The Middle Ages

The time
The word medieval comes from the Latin words medium aevum, meaning ‘middle ages’. The world of medieval Europe emerged after the fall of the Roman Empire in the late fifth century AD. It was the period from about AD 500 to about AD 1500. 
Historians often subdivide the medieval period into:

• the early Middle Ages (or Dark Ages)
• the later Middle Ages.

We are going to concentrate on the later Middle Ages — the high point of medieval civilisation.
The mind set
The world of medieval Europe was:

• largely an agricultural world
• controlled mainly by small groups dominated by men.

Leaders and priests taught people to accept their position in life and the fact that they had few rights and little freedom.
Life was short and difficult. People died young, partly because of lack of medical knowledge and effective treatments and partly because the medieval era was a time of constant warfare.
Medieval Europeans were superstitious. They thought that witches or evil spirits caused illness, plague, drought, famine and crop failure. The majority of western Europeans believed the Catholic Church's teachingthat the Earth was the centre of the universe and that the sun, planets and stars revolved around it.
The feudal system
In medieval Europe, the system for organising how land would be used and for controlling people was called the feudal system or feudalism.
Charlemagne (AD c.747–814) introduced this system in the eighth century to help him control large areas of land in Gaul (France). Feudalism gradually spread as Charlemagne gained more land in western and central Europe.
Feudalism helped countries become stronger and provided people with a sense of protection. It also placed many restrictions and controls on the ways people lived their lives.




Feudalism in England
William of Normandy (later known as William the Conqueror) introduced feudalism into England in 1066. He became king after invading England and winning the Battle of Hastings.
Under the feudal system, William claimed all of England's land as his own. He then divided up the land to reward those who had been loyal to him and to gain promises of their future support.
William's actions provide a good example of how invasion and a new system of government were able to change the lives of people already living in that country.








A diagram showing how William divided England after he invaded in 1066

John and the Magna Carta
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYXuTZWNOJo
The feudal system gave the king great power. Over time, some of the tenants-in-chief in England began to resent this.
On 15 June 1215, at Runnymede in England, a group of barons rebelled against King John (1165–1216). King John was an unpopular king and known for his often cruel and unjust actions and decisions. He tried to seize the throne from his brother and ordered the murder of his nephew Arthur so that he could ensure his own succession. The barons forced him to sign a document known as the Magna Carta, which is Latin for ‘great charter’. They wanted to stop him, and any monarchs who came after him, from ruling unjustly.
The main idea of the Magna Carta was that the king would not be free to do whatever he wanted in governing the country. He had to:

• respect the system of law that had developed
• use this system of law in his dealings with the people.

Castles for protection and control
William the Conqueror believed that building castles helped him to control a country. He allowed his Norman lords to build hundreds of motte and bailey castles, made of timber and earth. Over time, lords ordered stone castles to replace them.
Stone castles
The donjon was the main building of a stone castle. It was a three- or four-storey tower with walls about three metres thick. To get to the donjon, visitors crossed the drawbridge over the moat — a deep, wide ditch, built around the castle and filled with water. They then passed under the portcullis, which was an iron grate on either side of a gateway. The guards could lower this to prevent entry into the bailey. This large courtyard contained stables, animal pens and perhaps also garden areas.
The lowest level of the castle was below ground. It housed storerooms, a well that provided the castle's water supply, and dungeons. The guard rooms, soldiers’ quarters and chapel were on the next level up. Then came the great hall, an important meeting and entertainment area, and finally the sleeping quarters of the Lord's family.
Open fires provided heat and plenty of smoke. There were no chimneys, and servants put coverings on the wall openings to try to keep in the warmth. To minimise the danger of accidental fires, kitchens were often in separate buildings linked by a passageway to the castle keep.
Building castles
Castle builders wanted to create structures that would:

• provide a residence for a monarch or chief tenant
• protect and maintain the power and property of the owner against enemy attack
• be able to withstand a siege
• act as a military base (garrison) from which an army could control the surrounding countryside.

Nobles thought carefully about where to locate their castles. They made sure that the site had a good view of the surrounding area. The lord would have made sure important resources were nearby, including:

• towns, from whose people the lord could demand taxes
• ready supplies of fresh water and building materials
• workers to build the castle
• roads or rivers for transport

The manor and the village
About 90 per cent of medieval Europeans were peasants who lived in villages of about 100 to 300 people. Villages were usually located near a stream or river, which provided fresh water and a supply of fish. The villages and the land around them were called manors.
Manors varied in size from about 900 to 3000 hectares and were owned or controlled by a lord (or lady). The lord's own farm area, which comprised about one-third of the total, was known as the demesne. The villagers farmed the rest of the land. They used mountainous land for sheep and cattle rearing. In the warm climate of southern Europe, people planted orchards and vineyards.
Every village had a common, which all villagers shared as grazing land for their animals. The village also included: church land, known as the glebe; the lord's hunting forest; and fenced-in meadows where hay was grown.
The peasants lived in one- or two-roomed wooden huts with clay walls, unglazed window holes, dirt floors and thatched roofs. In winter they shared these lodgings with their animals. Each house had its own vegetable garden known as a toft.
Organising farm work
The manor was made up of a strictly organised community of workers.

• Some were tenants, or freemen, who had bought their freedom and paid rent and services for the land they used.
• The next group were serfs, or villeins. The lord ‘owned’ these peasants and they worked three days a week on his land, as well as working on their own rented strips of land. They also did boon work, which meant five days a week labour on the lord's land at harvest time.
• The third group of peasants were known as cottars. They had no land other than their cottage plot and survived by craftwork or by working for other peasants or for the lord of the manor.

The lord's power
The lord of the manor had great power over the peasants who lived there. Villeins had to ask his permission before they could leave the village, get married, sell their animals, or have their children taught to read and write. Peasants had to pay a tax to the lord whenever they used:

• the lord's mill to make flour
• the lord's oven to bake bread
• the lord's brewery to make beer.

They paid additional taxes when sons were born or daughters were married. When the peasant died, the lord would usually claim a death duty in the form of the peasant's second-best animal.
The open-field system
Peasants organised farming on an open-field system. There were no fences, walls or hedges to separate farming land. The villagers divided the land into three fields. Each year they left one field fallow (without a crop) to allow it to recover its fertility. They used the unfarmed land to graze cattle, which also provided it with a natural fertiliser.
Each year, villagers held meetings to decide how to divide their land and what to grow. They divided two fields into 10-metre-wide strips, separated by raised unploughed land or ditches. Each peasant had a share of good and poor strips. Everyone had to plant the same crop in the two usable fields. They rotated the crops so that different nutrients were taken from the soil each year.
The working year comprised a seasonal cycle of planting, growing, harvesting and repair work. The reeve, an official chosen by the whole village, ensured that everyone started work early and worked hard. The reeve also consulted with the lord's representative to work out what services the villagers had to provide. He carried a white stick as a sign of his responsibilities.
Peasants worked as long as there was daylight. In summer, work started at about 4.30 am and finished at about 7 pm. In winter, work started at about 6.30 am and finished at about 4 pm. Except for holidays, peasants worked a six-day week, with Sunday being a day of prayer and rest.
Beliefs and values
Catholic Church
By the 1100s, Christianity was the most powerful and influential religion in western Europe. It influenced everyone's life.
People had simple beliefs: those who followed God's teachings would go to heaven and those who did not would go to hell. People showed that they honoured God by making Sunday a day of rest and devotion to God.
People also celebrated other holy days throughout the year. On these days away from work, people remembered saints and celebrated their lives through festivals, games and feasts.
People looked to their religious leaders, the clergy, to help explain their world. They supported their church leaders by paying them the tithe, a tax of 10 per cent of the crops they grew.
The Catholic Church became very wealthy and often very influential in government, law-making and law enforcement. To gain favour with God, many wealthy nobles left land, property and money to the Catholic Church, which became richer than most kings. It controlled about one-third of the land in Europe, and had its own courts and laws (called canon law) and used the name Christendom to describe the Christian countries of Europe.

The clergy spoke and wrote in Latin, and people relied on the information the priests gave them because most people did not have the opportunity to read, write or learn about these things for themselves.Friars lived among ordinary people, helping the poor and relying on others to provide them with food and a place to sleep.


Crime and Punishment

Medieval crime

Crimes in the medieval world included minor offences such as stealing firewood from the lord's forest and nagging one's husband, as well as more serious crimes like murder, treason and witchcraft.


Witchcraft

Witchcraft was a very serious charge. People believed that witches were the devil's followers and that they used their special powers to bring suffering and unhappiness to others. People blamed witches for natural disasters — famine, plague, drought, the failure of a harvest — and even for stillbirth. Sometimes people accused others of witchcraft because of jealousy or a desire for revenge.


Canon law

The Catholic Church used its own courts and its own law (canon law) to try to control people's behaviour. It fined and even whipped people if they worked on Sundays and holy days. The most serious crime against the Church was the crime of heresy: the offence of criticising the Church's teachings. Church courts also heard cases involving fights between husbands and wives.


Crime control

Police forces did not exist in the medieval world. If someone was seen breaking the law, the lord expected the villagers to raise the ‘hue and cry’ and chase after the wrongdoer until they caught him or her. If the prisoner escaped, the lord would punish the villagers.

Some towns tried to limit the number of crimes by imposing a curfew to keep people off the streets at night. This meant that people had to be in their homes by about 8.00 pm or 9.00 pm or risk being arrested. Another way of encouraging people to prevent law-breaking was to organise them into groups called tithings. Each tithing consisted of 10 males over the age of 12 who were responsible for making one another keep the law. If any member broke the law, the others had to take him to court and pay his fine.


Guilty or not guilty?

Before Henry II introduced jury trials in the twelfth century, courts decided whether a person was innocent or guilty by using trials by compurgation (oath-swearing), combat or ordeal.


Trial by compurgation

12 people had to recite a special oath to claim someone's innocence. Any mistakes would supposedly cause the oath to ‘burst’ and prove that the accused person was guilty.


Trial by combat

Used by nobles to attempt to prove their innocence. In the beginning, the defendant and his accuser were expected to fight the battle personally. Soon everyone began to use an expert known as a champion to fight the battle in their place. People believed that God would reward the innocent person with victory.


Trials by ordeal

people asked God for a sign of guilt or innocence.

• In an ordeal by water, the accused was thrown into the ‘holy’ waters of a river or lake with hands and feet tied together to see if they sank (a sign of innocence) or floated (a sign of guilt).
• In ordeals by fire, people either had to put their hand in a pot of boiling water, hold their arm over a fire or pick up a piece of red hot iron. If the burn had healed after three days, then this was thought to be a sign of innocence.

When Henry II, King of England, introduced the system of trial by jury in the twelfth century, travelling judges conducted courts with juries of 12 men chosen from among the local townsmen. The jury decided whether the accused was guilty or innocent and the judge imposed the sentence.


Punishment

Punishments were meant to fit the ‘crime’. For example:

• Villagers tied nagging wives to a ducking stool and ducked them three times into the river.
• Women found guilty of gossiping had to wear the scold's bridle.
• A baker who had cheated his or her customers might be dragged through the streets on a sledge with a loaf of bread tied around the neck.
• A peasant who had stolen firewood from the lord's forest or whose animals had damaged someone else's crops would most likely either pay a fine or perform extra work.
• Other punishments for minor crime were more humiliating. These included putting someone in the pillory or the stocks, where onlookers could throw rotten food or rubbish at the offender.

Some of the harsher punishments for stealing or cheating included whipping and various forms of mutilation, such as cutting off a hand, an ear or the tongue. Sometimes a person's eyes were burnt out with a red hot poker.


The punishment for witchcraft was being burnt alive, because it was believed that burning would cleanse the soul. A last-minute confession entitled the ‘witch’ to be strangled before she felt the flames. The penalty for murder or treason was public execution, usually by hanging or beheading.


Avoiding punishment

Women had a unique method of avoiding punishment. A woman who became pregnant could postpone her punishment until the birth of the child.

Both men and women could avoid punishment by claiming sanctuary from the Church. To do this the accused person had to:

• stay on Church property for 40 days
• admit to their wrongdoings
• promise to ‘abjure the realm’ (leave the country forever).

Then the person had to leave the country as quickly as possible without money. As a sign of their guilt, they had to wear sackcloth and carry a white cross. While this process was being carried out, the fugitive remained under Church control and could not be arrested.


Punishing high treason

In medieval times, people used the word treason to describe the crime whereby one person murdered someone from a higher level in the social scale.

The word treason also has the meaning of doing something that is a serious act of disloyalty to the king or queen. This could be plotting to kill or overthrow the monarch or helping the country's enemies.

People would call that person a traitor and call his or her crime high treason. The punishment for the crime of treason was usually death by execution in a public place with an audience.