Transcript File
Life after Rome: Early Medieval
Society
Objective
• Understand the manorial system as
Europe’s early economic system
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What does Europe look like?
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A Different Kind of Change
• Barbarians destroy Roman developments
– Decline in education, art, trade, and cities
• Europe breaks into many small kingdoms
– Agriculture becomes the main source of food in
society
– Manorial/Feudalism become the standard social
and economic system
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Manor System
• Manor-large plots of
land (estates)
• Owned by wealthy
land owners (lords)
• Peasants, or common
people, worked the
manor
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How did the Manor System Work?
1. Manor System- Economic system for
exchanging land use and protection for
goods and services
2. Manor lands divided into sections
3. Peasants paid for their use of their land
with goods and services
4. Peasants depended on the lord for
protection
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What would you find on a Manor?
•
•
•
•
Manor house-where the lord lived
Mill-powered by water
Peasant homes
Church-center of religious worship and
social gatherings
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Bailiff - A Bailiff was a person of some importance
who undertook the management of manors
Reeve - A Reeve was a manor official appointed by
the lord or elected by the peasants
Millar - Most manors had windmills or watermills.
The right to mill was in the gift of the Lord of The
Manor.
Servants - Servants were house peasants who
worked in the lord's manor house, doing the
cooking, cleaning, laundering, and other household
chores
Serf - Medieval Serfs were peasants who worked
his lord's land and paid him certain dues in return
for the use of land, the possession but not the
ownership of which was heritable. Dues were
usually in the form of labor on the lord's land.
Medieval Serfs were expected to work for
approximately 3 days each week on the lord's land.
Villein - A peasant or villein was a low status
tenant who worked as an agricultural worker or
laborer. A peasant or villein usually cultivated 2040 acres of land
Cottager: A low class peasant with a cottage, but
with little or no land who generally worked as a
simple laborer
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Interesting notes about the Manor
System
• 1/3 of the crops grown go to the lord, 1/3 to the
Church, the rest to the peasants.
• Many peasants were serfs. They were part of the
manor property. They also lived with their farm
animals
• Large manor house will be replaced by castles
• Manorial system lasts until the 12th century
(1100’s)
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The Feudal System:
Was given many
decorated titles:
Duke
Earl
Baron
People believed he was
chosen by God
Chivalry: code of
moral, religious,
and Social
systems
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The King
• People believed he was chosen by God
• Ruled according to the traditions and
customs of their tribes
• Sought help to control his kingdom through
the feudal system.
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King Alfred the
Great of England
King Henry V of
England
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King Henry
VIII of England
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The lords
• Answered only to the king…swore an oath
to be faithful to the king and provide
military service
• Members of the Church were included in
this class
• Was given many decorated titles:
– Duke
– Earl
– Baron
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John of Gaunt, Duke
of Lancaster. Most
of the those in the
royal family were
given titles like
Duke or Earl. Gaunt
became one of the
most powerful
Dukes in the history
of England.
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The Knights
• Fought for the lords as
part of deal with king
• Knights were bound
by a code called
Chivalry
• Stories or legends
emerge from the
knights
– Arthurian legends
– Quest for Holy Grail
– The Knights Templar
– Chivalry: code of
moral, religious, and
Social systems
• Doing what’s right
• Being religious in the
eyes of all
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William Marshall was
one of the greatest
knights of the Middle
Ages
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Peasants and others
• The majority of the
population in early
medieval Europe
• Many were serfs who
were tied to the land
of the lord (Manor
System)
• Life was extremely
hard
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