Middle Ages

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Chapter 10
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Middle Ages

• Fall of Rome initial shock
• Technology declined
• Learning suffered
  

• Catholic Church
• Strong political organization
• Learning and knowledge
• Feudalism
• Political structure

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• Manorialism political structure
• Power in the hands of the few
• Serfdom for many

• Little Technological Vigor
• Moldboard
• Three-field system

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The Church

• Only extensive political organization
• Copied Roman Empire to further Catholicism
• System of class

• Monasteries
• Improved land cultivation
• Some education/literacy
• St. Benedict of Nursia

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Political Power

• Clovis
• Used power of church to gain dominion of Franks
• Carolingians
• Defeated Muslims in Tours
• Preserved Europe for Christianity
• Charlemagne
• Established a substantial empire
• Attempted to restore intellectualism but failed

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After Charlemagne

• Regional Monarchies
• Lack of bureaucracy/competing loyalties prevented
  lasting empire
• Too much diversity
• Holy Roman Emperors
• Northern Italy, Germany
• Weak power

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Upswing 900-onward

• Viking attacks
• Started to taper off
• New Agricultural techniques
• Agricultural vigor
• Farmers and landlords cultivated new lands
• Contacts with other nations led to new crops
• Population growth and economic success
• Led to economic growth
• More markets, larger towns, more urban living
• Cultural success
• More learning took place
• Art and architecture soared to new heights

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Feudalism

• Strong lords offered protection to weak lords
• Vassals
• Armies quickly created
• Networks grew quickly
• Bureaucracy
• Slow experimentation
• Led to more stratified political state

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Limitations

• Church limited political power
• Feudalism over monarchy
• King John Magna Carta
• Parliaments
• Represented the 3 estates
• Church
• Nobles
• Urban leaders

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Expansion

• Vikings
• Colonized the island of Iceland
• Spain
• Kicked out the muslims
• Pope Urban II called for first crusade
• Western crusaders were owned by arabs
• Learned cultural things
• Military strategies and weapons

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Religion

• Popular belief
• Strong faith with inherent pagan beliefs
• Art and literature had strong religious themes
• Reform
• Women Saint Clare-Poor Clares
• Down with investiture
• Church higher than state
• Autonomous from the state
• Rational Theology
• Philosophical
• Led to higher intellectualism
• Aquinas, Scholasticism

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Economy

• Limited sphere from women
• Cultural importance
• Patriarchal dominance
• Trade did grow
• Banking developed in Italy
• Conditions improved for serfs
• Guilds formed
• Traders behind Muslim counterparts
• Lords frowned upon trade
• Taxed peasants for more revenue

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Decline

• Population
• Outgrew agricultural capabilities
• Overcrowding led to black death
• Hundred years war
• Changed warfare into the hands of professional
  armies
• Feudal aristocracy lost power
• Political structure floundered