourage Turks, Egyptians and other Muslims to set aside differences to expel European Christians from the eastern Mediterranean • Salah al-Din (Saladin) recaptures Jerusalem in 1187

40. The Crusades

41. Later Crusades and their Consequences • Five crusades by mid-13th century, none successful in reestablishing Christian presence in Palestine • Fourth Crusade destroys Constantinople, 1202-1204 and installs a Roman Catholic regime there that survives until 1261 • This seriously weakened the Byzantine Empire, propelling it into a serious decline that ended when Ottoman Turks toppled the empire in 1453

42. Crusades were launched as wars of military, political and religious expansion • By those criteria, the Crusades failed • In the long run, however, they were important for their social, economic, commercial and cultural consequences • Brought European scholars, missionaries and merchants into contact with Muslim counterparts • This led to a large-scale exchange of ideas, technologies and goods that influenced European development and reintegrated Europe into the larger economy of Eurasia • Aristotle, “Arabic” numerals, paper production, astronomy, new foods, etc.