Chapter Notes

CHANGING TRADITIONS

Between the ninth and seventeenth centuries, Western Europe underwent a slow but profound transformation. This period saw the gradual development of ideas and structures that we now associate with modern times, such as scientific knowledge based on experiment, new forms of government with parliaments and civil services, and technological improvements in agriculture and industry.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century CE, Germanic tribes established kingdoms across western and central Europe. Without a single unifying empire, this era was marked by frequent conflict. To survive, societies organized themselves around the control of land, leading to a system we now call feudalism.

Feudalism was a social and economic system centered on agricultural production. Society was structured around manor houses and castles, where lords owned land cultivated by peasants, known as serfs.

• Peasants pledged loyalty, goods, and services to their lord.
• In return, lords provided protection.
• Lords themselves were often vassals (followers) of greater lords or kings, to whom they also pledged loyalty.

The Catholic Church, with the Pope at its head, was a central and powerful institution. It owned vast amounts of land and supported the feudal system. In a time of uncertainty and low life expectancy, the Church offered guidance on how to live a good life to ensure a tolerable afterlife. It also established monasteries, where devout people could dedicate their lives to God, and served as a center for scholarship.

Starting in the twelfth century, commerce and towns began to grow, especially in Mediterranean cities like Venice and Genoa. This led to increased trade with Muslim states and the eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. European kings, motivated by wealth and the religious goal of freeing the 'holy places' from Muslim control, launched the 'crusades', which further strengthened links across the Mediterranean.

From the fourteenth century onwards, a cultural movement known as the 'Renaissance' began, particularly in Italian towns. Influenced by Greek and Islamic art and ideas, Europeans developed a new interest in the wonders of life itself, rather than focusing solely on the afterlife. This new curiosity about humanity and the world spurred an age of travel and discovery by the end of the fifteenth century.

THE THREE ORDERS

This chapter focuses on the socio-economic and political changes in western Europe between the ninth and sixteenth centuries, particularly the structure of society known as the 'three orders'. This concept, promoted by French priests, divided society into three broad categories based on people's work:

1. The Clergy: Those who prayed.
2. The Nobility: Those who fought.
3. The Peasantry: Those who worked.

The relationships between these three groups were a key factor in shaping European history for centuries. Our understanding of this period comes from a wealth of historical documents like church records of births and deaths, details of landownership, and legal cases.

An Introduction to Feudalism

The term 'feudalism' comes from the German word 'feud', which means 'a piece of land'. It describes the economic, legal, political, and social relationships that existed in medieval Europe, especially in France, England, and southern Italy.

• Economically, feudalism was an agricultural system based on the relationship between lords and peasants. Peasants cultivated their own land and the lord's land, providing labor in exchange for military protection.
• Socially and Politically, lords had extensive judicial control over the peasants on their land.

While its roots can be traced to the Roman Empire and the age of King Charlemagne (742-814), feudalism became the established way of life in much of Europe by the eleventh century.

France and England

Gaul, a province of the Roman Empire, was renamed 'France' after the Franks, a Germanic tribe, settled there. From the sixth century, France was a Christian kingdom with strong ties to the Church. In 800, the Pope crowned King Charlemagne as 'Holy Roman Emperor' to ensure his support.

Across a narrow channel, the island of England was conquered in the eleventh century by a duke from the French province of Normandy, linking the histories of the two regions.

The Second Order: The Nobility

The nobility held a central role in society because they controlled the land. This control was based on a practice called 'vassalage'.

Vassalage was a system of mutual promises linking people from the king down to the peasants.

• A nobleman accepted the king as his seigneur (senior or lord).
• The lord promised to protect his vassal.
• The vassal promised to be loyal to his lord.

This relationship was formalized in a ceremony where the vassal took vows on the Bible. The noble enjoyed a privileged status, with absolute control over his property, the right to raise troops (feudal levies), hold his own courts, and even coin his own money.

The Manorial Estate

A lord's house was called a manor. He owned vast lands that included his home, private fields, pastures, and the homes and fields of his tenant-peasants. A manorial estate was a largely self-sufficient community.

• Grain was grown in the fields.
• Blacksmiths and carpenters maintained tools and weapons.
• Stonemasons looked after buildings.
• Women and children spun fabric, wove cloth, and worked in wine-presses.
• The estate also had woodlands for hunting, pastures for animals, a church, and a castle for defense.

However, manors were not completely self-sufficient; they had to get items like salt, millstones, and metalware from outside sources.

The Knights

From the ninth century, frequent local wars created a need for skilled cavalry, as amateur peasant-soldiers were not enough. This led to the rise of a new group: the knights.

Knights were linked to lords in a similar way that lords were linked to the king.

• A lord gave a knight a piece of land, called a 'fief', which could be inherited. A fief included a house, a church, a watermill, and a wine-press, and was cultivated by peasants.
• In exchange, the knight paid the lord a fee and promised to fight for him in war.

From the twelfth century, travelling singers called minstrels became popular, singing songs and telling stories about brave kings and knights.

The First Order: The Clergy

The Catholic Church was a powerful institution independent of the king. It had its own laws, owned land given by rulers, and could levy taxes. At its head was the Pope in Rome.

The clergy—bishops and priests—formed the first order.

• Not everyone could become a priest; serfs, women, and the physically challenged were banned. Priests could not marry.
• Bishops were part of the 'religious nobility' and lived in grand palaces on vast estates.
• The Church collected a tax called the 'tithe', which was a tenth of whatever peasants produced from their land each year.

Many Church customs mirrored feudal ones. For example, the act of kneeling in prayer with clasped hands was an exact replica of how a knight took vows of loyalty to his lord.

Monks

Besides the clergy who lived among the people, some devout Christians chose to live isolated lives in religious communities called abbeys or monasteries.

• Monks (men) and nuns (women) took vows to stay in the monastery for life, spending their time in prayer, study, and manual labor like farming.
• Like priests, they did not marry.
• Monasteries grew into large communities with landed estates, schools, and hospitals, and contributed to the development of the arts.
• From the thirteenth century, some monks called friars chose to travel, preach, and live on charity instead of staying in a monastery.

By the fourteenth century, however, some began to question the purpose of monasticism, contrasting the luxurious lives of some monks with the simple faith of poor laborers.

The Church and Society

Although Europeans became Christian, they held on to older beliefs in magic and folk traditions.

• Christmas (December 25) replaced an old pre-Roman solar festival.
• Easter, celebrating Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, replaced an older lunar festival celebrating the coming of spring.
• Peasants welcomed 'holy days' (holidays) as they were not expected to work and could spend the time feasting and having fun.
• Pilgrimage to shrines or large churches was an important part of a Christian's life.

The Third Order: Peasants, Free and Unfree

The vast majority of people were peasants, who sustained the other two orders. They were divided into two types: free peasants and serfs.

• Free Peasants: Held their farms as tenants of the lord. They had to provide military service (at least forty days a year) and perform labor services on the lord's estate for a few days each week. This unpaid work was called labour-rent. They also had to pay a direct tax to the king called the 'taille'.
• Serfs: Cultivated plots of land that belonged to the lord. They had to give much of their produce to the lord and work on his lands without wages. They could not leave the estate without the lord's permission and had to use the lord's mill, oven, and wine-press, often for a fee. The lord also had a say in whom a serf could marry.

England

Feudalism developed in England from the eleventh century. In 1066, William, the Duke of Normandy (a province in France), conquered England. He distributed mapped-out land to 180 of his Norman nobles.

• These lords became the king's chief tenants and were required to provide him with military help (knights).
• Lords, in turn, gave some of their lands to knights who would serve them.
• Unlike in France, private warfare was forbidden in England.

Factors Affecting Social and Economic Relations

While the three-order system seemed stable, several processes were transforming it. These included environmental changes and dramatic shifts in agricultural technology.

The Environment

From the fifth to the tenth centuries, much of Europe was covered by vast forests, limiting the land available for farming. During this time, Europe experienced an intensely cold climatic spell, with long winters and a short growing season.

From the eleventh century, Europe entered a warm phase.

• Average temperatures increased, leading to a longer growing season.
• The soil was less affected by frost and easier to plough.
• This allowed for the expansion of agriculture as forests were cleared for cultivation.

Land Use

Early agricultural technology was primitive. The wooden plough could only scratch the surface of the earth, and fields had to be dug by hand. An ineffective two-field system of crop rotation was used, where one field was planted while the other was left fallow (uncultivated), leading to soil deterioration and frequent famines.

Peasants often resisted the lords' demands for more labor through passive resistance, spending more time on their own fields and avoiding unpaid extra services.

New Agricultural Technology

By the eleventh century, several technological changes revolutionized agriculture:

• Heavy iron-tipped ploughs and mould-boards were used, which could dig deeper and turn the topsoil properly, improving nutrient use.
• The shoulder-harness replaced the neck-harness for animals, allowing them to exert greater power.
• Iron horseshoes protected horses' hooves from decay.
• Windmills and watermills became more common for milling corn and pressing grapes.

The most revolutionary change was the switch to a three-field system.

1. Field 1: Planted in autumn with wheat or rye.
2. Field 2: Planted in spring with peas, beans, and lentils (for humans) or oats and barley (for horses).
3. Field 3: Left fallow. Each year, the use of the fields was rotated.

These improvements led to a doubling of food availability. Peasants could now produce more food from less land, and the average farm size shrank, making them more efficient to cultivate.

A Fourth Order? New Towns and Townspeople

Agricultural expansion led to growth in population, trade, and towns. Europe's population grew from about 42 million in 1000 to 73 million in 1300.

From the eleventh century, towns began to grow again.

• Peasants with surplus grain needed places to sell their goods and buy tools, leading to the growth of fairs and marketing centers that became towns.
• Towns offered paid work and freedom from the lord's control. A popular saying was 'Town air makes free'. A serf who could hide in a town for a year and a day without being caught by his lord became a free man.
• The population of towns included merchants, shopkeepers, and people with specialized skills like bankers and lawyers. This growing class of townspeople could be seen as a 'fourth order'.

Economic organization in towns was based on the guild—an association for each craft or industry that controlled the quality, price, and sale of products. As trade expanded, town merchants became rich and powerful, sometimes rivaling the nobility.

Cathedral-towns

From the twelfth century, rich merchants often donated money to build large churches called cathedrals. These magnificent stone buildings took many years to complete. As they were being built, the surrounding areas became more populated, and small towns developed around them. Once completed, they became centers of pilgrimage.

The Crisis of the Fourteenth Century

By the early fourteenth century, Europe's economic expansion slowed down due to three main factors:

1. Climate Change: The warm summers of the previous 300 years gave way to bitterly cold ones. The growing season was reduced, and storms destroyed farmsteads.
2. Soil Exhaustion: Intensive ploughing had exhausted the soil, and a shortage of pastureland reduced the number of cattle. Population growth began to outstrip resources, leading to severe famines between 1315 and 1317.
3. Shortage of Money: A shortfall in silver from mines in Austria and Serbia led to a shortage of metal currency. Governments were forced to mix cheaper metals into their coins.

The worst crisis was the Black Death, or bubonic plague, which spread across Europe between 1347 and 1350. Ships from distant countries brought rats carrying the infection.

• It is estimated that 20% of Europe's population died, with some areas losing up to 40%.
• Cities, as trade centers, were the hardest hit.
• Europe's population dropped from 73 million in 1300 to 45 million in 1400.

Social Unrest

The income of lords was badly hit by falling prices and rising wages. In desperation, they tried to bring back old labor services instead of accepting cash rents. This was violently opposed by peasants, especially the more prosperous ones. Major peasant revolts occurred in Flanders (1323), France (1358), and England (1381).

Although these rebellions were crushed, the peasants' opposition was so intense that the old feudal relations could not be fully reimposed. The money-based economy was too advanced to be reversed.

Political Changes

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, European kings began to strengthen their military and financial power, creating powerful new states. Historians call these rulers 'the new monarchs', such as Louis XI in France and Henry VII in England.

• They created standing armies with professionally trained soldiers equipped with guns, which were more effective than feudal levies.
• They established a permanent bureaucracy and a system of national taxation.
• The resistance of the old aristocracy crumbled against the firepower and financial strength of the kings.

To ensure their survival, many nobles transformed themselves from opponents into loyalists of the new regimes. They were given permanent positions in the administrative services. For this reason, this new system of royal absolutism has been called a modified form of feudalism.

The king was no longer just at the top of a feudal pyramid based on personal loyalty. He was now at the center of a court society and a network of patronage, where loyalty could be secured with money. This allowed non-aristocratic people like merchants and bankers to gain access to the court by lending money to kings.

These changes led to different political paths for France and England.

• In France, the kings became increasingly absolute. The French consultative assembly, the Estates-General, was not called between 1614 and 1789 because kings did not want to share power.
• In England, the king had to consult a council before imposing taxes. This developed into the Parliament, with a House of Lords (nobles and clergy) and a House of Commons (towns and rural areas). After a civil war in the seventeenth century, the monarchy was restored on the condition that Parliament would be called regularly.

This divergence explains why today France is a republic and England is a monarchy with a strong parliamentary system.