The Formation of Europe.

The Formation of Europe.
After Charlemagne died, his empire was divided into three parts; each part corresponded to one grandson.
Charles, Louis, and Lothair were the ones in charge of the empire, but it was becoming very weak because of
the wars between Charlemagne's grandsons, whom tried to win more lands against each other. This fact added
to the fact that other communities were invading their lands (such as the Vikings, the Hungarians and the
Muslims), made the power of the kingdom decentralized.
As a result of the disunion of Charles, Lothair and Louis, the power was now in charge of local lords such as
dukes, and other kind of nobles, who made people work their lands that were called manors.
This kind of system was not new, because it was developed in the third century by Romans, and after that
reformed by Germans, who offered military services to their lords and in turn of that special service, the lords
gave a parcel of land to the servants, who were also called Vassals. This ranking was used in the middle age
too for lords whom gave military support to their kings.
The amount of land that the vassal received was called a fief or another popular name was feud, even if it was
huge or not and the people that worked it were called serfs. The relation between the king and the vassal was
fully supported by a contract that gave duties and laws for each part, for the treat that was signed.
Somewhat that changed with the years, was the heritage of the fiefs was not common in the starts of the feudal
system of government, but when the years changed thought of people, the feuds became hereditary, and the
descendants of the owners carried with the obligations of the contract that was signed by the dead relative.
As the feudal system of governing divided the ex−Carolingian empire into many counties, most of the lords
were vassals of other lords, and made the system difficult and not understandable in many cases.
The society in those times was divided into three main groups, and sometimes the society had a fourth group
that formed it. The three most important and popular groups were called the nobility −that was formed by land
owners that didn't take part in the clergy and high ranked people in the court−, the clergy − that was formed
by Religious leaders such as bishops; that were very rich because they owned many lands, and they were very
educated too−, and at the bottom of the social pyramid, were located the peasants,−that were the largest group
in all the counties, and they weren't free, and they didn't have the opportunity to learn because all the time
they had to work for their lords in their feuds. NEVER, they could become nobles because of the social
differences that people had in those times−.
Sometimes, we could find a fourth group, which was called the villains, that were more than the peasants but
much less than the other two groups that were upon of it. They could hire new workers for the lands, and they
could work were they wanted.
Soon, the manorial system of landholding and government, became as strong as most of the people worked
outside the cities as serfs for their lords.
As the manorial system became stronger, the life around it became important; for example in the fief the land
was distributed into many people and places. For example, the land where the people seeded the crops had
some cycles to plant in order to keep all the land always fertile and useful. The fields in which the peasants
could plant, was divided by stripes and each stripe of the field had an owner. Most of the stripes were given to
the Lord; other stripes were given to the clergy, officials and seldom were given to the peasants. The stripes
that were owned by peasants were the last ones to be worked, because there was a rule that forced them to
work their Lord's stripes first in order to give him the crops before they could take part on the harvest of the
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planting field.
On the other part of the feud, we could find buildings such as the house in which the Lord of the feud lived,
that was most of the times a castle, which was built on as place called the demesne, and also there were other
types of building such as the church and barns.
As in those times a single Lord could have many feud of his own, he could just live and check a feud at the
same time, so he hired some people that in the northern countries that used the system of feudalism were
called the steward, the bailiff, and the reeve. Each one had the task of checking the fields, but each of them
was more important than other. The steward had to check the status of the lands and crops, because they had
to travel to the fief in which his lord was located, and had to advise him about the feuds. The bailiff had to
check the peasants, the work on the lands; he had to supervise the harvest. At last he had to collect the money
that peasants had to pay to the lord, such as taxes, rents and dues. The last one that was the reeve, had to check
the hay, and care about the cattle, also he had to check the relationships between the officials and the peasants.
In the middles ages, the peasants had to work very hard, taking care of the manor's status, and they had to do
all things that the lord wanted them to do, like cut the woods and take care of the cattle and crops.
In those times, the women weren't considered less useful than men, they had to do the tasks of the farm
everyday, and they had to take care of their children too. On the other hand, the noble women that had a
husband that was lord of a manor, had to take care of it while her husband returned to his duties, most of the
times, this happened when the lord had to attend to wars. They had to be very faithful with their husbands, and
they could hold lands.
When they were going to marry, they got married when they were still teenagers, the average age was 14, and
the high class girl's parents had to give her a dowry, which was material good that she had for her marriage.
In the middle ages, the life in the castles was not very comfortable, the weather was cold, and to get heat in
the rooms was almost impossible as there were no chimneys in the rooms, animals couldn't sleep with their
owners. There were no rugs so they had to spread straw on the floor to isolate the coldness of the stone.
As the castles were continuously attacked, the engineers built tall wall to protect the castle, and they made
digs that were filled with water, and threw burning hot oil to the people that tried to attack them from the
lower parts.
Religion
The church became very important in the middle ages, because people found in it salvation when they died.
The church created some sacraments based on the communication with God in order to achieve a holy life
with him, there sacraments were a kind of laws that the Christians have to achieve in order to obtain the
salvation (now days they are still being used); they are:
−Baptizing
−Confirmation
−Penance
−Holy Eucharist
−Extreme Unction
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−Matrimony
−Holy orders
The five first ones were applied to all the people, and the two left were only applied in special cases such as
the arriving of other priest to the Christian community.
As it had its sacraments, it also had courts to promote the Justice, and the Christianity; it also cared about the
religious members of the church and other type of offenses against the beliefs of the church and its members.
These types of courts managed the person's trial with the cannon law, which means: The Law of the Christian
Church.
People that were against the beliefs of the church, were accused of heresy the most of the times ended with
excommunication that meant that the person could not received any other sacrament (this was important
because the fifth one ratified that you were a good person when you were alive), and expelled from the church
and Christian community. After being accused of heresy the person had a special trial, which consisted in the
persuasion of the beliefs and thoughts of the accused that attempted to the church. If the judge could not
persuade the person accused, the man or woman was sentenced to die burned at the stake attached to a pole.
In the Tenth century, the papacy depended of a German for protection against abuses from the nobles. So,
between the German noble chief and the papacy arranged that kings could interfere in the election of
important positions inside the church, such as popes, bishops, etc.
A century later, in a place called Cluny, that today is a zone of France; there was a revolutionary movement
that was against the intervention of nobles in the holy elections of the church members, which created a
reform that forbade the ale of positions to the nobles, and preventing a possible civil control over the pope that
was in charge of the church.
Later, in 1058, a school for Cardinals was created in order to make a good election of the new pope, and to be
sure that the new pope was going to be elected by the church and not by other hands such as German nobles.
As the time passed, the church was becoming stronger and more important than any other institution in the
time. The word of the church became as important as that the pope ordered to the King John of England to
give all the lands that today are know as England to the papacy, and the pope would return it as a fief. This
action made automatically King John a direct vassal of the pope; this rule was also taken in the lands that in
those days were known as Denmark, Hungary, Poland and a Spanish kingdom called Aragon.
During the centuries eleventh to thirteenth, in Europe appeared two groups of religious groups that preached
in small villages and town the importance of Christianity, and offered holy masses. These groups were called
the Franciscans and the Dominicans. The first one was founded by Francis of Assisi (famous because of his
stigmas), and the second one by Saint Dominic. Both groups made vows of poverty and cared about homeless
people in those ages.
But returning a little bit in the history, we could find that in the lands that many years ago Jesus lived were
now occupied by the Muslims that arrived there in the year 638 A.D. This concerned very much the Church
because that land was holy for Christians, but it didn't belong to them even if the Christians were able to visit
the places where Jesus lived long time ago.
So in the eleventh century the Muslim Turks gained the control of the holy city of Jerusalem (1089), later
there was a Turkish threat that said that they were going to conquer Constantinople −in those times the capital
of the Byzantine empire−. This threat concerned much the emperor and he asked for urgent help against the
Muslim domination.
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At the late eleventh century −more or less 1095−, the Pope Urban III made a meeting for the nobles that
followed Christianity in the city of Clermont (now days France), to discuss about the military support for the
Byzantine emperor. When the meeting finished, they decided to create a group of fighters called the
Crusaders, that was a group of knights and lords that meant marked with a/the cross. This group of people was
elected to fight against the Turks, and to recover part of the holy land of Middle East. As an action in turn, the
Pope offered the forgiveness of all the kind of sins, and in the other hand, fighter could get rid of debts and
they could obtain the lands conquered as fief. This promise was especially good because the only people that
could have fief were the second sons of the lords, just the first ones, but they did become nobles anyway.
While in France after the meeting the nobles were organizing their army, preachers from the Christian religion
invited peasants to fight against the Muslim power. Aroused by the explicit preaching of the priests and
preachers, a very big crowd of peasants decided to go to Jerusalem and kill the Muslims that were winning the
power of the holy land. These people killed many people, and their group was known as the Peasant Crusade.
Most of the people that these peasants killed were Jews that did not believe in Christ. When they arrived to
Constantinople, in the year of 1096, they looted the whole city and burned most of the places of it. When they
left Constantinople, they were attacked by Turks and later they were tortured.
After this chaotic try, the nobles made it much organized, which included three thousand knight on horse
back, and twelve thousand walking. During the last year of the eleventh century, the group of nobles arrived
to Jerusalem and massacred people indiscriminately. After that, they divided the conquered land into little
states, but like fifty years later, Muslims attacked again these states, and captured again the place that today is
Edessa, Armenia. There were disputed other two Crusades that just left poverty, an d the right for the
Christians to go to holy land, but the land was still from Muslims. When the last crusade was started, the
purpose was not to win lands or fight against the Muslims, it was to sack Constantinople, and kill people.
These wars did not give many good things, the only two things that it lest were the commerce between Asia
and Europe, and the enrichment of the languages. But if we check all the problems that the wars left, we can
find that the worst one was that since then, all Muslims thought that Western people were uncivilized and
rude.
As the commerce between the two continents increased, the size and population of cities also did. As Italian
merchants traveled through the Mediterranean, they collected many things in other harbors, for example they
carried goods from France to be bought in England. This made merchants wealthy and rich. And as trade
grew, cities did so. Another important fact was that the use of money became popular in these years, because
before the system worked with the barter, that was to exchange services or products for others that you
needed. Nobles helped in the evolution of the commerce because they arranged annual fairs that contributed to
the enrichment of merchants, and now, another kind of job: money exchanger. This job consisted in the
exchange of foreign money into local money that helped the foreigners − this job was considered a sin by the
church−, and it made them earn a little fee, that made them survive, and with the years turn wealthy. There
was an easier way to handle the money, which was the system of the credit that let merchants transport big
amounts of money by safer ways.
These ways of financial interaction with the society made the commerce faster and made cities big center of
interaction and gave the principles of today's banking.
Other big step that medieval society made was the improvement of the technological inventions for
agriculture, such as the collar, the harness, and the horseshoes. The new ways of seeding and harvesting
helped out the population to become wealthier, and prosperous. As the harvest was being exported, the
merchants made the cities bigger, and as well as prosperous, crowded. The lords needed more workers
everyday because they usually drained swamps, cleared forests or used land from the sea for harvesting,
because they needed to build dikes, or bridges, and make the earned land fertile. To gain more workers, the
lords offered them special rights, that centuries ago, the serfs did not, such as freedom, and the possibility to
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live in the city, or in the manor. This right made the cities crowded, but it obtained stability. Moist of the
people preferred now to live in the city than in the manor. Serfs that did not want to continue working as serfs
could be craftsmen or craftswomen. These kinds of jobs made prosper the life in the city.
As the cities became overcrowded, the sanitary situation of the city became unhealthy too, and people were
vulnerable to strong plagues. Also as most of the houses were made up of wood, they were easily burnable by
rays, or by the fire used inside the house to maintain it warm. Anyway people didn't care about those dangers
in order to survive and make money. Even if people made sanity rules, in 1347 an epidemic of bubonic
attacked Europe by the southeastern part, more or less by Constantinople, and it was spread by the merchants
that traveled through all Europe. Soon, this plague had devastated with much part of the population of
medieval Europe. This plague was commonly called the Black Death, because the corpses of the ills became
darkish. As most of the people were sick, the food scarce because there were no active people to harvest.
Years later, people discovered that this terrible plague came from a flea that lived in the black rats. This
epidemic helped somehow to the serfdom, because the small amount of people that survived, were able to
receive higher wages, and get independence from the feud.
When the plague ended, the population of the European cities was very few, but they slowly recovered their
population. The commerce became again a powerful source of advance in the society. With this fact, in the
society pyramid appeared another class of people that made up the bourgeoisie, which had a higher rank than
the serfdom, but it was still less important than the nobility. It had it's origins in the medieval towns, burg
means town. It was a tradition to look down upon to less important classes.
We can find here that the towns had an institution called guild, which regulated the exportations, and the
competition of other exporters. This institution also monopolized the trade, so they settled some rules to let
merchants trade their merchandising. These kinds of institutions helped homeless people to get a house and
help in the development of social events.
Coming back to the eleventh century, we could observe that foreigners were well received in the kingdoms
because they brought gossips and news from other places. Also they could believe in their faith, so they free
election of religions was not forbidden at all. Most of the Jews that lived in Europe, educated their sons with
the Holy Bible, and the Talmud or Torah, and the Jews were very intelligent and educated, because most of
them could read and write, something that not all the nobles knew how to do it. After the crusades, most of the
nonconformists blamed the Jews about the responsibility of the crusades, and about the Black Death that
whipped Europe. They were banned, and they were expelled of Germany, France, and England, because they
were seen as sinners, because they had to become money lenders as they had no possibility to work in a good
job. In those times the money lending was seen as a sin, but after the banking was invented, it was like a gift
for humanity.
As now the Jews had no home, countries such as Italy, Poland and The Netherlands offered residence to those
displaced people.
Education
During the middle age many factor made that the learning because important and useful in those day. For
example, the wealth ness that the bourgeoisie obtained made important the construction of new centers of
learning, and other important factor was the reforms from the church, and another fact that contributed was
the contact with Asia and its civilizations. As life in the cities became everyday more difficult, the civil
governments and the Church needed trained people that could help them in specific topics. Teachers and
students that wanted to help both governments needed to meet, and by the way form a group called
University. The first universities were created in Bologna, Italy, and Paris, France during the years 1158 and
1200 respectively. Each one taught a different cathedra, and the places in which they studied were not very
comfortable, they had no chairs, and they had to study for long hours. They could hire their teachers, and
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make their own rules. The time that they could study was just between the hours that the sun was shining,
because the candles were very expensive, and they did not have any other way of lightning.
Saint Thomas of Aquinas was one of the most questioned students in the history of theology, because his
thoughts were not accepted by the nobles, and high ranked people in the Church guild.
The interaction with the Middle East helped very much in the technological advances that were invented
centuries ago. For example the compass helped very much the sailors, and the mathematics helped very much
the people in those times in order to count, and operate with amounts, as well as geometry, trigonometry,
algebra, and calculus. Arabs contributed in the study of medicine and the sciences of the health.
People that lived long time ago had many thoughts about the possible future, for example Roger Bacon that
was an English monk; firmly believed that one day machines were going to be better and more efficient than
man and the animals. As a result of his fantasies, he was declared guilty of heresy, and he had to spend 15
years in jail before his works and investigations became condemned.
Latin was a way of communication between educated people in the middle ages, and it was supposed to be the
language in which the world had to speak, but its difficulty made locals to speak in their local and common
language such as old Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese. This group of languages was called the Romance
Languages, which were based on Roman Latin words. Another group of languages was the group of the
Germanic languages, such as modern German, English, Dutch and other Scandinavian languages like
Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. Invasions made that several words mixed with other languages and they
where adopted by that language.
If we compare some words of romance languages, we can see that they are very similar to other words in
English or as it was known centuries ago; Anglo−Saxon, because their roots come from Latin words.
As a result of the development of new languages, new writers became important and made great poems that
related stories of heroes such as the Beowulf. As the bourgeoisie could now read and write, they were
interested in the popular stories, and this let early writes succeed.
Writers such as Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer wrote about journeys in which people passed through
hell, or traveled in England. Their most important works were The Divine Comedy, and The Canterbury
Tales.
Another kind of art was the drama, which represented parts of the Bible, and helped people that couldn't read
and write. Another way to introduce people into the Christian belief was to paint passages of the Bible in
order to help people visualize what they believed in. This way of support to the art made new ways of art such
as stained−glass, now days found in most of the cathedrals in the European cities.
END.
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