1. The Middle Ages The Church and the Rise of the Cities Chapter 14 Section 2

2. The Church
The Roman Catholic Church was powerful and influential in the Middle Ages
It taught that people would be rewarded or punished after death depending on how they behaved in life
The Church collected taxes from serfs and took lands from lords in exchange for services performed by the clergy.
The clergy is people with authority from the church to perform religious services
People who did not obey the church were excommunicated.
Excommunication is being expelled from the church

3. The Leaders
High Church Officials, like the Cardinals and the Pope, were involved in politics.
They influenced kings and lords.
Almost every village in Europe had a church. Each church had a bishop and several priests.
Every event in a person's life was influenced and attended by the church.
Besides priests, clergy members included monks and nuns.
Monks and nuns looked after the sick, set up schools, and were scribes that copied books.

4. Monks and Monasteries
Monastery: the building, or complex of buildings, of workplace and living quarters for monks or nuns.
The monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which may be a chapel
Peasants donated work to monastery
Nobles gave monastery money and land.
gave money to raise sons as monks
gave money to receive monk’s prayers
gave money to go to monastery in old age

5. Monks ate plain foods and no meats spent most of their time in silence
they developed a sign language to communicate
copied bible, religious books, and Greek stories
Provided education for wealthy people, and cathedrals eventually became universities.
Wore cassocks, which made them look like angels
Monks were the nurses and caretakers in the middle ages
Improved planting methods
Skilled craftsmen
Chants led to development of written music used today
Led the Crusades to recapture the holy land

6. The Middle Ages

7. Rise of the Cities
After the fall of the Roman Empire, trade across Europe declined.
It wasn’t safe for people to travel great distances.
By 1000, with the firm establishment of feudalism, trade began again
Trade centers around Europe grew into cities.
By 1300, Paris was one of the world’s largest cities with 100,000 people
In cities, merchants, traders, and craftsmen made up the new middle class.
They created guilds. A guild was an organization of all people who all did the same craft or skill.
Guilds set prices, quality standards, and prevented outsiders from taking work.

8. Craftsmen

9. Towns Medieval towns were crowded and dirty. Disease spread quickly
From , the bubonic plague killed 1/3 of Europe’s population.
The plague was called “The Black Death” and was spread by fleas living on rats.