Feudalism
 With collapse of a central power and the Viking
invasions, Europe is militarized
 Leads to the rise of feudalism
 Feudalism has several elements and best understood
using PERSIA
Political
 Lords and vassals
 A lord give a fief (land) to a vassal in return for
military support
 Vassals would wear armor and use large horses
wielding long lances to fight for their lord – they are
commonly called knights
 All of Europe was engaged in small bloody fights
between rival lords – think gang warfare
Economic
 New agriculture – iron plowshare, mills, windmills,
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and three-field system
Manor – agricultural estate operated by a lord and
worked by serfs. Serfs were bound to the land and
could not leave without the lord’s permission.
Usually contained a castle
Rise of cities like Venice and Bruges increases trade
Northern European cities began to hold fairs
Burghers: townspeople or merchants
A typical middle ages
manor
Notice the 3 field system
Medieval Fair
Venice
Bruges
Rothenburg
Guilds
 Craftspeople began to organize themselves into
guilds
 Guilds controlled the quality of the product, price of
the product, and membership
 Process: apprentice, journeymen, then master
craftsmen
 Had to produce a “masterpiece” judged by the guild
in order to be a master craftsmen
Guilds
Social Pyramid
Intellectual
 Rise of universities
-Bologna, Italy
-Oxford, England
-Salamanca, Spain
 Lecture – Latin for
“read”
 Studied grammar,
geometry, logic, etc.
 No exams, after 4 years
they took oral exam
Scholasticism
 Scholarly attempt to
reconcile faith and
reason
 Harmonize Christian
teaching with the work of
Greek philosopher
Aristotle
 Thomas Aquinas –
Summa Theologica
Vernacular Writers
 To write in the local language
 Dante Alighierir – The Divine Comedy – Italian
 Geoffrey chaucer – The Cantebury Tales – English
 Giovanni Bocaccio – The Decameron - Italian
Artistic
Book
Of
Kells
The Four
Evangelists
Madonna in Majesty
By Cimabue
Madonna Enthroned by Duccio