Middle Ages

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Middle Ages

• aka the DARK ages
• 500-1200

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What was life like?

• Literally dark? Not quite.
• Poverty
• No learning
• No communication
• Fighting, War, Barbarians
• Disease

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Art from the Middle Ages

• What do you think it looked like?

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Middle Age Society

• Medieval hierarchy- feudalism-
• KINGCHURCH/NOBLES
• LORDS
• KNIGHTS
• PEASANTS- SERFS

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Social Class

• Inherited- could not move up
• Determined your prestige and power
• You were either someone who fought, someone who
  prayed, or someone who worked.

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Peasants and Serfs

• Vast majority of the people during the Middle
  Ages
• Serfs- could not lawfully leave the place where
  they were born-Bound to the land
• So were they slaves? Almost, but they could not
  be bought or sold.

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Peasant Life on the Manor

• Paid high taxes to Lords
• Tithe- church tax
• Warmed cottages by bringing the pigs inside
• Slept on straw
• Ate vegetables and grains

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Can things suck more during the Middle Ages..?

• YES, they can!!!!!!

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The History Channel- The Black Death

• Start-1630
• What news and images were brought back from
  traders traveling in the far east?
• How did people get rid of the dead bodies?
• What were three of the symptoms of the plague?
• What did people fear more then death from the
  plague?
• What were some ways that physicians tried to
  treat those suffering from the plague?

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The Bubonic Plague1300s

• The plague originated in Asia
• Traveling trade routes allowed the plague to
  travel across Asia into Europe
• The disease swept through Italy, and then
  followed trade routes to Spain, France, Germany,
  England, and many other parts of Europe and
  Africa.

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Black Death

• The disease was caused by a bacteria that was
  carried by fleas which lived on black rats.
• Most people in those days had fleas and lice from
  not bathing.
• Garbage and sewage was thrown into the streets
  which became breeding grounds for the rats.
• No one knew how to cure the disease and often
  blamed God or Jews

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Black Death Symptoms

• Painful swellings called buboes many around your
  armpits and groin.
• Purplish and blackish spots on skin
• High fever, chills, delirium, and in most cases
  DEATH.

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Plague

• This scourge had implanted so great a terror in
  the hearts of men and women that brothers
  abandoned brothers, uncles their nephews, sisters
  their brothers, and in many cases wives deserted
  their husbands. But even worse, fathers and
  mothers refused to nurse and assist their own
  children.
• -Giovanni Boccaccio, Italian writer of the
  time

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Effects of the Plague

• Death tolls
• Western Europe- 20-25 million
• China, India, other Asian areas- 25 million
• Europe lost approximately 1/3rd of its population
• Towns populations fell
• Trade declined. Prices rose.
• Serfs left manors for better wages
• Peasant revolts, reduced power of feudal lords
• Jews were blamed for bringing the plague, so many
  were driven from homes or massacred.
• Church suffered because prayer could not stop
  plague
• Europe was demoralized