The High Middle Ages

This is Unit Eleven of Western Civilization One, part one of two: the High Middle Ages, from the end of the invasions about one thousand to Magna Carta in twelve fifteen, with the crusades, the economy and the kingdoms. Unit ten closed on the invaders and the order that hardened under them. Carry one idea through this unit. The anchor's chapter answers one question: why a barter Europe of villages became, in three centuries, a Europe of cathedrals, universities, parliaments and banks. The answer is a chain: peace, plow, coin, town, school. About one thousand the raids stopped. The collar, the heavy plow and three-field rotation multiplied yields, and population rose more than fivefold. Surplus became cash rent and coin. Serfs walked to freedom in towns, guilds organized crafts, Italians became bankers. Around the chain the Church and the crown each grew, and outward from all of it ran the crusades. This part carries the chain to the town and the kingdoms; part two takes the school. By the end you will be able to date the age and tell the First Crusade. To tell the Reconquista and the later crusades. To describe Investiture, the reformed monasteries and the Islamic world. To explain the economy. And to describe feudal society and the kingdoms to twelve fifteen.

Four entries on Clermont and the First Crusade: the age and what came before it, Urban's sermon, the Templars and Hospitallers, and Jerusalem in ten ninety-nine.

Three centuries of growth after five of subsistence.

WC1 1001 The High Middle Ages, 1000 to 1300, and What Came Before

The High Middle Ages, about one thousand to thirteen hundred, brought economic expansion, a revived cash economy, towns, universities and organizing kingdoms. Before, from five hundred to eight hundred, Europe lived by subsistence and barter, without markets or its own coins, since Rome's fall had strangled trade and nobles grew rich by raiding. About one thousand the invasions ended, and growth follows peace.

Atrocities, rich lands, and all sins absolved.

WC1 1002 Seljuks, Alexius, and Urban II at Clermont, 1095

The Seljuk Turks pressed Byzantium, and the emperor Alexius appealed to the pope despite the Schism. In ten ninety-five Urban the Second preached at Clermont, a witness name: atrocities, rich lands, aid to fellow Christians, and unlimited penance, all sins absolved. Armed pilgrimage was the first Christian holy war, the anchor says, ambition and greed with genuine piety, in the anchor's phrase.

Vows of poverty, and a bank.

WC1 1003 Templars and Hospitallers: Monk-Knights and Bankers

After the First Crusade, orders of monk-knights under monastic vows formed to protect pilgrims. The Templars and Hospitallers guarded caravans, lent money, and grew rich and powerful despite vows of poverty, the Templars bankers after eleven eighty-seven, armed merchant houses more than monasteries in the anchor's words. Vow and bank in one institution; the exam likes the contrast.

Success because the enemy was divided.

WC1 1004 The First Crusade and the Latin Principalities, 1099

The First Crusade, ten ninety-five to ten ninety-nine, succeeded because the caliphate had splintered, Sunni fought Shia, and Seljuks fought Arabs; the People's Crusade of unarmed commoners went first and died. Jerusalem fell in ten ninety-nine, and Latin principalities held the coast. They never tried to win Muslim or Jewish subjects, and the later crusades failed.

Five entries on the Reconquista, the later crusades and their consequences: Lisbon to Las Navas, Saladin and three kings, Constantinople sacked, Italian money and a harsher Christianity, and the Baltic.

A frontier moving south for four centuries.

WC1 1005 The Reconquista: From Lisbon to Las Navas to 1492

The Second Crusade retook Lisbon in eleven forty-seven, part of the northern kingdoms' long war on Muslim Spain, the Reconquista. At Las Navas de Tolosa in twelve twelve, a witness name absent from the anchor, the Almohads broke, and conquest ran to fourteen ninety-two. The exam's sixth sample question asks what followed Las Navas: Christian advance and surrender charters.

One drowned, one went home, one made peace.

WC1 1006 Saladin, Hattin, and the Third Crusade's Three Kings

In eleven eighty-seven Saladin beat the crusaders at Hattin and retook Jerusalem. The Third Crusade, eleven eighty-nine to ninety-two, sent Frederick Barbarossa, who drowned, Philip the Second, who went home, and Richard the First, who made peace with Saladin. Completely failed, the anchor says. Three kings, one result: learn who did what.

Christian knights take the last remnant of Rome.

WC1 1007 The Fourth Crusade Sacks Constantinople, 1204

The Fourth Crusade, twelve oh two to twelve oh four on the witness, was carried by Venice into a Byzantine succession dispute and sacked Constantinople: Christian knights conquered the last remnant of Rome. A Latin government ruled about fifty years, and the only lasting effect was Byzantium weakened before the Turks. Where the anchor dates it eleven ninety-nine, use twelve oh four.

Bankers, explorers, and a harsher faith.

WC1 1008 Three Consequences: Italian Money, Crusading Ideology, Intolerance

The anchor names three consequences. Venice, Genoa and Pisa grew rich as transporters and bankers, the Renaissance's site. Crusading ideology passed to explorers, the Reconquista ending in fourteen ninety-two, Columbus's year. And Christianity became harsher and more intolerant, with crusaders massacring Jews on the way east. The harshening is the anchor's judgment, attributed; the massacres are the record.

Monk-knights ruling a state on the Baltic.

WC1 1009 The Northern Crusades and the Teutonic State

From eleven seventy-one popes authorized crusades against the pagan Baltic. The Teutonic Knights, founded about eleven ninety at Acre, turned north in the twelve twenties, the witness's chronology, and ruled Prussia and Livonia as a theocratic state of monk-knights, Prussia a future core of Germany. The anchor's chronology garbles the century: its twelfth is the thirteenth.

Four entries on Church reform and the Islamic world: Canossa and Worms, Cluny and the Cistercians, sultans ruling in Persian, and the Mongols and the first Ottomans.

Barefoot in the snow, and a split act.

WC1 1010 The Investiture Controversy: Gregory VII, Henry IV, Canossa

Gregory the Seventh forbade lay rulers to invest bishops. Henry the Fourth defied him, was excommunicated, and stood barefoot in the snow at Canossa in ten seventy-seven to be absolved, the papacy's first victory over an emperor. The Concordat of Worms in eleven twenty-two split the act: the Church invests, the king receives homage. This entry is witness-built; the anchor omits the controversy entirely.

Freedom from lay lords first.

WC1 1011 Cluny and the Cistercians: Reforming the Monastery

Cluny, founded in nine ten under the pope alone, freed monasteries from lay lords and supplied the reformers who made Gregory the Seventh. The Cistercians, from ten ninety-eight, returned to Benedict's poverty and manual labor, with Bernard of Clairvaux their voice. Reform meant freedom from lay control first. This entry rests on the witness texts, not the anchor.

Sultans, and a language of scholarship.

WC1 1012 Sultans, New Persian, and the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum

After the caliphate became a fiction, sultans ruled and sought its recognition. Learning continued in Arabic and New Persian, the international language of scholarship to the nineteenth century, with Firdausi's Shahnamah as the sovereignty tradition the Turks embraced, and merchants were honored. The Seljuks adopted Persian statecraft and held Anatolia as the Sultanate of Rum. Not stagnation, the anchor insists; attribute the judgment.

Mongols in Persia, Ottomans at the gates.

WC1 1013 Mongols, the Il-Khanate, and the Ottomans' First Century

The Mongols crushed the Seljuks by twelve fifty-six and ruled Persia as the Il-Khanate; Ghazan, from twelve ninety-five, was its first Muslim ruler. The Ottomans, a small principality, beat a Byzantine army in thirteen oh two and held a fortress near Constantinople by thirteen fifty-two, Byzantium a fragment by mid-century. Unit twelve covers the Mongols in Europe.

Five entries on the economy: the tools that multiplied yields, fourteen to seventy-four million, towns and charters, the luxury trade and the Hanse, and guilds with the stereotype they helped make.

Five tools, and yields that rose.

WC1 1014 Collar, Carruca, Horseshoe, Three Fields, Mill

The shoulder collar let horses pull without choking; the carruca, a heavy plow, turned deep northern soil; iron horseshoes and plowshares spread; three-field rotation from about one thousand grew wheat, then legumes, then fallow with grazing; and mills ground a day's grain in half an hour. Yields and nutrition rose together, and the lord's mill was resented and used.

Fivefold, and a cash economy by eleven hundred.

WC1 1015 From 14 to 74 Million: Land, Cash Rent, Coin

Europe's population grew from the anchor's fourteen million in six hundred to seventy-four million in thirteen hundred, more than fivefold. New land was cleared, lords took cash rent instead of kind, peasants bargained for stable rents, kingdoms minted coin, and a cash economy existed by eleven hundred. The anchor's five hundred percent is its arithmetic, and the figures are attributed.

A year and a day to freedom.

WC1 1016 Towns Reborn: A Year and a Day, Charters, Sixfold Cities

A serf who lived a year and a day in a town was free. Cities grew up to sixfold, the anchor says, merchant leaders rose beside landed lords, and migration ran east and north into new land. Town charters bought practical independence for stable taxes under nominal royal or lordly authority. The independence was practical, not legal; the lord kept the name.

Silk, spices, fairs, and the Hanse.

WC1 1017 Italian Luxury Trade, Champagne Fairs, the Hanse

Italians met caravans from China and Central Asia and carried silk and spices, worth more than their weight in gold, into Europe, breeding early banks. The Champagne fairs linked north and south, the Hanseatic League of German towns grew from Lubeck, and roads were built new and Roman repaired. Luxury trade made Italy Europe's banker, and unit thirteen begins there.

Protection and exclusion in one institution.

WC1 1018 Guilds, Usury, and the Making of an Anti-Jewish Stereotype

Craft guilds held legal monopolies, controlled quality and excluded outsiders. Merchants were resented by the poor, despised by nobles and condemned by the Church, and usury was a sin the Church itself committed. Money-lending was among the few trades open to Jews, needed and despised, a stereotype born of exclusion, the anchor says. Guild protection and guild exclusion are one thing.

Six entries on feudal society and the kingdoms: fief and cash, the manor and its commons, kings on the road, France growing outward, England's courts, and Magna Carta.

The working system, and its first crack.

WC1 1019 Feudalism Comes of Age: Fief, Service, Cash

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries feudalism matured: fiefs for military service or, increasingly, cash in lieu of it, a rigid hierarchy by birth, and a nobility whose vocation was land and war. Cash service was the first crack in the bargain. Unit ten taught the origins; this is the working system.

Rights on both sides, and a safety net in the woods.

WC1 1020 The Manor: Yeoman, Serf, Cottager, and the Commons

A manor was house and lands, and peasants owed rent in crops, then cash, and labor. Yeomen and freeholders stood above serfs, semi-free and tied to the land, above cottagers with no land. The commons gave firewood, grazing and trapping, a customary safety net, later curtailed; enclosure is the witness's word. Manorialism was rights on both sides, the anchor says.

First among warlords, becoming something more.

WC1 1021 Itinerant Kings and the Start of Centralization

Kings were the strongest nobles, their authority limited to their own lands, traveling constantly to keep vassals loyal. Centralization began in France and England, the king as first among warlords becoming something more, and the anchor's two examples follow. Germany and Italy went the other way, and unit fourteen explains.

Outward from the Ile-de-France, against a pope.

WC1 1022 France's Philips, 1060 to 1314, and Philip IV Against Boniface VIII

The Capetians, kings since nine eighty-seven on the witness, spread royal judges from the Ile-de-France; Philip Augustus won Bouvines in twelve fourteen, with Louis the Ninth between the Philips. Philip the Fourth defied Pope Boniface the Eighth, a witness name the anchor omits, raised new taxes, and despoiled the Jews and the Templars in thirteen oh seven. Unit twelve tells the clash.

Sheriffs, circuit courts, juries, and a murdered archbishop.

WC1 1023 England: Henry II's Courts, Juries, and Becket

Under William's heirs all land was the king's. Henry the Second, eleven fifty-four to eighty-nine, used sheriffs, circuit courts and grand juries, the common law's beginning, and claimed power over the clergy in the Constitutions of Clarendon. His quarrel with Archbishop Becket ended in Becket's murder in eleven seventy, which rests on the primary layer alone.

Even the king must respect the law.

WC1 1024 Magna Carta, 1215, and Parliament

In twelve fifteen John's barons forced Magna Carta, acknowledging the privileges of nobles, towns and clergy and the principle that even the king must respect the law. Parliament followed, Church, nobles and commoners summoned for war money, with Edward the First's of twelve ninety-five as the witness's model. The principle outlived the privileges that carried it, and part two reads the text.

Look at what you can now do. You can date the High Middle Ages from the end of the invasions, and tell Urban's sermon at Clermont, the monk-knights who became bankers, and a First Crusade that succeeded because its enemies were divided. You can tell the Reconquista to Las Navas and answer the sample question, Saladin and three kings with one result, twelve oh four, the anchor's three consequences, and the Teutonic state. You can describe Canossa and Worms, Cluny and Citeaux, sultans ruling in Persian, and the Mongols and Ottomans. You can explain collar, carruca and three fields, fourteen to seventy-four million, a year and a day, Italy as banker, and guilds that protected and excluded. And you can describe fief and cash, the manor, kings on the road, the Capetians growing outward, Henry's courts, and Magna Carta's principle. Part two opens on the papacy's high-water mark under Innocent the Third and on the school, where Aristotle came back through Arabic and Hebrew.