108b

H108b Notes

  1. Division of Mediaeval society
    1. Workers
      1. Origin of word "Peasant"
        1. from French "pays" = country
        2. From Latin "payos" = administrative division
        3. Italian "paisan" = bumkin
      2. 90% serfs from the Latin "servus" class; it means not free
      3. Different from Roman slaves
        1. Need fresh slaves constantly
        2. Profit margins collapsed
      4. Now more profitable to let serfs care fro themselves rather than dorms/cafeteria
      5. Other types of servants
        1. Coloni: tied to land and occupation by law
        2. Clients: gave service for protection, likewise couldn't leave
        3. Eventually the fused into huge class of unfree agricultural laborers
      6. Not completely unfree
        1. Could go to court
        2. Right of tenure
      7. Makeup of Mediaeval estate (bipartite manorialism)
        1. Manor
          1. With servants attached to manor
          2. Demesne/domain - worked by manor staff
        2. Peasant holdings
          1. Closed field: one house surrounded by land
          2. Open field: In villages (This is more common)
      8. Population doubled between 1000-1300
        1. Warmer
        2. Iron tipped plow
        3. End of outside invasions
      9. Rural Warrior Aristocracy
        1. Warfare was main pursuit
          1. Trained from childhood
          2. Yearly campaigns
          3. Calvary used for scouting - primary focus was infantry
            1. Horses only useful for about a day's radius
            2. Chasing disorganized footmen or other mounted forces
          4. Selection
            1. Mostly for Charlemagne's kin
            2. Succession was not immediate
              1. Major families had posts every generation
              2. Horizontal identification
              3. In the West, support traded for new right to inherit father's title
          5. Needs followers
            1. Build castles: encastlation
            2. Patrilineal primogeniture - often only oldest son marries
            3. Called vassals
              1. From Latin vassus
              2. Fief property to support service
                1. Old high German fehu
                2. Latin foedum
            4. Younger sons could take themselves on the road as a freelance warriors
            5. Honor given to horsemen: milites/miles, different from pedites
              1. Lower class in Germany
              2. Very high class in France and England
  2. Norman Invasion
    1. Came from North side of Seine River
    2. Edward the Confessor
      1. Pious
      2. Ruled over Danes and Anglo-Saxons
    3. Succession claim
      1. William had claim via his mother
      2. Harold Godwinson was chosen by Edward the Confessor on death bed
      3. William was angry and invaded
    4. War captured in Bayeux tapestry
      1. Commissioned by Odo, bishop of Bayeux
      2. Normans on horseback, Anglo-saxons on foot
      3. Legitimate images, perhaps by Canterbury weavers
    5. Invasion's start
      1. Horses were brought on Viking style ships
      2. Houses were burnt down
      3. Castle was built
    6. Fight at Hastings
      1. Anglo-Saxons prepare on ridge
        1. Axemen
        2. Fyrd: Rabble
        3. Effective shield wall: stalemate
      2. Arrow (according to legend) goes into Harold's eye; this detail might have later been added into the Bayeux tapestry
      3. Feint flight
        1. Norman calvary charge
        2. Take retreat
        3. Center Anglo-Saxon line holds
        4. Fyrd charges and Normans double back
        5. Norman calvary then comes back after destroying fyrd
        6. Then attack left flank of shield men, who stood firm
      4. European monarchy installed
  3. Religious organization
    1. Vertical structure
      1. Priests
        1. In countryside
        2. Sermons, liturgy
        3. Sacrament
      2. Bishops (head of dioceses)
      3. Metropolitan dioceses: oversaw other bishops
      4. Pope
    2. Greater decentralization
      1. Bishops more free in north
      2. Secular powers fhad great influence
    3. Saints
      1. Holy lives (most of the time)
      2. Worked miracles
      3. Point of contact: relics
        1. Punished if not effective
        2. Liberation of relics
    4. Monasteries
      1. Controlled important relics, thus got gifts
      2. Professional prayers
      3. Preserve family's souls
        1. Money
        2. Land
        3. Foundation
    5. William V of Aquitaine
      1. Founded independent of secular powers at Cluny
      2. Under direct protection of pope
      3. Left serfs to grow food
      4. Allowed to elect own abbot
      5. Others followed pattern
        1. Given prior as head
        2. Spread across Europe
    6. Reaction to Cluny: 1098
      1. Citeax: new reform church, known as Cistercians
      2. New emphasis
        1. Poverty
        2. Isolation
      3. Each had individual abbot
      4. St. Bernard of Clairvaux
    7. Pax Dei
      1. Councils (Synods) in Southern France
      2. Stop aristocrats from fighting
      3. A community committed to eschewing violence
      4. Didn't work: tried to turn focus against non-Christians
    8. Crusades
      1. Urban II (1088-1099)
        1. Got appeal from Byzantine Emperor
        2. Call to liberate Palestine: edict of Claremont (1095)
        3. Primised to absolve all punishment from sins for those who took part
      2. 1099: Took Palestine
        1. Latin kingdom
        2. Independent lordships carried out
        3. Fell again in 1187
      3. Bernard (From above) tried to reign in undirected violence
        1. Knights Templar = Temple (of Jerusalem) Knights
        2. Succeeded by Hospitaliers and Tutonic Knights
        3. Krak des Chevaliers - castle in Holy Land
  4. Cities
    1. Left over from Roman cities: Bishop was center
    2. Hard to maintain
      1. Agricultural surplus required
      2. Population
        1. Artisans
        2. Merchants
      3. Relatively peaceful
    3. Italy was a special case
      1. Trade with Africa
        1. Luxury goods from East
        2. Venice was part of Byzantine empire
          1. Was essentially Byzantium's navy
          2. 1088 sacked Tunis because it wasn't giving enough trade
          3. 1202, 4th crusade, sacked Venice's rival on the way to the crusade
          4. Marco Polo
      2. Connection to Northern Europe
        1. Iron, timber, and slaves
        2. Genoa had exclusive right to supply
      3. Currency
        1. Facilitated trade
        2. Purity: Venice and Byzantine
        3. Loans: Jews not bound by Christian prohibition of lending
        4. Insurance
    4. New civic government: communes (11th century)
      1. Oligarchy of rich and powerful
      2. Sometimes usurped or co-opted old aristocracy
    5. Northern Europe
      1. Woolen cloth (Flanders)
        1. Germanic Belgium
        2. Charlemagne bought some
        3. Used British wool, which was why Britain got pulled into wars
        4. Three cities
          1. Ypres
          2. Bruges
          3. Ghent
        5. Merchant drapers
          1. Bought wool
          2. Rented looms to masters
          3. Sold cloth
          4. Formed similar structures to communes
        6. Charles the good murdered
          1. 1119, Charles the Good became count of Flanders
          2. Erembalds, an unfree family, had raised to Bruge's leader, Bertulf
          3. Family murdered Charles the Good while praying; Charles the Good reclaimed them as serfs
          4. Civil war until 1128
      2. Met at fairs
        1. Champagne and Scarborough
        2. Everyone bought and sold there
      3. Peasants
        1. Specialized in trade
        2. Buy off dues
        3. Offered social mobility
        4. Cities offered economic freedom
          1. Stadtluft macht frei
          2. No longer bound to land after a year in the city
      4. Aristocracy
        1. Need money to show power
        2. Danger of debt
        3. Other groups can sneak into aristocracy with money
        4. Cities can build their own armies
  5. Education
    1. Where
      1. Cathedral Schools
        1. Train clerics
        2. Attached to bishop's church
      2. Monasteries
    2. Seven liberal arts
      1. Trivium: grammar, rhetoric, logic
      2. Quadrium: geometry, numbers, astronomy, music
    3. Increasingly secular
      1. Still confined to clerics ("clerk" comes from cleric)
      2. But increasingly employed as administrators
      3. Still some lay instructors in Italy (Roman tradition)
      4. Knight's children also got some instruction
    4. Educational centers and new ideas
      1. Bologna
        1. Rediscovered Roman law
          1. Corpus juris civilis
          2. code: opinions of emperors
          3. Digest: how law works
        2. Before, vulgar law prevailed
          1. Salic law
          2. Barbarian law
        3. 1070: complete Justinian's code found and adapted to modern events
        4. Cannon Law
        5. Gratian (1140): concord of Discordant Cannons
          1. Became systematic foundation of cannon law
          2. Based on Justinian's code
        6. Students flocked in
        7. Formed student guilds: universitates
          1. Students controlled education
          2. Fines, controlled lectures
      2. Paris
        1. Notre Dame and Saint-Victor: big schools
        2. Growing French monarchy needed administrators
        3. Attracted students like Peter Abelard (1079-1142)
          1. Sic et non: attempt to use systematic logic to resolve contradictions
          2. Got on bad side of Bernard of Clairveax
          3. Brought Bolognese thought to Paris
          4. Helois wouldn't marry in public, castrated by thugs. She becomes nun
          5. Retires to Cluny
        4. Granted Universitatus of Masters
          1. After six years, became bachelor
          2. Then studied directly with master
          3. Could then teach anywhere in Europe
      3. Aristotle
        1. Died out in West save for some logic works
        2. Byzantintines didn't do much
        3. Muslims did
          1. Encountered in conquered schools
          2. Their influence came into Europe from Spain
        4. Philosophic world, static, left no room for God
        5. Conflict with Anselm's Platonic philosophy
        6. Accepted and subsequently banned in Paris
        7. Siger of Brabant (1235-1281), proud proponent despite contradictions
        8. Thomas Aquinas
          1. Reason was divine gift
          2. Could not conflict with divine truth
          3. There must be reconciliation
          4. Reinterpretation of scripture
          5. Summa contra gentiles: defense via Aristotle from Islam/Judaism
          6. Summa Theologica: reason vs. revelation
          7. One of the first Mendicants
      4. Conflict between money and church
        1. Cathar/Albigensian heresy
          1. Albi: site near Spanish border
          2. Dualists - good vs. evil, the world is evil
          3. Had wandering priests
          4. Crusade preached against them, wiped out by Norther France
        2. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)
          1. Wandered, poor, popular
          2. Created Franciscans
          3. Begged for food
          4. Taught against heresy
          5. Settled down
        3. Dominicans
          1. Founded by St. Dominic (dumb ox)
          2. Attached to universities
          3. Aquinas was one
  6. Efforts at centralization
    1. Donation of Pippin
      1. 1st Carolingian conquered Italy
      2. Given to Holy See
      3. Extended by Charlemagne
    2. Coronation of Charlemagne
      1. Leo
      2. Later Louis crowned by Charlemagne
    3. Ottonian Dynasty
      1. Conquered N. Italy
      2. 962 crowned by John XII
    4. Why coronation
      1. Project image in the mold of Constantine
      2. Co-opt church to rule
        1. Could appoint church leaders
        2. Royal influence extends to duchies
    5. Imperial reformers (11th century)
      1. Conflict between landed classes waged via pope
      2. Problems with Simony
      3. 1046: Henry III (1039-1056)
        1. Called council
        2. Deposed three competing popes
        3. Appointed own pop: led to series of German popes
      4. Leo IX
        1. Cousin of Henry III
        2. Supported Cluniac movement
        3. Wandered around making power felt
        4. Reforms
          1. Lay people can't own churches
          2. No investiture
    6. Investiture controversy
      1. Henry IV was emperor
      2. Hildebrand became Pope Gregory VII (1056-1106)
      3. Dictatus Papae
        1. Pope alone is universal
        2. Popes could depose emperors
      4. Henry tried to remove Gregory VII
        1. Gregory excommunicated Henry
        2. Gregory says German lords have no obligations, rebellion breaks out
        3. Henry IV sneaks over the Alps, stands in sackcloth and ashes
        4. Henry IV is forgiven, starts appointing bishops again; this time Henry can go to Italy and install new pope
        5. 1122: Settled in Concordant of Worms
          1. King can't make bishops
          2. Gave pope real power over bishops
    7. Crusades: Pope have enough temporal power to muster armies
    8. Innocent III
      1. Height of papal power
      2. Called 4th Lateran council
    9. Frederick Barbarossa (Hohenstaufen)
      1. Gave autonomy to Austria
      2. Frederick II: Give all princes autonomy within Germany, led to small German states
  7. England and France become nations
    1. Capetian power on upswing
      1. Power from pope: anointed
      2. Pro forma oath of loyalty
      3. Longevity and prolific breeding
      4. Series fo capable kings
      5. Allowed kings to reform traditional French lands
      6. Philip II (Augustus) 1180-1273
        1. Doubled holdings
        2. Absorbed continental holdings of England
          1. King John held it as vassal of Philip II
          2. John fell in love and married fiancee of one of Philip II's vassals
          3. Philip II then declared that John was divested
        3. Used salaried agents
          1. Baillis: judicial
          2. Seneschals: military
          3. King powerful enough to assert power outside of feudal system
      7. Louis IX (St. Louis)
        1. Went on crusade
          1. was captured
          2. had to be ransomed; thought of it as divine punishment
        2. Reformed excesses
        3. Died on crusade; left legacy of good will
        4. Led crusade against Cathars in France
    2. Battle of Bouvine (1214)
      1. Otto IV, the Holy Roman Emperor and lackey of Innocent II
      2. Lost most of English land
    3. Normans co-opted Saxon central authority
      1. Regional divisions
        1. Each shire had a tax collector, a reeve
        2. "Shirereeves" became sheriffs
      2. William enforced vassal's subordination
      3. Domesday book
      4. Exchequer: audited sheriffs' collections
        1. Receipts are on pipe rolls
        2. Funds used on continent
      5. English civil war
        1. Matilda v. Stephen
        2. Agreement: Stephan would rule until death and then Henry would take over
        3. Began Plantagenet: Henry II (1154-1189). Source of name: Geoffrey of Anjou wore spring in hat
      6. Louis VII's wife marries Henry II
        1. Eleanor of Aquitaine
        2. Power in southern France is centralized
          1. Unlike in the north, local traditions were replaced
          2. Jury duty
        3. She later had four sons, so therefore Louis VII was infertile
          1. Henry: died in shipwreck
          2. Richard
          3. Geoffrey
          4. John
      7. Thomas a Beckett (118-1170)
        1. Childhood friend of Henry II
        2. Killed by thugs after king said "Will nobody rid me of this troublesome bishop ..."
      8. Henry II succeeded by Richard the Lionhearted
        1. Richard II was always campaigning
        2. Captured by Austrians on trip back from crusades
        3. Succeeded by John
      9. John's contributions to English state
        1. Loss of French land led to kings focused on England
        2. Very good at taxing
        3. 1215: revolt forced John to sign Magna Carta
          1. Mandates Baronial involvement in parliament
          2. Easier to get taxes now that everybody was there
  8. 14th Century
    1. Boniface VIII (1300)
      1. Plenary Indulgence
      2. 1st time opposing lanes of traffic used
    2. Food limits
      1. All arable land was under cultivation
      2. Climate got colder and wetter
      3. 1315-1317: Famine; 2800 burials during five month period in Ypres
    3. October 1347: A ship arrived in Messina from Black Sea - everybody dead
      1. Vectors
        1. Directly by flea bit: Bubonic (5 days)
        2. Airborne: pneumonic plague (3 days)
      2. Explanations
        1. Sins: penitential groups (flagellation)
        2. Jews
        3. Astrology
      3. Peasantry benefitted
        1. Labor shortage
          1. Higher wages (25% increase in England)
          2. More rights
        2. Decline of manufacturing
    4. Hundred Years' War
      1. Dwindling English possessions
      2. Philip IV of France died w/o heir
        1. Closest heir was Edward III of England
        2. Salic law revived, throne given to Charles of Valois, who became Philip VI
      3. 1337: Edward III tried to reclaim land annexed by the French and gain French kingship
      4. England's position
        1. 1/3 of the population
        2. Not tied to trade
        3. Parliament gave more taxing power
        4. Better army
          1. Pikemen; usually from towns
          2. Crossbow: available from mercenary towns
          3. Learned lessens from border skirmishes with Scotland and Wales
        5. Longbow
          1. Welsh used it
          2. Faster firing mechanism
        6. French were stuck in chivalric tradition
      5. Crecy 1346
        1. 3000 French deaths, 100 English
        2. Much larger French force
      6. Poitiers 1356: John the Good captured
      7. Agincourt 1415
        1. French got off horses, charged up hill, muddy field
        2. English were entrenched
        3. Now have all of Northern France
      8. Edward V marries French queen, their son Henry VI is to rule united kingdom
      9. Free Companies
        1. Waiting for war to start again
        2. Pillaged towns
      10. Joan of Arc (1412-1431)
        1. Charles VII, deposed Valois king
        2. Got army together to relieve Orleans
        3. Captured by English
          1. Not ransomed
          2. Burned at stake
        4. Formigny (1450)
          1. Use of cannon
          2. Pushed English back
    5. Rebellions
      1. 1358 Jacqurie
        1. Tried to raise taxes to ransom John II
        2. Peasants vs. Nobles
      2. 1381 Watt Tyler's rebellion in England
    6. Schism
      1. Boniface: 1300 Jubilee
      2. Philip IV "the Fair"
        1. Attempted to tax clergy
        2. Boniface tried to depose Philip IV
        3. Kidnaped Boniface
      3. 1305: French Bishop of Bordeaux becomes Clement V
      4. Chose to live in Avignon
        1. Petrarch called it Babylonian captivity
        2. John XXII
          1. Ignored when tried to intercede in Holy Roman Empire election
          2. Louis of Bavaria went to Rome
        3. Started selling indulgences: limited time in Purgatory
        4. Simony
      5. German princes said power came directly from God
      6. Gregory XI: tried to return papacy to Rome, but dies
      7. Urban VI elected by forcing will of Romans
      8. Clement VII elected by expatriate cardinals now in Avignon
      9. Concilarist
        1. Popes rejected, since implication was that councils were greater than Pope
        2. New Pope elected in Pisa
        3. Other popes stayed
        4. Council of Constance
          1. Deposed Pisan and Avignon Popes
          2. Roman pope stepped down
          3. Martin V elected
      10. Repercussions
        1. National churches
        2. Book of Hours: private religion
        3. Individual contract with God
          1. Beguines: from Albagenciens (female)
          2. Beghards (male), frome guy named Begue
          3. Against church doctrine
        4. Brethren of the Common Life: new mendicant order
      11. Franciscans split
        1. Conventuals: work with church
        2. Spirituals
          1. Against Conventuals
          2. Condemned by John XXII of Avignon in 1323
      12. Mystics: Catherine of Sienna (d. 1380)
        1. Lived on water, sucked herbs, and communion
        2. Advised Gregory XI to return papacy to Rome
      13. John Wycliff
        1. Theologian at Oxford
        2. Sinful priests/bishops had no authority (neodonatism)
        3. What mattered was your relationship with God
        4. Thus, he created two English bibles for commoners
        5. Predestination
        6. Secular things are held by consent of secular power
        7. Followers known as Lollards
        8. Richard II's wife bring Bohemian priests to England, and those that study at Oxford bring Wycliff's ideas back to the University of Prague
          1. Jan Hus (1373-1415)
          2. Grafted ideas into general revolt against German domination
          3. Czechs expelled from University
          4. Got safe conduct to council of Constance
          5. Seized and burned at stake
          6. Early rumblings of nationalism
          7. Luther said he was a follower of Hus
    7. Linguistic Change
      1. Traders who use written vernacular start writing other things
      2. Dante (1265-1321)
        1. Divine Comedy
        2. Smallscale politics: city states
        3. Tuscan dialect became modern Italian
      3. Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400)
        1. Canterbury Tale
        2. His dialect became modern English
        3. For comparison, Sir Gawain is unreadable
      4. Autobiographies
        1. Charles IV (1355-1378), Holy Roman Emperor
        2. Marjorie Kemp
        3. Registers of the inquisition

Page by Jordan Ying. Last modified: 2011-06-05