Kings, Conquests, & Secular Life in Medieval

Europe

Mr. KochWorld History A

Forest Lake High School

• Improved agricultural technology → increased food production

• More food → increased population (doubled 1000 – 1300)

Medieval English Kingdoms

Medieval English Kingdoms• 1066 – Norman invasion of

England– King Edward does not have

clear heir to throne– Dispute b/w Harold and William

of Normandy– William’s army victorious

• Leads to blending of Norman & Anglo-Saxon culture

• He establishes more firm control over England than most previous kings– Domesday Book

Medieval English Kingdoms

Bayeux TapestryMeasures about ½ meter tall and 70 meters long (believed to be missing ~8 meters)

Just for fun…An animated version of the Bayeux Tapestry

Medieval English Kingdoms

• Henry II (king from 1154 – 1189)– Unifies justice system with

“Common Law”– Established by determining

customs and traveling court– Puts all England under the

same law– Also see early jury system

emerge with these courts

Medieval English Kingdoms• Magna Carta (1215)– King John signs under pressure from

angry barons– Protected the rights and privileges of

nobility, townspeople, church– Established basis of “due process”

• Legal action cannot be arbitrary– Must consult Great Council before

adding new taxes– Guaranteed rights to nobles

(eventually all citizens)• Monarch must obey the law

– Great Council eventually evolved into Parliament• House of Lords and House of Commons• “power of the purse”

Medieval French Kingdoms

Medieval French Kingdoms

• Capetians (beginning 987 – Hugh Capet)– Established hereditary rule– Built bureaucracy – established order

• Philip II (ruled 1180 – 1223)– Vastly expanded lands

• Normandy and Anjou (Eng. controlled) in north and lands in south

Medieval French Kingdoms

• Louis IX (ruled 1226 – 1270)– Very popular and very religious

Christian (made saint)– Religious persecution

– Centralized authority and created sense of nationalism

• Philip IV (ruled 1285 -1314)– Fought w/ Pope Bonafice VIII

– Right to tax clergy without papal consent• Eventually sent troops after the Pope• 1305 – French Pope (Clement V) elected

and decides to move court to Avignon (1309)

– Set up Estates General (clergy, nobles, townspeople)• Never as powerful as Parliament

Hundred Years War(1337 – 1453)

• Series of conflicts between England & France• 1429 – Joan of Arc (17 y.o.) tells French King

Charles VII that God told her to lead army– She had a number of military successes– Burned at the stake for witchcraft by English– Rallied French troops who view her as martyr

• French eventually regained most all French lands

Learning, Literature, & the Arts

Learning, Literature, & the Arts

• Education– Universities popping up– Greek philosophy re-emerges

• Was preserved by Muslim scholars– Scholasticism – use reason to

support Christianity• Literature

• Use of vernacular– Song of Roland, Poem of the Cid,

Divine Comedy, Canterbury Tales• Cathedrals– Romanesque → Gothic

• Taller, flying buttresses, large stained-glass

The Black Death

The Black Death(Bubonic Plague)

• Spreading through Europe by mid-1300s– Rats, fleas, unsanitary

conditions

• 1 in 3 eventually died (35 million in China)– People panicked –

couldn’t explain• Some used Jews as

scapegoat – thousands killed