The Expansion of Europe

In this lecture we will explore the nature of Medieval society at its apex around 1350 AD. Three hundred years earlier Europe was economically, politically, and intellectually the poorest of the three heirs to the classical world. In the ensuing centuries power, wealth, and cultural vitality would trend to the north away from the Mediterranean world during one of world histories greatest and longest periods of sustained growth. By the high middle ages she would have established a position of preeminence and the basic patterns that would ensure the gap would widen.

The Medieval World View: the Great Chain of Being

• All Europeans were what we call catholic and medieval thinkers used metaphor to describe society. The most comprehensive metaphor was the “Great Chain of Being”

• Started with a Ptolemaic universe with a series of concentric spheres with earth in the center and hell in absolute middle

• Hierarchical with god at the top and hell at the bottom• As you ascend the chain you become closer to God

&Man is half-way• Each rank can be further divided and subdivided – 9

kinds of angels• Each rank resembles the whole – Lion was “King of the

Beasts”, King is God on Earth• Chain not a ladder: every thing and being has a specific

place assigned by God• All about order: disobey, rebel, try to rise – Heresy one

and all• Why did people buy it

– Science and sermon of every person– Paternalism & Deference

• Aspirational and its inability to accommodating changing social realities will be a recurrent theme of our class

Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,Observe degree, priority, and place,Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,Office, and custom, in all line of order.

Agriculture and Technology

• Agricultural revolution of sorts takes place– Heavy plow, horse collar, horse shoe, crop rotations, climate

changes that favor N. European agriculture, crop specialization

• Concomitant industrial revolution with a proliferation of mills, both water and and wind

• Improved roads and transportation along with the above lead to commercialization of agriculture

• Increased agricultural productivity lead to steady increase in population over the course of the middle ages to 1350

• Advances in mining/quarrying make advances in construction and farming and money supply

Commercialization• Agricultural specialization and

comercialization are of course linked and a catalyst to trade

• Fairs, leagues of cities, banking houses, contract law, new accounting practices all advance trade

• Emerging power of central monarchies encourage and protect trade which becomes a source of wealth, power and a lever against the nobility

• Church relax rhetoric surrounding wealth and usury

• Italian city states create trade networks that integrate N. Europe with Islam and E. Asia

Growth of Towns and Cities•Towns formed around Bishop’s sees or seats of government

•Paris biggest at 200k, Venice and Naples 100k - London Amsterdam, Moscow, Lisbon, Madrid, Rome, and Florence 50k – York, Milan Berlin 000’s – Cathedral cities and market towns like Antwerp Bruges Lyon would be several hundred

•Town air made people free

•Towns had different corperate governmental organizations and ethos than the other 90% of society

•Think of the ways the nascent capitalist does not conform to the feudal and chivalric code

Social Organization: Manoralism• Those who fight, those who pray, those who work• Nobles are the governing class who power is

based on land ownership and who title would become inherited– Classes of Nobles– Powers of Nobles– Feudalism– Limits of feudalism– Chivalry

• Clergy are of the same class as the former and/investiture conflict not withstanding, mutually dependent

• Agricultural workers– Yeoman, cottagers, laborers– Manors manoralism

• Very poor