Medieval Times Flashcards
Medieval Time
500 to 1000 AD
Medieval is Latin for what?
middle ages
Struggle for Europeans to survive (4)
- trade is disrupted by Arates and robbers
- money is scarce
- cities are abandoned to find food in the country
- population is overwhelmingly rural
Decline in learning (4)
- invaders couldn’t read or write
- time spent surviving not learning
- loss of common language
Work of monasteries (7)
- religious community
- monks devoted lives to God
- Benedict wrote a book of laws for monks
- Scholastica was Benedict’s sister and she helped nuns
- should’ve been the best educated in middle ages
What were the 3 laws expected of monks in Benedict’s book?
- expected to know how to read
- expected to know how to write
- expected to know how to copy sacred documents
Reality of monks (4)
- dimwitted
- weaklings who could not serve as knights
- misfits
- peasant children who were born into large families
What were 4 changes?
- Christianity changes through the work of monks
- Christianity expends through the power of Pope Gregory
- Changes in architecture
- Changes in technology
Christianity changes through the work of monks (2)
- Abbots were the head of the monastery
- most orderly and organized places in Europe
Christianity expends through the power of Pope Gregory (6)
- Famous Gregorian chant
- papacy becomes secular
- worldly involved in politics
- pope’s palace becomes the center of government
- church uses money
- created the idea of a churchly kingdom
What were the three ways the church used money?
- to raise armies
- to help the poor
- to repair the roads
Feudalism
a political system based on the holding of land
Why was feudalism necessary? (2)
- provided decentralized defense in army
2. no centralized government
What did Feudalism do?
Preserved a minimum amount of political unity
What is involved in Feudalism? (2)
- investiture: symbolic act of presenting land to a vassal, giving the vassal control of the land
- two men agree to a contract, one giving land and control of it in return for work or military service
Who is involved in Feudalism?
Pope/church monarch nobles knights/vassals merchants/farmers/craftsmen peasants/serfs
Changes in the church - power of the church (6)
-means of grace :
~church is necessary for people to get gods grace
-sacraments :
~important religious ceremonies for salvation
-canon (church) law
-excommunication and interdict
Changes in the church - problems (3)
-bishops were selling their church positions
~practice called simony
-kings are appointing bishops and church wanted to do it
Friars: like monks except travelled (4)
- women could participate
- Dominicans and Franciscans
- End of Simony
- Celibacy: priests are married to the church
Dominicans and Franciscans (4)
- travelled to combat the spread of heresies
1. dominicans: white robes and great scholars (barefoot and spanish) - St. Francis of Assisi: Italian
2. Franciscans: brown robes, less scholarly, and looked at everyone as a brother
Emperors seize power - Otto the Great (3)
- strongest and most effective ruler of the middle ages
- dominated the church by granting land to bishops and abbots which became known as lay investiture
- wanted to be like Charlamagne
Otto the Great part two (5)
- created the Roman Empire of the german nation which later became known as the holy roman empire (1st reich)
- defended pope from Italian dukes
- later years Italians resented germans
- pope and bishops later became unhappy with investiture
- after Otto the great dies lay investiture continues to be a problem
Pope Gregory VII challenges emperor king Henry IV (7)
- Pope Gregory bans lay investiture
- Henry IV gets upset
- Pope Gregory excommunicates Henry
- Henry pleads to the Pope at Canassa
- Nothing changes with lay investiture
- king humiliated
- pope’s power confirmed
Changes in Architecture what and who (4)
- new style called gothic
- wanted building to point upward toward God
- more light to remind people that God is the light of the world
- original designer: Suger, the abbot of St. Denis
Architecture included:
ribbed vaults, flying buttresses, pointed arches, stain glass windows-told stories because so few could read
Changes in technology (6)
- heavier plow
- horse collar
- 3-field system
- leather saddle
- stirrups
- caltrops
Franks rise (5)
-come from the roman province of Gaul; todays France
-largest and strongest of Europe’s kingdoms
-Clovis is a Christian king
~unified the Franks
~aligned with Roman catholic church against german tribes
Major Domo & Charles Martel (6)
- major domo becomes most powerful person in frankish kingdom
- mayor of the palace
- governed the kingdom in the king’s name
- 719 charles martel’s major domo
- known as the hammer
- victory at the battle of tours stopped the spread of islam and martel becomes a christian king
Son of Martel (4)
- pepin the short
- appealed to the pope Stephen to make him king
- agreed to fight the Lombards
- 1st of the Carolingian Dynasty to rule from 751-987
Charles the Great (7)
- charlamagne/”iron charles”
- continues Carolingian Dynasty
- built an empire
- Gave captives the choice to commit to chirstianity or die
- Pope Leo III crowned him emperor
- joining germanaic tribes and the church
- becomes the protector of christianity
Charlemagne leads a revival (2)
- limited power of nobility through counts
- encourages learning: opened a palace schools, he became a student, ordered monasteries to train more priests and monks
Charlemagne the Emperor (4)
- After his death his son Louis fails
- Louis signs treaty of Verdun
- divide kingdom into 3 kingdoms
- lack of a strong leader results in feudalism
