europe in the high middle ages, 800 - 1300. i. the carolingian achievement
TRANSCRIPT
A. Carolingian Kings
1. Charles Martel victorious at Battle of Tours, 732
2. Pope Gregory III seeks to use Frankish Kings as instrument to reunify the West
3. Pippin, “King of the Franks”
B. Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire
“The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire…discuss.”
3. Preserved some ancient texts, established universities - “Carolingian Renaissance”
4. Stability led to experimentation in art and architecture
5. Charlemagne crowned Holy Roman Emperor,
Christmas Day, 800 AD
Unified West served as a barrier to “new barbarians”
Summary…the Early Middle Ages, 500 - 800 AD
Germanization of the West
Frankish kings seek to dominate Western Europe and restore some semblance of the fallen Roman Empire
Europe “recovers” with the Church serving as the dominant Western institution - High Middle Ages
B. Emergence of the Nation-State
1. Otto the Great
2. Concordat of Worms,
1122
- secular/spiritual division
- German princes gain near
autonomy
C. France
1. Hugh Capet - Capetian Dynasty, 987 - 1328
2. Initiated “modern” governing
methods
baillis, senechals
3. Ascendancy of French Kings
Ancien Regime
D. England
1. Anglo-Saxon invasions in the 400s
2. In response to Viking raids (800-900s), Anglo-Saxon kings unify most of England
Alfred the Great
3. Like Capetians, began process of “unifying” his country
4. Began to rely on local officials
shire reeves
at county level, free commoners could vote
* Kings begin to use commoners as political wedge against nobles
E. The Norman Conquest
1. 1066, William of Normandy claims English throne
2. Norman authority, English
autonomy
- remove local customs as
law; codification
- equal application of law
• Stability of nation-states in Central Europe, France, and England contribute to urban and intellectual development
A. Urban life in Italy continuation of Urban Rome
1. Italian merchants remain part of Byzantine Empire
2. In many (Italian) towns, mercantile leaders begin to replace some hereditary aristocrats
= men of talent v. men of birth
B. Life in a Northern Town
1. Urban social orders
merchants-drapiers, craftsmen, unskilled
2. People band together on basis of “class,” not hereditary obligations
Manufacturing led to identification based on place in production system
• Urban life created economic alternatives to feudalism
• It also led to intellectual “tweaking” of Church dogma
Franciscan, Dominican orders
C. Urban intellectual life in the High Middle Ages
1. Peter Abelard = Scholasticism (1100s)
education, logic key to understanding
Sic et non (yes and no)
2. Rise of Aristotelian thought
a. was world w/o an active God?
b. initially viewed as a threat to Church dogma
3. St. Thomas Aquinas
“universal”
A. From serfs to “freemen”1. Serfs tied with feudal obligations, security
2. 1000s, serfs building “communal” economy
- clearing land, buying freedom
3. 1400, serfdom virtually gone from France, England
4. Freemen often key to royal support
B. Culture of the New Aristocracy
1. Old Aristocracy = dukes, barons
New Aristocracy = knights (900s)
2. Taming the nobility
a. knight could obtain a fief through combat, but conditions in the High Middle Ages worked against this
b. Cult of Chivalry
c. reacquainted Western Europeans with Eastern goods, classical learning
d. “stalemate” allows for trade, pilgrimages