The Middle Ages
1066-1485
Main Ideas
 What terms come to thought?
 What ideas?
 Where was the Middle Ages? Any one
specific location?
 Who led the Middle Ages? Any one specific
group?
Map of Medieval Europe
The Middle Ages: The Myth
• We think of knights in
shining armor, lavish
banquets, wandering
minstrels, kings,
queens, bishops,
monks, pilgrims, and
glorious pageantry.
• In film and in literature,
medieval life seems
heroic, entertaining,
and romantic.
The Middle Ages: The Reality
• In reality, life in the
Middle Ages, a
period that extended
from approximately
the 5th century to the
15th century in
Western Europe,
could also be harsh,
uncertain, and
dangerous.
The Battle of Hastings
• In October 1066, a
daylong battle known
as the Battle of
Hastings ended the
reign of the AngloSaxons and began
the Norman
Conquest.
Some Important Historical Events:
1066 Norman Conquest
KNOW THIS DATE
• William of Normandy
(called William the
Conqueror), who already
controlled northern
France, invaded and
conquered England in
1066 C.E., with the
decisive victory at the
Battle of Hastings.
• Old French became language
of power, commerce, and
religion in England
• End of Old English
(looks/sounds very German;
the language of Beowulf)
• French merged with Old
English to produce Middle
English, the language of
Chaucer—close enough to
modern English that we can
recognize it.
Some Important Historical Events:
Domesday Book commissioned by
William the Conqueror in 1087:
• Census, land register,
and income record to
create a tax roll
• Can learn a lot about
commerce, absolutely
everything that everyone
owned
• Learn a lot about
common names and daily
life
• According to the
Domesday Book, slavery
was fairly commonplace.
• Lists 10% of England’s
people as slaves.
• Germanic tribes also
enslaved Slavic
neighbors (thus the word
slavery).
• Africans were sold across
the Islamic world.
• Can see original copy in
the British Library (a
museum of manuscripts)
The Feudal System
• The Anglo-Normans
brought a new language,
French, and a new social
system, feudalism, to the
country.
• Feudalism was not just a
social system, but also a
caste system, a property
system, and a military
system.
The Feudal System
• The basic chain of
feudalism was as follows:
1. God
2. Kings
3. Nobles (Barons,
Bishops, etc.)
4. Knights- who did not
own land
5. Serfs or peasants- who
did not own land
The Three Estates
• The three estates (social
classes) in the Middle
Ages were Aristocracy
(kings and their vassals),
Clergy (Those who
prayed- priests, monks,
nuns, friars, etc.), and the
Commons (everyone
else- doctors, lawyers,
clerks, yeomen, etc).
Knighthood
• The primary duty of males above the serf
class was military service. Boys were
trained at an early age to become
warriors.
• After training was complete, the boy was
“dubbed” or ceremonially tapped on the
shoulder. He was then a knight, had the
title or sir, and had full rights of the warrior
caste.
Knighthood
• Knighthood was
grounded in the
feudal ideal of loyalty.
Knights had a system
of social codes that
they were not
permitted to break.
Women in the Middle Ages
• Women had no political
rights because they were
not soldiers in a primarily
military system.
• Women were always
subservient to men.
• A woman’s husband or
father’s position in the
feudal system determined
her position.
Chivalry
• Chivalry was a system of ideals and social
codes governing the behaviors of knights and
gentlewomen.
• Chivalry codes included oaths of loyalty to the
overlord, observing certain rules of warfare and
courtly love.
• Courtly love was nonsexual.
• Chivalry brought about an idealized attitude
about women, but did not improve their actual
position in life.
• Chivalry gave rise to a new form of literatureromance.
The Effect of Cities and Towns
• Eventually, the increasing population in
cities and towns made the feudal system
close to obsolete.
• The city classes were lower, middle and
upper-middle.
The Crusades
• The Crusades (1095-1270), a series of
wars waged by European Christians
against Muslims, were waged during the
period.
• The prize of The Crusades was
Jerusalem and the Holy Land.
Some Important Historical Events:
CRUSADES:
• 8 crusades in total over 200
• 1095
years—the last 7 failed
• Pope Urban II called for a
horribly due to disease,
holy war against the
cold, hunger, and battles.
Muslim Turks who
controlled what he saw as • Another negative effect
from the point of view of the
the Christian Holy Land of
Christian Western
Palestine.
Europeans: galvanized
• Pope said if you died
Muslims and gave them a
fighting in a crusade, you
stronger foothold/following
would go to heaven.
in the Middle East; the
opposite of their goal.
Some Important Historical Events:
CRUSADES,cont.:
SOME BENEFITS
TO EUROPE:
• Increased trade and
new merchant class.
• Increase in art and
education: Greek
language and Plato
studied again;
philosophy, math.
• Increase in religious
inspiration due to
dedication to God; art,
architecture.
• Crusades also greatly
contributed to a secular
kind of hero-worship of
knights (shown in
tapestries, tales).
St. Thomas a Becket
• Thomas a Becket, the archbishop of
Canterbury, was murdered in his
own cathedral by four knights
because he too often sided with the
pope instead of the King Henry who
had appointed him to the position.
• Becket’s murder enraged the
common people who deemed him a
martyr and they lashed out against
King Henry which weakened the
kings power in his struggle with
Rome.
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta was
signed by King John
in 1215.
• The Magna Carta was
a document that
limited the Church’s
power.
The Hundred Years’ War
• The English and French
entered into the Hundred
Years’ War (1337-1453)
because two English
kings were claiming they
were to take the French
throne.
• This war showed that
England was no longer
represented by the armor
clad knight but by the
green clad yeoman.
Common people were
taking up the fight for
their country.
Commercial Networks
The Black Death
• The Black Death, or
bubonic plague,
struck England in
1348-1349.
• The Black Death was
highly contagious and
killed approximately
one third of the
population.
• The Black Death
caused the end of
feudalism.
Plague/Black
Death:
• Took out 54 million
• 1/3 of population wiped out
• Defining event(s) of the Middle
Ages
• Spread by fleas which lived on
rats
• A lack of cleanliness added to
their vulnerability: crowded with
poor sanitation; ate stale or
diseased meat; primitive
medicine (people were often
advised to not bathe b/c open
skin pores might let in the
disease).
• Highly contagious disease
nodules would burst around the
area of the flea bite.
In 1347, Italian merchant ships returned
from the Black Sea, one of the links along
the trade route between Europe and
China. Many of the sailors were already
dying of the plague, and within days the
disease had spread from the port cities to
the surrounding countryside. The disease
spread as far as England within a year.
Some Important
Cultural Changes:
1. Flowering of Poetry
about Courtly Love
2. Peasant Uprisings
and Plague (1/3 of
population at one
point)
Some Important Cultural Changes:
Flowering of Poetry About Courtly Love:
• For nobles only
• Troubadours
(professional singers)
sang of courtliness,
brave deeds, and
Romantic love
accompanied by a harp
or lute.
• Courtly love poetry
praised an idealized,
distant, unattainable
lady love (e.g. Beatrice
in Dante’s Divine
Comedy)
• Artificial passion with
strict rules.
• For instance, a loved
one could be married to
someone else.
• Developed in literature
–stories of unrequited
love and heroic knights.
• E.g., Arthurian legends
in France; best is
Lancelot by Chretien de
Troyes about the court
of King Arthur, a Celtic
chieftain of 6th century
Britain who fought the
Anglo-Saxon invaders.
Flowering of Poetry About
Courtly Love, cont.:
• As often seen in
lit/art: Told in
manner of late
Middle Ages with
forbidden love,
knightly combats,
and colorful
pageantry.
• Hearty, masculine
culture of early
Middle Ages was
giving way to a more
tranquil, confident,
and leisurely society.
• Over time, a noble’s
castle became more of
a theater for refined
pleasures than a
barracks for fighting
men.
Some Important Cultural Changes:
Peasant Uprisings & Plague
• Guilds grew in late
middle ages.
• Craftsmen each had
their own guild:
ropemakers,
armorers,
mailmakers, master
dyers, stonemasons,
weavers, etc.
• Plague freed many
from vassalage and
opened up
• Difficult hierarchical
training program from
apprentice to master
and job placement.
Functioned as a union
of sorts. Guilds
became very rich and
powerful over time.
• Origin of freemasons,
for instance.
Common Elements between
the Rich and the Poor
in the Middle Ages:
• Subservience to God’s
church
• Church played a big
role—birth, baptism
• Church owned a third of
all the land in Europe
• Church played a big
role in politics.
• Belief that great
cathedrals should be
erected
• Belief in God, heaven,
and hell
• All actions had
consequences (good
life led to a good
experience in heaven).
Romanesque
Architecture:
prevalent during 9th-12th
century
•
•
•
•
Rounded Arches
Barrel Vaults
Thick walls
Darker, simplistic
interiors
• Small windows usually
at the top of the wall
• Circular Rose Window
usually on the West
Side
Rose Window
• The basic round rose
window was developed as
part of the Romanesque
period but developed
further and was used in
Gothic Architecture.
• Notice the Romanesque
style top left versus the
Gothic style bottom left
(from the cathedral of
Notre Dame). Intricate
stone tracery is used in the
Gothic Architecture:
prevalent in W. Europe from 12th – 15th Cen. C.E.
Features:
•
•
•
•
•
Pointed arches
High, narrow vaults
Thinner walls
Flying buttresses
Elaborate, ornate,
airier interiors
• Stained-glass
windows
•Everything
reaches to
heaven, to God