1. Middle Ages Leading to the Renaissance

2. Investigate these questions:
What was the renaissance?
Why-and how-did the Renaissance worldview spread beyond the borders of Europe?
Why did the Renaissance worldview have such a long-lasting influence on other countries and cultures?
Why did the European rather than Aboriginal worldview become the dominant way of looking at things in the American continents?

3. A Changing Society
During the Middle Ages, much of European society was organized into a system called feudalism.
Feudalism was a hierarchy.
Feudalism: the system of political organization during the Middle Ages in which the lord owned the land and all others served him

4. A social system in which status is ranked, and power is concentrated in the higher ranks
HIERARCHY
What is a hierarchy?
People were born into a level of feudal society and they expected to stay in that level for their entire lives.
How is this different from todays society?

5. Allegiance: loyalty
Is Allegiance FORCED PROMISES?
Feudalism was based on land, loyalty, and duty.
Nobles or knights swore oaths of allegiance, (loyalty to the King)
They promised to fight for him in exchange for rights to pieces of land called manors or fiefs.

6. Pledge of Allegiance

7. Bishops had as much power as barons
Bishops received their land from the Crown, and over time, the Church became a very large landowner
As a result, the Church was very important to medieval people

8. Medieval Country Life
Most people in the Middle Ages were peasants who lived in rural villages or on a manor (a piece of land sometimes called a fief).
The peasants were assigned strips of land to plant and harvest
Each peasant family had its own strips of land in various areas of the manor
However, the peasants worked cooperatively on tasks such as plowing and haying.

9. In exchange for the use of land, the peasants had to turn over to the noble, or “lord of the manor”, a portion of what they produced
They were also expected to build roads, clear forests, and do any other work the lord ordered.
The peasants- men, women, and children – worked from sunrise to sunset

10. The peasants were illiterate and uneducated and the manor was usually the limit of their life experience
Some peasants were freeman (Peasants who rented land from the lord or worked for pay)

11. Most peasants, however, were serfs (peasants who were not allowed to leave the manor without the lord’s permission)
When they did travel they rarely went further than the nearest town

12. Town Life Most medieval towns were centers for farm communities
They generally grew up close to a castle or monastery (buildings and lands in which monks lived and carried out other religious duties)
Town Life

13. The citizens would build stone walls around the town to protect themselves from rival cities or lords
Local goods as well as goods brought in from other countries were available in shops in the towns

14. The towns were crowded, dirty, rat-infested places, but they offered freedom and new opportunities
People had the freedom to do as they wished, marry whom they pleased, and make money as they could
According to the law, runway serfs could gain their freedom by staying in town for a year and a day without being discovered

15. A peasant who was good at making shoes might open a workshop to produce and sell shoes
Unskilled peasants could learn trades
Other peasants worked for wealthy merchants as servants and labourers

16. Crime & Punishment in the Middle Ages
Torture PowerPoint
Death Penalty PowerPoint

17. Production of goods and trade in the towns was organized by cooperative organizations called “guilds”.
Guilds controlled the prices of goods, set standards of quality, and decided who could be admitted to the craft as a trainee or apprentice – Who Does this today?
Guilds also took care of members and their families in case of illness or accident

18. Reality TV Show

19. Children as young as 8 or 9 went to live and work at the home of a master and learn a trade

20. After years of working and training they would take a test to become a journeyman (a person who has learned a trade and joined a guild) and be admitted to a guild

21. Years later, after more study and practice, they would become masters
Then, they could open up their own business and take on their own apprentices

22. Town Life - Organization
The way in which the town was organized was also a form of hierarchy
Who lived within the castle walls?
Who lived in the city vs the country?

23. Worst Jobs of the Middle Ages
Time= 46:43

24. Castles

25. Middle Ages PowerPoint

27. Challenges to the Feudal System
Although the feudal system lasted for hundreds of years, it eventually began to weaken and finally disappear altogether
Whose best interests were served by feudalism?
What kinds of pressures do you think might have caused feudalism to break down?

28. The Peasants Revolt
Beginning in 1337, war broke out in England and France
Lasted more than a century and came to be called the “Hundred Years War”
Endless fighting devastated the countryside
Peasants in both countries REVOLTED, (take violent action against an established government or ruler), because of the high rents and taxes they had to pay to finance the war

29. The revolts in England and France were brutally put down by the authorities, but the causes of the peasant unrest were not resolved
Peasants banded together and killed many nobles and burned manor houses
This rebellion was also ended by authorities but peasants were still angry

30. The Black Death
Regular outbreaks of the plague continued for the next several hundred years
As a result, there were severe labour shortages on the manors and many feudal estates went bankrupt
The next blow to the feudal system was the plague
Millions of Europeans died of the Black Death between 1346 and 1350

31. Nobles who were able to hold onto their manors began to rent out their land or sell it to serfs
Serfs were finally released from their obligations to the lords
Peasants now finally had some options
Most stayed in the security of the work and community they knew but some decided to head for towns

32. Time & Money What does the phrase “Time is money” mean?
As towns grew and life on the manor changed, money came into use more and more
As a result, people began to think about time differently

33. On the manor, people’s lives had been ruled by the setting and rising of the sun
Exact time was not important except to members of the Church who needed to know when to pray

34. People told time using sun dials, water clocks and hour glasses
Later, when shopkeepers, merchants, and business people in the towns became more dependant on time, mechanical clocks were developed

35. Munich Clock Tower
By the early 1300’s, mechanical clocks were being built that rang bells to tell the time and call people to worship

36. Wealth in Society With the rise of towns society became less rigid.
By acquiring wealth and skills urban people had some opportunity to move up in the hierarchy and a new social structure began to emerge
Power & social position of merchants and the new middle class was now based on $ rather than ownership of land

37. People became more focused on buying material possessions and displaying their wealth through clothing, furniture, decorations in their homes, and meals

38. People’s desire for luxury goods was one of the factors that led to the expansion of trade outside of Europe as well as the introduction of sumptuary laws (laws that controlled consumption or how people spent their money)

39. 3 Levels of Class in the Middle Ages
Top Level: Aristocracy
Middle Level: Middle Class
Bottom Level: Lower Class
High Church officials
Merchants & buisness people
Peasants
Rulers or lords of large manors
Craftspeople
Rural labourors
Old noble Families
Shopkeepers
Urban Labourours
Wealthy merchants
Bankers
Servants
Priests & lower Church officials
The umeployed
How does this compare to today’s class structure?

40. Ring Around the Roses
Black Plague Power Point

41. A Religious Society
What happens when an epidemic like the black plague breaks out?
We now turn to science for help
With the black plague no one knew how to treat it and millions died
Many thought God had sent it

42. Life in the Middle Ages was very hard: sickness, famine, and war were a constant threat.
As a result, hope for a better life after death was very important

43. The Last Judgement In the top half is Christ on his heavenly throne
In the bottom half , an angel is weighing or judging people’s souls on a scale
The good people are sent to heaven and the sinful people to hell

44. The Church Community
The Pope
Every group in the Church hierarchy had the duty to be obedient to the group above it and provide certain services to the group below
Archbishops
Bishops
Priests
Parishioners

45. Building a Cathedral
The Middle Ages was a great time of Church building
Historians estimate that between the years of 900 and 1000, more than 1500 churches were built in France alone.
There were often competitions to see which city could build the tallest most beautiful building

46. People would pour $ as well as labour into it’s construction
Heavy work of construction was done by serfs and peasants

47. Cathedral PowerPoint
Architecture: the art or practice of designing and constructing buildings

48. The Monastic Life
If you were a deeply religious person you may decide to devote your life to God.
Men became monks and entered monasteries and women became nuns and entered convents

49. They spent their time: studying religious texts, praying, working, growing and preparing food, taught children, cared for the sick and poor, and fed the hungry
Many members of religious orders died as a result of caring for victims of the Black Death

50. Learning and the Church
Unlike most people, monks and nuns were well educated
Some monasteries became great centers for learning during medieval times
Eventually Universities grew up around religious schools

51. By the end of the 1400’s there were more than 80 Universities in Western Europe.
Women were not permitted to attend until the late 1800’s and even then it was minimal

52. Changing Attitudes Toward Religion
The Black Death made some people question their faith
Their prayers and visits to Holy sites had not worked, people everywhere were still dying
They felt as though God had abandoned them

53. People began to take a more critical attitude towards the Church
Critics began to think that some members of the Church were more interested in luxuries living that spiritual values
The Creation of Adam- Michelangelo

54. The Creation of Adam

55. A New Age Society was changing
Creation of busy towns and a merchant class meant that society was less rigidly organized
Worldly pleasures were becoming more important

56. 3 Main Factors That Contributed to the End of the Middle Ages
Black Death – killed many classes of people, feudalism destroyed
Loss of faith in religion - the Church-Christianity, new religions created
People became much more interested in learning and the arts

57. Oriental Rat Flea - Black Death Power point & Movie 50 minutes

60. Renaissance Literally means “Rebirth”
Took ideas from classical Greece and Rome and turned them into new ways of thinking.
Europeans adopted ideas from the Islamic civilization regarding science, math and medicine.