Europe in the High Middle Ages, 800 - 1300

I. The Carolingian Achievement

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.”

1. Reformed the clergy

2. Forcibly converted pagan “holdouts”

Einhard, “The Life of Charlemagne”

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

II. Emergence of the Nation-State

A. Carolingian Empire falls apart in the 900s

1. Competition among Charlemagne’s heirs

2. New invaders

Vikings 765 - 1000

Magyars

Islam

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

III. Medieval Towns

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”

IV. Life in the Countryside

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

5. Rural religion

Benedictine Order

emphasize order, obedience, next life

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

3. The Crusades, 1095-1274

a. Pope Urban II

b. crusaders attacked Moslems, Byzantine Empire

c. reacquainted Western Europeans with Eastern goods, classical learning

d. “stalemate” allows for trade, pilgrimages

Case Study: The Angevin Empire, 1160s - 1200

Henry II

Eleanor of

Aquitaine

1. Process of nation state left France and England bitter rivals

2. System of “vassalage” left monarchs with competing claims