1. Lesson 1: Europe’s High and Late Middle Ages
Chapter 15
Lesson 1: Europe’s High and Late Middle Ages

2. Essential Questions
How did the Catholic Church influence the people of medieval Europe?
How did the Crusades influence Europe?
Why did feudalism decline in Europe?

3. Key Vocabulary Cathedral Crusader Crusade Knight Reconquista Burgher
Guild
Magna Carta

4. An Age of Faith
The Catholic Church was one of the most powerful institutions during the Middle Ages.
It had its own government, laws, and even taxes!
Some Church officials tried to grow rich and were corrupt.

5. Others tried to change, or reform the Church.
Pope Gregory VII: outlawed the selling of Church positions
Benedictines: an order or monks who lived simple Catholic lives.

6. Cathedrals Large Christian churches
Represented a renewed faith and hope of the time.
The new architectural style of this time period was called gothic.

7. Buttresses press against the cathedral’s walls to provide support.

8. Most cathedrals are shaped like a cross.

9. Traditionally, the spire stands where the building forms the center of the cross.

10. Some stained glass windows on cathedrals are called roses because of their shape.

11. Notre Dame Cathedral (Paris, France)
St. Patrick’s Cathedral (New York, NY)

12. The Crusades
In 1095, Pope Urban II called on Christians to help retake the holy city of Jerusalem from the Muslims.
Peasants, serfs, knights and criminals set out to the Holy Land to fight for a new life.
Between 1095 and 1291, there were 8 Crusades.

13. Effects of the Crusades
Contact with the Byzantine and Muslim cultures brought new ideas to Europeans.
Science and math
Maps of stars and algebra
Surgery
The Reconquista – “an all Catholic Spain”

14. Trade & Cities
Improvements in agriculture led to an increase in food production and population.
A new social class develops.
The burghers were merchants and craft workers
They formed guilds, or trade associations to protect their class.

15. Trade & Cities
Local markets were now medieval fairs with spices, silk, and hand-crafted goods.
Money-lenders and bankers developed.
Universities developed
Bologna, Italy

16. Social Classes in the High Middle Ages
Upper
Middle
Lower
Pope
Church Leaders
Nobles
knights
1. burghers
Peasants
Serfs

17. The End of Feudalism
Kings and nation-states formed, taking power from the nobles and the Church.
To keep some of their power, a group of nobles wrote the Magna Carta.

18. The Magna Carta “Great Charter”
Year: 1215
Protected the freedoms of all classes of people
Trial by jury
General consent before taxation
Limited the power of the king
The U.S. Constitution has its roots in the MC.

19. Further Decline 100 Years’ War The Black Death
Drove the English out of France
The Black Death
Bubonic plague killed ¼ of Europe’s population

20. Complete the Chart
Powerful People
Influential Events
Important Places