EUROPE 400

(outline)

The period of from the fall of Rome in the West to 1000 AD was a formative period for Western Europe, when a distinctive European culture began to develop.

Influences:

Roman Empire's legacy
- Roman laws
- Latin (basis of French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian)
- cultural legacy
- latifundia — by 300s, many Roman villas in the countryside already looked like decentralized and self-sufficient medieval manors

Germanic tribal traditions
- tribal traditions (including the early form of serfdom)
- tribal legal traditions ("common law" more dominant than Roman law in Early Middle Ages)
- tribal languages (blended with the Latin)

Early Christian (Roman Catholic) Church
- provided much of the early organization and preserved educated culture
- Organizational system taken from old Roman Empire; also preserved elements of Roman law
- Use of Latin in liturgy ensured its survival (in mutilated form)
- medieval world highly religious; much of the culture revolved around religion — Roman Catholicism gave cultural unity

The destruction of the old Roman order in the West began with the Germanic and Islamic invasions, which took place from the 300s to 700s. After the Battle of Adrianople (378) the Roman Empire was unable to resist foreign invasion: Visigoths, Huns, and Vandals repeatedly disrupted the Western empire and even sacked Rome — first in 310, and then repeatedly throughout the 300s. Germanic migration steadily intensified throughout late 4^th and 5^th centuries — Germanic tribes were themselves being pushed westward by the more eastern tribes (like the Huns).

But the barbarians, many of whom had already been Christianized, were willing to learn from Roman culture, and Latin, Roman law, and Christianity all survived the fall of the empire. The new Germanic rulers incorporated Roman and Christian elements into their ruling style — they used Latin in their royal documents and law codes. As these tribal leaders were eager to enlist the Church as an ally and gain legitimacy from it, they allowed their tribes to be Christianized, and in time came to view enforcement of the faith as one of their duties as leaders of states.

Governmental Structure: In contrasted to Byzantine, with their centralized administration and bureaucracy and with over 1500 cities, the Early Medieval West was a mess. Long-distance trade decayed under the stress of repeated invasions, as the West lost almost all contact with the Byzantine Empire and the rest of the outside world, and their towns went into decline. In this period, the only significant international institution was the church. Peasant communities looked to the strongest local leader for protection, and government began to revolve around self-sufficient manors held by local lords, abbeys, or monasteries. While kingdoms did appear in the early medieval west, true empires such as Charlemagne's were of brief duration; most early medieval kings were only "first among equals" with limited power over the other lords in their territories.

Islamic Threat: Islam became a new problem for both the Byzantines and Western Europe after 632, as a holy war was launched by the new Islamic faith. In the next century after the death of Mohammed, the Moslems conquered the eastern and southern coastlines of the Mediterranean and parts of Spain, and the Mediterranean itself was controlled by the Muslims until the 11^th century. This significantly decreased trade between the east and the west, and with it, significantly lessened contact between the Byzantines and the Western Europeans. The Moslem advance were finally stopped in the east at Constantinople by Leo III and in the West by Charles Martel at Tours (France) in 732.

During the time of the early disciples, five patriarchs (top church leaders) had been named, for each of the five key cities of the Roman Empire: Rome, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Constantinople. The fall of the Western half of the empire resulted in a divide within the Christian church as well, as the four eastern patriarchs lost touch with their colleague in Rome. The Roman patriarch, eventually known as the pope, became the central focus of the Roman Catholic church, the church of the West.

The Christian church in the West, deprived of imperial support by the fall of the Roman Empire and threatened by invasion and heretical movements, was much more under siege than the Eastern Christian (Orthodox) church, but it also had a much more dominating position in society. The Western church was weakened by the invasions, but it still had an effective administration (in the early period, the only effective administration around) and a growing army of monks, which became the backbone of the church bureaucracy.

The Western church was also dealing with a general populace which was largely peasant, and only a few generations away from being pagan barbarians. Popular superstitions and pre-Christian pagan beliefs were still very strong. The Early Western church was struggling to maintain high standards of education and morality among its priests in a time when educational facilities were scarce and organized supervision was difficult. Many priests were uneducated and some were marrying and/or having children in Early Middle Ages.

MONASTICISM: In the West, monastic institutions became a key form of religious order, one which had no counterpart in the East. Monasticism was the establishment of religious orders dedicated to withdrawal from everyday life and contemplation of God and his works. Monastic orders also became a key component in the preservation of written records, as their monks spent large amounts of time copying texts to ensure their survival, and monasteries also served as educational institutions.

Monasticism existed in the West before 500, but it given a more comprehensive code of conduct by St. Benedict of Nursia. Benedictine monks became an important force for stability in medieval society — the Benedictine code was based on study, prayer and physical labor. It required vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Monks and nuns following the Benedictine code won converts and instructed commoners in Christian catechism. Monks helped preserve written records; and their larger monasteries often fulfilled similar functions to the manors of the large lords, giving protection and employment to peasant villages.

The Roman Catholic Church worked aggressively to combat heresy and convert the people to Roman Catholicism. St. Patrick, a missionary from Gaul, began the conversion of Ireland in the 500s, and the island (which was largely spared the brunt of the invasions) which became an important monastic center. Irish monasteries in the Middle Ages were centers of intellectual activity, and were responsible for preserving a large part of the Christian and classical literary heritage. This literary heritage was preserved through the scriptoriums — centers within the monasteries where monks carefully copied not only religious texts but also classical works in order to to preserve them. The majority of classical writings which survived in the West were preserved in this manner.

Development of Papal Primacy: The patriarchs (later bishops) of Rome never accepted a Byzantine-style arrangement under which they would have to answer to a secular leader, and in the formative period of the Western church, there was no one leader powerful enough to make them. In the 5^th and 6^th centuries (the period immediately after the fall of the Roman Empire) the Roman church developed the concept of "papal primacy": the Roman pontiff (or pope) was the supreme power when it came to all matters of the church. This idea was radically different from the arrangement of the Byzantine church, which was at the same time coming to accept the leadership of the "Roman" (Byzantine) emperor in matters of both church and state — the Byzantine Emperor Justinian was at this time leading religious crusades to wipe out all manner of heretics within his realm.

The pronouncement of the Doctrine of Papal Primacy was aimed at (and meant to cover) the Eastern (Byzantine) churches as well as the Western secular governments. Although only in sporadic contact with each other, the two church systems were already becoming competitive. Roman Catholic church pointed to Jesus' words recorded in Matthew to Saint Peter (the first patriarch of Rome, from which all subsequent Roman patriarchs descend): "You are the rock upon which I will build my church." The Roman popes, who claimed spiritual descent from Peter, saw this to mean that they were in charge of the worldwide Christian church, and also by implication superior to any secular ruler. The Doctrine of Papal Primacy caused much ill will among the pope's Eastern brethren; and helped contribute to the Official Break of the Two Churches in 1054.

The first significant medieval kingdom to emerge out of the various Germanic tribes was the Kingdom of the Franks (Merovingian and Carolinian dynasties). The Franks, a Germanic people who had settled in modern-day France (hence the modern name of the country), were the first to succeed in organizing a large territorial kingdom. King Clovis (CA. 496), a dynamic leader, organized his tribe with use of the Christian religion. He was baptized as a Roman Catholic shortly after 500 and required his tribesmen to follow this religion as well. This action separated the Franks from other Germanic peoples, most of whom were Arians (a major Christian heretical movement at the time). The Franks became the champions of Roman Catholic orthodoxy; they allied themselves with the Catholic pontiff in Rome in a symbiotic relationship. The Roman pontiffs in the following centuries blessed the Frankish conquests, and helped elevate the prestige of their kings.

The Merovingian rule was known more for a series of men who held "power behind the throne," such as Charles Martel, and Pepin the Short, who founded the Carolingian Dynasty. In 730, Charles Martel stopped the Muslim advance at Tours, France. In 755, Pepin the Short drove the Lombards out of Rome, and gave the pope control over Rome and the land surrounding it, thus creating the "Papal States," an independently-run territory within the Italian area which lasted until the 19^th century and had a significant impact on European history.

From the Carolingians came the greatest Frankish king, Charles the Great, better known as Charlemagne (768-814). Charlemagne expanded the Frankish kingdom to include much of present-day France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and portions of Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Italy. Most of this territory was wrested from other German tribes; some of it was taken from Islamic or Eastern Asiatic tribes coming from central Eurasia. At his death, Charlemagne's kingdom was roughly the size of continental Europe today. Charlemagne governed the kingdom through counts responsible for maintaining local armies, collecting the taxes, and administering justice. In order to keep order, he sent out court inspectors (missi dominici) and traveled constantly himself. By the time of Charlemagne, the Catholic Church was totally dependent on the Franks for military protection against the Byzantines and the Lombards.

The pope's Coronation of Charlemagne in 800 demonstrated the symbiotic relationship that the Franks and the papacy had developed. When the Pope Leo III was hounded from the city of Rome by his enemies, the Franks under Charlemagne marched in an restored him to power and a few days later on Christmas 800, the pope crowned Charlemagne Emperor of The Roman Empire, giving him greater prestige than any other German king. The Pope deliberately used Roman titles like "emperor" and "Augustus" to give the German monarchy Roman pomp, and he also borrowed some of the coronation rituals of the Byzantines, whose emperor-crowning ceremonies had by this point become very elaborate. The Byzantines were contemptuous of Charlemagne's claim to Roman Emperorship, but they did acknowledge him as "King of the Franks." However, his empire, although promising, did not long survive his death. Charlemagne himself was a powerful enough ruler to wield some control over the growing power of the nobility, but his successors were not. During the 9^th century the Carolingian state disintegrated as the heirs became embroiled in civil war over the succession. The nobles increasingly disregarded any centralized authority and became the true sources of power, which they would remain until the return of more powerful kings in the High Middle Ages.

9^th and 10^th Century Invasions: Western Europe was further disrupted as waves of Vikings from Scandinavia, Magyars, and Saracens caused wide-scale destruction. The Vikings, ship-based raiders, conquered half of England and part of territory of modern-day France during their period of expansion in the 10^th century. Local populations came to be dependent on local strongmen for protection against raiders.

Dark Ages Society (Early Middle Ages, from the fall of Rome to about the 11^th century) was characterized by the chronic absence of effective central government, and the constant threat of either foreign invasion or famine. By the 9^th and 10^th centuries, various responses to this long-term constant threat had appeared.

In England, a united monarchy was established by King Alfred the Great, which managed to fight off the Viking attacks and slowly gain authority over the nobles.
In Italy, by contrast, independent towns became more prominent as the Carolingian dynasty waned in influence; and the towns led the resistance to Magyar and Muslim invaders. Within the towns, bishops became the principle leaders, building fortifications and collecting tolls and other taxes to pay for them. Bishops came to run the courts and defense systems within their towns; and the township government extracted concessions of self-government from outside powers.
German territories: In the eastern regions of the former Carolingian empire, where the empire had been a recent phenomenon, the earlier Germanic tribal divisions reemerged in the form of five large duchies dominated by powerful regional lords who seized the royal lands and controlled the churches in their territories. After the last Carolingian king died in 911, the German territories elected a king to coordinate common defensive measures, beginning a tradition of weak royal authority in the German states.
In the western regions of the Carolingian Empire, the new waves of invasions accelerated the decentralization of government and regional lords became the only true power; developing into a society run on completely feudal lines, with the local lords managing defensive measures and administering taxation and governmental authority. By the 12^th century, armed and mounted knights dominated offensive warfare, and defensive warfare centered on the nobility's heavily fortified stone homes or castles.

Middle Ages Society by 1000: Society was dominated by three orders: the clergy, aristocracy and peasantry; "those who pray, those who fight, those who labor." This division was seen as the divinely sanctioned order of things by 1000, but changes between 900-1350 did gradually alter this worldview. In the feudal world, the local lord became the most powerful individual in the lives of his dependents. This was a personal, face-to-face society, in which the highest virtues came to be seen as trust and fidelity. In the 6^th and 7^th centuries, individual freemen placed themselves under the protection of their more powerful neighbors. System of "vassals" grew up, in which persons exchanged their personal service for protection. The lord, to support his growing army, would grant lands ("fief") on which his vassals were to live and work. Vassalage involved promising fealty to the lord, promising to refrain from any action which might threaten his well-being, and to perform military services for him, of which the chief were military (mounted knights).

As the centuries passed, personal loyalty became a secondary concern; the primary concern of knights became the acquisition of property, and as the feudal order waned, freedmen began swearing allegiance to the highest bidder.

Feudalism: military and legal relationship between a lord and his vassals

Manorialism: Relationship between a lord and his serfs.

Feudal Society comprised of both these institutions.

Serfs: peasant farmers who attended to the lord's lands, and were subject to dues in kind (payment of a portion of the agricultural crop to the lord).

Serfs were probably not a happy people — by the Middle Ages, lords had all sorts of powers over them, including a say in whom they married and whether their children could pursue other trades than that of serfs. Since their feudal dues were in kind (a percentage of their crops), they did not really get ahead economically even in good harvest times. Serfs were not slaves (they couldn't be sold), but they couldn't leave the land. Still, serfdom was preferable to the alternate: peasants could be killed by foreign invaders, or wind up seized for lifetime service in the king's army. The Early Middle Ages presented few choices for commoners; even joining a decent monastic order required money (to help pay for your maintenance).

Middle Ages World Perspective: Beginning in the 5^th century, waves of barbarian invasions separated Western Europe from much of the rest of the world, including the Christian East. The magnitude of foreign invasions and the disruption from them is actually unsurpassed in world history. Western Europe lost much of its classical past, as many of the earlier records and learning were destroyed or forgotten. Much which survived in the West was due largely to the Catholic Church and the monks. This period of chaos and loss was one major reason for the excitement in the Renaissance — renewed contact with the Byzantines and even with the Muslims during the Crusades had brought Western European back in contact with their own classical past. Other cultures in same period were generally far more unified than was early medieval Europe.

China was far more culturally unified and centuries ahead technologically.

Japan was actually operating under a similar system, under the weak control of the Yamoto court, as samurai culture was on the rise beginning in the 9^th century.

The Islamic world was in their classical period under the Abbasid dynasty; and their culture was militarily powerful and culturally vibrant.

India, in its Gupta Age, while increasingly period; even after political fragmentation was still more culturally advanced than the West.