Changes%20in%20Medieval%20Society

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Changes in Medieval Society
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• A Medieval Town
• Jam-packed wooden houses, each a potential
  tinderbox, sought extra room through upper
  stories jutting out over the street. The streets
  themselves were mere alleys, 6 to 10 ft. across.
  Sewers were open and sanitation scant. The
  stroller had to dodge slops (human wastes) from
  above and swilling pigs below scabrous (covered
  with scabs or rough patches of skin) beggars
  jostled him. Except when he raised his eyes to
  the Gothic grace of town belfry or church spire,
  signs of filth and disease assailed him
  everywhere.
• Why were medieval towns prone to disastrous
  fires?
• What danger from above did passerby face?
• Why do you think people chose to live in towns
  despite the filth?
• The passage describes the scene that assailed
  ones eyes. What other sense would have been
  assailed?

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Other Stuff

• While Church reform, cathedral building, and
  Crusades were taking place..
• Advances in
• Agriculture
• Trade and finances
• Population growth and growht of towns
• Cultural interaction with Muslim and Byzantine
  worlds

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Changes in Agriculture

• From 800 to 1200 the climate warms, opening more
  land to farming
• Changes in technology result in more food
  production

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Switch to Horsepower

• Harnessed horses replace oxen in pulling plows
  and wagons
• Horses plow three times as much a day, increasing
  food supply

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Watermills and Windmills

• Most important device for harnessing power before
  the steam engine
• Watermills were used to grind grains for flour,
  make cloth, sawmills to cut wood
• Located by streams
• If didnt have access to rivers, they used
  windmills
• Windmills used to pump water cut wood

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The Three-Field System

• Around 800 three-field system used-plant two
  fields, let one rest
• This produces more food and leads to population
  increase

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The Guilds

• Guild-organization of people in the same
  occupation
• Merchant guilds begin first they keep prices up,
  provide security
• Skilled artisans, men and women, form craft
  guilds

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Training

• Apprentice trained 2-7 years parents paid for
  training lived with master and his family not
  allowed to marry
• Journeyman or Day Worker Worked for a master
  for pay worked 6 days a week needed to produce
  a masterpiece to become a master had to be
  accepted by the guild to be a master
• Master Owned his own shop worked with other
  masters to protect their trade

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European Women at Work
This manuscript painting shows women and men
cooperating in the baking of bread, long a staple
of European diets.
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Guild Services

• Guilds set standards for quality, prices, wages,
  working conditions
• Guilds supervise training of new members of their
  craft
• Built almshouses for victims of misfortune
• Provided dowries for poor girls
• Took turns policing the streets
• The wealth of guilds influences government and
  economy

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Commercial Revolution

• Fairs and Trade
• Europe sees Commercial Revolution-changes in
  business and trade
• Trade fairs are held several times a year in
  towns
• Trade routes open to Asia, North Africa, and
  Byzantine ports

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Trade

• Cloth was most important trade item.
• Others bacon, salt, honey, cheese, wine,
  leather, dyes, knives, and ropes
• No longer was everything produced on a
  self-sufficient manor.

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Business and Banking

• Merchants develop credit to avoid carrying large
  sums of money and made trading easier.
• Also take out loans to purchase goods, and
  banking grows
• Usury - lending money at interest
• Church did not like this
• Jews become moneylenders with lack of Christians
• Church later relaxed its rule on usury and
  Christians entered the banking business.

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Cities Make a Comeback

• Growing Urban Population
• 1000-1150 Europes pop. rises from 30 million to
  42 million
• Paris-60,000 by 1200
• Most towns - 1,500 to 2,500 people

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Change is Not Good for Everyone

• Towns are uncomfortable
• Crowded, dirty, full of fire hazards, filled with
  animals and their waste
• No sewers
• Houses were built of wood with thatched roofs
• Serfs can become free by living in a town for a
  year and a day

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Merchants take over

• Feudal lords tax and govern towns, causing
  resentment
• Burghers
• Merchant-class town dwellers who take control of
  towns and cities

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Whats in a Name??

1. Occupation or social status. Examples Cooper -
   barrel maker Wagner or Waggoner - wagon maker
   Knight - knighthood Smith - blacksmith
2. Nicknames describing person or personality.
   Examples Reid - red, ruddy complexion or red
   hair Stout - Body size Small - Body size
   Armstrong - strong arms Sharpe - sharp, smart

1. Patronymic (from the first name of father).
   Examples Peters - son of Peter (English,
   German) Peterson - son of Peter (Swedish)
   Petersen - son of Peter (Danish) O'Reilly -
   grandson of Reilly (Ireland)
2. Lives near locality or place. Examples
   KirkPatrick - Church (kirk) of St. Patrick
   Cliff - steep hill Fairholm - the fair island
   Ashley - field surrounded by ash trees

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Learning Also Makes a Comeback

• The Muslim Connection
• Christian scholars read translations of Greek
  works made by Muslims
• Crusaders return with Muslim knowledge of
  navigation, ships, and weapons

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Scholars

• Groups of scholars gather and develop
  universities.
• Vernaculareveryday language
• Dante Alighieri The Divine Comedy, which is
  about
• Geoffrey ChaucerThe Canterbury Tales, which is
  about

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European University Life in the Middle Ages

• This 14th century manuscript painting shows a
  classroom scene from the University of Bologna in
  Italy. Note the sleeping and disruptive
  students. Some things never change.

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Europes First Universities

• University of Bologna, Italy
• Attracted students from all of Europe
• Most were administrators for kings princes
• University of Paris
• Oxford and Cambridge
• In the 12th century, after they were expelled
  from the University of Paris because of a war
  between France and England, some English students
  and tutors settled at Oxford, and others at
  Cambridge. From this beginning evolved the two
  universities. They were the only ones in England
  until 1836, when the University of London was
  chartered.

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Aquinas and Medieval Philosophy

• St. Thomas Aquinas
• He is a scholastic-university man debates issues
  to increase knowledge
• Accepted the existence of God on faith, but
  believed it was subject to logical proof.
• He taught that governments, as well as the
  individuals they served, were morally responsible
  for acting in accordance with divine law.

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Fill in the blanks

• 1. The first ____________was a group of
  merchants who worked to improve the economic and
  social conditions of its members.
• Guild
• 2. Merchants and craftspeople who lived in the
  towns and who demanded privileges such as freedom
  from tolls and the right to govern their town
  were called___________.
• Burghers

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• 3. ____________were documents given by a bank to
  an individual allowing that person to withdraw an
  amount of money from that bank or one of its
  branches.
• Letters of credit
• 4. The ______________allowed villages to grow
  more food by organizing land into three fields
  instead of two.
• Three-field system

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• 5. In the 1100s, poets began to use the everyday
  language of their homeland, or the_______________.
  
• Vernacular
• 6. Scholars who met together at universities
  were known as schoolmen, or_____________.
• Scholastics

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• 7. The expansion of trade and business as
  agriculture was expanding is called the
  __________________.
• Commercial Revolution
• 8. In many European countries, you
  _______________ could also label your profession.
• surname

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• 9. A scholar in the 1200s named ________said
  that logic could prove many religious truths.
• Thomas Aquinas
• 10. A day worker, known as a _______
• had to complete several steps in order to become
  a master in his craft.
• journeyman

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• 11. __________wrote the Canterbury Tales which
  describes a pilgrimage to the shrine of St.
  Thomas a Becket, around 1387 in English
• Chaucer
• 12. _________wrote The Divine Comedy.
• Dante
• 13. When the harness was improved, _____could be
  successfully used for plowing and for pulling
  wagons.
• Horses