Reform, Recovery
and Innovation
1000-1300
Rulers of the French / France
• Merovingian Dynasty (428–751)
• Carolingian Dynasty (751–987)
• Capetian Dynasty (987–1792)
– House of Capet (987–1328)
– House of Valois (1328–1589)
• Orléans branch (1498–1515)
• Orléans–Angoulême Branch (1515–1589)
– House of Bourbon (1589–1792)
• Hugh Capet succeeds Louis “the Lazy”
• Hugh begins to slowly centralize control
• Hugh had been Count of Paris
– Paris begins to become the political center of France
England - 1066
• January - Edward the Confessor dies
• January - Harold Godwinson elected king
• Throne also clamed by
– Harald Hardrada
– William of Normandy
• 25 September - Battle of Stamford
– Harold marched 200 miles in 4 days
– Only 25 of 300 Norwegian ships leave England
• 28 September - William lands on southern coast
– Harold marched 240 miles south
• 14 October - Battle of Hastings
Bayeux Tapestry, c. 1076 221 ft. x 1.5 ft.
• Henry II, 1154–1189
– Reformed the legal system.
– Emphasized power of royal court.
– Common Law uniform throughout England.
– Married Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of Louis VII
• Sons
– Richard, 1189–1199
– John, 1199–1216
• struggled with barons and forced to sign the Magna Carta.
• Magna Carta
– Recognizes that king must rule according to feudal
practices
– Consult with barons before raising taxes.
– Contributes to creation of parliament
• upper house of nobles
• lower house of commoners.
• Germany decentralizes in this period with rise
of five regional princes.
• Holy Roman Empire begins with Otto I in 962.
Electors, c. 1200
Archbishop of Mainz,
Archbishop of Trier
Archbishop of Cologne
King of Bohemia
Count Palatine of the Rhine
Duke of Saxony
Margrave of Brandenburg
Society
• Agricultural productivity increases
– More reclaimed land
– three-field crop rotation
– technological advancements
• Heavy plow
• Collar harness for horses
• Watermills
• European population more than doubles between 1000 and 1300.
• Diversity of agricultural and produced goods such as woolen textiles
increased trade.
– Global trade patterns reemerge
– Revival of Mediterranean trade.
• The result of more goods and more trade was an early form of capitalism.
• A more capitalist, less feudal society.
• Increased anti-Semitism.
• Social patterns altered before 1300
– More people moved to urban centers.
– Urbanization and a money economy:
feudalism less practical.
• The new bourgeoisies
– not a part of the old feudal order.
Church Reform and Revitalization
• Revived monasticism
–
–
–
–
Cluniac reforms
Cistercians - return to the Rule of St. Benedict
Franciscans - preaching, help to the poor
Dominicans - preaching, doctrinal purity
• Popes Nicholas II and Urban II made church independent of
secular powers.
– Of particular concern was the appointing of clergy, including the pope.
– College of Cardinals created to move the election of pope into the
church.
• Investiture Controversy from 1073 to 1122
–
–
–
–
increased church’s independence from secular officials
further decentralized Germany.
increased public piety
led to the rise of secular bureaucracy
• Popular piety emphasized the role of:
– the Virgin Mary
– relics
• Increased religious fervor was one of the causes of the
Crusades and Christianization of Spain and Sicily.
• Crusading movements also spurred by competition
between Western Europe and Byzantine Empire.
Crisis and Creativity: 1300–1415
• Extended period of famine from 1315 to 1322
in Western Europe.
– Population outgrew the available agricultural food
production.
– Short growing season due to cooler temperatures
and large amounts of rainfall.
Why This Climate Change?
• Orbital shifts.
– sunlight in middle latitudes changes by 25%
• Solar activity.
• Changes in ocean currents.
• Mount Rinjani eruption in 1258.
• Probably several regional changes,
not a single global change.
Mt. Tambora erupted between 5-17 April 1815
Plague
• Originated in Vietnam
• Spread by Mongol traders across Asia.
• Spread into the west via Genoese merchant
ships,
• First appeared in Sicily, 1347.
• European population weak from Great
Famine.
• As many as one-third of Europe’s population
from 1347 - 1352.
Sierra Jane Downing, Denver, September 2012
Social Uprising Across Europe
• Increased tensions between nobles and
peasants.
• Jacquerie in France, 1358
• Ciompi in Florence, 1378
• Peasants’ Revolt in England, 1381.