Chapter 20 Notes 17/11/2007 10:22:00

IN 1260BCE, Niccolo and Maffeo Polo traveled to Constantinople to pursue

opportunities as traders. Would have gone back home back a war stopped
them and so they went to Bokhara where they received invitational to
Khubilai Khan’s court. Khubilai wished to learn about Roman Catholics.
The establishment of regional states: After the Roman’s fell, many
wanted to have a centralized political structure embracing Europe. Thus
German princes formed the Holy Roman Empire. Faced stiff resistance.
Europe was a mosaic of independent and competing states.
• The Holy Roman Empire: After Carolingian
o Otto I: Very active militarily
 Otto of Saxony rose in northern Germany by the mid-
tenth century
 Pope John XII proclaimed him emperor in 962:
birth of Holy Roman Empire
 Emperor and Pope relations are very strained due
to conflicting interests
 Investiture contest: Pope stopped emperors from
building imperial state that would threaten them
 Formerly, important church officials were
appointed by imperial authorities
 Pope Gregory VII ordered an end to the practice
 Emperor Henry IV was excommunicated because
of his disobedience
 Frederick Barbarossa
 Sought to absorb Lombardy in north Italy
 Papal coalition forced Barbarossa to relinquish his
rights in Lombardy; HRE really just a state
• Regional monarchies in France and England: Lords and Retainers
o Capetian France: Hugh Capet founded dynasty from 987,
lasted three centuries, very small beginnings
o The Normans were descendents of Vikings in Normandy,
France; Dukes of Normandy built tightly centralized state
 Duke William of Normandy invaded England in 1066
 Introduced Norman style of political administration to
England; much more centralized than France
 o Both faced challenge from retainer wanting more power also
they fought wars with each other
• Regional states in Italy and Iberia: In Italy, series of states, city-
states, and principalities competed for power.
o Popes ruled a good-sized territory in central Italy
o Prosperous northern Italian city-states: Florence, Bologna,
Genoa, Milan, Venice
o Normans conquered southern Italy, brought Roman Catholic
Christianity and laid foundation for Naples
o Christian and Muslim states in Iberia
 Muslim conquerors ruled most of the peninsula, eighth
to the eleventh centuries except for parts of north
 Christian kingdoms took the peninsula (except Granada)
by late thirteenth century
Economic growth and social development: As political organization
developed, Europe begun to interact with other society again.
• Growth of the agricultural economy
o Expansion of arable land: In other parts of world, agriculture
expansion led to increase in economy
 Population pressure by the late tenth century
 Serfs and monks began to clear forests and swamps
 Lords encouraged such efforts for high taxes but at first
discouraged as they will lose hunting grounds
o Improved agricultural techniques
 Crop rotation methods
 Cultivation of beans increased and enriched the land
 More domestic animals also enriched the land
 Books and treatises on household economy and
agricultural methods
o New tools and technology
 Extensive use of watermills and heavy plows
 Use of horseshoe and horse collar increased land under
cultivation
 o New food supplies
 Before 1000, European diet was mostly grains
 After 1000, more meat, dairy products, fish, vegetables,
legumes
 Spain, Italy, Mediterranean got new foods through
Islamic world (Rice, spinach, artichoke, eggplant etc.)
o Population growth: from 29 million to 79 million between 800
C.E. and 1300 C.E.
• The revival of towns and trade
o Urbanization: peasants and serfs flocked to cities and towns
 Due to extra production of food
 Old Roman town saw revival and new towns like Bergen
and Venice rose
o Textile production, especially in north Italy and Flanders
 Help fuel economic development throughout Europe
o Mediterranean trade: Italian merchants dominated and
established colonies
o The Hanseatic League--an association of trading cities
 Hansa dominated trade of northern Europe
 Major European rivers linked Hansa to the
Mediterranean
o Improved business techniques
 Bankers issued letters of credit to merchants
 Commercial partnerships for limiting risks of commercial
investment
• Social changes
o The three estates
 "Those who pray"--clergy of Roman Catholic church, the
spiritual estate
  "Those who fight"--feudal nobles, the military estate
 "Those who work"--mostly peasants and serfs
 Reflected inequality, Pray and fight better than work.
o Chivalry
 Widely recognized code of ethics and behavior for feudal
nobles originally used to curb fighting
 Church officials directed chivalry toward Christian faith
and piety
o Troubadours
 Aristocratic women promoted chivalric values by
patronizing troubadours
 Troubadours drew inspiration from the love poetry of
Muslim Spain
o Eleanor of Aquitaine was most celebrated woman of her day
 Supported troubadours, promoted good manners,
refinement, and romantic love
 Code of chivalry and romantic poetry softened manners
of rough warriors
o Independent cities: urban populations increasingly resisted
demands of feudal nobles
o Guilds
 Regulated production and sale of goods
 Established standards of quality for manufactured goods
 Determined prices and regulated entry of new workers
 Social significance: friendship, mutual support, built
halls
o Urban women: most guilds admitted women, and women also
had own guilds
European Christianity during the high middle ages
• Schools, universities, and scholastic theology
 o Cathedral schools
 Bishops and archbishops in France and northern Italy
organized schools
 Cathedral schools had formal curricula, concentrated on
liberal arts
 Some offered advance instruction in law, medicine, and
theology
o Universities
 Student guilds and faculty guilds
 Large cathedral schools developed into universities
o The influence of Aristotle
 Obtained Aristotle's works from Byzantine and Muslim
philosophers
 Scholasticism: St. Thomas Aquinas harmonized reason
with Christianity
• Popular religion
o Sacraments; the most popular was the Eucharist
o Devotion to saints for help; Virgin Mary most popular
(cathedrals)
o Saints' relics were esteemed; pilgrimages (Rome,
Compostela, Jerusalem)
• Reform movements and popular heresies
o Dominicans and Franciscans were urban-based mendicant
orders
 Organized movements to champion spiritual over
materialistic values
 Zealously combated heterodox movements
o Popular heresy: the movements of Waldensians and Cathars
(Albigensians)
The Medieval Expansion of Europe
• Atlantic and Baltic Colonization
 o Vinland
 Scandinavian seafarers turned to North Atlantic Ocean,
ninth and tenth centuries
 Colonized Iceland and Greenland
 Leif Ericsson traveled to modern Newfoundland, called
Vinland
o Christianity in Scandinavia: Denmark and Norway (tenth
century), then spread
o Crusading orders and Baltic expansion
 Teutonic Knights most active in the Baltic region
 Baltic region was absorbed into Christian Europe from
the late thirteenth century
• The reconquest (for Christianity) of Sicily and Spain
o Reconquest of south Italy by Norman Roger Guiscard, 1090
o Roger (also Norman) conquers Sicily
o The reconquista of Spain began in 1060s
 By 1150, took over half the peninsula
 By the thirteenth century, took almost all the peninsula
except Granada
• The crusades
o Pope Urban II called Christian knights to take up arms and
seize the holy land, 1095
 Peter the Hermit traveled in Europe and organized a
ragtag army
 Campaign was a disaster for the crusaders
o The first crusade
 French and Norman nobles organized military
expedition, 1096
 Jerusalem fell to the crusaders, 1099; Muslims
recaptured, 1187
o Later crusades
 By the mid-thirteenth century, five major crusades had
been launched
 The fourth crusade (1202-1204) conquered
Constantinople
 The crusades failed to take over Palestine from the
Muslims
o Consequences of the crusades
 Crusaders established some states in Palestine and
Syria
 Encouraged trade with Muslims; demands for luxury
goods increased
 Muslim ideas filter to Europe: Aristotle, science,
astronomy, numerals, paper
17/11/2007 10:22:00
17/11/2007 10:22:00