FIGHTING

1. FIGHTING • Fighting and warfare were the raison d’etre for feudal nobility • Feudalism was fundamentally a military system and the men who made it up were fundamentally warriors • Fighting was their primary duty and also their primary love • All their values and their entire concept of honor revolved around this central fact • It is all they really wanted to do • Everything else bored them

2. ROVING WARRIORS • In addition to fighting for their lords, many nobles wandered around Europe looking for battles to fight • Caused problems for great lords sometimes because vassals were not around when they needed them • Especially prevalent among French nobles • Helped to reconquer Spain from Moslems, establish Norman kingdom in southern Italy, and always made up majority of warriors in the Crusades

3. PLUNDER • Nobles also saw fighting as money-making opportunity • Required bonuses and gifts to fight beyond time limit in feudal contract • Later, as armies became larger and vassals did not meet manpower needs, lords hired extra knights • Promised them share of plunder • Common practice was to hold prisoners for ransom • Plunder often degenerated into outright robbery

4. DEATH AND SUFFERING • War defined noble’s concept of honor and provided them with a livelihood • But it also often prevented others from pursuing their livelihoods • Caused hostility between nobles and non-nobles • Nobles were proud of their courage and skill and despised those people who did not fight • Non-nobles often saw everything they owned and held dear jeopardized by constantly fighting nobles

5. CASTLES • Beginning in 12th century, castles were built of stone and became more complicated • Elaborate gates, turrets, wide battlements, numerous towers, secret passages, spiral staircases, etc. • But even though they were an improvement over wooden forts, they were still overcrowded dumps

6. INTERIOR • Small—due to limited resources, limited number of skilled craftsmen, and defensive reasons • Central tower was center of life • Top floor occupied by lookout • Lower floors occupied by lord and his family • Little privacy • Horribly cramped, noisy, dirty, and chaotic

7. MORE CASTLES

8. HUNTING • Since nobles refused to work in agriculture, estate management, administration of local government, they spent their spare time playing • At games that reminded him of and prepared him for war • Such as hunting • Actually prohibited others from doing so • Set aside huge tracts of land as hunting preserves • Kicked peasants off their land to create these “game parks”

9. TOURNAMENTS • Very old practice than became more organized and refined as time went on • Evolved from bloody free-for-alls into carefully planned mock battles • Only kings and great barons could afford to put them on • Would attract nobles from hundreds of miles away • Both rich and poor • Grouped themselves into teams from particular geographic regions

10. FUN BUT DANGEROUS • Combat usually performed by teams • 5, 10, sometimes 100 nobles would fight on each side, using wooden swords and lances • Winner would get horses and equipment of losers • Easy to get seriously wounded and even killed • Great lords began to prohibit games as a result • Church also frowned on them because of their pagan origins • Refused Church funerals to knights killed in tournaments • Tournaments nonetheless continued throughout the Middle Ages

11. COURTESY • As Middle Ages progressed, nobles devised a code of conduct that was unique to them and served to further separate them from the rest of society • Courtesy (“courtoisie”) • Born in France and always remained French in language and manners • Exported to the rest of Europe

12. TREATMENT OF WOMEN • Treatment of noblewomen • In Early Middle Ages women were not treated well • And women themselves were crude and brutal • With advent of courtesy, nobles began to treat their women better • No longer acceptable to abuse them • Now treated with deference and respect • Noblewomen also began to act worthy of this new treatment

13. DUBBING • Widespread practice after 1100 • Ceremonial ritual with several parts • Young man presents himself to older knight • Older knight gives boy his knightly equipment • All blessed by Church officials • Older knight then hits boy • To make impression • Boy then officially becomes a knight • Ceremony ends with athletic display by new knight

14. OFFICIAL ENTRY • Dubbing was a formal act which separated feudal class from common people • Marked person’s official entry into special class • Knight was now considered a special person • One from a noble family • Who behaved according to the code of courtesy • Who had been educated and trained in the values and skills of the nobility • Dubbing marked official entry into this elite world

15. CHRISTIAN KNIGHTS • “Good knight” also expected to be a good Christian • Required to attend mass everyday, to fast every Friday, to observe Church holidays, and make frequent pilgrimages • Church also tried to modify old noble credo of “war for war’s sake” or “war for selfish personal gain” into “war for the Church” • Nobles now expected to fight for Church and protect those the Church classified as special • Widows, orphans, and the poor

16. A “NOBILITY” • Development of code of courtesy and the idea of the knight as a soldier of God marked critical turning point in evolution of medieval civilization • Established model of the “good knight” that all were expected to strive for • Although few actually made it • Restrained the bloodthirsty and violent tendencies of medieval warriors • Also gave them special distinction • Defined nobles as a special and elevated group • A “nobility” in every sense of the term

17. PEASANTS • Medieval society almost entirely rural and agricultural • Trade and commerce limited, few real towns, and little money circulated • Men lived mostly from the land • And the people who worked that land were the peasants • Small scale rural cultivators who lived from subsistance agriculture • Small surplus they produced was expropriated to support the ruling class and Church

18. SETTLEMENT PATTERNS • Dispersed Settlements • Where peasants lived in tiny hamlets or isolated family farms • Clustered Villages • Relatively small number of peasant families lived close together • Easy to defend • Settlement patterns corresponded to fertility of soil • Fertile lands possessed clustered villages • Regions with poor soil favored dispersed settlement Clustered Village

19. INFIELD/OUTFIELD METHOD • Prevalent in areas of dispersed settlement • Each household had a small plot of land close to the house (infield) • Fertilized with human and animal waste • Used to grow vegetables • Each household also had small field away from house (outfield) • For grain cultivation • Not fertilized • When it wore out, peasant simply cleared new field • Best suited for regions with low population density and poor soil

20. OPEN FIELD/NARROW STRIPS • In region of clustered villages • Prevalent in northern France, most of England and Germany • Each village surrounded by large, unfenced field divided into two equal parts • One part left fallow each year while the other was planted • Would alternate each year • Each part also divided into long, narrow strips and each house held scattered number of strips in each part

21. OPEN FIELD/SQUARE PLOTS • Southern France and throughout Mediterranean Europe • Each field surrounded by large field, divided into two equal parts • One part left fallow and the other planted • Rotated each year • But instead of being divided into strips, land was divided into square plots • Each house held several of these plots, scatttered throughout both parts of the field

22. FERTIZER SHORTAGE • Serious shortage of fertilizer • Didn’t know about crop rotation that would restore nitrogen to soil • Only fertilizer was animal manure • And there was not enough of it to keep land productive • Only viable method at time was to rest land every other year • Reason was ½ of land lay fallow every year in open field systems

23. GRAIN VS HAY • Low yields per acre and per bushel of seed planted • By 1200, best peasant farmers only got ten bushels of wheat from two bushels of seed • Only solution to low yields was to plant every available acre of land in grain • But this caused shortage of acreage available for growing hay to feed livestock • Grain and hay competed for the same land • Grain usually won, resulting in a perpetual shortage of hay • Which limited amount of livestock, thereby limiting amount of manure available • Which limited productivity of soil

24. MANORS • Medieval peasants were not free, independent small farmers • Most peasant villages were subject to a lord • They were his tenants who supported him in return for his protection • Agricultural estates controlled by a lord were called manors • Sometimes a manor and peasant village corresponded • Sometimes a manor contained two or more manors

25. MANORIAL SYSTEM • Arrangement by which a lord exploited his peasants was called the manorial or seigneurial system • Not the feudal system • Which described relationship between vassals and lords, not lords and peasants • System gradually arose from a variety of causes but was firmly implanted throughout Western Europe by 1000

26. UNEQUAL DEAL • Peasants supported their lord by working for him and paying him “rents in kind” • Lord reserved 1/3 to ½ of arable manor land for himself (in the form of scattered strips) • Called the demesne • Peasants had to work this land for him • Peasants also had to care for lord’s livestock and do additional maintenance and construction work for him • Usually amounted to about three days a week of work • Also paid rent for their strips • Portion of harvest, cheese, bacon, fish, and so on

27. PERSONAL JURISDICTION • Lord also gain part of his income from the fact that he controlled the persons of his peasants • Peasants were, by year 1000, serfs (villeins) • Lacked all rights we associate with free men • Subject to the lord’s jurisdiction • Gave him firm hold over them and permitted him to establish profitable monopolies • Over grinding grain and baking bread

28. LIMITS • Practical limit to power of lord over his serfs • He had to leave them enough to stay alive and do their work • “Custom of the manor” also tempered lord’s power • Loose structure of community regulations handed down among peasants from generation to generation • Always included protection of peasants’ hereditary right to hold his own land as long as he rendered his services to the lord • Protected peasants from the more brutal and arbitrary actions of their lord

29. LOT OF A SERF • Lot of serf was still not pleasant • Barely had enough to eat in a good year • Only knowledge of the world of ideas came from local priest • Whose learning was often little better than his own • Lord had power to whip or hang him virtually at will • Still better than a slave • Held his own land and could pass it on to his heirs • Daily life was regulated by custom of the manor • He was a person in the eyes of the Church, not a thing

30. THREE-FIELD SYSTEM • In explaining the enormous increase in agricultural production during the 10th and 11th centuries, some historians have emphasized the gradual transition from the two-field to three-field system of agriculture • In two-field system, one field lay fallow each year and the other was planted in grain in the fall and harvested in the summer • In three-field system, one field lay fallow, on planted in grain in the fall, and one planted in another crop in the spring • Only 1/3 of arable land was fallow each year

31. THE HORSE • Methods of using draft animals in ancient world had been inefficient • Did not use horseshoes • Harnessing system was inept • Horse collar • Rests on animal’s shoulders so that entire body weight can be used to pull load • Either invented in Europe in the 9th century or introduced by either Magyars or Avars • Adopted in Europe from 10th century onwards • Horseshoes and harnessing horses in tandem introduced around the same time

32. BETTER DIETS • Before three-field system, only major crop had been grain • Peasant diet was therefore mainly carbohydrates with a little occasional meat or cheese • In 9th and 10th centuries, it became general practice to plant legumes in one field • Added protein to peasant diet and made them healthier

33. POPULATION GROWTH • Population grew in Europe because increased food production allowed people to live longer and allowed more children to survive infancy • Growth started in 10th century and would continue for next 300 years • Land under cultivation grew along with population • Mainly due to land clearance

34. ASSARTING • Beginning in 10th century, peasants began to clear forests and open up new land • Called “assarting” • Most important component of agricultural revolution of the time • Changes in technology played big role but the extension of arable land at the expense of forest, marsh, and wasteland was the most important of all factors involved in increasing agricultural production during early Middle Ages