Transcript class 27 - Bradley University

“The High Middle Ages”
CIV 101-02
October 28, 2015
class 27
How Dark were the Dark Ages?
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqzq01i2
O3U
How to kill antibiotic-resistant super
bugs?
THROW MEDIEVAL SHIT ON THEM.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo4K51
bQVs0
• http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/
la-sci-sn-medieval-remedy-superbug20150331-story.html
Prior to 1000…
• Europe sparsely populated, dotted with
villages of farmers and warriors, covered with
forests…
• Feudal system in place
• Life expectancy around 30-35
• The templates for the, later, High Middle
Ages are set
– Then modified in the HMA
One sure thing
(well, actually two or three)
• With a life like this:
– plagues/disease, poor hygiene/sanitation, bad
outcomes at childbirth, bad diet/low vitamins, hard
work, wars/invaders, lack of literacy/little or no
education, daylight and dark (candles), bad air as
the forests are going to be denuded….
• And since hell is proposed to be worse,
• the ONLY way to improve one’s lot is to be
sure you go to HEAVEN when you die
• SO THE CHURCH IS EVERYTHING!!!!!!
Plus . . .
• The Church guys have things a little better, here, on
earth, even in this life.
• Literacy
• “Protection”
• Generally, places to live and adequate food supplies
• and they are connected to the leadership (or are
the leadership)—all of which might help you out a
bit in this life.
Prior to 1000… and beyond
http://www.slideshare.net/pcbersick/feudalism-and-life-in-the-middle-ages
Prior to 1000… and beyond
http://www.slideshare.net/pcbersick/feudalism-and-life-in-the-middle-ages
Toward the Renaissance, through the high(er)
Middle Ages… things start to improve a bit
• population increased from 38.5M to 73.5M
from 1000 to 1300
– the rise of towns and cities intensifies density
and birth rates
• life expectancy heads toward the top end of
30-35
• However, the population density and filth in
the cities makes the West vulnerable to
disease.
Black Plague
1347-1350 in Europe:
• 1347: Plague strikes Sicily
• 1348: France struck by the Black Death in
January; England in August
• 1360: Recurrence of the Plague
• 1369: Recurrence of the Plague
• Within 1-7 days the first symptoms occurred,
including fever, nausea, headache and an
infection the lymph nodes.
https://deathblack.wordpress.com/category/statistics/
Black Plague
1347-1350 in Europe:
– In less than two years 30% to 60% of the population of
Europe was wiped out
– Nearly 75 million died in western Europe alone.
– 180,00 people died in London in the course of three
years.
– Almost 1/3 of the worlds population had died from
the plague by 1350
– Estimates go from 100 to 200 million deaths
worldwide.
– The mortality rate of the bubonic plague was 30% to
75%
Toward the Renaissance, through the high(er)
Middle Ages… back to things starting to improve
• European “countries” are now more fully
formed
– The French Monarchy
– The English Monarchy
– The German Empire
• Papal monarchies still
– 9 Crusades between 1095-1272
http://www.slideshare.net/pcbersick/feudalism-and-life-in-the-middle-ages
Crusades
• http://explorethemed.com/Crusades.asp
– Really nice interactive map that I can’t use here
http://www.hsse.nie.edu.sg/maps/ancient_time%20map/DSC07843a.jpg
Beginnings of the balance between
spiritual and secular
• but really, only because they interacted so
much over the work of the church—which
was also the work of the state.
• This isn’t going to change, much, until the
Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, and
the Reformation.
Advances from the Islamic world (via the
Crusades, travel to Spain, and trade)
Advances from the Islamic world (via the
crusades, travel to Spain, and trade
We covered these last time
• Hospitals
• Arabic numbers and mathematical reasoning (algebra, etc.
is going to bring us Copernicus and others soon),
• Paper (and that leads to an increase in literature, copying)
– Calligraphy (illustrated manuscripts)
• The textual recoveries by the Muslims leak into the West
– and encourage what comes later– the West doing it
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Grand architecture
Better water power
Iron works
The bard (often with a stringed instrument)
Textile advances
House of Learning (including analytical reasoning that
leads to Descartes and modern western science)
Particularly Western Advances
• Magna Carta
• English Parliament
– Radically “new” form of government that hearkens
back to the best of the Greek democracy and Roman
Republic.
• Investiture Controversies (who makes a pope;
who makes a king): working out Church/State
relations (well, actually, “breaking down” some
of the connections)
• Romanesque and Gothic architecture
Particularly Western Advances
• Christian religious orders (groups) with differing foci
(they don’t know it, but portends Protestants)
• Scholasticism: applying rhetorical techniques and
argument to controversial questions
– Aided by advances from the House of Learning
• Rise of the Universities
• Gregorian music/chant (at the start of the western 7
note major scale)
• Dante
• Some vernacular literature (courtly love and such—
heads toward setting “manners”
Particularly Western Advances
• Spinning wheels (cloth) (comes from Asia via the
Arabs, but becomes industrialized in the West).
• Hour glass
• Blast furnaces for smelting iron
• Better farming techniques
– Rotating fields in 3 field systems
– Horses instead of oxen (saddles and collars and
shoes)
– Iron Plough
Middle Ages in 3 1/2 minutes
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EAMqK
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