I. The Early Middle Ages
A. A Land of Great Potential
1. Europe is a relatively small area, although its impact of the modern world has been enormous.
2. Dense forests covered much for the north, and the region�s rich black earth was better suited for raising crops than the dry soils around the Mediterranean.
3. Coastal people not only fished for food but also used the seas as highways for trade and exploration.
B. Germanic Kingdoms
1. The Germanic tribes who migrated across Europe were farmers and herders.
2. They had no cities and no written laws. Instead they lived in small communities governed by unwritten customs.
3. Between 400 and 700, the Germanic tribes carved up Western Europe into small kingdoms. The strongest and most successful was the Franks.
C. Islam: A New Mediterranean Power
1. Christians watched with fear as Muslim armies won victories around the Mediterranean. They overran Christian kingdoms in North Africa and Spain, and then headed into France.
2. At the battle of Tours in 732, Frankish warriors led by Charles Martel defeated a Muslim army.
3. Medieval Europeans did learn from the Arabs, whose knowledge in many areas, especially science and mathematics was superior to their own.
D. The Age of Charlemagne
1. For a time around 800, Western Europe had a moment of unity when Charlemagne or Charles the Great built an empire reaching across France, Germany, and part of Italy.
2. Charlemagne appointed powerful nobles to rule local regions. He gave them land so that they could offer support and supply soldiers for his armies.
3. Charlemagne tried to create a Christian Europe. He worked closely with the Church, helping to spread Christianity to the conquered peoples on the fringes of his empire.
E. A Revival of Learning
1. Charlemagne could read but could not write. Education had declined so much that even the supposedly educated clergy were often sadly ignorant.
2. To ensure a supply of educated officials, Charlemagne set up a palace school at Aachen. Then he asked a respected scholar, Alcuin to run the school.
3. Alcuin hired scholars to copy ancient manuscripts, including the Bible and Latin works of history and science. There manuscripts served as the textbooks for the next 700 years.
F. Charlemagne�s Legacy
1. After Charlemagne died in 814 his empire soon fell apart. His heirs battled for power for nearly 30 years.
2. In 843 Charlemagne�s grandson drew up the Treaty of Verdun, which split the empire into three regions.
3. Charlemagne extended Christian civilization into northern Europe and furthered the blending of German, Roman, and Christian traditions. He also set up a strong, efficient government, and later medieval rulers looked to his example when they tried to centralize their own kingdoms.
G. New Attacks
1. Even after the defeat at Tours in 732, Muslim forces kept up their pressure on Europe. In the late 800s they conquered Sicily, which became a thriving center of Islamic culture.
2. About 896, a new wave of nomadic people, the Magyars, settled in what is today Hungary.
3. The most destructive raiders were the Vikings. They snapped the last threads of unity in Charlemagne�s empire. The Vikings were not just fierce warriors. They were traders and explorers as well.
II. Feudalism and the Manor Economy
A. A New System of Rule
1. In the face of invasions by Vikings, the basic need for protection, a new system, called feudalism, evolved.
2. Feudalism was a loosely organized system of rule in which powerful local lords divided their large land holdings among the lesser lords. In exchange for land, these lesser lords, or vassals, pledged service and loyalty to the greater lord.
3. The relationship between the lords and the vassals was established by custom and tradition. A lord granted his vassal a fief, or estate.
B. Lords, Vassals, and Knights
1. Below the monarch were the most powerful lords-dukes and counts-who held the largest fiefs.
2. In many cases, the same man was both vassal and lord-vassal to a more powerful lord above him and lord to a less powerful vassal below him.
3. A vassal who had pledged loyalty to several lords could have serious problems if his overlords quarreled with each other. To solve that problem a vassal usually had a liege lord to whom he owed his first loyalty.
C. The World of Warriors
1. Many nobles trained from boyhood for a future occupation as a knight, or mounted warrior. At the age of seven a boy slated to become a knight was sent away to the castle of his father�s lord.
2. When his training was finished, often when he was about age 21, the boy was ready to be made a knight.
3. During the Middle Ages powerful lords fortified their homes to withstand attack. Their strongholds included keep, or wooden tower, ringing with a fence.
4. In the later Middle Ages, knights adopted a code of conduct called chivalry. Chivalry required knights to be brave, loyal, and true to their word.
D. The Manor
1. The heart of the medieval economy was the manor, or lord�s estate. Most manors included one or more villages and the surrounding lands.
2. Most of the peasants on a manor were serfs, who were bound to the land. Serfs were not slaves who could be bought and sold, but they were not free.
3. The medieval manor was a small, self-sufficient world. Peasants produced almost everything they needed, from food and clothing to simple furniture and tools.
E. Daily Life
1. Most peasants, men and women worked long hours, from sunup to sundown. Children helped plant seeds, weeded, and took care of pigs or sheep.
2. In spring and autumn, they plowed and harvested. In the summer they hayed. At other times they weeded repaired fences and performed chores.
3. On the Sabbath, peasants might attend chapel. After services, they gossiped or danced, even though the priest might condemn their racy songs or rowdy behavior.
III. The Medieval Church
A. A Spiritual and Worldly Empire
1. After the fall of Europe, the Christian Church split into eastern and western churches. The western church leaded by the pope, became known as the Roman Catholic Church.
2. The only way to avoid the tortures of hell was to participate in the sacraments, which are the sacred rituals of the Church.
3. The Church had its own body of laws, known as canon law, and its own courts. Canon law applied to religious teachings, the behavior of the clergy, and even marriages and morals.
4. Anyone who refused to obey Church laws faced a range of penalties. The most severe was excommunication.
5. A powerful noble who violated Church law could face an interdict, which included an entire town, region, or kingdom from participating in the most sacraments and from receiving Christian burial.
B. The Church and Daily Life
1. Most Christians had no contact with the pope or higher clergy. They saw only their local priest, who supervised their religious life and provided comfort during times of trouble.
2. For peasants, religion was linked to the routines of daily life. In the village church, priests baptized their children and performed their marriages.
3. The Church taught that men and women were equal before God. On earth, however women were inferior to men.
C. Monks and Nuns
1. About 530, a monk named Benedict founded the monastery of Monte Cassino in Italy. In time, the Benedict Rule, as it became known, spread to monasteries and convents across Europe.
2. In a world without hospitals, public schools, or social programs, convents and monasteries provide basic social services.
3. Monasteries and convents performed a vital cultural function by preserving the writings of the ancient world.
D. Hildegard of Bingen: Adviser to Popes and Kings
1. In response to her visions, Hildegard�s parents placed her in a convent at an early age.
2. In 1147, Hildegard founded a new convent, near Bingen, in Germany.
3. Hildegard was not the only nun to raise her voice in the early middle ages, many women with inquiring minds and proud spirits entered convents.
E. Reform Movement
1. The very success of the medieval church brought serious problems.
2. In the early 900s the pious Abbot Berno at Cluny, a monastery in eastern France, set out to end abuses.
3. A different approach to reform was taken by friars, monks who traveled widely, preaching to the poor, especially in Europe�s growing towns.
F. Jews in Western Europe
1. Medieval Europe was home to numerous Jewish communities
2. Jewish culture flowered in Muslim Spain, which became a center of Hebrew scholarship.
3. In bad times, anti-Semitism increased when Christians blamed Jews for all kinds of ills, including diseases and famines.
IV. Economic Expansion and Change
A. An Agricultural Revolution
1. By 1000, Europe�s economic recovery was well under way.
2. By about 800, peasants were using new iron plows that carved deep into the heavy soil of northern Europe.
3. Peasants adopted the three field system where one field was planted with grain, the second with legumes such as peas and beans, and left the third empty.
B. Trade Revives
1. Europe�s growing population needed goods that were not available on the manor.
2. At first traders and customers met at local trade fairs that took place near a navigable river or where trade routes met.
3. To protect their interests, the merchants who set up a new town would ask the local lord or if possible the king himself for a charter, or written document that set out the rights of the town.
C. Commercial Revolution
1. To meet the needs of the changing economy, Europeans developed new ways of doing business.
2. These new ways of doing business were part of a commercial revolution that transformed the medieval economy.
3. In towns the old social order of nobles, clergy, and peasants gradually changed until there was a middle class made up of merchants, artisans, and traders.
D. Role of Guilds
1. Merchant guilds or associations dominated life in medieval towns.
2. To become a guild member meant many years of hard work as an apprentice or trainee.
3. Women often engaged in the same trade as her husband or father and might inherit his workshop if he died.
E. City Life
1. Medieval towns and cities were surrounded by high, protective walls.
2. During the day, streets echoed with the cries of hawkers selling their wares and porter grumbling under heavy loads.
3. Even a rich town had no garbage collection or sewer system. They simply flung their waste into the streets.
F. Looking Ahead
1. By 1300, Western Europe was a different place from what it had been in the early middle ages.
2. Although most people had no way of knowing it, slow but momentous changes were sending shock waves through medieval life.
3. In the global sphere, the economic revival of the High Middle Ages was bringing Europeans into contact with civilizations much more advanced then their own.