Early Medieval Europe

This is Unit Ten of Western Civilization One, part one of two: early medieval Europe, from the Latin Church after Rome to Charlemagne's empire. Unit nine closed on Europe, barter-poor and small-citied, receiving the ancient world back through Cordoba and Sicily. Carry one idea through this unit. When the West's political unity ended, two things remained. The first was the Latin Church, which kept the written language, the map of dioceses, and the only road to salvation, the sacraments that only priests could give, and which grew by relationships with kings. The second was clan law turned into feudalism: in the absence of any government that could stop raiders, free men pledged fealty to lords for protection and land, and kings sat at the top of that web, often weaker than the men below them. Then one man, Charlemagne, united Gaul and Germany and was crowned emperor by the pope's hand. By the end you will be able to say what medieval means and how the Church and Latin unified the West. To name the sacraments. To describe clan law and the feudal bargain. To tell England from four hundred to ten sixty-six. And to trace the Franks from Clovis to Charlemagne's crown and his government.

Three entries on the Church after Rome: the Latin that outlived speech, Gregory the Great building the papacy's claims, and a forgery beside a letter about pagan temples.

A middle age, and a language that outlived its speakers.

WC1 0901 The Latin Church and the Latin Language After Rome

Medieval means middle, a thousand years from Rome's fall to the Renaissance, and the anchor rejects the Dark Ages conceit. The Latin Church, so called because both churches claimed universality, unified the West, and Latin survived in writing after it died as speech: England could write to Spain but not speak to it. Say Latin Church before ten fifty-four, and Catholic after.

Authority built by playing kings against each other.

WC1 0902 Gregory the Great and the Papacy's Early Claims

Popes claimed to lead the whole Church against Byzantium's emperor-over-church, but were rarely acknowledged outside Italy. Gregory the Great, about six hundred, played Germanic kings against each other and sent missionaries for souls and influence. Pope then meant any bishop, and the office grew by relationships with kings. Authority was built, not inherited.

A forgery cited for centuries, and a letter about temples.

WC1 0903 The Donation of Constantine and the Reuse of Pagan Temples

The Donation of Constantine, an eighth-century forgery, claimed Constantine granted the West to the pope and was cited for centuries. Gregory's letter of six oh one to Mellitus, preserved by Bede, told missionaries to reshape pagan practice rather than fight it, which is why weekday names come from Odin and Thor and Easter from Eostre. Where the anchor addresses the letter to Bede, he only recorded it.

One entry on the road to salvation: the seven sacraments only priests could give, purgatory, and the saints who interceded.

Sacraments and the right saints, not theology.

WC1 0904 The Seven Sacraments, Purgatory, and the Saints

Salvation meant the sacraments and the right saints, not theology. Only priests administered the seven: baptism, communion with transubstantiation, confession, confirmation, marriage, holy orders, and last rites, pointing to purgatory. Saints interceded for persons and places, a patron for every village and kingdom, with Mary promoted as universal. The anchor's claim that Mary was Christianity's first positive image of women is its own.

Three entries on clan law and feudalism: honor and feud, the bargain of fealty for a fief, and a warlord order in which kings were weaker than their vassals.

An attack on one, answered by the clan.

WC1 0905 Clan Law: Honor, Retribution, Feud

Germanic minorities inherited Roman bureaucracy while keeping clan law: honor and reciprocity, an attack on one answered by the clan, insult met with violence, kingship as clan headship. Feud takes its name from this law, and Roman codes faded into it. Rights and privileges came by social category, peasant, townsman, warrior, churchman, and rulers and subjects merged into one web of obligation.

Protection and land, for war service.

WC1 0906 Fealty, Vassal, Fief: The Feudal Bargain

A lord took pledges of fealty from free men, his vassals, and gave protection and fiefs, grants of land, for war service. Vassals took wealth from peasants for horse, armor and weapons and paid no tax, and the Church was a huge, usually tax-exempt landowner with bishops as lords. Feudalism arose from absent government and constant raiding: a response, not a design.

Power from arms, and a king eaten out of house and home.

WC1 0907 Kings Weaker Than Their Vassals: The Warlord Order

Vassals had vassals and were often richer than kings, whose own nobles could make war on them; a king might punish a vassal by eating him out of house and home. No king claimed divine right, and power came from arms, which the anchor calls a warlord system barely above anarchy. Centuries passed before monarchs dominated nobles.

Two entries on England: three centuries of Angles and Saxons, Alfred against the Vikings, and the Norman conquest with its survey of every holding.

The most de-Romanized province.

WC1 0908 Anglo-Saxon England, from 400 to Alfred

Rome left Britain about four hundred; Angles and Saxons settled for three centuries against Romanized Celts, making England the most de-Romanized province, with Old English verse and the Danelaw in the east. Vikings raided from the late eighth century, and Alfred of Wessex, a witness name, beat them in eight seventy-eight. The anchor names neither Alfred nor the date; the witness gives both.

A duke of Viking descent, and a survey of everything.

WC1 0909 1066: William, Hastings, and Domesday

In ten sixty-six William of Normandy, of Viking descent, conquered England at Hastings, a witness name, and imposed Norman rule, Norman lords over an English population. The Domesday Book, also witness-supplied, surveyed every holding in the kingdom for the new king. Hastings and Domesday are absent from the anchor entirely, and the exam expects both.

Five entries on the Franks to Charlemagne: Clovis's practical conversion, Tours and Pepin's coup, forty years of war, the crown of Christmas Day eight hundred, and counts and inspectors in place of a bureaucracy.

Conversion for practical reasons, and a kingdom always divided.

WC1 0910 Clovis and the Merovingians

Clovis united the Franks by killing rival kin, ended Roman power in Gaul, and converted to Latin Christianity about five hundred, four ninety-six by tradition, so the Arian Visigoths' Latin subjects would welcome him; by five oh seven he held almost all Gaul. The Merovingian clan followed. Frankish partible inheritance divided every kingdom among sons, the structural problem.

A coup the pope ratified.

WC1 0911 Charles Martel, Tours, and Pepin's Coup, 751

As the Merovingians weakened, the Carolingians ran affairs. Charles Martel stopped the Arabs at Tours in seven thirty-two, and his son Pepin deposed the last Merovingian in seven fifty-one, the witness's date where the anchor says seven fifty, with the pope's ratification lending legitimacy. The pope's role is the point: Church and Franks now legitimized each other.

Forty years of war, and a crown across peoples.

WC1 0912 Charlemagne's Wars and the Lombard Precedent

Charlemagne, seven sixty-eight to eight fourteen, fought forty years to convert Germans by force and to loot; his brother Carloman's sons were dispossessed and murdered. In seven seventy-three the pope asked him to become king of the Lombards, an unprecedented kingship across peoples that set the precedent for crowns passing between clans. Conversion by force is the record.

The first emperor in the West since four seventy-six.

WC1 0913 Christmas Day, 800: Emperor by the Pope's Hand

In eight hundred Pope Leo the Third crowned Charlemagne emperor, the first in the West since four seventy-six. The anchor disbelieves his biographers' claim of surprise, since he had restored and dominated Leo. Byzantium called it usurpation. The Holy Roman Empire's idea lasted to eighteen oh six, a thousand years, the anchor says, but it was united only under him: the title outlived the state.

Counts, marches, and traveling inspectors.

WC1 0914 Counts, Marches, Missi: Governing Without a Bureaucracy

Charlemagne's empire was a poor reflection of Rome, the anchor says: no bureaucracy, no standing army, no currency, an itinerant court, decrees authenticated by correct Latin, and frequent rebellions. He ruled through counts over counties, margraves over frontier marches, and traveling inspectors, the missi dominici by convention. The inspectors' name is unwitnessed; the office is the anchor's.

Look at what you can now do. You can say that medieval means middle and is not dark, that the Latin Church and written Latin unified a West that could no longer speak to itself, and that the papacy built its authority by relationships, forgeries included. You can name seven sacraments only priests could give, with purgatory behind them and saints interceding. You can describe clan law's honor and feud, the bargain of fealty for a fief as a response to raiding, and a warlord order in which kings were weaker than their vassals. You can tell England from four hundred through Alfred in eight seventy-eight to Hastings and Domesday in ten sixty-six. And you can trace Clovis's practical conversion, Tours, Pepin's coup with the pope's blessing in seven fifty-one, Charlemagne's forty years of war, the crown of eight hundred, and counts and inspectors in place of a bureaucracy. Part two opens on what Charlemagne's scholars saved, how his empire was divided, and the Vikings who fell on the pieces.