Transcript Medieval Society - jsimmersworldhistory

Medieval Society
• Four Distinct Classes
– Nobles
– Clergy
– Peasants
– Merchants
• Two Distinct living situations
– Land/manors
– Towns
Nobles
• Warriors
– The invention of stirrups
• Creates a class structure within the military
– Lower-infantry
» Doesn’t take much to wield a sword
– Upper-Calvary
» Good horses and weaponry was expensive
– War was good
• Ability to move up in rank and prestige
• Gain spoils of war
– Peace was bad
• Boredom and stagnation
• Kept busy with games
– Not looked well upon by kings and clergy
» Created many feuds
• Knights
– Distinctiveness between other nobles and the
common man with knighthood
• Early knighthood could be given to men of wealth and
bravery
• 12th Century it is restricted to men of high birth
– But kings still remained free to give nobility at their whim
» Causes tensions between nobles and merchants
• Sports
– It was for nobles because laws restricted the common
man from hunting and access to lands
• Courtly love
– Social conduct and etiquette
Clergy
• Regular Clergy
– Monks who lived special ascetic rule (regula)
separated from the world
• Secular Clergy
– Those who lived and worked directly with the outside
world (saeculum)
– Defined hierarchy
• Top
– Cardinals, archbishops, bishops
• Middle
– Urban priests, cathedral canons, court clerks
• Bottom
– Parish priests
• New orders
– Aspired to a life of poverty and self-sacrafice
– Came about with Gregorian Reforms
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Canons Regular (f. 1050-1100)
Carthusians (f. 1084)
Cistercians (f. 1098)
Praemonstratensians (f. 1121)
• Prominence
– Numbers grew
– Amassed great wealth
– Had great influence with nobles and kings
Peasants
• Importance dominates that of Nobles and Clergy
– They did the work!
• Class system
– Coloni
• Landed who traded possessions for security
– Serfs
• Had little to bargain with
• Life of a Serf
– Hard life but beneficial for lord to keep them healthy and happy
• They did the work and could revolt
– Changes in land and inventions
• Go from working several days a week to 1 or 2
– Hardships, taxes, and restricted migration did cause riots
• These were usually handled with extreme brutality
Towns
• Growing merchant class
– Men who traded increased their wealth and prestige
• Protected themselves by creating guilds and associations
(sort of like modern day unions)
• Challenged the old lords
– Unlike birth right and landed nobility, merchants could rise
through social ladders with wealth
– Importance of towns
• Ability for laymen with skills to acquire wealth
• Afforded a freedom not found on lands/manors
• Later alliance with kings made towns increasingly important
and would bring an end to feudal society and rise of
kingdoms
Jews
• Found many opportunities in towns
– Increased wealth and prestige
• Also found many hardships
– Wealth and intelligence made many suspicious and envious
– Kings
• Confiscate their wealth and property
– Church
• Used them to hold their dominance as they lost political power
• 12th and 14th Centuries
– Jews would be exiled and persecuted
– Much of the same reasons for attacks on Jews would be seen
through out history
• Hitler’s Mien Kamph and Germany and the West in general during
the 1930’s-1960’s
Universities
• Long forgotten ideas and works had been
rediscovered with the Crusades and Trade
– Islamic societies refreshed the works of the Greeks,
math, astronomy, and Roman Law
• Liberal Arts
– Trivium- grammar, rhetoric, logic
– Quardrivium- arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and
music
• The first were Cathedral Schools
– Taught liberal arts to train the clergy
– Began to teach nonclerical students
• Especially merchants needing to learn Latin
• University of Bologna
– Established by Frederick I n 1158
– Famous for the revival of Roman law Theology
• Students studied Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis
• Headed by Irnerius in early 12th Century
– Students commented and defined current law that of Justinian
law
– 1140
• Monk named Gratian created the standard legal text (canon)
of the church
– Concordance of Discordant Canons or Decretum
University of Bologna
• University of Paris
– Chartered by Pope Innocent III in 1200
– Grew out of the cathedral school Notre Dame
– Most famous college was the Sorbonne
• Founded by Robert de Sorbon in 1257
– Medicine and Liberal Arts
– Also known for snobbery
• Students looked down on ordinary citizens
• Laws show that students had to be protected
Sorbonne
Curriculum
• Basic learning
– Truth already existed
• Do find it, but organize and defend it
– Scholasticism
• Students wrote commentaries on texts
– Logic and dialectic
• Philosophy
– Aristotle and the Church
• The two just did not mix
– Peter Abelard
• Applied Aristotle to Scripture
• Intent over deed
– Motives outwieghed actions
• Made a lot of enemies
– Down fall was Heloise
• 1141 church synod order his works burned
Women in Medieval Society
• Not merely wives or nuns
– Women did join the cloister especially during
the 9th century
• But no more than 3,500
• Those that did rose to positions of leadership
– Women did marry
• Seen more as equals than subjects of men’s
authority
– Worked along side men in towns and fields
» There was love and companionship more than sex
and wrath