Transcript European and Muslim Civilizations (500-1450)

European and Muslim
Civilizations (500-1450)
Thread 1 – How did Medieval civilizations in Western Europe
compare with those in Eastern Europe?
Early Middle Ages
A.D. 500-1000
Early Middle Ages (500-1000)
• During the Early Middle Ages life in
Europe was a struggle for survival.
• This time period is also called the
“Early Medieval Period” and “the
Dark Ages.”
• This period is considered dark because
learning and civilization declined.
During the Early Middle Ages
Western Europe (the Old
Western Empire) was made up
of a number of Barbarian
Kingdoms.
Each of the Kingdoms was
controlled by one of the
Germanic tribes which had
invaded Western Europe.
Three Roots of the new society
that develops during the Early
Middle Age 500-1000
• 1. Classical heritage from Rome.
• 2. Beliefs of the Roman
Catholic Church
• 3. Customs of the various
Germanic Tribes.
Roman Civilization Collapsed
1. Trade was disrupted by;
• A. Warfare
• B. Outlaws
• C. Pirates
• (travel was not safe people
could not exchange good)
2. Population of Towns &
Cities Shrunk
A. Cities and towns were
centers of trade.
B.
When trade declined
people moved to the
countryside.
C. The population became
overwhelmingly rural.
3. Literacy was lost.
A. Barbarians (Germanic Tribes)
could not read or write.
B. The learning of Roman subjects
sank as they moved from the cities to
rural areas.
C. By the year 600 priests were the
only Europeans who were literate.
4. A Common Language Was
Lost.
• A. During the Roman empire scholars all over the
empire could speak the Latin language.
• B. As Germanic speaking people joined the
population different dialects developed.
• C. Eventually different languages evolved. French,
Spanish, and Italian (Romance languages) evolved
from Latin.
Government Changes
During the Middle Ages the whole
idea of of Government changed.
Family ties and personal loyalty, not
public government or public law
bound Germanic society together. A
Germanic warrior would fight for a
leader he knew but not for a king who
was a stranger.
Christianity Won New
Followers
• The Roman Catholic Church grew stronger during
the Middle Ages. During the Early Middle Ages the
Church was the strongest civilizing force in Western
Europe.
• Christianity was spread to Germanic people, even
before the fall of the empire (300s & 400s), by
Christian missionaries.
Saint Patrick
Spread
Christianity
throughout
Ireland.
Clovis
• Clovis was a Frankish King who converted to Christianity
after he was victorious in a battle before which he had
prayed to the Christian God.
• After the battle Clovis and 3,000 of his warriors asked a
bishop to baptize them.
• The Catholic Bishops wanted Clovis help against other
Germanic tribes which were not Roman Catholic but Arian
Christians.
Clovis
The Catholic bishops wanted
Clovis help against other
Germanic tribes which were
not Roman Catholic
Christians but Arian
Christians.
Arian Christians, named after
their early leader Arias, denied
the deity (Godness) of Christ.
They denied that Christ was
God as well as man.
Clovis conversion marked the
beginning of a special
partnership between the
Frankish kingdom and the
Catholic Church.
Developments in the Catholic Church
During the Early Middle Ages Christian
men and women began to establish
monasteries. These were communities in
which Christian men or women gave up all
their private possessions and lived very
simply. Their lives were devoted to
worship and prayer.
The men in monasteries were called
monks. The women in convents were
called nuns.
Monastic Life Continued
• Benedict a monk himself established a set of rules
for monastic life. Most monasteries followed the
Benedictine rule. These strict rules included seven
hours of manual labor a day and prayer and worship
eight times a day.
• Monasteries were the most educated communities.
Monks copied the Bible as well as other classic
writings.
Pope Gregory I
Gregory I who became pope in
590 did much to increase the
power of the papacy (office of
the Pope). He made the papacy
an office of political as well as
spiritual power .
Gregory along with others
helped establish the idea of
Christendom, a spiritual
kingdom fanning out from Rome
to the most distant churches.
Franks
• The kingdom of the Franks was the largest and
strongest of the Germanic kingdoms in Western
Europe after the fall of Rome.
• The modern name France comes from the the
people of the Franks.
• The foundations of the Frankish kingdom were
laid by their first Christian King Clovis. When
Clovis became king he controlled only a small
portion of land by the time he died he controlled
most of what is now France.
• Clovis and his successors were known as the
Merovingian kings. (Dynasty)
Mayor of the Palace
• By 700 the Merovingian
kings were very weak and
kings in name only. The
most powerful official in the
Frankish kingdom was the
Mayor of the Palace.
Charles Martel
In 714 Charles
Martel (the
Hammer) was the
Mayor of the Palace.
He extended the
power of the Franks.
He also defeated the
Muslims in the
Battle of Tours and
preserved Europe for
Christianity.
Pepin the Short
Charles Martel’s son Pepin the Short followed him
as Mayor of the Palace.
Pepin the Short got the Pope’s approval to seize the
throne and become king in name as well as power.
The Pope crowned Pepin King by the grace of
God.
Pepin was the first King to be anointed by the Pope
but it became common practice after the precedent
had been set.
Pepin the Short
In exchange for the Pope’s endorsement Pepin had
conquered the Lombards in Italy who threatened the pope.
Pepin collected the keys to all the cities in which he had
defeated the Lombards and gave them to the pope. Popes
thus became political rulers of scattered Italian lands known
as the Papal States.
Charlemagne
Pepin’s son Charlemagne (Charles the Great)
became the greatest Frankish King.
Charlemagne ruled for 45 years and carried out 54
military campaigns.
He unified most of Europe into a Christian empire
by 800.
He conquered Saxony (part of modern day
Germany) and forced the Saxons to convert to
Christianity. Those who refused baptism were put
to death. One fourth of the Saxon population was
killed in these forced conversions.
Charlemagne and his descendants were
known as the Carolingian dynasty.
Charlemagne & the Carolingian Renaissance
• Charlemagne did encourage the revival of learning during
his reign.
• Charlemagne ordered monasteries to open schools to train
future monks and priests.
• Charlemagne believed that wisdom in writing was
important to maintain wisdom in understanding the holy
scriptures.
• The revival of learning during Charlemagne’s reign has
been titled the Carolingian Renaissance.
Charlemagne was crowned
Emperor of the Romans by the
pope.
This was the beginning of the idea
of the Holy Roman Empire.
Charlemagne’s empire was divided
among his three grandsons at the
Treaty of Verdun in 843.
New Invasions
• After the Treaty of Verdun when Charlemagne’s
empire was divided the Carolingian kings became
powerless.
• From 800 to 1000 Europe was plundered by new
invasions.
• A. Muslims from the south seized Sicily and raided
Italy.
• B. Magyars from the east (Central Asia) terrorized
Germany and Italy.
• C. Vikings from the north attacked all over Europe.
Vikings
The most Dreaded
attackers were the Vikings.
Even before Charlemagne’s
death, the earliest Viking
raids struck Europe.
From about 800 to 1000
the Vikings raided Europe
from Ireland to Russia.
Vikings
• The Vikings were known as Northmen and
Norsemen.
• They came from Scandinavia (modern day
Norway, Sweden, and Denmark).
• The Vikings were Germanic in Language and
custom similar to the Germanic tribes which
had invaded Europe earlier, leading up to the
fall of Rome.
• The Vikings had almost no contact with the
Roman Empire.
• They worshiped warlike gods.
Vikings Continued
• The Viking ships which could sail in as little as three
feet of water allowed them to sail up river and strike
far inland quickly and escape.
• By 900 the Vikings had settled the island of Iceland.
In 982 Eric the Red sailed to a place he misnamed
Greenland. About the year 1000, Eric the Red’s son
Leif Ericson sailed to what was probably the
Canadian island now called Newfoundland.
• In northern France, Viking leaders won rich territory
that became know as Normandy.
• The Viking raids ended about the year 1000. The
Vikings were the last great raiders to descend on
western Europe.
Feudalism
• During the invasions a new political system
of government developed.
• Everywhere there was an increasing
emphasis on local protection, local
government, and local self sufficiency.
• This new political system was called
feudalism.
• It was political and military system based on
the holding of land.
• At the heart of the heart of the feudal system
was the agreement between the lord and his
vassal.
• The lord would give control of a piece of land
to a knight who in exchange swear loyalty to the
lord. The knight would thus become the lord’s
vassal. The symbolic ceremony where this took
place was called investiture.
• A Royal Vassal was a vassal of the King (i.e. the
king was his lord).
• Royal Vassals would divide up their fiefs and
form contracts with other knights who became
their vassals. These Vassals would subdivide
their fiefs and gather vassals and the process
would continue.
• Royal Vassals were lords to their vassals, who in turn were
lords their vassals. The bottom rung of vassals (whose fiefs
were to small to be divided) were called knights.
• A lord would use grants of land to attract a personal band of
warriors. Every local lord had a force of knights to protect
against all comers.
• A Vassal was expected to rule over his land. In cases of
emergency lords could ask their vassals for grants of money.
This money was called aid.
• In theory, feudal society was a pyramid with the king at the
top and knights at the bottom of the pyramid. In practice the
system never worked so clearly. One knight might collect fiefs
from several lords and thus have conflicting loyalties. If two
of his lords went to war against each other he would have to
choose which to serve. His very life might depend on picking
the winner. Some kings were even vassals of lords from other
countries. The feudal pyramid was often a complex tangle of
conflicting loyalties.
• Under Feudalism public power
became private.
• Justice, military power, and
political power had all become
private possessions. They could
be traded among lords or passed
down to their heirs.
• The duties a person owed were
not to a state, or to an empire but
to a personal lord.
Manorialism
• The Manors were the economic side of feudalism.
• The great majority of people in the Middle Ages
were neither lords nor vassals. They were peasants.
• Peasants were either free peasants, who could move
around and market their labor, or serfs who were
bound to the land they were born on until death.
• A Manor was a small estate from which a lord’s
family gained its livelihood. The manors were selfsufficient. Everything the lord and his family needed
was produced on the manor.
• The manor might be all or just part of the fief.
Peasants
• The peasants did all the work on the manor.
• The peasants worked on their lords land two or
three days out of the week and also gave the lord
a portion of what they produced on their own
land.
• In exchange the peasant could live on their lord’s
manor and would be protected by the lord.
They could come within the castle walls in times
of attack.
• Life on the manor was difficult and dirty even
for the lords but even more so for the peasants.