IES FRAY PEDRO DE URBINA. GEO. AND HISTORY DEPARTMENT

FEUDALISM

1.The feudalism in Europe.Feudalism is the political, economic and social system of the Middle Ages.The feudal system was born in the ninth century, due to the lack of safety that followed the death of Charlemagne (814). This insecurity was caused by fighting between the successors of the emperor, Muslim attacks in the Mediterranean and a new wave of invaders in central Europe.Kings, unable to protect their territory, relied on the powerful nobles, who swore them loyalty and military aid in exchange for concessions.Farmers also sought the protection of the nobles, giving them their land or work in return.

1.1. Social system: A stratified society.Stratified society was divided into three estates or social groups to which they belonged by birth, except the clergy. Each estate was on a role in society:- The nobility defended the society. It was divided into the high nobility, who was formed by the direct vassals of the king (dukes, counts, marquises and barons) and lower nobility, consisting of lesser nobles who could keep a horse and weapons of war.- The clergy prayed for the salvation of men. It consisted of the secular clergy and regular clergy. The secular clergy consisted of bishops and parish priests, who lived with people. The higher clergy enjoyed numerous rents and had a way of life similar to the nobles, while the lower clergy lived more poorly. The regular clergy consisted of abbots and abbesses, who belonged to the high clergy, and monks and nuns. They lived communally in a monastery and had to obey the rules of each order. The monks followed vows of obedience, poverty and chastity. Their life was based on prayer and manual work in infirmary, guesthouse, book illumination and agricultural tasks.

- The third estate –commoners- were mostly peasants and worked to maintain the other two groups, together with a few artisans and merchants. Farmers were divided into villains - free people who could freely leave the manor- and the serfs -they could not leave the manor and they conveyed their status to their children-.

1.2. Economic system: the fief.The feudal economy was agrarian. The work was done in the fiefs or manors, which were large territories belonging to the king, the nobility and clergy.The fief was divided into the following parts: the castle where the feudal lord resided, the plots -ceded lord’s lands to the peasants- and the demesne –lord’s land worked by serfs-. There were also commons -pasture lands and forests where people got firewood and cattle feed- and the village, a town where peasants lived and in which the church, the workshops, the furnace, the mill and the market were located. Only a few peasants had the property of the land, those lands were called allodiums.The fiefs were self-sufficient, ie. producing everything people needed to live. They obtained food farming land with undeveloped techniques and few instruments like the Roman plow, the sickle, the hoe and the scythe.Some facilities, such as the mill, oven, or bridges, were owned by the lord and the peasants had to pay taxes to use them.Trade was very scarce, and performed by street merchants who plied the manors.

1.3. The political system: the feudal regime.In feudal times, all the people were bound together by ties of personal dependence. But these relationships were different, depending on the membership of one of the groups.- The feudal-vassal relations were established between the king and the nobles and high churchmen, and between these and other lesser nobles. These pacts were a military alliance in exchange for economic concessions and included two elements: vassalage and the fief.

The vassalage of a knight was made by the homage and the investiture, a ceremony that took place in the tower of the lord’s castle. The homage was the prostration of the vassal, usually on knees, the osculum or ritual kiss, the inmixtio manum –vassal’s hands, united in prayer position, were caught between the lord’s ones- and a sentence pronounced by the lord recognizing that vassalage. After the homage, it took place the investiture, representing the granting of a fief by the lord through the delivery of a symbol of the territory –a handful of dirt, grass or grain- and the accolade, in which the vassal received a sword and a knock on his shoulders with her.The fief was a large extension of land, and included rights to govern, administer justice and collect taxes from its inhabitants.- The stately relations were established between the peasants and the lords. The peasants received protection from the lords. In return, the lords took possession of their lands and they had rights as issue orders, collect taxes and administer justice.

2. The Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula.We called Reconquista to the military activity carried out by Christians over the territory occupied by the Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula between 722 (Covadonga battle) until 1492 (conquest of Granada). The conqueror progress was followed by a process of land occupation, known as settlement.

2.1. Resistance cores’ birthIn the north of the peninsula there were people who had not been dominated by the Visigoths and were not willing to be controlled by the Muslims: Asturians, Cantabrians and Basques. On the other hand, in the Pyrenees people did not accept the Arab domination and formed small counties, while in the east, Charlemagne established the border of his empire, the Hispanic March. These territories formed a core of resistance against the power of Islam.The Asturian core, born in the mountains of Asturias, had his first act of resistance at the Battle of Covadonga (722), where directed by Don Pelayo

astures defeated a little Arab army. From this first nucleus of resistance, the kingdom of Asturias arose in the eighth century.The Basque core was born in the Navarre Pyrenees and took advantage from its position between the two great powers of Arabs and Franks to resist and remain independent. The kingdom of Pamplona was formed there in the early ninth century.In the central area of the Pyrenees were several pockets of resistance against the Arabs and the most powerful of them managed to form a county and later transformed it into a kingdom, the kingdom of Aragon.The eastern part of the Pyrenees was occupied by the Franks, interested in controlling a territory that separated them from the danger of Arab invasion: the Hispanic March. The monarch gave fiefs to their vassals to defend the territory of the invading danger. Eventually one of these counties, the county of Barcelona, became the most powerful of the whole region and independent.The first expansion and settlement of the Christians took place in these territories near the Cantabrian Range and the Pyrenees between the ninth and tenth centuries, through catching up: they occupied abandoned lands and gave them to farmers to cultivate, they wanted to encourage landless poor people to risk living in unoccupied territories near the Muslim frontier.

2.2. The beginning of the conquest and repopulationThe eleventh century saw the division of the Caliphate of Córdoba in multiple Taifa kingdoms facing each other and the Christian kingdoms and counties take advantage of this weakness to impose the payment of annual taxes (parias). Muslim rulers become vassals of Christians and their territories, areas of future conquest. The great Christian kingdoms consolidated. The Kingdom of Castile and León, united by Ferdinand I, enlarges its territory and this policy is continued by Alfonso VI, occupying Toledo (1085). Finally, Castilians invaded the lands between the Douro and Tagus rivers. Meanwhile, the kingdoms of Navarre, Aragon and the Catalan counties, under the command of the Count of Barcelona, took advantage of the weakness of the Taifa kingdoms moving forward the Ebro river.

Christian settlement in the eleventh century was based on big councils: it means the creation of councils, communities of town and land, where people are encouraged to go to live; for this they are granted with privileges, written in charters (charter of Miranda, 1099).

2.3. Conquest and repopulation in the twelfth centuryThe twelfth century saw great political and territorial changes: the Castilian - Leonese kingdom settled in the valley of the Tagus, the County of Portugal got its independence as a kingdom and from the crown of Aragon, Alfonso I the Battler conquered the valley of the Ebro, projecting the future invasion of the Balearic Islands and Valencia Taifas.After the death of Alfonso I, inherited the throne of Aragon his brother Ramiro II the Monk, who arranged the marriage of his daughter Petronila with the count of Barcelona, Ramon Berenguer IV (1137). The union of Aragon and the Catalan counties allowed to add their military forces, starting a great territorial expansion that completed the conquest of the present territories of Catalonia and Aragon remaining still in the hands of Muslims.In this period, repopulation was organized by the military orders, dedicating large areas to pasture for sheep (it needs little labor, they could be taken in case of attack).

2.4. Conquest and repopulation in the thirteenth centuryIn the early thirteenth century, a Christian army, composed of troops from the kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, Navarre and Portugal, caused a great defeat to the Almohads in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212). After the Christian victory, both Castilla and Aragon quickly progressed to the South, Castilians along the valleys of the Guadiana and Guadalquivir: first with Alfonso IX, who conquered Cáceres (1229) and Badajoz (1230), and later with Ferdinand III, who unified Castile and León definitely and reached to conquer almost all Andalusia except the kingdom of Granada (conquest of Seville in 1248); and James I the Conqueror, King of Aragon and Catalonia, will conquer the whole area of Valencia (1238) and the Balearic islands.

The Castilian - Leonese kings continued their policy of territorial expansion southward until the fourteenth century: Alfonso XI beat benimerines at the Battle of Salado (1340) River and conquered Algeciras (1344), ending any possibility that could produce a new North African invasion.The repopulation of the lands conquered by the Crowns of Aragón and Castilla is done by the distribution model, which was to divide the Muslim properties among the conquerors of the city.In the late thirteenth century, only lasted the Muslim kingdom of Granada, which declared itself vassal of Castile and subjected to taxes.

3. The Romanesque art.The Romanesque is the first international style of Europe, appearing in the mid- eleventh century and developed in the twelfth century, but in the second half of this century will coexist with the Gothic.In its dissemination they played an important role the Benedictine order, which adopted this style in the monastery of Cluny (France) and from there it spread to other monasteries Europe across; the crusades; the pilgrimages to holy sites and the existence of gangs or teams of masons and sculptors, moving between various European regions.

3.1. Romanesque architectureThe main characteristics of Romanesque architecture are the use of stone as the main material, the supports with thick walls, columns and pillars; round (semicircular) arches and naves covered with a barrel vault reinforced by arches or groin vault.The vaults are heavy, so the buildings have thick walls reinforced with buttresses on the outside, few windows and dark interiors.The church was the main building of the Romanesque: the plant used to be cruciform, a Latin cross composed of one, three or five naves separated by arches, and a header consisting of several semicircular apses.The pilgrimage churches had a gallery or second floor on the side naves to accommodate more faithful and illuminate the central nave, and a

semicircular ambulatory surrounding the main altar which allowed pilgrims circle the church without disrupting the Mass.

3.2. Romanesque sculpture and paintingMost Romanesque sculptures and paintings were made to adorn the churches, which served the function of teaching doctrine to the Christian people, mostly illiterate, through images. This feature explains that the figures are rigid and impassive, they have an eternal and timeless character and do not seek beauty and realism, but expressiveness.The subjects represented are the life of Christ and scenes from the Bible. Also shown are the lives of the saints, virtues and sins and, above all, the topics on the end of the world: the Final Judgment, presided over by the Pantocrator.

3.2.1. Sculpture.The sculpture applied to architecture stood at the front entrance and in the capitals of churches and cloisters. They are naive and crude reliefs that fit the frame that contains them, tending to occupy the entire space.The free-standing sculpture was done in polychrome wood or ivory. It represents normally crucified Christ or the Virgin. Christ appears on the cross with four nails, long robe and no expression of feeling or pain. The Virgin is represented as the throne of God, seated, holding the child on her knees.

3.2.2. Mural and table painting.The painting was done on the interior walls of churches or covered with layers of plaster boards. They are characterized by the use of a thick black drawing, flat and uniform colors or the lack of interest to represent the volume of the figures or the depth of space.

4. Glossary. Apse: part of the church at the head usually semicircular and with a

quarter sphere vault.

Belt arch: each of the arches along the barrel vault used to hold it. Vault: curved roof, which is supported by walls, pillars or columns. Crusades: military expeditions undertaken by Christian armies to take

control of the Holy Land (Jerusalem). Military Orders: organizations which combined military and religious life.

They had arisen in the East during the Crusades and were developed in the Spanish kingdoms.