Timeline

Historical Dictionary

First posted on May 14th 2004

Narratives : Central Europe : Early Middle Ages http://www.zum.de/whkmla/sat/texts/narrema.html

First, the expression Middle Ages is poorly defined; originally a derogatory expression coined by Renaissance humanists to mark the - in their eyes uneventful - era between classical antiquity and their own time. Similarily, the subdivision of the Middle Ages into Early, High and Late Middle Ages is a matter of discussion. For western and central Europe between 476 and c. 1030. For other historical regions, the expression is either inapplicable or requires adjustment, a definition. During the Roman Empire, the centers of power lay in the Mediterranean, until c.200 in the city of Rome, after 200 frequently changing. With Pepin the Short and Charlemagne, a bipolar structure emerges - one center being Rome with the papacy, the other the core regions of the Frankish Kingdom (Belgium, Ile-de-France with Paris, Champagne, Burgundy, the German Rhineland); here the majority of the Carolingian palaces were located. The Early Middle Ages saw the emergence of new structures. One being the Papacy. In western and Central Europe, Catholicism, for a time, competed with Arian christianity. When Frankish King Clovis in 496 received baptism, a new political tradition was begun; future kings only became such by being crowned - by a Catholic archbishop. According to Germanic tradition, all legitimate sons had the right to inherit, so partitions of the realm were frequent, and so was fraternal strife. The constitutional reform implemented in the West and East Frankish Kingdoms in 887/888, the establishment of the indivisibility of the country and the succession of the oldest son, created permanent structures. The tradition of coronation thus reduced the influence of noble factions, of princes with competing claims. The church strengthened the position of the king. For monarchs it was beneficial for the country to the Catholic; thus the Catholic church became a supranational organization; during the 10th and 11th centuries a number of hitherto pagan countries converted to Catholicism - Denmark, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, Norway, Sweden. The pope, originally merely the bishop of Rome, became the head of the Catholic church, a matter contested by the orthodox church administration of the Byzantine Empire (who also claimed the adjective 'Catholic'). The Irish, Welsh and Scots had accepted christianity without impetus from Rome. They followed a number of traditions differing from Roman Catholicism and saw little incentive of recognizing the papacy; thus, no archdioceses were established there; in the 12th/13th century they would pay the price, for popes legitimized expeditions with the aim to conquer Wales and Ireland. Another new structure was feudalism. The social structure of Germanic society was based on lord-vassall relations established by an oath. In Catholic Frankish society, this system became refined. The lord provided the vassall with a fief, usually a piece of land; the vassall swore loyal service. Over time, the fiefs became hereditary; the holder still had to swear loyalty in a formal act. The threat posed by Vikings, Saracens and Magyars required a reorganization of defense. Noblemen were required to live in castles (designed to provide protection against raiders, for the peasants and livestock of the surrounding area), keep armour and horses and hold themselves ready. Around 1000, Bishop Adalbero of Laon (N. France) defined society as tripartite; the task of the clergy was to educate, the task of the nobility was to defend, the task of the peasants was to nourish. The nobles were professional fighters, sustained by lands worked by peasants. The pagan countries which converted to Catholicism in the 10th/11th centuries soon after introduced feudalism according to the Frankish (French/German) model; in England it was introduced by the Norman conquerors in 1066; the christian states of Spain adopted it, too. Societies which did not, such as the western Slavs residing between Elbe and Oder (who remained pagans), the Irish and Welsh, would later pay the price; their countries were conquered. The introduction of christianity altered identities. Pagan Germanics when conquering Roman soil established a society without reminiscences of the previous Roman civilization; they settled outside Roman towns, in villages with Germanic names, cultivated the land in their traditional Germanic ways. No traces of non-Germanics living among them are recorded. The Arian Germanics lived, after conquering or being settled in Roman provinces, as a minority among a Catholic Roman population. They attempted to separate Arians from Catholics; at times the latter suffered persecution. The Franks, since Clovis, stood out as the conversion to Catholicism created a unifying band between the Frankish conquerors and the pre-conquest Roman population. The Frankish nobility was Frankish-Germanic; many of the clergy were Roman. The Frankish Kingdom then expanded to include other Germanic populations, Visigoths, Burgundians, Alemanni, under Charlemagne Lombards, Saxons, Bavarians. Integration was the policy by which this ethnic kaleidoscope was to be shaped into a stable political entity; Frankish feudal society became the pattern expanded into the conquered areas, Catholic christianity the common identity. Charlemagne feared to become too dependent on the papacy; he promoted the development of a written language for the Roman and Germanic population of his Empire (Carolingian Renaissance), Old French and Old German respectively. The Oaths of Strassburg 840 are the oldest document in both languages; they were intended to replace Latin as the language of administration, but failed to do so. Monasteries were essential in the christianization of hitherto pagan regions. Monasteries in the economically developed regions of the Frankish Kingdom (to the south of the Loire) were asked to found monasteries to the north respectively east of the Rhine; here they introduced christianity, as well as the art of writing, gardening and farming techniques, crafts etc. When Bohemia, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, Norway, Sweden introduced christianity, monks were invited to implement the political decision of accepting christianity into reality - and to elevate the country's civilization and economy. Charlemagne could not read and write. Among the feudal nobility of the 9th and 10th century, illiteracy was wide-spread. Kings depended on clerics to to their correspondence and bookkeeping. As services of this kind were rewarded in land, bishops acquired large stretches of land (which became permanent property of the diocesis). The kings had a great interest in the appointment of bishops, and - in violation of canonic law - in most cases, in effect determined who would be elected bishop. The Frankish Kingdom had no capital, the monarchy was itinerary. The royal court moved from palace to palace, living there for a number of weeks, until the food stores had been depleted. Royal courts would produce the goods the king required; major monasteries with extensive landholdings would be the most advanced economic entities of their time, introducing division of labour among their lay brethren and thus creating crafts. Simple peasants were jack-of-all-trades. The East Frankish Kingdom / Roman Kingdom / Holy Roman Empire would remain without a capital until after the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648).

click here for an older WHKMLA narrative on the history of the Franks, on Anglo-Saxon England, on Feudal Society

EXTERNAL FILES

REFERENCE

This page is part of World History at KMLA First posted on May 14th 2004 Click here to go Home Click here to go to Information about KMLA, WHKMLA, the author and webmaster Click here to go to Statistics