1. Chapter 12 - Rise of Medieval Europe
Section 1: Frankish Rulers

2. Merovingian Rulers
During the A.D. 400s, the Franks emerged as the strongest Germanic group.
A warrior named Clovis became king of the Franks and the first Germanic ruler to accept Catholicism; his military victories and religious conversion gave his throne stability.

3. Merovingian Rulers (cont.)
In 714 Charles Martel led the successful defense of Tours, France, against Muslim forces.
This victory ensured that Christianity would remain dominant in Europe.

4. Merovingian Rulers (cont.)
Charles Martel’s son Pepin the Short became the king of the Franks in 752.
In return for the Church’s blessing, Pepin was expected to help the pope against his enemies.

5. Charlemagne’s Empire
In 768 Pepin’s son Charlemagne became the Frankish king.
Charlemagne nearly doubled the borders of his kingdom, which became known as the Frankish Empire.
Seeking to revive learning, Charlemagne established a palace school at Aachen.

6. Charlemagne’s Empire (cont.)
the school helped provide western Europeans with a common set of ideas.
As a step towards the goal of a Christian Roman Empire, the pope crowned Charlemagne the new Roman emperor.

7. Charlemagne’s Empire (cont.)
Charlemagne relied on local officials called counts to assist his efforts to strengthen the empire.
When Charlemagne died in 814, his family could not hold the empire together; in 843 Charlemagne’s three grandsons agreed to divide the empire’s lands.

8. Invasions Increase Disunity
Outside invasions nearly destroyed the Carolingian kingdoms.
The most threatening attacks came from the Vikings, raiders from Scandinavia to the north.
The Vikings were explorers, skilled in sailing and trading, who settled throughout Europe.

9. Invasions Increase Disunity (cont.)
The Viking raids isolated communities, severely weakened monarchs’ central authority, and adversely affected trade.
Beginning in the 900s, a new political and social system will bring stability to western Europe.

10. Section 2: Medieval Life

11. Feudal Relationships
The tie between military service and land ownership began in A.D. 700s.
To support the cavalry, Charles Martel began granting fiefs to warriors, helping them to finance the purchase of horses and battle equipment.

12. Feudal Relationships (cont.)
Frankish kings later expanded this system by giving fiefs to counts and local officials.
These nobles assumed many government powers, and swore loyalty to the king.
By A.D. 900s, such arrangements among nobles and monarchs emerged as feudalism.

13. Feudal Relationships (cont.)
Lords were permitted to pass their lands on to heirs in return for providing knights for the royal army.
In theory, feudal relationships were like a pyramid, with the king at the top and lords in the middle, each of whom served a lord of the next higher rank.

14. Feudal Relationships (cont.)
In return for a fief, vassals pledged to perform certain duties, the most important of which was military service.
Because of the lack of a strong central government, warfare occurred frequently in feudal society.
As a result, every noble built a castle for defense against enemies.

15. Life of the Nobility
Within his fief, a lord had almost total authority, collecting rents in goods from peasants and settling disputes between his vassals.
In contrast, a lady, or noblewoman, had few rights; her primary duties lay in bringing up children and taking care of the household.
The behavior of knights was governed by a code of chivalry, which eventually became the basis for good manners in Western society.

16. The Manorial System
The wealth of a feudal lord came from the labor of the peasants who lived and worked the lord’s land.
By the Middle Ages, economic life across Europe centered around a system of agricultural production called manorialism.
In return for the lord’s protection, peasants provided various services to the lord, including farming the lord’s land and making various payments of goods.

17. The Manorial System (cont.)
Most peasants were serfs, people who were bound to the manor and could not leave without permission.
A number of agricultural improvements gradually boosted productivity and eased the threat of famine – including the development of heavier type of plow and the development of higher-yield planting rotations.

18. Peasant Life Poverty and hardship characterized peasant life.
Famine, disease, and warfare were constant dangers.
Although the manorial system lacked freedom and opportunity for most people, it did create a stable and secure way of life during a violent and uncertain time.

19. Section 3: The Medieval Church

20. The Medieval Church
Although the Church’s primary mission was spiritual, the decline of Rome in the 400s led the Church to assume many political and social tasks.
The pope became the strongest political leader in western Europe.

21. The Medieval Church (cont.)
The Church hierarchy remained largely unchanged during the Middle Ages.
Parish priests oversaw the spiritual life of the community, and bishops occasionally visited parishes to supervise.

22. Monastic Life
Monks and nuns played a crucial role in medieval intellectual and social life, preserving ancient religious works and classical writings.
Pope Gregory I adopted the Benedictine Rule to spread Christianity in Europe; by the mid 1000s, most western Europeans had become Catholics.

23. Power of the Church
The Medieval Catholic Church helped to govern western Europe, meting out severe penalties for violation of doctrine and morals.
The Church also had feudal ties that boosted its wealth and political power but often undermined its spiritual vitality.

24. Power of the Church (cont.)
Many high church officials were nobles who had little devotion to their spiritual calling.
By the 900s, many devout Christians were demanding reform.

25. Church Reform
In 1059, a church council declared that the pope would be elected by a gathering of cardinals and that the pope would appoint church officials.
Heretics were threatened with excommunication, or expulsion from the Church.

26. The Jews
As the Church’s power increased in medieval Europe, the position of the Jews worsened.
By the 1000s, many Christians saw the Jews as outsiders and a threat to society.
Rulers in England, France, and other parts of central Europe begin to expel their Jewish subjects, many of whom then begin settling in eastern Europe.

27. Section 4: Rise of European Monarchy

28. England
After the Romans abandoned Britain in the 400s, Germanic Angles, Saxons, and Jutes took over much of Britain from the native Celts and set up several kingdoms.
Alfred the Great united the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and defeated the Danes in 886; his united kingdom became known as England.

29. England (cont.)
Like Charlemagne, Alfred was interested in the revival of learning; he founded schools and hired scholars to translate books.
Gathering his armies, William the Duke of Normandy defeated the last Anglo-Saxon king at the battle of Hastings in 1066.
The victory won him the crown and title of William the Conqueror; as king, William kept tight control over the government.

30. England (cont.)
Over the next 300 years, Norman French and Anglo-Saxon ways blended to from a new English culture.
William’s successors, including Henry II, further strengthened the monarchy and instituted a legal system of common law and juries.

31. England (cont.)
Alarmed at the loss of their feudal rights under the rule of Henry’s son John, a group of nobles met in 1215 and forced John to sign the Magna Carta, or Great Charter - one of the most important documents in the history of representative government.
A new and politically powerful social class – the middle class – emerged as business and trade developed; the middle class did not fit into the medieval social order of nobles, clergy, and peasants.

32. France
In 987 a noble named Hugh Capet seized the French throne from the weak Carolingian king; the Capetian dynasty lasted more than three centuries.
During his reign, Philip II doubled the area of his domain and further weakened the power of feudal lords.

33. France (cont.)
Philip IV defeated both England and Flanders in war, raising funds by taxing the clergy.
The Estates-General, an assembly of nobles, clergy and townspeople, never became as powerful as Parliament in England.

34. The Holy Roman Empire
Rulers in Germany remained weak and often powerless, due to their disputes with the pope and with powerful German nobles.
In return for German King Otto I’s help in defeating Roman nobles who opposed the pope, Pope John XII crowned Otto Holy Roman emperor.

35. The Holy Roman Empire (cont.)
Although Otto and his successors claimed the right to intervene in the election of popes, popes claimed the right to anoint and depose kings.
These conflicting claims would lead to centuries of disputes.

36. The Holy Roman Empire (cont.)
Although the pope condemned lay investiture in 1073, the Holy Roman Empero, Henry IV refused to halt the practice.
The pope deposed Henry, who then gave in and sought the pope’s forgiveness, which was eventually granted.
In A.D church officials and representatives of the Holy Roman emperor reached a compromise known as the Concordat of Worms.