The Middle Ages

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The Middle Ages The Huns Germanic
Barbarians Charlemagne Religion Feudalism The
Vikings The Norman Conquest Knighthood Housing Wom
en Arts and Entertainment Town Life The Black
Death
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The Middle Ages
In 476 CE, warriors attacked the city of Rome
and ended more than 800 years of glory for the
eternal city. Historians mark the fall of Rome
as the end of ancient history. The next one
thousand years were called the Middle Ages. The
Latin term for Middle Ages is "medieval." The
beginning of the Middle Ages is often called the
"Dark Ages". Life in Europe during the Middle
Ages was very hard. Very few people could read or
write and nobody expected conditions to improve.
The only hope for most people during the Middle
Ages was their strong belief in Christianity, and
the hope that life in heaven would be better than
life on earth. The Dark Ages were anything but
dark in other parts of the world. The Muslims in
the Middle East and North Africa studied and
improved on the works of the ancient Greeks while
civilization flourished in sub-Saharan Africa,
China, India, and the Americas.
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The Huns The Huns were possibly the most
destructive people in history. They originally
came from Central Asia. About 200BC, the Huns
overran the Chinese Empire. Chinese emperor Shih
Huang-ti built the massive Great Wall of China to
keep the Huns out. The Huns were pastoralists,
which means they tended to animals. Throughout
history, pastoralists have generally been more
warlike than
farmers, and the Huns were
no exception. The Huns were skilled horsemen who
used their skills to plunder more settled people.
They moved into the
land west of the
Caspian Sea, forcing the Visigoths and other

Germanic tribes to move into the Roman Empire.
The Huns
were illiterate and had
no interest in the lands they raided.

They simply attacked and plundered.
In 445, Attila became the sole leader
of the Huns after

murdering his brother. The Romans called
Attila the

Scourge of God. He forced Rome to pay tribute,
or
payment
for protection. Attila died suddenly in 453.
Attila had taken a

beautiful young wife, though he had several
other wives. The

day of the wedding there was a huge
drunken celebration.
The
next morning, the new bride was found quivering
after
finding that Attila had
choked to death from a nosebleed. The

threat of the Huns died with
Attila. His sons were weak and
quarrelsome.
Within two years the Ostrogoths and other

Germanic tribes combined to remove the
Huns as a threat to
more
civilized people.
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Germanic Barbarians
The Romans saw themselves as having a highly
advanced civilization, and they looked down on
the cultures of the people who lived beyond the
borders of their empire. In 122 CE, Emperor
Hadrian built a wall separating the Roman part of
Britain from the mountainous land now called
Scotland. The Romans called the Scottish people
barbarians, possibly because their native
Celtic language sounded like the bleating of
sheep. The term was eventually used to describe
anyone who lived beyond the borders of the Roman
Empire. The people who lived northeast of the
Roman Empire spoke languages similar to modern
German. These Germanic tribes included the
Vandals, Lombards, Alamanni, Goths, Franks, and
Burgundians. Most of the tribesmen did not know
how to read, but unlike the Huns, they tended to
farms and were not nomadic. Most of the tribes
gave up their pagan beliefs and became
Christians.
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In 376, the Huns forced the Visigoths (western
Goths) to leave their homeland near the Danube
River in modern Austria. The Visigoths asked the
Romans for permission to settle inside the Roman
Empire. The Romans unfair prices for food and
other supplies. The Visigoths protested, and
formed an army. Alaric was a Visigoth who
joined the Roman army and rose to a high rank. He
became king of the Visigoths. In 410, Alarics
soldiers formed a siege around Rome. When the
city was close to starvation, the Roman citizens
opened the gates and allowed the conquering army
to enter. The Visigoths rampaged through the
streets for three days, pillaging and burning.
Alaric ordered his army not to molest women or
destroy churches. Rome was not completely
destroyed, but for the first time in nearly
800 years, the eternal city had been
defeated. Germanic tribes overran
what was left of the Roman Empire. The
Ostrogoths, or eastern Goths, came
from land we know call the Ukraine. The
Ostrogoths conquered most of Italy, Greece,
and the western Balkans. The Vandals
took control of the Roman territory in North
Africa. The Franks overran France, while the
Saxons conquered the southern part of
England.
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Charlemagne
Charlemagne or Charles the Great, was the
greatest of the Frankish kings. In an era when
most men were little more than five feet tall,
Charlemagne stood six feet, four inches. He
expanded the kingdom of the Franks into Spain and
Central Europe. Charlemagnes goal was to unite
all of the Germanic tribes into a single
Christian kingdom. On Christmas Day, 800, Pope
Leo III placed a crown on his head and proclaimed
him Augustus, emperor of the Holy Roman
Empire. The coronation united Christendom under
Charlemagnes rule. Charlemagne never learned
how to read or write, but he wanted to recapture
the glory of the Roman Empire. He set up schools
throughout his empire and provided funds that
allowed monks to copy the works of Greek and
Roman authors. Charlemagnes empire crumbled soon
after his death, and the promise of returning the
glory of Rome to Western Europe soon faded. The
term Holy Roman Empire was used to describe
different Frankish and German lands for another
ten centuries, but it could be argued that after
Charlemagne, it wasnt holy, it wasnt Roman, and
it certainly was not an empire.
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Religion
The Catholic Church was the only church
in Europe during the Middle Ages, and it had
its own laws and large coffers. Church
leaders such as bishops and archbishops sat
on the king's council and played
leading roles in government. Bishops,
who were often wealthy and came from noble
families, ruled over groups of parishes
called "diocese." Parish priests, on the
other hand, came from humbler backgrounds and
often had little education. The village priest
tended to the sick and indigent and, if he was
able, taught Latin and the Bible to the youth of
the village. As the population of Europe
expanded in the twelfth century, the churches
that had been built in the Roman style with
round-arched roofs became too small. Some of the
grand cathedrals, strained to their structural
limits by their creators' drive to build higher
and larger, collapsed within a century or less of
their construction.
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Christendom
By the later Middle Ages, Christianity became
the universal faith of almost all of the people
of Europe. People did not think of Europe as a
distinct place until the Middle Ages had passed.
Instead they spoke of Christendom, or the
community of Christians. Christianity was the
most important influence of the Middle Ages.
Religious life attracted many people during the
Middle Ages. The Church was often the only way
to get an education. It also allowed poor people
to escape a dreary life and possibly rise to
power. Religious workers are called clergy. In
the Middle Ages, the Pope ruled the Christian
Church. Other clergy included bishops, priests,
nuns, and monks. Monks were men who lived in
monasteries, or small communities of religious
workers. Monks devoted their lives to prayer,
and their behavior influenced the entire church.
Monasteries produced many well-educated men
prepared to serve as administrators for
uneducated kings and lords. Monks were
responsible for keeping the Greek and Latin
classical cultures alive. Monks copied books by
hand in an era before the printing press. Though
few in number, monks played a significant role in
the Middle Ages.
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The Byzantine Empire
                                     In 330 CE,
the Roman emperor, Constantine, moved his
capital from Rome to the Greek city of Byzantium.
He wanted the capital of his empire to be safe
from barbarian invasion. Constantine renamed the
city Constantinople, but we refer to the
civilization centered in Constantinople as the
Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Empire began to
look less like the Roman Empire as the years
passed. The empire covered Greece, the Balkans,
Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. By the seventh
century, Greek had completely replaced Latin as
the language of the empire. The Byzantine
emperors still thought of themselves as the
successors of Caesar Augustus, but over the
years Roman influence gradually disappeared.
Seljuk Turks began moving into the Byzantine
Empire from Central Asia in the eleventh
century. The Turks had recently become
Muslims, and the Byzantine emperor feared they
would soon overpower his Christian empire. He
asked the leader of the Christian churchthe
Popeto assist in a holy war against the
Turks. In 1095, Pope Urban II launched the
first of many Crusades, or wars of the
cross. Urban hoped that in addition to
expelling the Turks from the Byzantine Empire,
he would also be able to reclaim the holy city
of Jerusalem from Muslim control. Soldiers
from western Europe left their homes to free
the Byzantine Empire of the unbelievers.
This was the first time many Europeans left
their homes. Their exposure to new and
different cultures was a factor that led to
the Renaissance
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Muslims in Europe
In 622 CE, an Arab named Muhammad preached that
an angel had visited him. The angel told
Muhammad that he was the last of a long line of
prophets that included Moses and Jesus. Muhammad
called on people to renounce all other faiths
and to submit to the will of Allah. Allah is an
Arabic word that means God. He called the new
faith Islam, which means submission to Allah
the people who practice Islam are called Muslims
(sometimes spelled Moslems). The faith spread
quickly through the Middle East and across North
Africa, eventually reaching people in northwest
Africa that the Romans called Moors.
The Visigoths had ruled Spain until 711, when the
Moors crossed into Spain from North Africa. For
the next three centuries, the Moors controlled
most of Spain. Spain enjoyed a golden age. The
Moors built Spain into a thriving center of
culture and scholarship. The Moors were Muslims,
but they were generally tolerant of the
Christians and Jews who lived in Spain. Spanish
Jews benefited from the tolerant policies of the
Moors. This enabled them to have one of the most
prosperous periods in their history.
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Feudalism
Feudalism was the system of loyalties and
protections during the Middle Ages. As the Roman
Empire crumbled, emperors granted land to nobles
in exchange for their loyalty. These lands
eventually developed into manors. A manor is the
land owned by a noble and everything on it. A
typical manor consisted of a castle, small
village, and farmland. During the Middle Ages,
peasants could no longer count on the Roman army
to protect them. Germanic and Viking tribes
overran homes and farms throughout Europe. The
peasants turned to the landowners, often called
lords, to protect them. Many peasants remained
free, but most became serfs. A serf was bound to
the land. He could not leave without buying his
freedom, an unlikely occurrence in the Middle
Ages. Life for a serf was not much better than
the life of a slave. The only difference was that
a serf could not be sold to another manor.
Serfs would often have to work three or four
days a week for the lord as rent. They would
spend the rest of their week growing crops to
feed their families. Other serfs worked as
sharecroppers. A sharecropper would be required
to turn over most of what he grew in order to be
able to live on the land.
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The Vikings
The Vikings were fierce warriors that threatened
the security of Charlemagne's empire. The Vikings
came from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, lands we
now call Scandinavia. The Vikings were skilled
sailors whose advanced methods of shipbuilding
gave them an advantage over other Europeans. The
largest Viking ships could hold as many as 100
sailors and travel at high speed. Viking ships
required a depth of only three feet, so they
could be used on rivers to travel inland. The
Viking ships were strong enough to withstand the
fury of the sea, but light enough to be carried
around waterfalls. The Vikings used their
sailing skills to attack without warning and
quickly escape. At first they attacked and left
with as much as they could carry. Later, they
settled down and colonized areas they conquered.
By the tenth century, the Vikings controlled
parts of Britain, France, and Russia, and
raided lands as far away as
Egypt. Other Vikings sailed west and
discovered Iceland. About 980, Erik the
Red sailed further west and began a
settlement on ice-covered land he called
Greenland. Viking legends indicate that
Eriks son, Leif Eriksson, reached North
America.
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The Norman Conquest
One group of Vikings settled in Normandy, a
section of northwest France. They adopted the
French language and Christian faith, but they
retained their ancestors taste for adventure.
William the Conqueror was a powerful Norman
ruler who invaded England in 1066. For the next
three hundred years, England would be ruled by
kings who did not speak English. The Normans
imported French-speaking craftsmen, cooks, and
scholars. The modern English language reflects
the high status of the French Normans and the
low status of the English field hands. We refer
to animals in the field by their English names
(cow, ox, sheep), while food that has been
prepared and brought to the table generally has
French names (beef, veal, mutton). The Norman
Conquest destroyed English rule and created a
French military state. The Normans seized English
lands and destroyed any English opposition.
William paid for his projects by imposing taxes.
He completed a thorough census, or survey of the
land, wealth, population, resources, and taxable
capacity of England. The result was what the
English people called the Domesday Book. The
English hated the harsh Norman rule, but the
taxation records survive to this day. The
Norman conquest was the beginning of centuries of
hostilities between England and France. The
nations fought the Hundred Years War between
1336 and 1453.
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Knighthood
Knights in the Middle Ages fought for their
lords in battle. They even had to protect the
castle before the year 900 AD. Before you become
a knight, you must go through these stages page,
squire, then armiger. The sons of the nobles were
sent to a lord's house at the age of seven to
serve him as a page. As a page he is taught
manners, skills in serving food, and he also
learns how to read and write. When the page turns
thirteen he will be named a squire. At the stage
of squire prepared himself by learning how to
handle a sword and lance while wearing forty
pounds of armor and riding a horse. Once the
lord thought that you were skilled enough to go
with him into battle, he turned you into an
armiger. After the armiger stage, the youth
could become a real knight. At the granting
ceremony, the lord who trained him will dub him
with the flat surface of his sword and he is now
officially a knight. A young man could also
become a knight for valor in combat after a
battle or sometimes before a battle to help him
gain courage.
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Weapons and Armor
Protecting oneself in battle has always been a
concern for any soldier, and medieval knights
were no exception. At first the armor was
made of small metal rings called chain mail.
A knight wore a linen shirt and a pair of
pants as well as heavy woolen pads underneath
the metal-ringed tunic. A suit of chain mail
could have more than 200,000 rings. However,
chain mail was heavy, uncomfortable, and
difficult to move in. As time passed, knights
covered their bodies with plates of metal. Plates
covered their chests, back, arms, and legs. A
bucket like helmet protected the knights head
and had a hinged metal visor to cover his face.
Suits of armor were hot, uncomfortable, and heavy
to wear. A suit of armor weighed between forty
and sixty pounds. Some knights even protected
their horses in armor. A knight also needed a
shield to hold in front of himself during
battle. Shields were made of either wood or
metal. Knights decorated their shields with
their family emblem or crest and the family
motto. A knight's weapon was his sword, which
was about thirty-two pounds. It was worn on his
left side in a case fastened around his waist. A
knife was worn on the knights right side.
Knights used other weapons in combat as well. A
lance was a long spear used in jousts. Metal
axes, battle hammers, and maces were also used
to defeat the enemy.
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Tournaments
Tournaments provided a means for knights to
practice warfare and build their strength in
times of peace. Tournaments were essentially
mock battles with audiences. They were an
essential part of military and social life.
Lances and swords were blunted, but tournaments
were a place where reputations were made, so the
fighting was hard and dangerous. Challengers
erected tents at one end of the ground and hung
a shield outside. A knight accepting the
challenge rode up and touched his lance to the
shield. If two people fought a tournament, it
was usually by jousting. The two knights would
gallop across the list at each other. They
carried long, blunt lances and shields. The
objective was to knock the other person out of
his saddle. Many people did get hurt or die by
accident. These "war games" consisted of
individual contests (jousts), and group combat.
Prizes were given to the winners, and some
knights made their fortunes on the tournament
circuit. The armor worn in tourneys was
different from regular battle gear. It was very
heavy and padded inside. It was also extremely
cumbersome. The winner of the jousts was
awarded a prize by the Queen of Beauty, elected
for the occasion from amongst the women present.
By the 14th century tournaments became rousing
fairs complete with singing, dancing, and
feasting which might last for several days.
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Heraldry - Coat of Arms
Heraldry (symbols identifiable with individuals
or families) or coats of arms originated as a
way to identify knights in battle or in
tournaments. With the advent of the "great" or
"barrel" helmet, an individual's face became
concealed. It therefore became necessary to
create a method to distinguish ally from
enemy. Heraldic symbols ranged from simple
geometric shapes such as chevrons, to more
elaborate drawings of real or mythological
animals. As with the honor of becoming a knight,
heraldic insignia became hereditary, being passed
on from father to son, or with the family name.
Eventually heraldic symbols also came to signify
kingdoms, duchies, or provinces as a medieval
forerunner to our modern national flags.
Heraldic symbols were often worn on the
knight's surcoat (thus the term "coat of
arms"), shield, helmet, or on a banner
(standard) that could serve as a rallying
point for knights and others scattered in the
chaos of battle. The standard was always to be
elevated as long as the battle continued, and
therefore was guarded well. A standard taken
down would signal the allied combatants that
the cause was lost and it was time to flee the
field of combat.
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Housing
Most medieval homes were cold, damp, and dark.
Sometimes it was warmer and lighter outside the
home than within its walls. For security
purposes, windows, when they were present, were
very small openings with wooden shutters that
were closed at night or in bad weather. The small
size of the windows allowed those inside to see
out, but kept outsiders from looking in. Many
peasant families ate, slept, and spent time
together in very small quarters, rarely more than
one or two rooms. The houses had thatched roofs
and were easily destroyed. The homes of the rich
were more elaborate than the peasants' homes.
Their floors were paved, as opposed to being
strewn with rushes and herbs, and sometimes
decorated with tiles. Tapestries were hung on
the walls, providing not only decoration but
also an extra layer of warmth. Fenestral
windows, with lattice frames that were covered
in a fabric soaked in resin and tallow, allowed
in light, kept out drafts, and could be removed
in good weather. Only the wealthy could afford
panes of glass sometimes only churches and royal
residences had glass windows
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Castles
Stone castles first existed in the ninth
century. The castle was held together with
mortar. Walls could be as thick as thirty feet.
The structure was often built on high mountains
surrounded by a moat, a ditch filled with
water and crossed by a drawbridge which could
be raised to deny access. The outer walls
enclosed the outer bailey, and then the inner
walls enclosed the inner bailey. Enemies
who breached the outer walls still had to
face the inner walls, and inside them the
keep or central tower. Murder holes in the
ceiling and floor of the portcullis made it
possible to see if the visitor was friendly.
Defenders dropped stone blocks, unslaked lime,
boiling pitch, boiling water or hot sand onto
attackers The castle itself needed to be built
to withstand siege, the armies inside had to be
adept at defense and the general citizens of the
castle community, too, had to do their part.
After all, during a siege, the overall medieval
castle defense, which included battle plans and
food storage ideas, could make or break the
castles chance of success.
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Women in the Middle Ages
It should come as no surprise that women,
whether they were nobles or peasants, held a
difficult position in society. They were
largely confined to household tasks such as
cooking, baking bread, sewing, weaving, and
spinning. However, they also hunted for food
and fought in battles, learning to use
weapons to defend their homes and castles.
Some medieval women held other occupations.
There were women blacksmiths, merchants, and
apothecaries. Others were midwives, worked in
the fields, or were engaged in creative
endeavors such as writing, playing musical
instruments, dancing, and painting. Some
women were known as witches, capable of sorcery
and healing. Others became nuns and devoted their
lives to God and spiritual matters. Famous women
of the Middle Ages include the writer, Christine
de Pisan the abbess and musician, Hildegard of
Bingen and the patron of the arts, Eleanor of
Aquitaine. A French peasant's daughter, Joan of
Arc, or St. Joan, heard voices telling her to
protect France against the English invasion. She
dressed in armor and led her troops to victory in
the early fifteenth century. "The Maid of
Orleans" as she was known, was later burned as a
witch.
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Arts and Entertainment
    Art and music were critical aspects of
medieval religious life and, towards the end of
the Middle Ages, secular life as well. Singing
without instrumental accompaniment was an
essential part of church services. Monks and
priests chanted the divine offices and the mass
daily. Some churches had instruments such as
organs and bells. The organistrum or symphony
(later known as a hurdy gurdy) was also found in
churches. Two people were required to play this
stringed instrument--one to turn the crank and
the other to play the keys. Medieval drama grew
out of the liturgy, beginning in about the
eleventh century. Some of the topics were from
the Old Testament (Noah and the flood, Jonah
and the whale, Daniel in the lion's den) and
others were stories about the birth and death of
Christ. These dramas were performed with
costumes and musical instruments and at first
took place directly outside the church. Later
they were staged in marketplaces, where they
were produced by local guilds.
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Town Life
    Following 1000, peace and order grew. As a
result, peasants began to expand their farms and
villages further into the countryside. The
earliest merchants were peddlers who went from
village to village selling their goods. As the
demand for goods increased--particularly for the
gems, silks, and other luxuries from Genoa and
Venice, the ports of Italy that traded with the
East--the peddlers became more familiar with
complex issues of trade, commerce, accounting,
and contracts. They became businessmen and
learned to deal with Italian moneylenders and
bankers. Merchants took their coal, timber, wood,
iron, copper, and lead to the south and came back
with luxury items such as wine and olive oil.
With the advent of trade and commerce, feudal
life declined. As the tradesmen became wealthier,
they resented having to give their profits to
their lords. Arrangements were made for the
townspeople to pay a fixed annual sum to the lord
or king and gain independence for their town as a
"borough" with the power to govern itself. The
marketplace became the focus of many towns.
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The Black Death Bubonic Plague
Almost half of the people of Western Europe
died in a great sickness known as the Bubonic
Plague. The plague was also referred to as
"the Black Death because the skin of
diseased people turned a dark gray color. It
apparently began in China. When sailors
traveled to Asia, rats returned with them to
Europe. Fleas living on the blood of infected
rats then transferred the disease to the
European people. In 1347, Italian merchant
ships returned from the Black Sea, one of the
links along the trade route between Europe and
China. Many of the sailors were already dying
of the plague, and within days the disease had
spread from the port cities to the surrounding
countryside. The disease spread as far as England
within a year. The Europeans were susceptible
to disease because they lived in crowded
surroundings with very poor sanitary conditions.
The Europeans often ate stale or diseased meat
because refrigeration had not yet been invented.
Also, medicine was primitive and unable to remedy
an illness that modern technology might have
cured. Bad medical advice also advanced the
plague. People were often advised to not bathe
because open skin pores might let in the disease.
Death from the plague was horrible, but swift.
The first signs were generally aching limbs, and
vomiting of blood. Then the lymph nodes found in
the neck, armpits, and groin would begin to
swell. The swelling continued for three or four
days until the lymph nodes burst. The swiftness
of the disease, the enormous pain, the grotesque
appearance of the victims, all served to make the
plague especially horrifying.