Feudalism

Term that describes a government system that is a a military form of organization

Invasions

• ruins of the Romans, leaves people of the time stumped on how they did it

• People would remain very local, not a lot of traveling

• with the collapse of roman authority there is a need of local and rapid defense→ at war with outsiders and each other

• 

  • too busy being at war with each other so there is no surplus and therefore can be no cities

• 800-1100 CE Europe is under constant attack

  • East- Magyars; hailing from Asia- liked Europe and the climate so they converted to christianity, made a deal with the Pope, and settled down→ later becomes the Hungarian People.

    • Their arrival caused immense fear

  • South- Moors- the Islamic control over Spain

  • North- Vikings- Pagans; most threatening and violent for europe; not looking to stay but rather looking to raid and thieve

    • Viking Ship- low drag= very very fast and it can sail very far up river into Europe mainland

    • leaves villages in ruins and leaves people in absolute terror

    • Strikes hard and fast

  • There is no emperor or kings to defend you

• Deep roots from the Barbaric Invasion (Germanic Peoples)- would really start to flower

  • had a lot of military power

  • there was a lot of kinship that would keep them local

  • loved fighting - Comitas- war bands that would lead to the development of titles and noble hierarchy

  • they would assign monetary value to crimes- not a legal system but they would present criminal to the Committals and if the criminal could not pay there’d be a blood feud→ “Feudal Europe”

Infeudation

nobles would have the resources to defend leading to the common people having to ask for protection

Germanic people would develop the idea of Lord and Vassal- essentially a knight that was promised land and payment for pledging himself to the safety and protection of the people-

• Eventually anybody in a position of authority would hire a Vassal to protect their property

• Fief- the name of the land granted to the knight they didn’t necessarily own as payment but he’d have totally control over; less than 10% of people controlled europe leaving almost no room for social mobility

• Social Implication- Vassals would be exempt from taxes because they will be seen as already having paid their taxes in blood→ social hierarchy!

Manorialism

The Manor and the Three Field System

• Spring field- barley and beans

• Autumn Field- wheat and rye

• Fallow Field- gives the pther fields a break

Three Field System allows for some form of stability in economics and allowed the people of the time to maximize production without exhausting the fields’ resources

Serfs- in return for protection, people surrendered to the Lord and worked the property→ not slavery but one could not leave, marry, or buy property without the Permission of the Lord. People were very locked into the land theyr worked→ very narrow horizons

• Nobody is exempt form work - even women working the property

• Overall people at this time live very hard, short lives→ Feast Days in the Catholic Church is really all these people have to look forward to (irony in every time they would think they could’t keep going there’d be a feast day :/ )

Towns

they are essentially big targets for invaders and it is very hard for towns to exist- in their revival you will start to slowly see a surplus due to improvements in different areas

Improvements in Agriculture

contributes to actual surplus and eventually market

Revival of Trade

development of merchants and peddlers- eventually they will want to settle down and have people come to them leading to ⬇

Development of Town/ Burg

people would start to settle down, develop a wall for protection from invaders

as the town grows they would either have to move the walls or add more walls, these additions being called Suburbs

• NOT sanitary WHATSOEVER- no plumbing and a lot of animals running around- lots of illnesses developing from poor sanitation

Guild System

they would negotiate with he nobles to be free of servile positions- If you can get to a town and live there for a year and a day (366 days) and the people accepted you, you can be free of the manor→ Status of Townspeople→ helps in the decline

Guilds would monopolize various crafts and there would be a lot of different types

these people are gonna develop more trade

Social function: they will help with he social welfare of the town (if a parent dies his orphans are taken care of )

Role of the Church

almost NO spiritual market- there is one option and that is the catholic church; the catholic church is the mediator between heaven and earth→ Spiritual Monopoly, church is EXTREMELY powerful

Sacraments

The physical acts that through these God dispenses his grace- people of the time believe that without these you are absolutely going to hell

1. baptism

2. communion

3. confirmation

4. last rights

5. marriage

6. holy order

7. penance

Transubstantiation- the bread is no longer bread, it is the literally body of Jesus; the wine is no longer wine, it is the literal blood of Jesus→ ONLY the church can give it to you and without it you go to hell 😦

Eucharist- the service where communion and effectively Transubstantiation happens s

Charity

administered through the Catholic church whenever there is a crisis

other than that if you were born poor you died poor→ really hammering in the concept of no social mobility aren’t we, Prof Bishop :/

Education

• any education that existed at this time was administered by the church- administered BY the Clergy and FOR the Clergy

• Literacy rate is 1-3% of these people

• Serfs will almost never be educated as they wont need it for the work they do

• Because education was administered here in the church, the Catholic church will become the site of education for Europe and will be a center where clergies learn to read

Cathedral

Church services is conducted in Latin- not many people speak Latin at all… welp 😃

3-5% of people (the elites) can read and speak Latin

Cathedrals are not designed to be understood and heard acoustically but rather designed to draw the eye up towards heaven~ atmosphere is off the hook man

Chartres Cathedral and Others

• Evidence of how people learned in church when they couldn’t understand the Latin language or text in the Stain Glass Widows

• Architecture is physically imposing and inspires awe in the people- emphasis on the might of God

Problems in the Church

Popes required to take the Vows of Poverty and Chasity- neither of these were taken seriously

Monastic Communities

• Secular clergy- lives and works among the people; work to make sure the church is getting its sacraments

  • Historically less corrupt- not impossible tho

  • lived among the poverty and low horizons so often more sincere and faithful

• Regular Clergy- lived IN the monastic communities/ monasteries

  • IDEALLY their job is prayer; pray for the community, for protection and for the people and so on- seldom the reality :/

  • these ornate monasteries were organized by the elites so they could send their sons to lavish living places to get their Clergy education away from the eyes of the public to basically do what they want

Investiture Controversy

• the wealthy elites of society would own the land and would therefore claim they should be able to pick the Clergy

  • Popes would go against this saying who better knows the will of God than them and that they were supposed to pick the clergy

• Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085) tells Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV he can no longer pick the clergy so Henry says that he’s the king and that Pope Gregory needs to go ahead and retire. Pope Gregory says “Fine….. EXCOMMUNICATED!!” and kicks King Henry out the church until he succeeds and is let back in

  • this essentially dissolves secular clergy

  • is the pope’s power checked? sure……. but also not really

Intellectual Trends

Revival of the greek philosophy

Aristotle’s philosophy would start to reemerge but would be guarded by the Church due to it being seen as sinful because it was written by Pagans so the Church would deem them forbidden- makes them THAT much more appealing 😏

Scholasticism

• Scholastics wanted a rational measurable base to Christianity, claimed that faith alone is not rational or good enough

• would hold Scholarly debates on the Bible and site very high authorities to prove things

• Thomas Aquinas (1225- 1274) believed that Christianity is the only logical religion that makes sense for a rational observer, but that faith alone is too big of a leap of faith and that using logic and reason for your faith lesson that leap of faith so much less

  • you don’t have to accept the Bible blindly but thinking and reasoning through it brings you closer to trusting God overall

The Crusades

Series of expeditions by western Europe to try and attempt to spread Christianity- very dark times

The Great Schism of 1054

After the fall of Charlemagne’s Empire there would be a lot of defects to the Eastern Orthodox making the Western Catholic church felt that they were losing their grip on authority

the roman pope and the eastern patriarch would excommunicate each other creating the final split and effectively

Causes

• Pope Urban II (1088-99) would see the Orthodox church losing its grip in modern day turkey and would therefore want to set themselves up as the heroes to rescue the souls of the people

• they would wants reclaim the holy land of Jerusalem and then the excuse of the great Schism of reuniting the churches

• Byzantine Emperor requests a little bit of help to defend the empire against muslim soldiers and Pope Urban is gonna take the opportunity to defeat the “infidels” and reclaim Jerusalem

• Pope encourages the warring states of Europe to take out their violent energy out on the muslim faith rather than each other- knights will WHOLE HEARTEDLY believe this is the will of God

• They will successfully take Jerusalem based purely off of enthusiasm in 1099

• Have a reputation of being incredibly violent, blood thirsty and barbaric

The eastern Orthodox are gonna be appalled and thing of the Roman catholic Church as barbaric (Roman Catholic are the Alabama fans on iron bowl day and Eastern orthodox are the Auburn fans just tryna live in peace 😢)

Effects

• now that the west has access to ports and the larger world market, this will lead to the slow rebuild of the European economy

• The relationship between Christians and Muslims deteriorated and has never recovered- various high and low points historically but this time was the massive nosedive

• Jewish persecution went off the charts- the Roman Catholics would see the Jews in Europe and because this was framed as the “War against Infidels” they would slaughter Jews in Europe

  • this would lead to the creation of a lot of harmful stereotypes and lies about the Jewish people that would become a part of Christian culture and would be the used throughout history as a justification for persecution

Crisis of the 14th Century

Europe is facing systemic crisis- they going through it man

the economic, and political system is changing and the church has lost its mind

Famine and Black Death

• climate at the time has become colder and wetter→ shorter growing season→ famine; European systems are not stable enough to to accommodate a massive plague

• The black death would appear in the 1340s

• The fleas bites the rats, get their blood and contaminate other rats. When all the rats died off in massive numbers the fleas would make the jump to humans and infect them

• One Symptom was the growth of a massive Bubo that could be drained to possibly save you; alternative symptom is black splotches of internal bleeding below the skin

• RAPID spread, population of Europe would decrease by 30-60% D:

• (he’s gonna harp a LOT on the “healthy one day and sick the next” and the “abandoning the sick family member to save the others”)

• there would be a lot of people to take financial advantage of this→ gravediggers, apothecaries

• They would dig trenches to bury the bodies and there would be som many→ “human Lasagna” ☹ (gross Mr Bishop wtf)

Religious Conflict-

dark times in the Jewish-Christian relationship from the crusades, Christians would create false rumors and claim that the Jewish people poisoned the drinking water and caused the plague leading to a lot of Jewish persecution and torture (burning at the stake, and forcing jewish children into baptism and taking them away from their parents)

Danse Macabre- gothic macabre painting and artworks depicting walking skeletons among the living to depict that death was coming for everyone, rich, poor, young, old, etc

• Because there are so many deaths, there will be a need for laborers which will lead wages to go through the roof and a lot of serfs are being emancipated leading to modest economic improvement and dealing a major blow to feudalism

100 years War (13337-1453)

• William the Conquer (originally William the Bastard :/) from Normandy would invade and conquer France

• Edward the Third- King of England and his grandad was the king of France so he would then declare that he deserved to be the king of France

• At this time the french king had been growing his power at the expense of the nobles making them more willing to listen to Edward the Third leading to the war between the UK and France- the nobles would also start to lose control of the armies and attention and loyalty would start to shift from the nobles to the king

• Joan d’Arc (1412-1431) claimed she heard voices in her head that were God; the said that God had told her that the English need to be expelled from France forever and that Charles should be the king of France; she would lead an attack and be very notorious fighter- essentially she slayed 💅 (/s)

  • she would be captured and handed over to the English where she would be convicted of hearsay and be burned at the stake (yikes ☹ )until her name would be cleared and she would become a saint

Importance of the War:

• people will start to identify more with the crowned and a development in a sense of nationalism rather than loyalty to the local area of where your from

• Kings are now in charge of these armies leading a power shift and dealing another blow to feudalism

  • to raise these armies and pay for these expensive wars the king would have to raise taxes through Parliament and the longer these wars go on the more the habit of having parliament around would become

  • War of the Roses- the civil war in England that would result form the fight over who would rule England - leads to very very strong Kings but now also an invigorated parliament that will be a power clash in England

  • France is going in the opposite direction ⬆ as a lot of nobles understand that to defeat the English they need a united kingdom and that feudalism is not going to work for this war

    • King Charles of France would get the nobles on board with taxes by exempting the nobles of taxes leading the King to do whatever he wants with the taxes- France now has A MAJORLY POWERFUL king bordering absolutism

there was a mystique around the idea of the pope but now the flaws and corruption of the church are on full display with nobody doing anything about it and when the scandals end, the pope and the church would lose its lackluster and look much less intimidating and more human

Avignon Papacy and Papal Palace (1309-1377)

• the pope is living in France and a french king growing his power causing it to appear that the pope is the puppet to the king which becomes a political crisis for the people at the time as they question if they will be excommunicated

• major problem of corruption with the pope and the king

  • people are very mad that the Roman pope hasn’t been to rome in 70 years and when the Pope dies the people riot in rome a demand a good pope to be voted in by the Cardinals

• Urban VI- would be very mean and resulting in the Cardinals attempting to reelect a new pope (Clement VII) but because Urban did not step down there was a lot of confusion over who was the real pope, and a lot of arguments

  • Urban based in Rome and Clement based in France

• Cardinals would get together to elect a new pope (based in Pisa, Italy) but (again) the other two popes don’t step down and so now there are three popes until they finally get just the one being Martin Luther based out in Rome

  • Because of all the fighting people would lose faith in the church and would begin to turn away from the church since they believed with how much there has been fighting how could that church possibly save their souls→ leads to more individualized worship

Italian Humanism- Renaissance

the church is now culturally weakened but because the status quo is shaken we do start to see some improvements starting in Italy- Renaissance

Origins

they would start to study the ancient greek and Latin and those that studied these would be called “Humanists”

Italian Humanism

• they believed humans were worthy of adoration and that they should live in harmony- stresses an individual's dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason: secular humanism

• Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) - he would read ancient latin and believe that the old form of Latin is superior; he believed that by understanding the original latin and effectively ancient texts that they would open a doorway to intelligence and improvements to society

  • Ancient Latin texts are hard to come by because of the church girlboss- gatekeeping them leading to him and his followers going on a wide search for Roman Texts

  • they would usually find these texts in Arabic along with the Arabic commentaries and they would declare these texts as worthy of preservation and time and effort to study them

• Philology- the study of human language changing over time

  • would be huge for understanding Biblical Scriptures for as they were written at that time; their interpretations would differ a lot from the interpretations of the pope and the church

  • intentions to purify the latin and return the interpretations of the written latin to the original meanings behind it being written

• Vernacular- since humanism celebrates human kind, people would want to write about the people in the language the people speak→ shift from Latin literature to Italian literature

  • people would also start to tell stories as they try to escape the plague and need something to tell stories- Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) story teller that would write with a humanist mindset

  • Vernacular literature would be accepted as art- Literature for the sake of Literature→ leads to the emergence of grammar, and standard convention→ now a right and wrong way to write and say things.

    • the languages would be connected to a political entity and when people all speak a unified language, there would be a sense of nationalism starting to develop

Humanist Philosophy in the 15th century

• there would be a reintroduction of Greek Philosophy leading to a more philosophical writing in the humanist writings

• Major revival of Plato

  • Marsilo Ficino (1433-1499) works for Cosimo de Medici (1398-1464) to act as a translator for Plato’s works; Cosimo was a patron that hired Marsilo because he was interested in Plato→ these wealthy would shape a lot of art and society because it was what they were interested in and they pay the bills

  • Medici family would be one of the most important families during this time in Florence (i think??) because they are providing a lot of the money for the arts

    • The wealthy and the chruch are bankrolling these arts cuz they got tha moneys

  • Ficino would be known for his commentaries on the greek and his translations

  • Cosimo would make a school of philosophy as taught by plato in the library of his own home- public would start to get a little 🤏 more educated

  • Ficinio would come to conclude that the entry point to the realm of ideal form is the brain and that people have extraordinary capabilities with the mind to reach enlightenment→

  • Cult of Man mentality= idea of human veneration ⬇

• Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494)- defended christianity but would also get in trouble with the church for citing some non Biblical works, would attack astrology and horoscopes; said he accepted the humanism belief but wants to go deeper, the thing that makes human special is that humans have dignity and rise above the obstacles of this world to achieve greatness

• Cult of Man- would be ever present in the arts; classical motifs would be big but overall the artists are christians trying to depict God’s perfect creation of man; great art would then feed back into the Cult of Man philosophy because the artist is then glorified for what he could create

  • great arts were mostly commission by the wealthy patrons and churches →Sistine Chapel is a great example of this

  • Humanism will elevate and support Christianity→ Proof: study the painting of the Birth of Adam

• Cult of Man→ inspires the art→ elevates the Christian Religion

• Michaelangelo’s David is the example of the perfect, ideal human form but is entirely realistic (Another reflection of Humanism)

Northern Humanism

• The north of europe (germanic groups) would also want to study languages, but rather than study latin and greek they would want to study Hebrew

  • they were christian but big critic of the Roman church and argues that the church was to focuses on the ritualistic, tangible exterior acts and as a result has lost the teachings of Jesus- they want to go back to the old testament and look for the early versions of the Apostle Paul and study the early versions

    • they would compare it to the Latin Vulgate and find mistranslations, errors, and corruptions

• Polyglot Bible- would be financed Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros (1436—1517)

  • aim to expose and expunge errors in the text to give Christians the most authentic Bible (did not aim to bring down the church)

  • wanted a new faith rooted more int the correct scriptures

• Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) satirist; said that you can do all the rituals that the church says will take to heaven, but what happens if your heart is rotten? → bro firing shots at the clergy, scholars, and monks to elevate the idea that we need to focus and live more based on the Philosophy of Christ so we can know what the rituals and the act will actually mean; also believed that the key to further enlightenment was education

These things would lead to a culture that leaves space for the reformation

Protestant Reformation

Problems with the Church

Problems with the Clergy

• the Papacy frickin naked corruption and there hasn’t been an effort to reform or show people they care- they are neglecting their spiritual responsibilities which has implications for the peoples’ salvation

• pretty much Bishops and Archbishops were in the positions they were in for the wrong reasons rather than being called by God (their positions were bought with daddy’s money)

  • Issue compounded by Pluralism (two positions with twice the salary without twice the work getting done)

  • Approaching their jobs with casualness and neglect of the local churches

• Parish Priests- the secular clergy; typically less corrupted and critically understaffed- Bros are carrying the weight of the others on their back.

  • they are both typically poor and illiterate- problem for a religion so focuses on the holy texts (they’re doing their best guys)

  • They were badly understaffed leading to a persistence and flourish of Paganism and witchdoctors where they could not staff Clergies

The Indulgence Controversy

• the idea of purgatory would arise in medieval time- purpose was the soul would sit in purgatory for so long so the soul could be purified

  • certain folktales may have led to the idea of purgatory in the Catholic church

  • You can avoid purgatory by cleansing your soul by doing tenants and then meet with a clergy to ensure that the right amount of time in repentance has been paid but tha peoples gotta get paid soooo→

  • would devolve to just buying a penance and the money was the tenant;

• Martin Luther (1483-1546)- was appalled buy the indulgences and believed it was cheapening the idea of repentance

  • would write the Ninety-Five Theses (1517) which would be written arguments against the corrupt ways of the church and he would post them to the doors of the church an publically display them; he intended the other Scholars to just engage with and adress the issue to hopefully lead to reform, but instead …

  • Luther Lore:

    • comes from a fairly well off German family where his father wanted him to be a lawyer and would heap all his hope and ambitions on Martin- Martin would never be good enough for his father (woof) which would have developmental repercussions (mans got daddy issues)

    • in the dark storm thinking he was gonna die and would start to bargain for his life> said that if God will let him live he would devote to his life to the church and become a monk> he lives and goes to the church but would undergo a spiritual crisis. He would be desperate for assurance of salvation leading to him committing self- mortification→ doesn’t work.

    • He’s on the track to be a theologian but when its time to perform Transubstantiation and chokes when he sees his father and his spiritual crisis only get worse

    • When hes getting ready to preach on the Book of Romans, his spiritual crisis would be resolved when he read that the Just will live by faith→ created a different view of theology..

      • justification by faith alone and all the rituals are noise

      • salvation is based in faith rather than works

      • he is convinced that the Bible is the only way God reveals Truth→ bible interpreted LITERALLY

  • Priesthood of the Believer→ you don’t need a priest to save your soul, you can achieve your own salvation through prayer and the bible yourself (in his opinion the Priest is in fact, a Fart-ass)← he’s notoriously mean

    • He would believe that the only Sacraments that matter for salvation are the Baptism and Communion (because they are in the bible and done by Jesus)

Spread of Protestantism

⬆ would be aided by the printing press- now ideas spread WAY faster because no more copying something by hand individually

• The ninety-five theses would be copied and spread across Europe (bro got pre-internet famous cus theses went VIRAL)

Politics:

Charles V (1500-1558) of the Hapsburg Dynasty was set to be the next Holy Roman Emperor and was set up to be INSANELY powerful by uniting different kingdoms ← most European powers were NOT happy about it; will have to be voted in

• Pope Leo X of the Medici Family (1475-1521)- nervous about strong-arming Fredrick (Luther’s friends) to get him Luther because than he would lose a vote and risk losing power→ essentially Luther has Political protection from the Pope

• Threat that if the City of Vienna falls that the Turks can just wipeout the 300 small German Kingdoms- The Surge of Vienna

  • by the time that the Turks are defeated, and they can actually acknowledge what Luther is doing, Protestantism is just a thing

Varieties of Protestantism

Anabaptists

• an early important group at the time that emerged in germany as a series of independent churches

• Context: whatever religion your local prince is, that what your relgion is(state religion) ; Anabaptists would NOT do this and would form congregations where people joined voluntarily called Community of Saints→ inherently the first to live out the principle of separation of church and state

• believed that you can only be baptised when you are an adult but you do so voluntarily

• they are Biblical literalist- they want to live live that of early christians→ leads to them rejecting war (pacifists) and personal property (the literal class structure of Europe ) which makes the WILDLY unpopular

• John Calvin (1509-1564) creator of Calvinism; massive importance in terms of theology

  • Preaches the Majesty of God→ God is all powerful and all knowing; calvinism is a very God centered religion and less focus on Jesus; God knows every minute and planned each second as such

  • Doctrine of Predestination- if God knows everything then he already knows who is going to Heaven and there is nothing you can do about it (the fate of your soul is out of your hands and is in his hands)

  • The Elect- a predetermined small minority of people that will go to heaven and the fact that there is anyone who can go to heaven is proof He’s a merciful God.

    • Calvin says that if you are living in God’s word and prayer and actively striving for salvation that there will be outward signs you are part of the elect and that that is evidence of you being an Elect

Anglicanism

this will be imposed on society by the king rather than bubling up throughg the people like Protestants

Henry VIII (1509-1547)- king of England; in a papal perspective he is an ideal monarch (pope things hes cool and gives him the title the defender of the faith); he’d persecute protestants

• Marries Catherine of Aragon (his sister in law) burt when she cant have kids he believes that God is punishing him for marrying his dead brothers wife→ catholics don’t believe in divorce but Annulment is possible except that the Pope said Nope→ Henry decides to instead found his own church which puts him at the head of the church and elevates his power drastically above parliament→ the Church of England

• The structure is still pretty similar to the catholic but the prayer book and beliefs become more and more Protestant

Sample Questions

Manorialism was what kind of system?

1. military organization

2. economic organization

3. craft manufacturing

4. All of the above

Scholastic theologians responded to rediscovery of Aristotle in which of the following ways?

1. Scholastics rejected Greek Philosophy because the ancient Greeks were pagans

2. Scholastics tried to find a rational, observable basis for Christianity, based on Aristotle

3. Scholastics claimed there was no connection between Christianity and logic

4. both a and c

Which of the following is NOT true of the Avignon Papacy

1. it strengthened the reputation of the church

2. the Popes lived in southern France

3. many feared the French king had too much religious influence over the papacy

4. at one point, there were three popes

Which Classical greek philosopher did Marsilo Ficino devote his life to studying and translating?

1. Socrates

2. Aristotle

3. Plato

4. Euclid