High Middle Ages
1000 - 1300
Europe
1000 AD
Norman Conquest of England
Invasion of the Kingdom of England by
William the Conqueror
Battle of Hastings - 1066
• Bayeux Tapestry
• 3 Claimants to the Crown
• Harold Godwineson
• King Harald of Norway
• William (Duke of Normandy)
Watershed in English history
• Created one of the most powerful
monarchies in Europe
• Linked England with Continental Europe
• Set the stage for English-French conflict
• Changed the English language and culture
• Near total loss for Anglo-Saxon aristocracy
• Last successful military conquest of England
England 1066 - 1307
• Henry II (r. 1154 – 1189) – expands territory
• Eleanor of Aquitaine – vast lands in France
• Richard I – Lion-Hearted (r. 1189 – 1199)
– Serious warrior
• John (r. 1199 – 1216) – incompetent king
• Magna Carta – 1215
– Kings are not above the law
– King Could Not Collect Any New Tax Without
the Consent of the Great Council
– King could not violate due process of law
– An accused Person Was Entitled to a Trial by a Jury of Peers
• Parliament – institution able to restrict power of the king
– Knights & burgesses elected
– Becomes House of Commons & House of Lords
Population of Europe Expands
In the 11th cen., people began to move outward into the wilderness, in what is
known as the "great clearances"
• During the High Middle Ages, forests and marshes were cleared and cultivated
Settlements moved beyond the traditional boundaries of the Frankish Empire to
new frontiers in eastern Europe, beyond the Elbe River, tripling the size of
Germany in the process
Reasons for this expansion and colonization include
• An improving climate known as the Medieval warm period allowing longer
& more productive growing seasons
• End of raids by Vikings & Magyars resulting in greater political stability
• Advancements in medieval technology allowing more land to be farmed
• Reforms of the Church in the 11th century further increasing social stability
• The rise of Feudalism, which also brought increased social stability and more
mobility
Emergence of Cities
Emergence of Cities
• Between 1150 and 1200 the number of
chartered cities in the Holy Roman
Empire tripled from 200 to 600
New Cities – vitality and squalor
• Serfs flocked to the cities looking for
opportunities
• Serfs who lived within a city for a year
and a day were no longer bound to the
land
• “Town air makes men free”
Tried to maintain independence of local
lords and clergy
• Independent charters from king
• Developed their own municipal
administration
Communes – revolutions to gain
independence of cities
Trade and Commerce
Trade drove the urban explosion
• Cities grew on the trade routes
– Italy, Flanders, France, Germany
• New class of long-distance merchants
• Traders began to create their own
communities
• Traders formed partnerships to share the
rewards and the risks
• Venture capitalists
Merchant Fairs
Champagne region of France
Hanseatic League was founded in the 12th
century in northern Europe
• United political & economic power
• 79 to 80 cities
Marco Polo - Venetian traveled to Silk Road to
China
• Led to new trade with East
Medieval Guilds
• Chief mechanism for organizing, regulating and
restricting trade
• Fixed career path for skilled workers
• Lengthy period of apprenticeship – 4 to 12 years
• Craftsmen would acquire independent
professional status by producing a masterpiece
• Developed into trade associations designed to
supervise business activity and protect the
interests of its members
– Regulated working day
– Ensured that work was done to an acceptable
standard
Expansion of Education
• Merchant class spurred need to create more
secular education system
– Need for clerks and government officials who
could read and write and understand accounts
• Cathedral and monastic schools restricted
admission to the Church
• Most new universities were founded from preexisting Catholic schools
– University of Salerno (9th century)
– University of Bologna (1088)
– University of Paris (c. 1100
• Students flocked to study under famed teachers
– At first, anyone could teach
• First universities were corporations of students
& teachers modeled on guilds
– Guild’s duties included hiring faculty
– Students could dock faculty wages
Universities
Three Types of Universities
1. students hired and paid for the teachers - Bologna
2. teachers were paid by the church - Paris
3. supported by the crown and the state – Oxford
Universities became more organized
•
Set regulations for dress
•
Provided living accommodations
•
By 13th cen. rules introduced for teachers
•
Six years of study to be a lecturer
•
Eight years & 35 years old to teach theology
Students entered the University at fourteen to fifteen
years of age
Universities
University studies took six years for a Bachelor
degree and up to twelve additional years for a
master's degree and doctorate
Specialties at universities
• Bologna for legal studies
• Salerno for medicine
• Paris known as the “queen of theology”
Subjects of higher education
• Trivium – grammar, rhetoric and logic
• Quadrivium – arithmetic, geometry,
astronomy and music
• everyone had to take the same courses
Town and gown relations often stormy
• Civil authorities regularly censor students for
riotous behavior
• Students were afforded the legal protection of
the clergy
Scholasticism
Dominant philosophical, scientific and
theological movement of the Middle Ages
• Efforts of European intellectuals to reconcile
reason and faith
• Reaction to contact with Muslim and
reintroduction of Classical literature
• Depended much on the work of Aristotle
Peter Abelard – French priest – 1079 –1142
• Lectures at cathedral school of Notre Dame
in Paris
• Disastrous love affair with Heloise
• Sic et Non – Yes and No
• collected statements from the Bible and Church
leaders which contradicted each other
• Believed that reason could resolve the
contractions
• Church under Bernard of Clairvaux charged
Abelard with heresy
Scholasticism
St. Anselm – Benedictine monk – 1079 – 1142
• Belief - no conflict separating man’s spiritual
& rational natures
• Joined reason and faith in credo – “I believe
in order to understand”
Thomas Aquinas, Dominican, 1225 – 1274
• Made every effort to prove that faith and reason
could be reconciled
• Believed in two orders of truth
– Reason – could demonstrate propositions such as the existence
of God
– Faith – things like the nature of the Trinity must be accepted
– Universe as a great chain of being
– Omnipotent God called everything into being, with everything
had its place
– Man occupied a place midway between the material and the
spiritual
– Reason gave human beings the power to understand some things
• Two great works – Summa contra Gentiles & Summa Theologica
• Canonized after death in 1274
Scholasticism and Science
Scientific Method – Europeans started to systematically observe and investigate
the physical universe
• Spurred by newly translated Greek and Arabic sources
Robert Grosseteste - English bishop and scholar
• Aristotelian
• Developed an early system of experimental methodology with an emphasis on
observation, hypothesis and verification
• Tried to demonstrate that the world was round
• Experiments on the refraction of light
Roger Bacon – 1214 1294
• Looked for practical applications - telescope
• Argued that observation should guide reason
Castles
Chivalry
Ideals associated with knighthood
•
French word chevalier which means “knight”
Honor is the foundational and guiding principle
Three basic areas
1. Relation to countrymen and fellow Christians
•
mercy, courage, valor, fairness, protection of
the weak and poor, servant-hood to lord
•
warrior chivalry - chief duty is to his lord
2. Relation to God
•
being faithful to the church, being the
champion of good against evil, being
generous and obeying God above all
3. Relation to women
•
idea that the knight is to serve a lady
•
general gentleness and graciousness to all
women
•
Courtly love
Chivalric Codes
• Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches, and
shalt observe all its directions.
• Thou shalt defend the Church.
• Thou shalt respect all weaknesses, and shalt
constitute thyself the defender of them.
• Thou shalt love the country in which thou wast
born.
• Thou shalt not recoil before thine enemy.
• Thou shalt make war against the Infidel without
cessation, and without mercy.
• Thou shalt perform scrupulously thy feudal duties,
if they be not contrary to the laws of God.
• Thou shalt never lie, and shall remain faithful to
thy pledged word.
• Thou shalt be generous, and give largess to
everyone.
• Thou shalt be everywhere and always the champion
of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil.
Courtly Love
System of attitudes, myths and etiquette
Governed the real and idealized behavior of
knights and their ladies
System of admiration and courtship
Idea that a noble man would dedicate his life to the
love of a lady
Such a love could not exist within marriage
Standards of etiquette and custom varied
• Chaste or Platonic admiration
• Intention of consummation expressed
Non-Christian tradition
• Alternative to the love of God and the Church
• Condemed by Church as heretical
Spawned Romance literary genre
Courtly love most commonly expressed in the
compositions of the troubadours, and poets
Courtly Love
Andreas Capellanus 12th century author
• The Art of Courtly Love
Stages of Courtly Love
• Attraction to the lady, usually via eyes/glance
• Worship of the lady from afar
• Declaration of passionate devotion
• Virtuous rejection by the lady
• Renewed wooing with oaths of virtue & eternal
fealty
• Moans of approaching death from unsatisfied desire
(and other physical manifestations of lovesickness)
• Heroic deeds of valor which win the lady's heart
• Consummation of the secret love
• Endless adventures and subterfuges avoiding
detection
Arthurian Romance
Gained great popularity in the 12th century
• Appears as the ideal of kingship both in war and peace
• Cultural icon of a idealized British past
Arthur gathered the Knights of the Round Table (Lancelot,
Gawain, Galahad) at his court at Camelot
• Arthur's knights engaged in fabulous quests ad
advnetures, such as the quest for the Holy Grail
Geoffrey of Monmouth - first major popularization of
Arthurian legend in History of the Kings of Britain
• Also wrote The Prophecies of Merlin & Life of Merlin
Chrétien de Troyes, French poet -12th century
• love story of Lancelot for Guinevere
Historical Arthur
• Romano-British leader fighting against the invading
Anglo-Saxons - 5th century and early 6th century
• Celtic sagas and poetry tell of a warrior named Arthur
In 1191, monks of Glastonbury Abbey announced that
they had found the burial site of Arthur and Guinevere
The Holy Grail
Dish, plate or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, said to
possess miraculous powers
• May combine Christian lore with Celtic myth
• Important segment of the Arthurian cycle
Grail literature divides into two classes
• King Arthur’s knights visiting the Grail castle or
questing after the object
–
Must be pure of heart
• Grail’s history in the time of Joseph of Arimathea
Grail romances started in France
• Appeared first in works by Chrétien de Troyes
• Related to crusading spirit of time
• Early Grail romances centered on Percival & Galahad
• Hero must prove himself worthy to be in its presence
Robert de Boron (1191 - 1202)
• Story of Joseph of Arimathea acquiring the chalice of the
Last Supper
Two schools of thought concerning Grail's origin
• Derived from early Celtic myth and folklore
• Began as a purely Christian symbol
Other interpretation
• Jesus’ Bloodline in modern Europe – Mary Magdalene
Reform in the Church
The Church’s spiritual and secular authority influenced every
facet of life
• Beginning of the 11th cen.- the Church largest landowner in
Europe – Up to a third of all land
• Controlled kings and emperors
Church reformers scrutinized Church’s involvement in temporal
affairs
• Called for ending simony – accepting bribes in order to
receive Church offices
• Establishment of celibacy for the clergy
Power of the papacy continued to grow
• Leo X proclaimed the absolute primacy of St. Peter in 1050
Great Schism - Leo X broke with the Eastern Orthodox Church
in 1054
• Pope supreme over the patriarchs
Reform in the Church
Investiture Controversy - between 1073 and 1085
• Monarchs choose high church officials in their realm
• Pope Nicholas II – 1059 – Establishes selection by College of Cardinals
• Struggle between Henry IV & Gregory VII
• Gregory VII, brought an end to lay investiture
• 1077 Henry comes to Canossa
Pax Dei (Peace of God)
• In 1040 pope tried to curtail continuous state of warfare by declaring a placed
women, children travelers and priests under papal protection
• Banned fighting between Wednesday night and Monday morning and on holy
days
• Left only 90 days a year for warfare
• Did not stop warfare
Cult of the Virgin Mary – eclipsed the veneration of individual saints
• Given mediator role between sinful humanity and Jesus
• Many cathedrals dedicated to “Notre Dame” or “Our Lady”
Gothic Architecture
Style originated at the abbey church
of Saint-Denis in Saint-Denis,
near Paris
Theological message:
• Great glory of God versus the
smallness and insignificance of
the mortal being
Elements
• Flying buttresses
• Pointed arch
• Larges stained-glass windows
• Inventive sculpture – saints &
gargoyles
Gothic Architecture
New Monastic Orders
Dedicated to living simple, austere existences
• Obedient to Pope
• Rejected life in the monasteries
• Work directly with people
• Fought against heretics
Mendicant orders - 13th century
• Dedicated to life of poverty
• Sought to assist the poor
Cistercians – c. 1100 – Founded by St. Bernard of Clairaux
• By 1153 at least 343 chapter houses
Franciscans
• Founded by St. Francis of Assisi
• known as the Grey Friars founded 1209
Carmelites - Hermits of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Carmel
• known as the White Friars, founded 1206–1214
Dominicans - Order of Preachers, founded 1217
– Emphasized preaching rather than poverty
– Trained in rhetoric to combat heretics with
arguments
Augustinians- Hermits of St. Augustine, founded 1256
Jews in Western Europe
Jews very persecuted during Middle Ages
The Church prohibited Christians from lending money at interest –
usury
• Jews became the Empire’s financial agents
Urban II’s call for crusade in 1095 opened a period of persecution
The first pogram against the Jews took place during this period
1096 – 1215 – numerous persecutions of Jews
1103 – Henry IV denied Jews the right to bear arms
• Only freemen could bear arms co Jews were considered as
“unfree”
1215 – Fourth Lateran Council prohibited Jews from holding office
• Designated certain clothes to wear as well as areas in which Jews
were allowed to live – ghettos
1306 – Jews were expelled from France
Heretical Movements
Mass movements that questioned church doctrines
• Beginning in the 11th century
• Originated in the newly urbanized areas such as
southern France and northern Italy
• Church reaction was to eliminate some and
integrate others
Catharism - movement with Gnostic elements
• Also called Albigensians
• Dualists believed that historical events were the
result of struggle between a good & evil
• The Albigensian Crusade launched by Pope
Innocent III in 1209
• Brutal massacres – “Kill them all; God will
know his own”
Waldensians
• Valdes of Lyons
• Opposed to corruption of the Church
Inquisition established in 13th century
• Persecution and torture to identify heresy
Europe on the Eve of
the Crusades
The Crusades
Series of military campaigns conducted
in the name of Christendom
• Primary goal to recapture Jerusalem &
the Holy Land from Muslims
• Combined pilgrimage with holy war
• Franks vs. Saracens
• 9 primary crusades - 1095 to 1291
• Usually sanctioned by the Pope
• Unleashed wave of impassioned,
personally felt pious Christian fury
• Mostly unsuccessful expeditions
Different cultural interpretations
• Western - heroism, faith and honour
• Islamic – invasion, barbarian
savagery and brutality
Living memory in Muslim world of today