Early Medieval Europe

This is Unit Ten of Western Civilization One, part two of two: Charlemagne's scholars and the partition of his empire, the Vikings, and the four procedures the exam tests on early medieval Europe. Part one ended with Charlemagne governing by counts and inspectors without a bureaucracy. Carry the same idea through this part. Two institutions and one man rebuilt Europe, and now three invaders fell on the pieces. Charlemagne's scholars saved texts and invented the letters you read, his empire was divided at Verdun in eight forty-three, and for two centuries Saracens, Magyars and Vikings raided a Europe with no government that could stop them, during which feudalism hardened into the order of the High Middle Ages. The Vikings came for wealth with a technology, the sailed longship, and their age ended not by defeat but by kings and bishops of their own. What survived was the Church, the feudal bargain, an idea of empire Otto revived, and the kingdoms the Normans would build. By the end you will be able to describe the renaissance, Verdun, Otto and Lechfeld. To explain the Vikings from cause to end. To say why feudalism was violent. To sequence, map, classify and read the Tapestry. And to state the story of the unit.

Three entries on renaissance, partition and invaders: the scholars and the new handwriting, Verdun and Otto's crown, and the Saracens and Magyars beaten at Lechfeld.

The letters you read.

WC1 0915 The Carolingian Renaissance and a New Handwriting

Charlemagne gathered scholars from all Europe, Alcuin of England among them on the witness, educated priests, built libraries, corrected the Vulgate, and revived rhetoric, logic and astronomy. The handwriting reform, Carolingian minuscule, gave separated letters, spaces, punctuation, and upper and lower case; the letters you read descend from it. A renaissance of copying and schooling, not of new thought: keep the scale.

Three strips, and a crown that outlived the blood.

WC1 0916 Partition, Verdun, East Francia, and Otto I, 962

After eight fourteen the empire was partitioned, at Verdun in eight forty-three on the witness, among Louis the Pious's sons, and East Francia became Germany's origin. Otto the First was crowned emperor in nine sixty-two, and the Empire outlived Charlemagne's blood, its title passing to a non-Carolingian line. Verdun is witness-supplied; the anchor describes the division unnamed. Learn nine sixty-two.

Three invaders, and horsemen settled in Hungary.

WC1 0917 Saracens, Magyars, and Lechfeld, 955

After the Carolingians, disorder lasted to at least eleven hundred. Saracen raiders took Sicily in the ninth century; Magyar horsemen raided from the east in the tenth until Otto the First beat them at Lechfeld in nine fifty-five, a witness name the anchor omits, and they settled in Hungary. Three invaders: Saracens, Magyars, Vikings.

Five entries on the Vikings: why they came, the raid of seven ninety-three and the great fleets, Normandy, Iceland and Newfoundland, the Rus and the slave trade, and how the age ended.

Wealth and a sail, not paganism.

WC1 0918 Why the Vikings Came: Baltic Wealth and the Sailed Longship

About seven hundred the Baltic's furs, timber and amber drew wealth into Scandinavia, and sails added to longships let Vikings cross seas and row up rivers. Silver and slaves were the targets, monasteries the favorite, and others called them Northmen, heathen men, or Rus. Wealth and technology explain the raids, not paganism; terror at their paganism was the victims'.

Small parties become fleets of hundreds.

WC1 0919 793 and the Great Fleets

The first major raid struck Lindisfarne in seven ninety-three, a witness name. Small parties grew into fleets of hundreds: the anchor's one hundred fifty on the Garonne in eight forty-four, eight hundred at Hamburg in eight forty-five, seven hundred at Paris in eight eighty-five, and the Great Fleet in East Anglia in the eight seventies. The ship counts are the anchor's, attributed.

From a French duchy to North America.

WC1 0920 Normandy, Iceland, Newfoundland

From about eight fifty Vikings settled England, Scotland, empty Iceland and France. In nine eleven Normandy was granted to Rollo to fend off other Vikings, and its duke conquered England in ten sixty-six. About one thousand they reached Newfoundland, the first Europeans in North America, a colony that failed after conflict with Indigenous people. The Americas were spared five centuries, the anchor says.

Furs, amber, and Slavs sold south.

WC1 0921 The Rus, the Slave Trade, and the Varangians

From the mid-eighth century Vikings rowed Russia's rivers to trade furs and amber with Byzantium and the Abbasids and to sell Slavs as slaves, bringing cash north. Invited to rule at Kiev, they became the Rus, from whom Russia takes its name, and the Varangian Guard served the emperor. Slaving is the record, and the words Slav and slave are linked.

Ended from within.

WC1 0922 How the Viking Age Ended

By the mid-tenth century Scandinavian kings asserted control, and conversion was common by one thousand: Denmark in nine fifty-eight, Norway and Sweden in nine ninety-five, the anchor's dates. Normandy, the strongest ex-Viking state, produced the conqueror of ten sixty-six. Kings and bishops ended raiding from within; the Viking Age ended by state-building, not defeat.

One entry on feudalism as violence: lords with no livelihood but war, and the anchor's larger patterns.

A new society, and a violent one.

WC1 0923 The Feudal System as a Product of Violence

Feudalism was itself violent: lesser lords had no livelihood but war, knights lived by honor and reprisal, and the invaders' disorder made every lord a defender. The anchor's larger patterns are feudalism's long legacy and the Latin Church as Europe's one institution, and it insists this was a new society, not a static one. The anchor's word for knights is not voiced; the violence is.

Four procedures: the period on three anchors, the empire as core and rim with three Viking directions, an actor classified by what is owed and to whom, and the Tapestry read as an argument.

Four seventy-six, eight hundred, ten sixty-six.

WC1 0924 Sequencing Early Medieval Europe, 476 to 1066

Fix three anchors: four seventy-six, eight hundred, ten sixty-six. Between the first two lie the Germanic kingdoms and the papacy's rise; between the last two lie partition, invasion and feudalism. Clovis's conversion about five hundred and Gregory the Great about six hundred are kingdoms, early. Tours in seven thirty-two and Pepin's coup in seven fifty-one are kingdoms, late. Lindisfarne in seven ninety-three is seven years before the coronation. Verdun in eight forty-three is partition; Alfred in eight seventy-eight falls between Verdun and Lechfeld; Lechfeld in nine fifty-five comes seven years before Otto's crown in nine sixty-two. Read: Clovis, Gregory, Tours, Pepin, Lindisfarne, coronation, Verdun, Alfred, Lechfeld, Otto, Hastings. The trap is the Vikings and Charlemagne: the raids began before his coronation and he fortified the Seine, so an answer placing all Viking activity after eight fourteen is wrong.

A core and a rim, and three directions.

WC1 0925 Reading a Map of Charlemagne's Empire and the Viking Routes

For Charlemagne's empire, read a core and a rim: the core is Gaul and Germany to the Elbe, the rim the Lombard kingdom, the Spanish march, and the Saxon and Avar frontiers. For the Vikings, three directions: west to England, Iceland and Newfoundland; south up the Seine and Loire; east down Russia's rivers to Byzantium and Baghdad. A line dividing the empire into three vertical strips is Verdun, with East Francia on the right. A shaded kingdom in northern Italy inside the empire is the Lombards. An arrow to a river mouth near Paris ending in a duchy is Normandy. An arrow from Sweden to a city on the Dnieper is the Rus at Kiev. An arrow across the open Atlantic is Iceland and Newfoundland. The eastern border stops at the Elbe and the Danube, so Poland or Hungary shaded as Carolingian is wrong, and the Magyars reach Hungary only in the tenth century.

To whom is something owed, and what.

WC1 0926 Classifying a Medieval Actor: Lord, Vassal, Serf, Bishop, King

Ask two questions: to whom does this person owe something, and what. A vassal owes military service to a lord for a fief. A lord owes protection and land to his vassals. A serf owes labor and dues to whoever holds the land and cannot leave it. A bishop owes spiritual service to the Church and often military service to a king as a landholder. A king owes protection to his vassals and receives their pledges, and may be weaker than they are. A man who kneels with his hands in another's and swears to fight is a vassal. A man who grants an estate for that oath is a lord. A farmer owing three days' work who cannot marry off the manor is a serf. A churchman holding a county and bringing knights is a bishop as lord. A ruler who cannot tax his nobles is a king in the warlord order. One person could be several things, so classify by the obligation named, not the title.

An argument in thread.

WC1 0927 Reading the Bayeux Tapestry's Pledge

For an image, ask who made it and for whom, what the scene claims, and what the claim justifies. The Bayeux Tapestry's scene of Harold swearing to William, read from a reproduction of the primary source, is the case. Norman patrons made it after ten sixty-six, in the winners' telling. It claims that Harold, hands on relics, swore fealty to William and became his vassal. That justifies the invasion: when Harold took the crown he broke an oath, and William's war became the punishment of a faithless vassal rather than a conquest. What the image assumes is that an oath on relics binds a man before God, that a vassal who breaks it forfeits his rights, and that the audience shares the feudal bargain from part one. A picture made by the victor is a claim, not a record, and the English side left no tapestry. Do not answer that the scene proves Harold swore; answer that it asserts he did, and why the assertion mattered.

One capstone entry: the two institutions, the one man and the three invaders that rebuilt Europe from Rome's ruins.

What remained when unity ended.

WC1 0928 From Rome's Ruins to Charlemagne: How Church and Feudalism Rebuilt Europe

The exam's early medieval questions test two institutions and one man, and the anchor ties them into one story. 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 spread by missionaries who reshaped pagan practice and by kings who wanted Christian allies. Its bishop of Rome claimed leadership and was rarely obeyed outside Italy, and it grew by relationships: Gregory with the Germanic kings, Pepin with the pope who ratified his coup, Leo with the king he crowned. The second was clan law turned into feudalism. Germanic kings inherited Roman offices but ruled by honor and reciprocity, and in the absence of any government that could stop raiders, free men pledged fealty to lords for protection and land, lords to greater lords, and peasants paid for all of it, with kings at the top of the web and often weaker than the men below. The man was Charlemagne: forty years of war, the Lombard crown, emperor on Christmas Day eight hundred, counts and inspectors without a bureaucracy, scholars who saved texts and invented the letters we read. His empire was divided at Verdun in eight forty-three, and the Vikings, Magyars and Saracens fell on the pieces for two centuries, during which feudalism hardened into the order of the High Middle Ages. What survived was the Church, the feudal bargain, the idea of empire Otto revived in nine sixty-two, and the kingdoms of England and France the Normans and Capetians would build. The exam does not ask whether these were dark ages, and the anchor says they were not; it asks what a fief was, what the sacraments were, why Clovis converted, what happened in eight hundred, what Verdun did, where the Vikings went, what Alfred and William did. The anchor's judgments are attributed, its error on Gregory's letter is corrected on Bede's text, and Hastings, Domesday, Alfred, Verdun and Lechfeld come from the witnesses, as the course says wherever it uses them.

Look at what you can now do. You can describe a renaissance of copying and schooling that gave us our letters, the partition at Verdun, Otto's crown of nine sixty-two, and the Saracens and Magyars stopped at Lechfeld. You can explain that the Vikings came for Baltic wealth with a sailed longship, tell Lindisfarne and the great fleets, Normandy in nine eleven, Newfoundland about one thousand, the Rus selling Slavs south, and an age ended by kings and bishops from within. You can say that feudalism was a product of violence and a new society, not a static one. You can sequence on four seventy-six, eight hundred and ten sixty-six, read the empire as core and rim and the Vikings in three directions, classify an actor by obligation rather than title, and read the Tapestry as an assertion, not a proof. And you can state the story, two institutions, one man, three invaders, which is this unit's one idea. Unit eleven opens on the High Middle Ages, when the raids stopped, the population grew, and Europe began to catch up.