12th Century Timelines
Episode Two: Century of the
Axe (1100-1200)
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999
/millennium/learning/timelines/
The Larger Twelfth-Century World
Context
Larger and more fundamental global
phenomena underlay the boom of
twelfth-century building. These factors
included a global population increase,
widespread land clearances, heightened
trade activity, rising populations of
religious observers, and growing
urbanization.
The Earth's Peoples
In the second century of this millennium,
agricultural production increased. In Europe,
the population doubled. China's population
grew to 100 million out of a world population
of 330 million. Though cities were increasing
in importance, only a small percentage of the
earth's peoples lived in cities. Most of the
world's people were peasant farmers or
nomads. Some hunters and gatherers, like
the Aborigines, were so isolated from contact
with other societies, that they continued their
rich cultural traditions uninterrupted by other
twelfth-century changes.
Clearing the Land
Worldwide, more and more land was cleared
for agriculture. Chinese peasants moved
south where they constructed paddies and
planted a new, fast-ripening rice from
Southeast Asia that could be harvested twice
a year. Europeans cleared away much of their
forests for farms and drained swamps. They
adopted the moldboard plow and draft
harnesses and thus could use horses for
agricultural labor. They molded the heavy
clay of Northern Europe into fields suitable for
planting.
Clearing the Land
An unusually warm climate in the far North
insured that the harvests were plentiful.
Farther east, Islamic civilizations planted
Indian sugar, Chinese citrus and Indian cotton
in pioneering efforts that eventually led to
plantations and commercial agriculture. As
Islamic civilizations spread to span Africa,
Asia and Europe, crops like eggplant,
mangoes, plantains, sorghum were shuffled
back and forth across the continents. New
ideas for irrigating, producing, and processing
crops passed from one Islamic society to
another
Clearing the Land
As populations expanded around the
world, agriculturists developed new
irrigation systems to bring water to
the land. Islamic peoples in Spain
adopted the underground water
canals used in Southwest Asia and
the Ancient Pueblo people diverted
water to irrigate thousands of acres
in what is now the Southwestern
region of the United States.
Trade and Travel
Flourishing agriculture bolstered local economies. As
peasants produced more crops than they needed,
they were able to trade whatever was extra.
Changes in commercial practices encouraged more
trade. Villages became trading centers and grew
into cities. Just as trade from Mexico expanded into
North America, overland trade routes linked markets
across Eurasia. Water routes connected ports along
the China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean
Sea, and Atlantic Europe. More people traveled than
had previously - some for profit, some for
adventure, and others as religious pilgrims. Often
traveling merchants converted their local trading
partners and new religions spread across Africa and
Eurasia.
Religious Shrines
The faithful traveled trade routes to religious
shrines beside merchants and soldiers.
Wealthy traders donated money to build
sanctuaries along the way. Suger's Abby of
St. Denis sanctified the route of pilgrims in
France; in Cairo the al-Azhar Mosque and
University became an important stopping
point for African pilgrims to on their way to
Mecca. Buddhists constructed Angkor Wat in
Southeast Asia as a religious and political
center. As trade routes and pilgrims
multiplied, Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam
spread far beyond the lands of their origin.
Cities
The privileged lived comfortable, cosmopolitan
lives in cities like Hangchou, Baghdad, Cairo,
Delhi, and Cordoba. Hangzhou had a million
inhabitants, and its visitors were amazed to
find drinking water and pest control. River
water circulated through a city system that
constantly removed waste. Chinese cities had
theatres, restaurants, parks, bookstores, and
teahouses. The new Korean invention of
moveable type enabled Chinese to print books
and then paper money. In European cities like
the Italian city-states, newly-built town halls
began to replace palaces as symbols of civic
pride for merchants and bankers
AMERICA - Summary
In North America, a civilization
arose which transformed a
semi-desert into a cultivated
landscape. The Ancient Pueblo
peoples of the Southwest imposed a
new geometry on the landscape.
At Pueblo Bonito in Chaco
Canyon, New Mexico, stand the
ruins of what was once a complex
of structures with more than 800
rooms. The rooms were stacked on
top of one another in a huge semicircle, a plan that the Pueblo
people devised and kept to for 200
years.
The timbers that supported the vast
roofs of the dwellings were brought by
hand from forests over 60 miles away.
Around the buildings lay carefully
cultivated fields with crops of maize
and squash. To allow crops to grow in
such an arid environment, the Pueblo
people created an ingenious system of
irrigating channels.
Dug deep into the rocks and dirt of the
surrounding mesa tops, these channels
captured droplets of rain from passing
storms or melting snow. The water then
fed into fields where it was retained by
built-up earth around eachplant. This
"waffle" irrigation system sustained a
growing population for several hundred
years.
But after a series of persistent
droughts towards the end of the
twelfth century, even these levels of
ingenuity could not help the
settlement. It was eventually
abandoned.
FRANCE - Summary
In northern France, forests were
cleared at faster and faster rates. As
the population grew, the pressure for
land increased. Churches and houses
were usually made of timber, but as
the number of suitable trees dwindled
the structures had to change.
At St. Denis in Paris, Abbot Suger
dreamed of rebuilding the old abbey.
His inspiration was a mystical vision
of heaven. He envisioned slender
stone columns, huge windows, and a
mighty roof that would draw the eye
upward toward heaven.
Skeptics told Abbot Suger he would
never find trees large enough to
stretch across such an expanse, but
he persevered. He finally found
twelve trees tall enough to span the
roof and was able to build his
dream cathedral. St. Denis, a
mixture of stone and wood, was
completed in Suger's lifetime.
However,it would go through
several renovations; as cathedrals
continued to expand, more and
more stone was used. The
construction of St. Denis sparked
the beginning of the new style of
"Gothic" architecture. Over the next
150 years, cathedrals sprang up
throughout Europe.
ETHIOPIA - Summary
While churches sought to rise to the
sky in Europe, in Africa they were
being carved out of the earth. In the
highlands of Ethiopia during twelfth
century, a man called Lalibela rose to
power, was crowned King, and went
on to establish a Christian empire
spanning the highlands and stretching
to the sea.
His ambition was to build a religious
state and a spiritual center to rival
Jerusalem. He claimed to have been
shown - in a vision - the most holy of
churches in Heaven. He ordered
tools be made to carve temples out of
the rock like those he had seen.
Craftsmen toiled in the stony
mountains for over twenty-fouryears
to create these unique rock churches.
Some of Lalibela's motivation to build
these unusual structures stemmed from
a desire to claim legitimacy. He
belonged to a dynasty that had seized
the throne and the churches helped
him gain acceptance.
His efforts paid off: today he is revered as a
saint and his shrine attracts a continuous flow
of pilgrims. While all religions at one time or
another have constructed shrines and physical
symbols to serve an ideological purpose,
striking awe into to the layman and
establishing the clergy's direct connection to
the power of God, Lalibela clearly lacked
legitimacy and used these temples to insure
his leadership.
ITALY - Summary
In the twelfth century, cities grew
worldwide. In Italy, a booming
economy and population explosion
meant increased demand for goods and
space. People gathered in cities to trade
and settled in increasingly cramped
spaces. Despite feuding between
factions within cities, a spirit of
citizenship emerged.
In many towns and cities republics
were established, consuls were elected,
and citizens assigned rights. Residents
were proud of their cities and strove to
make them more glorious than their
neighbors'. In Sienna, in Tuscany, an
event known as the Palio originated
and became a tradition.
This bi-annual bareback horse race
round the central piazza celebrated
the city spirit while also serving as a
peaceful outlet for the rivalries
among different quarters of the town.
AUSTRALIA - Summary
In Australia in the twelfth century,
the Aboriginal culture flourished.
Though they did not build, the
Aboriginal' creativity centered
around art: they endowed every
landmark with sacred significance
and celebrated it with rituals.
The journeys of ancestors were
retraced again and again over
centuries; a physical pilgrimage
through artistic celebrations. The
Aborigines' universal language was
art. For forty thousands of years
they created paintings in galleries
of rock intended to be overlaid by
other artists over time.
Aborigines left their mark on the
land in other subtle ways. Fire was
a core technology, and they used it
to modify the wilderness by
burning sections and clearing it for
grazing animals. Fire sticks were
used to chase animals out of their
burrows.
They did not cultivate crops, but
instead gathered foodstuffs offered
up by the land. Aboriginal culture
developed a detailed and crucial
knowledge of what was edible and
exactly where it was to be found.
Aboriginal society survived in
isolation until Europeans began to
colonize in the 18th century.
Zhu Xi 1130 - 1200
One of China's most influential
philosophers, Zhu Xi recast Confucius's
teachings in more than 100 works,
including commentaries on most of the
Confucian classics. His teachings -emphasizing morality and logic,
condemning popular religion and denying
the existence of a personal deity -- were a
challenge to the spread of Buddhism in
China. Zhu's neo-Confucian writings
became required reading for China's civil
service exams for the next 600 years.
12th Century Segments
America
France
Ethiopia
Italy
Australia
Present-Day Legacies
12th Century
Muslims borrowed the Hindu concept of zero and the decimal system,
which made Muslim bookkeeping with debits and credits possible.
Trade revived in the Mediterranean basin. Jews, often excluded from
owning land, became money changers, goldsmiths, or traders transporting
goods from European trade fair to trade fair.
The Chinese established the practice of hiring a qualified bureaucracy
determined by what they knew rather than who they knew. College
admissions tests and civil service exams are reminiscent of that 1000 year
old tradition.
Crusades
Present-Day Legacies
12th Century
European city-states and the beginnings of nation states
marked the beginning of a new era in the West.
An extensive knowledge of plants and animals by hunters
and gatherers like the Aborigines that is still being used to
develop new medicines and conduct other scientific
research.
Architectural expression such as the medieval cathedrals
and the sculpted churches of the Ethiopia are lasting
monuments of religious expression exemplifying the period.
Rise of Universities