1. Chapter 8 Medieval Society: Hierarchies, Towns,
Universities, and Families (1000–1300)
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2. The livelihood of towns and castles depended on the labor of peasants in surrounding villages. Here a peasant family collects the September grape harvest from a vineyard outside a fortified castle in France in preparation for making wine.
The Granger Collection
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3. Traditional Social Order:
Those who fight on horseback (landed nobility)
Those who pray (clergy)
Those who work in fields & shops (peasantry & artisans)
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4. New Social Group Rising with Towns from 11th c.:
Long-distance traders & merchants: anomalous, because often wealthy but owned no land; “middling classes”; rise causes crack in old order
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5. Nobles
Large hereditary landholders or warrior knights with accumulated fiefs
Late medieval distinction between higher & lower nobility:
Higher: long-established large landowners
Lower: small landowners, descendants of minor knights, merchants able to buy country estates, wealthy farmers risen from serfdom
Distinguishing feature: lived off labor of others; neither worked the land nor engaged in commerce
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6. The Joys and Pains of the Medieval Joust This scene from a manuscript from c. 1300–1340 idealizes medieval noblewomen and the medieval joust. Revived in the late Middle Ages, jousts were frequently held in peacetime. They kept the warring skills of noblemen sharp and became popular entertainment. Only the nobility were legally allowed to joust, but over time, uncommon wealth enabled a persistent commoner to qualify.
Universitatsbibliothek Heidelberg
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7. Nobles (cont.) Warriors: war was sole occupation
Wealth required to maintain horses, arms & armor
Celebrated strength, courage, glory in combat; bored by peace
Contemptuous of peasants & merchants
Knighthood: comparable to ordination as a priest
Sportsmen: favorite peacetime pursuits: hunting & tournaments
Courtly love: evolution of “courtesy,” or behavior at court
Noblemen formed broad spectrum from minor vassals to princes with many vassals
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8. Breughel, Children’s Games.
Pieter the Elder Breughel (1525–1569), “Children’s Games,” Oil on oakwood, 118 × 161 cm. Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna, Austria. Copyright Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY
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9. Lovers playing chess on an ivory mirror back, ca. 1300.
The Bridgeman Art Library International
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10. Clergy Two basic types:
Regular clergy: orders of monks set apart from the world in cloisters
Secular clergy: lived & worked directly among laity
Separate “first estate”: collected church taxes; under jurisdiction of ecclesiastical, not secular, courts; churches & monasteries free from secular taxation & legal jurisdiction
Held powers of excommunication & interdiction
Late Middle Ages saw growing resentment of clerical privilege
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11. Monks and nuns play a bat-and-ball game.
Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
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12. Peasants
Largest & lowest social group; many lived & worked on noble manors
Organized own labor, with lord of manor getting a cut of all produce and requiring various other types of service - banalities
Two types of manors:
Free: peasants original landowners who swapped their land for the protection of a lord (milder serfdom)
Servile: tenants had no original claim to land (serfdom)
Lord had judicial & police powers
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13. In this image of rustic labors, peasants clear ground, mow fields, plant seed, harvest grain, shear sheep, stomp grapes, and slaughter hogs, among other chores, while the lord of the manor hunts with his falcon in the fields as they work.
The Labors of the 12 Months. Pietro de Crescenzi, Le Rustican. Ms.340/603. France, c Location: Musée Condé, Chantilly, France. Giraudon/Art Resource, NY
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14. Changes in the Manor, early to late Middle Ages
Breakup into single-family farms; nuclear family replaces clan as basic family unit
Conversion of dues payment with crops to payment with money—brought about by revival of trade & rise of towns
Noble resistance to change leads to 14th-c. peasant revolts (crushed)
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15. Towns and Townspeople The Chartering of Towns
11th & 12th cs.: only about 5% of western European population in towns
Most towns under 1,000 people
Towns created by lords granting charters to those agreeing to live & work there
Original purpose was to concentrate skilled laborers who could manufacture finished goods for lords & bishops
Residents had more freedom there than on the land
Manorial society created its own urban challenger
Rise of merchants: eventually formed protective associations to challenge lords, esp. over tolls & tariffs
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16. Map 8–1 SOME MEDIEVAL TRADE ROUTES AND REGIONAL PRODUCTS The map shows some of the channels that came to be used in interregional commerce as well as the products traded by particular regions.
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17. New Models of Government
Around 1100, old urban nobility (inherited wealth) merged with new burgher upper class (commercial wealth)  aristocratic town council
Guilds: protective associations of small artisans & craftspeople; eventually gained voice in government
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18. Towns and Kings
Towns come to ally with kings against rural lords, becoming a major force in transition from feudal societies to national governments
Towns provided bureaucrats and lawyers who knew law, necessary to run kingdom
Town’s interest served by having king as protector against nobles
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19. Jews in Christian Society
Urban centers attracted Jews by choice and for safety
The Church forbade much interaction between Jews and Christians
Anti-Jewish sentiment fueled by:
Kings’ desire for Jewish wealth and property
Church’s determination to assert spiritual hegemony
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20. Schools and Universities
12th c.: Islamic scholars preserve & make available works of classical learning (Aristotle on logic, Euclid & Ptolemy on astronomy, Greek medicine, Arab mathematics, Roman law)—translated into Latin
Rise of universities: modeled on trade guilds; protection from church authorities, townspeople; students hired teachers, set pay scales, drew up lists of lecture topics; no physical campus yet, so could move relatively easily
Liberal arts program: language arts (grammar, rhetoric, logic) & mathematical arts (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music)
University of Bologna: 1st important Western university, founded by Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa; 1st formal organizations of students & masters, 1st degree programs; famous for revival of Roman law
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21. Jonah is swallowed by a great fish in a scene from a thirteenth-century Hebrew Torah from Portugal, an example of the rich Jewish heritage of medieval Iberia.
The Bridgeman Art Library
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22. Schools and Universities (cont.)
Cathedral Schools: before universities, liberal arts taught in cathedral & monastery schools to train clergy; later open to laity (merchants, etc.)
University of Paris: grew out of cathedral school of Notre Dame; originated college system—fixed structures; Sorbonne most famous, founded for theology students around 1257
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23. In this medieval school scene, a teacher and his wife, with switches, teach children their music lessons.
German Information Center
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24. Adam and Eve were not cast out of the Garden of Eden because of their sexual lust for one another but rather for their disobedience to God in eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. St. Augustine who, like Abelard, was known to exhibit a certain weakness for the charms of the opposite sex, taught that before their Fall, Adam and Eve had complete control over their libidos as opposed to their libidos having complete control over them. Their minds and hearts filled only with thoughts of God when, without any shame or self-indulgence, they engaged in sexual intercourse. Abelard and Heloise's sexual lust and shame serve as a commentary on fallen humankind, tracing back to Adam and Eve.
This medieval depiction of Adam and Eve is courtesy of the Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division
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25. The Curriculum
Scholasticism: based on premise that truth is already available, just has to be organized, explained, and defended; logic & dialectic initial curricular focus; commentaries written on authoritative texts (Aristotle, Church Fathers)
Students learned grammar, rhetoric, and elementary geometry and astronomy
The “renaissance” of the twelfth century made many Greek and Arabic texts available
Few books existed, so memorization and fast-thinking were essential
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26. In this engraving, a teacher at the University of Paris leads fellow scholars in a discussion. As shown here, all of the students wore the scholar’s cap and gown.
CORBIS/Bettmann
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27. Philosophy and Theology
Scholastic quarrels over squaring Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology
Abelard & Héloïse
He was first popular scholar
Their affair led to a painful conclusion
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28. Women
Image and Status
Theoretically weaker than and subordinate to men; practically, in most cases, worked side by side with men
Treated as superior to men in purity
Germanic law, unlike Roman law, recognized basic rights of women
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29. A fourteenth-century English manuscript shows women at their daily tasks: carrying jugs of milk from the sheep pen, feeding the chickens, carding and spinning wool.
By permission of The British Library
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30. Women’s Life Choices
Nunnery an option for single women from higher social classes b/c dowry was required
Never more than 3,500 women in cloisters
9th c.: Carolingians made monogamy official policy
Wife’s labor increased
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31. Working Women
Could be apprenticed, appeared in most blue-collar trades, belonged to trade guilds
Could not be scholars, doctors, lawyers
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32. Children 30–50% mortality rate from birth to age 5
Infancy: birth to 6 months up to 2 years—period of speechlessness & breastfeeding
Higher level of infancy: to age 7
Childhood proper considered to start at 7: child can think, speak, act decisively; ready for schooling, private tutoring, or apprenticeship
Childhood extended to end of physical growth—up to 21; till then, under control of parents
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33. A scene of children at play, illustrating popular pastimes, toys and games: catching butterflies, spinning tops, toddling in a walker. Such scenes document the recognition of a child's world.
The Bridgeman Art Library International
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