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139-555: The love potion motif occurs in literature, mainly in fairy tales, and in paintings, drama, music and mythology. In the Middle Ages , extracts from nightshades were used as hallucinogens, and to make supposed love potions and flying ointments . Such plants may have included belladonna , angel's trumpets , jimsonweed , black henbane , European scopolia or autumn mandrake , which contain alkaloids ( atropine and scopolamine , which are hallucinogenic in higher doses) characterized by

278-475: A common good cannot be applied, because there are also others than the main user who have rights over these goods. We distinguish in the land lordship two sets the reserves which is the set of goods of which the lord reserves the direct exploitation and tenant-in-chief , property whose exploitation is entrusted to a tenant against payment of a royalty, most often called cens and services such as Corvée . The distribution between reserve and tenure varies depending on

417-421: A few families and still others lived on isolated farms spread over the countryside. There were also areas where the pattern was a mix of two or more of those systems. Unlike in the late Roman period, there was no sharp break between the legal status of the free peasant and the aristocrat, and it was possible for a free peasant's family to rise into the aristocracy over several generations through military service to

556-586: A king to rule over them all. By the late sixth century, this arrangement had been replaced by a permanent monarchy, the Kingdom of the Lombards . The invasions brought new ethnic groups to Europe, although some regions received a larger influx of new peoples than others. In Gaul for instance, the invaders settled much more extensively in the north-east than in the south-west. Slavs settled in Central and Eastern Europe and

695-403: A narrow therapeutic index . Some attempts to create love potions have led to overdose or death where the preparations were not standardized for the content of potent compounds. Other alleged aphrodisiacs include Spanish fly, lizard necks, flowers, mashed worms, sacramental bread, and "sweaty cakes" (made from human hair, glandular excretions, skin and blood). Middle Ages In

834-567: A powerful lord. Roman city life and culture changed greatly in the early Middle Ages. Although Italian cities remained inhabited, they contracted significantly in size. Rome, for instance, shrank from a population of hundreds of thousands to around 30,000 by the end of the 6th century. Roman temples were converted into Christian churches and city walls remained in use. In Northern Europe, cities also shrank, while civic monuments and other public buildings were raided for building materials. The establishment of new kingdoms often meant some growth for

973-462: A practical skill rather than a sign of elite status. In the 4th century, Jerome (d. 420) dreamed that God rebuked him for spending more time reading Cicero than the Bible . By the 6th century, Gregory of Tours (d. 594) had a similar dream, but instead of being chastised for reading Cicero, he was chastised for learning shorthand . By the late 6th century, the principal means of religious instruction in

1112-443: A reason why smaller manors tended to rely less on villein tenure . Dependent holdings were held nominally by arrangement of lord and tenant, but tenure became in practice almost universally hereditary, with a payment made to the lord on each succession of another member of the family. Villein land could not be abandoned, at least until demographic and economic circumstances made flight a viable proposition; nor could they be passed to

1251-467: A small foothold in southern Spain. Justinian's reconquests have been criticised by historians for overextending his realm and setting the stage for the early Muslim conquests , but many of the difficulties faced by Justinian's successors were due not just to over-taxation to pay for his wars but to the essentially civilian nature of the empire, which made raising troops difficult. In the Eastern Empire

1390-460: A third party without the lord's permission, and the customary payment. Although not free, villeins were by no means in the same position as slaves: they enjoyed legal rights, subject to local custom, and had recourse to the law subject to court charges, which were an additional source of manorial income. Sub-letting of villein holdings was common, and labour on the demesne might be commuted into an additional money payment, as happened increasingly from

1529-649: Is no universally agreed upon end date. Depending on the context, events such as the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, Christopher Columbus 's first voyage to the Americas in 1492, or the Protestant Reformation in 1517 are sometimes used. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period. For Spain, dates commonly used are the death of King Ferdinand II in 1516,

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1668-527: The fyrd , which were led by the local elites. In military technology, one of the main changes was the return of the crossbow , which had been known in Roman times and reappeared as a military weapon during the last part of the Early Middle Ages. Another change was the introduction of the stirrup, which increased the effectiveness of cavalry as shock troops. A technological advance that had implications beyond

1807-690: The Alans , Vandals , and Suevi crossed into Gaul ; over the next three years they spread across Gaul and in 409 crossed the Pyrenees Mountains into modern-day Spain. The Migration Period began, when various peoples, initially largely Germanic peoples , moved across Europe. The Franks , Alemanni , and the Burgundians all ended up in northern Gaul while the Angles , Saxons , and Jutes settled in Britain , and

1946-521: The Benedictine Rule for Western monasticism during the 6th century, detailing the administrative and spiritual responsibilities of a community of monks led by an abbot . Monks and monasteries had a deep effect on the religious and political life of the Early Middle Ages, in various cases acting as land trusts for powerful families, centres of propaganda and royal support in newly conquered regions, and bases for missions and proselytisation. They were

2085-575: The Carolingian Empire during the later 8th and early 9th centuries. It covered much of Western Europe but later succumbed to the pressures of internal civil wars combined with external invasions: Vikings from the north, Magyars from the east, and Saracens from the south. During the High Middle Ages, which began after 1000, the population of Europe increased greatly as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish and

2224-520: The Desert Fathers of Egypt and Syria . Most European monasteries were of the type that focuses on community experience of the spiritual life, called cenobitism , which was pioneered by Pachomius (d. 348) in the 4th century. Monastic ideals spread from Egypt to Western Europe in the 5th and 6th centuries through hagiographical literature such as the Life of Anthony . Benedict of Nursia (d. 547) wrote

2363-530: The French Revolution . In parts of eastern Germany, the Rittergut manors of Junkers remained until World War II . The term is most often used with reference to medieval Western Europe. Antecedents of the system can be traced to the rural economy of the later Roman Empire ( Dominate ). Labour was the key factor of production . Successive administrations tried to stabilise the imperial economy by freezing

2502-568: The Gregorian chant in liturgical music for the churches. An important activity for scholars during this period was the copying, correcting, and dissemination of basic works on religious and secular topics, with the aim of encouraging learning. New works on religious topics and schoolbooks were also produced. Grammarians of the period modified the Latin language, changing it from the Classical Latin of

2641-698: The Macedonian dynasty . Commerce revived and the emperors oversaw the extension of a uniform administration to all the provinces. The military was reorganised, which allowed the emperors John I (r. 969–976) and Basil II (r. 976–1025) to expand the frontiers of the empire on all fronts. The imperial court was the centre of a revival of classical learning, a process known as the Macedonian Renaissance . Writers such as John Geometres ( fl. early 10th century) composed new hymns, poems, and other works. Missionary efforts by both Eastern and Western clergy resulted in

2780-477: The Medieval Warm Period climate change allowed crop yields to increase. Manorialism , the organisation of peasants into villages that owed rent and labour services to the nobles , and feudalism , the political structure whereby knights and lower-status nobles owed military service to their overlords in return for the right to rent from lands and manors , were two of the ways society was organized in

2919-614: The Mediterranean Sea was disrupted. The word derives from traditional inherited divisions of the countryside, reassigned as local jurisdictions known as manors or seigneuries ; each manor being subject to a lord (French seigneur ), usually holding his position in return for undertakings offered to a higher lord (see Feudalism ). The lord held a manorial court , governed by public law and local custom. Not all territorial seigneurs were secular; bishops and abbots also held lands that entailed similar obligations. By extension,

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3058-456: The Middle Ages . Its defining features included a large, sometimes fortified manor house in which the lord of the manor and his dependants lived and administered a rural estate, and a population of labourers or serfs who worked the surrounding land to support themselves and the lord. These labourers fulfilled their obligations with labour time or in-kind produce at first, and later by cash payment as commercial activity increased. Manorialism

3197-640: The history of Europe , the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the Post-classical period of global history . It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery . The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity ,

3336-466: The 13th century. Land which was neither let to tenants nor formed part of demesne lands was known as "manorial waste"; typically, this included hedges , verges , etc. Common land where all members of the community had right of passage was known as "lord's waste". Part of the demesne land of the manor which being uncultivated was termed the Lord's Waste and served for public roads and for common pasture to

3475-462: The 17th-century German historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods: ancient, medieval, and modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is around 500, with the date of 476 first used by Bruni. Later starting dates are sometimes used in the outer parts of Europe. For Europe as a whole, 1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there

3614-474: The 5th and the 7th centuries, going first to England and Scotland and then on to the continent. Under such monks as Columba (d. 597) and Columbanus (d. 615), they founded monasteries, taught in Latin and Greek, and authored secular and religious works. The Early Middle Ages witnessed the rise of monasticism in the West. The shape of European monasticism was determined by traditions and ideas that originated with

3753-702: The 5th century. The Eastern Empire was marked by closer relations between the political state and Christian Church, with doctrinal matters assuming an importance in Eastern politics that they did not have in Western Europe. Legal developments included the codification of Roman law ; the first effort—the Codex Theodosianus —was completed in 438. Under Emperor Justinian (r. 527–565), another compilation took place—the Corpus Juris Civilis . Justinian also oversaw

3892-665: The 6th and 7th centuries, all of them ruled by the Merovingian dynasty, who were descended from Clovis. The 7th century was a tumultuous period of wars between Austrasia and Neustria. Such warfare was exploited by Pippin (d. 640), the Mayor of the Palace for Austrasia who became the power behind the Austrasian throne. Later members of his family inherited the office, acting as advisers and regents. One of his descendants, Charles Martel (d. 741), won

4031-636: The Arabs. The migrations and invasions of the 4th and 5th centuries disrupted trade networks around the Mediterranean. African goods stopped being imported into Europe, first disappearing from the interior and by the 7th century found only in a few cities such as Rome or Naples . By the end of the 7th century, under the impact of the Muslim conquests , African products were no longer found in Western Europe. The replacement of goods from long-range trade with local products

4170-526: The Bald received the western Frankish lands, comprising most of modern-day France. Charlemagne's grandsons and great-grandsons divided their kingdoms between their descendants, eventually causing all internal cohesion to be lost. In 987 the Carolingian dynasty was replaced in the western lands, with the crowning of Hugh Capet (r. 987–996) as king. In the eastern lands the dynasty had died out earlier, in 911, with

4309-535: The Balkan Peninsula. The settlement of peoples was accompanied by changes in languages. Latin , the literary language of the Western Roman Empire, was gradually replaced by vernacular languages which evolved from Latin, but were distinct from it, collectively known as Romance languages . These changes from Latin to the new languages took many centuries. Greek remained the language of the Byzantine Empire, but

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4448-628: The Battle of Poitiers in 732, halting the advance of Muslim armies across the Pyrenees. Great Britain was divided into small states dominated by the kingdoms of Northumbria , Mercia , Wessex , and East Anglia which descended from the Anglo-Saxon invaders. Smaller kingdoms in present-day Wales and Scotland were still under the control of the native Britons and Picts . Ireland was divided into even smaller political units, usually known as tribal kingdoms, under

4587-566: The Byzantine Empire, as the assumption of the imperial title by the Carolingians asserted their equivalence to the Byzantine state. There were several differences between the newly established Carolingian Empire and both the older Western Roman Empire and the concurrent Byzantine Empire. The Frankish lands were rural in character, with only a few small cities. Most of the people were peasants settled on small farms. Little trade existed and much of that

4726-518: The Byzantine Empire, which he sealed with the marriage of his son Otto II (r. 967–983) to Theophanu (d. 991), daughter of an earlier Byzantine Emperor Romanos II (r. 959–963). By the late 10th century Italy had been drawn into the Ottonian sphere after a period of instability; Otto III (r. 996–1002) spent much of his later reign in the kingdom. The western Frankish kingdom was more fragmented, and although kings remained nominally in charge, much of

4865-629: The Christian period as nova (or "new"). Petrarch regarded the post-Roman centuries as " dark " compared to the "light" of classical antiquity . Leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People (1442), with a middle period "between the fall of the Roman Empire and the revival of city life sometime in late eleventh and twelfth centuries". Tripartite periodisation became standard after

5004-642: The Church had widened to the extent that the cultural and religious differences were greater than the similarities. The formal break, known as the East–West Schism , came in 1054, when the papacy and the patriarchy of Constantinople clashed over papal supremacy and excommunicated each other, which led to the division of Christianity into two Churches—the Western branch became the Roman Catholic Church and

5143-499: The Church had become music and art rather than the book. Most intellectual efforts went towards imitating classical scholarship, but some original works were created, along with now-lost oral compositions. The writings of Sidonius Apollinaris (d. 489), Cassiodorus (d. c.  585 ), and Boethius (d. c. 525) were typical of the age. Changes also took place among laymen, as aristocratic culture focused on great feasts held in halls rather than on literary pursuits. Clothing for

5282-676: The Dnieper River in modern Ukraine to the Adriatic Sea. By 1018, the last Bulgarian nobles had surrendered to the Byzantine Empire. Few large stone buildings were constructed between the Constantinian basilicas of the 4th century and the 8th century, although many smaller ones were built during the 6th and 7th centuries. By the beginning of the 8th century, the Carolingian Empire revived the basilica form of architecture. One feature of

5421-581: The Early Middle Ages are mostly illuminated manuscripts and carved ivories , originally made for metalwork that has since been melted down. Objects in precious metals were the most prestigious form of art, but almost all are lost except for a few crosses such as the Cross of Lothair , several reliquaries , and finds such as the Anglo-Saxon burial at Sutton Hoo and the hoards of Gourdon from Merovingian France, Guarrazar from Visigothic Spain and Nagyszentmiklós near Byzantine territory. There are survivals from

5560-584: The Eastern Mediterranean and remained a major power. The empire's law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or "Code of Justinian", was rediscovered in Northern Italy in the 11th century. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions. Monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks , under the Carolingian dynasty , briefly established

5699-520: The Eastern branch the Eastern Orthodox Church . The ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Empire survived the movements and invasions in the west mostly intact, but the papacy was little regarded, and few of the Western bishops looked to the bishop of Rome for religious or political leadership. Many of the popes prior to 750 were more concerned with Byzantine affairs and Eastern theological controversies. The register, or archived copies of

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5838-528: The Eastern emperors to pay tribute. They remained a strong power until 796. An additional problem to face the empire came as a result of the involvement of Emperor Maurice (r. 582–602) in Persian politics when he intervened in a succession dispute . This led to a period of peace, but when Maurice was overthrown, the Persians invaded and during the reign of Emperor Heraclius (r. 610–641) controlled large chunks of

5977-487: The European population remained rural peasants. Many were no longer settled in isolated farms but had gathered into small communities, usually known as manors or villages. These peasants were often subject to noble overlords and owed them rents and other services, in a system known as manorialism . There remained a few free peasants throughout this period and beyond, with more of them in the regions of Southern Europe than in

6116-705: The Frankish King Charles the Simple (r. 898–922) to settle in what became Normandy . The eastern parts of the Frankish kingdoms, especially Germany and Italy, were under continual Magyar assault until the invader's defeat at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955. The breakup of the Abbasid dynasty meant that the Islamic world fragmented into smaller political states, some of which began expanding into Italy and Sicily, as well as over

6255-568: The Franks and Celtic Britons set up small polities. Francia was centred in northern Gaul, and the first king of whom much is known is Childeric I (d. 481). His grave was discovered in 1653 and is remarkable for its grave goods , which included weapons and a large quantity of gold. Under Childeric's son Clovis I (r. 509–511), the founder of the Merovingian dynasty , the Frankish kingdom expanded and converted to Christianity. The Britons, related to

6394-665: The German tried to annex all of East Francia. Louis the Pious died in 840, with the empire still in chaos. A three-year civil war followed his death. By the Treaty of Verdun (843), a kingdom between the Rhine and Rhone rivers was created for Lothair to go with his lands in Italy, and his imperial title was recognised. Louis the German was in control of Bavaria and the eastern lands in modern-day Germany. Charles

6533-677: The Great (d. 526) and set up a kingdom marked by its co-operation between the Italians and the Ostrogoths, at least until the last years of Theodoric's reign. The Burgundians settled in Gaul, and after an earlier realm was destroyed by the Huns in 436, formed a new kingdom in the 440s. Between today's Geneva and Lyon , it grew to become the realm of Burgundy in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. Elsewhere in Gaul,

6672-547: The High Middle Ages. This period also saw the collapse of the unified Christian church, with the East-West Schism of 1054 . The Crusades , first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims . Kings became the heads of centralised nation-states , reducing crime and violence but making the ideal of a unified Christendom more distant. Intellectual life

6811-505: The Italian peninsula was conquered by the Ostrogoths . The Eastern Roman Empire, often referred to as the Byzantine Empire after the fall of its western counterpart, had little ability to assert control over the lost western territories. The Byzantine emperors maintained a claim over the territory, but while none of the new kings in the west dared to elevate himself to the position of emperor of

6950-733: The Late Middle Ages and beginning the early modern period . The Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history : classical civilisation or Antiquity , the Middle Ages and the Modern Period . The "Middle Ages" first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or "middle season". In early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum , or "middle age", first recorded in 1604, and media saecula , or "middle centuries", first recorded in 1625. The adjective "medieval" (or sometimes "mediaeval" or "mediæval"), meaning pertaining to

7089-439: The Lombards, which freed the papacy from the fear of Lombard conquest and marked the beginnings of the Papal States . The coronation of Charlemagne as emperor on Christmas Day 800 is regarded as a turning point in medieval history, marking a return of the Western Roman Empire, since the new emperor ruled over much of the area previously controlled by the Western emperors. It also marks a change in Charlemagne's relationship with

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7228-405: The Mediterranean, pottery remained prevalent and appears to have been traded over medium-range networks, not just produced locally. The various Germanic states in the west all had coinages that imitated existing Roman and Byzantine forms. Gold continued to be minted until the end of the 7th century in 693-94 when it was replaced by silver in the Merovingian kingdom. The basic Frankish silver coin

7367-411: The Middle Ages, derives from medium aevum . Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the " Six Ages " or the " Four Empires ", and considered their time to be the last before the end of the world. When referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being "modern". In the 1330s, the Italian humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua (or "ancient") and to

7506-496: The Middle East than Europe, losing control of sections of the Muslim lands. Umayyad descendants took over the Iberian Peninsula, the Aghlabids controlled North Africa, and the Tulunids became rulers of Egypt. By the middle of the 8th century, new trading patterns were emerging in the Mediterranean; trade between the Franks and the Arabs replaced the old Roman economy . Franks traded timber, furs, swords and slaves in return for silks and other fabrics, spices, and precious metals from

7645-501: The Pyrenees into the southern parts of the Frankish kingdoms. Efforts by local kings to fight the invaders led to the formation of new political entities. In Anglo-Saxon England , King Alfred the Great (r. 871–899) came to an agreement with the Viking invaders in the late 9th century, resulting in Danish settlements in Northumbria, Mercia, and parts of East Anglia. By the middle of the 10th century, Alfred's successors had conquered Northumbria, and restored English control over most of

7784-415: The Rhine and eastwards, leaving Charles West Francia with the empire to the west of the Rhineland and the Alps. Louis the German (d. 876), the middle child, who had been rebellious to the last, was allowed to keep Bavaria under the suzerainty of his elder brother. The division was disputed. Pepin II of Aquitaine (d. after 864), the emperor's grandson, rebelled in a contest for Aquitaine , while Louis

7923-515: The Roman Empire into a more flexible form to fit the needs of the Church and government. By the reign of Charlemagne, the language had so diverged from the classical Latin that it was later called Medieval Latin . Charlemagne planned to continue the Frankish tradition of dividing his kingdom between all his heirs, but was unable to do so as only one son, Louis the Pious (r. 814–840), was still alive by 813. Just before Charlemagne died in 814, he crowned Louis as his successor. Louis's reign of 26 years

8062-443: The Romans and the invaders are often similar, and tribal items were often modelled on Roman objects. Much of the scholarly and written culture of the new kingdoms was also based on Roman intellectual traditions. An important difference was the gradual loss of tax revenue by the new polities. Many of the new political entities no longer supported their armies through taxes, instead relying on granting them land or rents. This meant there

8201-423: The Vandals went on to cross the strait of Gibraltar after which they conquered the province of Africa . In the 430s the Huns began invading the empire; their king Attila (r. 434–453) led invasions into the Balkans in 442 and 447, Gaul in 451, and Italy in 452. The Hunnic threat remained until Attila's death in 453, when the Hunnic confederation he led fell apart. These invasions by the tribes completely changed

8340-455: The West were not uniform; some areas had greatly fragmented landholding patterns, but in other areas large contiguous blocks of land were the norm. These differences allowed for a wide variety of peasant societies, some dominated by aristocratic landholders and others having a great deal of autonomy. Land settlement also varied greatly. Some peasants lived in large settlements that numbered as many as 700 inhabitants. Others lived in small groups of

8479-435: The Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire —came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate , an Islamic empire, after conquest by Muhammad's successors . Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire, Rome's direct continuation, survived in

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8618-453: The acceptance of figurative monumental sculpture in Christian art , and by the end of the period near life-sized figures such as the Gero Cross were common in important churches. During the later Roman Empire, the principal military developments were attempts to create an effective cavalry force as well as the continued development of highly specialised types of troops. The creation of heavily armoured cataphract -type soldiers as cavalry

8757-406: The arable area, and villein holdings rather more; but some manors consisted solely of demesne, others solely of peasant holdings. The proportion of unfree and free tenures could likewise vary greatly, with more or less reliance on wage labour for agricultural work on the demesne. The proportion of the cultivated area in demesne tended to be greater in smaller manors, while the share of villein land

8896-417: The basilica is the use of a transept , or the "arms" of a cross-shaped building that are perpendicular to the long nave . Other new features of religious architecture include the crossing tower and a monumental entrance to the church , usually at the west end of the building. Carolingian art was produced for a small group of figures around the court, and the monasteries and churches they supported. It

9035-407: The city of Byzantium as the newly renamed eastern capital, Constantinople . Diocletian's reforms strengthened the governmental bureaucracy, reformed taxation, and strengthened the army, which bought the empire time but did not resolve the problems it was facing: excessive taxation, a declining birthrate, and pressures on its frontiers, among others. Civil war between rival emperors became common in

9174-405: The conquest of North Africa sundered maritime connections between those areas. Increasingly, the Byzantine Church differed in language, practices, and liturgy from the Western Church. The Eastern Church used Greek instead of the Western Latin. Theological and political differences emerged, and by the early and middle 8th century issues such as iconoclasm , clerical marriage , and state control of

9313-446: The construction of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and the reconquest of North Africa from the Vandals and Italy from the Ostrogoths, under Belisarius (d. 565). The conquest of Italy was not complete, as a deadly outbreak of plague in 542 led to the rest of Justinian's reign concentrating on defensive measures rather than further conquests. At the Emperor's death, the Byzantines had control of most of Italy , North Africa, and

9452-447: The control of kings. There were perhaps as many as 150 local kings in Ireland, of varying importance. The Carolingian dynasty , as the successors to Charles Martel are known, officially took control of the kingdoms of Austrasia and Neustria in a coup of 753 led by Pippin III (r. 752–768). A contemporary chronicle claims that Pippin sought, and gained, authority for this coup from Pope Stephen II (pope 752–757). Pippin's takeover

9591-408: The conversion of the Moravians , Bulgars , Bohemians , Poles , Magyars, and Slavic inhabitants of the Kievan Rus' . These conversions contributed to the founding of political states in the lands of those peoples—the states of Moravia , Bulgaria , Bohemia , Poland , Hungary, and the Kievan Rus'. Bulgaria, which was founded around 680, at its height reached from Budapest to the Black Sea and from

9730-425: The death of Louis the Child , and the selection of the unrelated Conrad I (r. 911–918) as king. The breakup of the Carolingian Empire was accompanied by invasions, migrations, and raids by external foes. The Atlantic and northern shores were harassed by the Vikings , who also raided the British Isles and settled there as well as in Iceland. In 911, the Viking chieftain Rollo (d. c. 931) received permission from

9869-401: The death of Queen Isabella I of Castile in 1504, or the conquest of Granada in 1492. Historians from Romance-speaking countries tend to divide the Middle Ages into two parts: an earlier "High" and later "Low" period. English-speaking historians, following their German counterparts, generally subdivide the Middle Ages into three intervals: "Early", "High", and "Late". In the 19th century,

10008-561: The disorder, was killed fighting the Goths at the Battle of Adrianople on 9 August 378. In addition to the threat from such tribal confederacies in the north, internal divisions within the empire, especially within the Christian Church, caused problems. In 400, the Visigoths invaded the Western Roman Empire and, although briefly forced back from Italy, in 410 sacked the city of Rome . In 406

10147-442: The early Carolingian period, with a growing dominance of elite heavy cavalry. The use of militia-type levies of the free population declined over the Carolingian period. Although much of the Carolingian armies were mounted, a large proportion during the early period appear to have been mounted infantry , rather than true cavalry. One exception was Anglo-Saxon England, where the armies were still composed of regional levies, known as

10286-523: The elites was richly embellished with jewels and gold. Lords and kings supported entourages of fighters who formed the backbone of the military forces. Family ties within the elites were important, as were the virtues of loyalty, courage, and honour. These ties led to the prevalence of the feud in aristocratic society, examples of which included those related by Gregory of Tours that took place in Merovingian Gaul. Most feuds seem to have ended quickly with

10425-570: The emergence of Islam in Arabia during the lifetime of Muhammad (d. 632). After his death, Islamic forces conquered much of the Eastern Roman Empire and Persia, starting with Syria in 634–635, continuing with Persia between 637 and 642, reaching Egypt in 640–641, North Africa in the later seventh century, and the Iberian Peninsula in 711. By 714, Islamic forces controlled much of

10564-403: The empire than tax-payers. The Emperor Diocletian (r. 284–305) split the empire into separately administered eastern and western halves in 286; the empire was not considered divided by its inhabitants or rulers, as legal and administrative promulgations in one division were considered valid in the other. In 330, after a period of civil war, Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) refounded

10703-560: The empire to Christianity , a gradual process that lasted from the 2nd to the 5th centuries. In 376, the Goths , fleeing from the Huns , received permission from Emperor Valens (r. 364–378) to settle in the Roman province of Thracia in the Balkans . The settlement did not go smoothly, and when Roman officials mishandled the situation, the Goths began to raid and plunder. Valens, attempting to put down

10842-447: The empire, including Egypt, Syria, and Anatolia until Heraclius' successful counterattack. In 628 the empire secured a peace treaty and recovered all of its lost territories. In Western Europe, some of the older Roman elite families died out while others became more involved with ecclesiastical than secular affairs. Values attached to Latin scholarship and education mostly disappeared, and while literacy remained important, it became

10981-479: The empire. Such movements were aided by the refusal of the Western Roman elites to support the army or pay the taxes that would have allowed the military to suppress the migration. The emperors of the 5th century were often controlled by military strongmen such as Stilicho (d. 408), Aetius (d. 454), Aspar (d. 471), Ricimer (d. 472), or Gundobad (d. 516), who were partly or fully of non-Roman background. When

11120-454: The entire Middle Ages were often referred to as the " Dark Ages ", but with the adoption of these subdivisions, use of this term was restricted to the Early Middle Ages, at least among historians. The Roman Empire reached its greatest territorial extent during the 2nd century AD; the following two centuries witnessed the slow decline of Roman control over its outlying territories. Economic issues, including inflation, and external pressure on

11259-446: The failure of his Zaragoza expedition of 778. He solved this problem by allotting "desert" tracts of uncultivated land belonging to the royal fisc under direct control of the emperor. These holdings aprisio entailed specific conditions. The earliest specific aprisio grant that has been identified was at Fontjoncouse , near Narbonne (see Lewis, links). In former Roman settlements, a system of villas , dating from Late Antiquity,

11398-613: The frontiers combined to create the Crisis of the Third Century , with emperors coming to the throne only to be rapidly replaced by new usurpers. Military expenses increased steadily during the 3rd century, mainly in response to the war with the Sasanian Empire , which revived in the middle of the 3rd century. The army doubled in size, and cavalry and smaller units replaced the Roman legion as

11537-461: The imperial boundaries, remaining subject to their own traditional law. As the Germanic kingdoms succeeded Roman authority in the west in the fifth century, Roman landlords were often simply replaced by Germanic ones, with little change to the underlying situation or displacement of populations. The process of rural self-sufficiency was given an abrupt boost in the eighth century, when normal trade in

11676-447: The imperial officials called missi dominici , who served as roving inspectors and troubleshooters. Charlemagne's court in Aachen was the centre of the cultural revival sometimes referred to as the " Carolingian Renaissance ". Literacy increased, as did development in the arts, architecture and jurisprudence, as well as liturgical and scriptural studies. The English monk Alcuin (d. 804)

11815-415: The king of the united Austrasia and Neustria. Charles, more often known as Charles the Great or Charlemagne , embarked upon a programme of systematic expansion in 774 that unified a large portion of Europe, eventually controlling modern-day France, northern Italy, and Saxony . In the wars that lasted beyond 800, he rewarded allies with war booty and command over parcels of land. In 774, Charlemagne conquered

11954-486: The king, and a greater proportion (rather more than a quarter) were held by bishoprics and monasteries . Ecclesiastical manors tended to be larger, with a significantly greater villein area than neighbouring lay manors. The effect of circumstances on manorial economy is complex and at times contradictory: upland conditions tended to preserve peasant freedoms (livestock husbandry in particular being less labour-intensive and therefore less demanding of villein services); on

12093-481: The landscape, the open field system . It outlasted serfdom in the sense that it continued with freehold labourers. As an economic system, it outlasted feudalism, according to Andrew Jones, because "it could maintain a warrior, but it could equally well maintain a capitalist landlord. It could be self-sufficient, yield produce for the market, or it could yield a money rent." The last feudal dues in France were abolished at

12232-661: The large brooches in fibula or penannular form that were a key piece of personal adornment for elites, including the Irish Tara Brooch . Highly decorated books were mostly Gospel Books and these have survived in larger numbers , including the Insular Book of Kells , the Book of Lindisfarne , and the imperial Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram , which is one of the few to retain its " treasure binding " of gold encrusted with jewels. Charlemagne's court seems to have been responsible for

12371-430: The latter containing also parts of at least one other manor. This situation sometimes led to replacement by cash payments or their equivalents in kind of the demesne labour obligations of those peasants living furthest from the lord's estate. As with peasant plots, the demesne was not a single territorial unit, but consisted rather of a central house with neighbouring land and estate buildings, plus strips dispersed through

12510-403: The legal and organisational framework of feudal society, manorial structures were not uniform or coordinated. In the later Middle Ages, areas of incomplete or non-existent manorialisation persisted while the manorial economy underwent substantial development with changing economic conditions. Not all manors contained all three classes of land. Typically, demesne accounted for roughly a third of

12649-470: The letters, of Pope Gregory the Great (pope 590–604) survived, and of those more than 850 letters, the vast majority were concerned with affairs in Italy or Constantinople. The only part of Western Europe where the papacy had influence was Britain, where Gregory had sent the Gregorian mission in 597 to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. Irish missionaries were most active in Western Europe between

12788-417: The line of Western emperors ceased, many of the kings who replaced them were from the same background. Intermarriage between the new kings and the Roman elites was common. This led to a fusion of Roman culture with the customs of the invading tribes, including the popular assemblies that allowed free male tribal members more say in political matters than was common in the Roman state. Material artefacts left by

12927-534: The lord and his tenants. In many settlements during the early modern period, illegal building was carried out on lord's waste land by squatters who would then plead their case to remain with local support. An example of a lord's waste settlement, where the main centres grew up in this way, is the village of Bredfield in Suffolk . Lord's waste continues to be a source of rights and responsibilities issues in places such as Henley-in-Arden , Warwickshire . In examining

13066-517: The main and sometimes only outposts of education and literacy in a region. Many of the surviving manuscripts of the Latin classics were copied in monasteries in the Early Middle Ages. Monks were also the authors of new works, including history, theology, and other subjects, written by authors such as Bede (d. 735), a native of northern England who wrote in the late 7th and early 8th centuries. The Frankish kingdom in northern Gaul split into kingdoms called Austrasia , Neustria , and Burgundy during

13205-410: The main tactical unit. The need for revenue led to increased taxes and a decline in numbers of the curial , or landowning, class, and decreasing numbers of them willing to shoulder the burdens of holding office in their native towns. More bureaucrats were needed in the central administration to deal with the needs of the army, which led to complaints from civilians that there were more tax-collectors in

13344-473: The manor alongside free and villein ones: in addition, the lord might lease free tenements belonging to neighbouring manors, as well as holding other manors some distance away to provide a greater range of produce. Nor were manors held necessarily by lay lords rendering military service (or again, cash in lieu) to their superior: a substantial share (estimated by value at 17% in England in 1086 ) belonged directly to

13483-633: The medieval period, and the modern period . The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early , High , and Late Middle Ages . Population decline , counterurbanisation , the collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes , which had begun in Late Antiquity , continued into the Early Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period , including various Germanic peoples , formed new kingdoms in what remained of

13622-459: The middle of the 4th century, diverting soldiers from the empire's frontier forces and allowing invaders to encroach. For much of the 4th century, Roman society stabilised in a new form that differed from the earlier classical period , with a widening gulf between the rich and poor, and a decline in the vitality of the smaller towns. Another change was the Christianisation , or conversion of

13761-534: The migrations of the Slavs added Slavic languages to Eastern Europe. As Western Europe witnessed the formation of new kingdoms, the Eastern Roman Empire remained intact and experienced an economic revival that lasted into the early 7th century. There were fewer invasions of the eastern section of the empire; most occurred in the Balkans. Peace with the Sasanian Empire , the traditional enemy of Rome, lasted throughout most of

13900-464: The military was the horseshoe , which allowed horses to be used in rocky terrain. The High Middle Ages was a period of tremendous expansion of population . The estimated population of Europe grew from 35 to 80 million between 1000 and 1347, although the exact causes remain unclear: improved agricultural techniques, the decline of slaveholding, a more clement climate and the lack of invasion have all been suggested. As much as 90 per cent of

14039-467: The most important of which was the bailiff . The sovereign can also be a lord; the seigneuries he owns form the royal domain. The title of lord is also granted, especially in modern times, to individuals holding noble fiefdoms which are not for all that seigneuries. These "lords" are sometimes called sieurs, equivalent terms in medieval times. The lord is the direct or prominent owner of the land assets of his lordship. The notion of absolute ownership over

14178-750: The natives of Britannia  – modern-day Great Britain – settled in what is now Brittany . Other monarchies were established by the Visigothic Kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula , the Suebi in northwestern Iberia, and the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa . In the sixth century, the Lombards settled in Northern Italy , replacing the Ostrogothic kingdom with a grouping of duchies that occasionally selected

14317-410: The north. The practice of assarting , or bringing new lands into production by offering incentives to the peasants who settled them, also contributed to the expansion of population. Manorialism Manorialism , also known as seigneurialism , the manor system or manorial system , was the method of land ownership (or " tenure ") in parts of Europe, notably France and later England, during

14456-566: The origins of the monastic cloister , Walter Horn found that "as a manorial entity the Carolingian monastery  ... differed little from the fabric of a feudal estate, save that the corporate community of men for whose sustenance this organisation was maintained consisted of monks who served God in chant and spent much of their time in reading and writing." Tenants owned land on the manor under one of several legal agreements: freehold , copyhold , customary freehold and leasehold . Like feudalism which, together with manorialism, formed

14595-491: The other hand, some upland areas of Europe showed some of the most oppressive manorial conditions, while lowland eastern England is credited with an exceptionally large free peasantry, in part a legacy of Scandinavian settlement. Similarly, the spread of money economy stimulated the replacement of labour services by money payments, but the growth of the money supply and resulting inflation after 1170 initially led nobles to take back leased estates and to re-impose labour dues as

14734-537: The payment of some sort of compensation . Women took part in aristocratic society mainly in their roles as wives and mothers of men, with the role of mother of a ruler being especially prominent in Merovingian Gaul. In Anglo-Saxon society the lack of many child rulers meant a lesser role for women as queen mothers, but this was compensated for by the increased role played by abbesses of monasteries. Only in Italy does it appear that women were always considered under

14873-634: The peninsula in a region they called Al-Andalus . The Islamic conquests reached their peak in the mid-eighth century. The defeat of Muslim forces at the Battle of Tours in 732 led to the reconquest of southern France by the Franks, but the main reason for the halt of Islamic growth in Europe was the overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate and its replacement by the Abbasid Caliphate . The Abbasids moved their capital to Baghdad and were more concerned with

15012-416: The period and region. Manors each consisted of up to three classes of land: Additional sources of income for the lord included charges for use of his mill, bakery or wine-press, or for the right to hunt or to let pigs feed in his woodland, as well as court revenues and single payments on each change of tenant. On the other side of the account, manorial administration involved significant expenses, perhaps

15151-408: The political and demographic nature of what had been the Western Roman Empire. By the end of the 5th century the western section of the empire was divided into smaller political units, ruled by the tribes that had invaded in the early part of the century. The deposition of the last emperor of the west, Romulus Augustulus , in 476 has traditionally marked the end of the Western Roman Empire. By 493

15290-582: The political power devolved to the local lords. Missionary efforts to Scandinavia during the 9th and 10th centuries helped strengthen the growth of kingdoms such as Sweden , Denmark , and Norway , which gained power and territory. Some kings converted to Christianity, although not all by 1000. Scandinavians also expanded and colonised throughout Europe. Besides the settlements in Ireland, England, and Normandy, further settlement took place in what became Russia and Iceland . Swedish traders and raiders ranged down

15429-419: The protection and control of a male relative. Peasant society is much less documented than the nobility. Most of the surviving information available to historians comes from archaeology ; few detailed written records documenting peasant life remain from before the 9th century. Most of the descriptions of the lower classes come from either law codes or writers from the upper classes. Landholding patterns in

15568-520: The rivers of the Russian steppe, and even attempted to seize Constantinople in 860 and 907 . Christian Spain, initially driven into a small section of the peninsula in the north, expanded slowly south during the 9th and 10th centuries, establishing the kingdoms of Asturias and León . In Eastern Europe, Byzantium revived its fortunes under Emperor Basil I (r. 867–886) and his successors Leo VI (r. 886–912) and Constantine VII (r. 913–959), members of

15707-408: The site of the existing manor house at the edge of its village was abandoned for a new one, isolated in its park, with the village out of view. In an agrarian society, the conditions of land tenure underlie all social or economic factors. There were two legal systems of pre-manorial landholding. One, the most common, was the system of holding land " allodially " in full outright ownership. The other

15846-649: The slow infiltration of the Balkans by the Slavs added a further difficulty for Justinian's successors. It began gradually, but by the late 540s Slavic tribes were in Thrace and Illyrium , and had defeated an imperial army near Adrianople in 551. In the 560s the Avars began to expand from their base on the north bank of the Danube ; by the end of the 6th-century, they were the dominant power in Central Europe and routinely able to force

15985-411: The social structure into place: sons were to succeed their fathers in their trade, councillors were forbidden to resign, and coloni , the cultivators of land, were not to move from the land they were attached to. The workers of the land were on their way to becoming serfs. Several factors conspired to merge the status of former slaves and former free farmers into a dependent class of such coloni : it

16124-674: The southern part of Great Britain. In northern Britain, Kenneth MacAlpin (d. c. 860) united the Picts and the Scots into the Kingdom of Alba . In the early 10th century, the Ottonian dynasty had established itself in Germany , and was engaged in driving back the Magyars. Its efforts culminated in the coronation in 962 of Otto I (r. 936–973) as Holy Roman Emperor . In 972, he secured recognition of his title by

16263-493: The towns chosen as capitals. Although there had been Jewish communities in many Roman cities , the Jews suffered periods of persecution after the conversion of the empire to Christianity. Officially they were tolerated, if subject to conversion efforts, and at times were even encouraged to settle in new areas. Religious beliefs in the Eastern Roman Empire and Iran were in flux during the late sixth and early seventh centuries. Judaism

16402-520: The value of fixed cash payments declined in real terms. The last feudal dues in France were abolished at the French Revolution . The last patroonship was abolished in New York in the 1840s as a result of the Anti-Rent War . In parts of eastern Germany, the Rittergut manors of Junkers remained until World War II . In Quebec, the last feudal rents were paid in 1970 under the modified provisions of

16541-403: The village grew up around the forecourt of the manor, formerly walled, while the manor lands stretched away outside, as still may be seen at Petworth House . As concerns for privacy increased in the 18th century, manor houses were often located a farther distance from the village. For example, when a grand new house was required by the new owner of Harlaxton Manor , Lincolnshire, in the 1830s,

16680-630: The west, Byzantine control of most of the Western Empire could not be sustained; the reconquest of the Mediterranean periphery and the Italian Peninsula ( Gothic War ) in the reign of Justinian (r. 527–565) was the sole, and temporary, exception. The political structure of Western Europe changed with the end of the united Roman Empire. Although the movements of peoples during this period are usually described as "invasions", they were not just military expeditions but migrations of entire peoples into

16819-469: The word manor is sometimes used in England as a slang term for any home area or territory in which authority is held, often in a police or criminal context. In the generic plan of a medieval manor from Shepherd's Historical Atlas , the strips of individually worked land in the open field system are immediately apparent. In this plan, the manor house is set slightly apart from the village, but equally often

16958-438: Was a trend throughout the old Roman lands that happened in the Early Middle Ages. This was especially marked in the lands that did not lie on the Mediterranean, such as northern Gaul or Britain. Non-local goods appearing in the archaeological record are usually luxury goods. In the northern parts of Europe, not only were the trade networks local, but the goods carried were simple, with little pottery or other complex products. Around

17097-611: Was a use of precaria or benefices , in which land was held conditionally (the root of the English word "precarious"). To these two systems, the Carolingian monarchs added a third, the aprisio , which linked manorialism with feudalism . The aprisio made its first appearance in Charlemagne 's province of Septimania in the south of France , when Charlemagne had to settle the Visigothic refugees who had fled with his retreating forces after

17236-461: Was an active proselytising faith, and at least one Arab political leader converted to it. In addition Jewish theologians wrote polemics defending their religion against Christian and Islamic influences. Christianity had active missions competing with the Persians' Zoroastrianism in seeking converts, especially among residents of the Arabian Peninsula . All these strands came together with

17375-488: Was an important feature of the 5th-century Roman military. The various invading tribes had differing emphases on types of soldiers—ranging from the primarily infantry Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain to the Vandals and Visigoths who had a high proportion of cavalry in their armies. During the early invasion period, the stirrup had not been introduced into warfare, which limited the usefulness of cavalry as shock troops because it

17514-525: Was dominated by efforts to regain the dignity and classicism of imperial Roman and Byzantine art , but was also influenced by the Insular art of the British Isles. Insular art integrated the energy of Irish Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Germanic styles of ornament with Mediterranean forms such as the book, and established many characteristics of art for the rest of the medieval period. Surviving religious works from

17653-409: Was greater in large manors, providing the lord of the latter with a larger supply of obligatory labour for demesne work. The proportion of free tenements was generally less variable, but tended to be somewhat greater on the smaller manors. Manors varied similarly in their geographical arrangement: most did not coincide with a single village, but rather consisted of parts of two or more villages, most of

17792-473: Was inherited by the medieval world. The possessor of a seigneurie bears the title of " Lord ". He can be an individual, in the vast majority of cases a national of the nobility or of the Bourgeoisie , but also a judicial person most often an ecclesiastical institution such as an abbey , a cathedral or canonical chapter or a military order. The power of the lord was exercised through various intermediaries,

17931-408: Was invited to Aachen and brought the education available in the monasteries of Northumbria. Charlemagne's chancery —or writing office—made use of a new script today known as Carolingian minuscule , allowing a common writing style that advanced communication across much of Europe. Charlemagne sponsored changes in church liturgy , imposing the Roman form of church service on his domains, as well as

18070-487: Was less need for large tax revenues and so the taxation systems decayed. Warfare was common between and within the kingdoms. Slavery declined as the supply weakened, and society became more rural. Between the 5th and 8th centuries, new peoples and individuals filled the political void left by Roman centralised government. The Ostrogoths , a Gothic tribe, settled in Roman Italy in the late fifth century under Theoderic

18209-484: Was marked by scholasticism , a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities . The theology of Thomas Aquinas , the paintings of Giotto , the poetry of Dante and Chaucer , the travels of Marco Polo , and the Gothic architecture of cathedrals such as Chartres are among the outstanding achievements toward the end of this period and into the Late Middle Ages. The Late Middle Ages

18348-636: Was marked by difficulties and calamities including famine, plague, and war, which significantly diminished the population of Europe; between 1347 and 1350, the Black Death killed about a third of Europeans. Controversy, heresy , and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the interstate conflict, civil strife, and peasant revolts that occurred in the kingdoms. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding

18487-439: Was marked by numerous divisions of the empire among his sons and, after 829, civil wars between various alliances of father and sons over the control of various parts of the empire. Eventually, Louis recognised his eldest son Lothair I (d. 855) as emperor and gave him Italy. Louis divided the rest of the empire between Lothair and Charles the Bald (d. 877), his youngest son. Lothair took East Francia , comprising both banks of

18626-545: Was not possible to put the full force of the horse and rider behind blows struck by the rider. The greatest change in military affairs during the invasion period was the adoption of the Hunnic composite bow in place of the earlier, and weaker, Scythian composite bow. Another development was the increasing use of longswords and the progressive replacement of scale armour by mail armour and lamellar armour . The importance of infantry and light cavalry began to decline during

18765-501: Was part of the feudal system . Manorialism originated in the Roman villa system of the Late Roman Empire , and was widely practised in medieval western Europe and parts of central Europe. An essential element of feudal society, manorialism was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market economy and new forms of agrarian contract. Manorialism faded away slowly and piecemeal, along with its most vivid feature in

18904-443: Was possible to be described as servus et colonus , "both slave and colonus ". The Laws of Constantine I around 325 both reinforced the semi-servile status of the coloni and limited their rights to sue in the courts; the Codex Theodosianus promulgated under Theodosius II extended these restrictions. The legal status of adscripti , "bound to the soil", contrasted with barbarian foederati , who were permitted to settle within

19043-497: Was reinforced with propaganda that portrayed the Merovingians as inept or cruel rulers, exalted the accomplishments of Charles Martel, and circulated stories of the family's great piety. At the time of his death in 768, Pippin left his kingdom in the hands of his two sons, Charles (r. 768–814) and Carloman (r. 768–771). When Carloman died of natural causes, Charles blocked the succession of Carloman's young son and installed himself as

19182-522: Was the denarius or denier , while the Anglo-Saxon version was called a penny . From these areas, the denier or penny spread throughout Europe from 700 to 1000 AD. Copper or bronze coins were not struck, nor were gold except in Southern Europe. No silver coins denominated in multiple units were minted. Christianity was a major unifying factor between Eastern and Western Europe before the Arab conquests, but

19321-409: Was with the British Isles and Scandinavia, in contrast to the older Roman Empire with its trading networks centred on the Mediterranean. The empire was administered by an itinerant court that travelled with the emperor, as well as approximately 300 imperial officials called counts , who administered the counties the empire had been divided into. Clergy and local bishops served as officials, as well as

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