Second-Year English LMD Class. ICL Course.

First Lecture: The Middle Ages

University of Bejaia
Faculty of Humanities and Literature
English Department
Teacher: M. Hichem LASSOUANI

Initiation to Civilization (ICL)

Historical Overview

The ‘Middle Ages’ or medieval period extends over 1,000 years from about AD 400 to about AD
1400. This long period was first identified in about AD 1300 by Italian Renaissance thinkers, who
believed they had developed an approach to study that would recreate the accomplishments of ancient
Greece and Rome. They dismissed the years intervening between the Greco-Roman civilization and
their own ‘reborn’ culture as a wasted dead end in the ‘middle’ of these two great civilizations.
Medieval period is sometimes called the ‘Dark Ages’, a period in which knowledge and
accomplishments were overshadowed by violence and ignorance.

However, since the Renaissance era, historians have reconsidered this period of 1,000 years,
stretching between the fall of the Roman Empire in the West and the Renaissance, and they found out
that these years were stunningly vibrant in all fields: artists and architects created beautiful and
complex cathedrals, technological advances transformed ancient methods of work, innovative social
institutions were developed; sophisticated religious ideas and institutions spread, etc.

The starting point is the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, but there is no consensus on
what date that is because there was no definitive or overnight fall, only a slow gradual transformation.
However, most historians continue to take AD 476, when the last western emperor Romulus
Augustulus was deposed by the barbarian king Odovacer, as a date to mark the beginning of the
Middle Ages. The date which is most often considered as the end point of the Middle Ages is 1453.
Indeed, the year 1453 corresponds to two major events in European history. Firstly, Constantinople,
the capital city of Byzantium, fell to the Turks ending the Christian empire in the East, and definitely
launching the age of gunpowder. Secondly, the Hundred Years’ War between France and England
ended (it was the last war opposing feudal nobles and a new era dominated by national armies began).

The Middle Ages can be divided into three periods: (I) The Early Middle Ages: from the fall
of the Roman Empire to the year 1000. (II) The High Middle Ages: from 1000 to 1300 and (III) The
Late Middle Ages: from 1300 to 1453.

I) The Early Middle Ages

I-1- Western Europe: The Middle Ages began as Germanic tribes from the North and East of Europe
invaded the western part of the Roman Empire and established kingdoms in its place. The Anglo-
Saxons settled in Britain, the Visigoths in Spain, the Ostrogoths (and later the Lombards) in Italy, the
Burgundians in Provence, the Franks in Gaul (France) and Southern Germany; and the Vandals in
North Africa and the western Mediterranean territories. These Germanic peoples were clearly the

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masters of Western Europe at that time. However, all the Germanic chieftains struggled with similar
problems: how would they blend the Christian, Roman and Germanic cultures of their territories? How
would they bring order and law among the violent tribes that inhabited their lands? How would they
establish centralized monarchies with people who were used to decentralized control?

The Germanic chiefs had also to face many other problems mainly dealing with religion and
law. Different religions existed among the different tribes, but most of them (the Vandals, Visigoths
and Ostrogoths) embraced Arian Christianity later. The German rulers had also to govern peoples with
different traditions of law. Romans established written law codes (jurisprudence); while the Nordic
tribes had their own traditions of Germanic law based on oral traditions of the clans. The Germanic
rulers combined Roman and Germanic law codes to form the medieval law.

Perhaps, the most successful synthesis between Roman, Germanic and Christian cultures took
place in ancient Gaul, in the kingdom of the Franks. Clovis, Frankish king of the Merovingian family,
united many of the warlike tribes and recognized the importance of the Catholic religion as a unifying
force to bind his kingdom. He converted to Christianity and began a long-standing alliance between
the Franks and the Popes in Italy.

By the beginning of the 8 th century, one family, the Carolingians, became the ruling dynasty
over the Frankish kingdom. The most famous of the early Carolingians was Charles Martel (also
known as ‘the Hammer’ for his military exploits). In 732, he was victorious against the Muslims in
Poitiers. The greatest of the Carolingians is without doubt Charlemagne (Charles the Great). He
conquered neighbouring tribes and united all of northern Europe into an empire. He also fostered
learning and reformed medieval law (The Carolingian Renaissance).

Charlemagne’s grandsons engaged in civil wars which ended up dividing the great empire into
three weak kingdoms: France, Germany and Italy. The kingdoms confronted pressure from new
invaders: Muslims from the South, Magyars from the East, and mainly the Scandinavian Vikings from
the North. The Vikings were certainly the most successful conquerors as they settled their kingdoms in
Normandy, Sicily and Russia. Decentralization and violence once again erupted. Only the weak
structure of manorialism kept farmlands producing and feudal laws linked fighting men in bonds of
loyalty.

I-2- Byzantium: during the early Middle Ages, the eastern part of the old Roman Empire called ‘the
Byzantine Empire’ escaped much of the destruction which characterized western Europe. The great
walls of Byzantium kept the invaders away. The rulers of the Byzantine Empire considered themselves
the heirs to the Roman Empire; so they continued to rule by Roman law. Indeed, the emperor Justinian
(482-565) ordered a famous codification of Roman Law. In 534, the emperor’s commission produced
‘The Corpus Juris Civilis” (The Body of Civil Law). The Byzantine emperor took an active role in
leading the Church.

By the end of Justinian reign, emperors and administration of Byzantium began to use Greek
as the official language (mainly during Heraclius’s reign (610-641)) instead of Latin as in the western
part of Europe. As a result, two cultural entities began to form on the two shores of the Mediterranean
Sea. The two branches of the Christian Church also began to appear; as the Byzantine emperors
continued to exert leadership over the Greek-speaking Eastern Church, while popes in the West
claimed religious sovereignty.

In the 9th century, the Byzantine Empire entered its ‘Golden Age’. Indeed, the imperial
government was centralized and ordered, trade enriched the courtly coffers and the Orthodox Church

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expanded. Towards the north, the Byzantines faced menacing tribes such as: Slavs, Serbs, Croats,
Avars and Bulgars. The Orthodox Church sent two missionaries, Cyril and Methodius, north to
convert the Slavs. The missionaries were profoundly successful and they even created an alphabet
based on Greek letters to record the Slavic oral languages. (The Cyrillic Alphabet).

II- The High Middle Ages

II-1- Western Europe: After the year 1000, medieval society began to expand in all respects; there
were agricultural advancements, population growth, expanding and thriving commerce and intellectual
life flourished. The church, too, grew more centralized, and popes began to exert their authority over
secular matters, which caused criticism from some people who felt that the church had forgotten its
true purpose; spreading the true faith.

Kings and nobles struggled to establish firm political structures that would keep pace with the
dynamic changes of the Age. All over Western Europe, men and women were bound to their superiors
in contractual ties, thus; giving birth to the feudal system, known also as feudal laws. Such laws bound
members of the ruling classes to one another, and other laws bound peasants to their land to serve their
lords. These personal ties were intended to bring order and a semblance of stability to the ruling
classes of society.

The heart of the feudal system was military service in exchange of land and the peasants to
work it. This unit of land was called ‘a fief’ and noble families were called ‘vassals’. The latter
guarded and inexorably tried to expand their fiefs by building great defensive castles to maintain their
power. In England, the establishment of royal control was facilitated in 1066, when William the
Conqueror became king after the Norman conquest of England. By conquering the Anglo-Saxon
kingdoms, William was able to redistribute the land among his Norman vassals (who fought with him
during the conquest), and, thus; introduce a tight feudal system to England with a good deal of
centralized control.

The Norman dynasty lasted from 1066 until 1154. Starting from 1154, a separate of the House
of Normandy called the Plantagenets ascended to the English throne. Henry II, who was the first
Plantagenet king, was a good administrator and ruler. His marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine brought
many lands in France under the control of the English King. John (Henry II’s son) ruled high-handedly
the nobles of his realm, who forced him to sign the Magna Carta in 1215. This medieval charter
reestablished the principle that kings were not above the feudal laws. The Plantagenet king Edward I
(1272-1307) brought wealthy merchants and landowners to his court to form a ‘council’, whose
members became with time representatives of their territories. This council or assembly is called the
Model Parliament. Its participants arranged themselves in two houses: the Commoners and the Lords;
which would become the basis of the two houses of the modern parliament.

As regards the other realms of Western Europe, the Spanish kings’ central issue during this
period was to reconquer the land from the Muslims who had taken all but the northwest corner of the
Iberian Peninsula since early 8th century. Three Spanish kingdoms emerged in the northwest: Aragon,
Castille-Leon and Navarre. In the 12 th century, Portugal emerged as a separate kingdom. The French
kings also had a long struggle to establish centralized control over their lands. Italian city-states had
maintained a tradition of sovereignty and urban life from the ancient world. Nobles in the cities had
successfully pitted emperors and popes against each other as they worked to maintain a level of urban
independence that was greater than anywhere else in Western Europe. The German princes and
nobility had also enjoyed sovereignty within their own territories since the times of the last

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Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick II (1215-1250). The nobles preserved their freedoms after the
election of Rudolph of Habsburg as emperor.

II-2- Byzantium: while the West grew and expanded after the beginning of the 11 th century,
Byzantium struggled. In the 11th century, Islam had strengthened and the Byzantine emperors looked
to the West for help. Emperor Alexis I Comnenus sent a call for mercenary soldiers, which led, as a
result; to the series of Crusades that established western crusader states in the Holy Land and lasted
sporadically for 200 years until the Muslims retook the crusader outposts. The 4 th Crusade in 1204
took the City of Constantinople itself, and western Christians raided and killed their eastern
counterparts. Western crusaders held the city until 1261, when the Byzantine rulers reestablished their
reign.

III- The Late Middle Ages

III-1- Western Europe: by 1300, the expansion of Europe had reached its limits. Agricultural
prosperity of medieval life became fragile as more and more marginal and less fertile lands were
cultivated. In 1315, the weather deteriorated; and years of cold, wet summers introduced famine to the
land. In 1348, a plague raged through Europe and decimated the already weakened populations. This
plague, that was called the “Black Death”, was probably ‘bubonic plague. But other diseases might
have combined with ‘bubonic plague’ to cause the death of up to ½ of Europe’s population.

The deaths from famine and plague served as the backdrop to political changes that served to
bring down the medieval orders. Indeed, as labour became scarce after the peasant populations had
been hardly affected by the period’s ordeals, the lords increased feudal duties on the poor peasants and
serfs to maintain their revenues steady. As result; peasant reacted violently against these demands and
revolted in most areas of Western Europe: The Peasants’ Revolt. There was also lot of unrest among
urban population caused by the scarcity of agricultural products and by the craftsmen’ guilds’ actions.

Another factor which bound the medieval order in Western Europe was a unified
Christendom, in which one pope was able to rule over religious, and even at times, secular policy.
During the 14th century, the pope’s supremacy was seriously challenged. It all starts as a dispute over
taxation between the pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) and the French King Philip IV (1285-1314). As
the latter wanted to limit the powers of the popes in Rome, he put pressure upon the cardinals who
elect popes to choose a French cardinal and persuaded the new pope to reign in Avignon (on the West
bank of the Rhone River) where the French influence was stronger. Thus, the papacy ruled from
Avignon, not anymore in Rome, for 72 years after. The Italians reacted afterwards by reclaiming the
Church’s leadership. They used the same methods of Philip IV and succeeded in electing an Italian
pope in the person of Urban VI (1378-1389) who quickly began after his election coercive steps
against the French influence. The French cardinal declared his election void; they returned to Avignon
and appointed their own pope. This was the beginning of the ‘Great Schism’ of Christendom in the
West which lasted from 1378 to 1417.

General councils of bishops were called on to repair this division in Christendom, restore order
and reform the Church’s abuses. After the Council of Pisa in 1409 which didn’t solve the problem of
papacy’s leadership, 400 churchmen, finally; assembled at the Council of Constance (1414-1418) to
depose the three popes and to elect a Roman cardinal Martin V (1417-1431). Furthermore, the
‘Conciliarists’ planned to convert the Roman Catholic Church to a kind of constitutional monarchy
which would limit the popes powers. By the end of the ‘Great Schism’ the popes hadn’t enjoyed
unlimited powers as their predecessors the medieval popes used to do.

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Fourteenth century Europe didn’t only go through the ordeals of famine, plague, revolts and
religious controversies; there was also the Hundred Years’ War between England and France. The
issue that triggered the conflict was the success to the throne of France. The Capetians, the reigning
dynasty in France, didn’t produce a male heir in 1328, when the last Capetian King died. The nearest
male relative was King Edward III of England, son of a Capetian Kings daughter. The French court
claimed that a king could not inherit a crown from a woman. So, Philip VI of Valois, a first cousin of
the previous ruler, became king.

Towards the end of the conflict, gunpowder was introduced on the battlefield, definitively
signalling the direction of future warfare. Nationalism also appeared as a new force. No longer did
soldiers fought for the feudal ties which related them to their lords, but now, they, increasingly, fought
for France or England. This new spirit of nationalism may explain the rise and success of Joan of Arc.

The war ended in 1453 which marked the end of the Midle Ages. Future armies would consist
more of foot soldiers and mercenaries rather than mounted knights, and kings would use money, not
personal agreements, to field their armies.

III-2- Byzantium: In the east, the Byzantine Empire was increasingly threatened by the Ottoman
Turks, a group of Asiatic nomads who had converted to Islam and helped to bring a new vigour to
Muslim expansion. By 1355, the Ottomans had effectively surrounded the Byzantine Empire. Finally,
a powerful Sultan, Mehmed II (1451-1481), committed his government to a policy of conquest,
brought his cannons to the walls of Byzantium and attacked the ancient city of Constantinople. After a
heroic struggle, Byzantium fell in 1453. Mehmed made Constantinople his capital under the name of
Istanbul.

Conclusion

By 1453, the medieval order had ended. The culture of Europe and Byzantium –which both developed
through a dynamic 1,000 years period) were finally transformed by the disasters of the 14 th century.
However, during this period, the way was paved for new ideas to emerge- the Renaissance- that would
bring about a resurgence of individualism and creative spirit. Indeed, the Middle Ages contributed
much to modern society: parliamentary democracy, the structures of urban life, deep Christian ideas
and religious institutions, artistic creations and many other features.

IV- Aspects of Medieval Life

IV- 1- Religious Life

The Middle Ages in Europe is often called the ‘Age of Faith’. By 400, Christianity was the only
official religion in Europe, and the next millennium saw continued progress in creating a uniform
religious practice under a tight religious hierarchy.

The Catholic Church took over the broad Roman administrative organization, which divided
the Empire into dioceses with a bishop in charge. The major cities had an archbishop, who was
responsible for other bishops in his region. Each diocese was, in turn, subdivided into parishes; each
presided over by a priest, who was responsible for the spiritual well-being of his parishioners. The
bishops were theoretically responsible for making sure that all priests were appropriately educated
(could read, write and convey accurate religious information).

Priests were to perform the essential function of serving as mediators between God and
humans. They were in charge of delivering the Sacraments that the Catholic Church believed

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contained grace and helped bring salvation. Priests perform baptisms, which by the Early Middle Ages
were increasingly granted to infants to bring them into the Christian community. They also performed
the Mass, or the mysterious re-creation of Jesus’ last supper, and marriages, which became more and
more of a religious, rather than a secular matter throughout the Middle Ages. Priests also took
confessions and granted the last rites to comfort the dying. Priests were assisted by deacons, who
helped distribute communion, read the gospel in church, and care for the church’s material and
possessions.

Many decrees shaped the lives of the Catholics. There were seven sacraments (religious
ceremonies or rituals) regarded as imparting divine grace, and all were necessary for salvation. They
are: Baptism, Confirmation (the rite at which a baptized person affirms Christian beliefs to be admitted
as a full member of the Church), Eucharist (a ceremony commemorating the Last Supper), Penance
(when a member of the Church confesses sins to a priest and is given absolution), Extreme Unction
(anointing the sick, especially administered to the dying), Marriage and Holy Orders( rite of ordination
as a member of the clergy).

Every Christian had to go to confession at least once a year as part of the sacrament of
Penance; so this placed priests even more at the centre of social life of villages and cities. Throughout
this age of faith then, the daily life of people was centred on a regular cycle of Church services that
were held either at small, local parish churches or (by the 12 th century) at Gothic cathedrals in the
growing cities. The religious architecture of these buildings is one of the most important remnants in
Europe of medieval religious life. These cathedrals, presided over by bishops, might hold up to ten
thousand people at a time.

In addition to church services, there were a series of practices that have come to be called
“popular religion”, mostly illustrated through people’s attachment to the relics of Saints and martyrs.
Seeking miraculous help, people came from many miles in pilgrimage to visit the saints’ shrines and
relics. Some of the greatest pilgrimage sites throughout the Middle Ages were Santiago de
Compostella in Spain, St. Marks Cathedral in Venice, and Rome, Italy and Jerusalem.

Popular religion found another expression in the popularity of icons: images or statues of
Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Saints. Like relics, these icons were seen to be vehicles through which
divine power became accessible to the faithful. People lit candles and offered prayers to these icons,
and on feast days; statues were paraded through the streets in celebration of the power of God working
among the people.

Another deep expression of popular religious impulse was the important force of mysticism,
which means the feeling of becoming one with God. In the West, ordinary Christians often
experienced direct visions of God. Many of the greatest church writers, such as Francis of Assisi
(1182-1226) and Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) were mystics.

These movements of popular religion grew from the deep faith of medieval people. However,
these very movements would undermine the strong hierarchical church organization that was the
hallmark of medieval Christianity. If a person could have direct contact with God, what was the need
for the Church and its Sacraments.

Another aspect of medieval religious life was Monasticism. From the 2 nd century, Christianity
embodied a tension between those who sought God in community and those who wanted to do so in
solitude. The former made up the Christian congregations, while the latter became monks and nuns.
Monasticism began in the eastern part of the old Roman Empire when men and women left society to

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live in solitary contemplation in the deserts of Egypt and Syria (Pachomius (209-346) & Basil of
Caesarea (330-379) were among the first founders of monastic orders in Egypt and Asia Minor
respectively). Augustine (354-430) also lived in a monastic community in North Africa. However, the
most influential monastic founder in the early medieval period was Benedict of Nursia (480-550), and
his rule became the foundation of western Monasticism. Under the Benedictine rule, the daily lives of
the monks were divided into three kinds of activities: work, communal worship, and private reading
and meditation. All Benedictine monks and nuns had to take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience
to the abbot or abbess, who led the monastery. Monks and nuns spent many hours a day in copying
and preserving ancient manuscripts.

Other monastic orders appeared later, often to redress the excesses and abuses of existing
monasteries. By the tenth century, the Clunaics were formed in central France. Despite the Clunaics’
devotion to prayer and liturgy, the order came under severe criticism for its acquisition of land and
extravagant Romanesque churches. To revive austere monastic ideals, the Cisterians (White Monks)
appeared. They focused more on humility and manual labour.

The Crusades brought about a need for new kinds of religious orders; those who would be
soldiers of Christ. These military orders lived under similar rules as other monastic orders, but their
duties included fighting. The first were the Templars, who were founded in Jerusalem in 1120.
Subsequent orders were the Knights of the Hospital of St. John, or the Hospitalers, and later, the
Teutonic order of Knights that flourished in Germany. Members of these orders helped protect
pilgrims and also served as bankers to pilgrims travelling to the religious sites.

In the late 12th century, many people began to criticize the visible opulence of the Church.
Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) gave up all he owned to live in extreme poverty, spirituality and charity.
He founded an order called “Fransiscans” and his sister Clare of Assisi founded a comparable order
for women called the “Poor Clares”.

Another order was founded by St. Dominic (1170-1221), who was an intellectual gifted for
administration, and who believed the best way to combat heresy was by preaching and teaching. The
Dominicans emphasized on education and had a large presence in the universities.

The history of medieval Catholicism was one of consistently struggling to get a uniformity of
belief in the face of constant questioning. Differences of opinion about religious matters were
considered ‘heresies’, equivalent to treason. Already in the 4 th century, the Church father St. Augustine
had battled against three heresies: the Manichaeans, the Donatists and the Pelagians. By the 12th
century in the West, the greatest critique of the Church came from those who believed that the Church
had become corrupted by wealth. There were many groups who advocated following what they called
‘apostolic life’, a simple existence embracing poverty, reading the Bible, and preaching God’s word.
The most famous of these groups were the Waldensians (after its founder Valdes of Lyons in Southern
France).

Late in the Middle Ages, other critics challenged the hierarchy of the Church in ways that
foreshadowed the 16th century Reformation. John Wycliffe in England and John Hus (in present day
the Czech Republic) were influential at universities as they really questioned papal supremacy and
other Church doctrines. In the 13th century, the Roman Catholic Church felt sufficiently threatened by
these various heresies and established a new court to discover and root out heretical ideas. This court
was the Inquisition.

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IV-2- Economy

A/ Agrarian Economy: with medieval farming methods, most people had to work the land to produce
enough food. Throughout Europe, there were two kinds of settlement patterns that organized the rural
landscape: dispersed pattern and clustered villages.

The dispersed pattern of agriculture involved peasants who lived in tiny hamlets or isolated
farms. This pattern was widely established in regions of poor soils of the fringes of Europe: Scotland,
Wales, Cornwall, Spanish Galicia, Western Normandy, and most areas of the Scandinavian countries.
In these dispersed settlements, each household had a small plot of land close to the house, called the
‘in-fiels’, which would be cultivated continuously. In addition, a section of land, the ‘out-field’, was
cultivated for a year or two exhausting the soil, then abandoned for another out-field. The land left
fallow was used for grazing of animals.

In areas of more fertile land, the economic pattern was of clustered villages that were often
further organized into larger manors. This form of agriculture is called “manorialism” and is the
defining form of medieval agrarian organization. In these clustered villages, the land is surrounded by
large open fields that during the early Middle Ages were divided into two parts; one lay fallow
(uncultivated) one year while the other was sown with grains. By reversing the fallow fields, farmers
tried to avoid the problems of reduced fertility caused by overcultivation; as the natural fertilizer
(manure) was scarce. The most important part of the peasant economy was the cultivation of cereal
crops. The main crops were wheat, rye, barley, and oats. Grains were important not only to make
bread, the staple of the diet, but to brew ale, which formed a large proportion of the caloric intake.

Women were generally in charge of the gardens that were grown near the peasant households.
Here, families grew turnips, cabbages, leeks, and other vegetables, along with some herbs. In some
areas, peasants produced grapes for wine. Animal husbandry supplemented the crops that formed the
basis of medieval diet. Only the rich could afford to eat much meat; most people had to be content
with using their animals (especially goats and sheep) for milk and cheese. The most important animals
were the large animals that supplemented human labour. Great oxen pulled ploughs and carts, as did
horses and mules

In the 10th and 11th centuries, medieval Europe saw a number of agricultural innovations that
greatly increased food production and fuelled a population expansion. The increased use of animal
power required peasants to cultivate more land for fodder and hay; and clustered villages slowly
adopted a three-field system, over the previous two-field system. In this system, plots of land were
divided into three thirds, one-third was planted in the spring, another in the fall, and the remaining
third was left fallow. Villagers began also to plant legumes, such as peas and beans, which add
nitrogen to the soil, thus; fertilizing the subsequent grain crop. In the 12 th century, more iron became
available in Europe. This allowed horses to be shod and ploughs to be equipped with iron
ploughshares; both of which improved agricultural production.

The agricultural revolution spurred a population growth, which had further economic
ramifications. Between the 11th and 13th centuries, the population of Europe approximately doubled
from about 37 million to 74 million people. The increased population and rural efficiencies permitted
more specialized labour, which fuelled the growth commerce and the rise of urban areas.

B/ Growth of Trade: the disruptions of the early Middle Ages broke down the trade networks that
had fuelled the prosperity of the Roman Empire. However, the new agricultural prosperity beginning
in the 11th century paved the way for a new economic change in the West. The commercial revival

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began in Italy, whose cities had escaped the devastating decline of the north. By the 10 th century,
Venice was shipping grain, wine, and lumber to Constantinople and importing silk cloth. Merchants of
Genoa and Pisa began to sail along the coast towards France on trading ventures, risking the ever-
present threat of Muslim pirates.

The Crusades, which began in the 11th century, also increased commerce. The kings of
Jerusalem and their barons opened trade routes to Baghdad, and goods from the Far East flowed to the
Italian merchants in the ports of Syria and Palestine. Silks, sugar and spices began to move into
western courts and created appetites for more. The northern zone of trade was also beginning to
flourish around the Baltic Sea. Flanders first took the lead in its production of woolen cloth, and when
Scandinavian merchants came down from the north to trade furs and hunting hawks, Flanders was
ready to serve as the hub of that trade. Soon, the demand for Flemish cloth exceeded the supply of
wool, so; Flemish merchants looked abroad for raw wool. They found an abundant supply in England,
and English farmers began to raise more and more sheep to supply the seemingly inexhaustible
demand for wool cloth.

Throughout the Middle Ages, most European trade was quite local. Most food and other
staples were traded within a radius of one day’s travel, about 20 to 25 miles, and most people might
live their whole lives not travelling more than 5 miles from home. However, the real engine of the
economy came from merchants who were willing to travel great distances, with equally great risks, to
bring scarce luxury items to the courts of Europe. Most of the long-distance trade brought goods from
the fabled East by Muslim merchants who then traded with Byzantine or Italian merchants.

C/ Growing Urban Life: there are two reasons for cities to exist. Firstly, to serve the administrative
functions governing local regions and, secondly; to serve economic functions as artisans and
merchants gathered together to make and sell products. The few remaining urban areas in northern
Europe during the early Middle Ages served primarily the first function, as churches of bishops drew
supporting populations. The growth of commerce in the 11 th century, however; served as a catalyst for
the growth of new commercial cities that slowly grew all over the continent.

The first trading cities grew as lay and ecclesiastical lords encouraged craftsmen and
merchants to settle in their administrative cities. At first, these lords sponsored artisans who had
special skills that they needed, as blacksmiths and armourers. Soon, other craftsmen, from goldsmiths
to shoemakers, gathered in the towns to sell their wares. Other small cities were founded by colonies
of merchants who settled along important trade routes. Because the business of medieval towns was
commerce, all cities had some kind of public marketplace, whether an indoor hall, an open square, or
just a wide city street. Small towns held their markets one day each week, while large cities had
multiple marketplaces more often.

Craftsmen and artisans often felt themselves oppressed by the wealthy merchants, so; they
sought ways to assert their own rights. Within towns, guilds developed as the institutions to regulate
trade and protect workers. Merchants’ guilds did everything from insuring merchants against losses in
long distance trade to burying them when they died. Guilds secured monopolies for merchants,
forbidding foreign merchants from selling goods in their towns. Guilds also regulated prices and
quality of goods as well as the skill of the membership.

D/ Economic Disasters: just as the economic boom of the Middle Ages was built on agricultural
innovations that allowed a healthy population boom, the fourteenth century decline of medieval
society began with agricultural disaster.

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By 1300, with the expansion of population, people cultivated poorer lands and crop yields
dwindled. As people tried to bring more and more acreage into cultivation to feed humans, there was
less open land to feed livestock. Thus, as they slaughtered the starving animals, there was less manure
to fertilize fields and yields fell further. Many people were living on the edge of starvation, but then
things got worse. Beginning in 1310, the weather worsened. Chronicles tell of drenching rains all over
Europe that flooded fields and washed away the scattered seed. Summers were dark and wet. Famine
began in 1315, and in some parts of Europe lasted until 1322. People already weakened by hunger
suffered from respiratory illnesses and intestinal ailments, but a greater illness soon added to their
misery. In about 1348, the bubonic plague, known as the “Black Death”, began to sweep through
Europe, rapidly killing huge number of people (1/3 or ½ of European population died during this
terrible scourge).

The dramatic population drop had significant economic consequences. Many marginal lands
were abandoned as villages moved to better areas. When the deaths ended, there was more food
available for those remaining, but labour shortages caused peasants to radically reconsider their lot.
Landlords, who felt a double pinch of falling grain prices along with rising labour costs, tried
repressive measures to maintain their interests. This led to Peasants Revolts throughout Western
Europe; including the Jacquerie in France and the rebellion in England led by John Ball. None of these
rebellions was immediately successful, but in the end; the shortage of agricultural labour brought
about changes that transformed the medieval economy. In Western Europe, serfdom ended and
peasants owned their own labour, and could work for wages and hope to improve their lot. By and
large, the landed nobility would never again have the prosperity they enjoyed during the height of the
Middle Ages.

IV-3- The Arts

Like other aspects of early medieval civilization, the arts, emerged from a synthesis of classical,
Germanic and Christian elements. Medieval artists (and critics) believed that art was simply part of the
mystic web that joined creation and God, and that artistic creations could help reveal the transcendent.

A/ Literature

The early medieval world has inherited a rich tradition of Latin literature that was preserved in
monasteries and venerated by the educated. The tradition of Latin prose literature included the great
Christian writings that had shaped and defined Christian belief. These influential writings included
works by Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, and many others who are called “Fathers of the Church”.

The tradition of classical theatre was preserved in monasteries in a changed Christian form.
Entertaining plays, that combined classical traditions with Saint’s tales, became part of church services
and were performed outdoors.

The Germanic tribes had a long tradition of oral poetry, much of which was heroic poetry
designed to remember the great deeds of their ancestors. The most famous Germanic epic is Beowulf.
Other Germanic epics that have survived include “The Song of Hildebrand” and the
“Niebelungenlied”.

The prosperity of the 12th century saw a flourishing of literature in Europe, and more and more
of this work was written in vernacular languages instead of Latin that could be understood only by the
educated. One new type of literature in called “Chanson de geste” or song of brave deeds. These
poems honoured the heroic adventures of warriors who lived under the complex rules of feudal law

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and chivalry. The most famous chanson de geste is the Song of Roland, a heroic version of a minor
battle fought by Charlemagne in Northern Spain, in which his vassal Roland was killed. Another
famous ‘chanson de geste is the Spanish ‘poem of the Cid’, which tells of this hero’s struggles against
the Spanish Muslims.

A new kind of literature arose that praised courtly love, a new value that appealed to noble
wives who waited at home for their warrior husbands. This new value love was first praised by
troubadours, poets in southern France, or Province. The ideal of this romantic love was that the lover
would be made better (stronger and more noble) as a result of this love (even though this love was an
adulterous one with a married women). Perhaps the culmination of this tradition was the 13 th century
long French poem, the “Romance of the Rosé”, which carefully detailed how men might seduce the
object of their desire.

Another literary genre that flourished in the 12 th century was the lay, a short lyric or narrative
poem meant to be sung to the accompaniment of an instrument such as a harp. The oldest surviving
lays were those written by Marie de France, who also wrote fables. Marie’s works were profoundly
influential in making the classical beast fables relevant to the medieval courtly audience.

The growing importance (and wealth) of townspeople stimulated the growth of literature
aimed at more cynical middle class instead of the romantic nobility. French Fabliaux were short poetic
compositions that portrayed hilarious and other bawdy stories about medieval life. Many were
misogynist in their portrayal of women. Fourteenth century writers like Geoffrey Chaucer in England
and Giovanni Boccaccio in Italy drew from these humorous tales or they wrote works that used
humour to confront the disasters they faced in the decline of the Middle Ages.

Perhaps the highest development of this medieval literature came in the fourteenth century
Italian work, The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri. In this work, the poet imagines a tour though
hell, purgatory, and heaven, and the resulting allegory that is full of historical figures, marks a brilliant
synthesis of medieval thought.

B/ Architecture

In medieval Europe, religion was central to people’s lives, so it is not surprising that church buildings
were the focus of some of the most remarkable developments in architectural history. These churches
were usually built of stones, with thick walls that were white washed with lime on the inside.
Sometimes these dark interiors were decorated with frescoes with religious imagery. Churches were
built with entries facing west, from where they expected Christ to return on he second coming, and the
altars were at the east end.

By the 11th century, church builders began to strive to make buildings larger. These were
mostly in service of growing cities or more often monasteries. These larger churches were built in a
style that came to be called “Romanesque”, which meant developed from Roman models.

Architects tried to make Romanesque churches with high ceilings to help the faithful think of
heaven. In the 12th century, much larger cathedrals and churches were constructed to contain the
increased population of the cities and the growing number of pilgrims. Thus; a new architectural style
was developed that has come to be called “Gothic”.

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 Second-Year English LMD Class. ICL Course. First Lecture: The Middle Ages

The most visible and remarkable medieval secular architecture are castles. Medieval warfare
was largely defensive basing victory on armour to protect soldiers and on great walls to protect
fortified positions.

In the 10th century, castles were private fortresses made of lumber and earth that were
built on mounds. By the 13th century they had become large defensive structures of wood and stone
and were virtually impregnable. Many castles consisted of a large exterior wall surrounded by a moat
filled with water, and an interior fortified structure, called the “keep”, that served as the noble family’s
home and an extra line of defence should invaders breach the outer wall. The interior fortress should
include a deep well for water and plenty of capacity for food storage, for the castle’s ability to
withstand a siege depended largely on supplies within.

The whole Gothic cathedral represented a synthesis of medieval life and thought. In these
engineering marvels, theologians, artists, and artists reflected the full panorama of medieval life in
which the community of the faithful expressed their longings for the divine and their expectations of
heaven. The cathedrals represented a visual expression of the medieval philosophy of scholasticism,
which argued that everything was linked in a divine order.

IV-4-Society

Medieval society was organized very differently from our own. The goal was to have each individual
linked in obligation to another. In other words, the goal was not freedom but connection. The wealthy
placed themselves under the permanent protection of the more powerful. Peasants were tied to their
land and their masters. All believed that only when everyone was linked in obligation and place was
the social order secured.

Medieval society was also different from the modern one because it was arranged by ‘orders’
instead of class, gender, or wealth. For medieval people, ‘order’ meant ones’ function or how the
individual contributes to society. By the 13th century, medieval thinkers saw three orders that made up
society: those who pray, those who fight, and those who work. Each of these orders included
individuals with varying wealth. For example, those who pray included everyone from wealthy
bishops drawn from the highest nobility to poor parish priests drawn from the peasantry. Those who
fight include the wealthiest king to a poor knight. Women, too, were arranged within these orders,
whether they were nuns praying, noble women producing heirs to fight, or peasant wives working the
land.

A/ Manorialism: Those Who Work the Land

Peasants throughout most of Europe lived clustered together in villages and worked together in
agriculture, farming strips of land that surrounded the villages. No one was completely free. All owed
some rents and some labour to their landlords. These landlords might be nobility, who did the fighting,
or churchmen who did the praying.

Most of the peasants in Europe were serfs (known as villeins in England). Serfs were
personally free, that is they were not slaves, but unlike the general term ‘peasants’, serfs could not
choose to leave their land without permission from the lord. In addition, serfs owed a certain amounts
of their labour in addition to rents. A few lucky peasants had ‘freeholds’ that is they owed no labour
obligations to the landlord, only rents and a portion of their produce. Whether a peasant was a serf or a
freeholder, he or she worked to support the ruling orders, the only difference was how much they
owed.

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 Second-Year English LMD Class. ICL Course. First Lecture: The Middle Ages

Serfs’ obligations were of two kinds: goods and labour. They had to give the lord a percentage
of their crops or whatever livestock they raised, and the percentage depended upon the initial contract
that bound the serf to the land. Typically, families might owe the lord one tenth of their grain, a piglet
from a litter, a number of eggs from their hens, and some of the cheese made from the milk of their
goats.

Serfs found the labour they owed the lord even more onerous than the goods they paid. On
some manors, serfs had to work as many as three days a week on the lords’ personal lands. They had
to plant his crops, build roads, erect walls or buildings, dig ditches, and do anything else the lord
needed. Women, too, owed work, going to the lord’s household to help spin, weave and do domestic
work.

Serfs were supposed to receive some benefits in exchange for this labour and rent. Lords were
to provide protection to serfs in times of war, and justice in times of peace. In addition, lords provided
things that required a large investment of capital, mills, barns, ovens, large draft animals, etc.
However, most serfs found this a bad bargain. In times of war, too often their crops were burned and
their warehouses looted by invading armies, and the justice obtained in the lords’ court often was just
one more form of exploitation.

The agricultural expansion in the 11 th century helped some peasants gain more freedom as lords were
forced to negotiate more reasonable terms to encourage peasants to settle new lands. In the 14 th
century, peasants’ revolts arose throughout Western Europe as peasants resisted the manorial system
that bound them to their lords and struggled to gain a better life.

B/The Feudal Contract binds Those Who Fight

Medieval manors were large rural entities that included one or more peasant villages, agricultural land,
pastures, forests, and a large house (or castle) for the noble landlord. These entities were designed to
serve the economic base to support the fighting forces that by the 9 th century were highly specialised.

A system of mutual obligation formed the political structure of the elites in medieval society.
Historians in the 16th century called this political system “Feudalism” (historians today prefer to use
the expression “feudal law” instead as the term “feudalism” which suggests a highly organized
system).

Medieval nobles saw themselves linked in a chain of mutual obligation, even if the forms of
obligation varied. The basis of the feudal tie was that the lords (or kings) granted a ‘fief’, usually land.
The nobleman then became the lord’s ‘vassal’, bound to the lord in loyalty and service for life.

In return for this fief, the vassal owed the lord certain obligations known as “aid and counsel”.
The greatest “aid” was to fight, the main function of the nobility. Other aids included monetary
support when the lord has incurred specific expenses, such as a wedding of his eldest daughter or the
knighting of his son. The requirement of “counsel” meant that when a lord required advice, his vassals
had to assemble to give it.

There was a great variation in wealth, power, and status among the vassals, all of whom were
aristocrats. All were often called “barons”, “dukes” were the highest, “counts” guarded borders, and
the lowest of the aristocrats, the knights, often owned only their fighting ability and their weapons.
Whatever their titles, they all shared the same social order: those who fight and those supported by
those who work. All were supposed to be loyal to their ‘liege lord’, the king who commended loyalty
of everyone in their lands.
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 Second-Year English LMD Class. ICL Course. First Lecture: The Middle Ages

The feudal system tied the elites of Europe together in mutual obligations that were bound by
law. These obligations held society together when other more modern forces-like nationalism- were
non existent. The ties were sometimes tenuous and sometimes hard to enforce but they served to forge
some sense of order in a violent age.

The ties among the nobility also included marriage ties. At all levels, marriage involved a
serious economic commitment that created alliances between families.

Once marriage took place, the couple was joined for life. Divorce was forbidden by the church
(except in some cases when the couple had relatives in common). The main purpose of marriage was
to produce children to ensure the continuity of the noble family line.

The daily life of the nobility revealed the sense of community engendered by the feudal system. The
lords with their wives and children lived together with crowds of their own vassals and their servants.
All ate together on long tables in the common hall of the manor house and played games together in
the evenings.

The nobility also developed an idealised version of their rugged, violent lives in an elaborate
code of values and symbolic rituals called “chivalry”. In this idealised world knights were strong and
disciplined, who used their power to defend the church, the poor and women in need. Marriages were
arranged with no regard for the emotions of the couple, so it is perhaps not surprising that nobles often
found love outside of marriage. In noble households beginning in the 12 th century, some poets praised
new ideals of love called “courtly love”. In this romantic love, noblemen promised to do anything to
win the affection of a noble woman.

C/ Ordering Those Who Pray

From the beginning of the Middle Ages, church organization stressed bringing all religious people into
a tight hierarchical organization. However, just as medieval society increasingly relied on laws to
regulate the ties that bound people to each other, the church, too, began to look to contract law to
confirm its order.

The turning point in church law- called “common law”- came in about 1140, when the church
lawyer, Gratian, issued his “ Decretum”, a collection of common law that showed that church canons
could form as complete a structure of jurisprudence as secular law. This collection argued that the
pope was the supreme judge and has jurisdiction above any religious matter.

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