Chapter 8 – The High and Late Middle Ages
The Growth of Royal Power in the High Middle Ages
* England *
Causes
1. William, Duke of Normandy, raises
an army and wins the support of the
pope in his battle to be king of
England.
Effects
1. William sails across the English
Channel to England and wins the
Battle of Hastings, becomes king –
now known as William the
Conquerer – on Christmas Day 1066.
2. William becomes king of England.
2. He grants land (fiefs) to the Church
and Norman lords, but keeps much
land for himself, monitoring who
builds castles and where, and requiring
first allegiance from every vassal.
3. William has a complete census
taken in 1086. A census is an official
count of population and demographic
data.
3. The Domesday Book, which lists
every castle, field and pigpen in
England and gives William and
successors the means to build an
efficient way of collecting taxes.
4. The well-educated Henry II
becomes king in 1154.
4. He expands royal justice system to
cover all of England, which becomes
the basis of common law, the legal
system based on custom and court
rulings. The practice of using juries
also begins.
5. Henry’s royal courts cover all of
England.
5. People increasingly bring their
disputes to these royal courts rather
than those of nobles or the Church;
because fees are charged, the English
treasury grows.
6. Henry claims right to try clergy in
royal courts.
6. Conflict with the Church arises, in
which Thomas Becket, archbishop of
Canterbury, is killed by four knights
… leading Henry to deny involvement
and back off efforts to regulate the
clergy.
* France *
Causes
1. Nobles elect Hugh Capet to the
French throne in 987, believing his
power won’t challenge theirs.
Effects
1. Hugh and his heirs create a stable,
300-year-long dynasty by making the
throne hereditary, passing it from
father to son. They win the support of
the Church and play rival nobles
against one another.
2. The Capetians build an effective
bureaucracy.
2. Government officials establish
order by collecting taxes and imposing
royal law over the king’s lands, thereby
increasing their prestige and winning
the support of the new middle class.
3. Philip Augustus becomes king of
France in 1179.
3. He appoints middle-class officials to
government posts rather than nobles,
introduces a national tax and
quadruples the royal land holdings
through trickery, diplomacy and war –
becoming the most powerful ruler in
Europe by the time he dies in 1223.
4. Louis IX becomes king in 1226.
4. He improves royal government by
a) sending roving officials to check on
local administrators, b) expanding
royal courts, c) outlawing private wars,
and d) ending serfdom in his personal
domain.
5. Louis’s grandson, Philip IV, extends 5. A dispute with Pope Boniface VIII
royal power and tries to collect new
develops, in which Philip IV sends
taxes from the clergy.
troops to capture him. The pope
escapes but soon dies.
6. A Frenchman soon after is elected
pope.
6. That French pope moves the papal
court to Avignon, near France, where
French rulers can better control it …
which eventually leads to a crisis in the
Church when a rival pope is elected in
Rome.
7. During the crisis in the Church,
Philip rallies French support in 1302
by setting up the Estates General, a
representative body of all three classes
of French society: clergy, nobles and
townspeople.
7. Estates General was from time to
time consulted by French kings, but it
never gained the power of the purse
or otherwise could balance royal
power.
King John and the Magna Carta
Q&A
Question: Describe the rule in England of King John.
Answer:
King John was a cruel and untrustworthy ruler who struggled with
various enemies. He lost a war in 1205 to Philip II of France, after which he
had to give up lands in France that Norman rulers of England had held ever
since William the Conqueror’s days. John was then excommunicated by the
pope when he rejected the pope’s nominee for the new archbishop of
Canterbury. Finally, he angered his own nobles with various abusive tactics,
such as oppressive taxation. Things got so bad that a rebellious group of
barons cornered him in 1215 and forced him to sign the Magna Carta, or great
charter, which proved to be the first “baby step” toward democracy centuries
later.
Question: Explain the political significance of the Magna Carta, signed in
1215.
Answer:
It established two important concepts that shaped English
government going forward. First was the basic idea that nobles had certain
rights … and over time, these rights filtered down to the lower classes as well.
Secondly, this document made it clear that the monarch must obey the law.
Question: Explain the important legal provisions established by the Magna
Carta.
Answer:
It established “due process of law,” which protected freemen
from arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, and the right of habeas corpus, which
was the principle that no person can be held in prison without first being
charged with a specific crime.
Question: The Great Council of lords and clergy evolved over time into
Parliament, England's legislature. Explain how this body could limit the power
of the monarch.
Answer:
By signing the Magna Carta, King John agreed not to raise new
taxes without first consulting the Great Council. Over time, as this body
became a two-house legislature – featuring a House of Lords with nobles and
high clergy, and a House of Commons with lower-class knights and middleclass citizens – it gained the critical “power of the purse,” or right to approve
any new taxes. This was in stark contrast to France’s legislature – the Estates
General – which never gained this ability to check the power of the monarch.
The Holy Roman Empire
What came to be called the Holy Roman Empire covered much of
central and eastern Europe by the late-10th century. You can think of it as
essentially Germany, because that’s what it was at its core. But Germany didn’t
unify into the modern nation-state that it now is until the 19th century. It
remained a collection of hundreds of city-states, or principalities.
Rulers who took the title of Holy Roman Emperor were not nearly as
powerful as the name implies. The German emperors could not control their
hundreds of vassals, including nobles and Church officials. This is why the
French philosopher Voltaire later said of the Holy Roman Empire: “It was
neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”
Holy Roman Emperors, however, did become involved in a notable
clash with the Roman Catholic Church – something that illustrates the rising
tension between monarchs and the pope. Things first came to a head in the 11th
century when the German king Henry IV challenged Pope Gregory VII’s ban
on lay investiture. Gregory wanted to make the Church independent of
secular rulers, so he banned this practice of emperors or other lay individuals
(people who are not members of the clergy) “investing,” or presenting bishops
with the ring and staff symbolizing their office. Henry and Gregory exchanged
insulting letters, and Gregory excommunicated Henry in 1076. This struggle
over the issue of lay investiture lasted for more than 50 years before it was
finally settled with the compromise of the Concordat of Worms, a treaty that
declared that the Church alone could elect and invest bishops with spiritual
authority, while allowing the emperor to still invest them with fiefs.
The Crusades
The Crusades were a series of wars between Christians and Muslims for
control of Mideast lands (including those of modern-day Israel) on which both
sides considered to have holy sites important to their religions. They began in
1096 and lasted for about 200 years. The First Crusade began after the
Byzantine emperor (we’ll learn more about the Byzantine Empire in the next
chapter, but for now understand that it was the eastern half of the old Roman
Empire that continued to exist until 1453) urged Pope Urban II to send
Christian knights to help him fight Muslim Turks, who had taken over
Byzantine lands in modern-day Turkey and now controlled the Holy Land,
which included Jerusalem and other places in Palestine where Christians
believed Jesus lived and preached. Urban agreed, even though the Roman and
Byzantine churches had earlier in the 11th century split into two branches of
Christianity.
Thousands of crusading knights – as well as other men, women and
even some children – set off from Europe to the Middle East. They were
motivated by religious zeal, but many knights hoped to win wealth, land and
prestige. Others were fleeing troubles at home or simply yearning for
adventure.
Only the First Crusade came close to achieving its goals, from the
European perspective. Christian knights captured Jerusalem in 1099, in the
process massacring Muslim and Jewish residents in the city. The crusaders
divided their captured lands into four small states, called crusader states, which
surrounding Muslim armies repeatedly tried to destroy … which in turn led
Europeans to launch new crusades. In 1187 Jerusalem fell to the Muslim leader
Saladin. Subsequent crusades were unsuccessful: The Third Crusade failed to
retake Jerusalem, and the Fourth Crusade saw Christians fighting Christians.
The Fourth Crusade weakened the Byzantine Empire so deeply it never
recovered, shrinking to a mere city-state before being taken over by invading
Muslims in 1453. After European knights helped merchants from the northern
Italian city of Venice defeat their Byzantine trade rivals in 1204, they looted the
Byzantine capital city of Constantinople.
The Crusades came to an end in 1291, when Muslims overran the last
Christian outpost in the Mideast, massacring Christians in the process.
The impacts of the Crusades were significant:
 The economy of western Europe picked up as trade increased. This was
due to crusaders bringing back fabrics, spices and perfumes from the
Mideast (and thereby increasing demand for more of them), and the
large fleets of Italian city-states – built initially to carry crusaders to the
Holy Land – now being used to facilitate trade between western Europe
and the rest of Eurasia via the Mediterranean. The resulting money
economy also hastened the end of serfdom.
 The power of monarchs increased because they had won prestige from
their Christian subjects and new rights to collect taxes to support the
Crusades.
 The division and resentment between the eastern and western branches
of Christianity (the Eastern, or Greek Orthodox Church and the Roman
Catholic Church) deepened.
 Contacts with the Muslim world led Christians in western Europe to a
greater curiosity about the outside world. They were re-exposed to the
classic works of the Greeks and Romans – which Muslim scholars
helped to preserve – and soon began traveling to India and China.
 The long-term animosity between Christians and Muslims, sadly,
continues to this day.
The Reconquista and Spanish Inquisition
Even after the Crusades ended, the crusading spirit continued on the
Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). North African Muslims called Moors
had conquered most of present-day Spain in the 700s, and the campaign by
Christians to drive them from Spain became known as the Reconquista, or
“reconquest.” This lasted through much of the High and Late Middle Ages,
finally being completed in 1492 by the monarchs of Spain, Ferdinand and
Isabella. In contrast to the relative peace under Muslim rule, Ferdinand and
Isabella presided over a very intolerant time of persecution of Jews and
Muslims, forcing them to convert to Christianity. Under the Inquisition, a
Church court set up to try people accused of heresy, those found guilty of
practicing a religion other than Christianity could be tortured or burned at the
stake. This imposition of religious unity was very costly for Spain, because
about 150,000 Muslims and Jews fled the country – and many were skilled,
educated individuals who had contributed much to Spain’s economy and
culture.
Learning and Culture
As economic and political conditions began to improve in the High
Middle Ages, the need for education expanded. The Church wanted better
educated clergy and monarchs needed literate men for their growing
bureaucracies. By the 1100s, schools sprung up around the great cathedrals of
Europe, and these eventually evolved into the first universities. One important
boost to this new emphasis on learning came from Muslim scholars, who had
translated the ancient works of Aristotle and other Greek thinkers into Arabic.
In Muslim Spain, Jewish and Christian scholars translated these works into
Latin – and these translations reached western Europe by the 1100s,
reintroducing classical ideas that had all but been forgotten there.
The writings of Aristotle, however, posed a problem for Christian
scholars. Aristotle had taught that people should use reason and logic to
discover basic truths, yet Christians relied on faith and believed the Church had
the final authority on all questions. So scholars tried to resolve this conflict
between faith and reason through the philosophy of scholasticism, the father
of which was Anselm of Canterbury. Under scholasticism, reason was used
ultimately to find justifications or support for Christian beliefs. The most
famous scholastic was Thomas Aquinas, who concluded that faith and reason
exist in harmony and lead to the same truth – that God rules over an orderly
universe. Because scholars believed all true knowledge must fit with Church
teachings, then, science made little real progress in Europe during the Middle
Ages, though some advancements were made in studying the physical world.
One notable feature of medieval culture was the construction of
impressive cathedrals using the Gothic style of architecture, the most
important feature of which was the flying buttresses, or stone supports that
stood outside the church (study the illustration of p. 82). Gothic churches had
vaulted ceilings that soared to incredible heights because the flying buttresses
allowed builders to construct higher, thinner walls and leave space for large
stained-glass windows that allowed in light as if from the heavens.
A Time of Crisis: the Black Death and Hundred Years’ War
Q&A
Question: What weakened Europe’s population in the early 14th century and
made the people there especially susceptible to the Black Death in the middle
of the century?
Answer:
The Great Famine of 1315-1317 – caused by heavy rains and
severe weather – led to mass starvation and undernourished, unhealthy urban
workers.
Question: The Black Death was an especially severe case of the bubonic
plague that killed many millions of people, including one in three in Europe.
How did this epidemic disease spread?
Answer:
It was spread by a bacteria carried by the fleas on rats, which got
into the packs of merchants traveling trade routes from Asia to Europe.
Question: Where did the Black Death originate?
Answer:
It originated in China.
Question: How did people react to the Black Death?
Answer:
People fled to the countryside or hid in their homes to avoid
contact with their neighbors. Some turned to magic and witchcraft in a futile
attempt to find a cure for the disease. Some Christians unjustly accused Jews of
starting the plague by poisoning wells. Survivors demanded higher wages,
which led to inflation and a ruined economy, which in turn led angry peasants
to rampage across England, France, Germany and elsewhere.
Question: Describe what divided the Church during the upheaval of the 14th
century.
Answer:
Many priests and monks died during the Black Death, and the
Church could not provide answers for all the death and misery across
European society. The power of the Church was further weakened by a schism,
or split, caused by a pope moving the papal court from Rome to Avignon,
outside the border of southern France. For about 70 years the French
dominated the court, living in luxury – which caused critics to lash out against
the Church’s worldly, pleasure-loving papacy. Reformers in 1378 elected their
own pope to rule the Church from Rome, and French cardinals responded by
choosing a rival pope. For decades there were two and sometimes three rival
popes claiming to be the true “vicar of Christ.” All this contributed to an
increase in anticlerical sentiment.
Question: Who fought in the Hundred Years’ War, and what was the source
of the conflict?
Answer:
England and France fought in this war, which was a series of offand-on conflicts spanning 1337 to 1453. It broke out initially when King
Edward III of England claimed the French crown because his mother had been
a French princess. The two countries fought for control of French lands that
had been held for centuries by the Norman ancestors of William the
Conqueror.
Question: Summarize the course of war, including which side won early
victories (and why) … and which side ultimately prevailed (and why).
Answer:
The English won a string of early victories using a new weapon,
the longbow. The tide began to turn for two reasons. First, a young French girl
named Joan of Arc – who’d been having visions and hearing in her head the
voices of saints (or so she believed) urging her to drive the English from
French lands and hand the French crown to the true French king, Charles VII.
When she appeared at his court, he authorized her to lead an army against the
English. She led France to a string of victories, but was then captured by allies
of the English, who tried her for witchcraft and then burned her at the stake.
The French saw her as a martyr, took the offensive, and then – with the help of
another new weapon, the canon – drove the English from French territory,
thereby winning the Hundred Years’ War.
Question: Explain the impact of the Hundred Years’ War.
Answer:
The war created a rising sense of national pride in the French,
which allowed the French kings to expand their power. The rulers in England,
meanwhile, had turned repeatedly to Parliament for funds to fight the war – so
kings there were kept in check by a representative body of the people. England
soon turned toward overseas trade ventures. The war’s introduction of the
canon, meanwhile, brought to an end medieval warfare and its reliance on
armored knights and castles.