Medieval Europe 9th thru 14th century

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Medieval Europe 9th thru 14th century

• Political
• Economic
• Religious
• Military
• Social
• With these five factors we can study any time
  period and begin to dissect some of the
  influences on events, places, and people.

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Political
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Political (continued)

• Power in Europe is shared amongst two political
  entities. The Roman Catholic Church and
  monarchies.
• (The Roman Catholic Church will be discussing
  in detail under religion.)
• Monarchies consist of kings, nobles, and serfs.
  Medieval kings have limited amount of monetary
  wealth (silver gold).
• Nobles constantly battle amongst themselves and
  sometimes challenged the kings authority.
• Medieval monarchs devised the feudal system based
  on their land wealth through inheritance and
  conquest.
• Nobles must pledge their loyalty to the king in
  order to receive a fief (land grant).
• Nobles are guarantee to have a certain amount of
  serfs (peasants belonging to land) to work their
  land and run their manors.
• Lesser nobles pledge their loyalty (vassalage) to
  a greater lord for land, food, and money.
• Nobles with no land but loyal to a landlord are
  knights.

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Economic
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Economic

• The economy of most European kingdoms is slowly
  recovering from the Dark Ages.
• Most of the monetary wealth of the European
  kingdoms and monasteries had been stolen by the
  Vikings, the Moors, the Mongols, and other
  conquering groups of marauders.
• Constant warring amongst the Franks, the Germanic
  peoples, etc. further divided up wealth by having
  there numerous kingdoms in places like France,
  Spain, and Germany.
• The Crusades, launched by the Roman Catholic
  Church in the 11th century, were fairly
  unsuccessful in bringing back monetary wealth
  from the Middle East. However, the
  reestablishment of traded routes with cities such
  as Constantinople, began to bring wealth into
  Europe through exporting and importing goods.
• Merchants and Artisans began to grow as a new
  social class due to their skills and ability to
  obtain various resources. It was possible for a
  serf to be chosen as an apprentice in a trade or
  artisans guild. Cities that been abandoned due
  to the conditions of the Dark Ages begin to
  flourish again due to trade.
• Kings and the Catholic Church collect taxes from
  the serfs, merchants, and artisans.

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Religious
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Religious (continued)

• The dominate religion of Europe is Christianity.
• There is only one form of Christianity in Europe
  during this time period and that is Roman
  Catholicism.
• Any Pagan (non-Christian religions) worshippers
  are persecuted by both the church and monarchs.
• In the medieval times the Vatican is biggest land
  owner in Europe. Through taxing serfs and the
  personal donations of kings and nobles the church
  became wealthy.
• When any monarch threaten to take church lands
  they were threaten by the Pope with
  excommunication. If a king became excommunicated,
  that monarch was now an enemy of the church and
  be attacked with the Popes blessing.
• If a serf disobeyed the churches wishes they
  could be deemed a heretic and burned at the
  stake.
• The Roman Catholic Church did not allow the Bible
  to be read by anyone but clergy in Latin.
• The Bible was not translated into the common
  language. Anything the church deemed heretic,
  like the Greek mythology, could cost a person
  their life.

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Military
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Military (continued)

• Each lord maintained a personnel army that which
  was sworn to aid the king in time of war.
• Landless knights became professional soldiers
  working for a greater noble or for hire.
• Many kings built their fortress out of stone in
  geographically hard to reach places.
• Many castles are on top of cliffs or back against
  the sea. The lord of the castle would have the
  strategic advantage of seeing his enemy early and
  plenty of time to recall the serfs, knights, etc.
  into the fortress.
• Most knights wear chain-mail, which protected
  them from slashes and some jabs with swords.
• Full-plated armor develops later in the Middle
  Ages it is difficult to wear, but provides great
  protection until guns and cannons are developed.

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Social
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Social (continued)

• People were born into their social classes in the
  Middle Ages.
• A few serfs were able to join the merchant and
  artisan classes and not be restricted to the
  land.
• People during this time period were very
  superstition and religious.
• Most people during the Middle Ages did not bathe
  very often.
• Outbreaks of diseases, like the Black Death
  (Bubonic Plague) were devastating, due to poor
  sanitation, lots of vermin, and bad hygiene.
• The mortality (death rate) was high in Europe at
  this time.
• The Catholic church reinforced an emphasis on the
  after-life being better then peoples present
  lives.
• The architecture, arts, and sculpture reflected
  less emphasis on the realism and more on the
  symbols of religious ideas.