The document provides an overview of the Middle Ages in Europe from 500-1400 AD. It summarizes key events and developments, including the rise of the Franks under Clovis; the expansion of the Carolingian Empire under Charlemagne; the growth of feudalism and manorialism; the Norman conquest of England; the signing of the Magna Carta; the rise of powerful monarchies in France and England; the Crusades; the Black Death plague; and cultural and architectural developments like Gothic cathedrals and vernacular literature.

1. Chapter 10
The Middle Ages
500 – 1400s

2. Technically…
 Early Middle Ages
 500-1000s
 High Middle Ages
 1000-1400s

3. The Early Middle Ages
 Sparsely populated, dense forests,
rich soil, etc.
 From 400-700 Germanic tribes
carved Western Europe into small
kingdoms
 Franks – strongest kingdom
 Clovis, king of the Franks
 Conquers Gaul
 Ruled lands like the
Franks, but preserves
Roman legacy
 Converted to Christianity
(religion of people in Gaul)
 Earns support AND
gains the Christian
Church of Rome as an
ally

5. Painting of Clovis being baptized

6. Battle of Tours - 732
 Islam appears in 622
 Muslim armies overrun
Christian lands
 Palestine – N. Africa – Spain
 When Muslim enter
France, Charles Martel
rallies Frankish warriors
 Christians triumph – sign that
“God is on their side”
 Muslims are stopped and
only overrun Spain
 Christians view Muslim world
with hostility

8. Charlemagne
 Grandson of Charles
Martel
 Built an empire across
France, Germany, and part
of Italy
 Loved battle
 Muslims in Spain, Saxons in
the North, Avars and Slavs in
the east, Lombards in Italy
 Conquests reunite much of
the old Roman Empire

9.  Pope Leo III asks Charlemagne
to help against rebellious nobles
in Rome
 Frankish armies crush the
rebellion
 Pope crowns Charlemagne on
Christmas day, 800, to show his
gratitude
 Declares Charlemagne –
Emperor of the Romans (why is
this so significant?)
 **Christian Pope crowns a
German king successor to the
Roman emperors
 Also sets up conflicts between
Roman Catholic popes and
German emperors

10. •Eastern Empire is Furious
•Ruler of the Eastern Roman
Empire saw himself as the Roman
ruler
**Furthers division between the
eastern and western regions of
the old Roman empire

11.  Uses officials to make sure people are
happy (roads, complaints, justice, etc)
 Missi dominici
 Charlemagne can read, but can’t write
 Alcuin creates curriculum based on Latin
learning
 becomes the model educational system for
Medieval Europe
 Extends Christian civilization to Northern
Europe

12. Roaming threats
 Muslim forces threaten
thru 900s
 Magyars
 settle in Hungary and
plunder Germany, ½
France, and Italy
(eventually pushed back to
Hungary)
 Vikings
 stretch out from
Scandinavia and attack
England, Ireland, N.
France, Russia, N.
America, etc.

14. Feudalism and
Manorialism
 Feudalism – political
and military
 Manorialism -
economic
 Vassals – pledge
service and loyalty to
greater lord

16. Happenings in the Kingdom of England
 King Edward (Anglo-Sax) dies
 Harold (weak guy) put in charge
 William of Normandy (strong leader, of Viking
descent)
 Raises an army and gets pope’s support
 William triumphs and defeats Harold
 William the Conqueror!
 Norman (French) influence
 Battle of Hastings
 Bayeux Tapestry

17. King William (the Conqueror)
 Required feudal allegiance
 Domesday Book – listed every castle, field
and pigpen in England
 Helped with efficient tax collection
 Royal exchequer – royal treasury

18. Unified Legal System
 King Henry II
 1154 – common law – legal system based on
custom and court rulings and applied to all of
England
 Created a jury – group of men sworn to speak
the truth

19. King Henry and Thomas Becket
 King Henry – claimed the right to try clergy in
royal courts
 Thomas Becket – Archbishop of Canterbury,
fiercely disagreed with the king
 “what a pack of fools and cowards I have
nourished, that not one of them will avenge me
of this turbulent priest”
 4 knights kill Thomas Becket for King Henry
 Becket’s honored as a martyr and saint,
pilgrimage destination

20. King John the Soft
 King John – clever, greedy, cruel,
untrustworthy
 Not a people person
 War with Philip II – loses French lands
 Gives into Innocent III to avoid kingdom
wide excommunication, has to recognize
England as a fief to Rome.

21. Magna Carta
 1215 at Runnymeade, 63 demands
 Magna Carta – Great Charter
 Due Process of Law
 Free men are protected from arbitrary arrest
and imprisonment
 Taxation
 King can’t raise taxes without consulting the
Great Council
 No taxation without representation

22. MC’s significance
 1. nobles now
have certain rights
(later extended to
all citizens)
 2. monarch must
obey the law (and
the charter)

23. Great Council
 House of Commons (2 knights from each
county)
 House of Lords
 King summons this parliament for his own
purpose
 Serve as a checks and balance

24. Onto France!
 Capetians –
 Hugh Capet – 987 – Count of
Paris, voted to the throne
 300+ years Capets rule –
“Capetians”
 Gains support from Church

25. Philip Augustus (Philip II)
 Shrewd, able, bald, red-face, big drinker
 Pays middle class officials to fill government
officials (buys their support)
 Normandy and Anjou from England
 Gains S. France
 By his death in 1223, Philip II is most powerful
ruler in Europe

26. Louis IX
 Perfect medieval monarch
 Becomes king at 12
 Generous noble devoted
justice and charity
 Persecuted heretics and
Jews, led the French knights
in 2 wars against the
Muslims
 Roving officials checkout the
countryside
 Dies in 1270 – France has
an efficient central
government
 Declared a saint 30 years
after death

27. Philip IV
 Louis’s grandson
 Extends royal power (good), tries to
tax the clergy (not so good)–
 Pope Boniface VIII – not happy
about tax
 “God has set popes over kings and
kingdoms”
 Forbids Philip to tax the clergy
without papal consent
 Philip threatens arrest clergy who
don’t pay their taxes
 Philip sends troops and they seize
the pope
 Pope Boniface VIII – escapes, but
was beaten badly and dies
 French pope is appointed
 New pope moves the church court
to Avignon

29. Estates General
 Created in 1302
 3 parts – clergy, nobles, townspeople
 Body of people that have a say in the
government
 NOT AS POWERFUL as the English
Parliament (Great Council) because
Estates General has no control of taxation

30. Holy Roman Empire
 Otto I of Saxony – King of Germany
 Helps pope out
 962 – crowned as Holy Roman Emperor
 Holy – crowned by the pope
 Roman – heir to the emperors of ancient
Rome
 Pope Gregory VII – banned lay
investiture
 Only Pope can appoint bishops
 HRE Henry IV
 Disagreement with GregoryVII because
he thinks the HRE should appoint
bishops to their royal fiefs
 Concordat of Worms – 1122
 Church has sole pwr to elect and invest
bishops w/spiritual authority; emperor has
right to invest them with fiefs

31. The official crown!!

32. HRE ~1200

33. The Crusades
 Byzantine emperor
Alexius I asks Pope
Urban II for Christian
knights to help him fight
the Turks
 Muslim groups were
interfering with Christian
pilgrimages to the Holy
Land
 Urban II
 “an accursed race…has
violently invaded the lands
of those Christians and has
depopulated them by
pillage and fire”

34. God wills it!
 1096 – armies of knights, and
ordinary men and women all left
for the Holy Land
 Motivations
 Religious zeal
 Hopes of wealth and land
 Adventure
 Pope – hoped to heal the split
between Roman and Byzantine
churches
 Hoped Christian knights would
no longer waste time fighting
each other
 Many Crusades – Round 1, 2, 3,
etc.

37.  Over 200 years – roughly 1095-
1290s
 1st Crusade – massacre of Muslim
and Jewish residents of Jerusalem
 Saladin (Muslim) retook Jerusalem
 Results and effects of the
Crusades:
 Fail to conquer the Holy Land
 Increased trade
 Middle Eastern products introduced to
Europe
 Growth of a money economy
 Increased power for monarchs and the
Pope
 Global awareness
 1271 Marco Polo to China

38. Reconquista in Spain
 Christian campaign to drive
the Muslims out of Spain,
attack Toledo
 Isabella of Castile marries
Ferdinand of Aragon
 Unity of two pwrful kingdoms
opens the way for a unified
state
 End of religious toleration for
Christians, Jews, and Muslims
 Initiate the Spanish Inquisition
– Church court set up to try
people accused of heresy
 Brutal against Muslims and
Jews – many burned at the
stake when they refuse to
convert to Christianity

39. Painting of the Reconquista

40. The Inquisition

42. Medieval Architecture
 The Romanesque Church
– fortresses with thick
walls and towers
 Barrel vault (long tunnel of
stone covering most of the
structure)
 So heavy it required thick
walls
 No windows to keep walls
strong
 Dark and gloomy

44. Gothic Architecture
 Flying buttresses – stone
supports outside the church
 Allow builders to construct
higher walls and leave space for
huge stained-glass windows
 Could be very tall
 Graceful spires, lofty ceilings,
enormous windows – carry the
eye upward to the heavens
 Monuments are built to the
“greater glory of God”
 Make you feel very small,
emphasize power and grandeur
of God

48. Notre Dame

49. Flying buttresses - Chartres

51. Vernacular
 Vernacular
 Epics
 Dante’s Divine Comedy
 Abandon all hope, ye that enter here
 Beowulf
 Song of Roland
 Canterbury Tales

52. Growth of Trade and Banking
 Agricultural advancements –
 Cause population increase and surplus of food (allows for
urbanization to occur)
 Windmills, iron plow, horse replaced oxen, 3 field system
 Urban Growth – more specialized manufacturing and
commercial activities
 Increases trade
 Creation of Guilds
 Apprentice, journeyman, etc.
 Prevents monopoly
 Quality control
 Development of banking system
 Lending money
 Receipts and regional systems
 Joint business ventures
 Invest in supplies and pool resources, limits risks since land and sea
travel is dangerous

53.  Created to organize trade between cities in
Northern Germany and Southern Scandinavia Hanseatic
 with no navies to protect their travels, they
band together for safety and successful
trade
League
 1344 Hanseatic League is recognized as a
loose trade association
 Seal of Lubeck, colors – red and white
 Extortion of trading privileges, very controlling,
created monopolies whenever possible
 Trading: timber, pitch, turpentine, iron, copper,
horses, livestock, hawks and falconry for
hunting, fish (cod and herring), leather, hides,
amber, and textiles
 Convert to Christianity
 Lubeck, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Stockholm,
Novgorod, Tallin, etc.
 1370 – pinnacle of Hansa power
 After 1450 – England forces the sound open,
and diminishes Hansa power in the Baltic,
league declines, Ivan the Terrible closes
Hansa office in Novgorod

56.  Venetian Merchants
 Reached their pinnacle after the 4th Crusade
 Sent a fleet of Venetian vessels to Constantinople during the
Crusades (does this sound weird to you?)
 Loot and pillage Constantinople
 Rule the city for the next 50 years
 End of Constantinople’s domination in Eurasian trade – they’ll never
be the dominant one again
 Become the center of trade in W. Europe (they will continue to
increase and succeed into the Renaissance)

57. Troubled 1300’s
 Famine and crop failure already rampant
 Makes everyone more susceptible to the
plague

58. PLAGUE!
 1347 – a Genoese trading ship brings the
plague to Messina, Sicily
 Italy to Spain to France and Germany –
one in three people died
 Originated in Asia and spread to the
Middle East to Europe
 India depopulated; Mesopotamia, Syria and
Armenia covered with dead bodies
 Cairo – 7,000 dead bodies a day

59.  Yersinia pestis
 Bacillus lives in bloodstream of an animal or
in the stomach of a flea
 Ideal host? The Black Rat – traveled on
ships
 Two forms – bubonic and pneumonic
 Bubonic – flea is the vector
 Pneumonic – direct human contact

60.  Streets were cesspools
 Mud, refuse, human excrement
 Personal hygiene – everyone had fleas
and body lice so flea bites were perfectly
normal
 Aristocratic families all slept in one room
together
 Middle-class or poor households often
slept in one bed

61. Symptoms
 1st Stage
 A growth the size of a nut or an
apple emerged in the armpit, groin
or neck (lymph nodes)
 Boil “buba” – gave the disease its
name
 Caused agonizing pain
 If lanced and drained victim has a
chance
 2nd Stage
 black spots or blotches appear
from bleeding under the skin
 3rd and Final Stage
 Victim begins to cough violently
and spit blood
 Death usually followed within two
to three days

64. Social Effects
 People didn’t understand the science behind
how the disease spread…so,
 Terror and bewilderment spread
 Magic and witchcraft
 Profound pessimism
 Wild pleasures – we’ll die soon anyway
 Flagellants – scourged and whipped themselves
as penance for their and society’s sins
 People fled from city centers

65. The Decameron
 Giovannia Boccaccio

66. Hundred Years War
 1337-1453 (Actually 116 years)
 England v. France
 Edward III of England claimed the French
crown in 1337 and war erupted
 English victories at first, France suffered
greatly
 Thank you longbow (3 for 1)

67. Joan of Arc
 1429 – 17 year old peasant woman
appears in the court of Charles VII the
uncrowned king of France
 Tells Charles God sent her to save
France
 Persuades him to allow Joan to lead
his armies against the English
 Joan inspires the troops and leads
them to several victories
 English capture her, try her as a witch,
burn her at the stake
 Church later declares her as a saint
 Joan’s execution rallies French troops
 French have the cannon!

68. Effects?
 War created growing
sense of nationalism
 Longbow and cannon
 Warfare changing
 Move towards nation
states versus feudalism