LECTURE 4: THE BIRTH OF EUROPE, 900-1300
Europe Expands.
But the carolingian world was battered by muslims magyars and vikings!
But it was divided in the 9th Century! But the high middle ages begin.
The Thaw. Bouyant optimism. Europe's optimism strikes out against its
neighbors in the crusades.
New States: A great arc of new states: from the Celtic world --
through Scandinavia and through the Slavic world.
Economic growth, architectural dynamism: the romanesque and then the
gothic, all over Europe. Unpredictable in 800.
This 900 through 1300 was one of the longest periods of sustained
growth (in nearly all aspects of life) in human history. Remarkable,
and became the background for the cultural achievements.
Why did it happen? 1) Rise in population. During Carolingian period,
pop rose (750s - 1050), and even more 1050-1200. leveled off in 1300.
So, larger families. More babies surviving, people living longer. no
plague or famine. warm dry climate. lots of new land was brought under
cultivation (not for no reason, to feed mouths). Diets got better,
crops were good: full of iron and protean. Cereal production. They
invented the best farming before the advent of fertilization. How?
Horses were implemented as draft animal replacing the Ox. he does more
work, is stronger, for less food. fields plowed more times, soil
turned easier. different harnessing, horse collar. hooves of horses
had to be shod... but gave protection to the horse's hooves. But if we
are gonna shoe these guys, we need iron. metallurgy. Heavy wheeled
plow invented in the Slavic world. took up in western europe too. used
in 11th century. good because horse can do more work, and was much
better than roman scratchplow. aerates soil better. more iron needed.
smithing. water mills used since 11th C: mills demanded engineering
gains in gears. A flow of water can push a parallel wheel, but not
well. A perpendicular wheel can work better, but i must do some
hydralic engineering! think swiss family robinson. we need mills cause
of grain... all circular! population, grain (bread), grinding, water
wheel, land farming...
And Land use: during classical times, an area was farmed intensely
then move a few miles. farm, move. now they farmed same land, but 2
field agriculture. farm half and let animals eat and dump the other
half. enrichment. household waste put there too. half of land one
year, half another. Carolingians used 3-field on church and
carolingian estates. This spreads all over by the year 1000 or 1050,
everyone uses it. Divide land into 3 equal parts, one is fallow, one
planted with winter crops, one planted with spring crops. From 50% to
66% right away, and a better cycle. one lost crop wont wipe you out.
People eat oats in Brittany and Scotland only. horses eat oats. i need
some oats too. this is a problem, but now with 3 field i can grow oats
for the horses too.
Also, agricultural specialization increases. People in areas with
viticulture grew grapes and grapevines. Others cereal grains, and if a
given region is going to specialize... then they will rely on trade to
get the things they don't do. trade... roads... 4 wheeled wagons, no
more two wheeled cart... and far flung urban markets to buy into the
economy of the country.
technological innovation. Roman period saw not much tech increase, but
Medieval period did. flip the polarity of Roman Light - Medieval Dark!
Evidence?
Church and secular govt. encouraged trade and protected it. And after
the crusades, other products from far away, spices etc. would become
luxury products. The medieval trading infrastructure develops
further... into the modern. Inference on pop. increase? yes. But but
the train of inferences is a sound one.
ECONOMICS
Fairs! Champagne's summer fair moved from town to town there in
Champagne, from the south and north both. Centers for growth of trade.
all overland until 14C., but on rivers and roads. After 14th C by
ship. Other fairs? Niznhy Novgorod. Hansa in baltic. england's south
had a league of cities too. commercial interests were looked after.
contracts are a byproduct of this stuff- partnership and corporations
too! "if we work together we can pool wealth and be stronger than one
by ourselves: and risk is spread out: if i own a share in a ship and
the ship sinks, ive lost something. If I own the ship, I lose
everything. Insurance was sold as well as a subsidiary. Productively
parasitical things grew and spread. Entrapraneurship.
Commercial networks emerge. Hanseatic League: Britain to Russia. Up
and down the Rhine, Danube and Rhone, these were networks too. Italian
cities linked up too, had networks in Mediterranean. Eastern
Mediterranean went through central asia to china, and seabourn routes.
Riverine routes too.
Surface mining. No deep mining cause you could not get the water out
of the shafts. you just couldnt. But surface mining was ok, and it was
like quarrying. Not metal but stone. Look at the Medieval churches :
all stone in 12 and 13C. Iron though, was one metal that was mined
for.
TOWNS
Money went into circulation, more money. Towns. Fairs. Early medieval
town were there cause there was a count there (governmental see) or a
cathedral town (bishop's see), or a monestary was there. Some grew
furburgs (suburbs) gathered on edge during Carolingian time. Then
merchants began to settle permenantly there. And town air breaths free
(see gierard). towns are economic engines driving the growth of
Europe. trade and industry (artisan industry), tanning etc. along with
gov't and religious centers, and now intellectual university centers,
they took on the life of people and economics.
Town people need different things. peace, security, order, predictable
raw materials, supplies of materials. Peace in the countryside too,
something that swashbuckling nobles were not too interested in. But
city walls went up and grew. These changed economic circumstances
purduced reflection on life and economics: people knew more about rich
vs. poor. new religious orders came in to minister to the poor.
Usury was needed now, to raise capital. if i am gonna loan you money
for your business, i want something in return. theologians justified
it finally by saying you were paying for 'risk', not for borrowing
their money. also, what is the just price? whatever the market will
bear? whatever i can get away with? cost of goods plus labor that went
into it?
So, Europe in the high middle ages was dynamic and prosperous, more so
than anytime since pax romana, and would be again in modern times.
Remember: when you study the West, you are doing something heroic for
our civilization and its preservation.
CHIVALRY (35)
who are these people? we see there are more of them, and they were
being more prosperous. King Alfred the Great said "a kingdom needs men
who fight, men who pray and men who work." 3 classes therefore. this
left out townpeople, though they were a dynamic feature. to Work was
to work the soil, not the tanners in town. Women? no, minorities? no.
This was a christendom thing.
THOSE WHO FIGHT
the nobility. royal families only the most distinctive of the many
noble families from all over the realm. Primogeniture rule: first born
sons get the title and inheritance. Lineage is now a huge deal: who
are your great ancestors? What about the other kids? No title or
office, or land endowment for everyone, so many young sons are cut
loose and they go into towns, clergy, or... crusades.
Also, now great families tried to create compact chunks of land, with
a large residence, and take a surname from the land or castle they
built. A self consciousness of belonging to a family or place.
Several noble levels: king and truly great nobles: people who could
operate on the kingdom wide scale. Then local powerful families... and
then knights. Knights had to find a lord to support them, to work to
find an office... or younger sons of the high status family. Nobility
was the governing class of Europe. Monopolized office holding in state
and in church. Served under kings and as a bridge between kings and
peasants. They had the ethos of Chivalry. Chival is a horse.
"Horsiness" code of conduct appropriate to men who ride and have
horses. A code of men for men, not men for women, that is later on.
Prowess. A warrior who was not a good soldier was useless. Didn't
matter if you were a 'nice guy'. You had to have battle prowess.
Loyalty, generousness, and courage. Give things freely in this world,
be brave in battle.
SONG OF ROLAND
We can see this code of conduct in the Song of Roland. The French
national epic, and we know the event that stands behind it... in 778
Charlemagne fought raiders in northern spain, and on the way back over
the pyrannes Basque terrorists stole his baggage. 300 years later that
event was chronicled in the Song of Roland (the guy guarding the
baggage). The equivalent to the action movie of the middle ages. Meant
to appeal to men and boys like that. The same demographic. Great
Roland dies, the fiancee dies of sadness right away. Long loving
descriptions of weapons- guy stuff like guys talking about their golf
clubs or cars. This is the ethos of chivalry.
THOSE WHO PRAY
The clergy (everyone prayed) but the pros here... but problem: are
monks or bishops closer to God? Well, it was some or another of the
clergy anyway. Clergy became more and more aristocratic, pulled from
aristocratic families. The noble 2nd sons of great families, again,
was one reason. Secure life, decent diet, nice place to live, enormous
prestige, good education... not bad! Very desirable career. Convents
provided opportunities for women. Women governed other women, were
educated, and acceptable alternative lifestyle to marriage... a
convent was a desirable place for many many women.
The state is Christendom, so clergy is very important. They had good
connections. Clergy shares the same values as nobility, because these
are the families they are from, and they still have uncles dads
brothers etc. there! When we encounter "worldly" clergy in literature,
we say "hmm, these clergy do not seem to be living a particularly holy
life..." well they weren't, they were sharing the culture and values
of the nobility! Living the kind of life people of their class lived!
Clergy was hierarchical, pope, bishops, priests, and encouraged that
in society, king, lords, vassals.
CLUNY AND REFORMS
In 910 a monestary was founded by William of Acquitine, free of all
lay control, even of the family who founded it, and placed under the
jurisdiction of the pope. It had abbots of enormous prestige, and it
came to exert a large amount of influence on monestaries all over
Europe. It was called Cluny. In the 10C, like Gortsau in Lorraine,
Hirtsau in Germany, Worchester, England, powerful Cluniak reforms went
around. "The essential telos of religous office is to leave, to
abandon the world and its troubles. The church should be uncoupled
from the state totally." Others from inside said, "No! Role of clergy
is to engage the world, engage the powerful and get them to change
things for the better."
1. Cistercian monks (from Cito in France) were a strict reform. "Cluny
is too worldly! Go back to the Rule of St. Benedict and follow it in
its purest form. St. Bernard of Clairveaux was the great figure from
here, in 11C.
Aramitic (Hermit) monks in Italy, France and England, really tried to
physically separate selves from the world.
Canons (who work in cathedral churches) worked to make cathedrals more
like monestaries.
Crusades had a weird fighters: a particularly medieval phenemenon:
armed knights who were monks. Knights Templars, Knights Hospitallers.
Teutonic Knights. Followed a 'Rule'.
Mendicants: begging order. Franciscans were these, people would live
without wealth, without marks of status, or prestige, worked with the
poor and sick and downtrodden. By leading blameless lives, could have
a reach that powerful, rich and worldly could not.
Mendicants: Dominicans worked with heretics and those who fell away
from the teachings of the church.
Soldier of Christ is the best medieval soldier. He who will only fight
in a good cause, fighting God's enemies. in 10C they promoted the
peace of God, "no war during Christmas or Easter, no war on Sunday, no
war in or near a Church, no war on civilians.
This legitimated the Crusades.
Well, clergy brought people face to face with God and Christianity,
the most important thing in life, on a day to day basis. That was
their primary role and cannot be displaced. They were the teachers,
and the organizers of social-religous life. They kept the calendar.
They officiated in decicive moments in peoples lives: baptism to last
rites.
THOSE WHO WORKED
The peasants. Those who worked on the land. slaves in frontier
regions, to prosperous free farmers. Many people drifted to castle
regions, to farm. Castles were put where rivers are, where church is,
cemetary (an anchor of the community in a way we forget). All that was
there, and it was nice to be there for a farmer.
Peasants were serfs sometimes, but not always. A manor was an estate
where one part was for the benefit of the manorial lord. The other
part was worked by the peasants who lived there for themselves. The
demean (for the lord) was 25-40%. So, clergy and laymen could do their
thing, and their land was worked by serfs. You have an estate and
people worked it for you, letting you do your job.
Greedy aristocrats wanted money to buy trade goods, and they then
commuted your peasants work into wages. Serfs became free in France
and England by buying with money their freedom. The lot of those who
lived in a village was not bad. They worked 250 days out of the year,
they worshipped together, and the social life was everyday. Lots of
free time for celebration, many holidays (in their holy sense) time
for market and festivals. Not that bad.
READING FOR THE NEXT LECTURE
