Transcript “God” gave them to watch over. Feudalism had

Medieval Power Struggles
1. The authority of the King
2. The authority of the Kings
and Nobles over their land
Vs.
they ruled.
The rights of those he ruled.
Vs.
The authority of Church
Leaders over the people
“God” gave them to watch over.
Feudalism had many imperfections.
• There was no written law that defined what
rights the people had or any law to limit what
the king could do.
• The King had total power. He was :
The law maker
The Judge
The Jury
He taxed the people whenever he wanted.
Having total power CAN be an
efficient way to run things IF the king
considers his subject’s needs.
• But what happens when a King is
selfish or has no idea of what his
subjects need?
There is one example of a rebellion
against a king that has had a long
lasting effect on the rest of the world.
King John of England 1215
King John did many
things that we would
consider unjust.
He taxed the nobles
excessively to pay for
wars they didn’t want
to fight.
He sentenced nobles to
prison without a trial.
By 1215, the English lords had had
enough of this guy, and they got
together an army of their knights
and marched on London.
Medieval London
John was forced to sign the contract
they put in front of him, which is
known as the Magna Carta. (Magna
Carta means "Great Letter" in Latin).
• Primary source
image of the Magna
Carta
This “contract” wrote down three ideas that
were unheard of in Feudal Europe:
• The king had to obey the law, like other
people.
• If the king broke the law, the lords had the
right to remove that king and choose a new
one.
• That a noble had the right to a trial before a
jury of people that were from the same social
class before he was put in prison.
• (Does any of this sound familiar??)
It was the first document from Europe
that protected the rights of the
people.
• It lost some of it’s influence
after King John died but England
came back to these ideas when
it made its constitution later on.
• The U.S then copied these ideas when they
wrote theirs 5oo years later.
•
Magna Carta
The Role of the Catholic Church:
The King
The Nobles
The Church Leaders
The Protectors
(Knights)
The Laborers
(Serfs)
How Powerful were the church leaders in their society?
The Catholic Church had tremendous
power during the middle ages.
• First of all, it was given great gifts of land from
Kings and nobles. It ended up controlling 1/3 of
the land.(It had wealth.)
• This wealth can be seen
in the great cathedrals that still are standing.
There were no other dominant religions once
you crossed over the Alps and Pyrenees Mts.
(The opposite of
a multi-cultural society.)
• Who remembers where
The Pyrenees and Alps are?
Those who gave their lives to the
priesthood or to a monastery were
the only literate people around.
(Lack of reading=lack of independent
thinking.)
• The church kept the Latin language alive. All
Church documents were written in Latin.
Everyone grew up going to mass
everyday.
Everyone believed:
• That God, Heaven and Hell and the Devil
existed.
• People were taught that the only way they
could get to Heaven was if the Roman
Catholic Church let them in.
•
Everybody was told of the horrors
awaiting for them in Hell in the
services they attended.
• Medieval images of the beasts of hell.
All of their holidays were centered
around the saints.
(You can always find a saint in their art by finding
the halo around his head.)
Kings and Nobles also believed in the
power of the church to send them to
hell.
• Medieval image of the beasts and flames of hell.
There was often a struggle over who
would have their way.
• The Church leaders
or
The Kings and nobles.
• The Pope could punish a disobedient king by kicking
them out of the church forever (Excommunication).
Once you were excommunicated, no
Christian could ever communicate
with you again.
• That may not be a big deal in our society but
EVERYONE belonged to the Church in their
society. (We call that being ostracized.)
The Church also controlled ideas
about what was “true”.
• They were the ones that built the Universities
where scholars would study.
Ideas about medicine and science had to
be agreed upon by the church too.
Dentistry- taking the demon out of a man
through his tooth.
The Church taught that sickness was a
work of the devil or a punishment for
sin.
• Medieval image of angels vs. demons.
For this reason, Europe was way behind the rest of
the medieval world when it came to science and
medicine.
It doesn’t change until it goes over those Alps to
come in contact with the Islamic world during the
Crusades.
The Church had its own organizational
system which crossed the borders of
Kingdoms.
It formed a line of “Religious orders” all over
Europe.
(Monasteries and Convents)
A medieval community of monks=Monestary.
(This is LAUSD’s idea-not mine.)
• A religious order is an organization of people
who live set apart from society in accordance
with their specific religious devotion.
(Monks, Priests and Nuns)
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