THE MIDDLE AGES Essential Question: What was life like during the Middle Ages?
-
Upload
clarence-roberts -
Category
Documents
-
view
217 -
download
0
Transcript of THE MIDDLE AGES Essential Question: What was life like during the Middle Ages?
What happened to Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire?
The Eastern half of the Roman Empire became the Byzantine Empire
The Western half fell to the various Germanic tribes, who created their own
kingdoms out of the former Roman territory
Europe was plunged into an era called the Middle Ages (also known as the “Dark Ages” or
“Medieval” era) from 500 to 1300
The warring between kingdoms disrupted
trade, causing business to collapseEuropean cities were
damaged by war and/or left in financial ruin
City dwellers fled to the countryside to
survive and Western Europe became
mostly rural
The warfare made life dangerous and difficult for Europeans; as a result, the finer things in life, such as
higher learning, became less important
Literacy decreased among Western
Europeans and few people could read
or write (aside from priests and rich
people); the ruling Germans had no
written language
Greco-Roman culture was mostly
forgotten in Western Europe
Europe lost its common language; Latin mixed with German dialects and evolved into new languages,
such as Spanish, French, and Italian
Germanic Tribes in the Middle Ages
Without the unity of the
Roman Empire, Europe became divided into a
series of Germanic kingdoms
Germanic people lived in small communities led by
chiefs and his loyal warriors
Family ties and personal loyalty (face-to-face) were
more important than citizenship to a state or
loyalty to a king that they had never even met
Rather than living by written law (like the Romans), the Germans were guided by
unwritten laws and tradition
During the early Middle Ages, the
Germanic kingdoms were
slowly converted to Christianity
The Spread of Christianity
The Catholic Pope became involved in secular (non-religious) issues like road repair, aiding the poor,
and helping Christian kings expand their power
The Spread of Christianity
The Spread of Christianity The Franks were the largest and most powerful of the Germanic kingdoms in the early Middle Ages
Frankish kings allied with the Catholic Church and expanded their power
Charlemagne was the greatest Medieval
king because he did something no other Medieval king was
able to do: create an organized empire
Throughout the Frankish
Empire, Charlemagne
spread Christianity
He created schools to train future priests
He valued learning and built schools in his empire
After Charlemagne’s death in 814, his
Frankish Empire lost power and was divided
This was the last opportunity to provide
unity in Medieval Europe; that opportunity died with Charlemagne
From 800 to 1000, a second major wave of invasions struck Europe; the first wave of attacks was by
Germanic barbarians that took over Western Rome
This second wave of invasions was led by the Vikings, the Muslims, and the Magyars
These invasions caused widespread fear and suffering
Western Europe’s kings could not defend against these invaders
People stopped looking to kings for
protection
The way that people got protection from outside invaders was by turning to local lords
and noblemen instead of the nation’s king
Feudalism is based on land
ownership and loyalty
This began a new political
and social system called
feudalism
Landowning lords offer
pieces of land (called a “fief”)
to knights
In exchange, knights offer
lords their loyalty and a promise to
protect the lord and his land
Lords (also called nobles) were the
upper-class landowners; they
had inherited titles (such as
“Duke,” “Earl,” “Sir”) and held the
most power in feudal society
The most powerful lords
had lesser lords who worked for them; these less powerful lords
were called vassals
In the feudal system, kings
were the highest-ranking lords and had wealth and
land, but actually did not hold the ultimate powerIn the Middle
Ages, power was spread out and shared among
numerous lords, not concentrated
with a single monarch
Knights were specially trained
soldiers and armored horsemen who protected the lords and peasants
in exchange for land
Some peasants were serfs; they were not slaves who could be
bought and sold, but they were not
free, either
They had to farm, do all types of
physical labor in service to their lords, and could
not leave the land freely
In return for their service, the serfs could farm a few acres for themselves and were given
protection from outside invaders (such as Vikings)
The lord’s land was called a manor
During the Middle Ages, the manorial system was the way in which people survived
In exchange, peasants repaid
the lord by working his land and providing a portion of the
food they produced
The Manorial System
However, peasant life was hard: the
days were filled by tough physical labor,
they paid taxes to use the lord’s mill (to
make bread for themselves), and
had to get the lord’s permission for most
things, including getting married
Peasant life was also short: the
average life expectancy of
common folk in the Middle Ages was only 35 years old
Both the attackers and the defenders
of a castle would use the most modern weaponry of the time to
fight each other