The lecture provides an overview of the fundamental issues of Medieval History in Western Europe
For your leisure moments, the
best and the worst of medieval history
Some basics
- Character of Barbarian Migrations
- The larger pattern
of migrations in European history..., for example, colonization.
The nature of migrations: search for booty, seasonal camps, permanent
fortifications and subjugation of indigenous peoples. The stereotypical
barbarian man,
and woman. For the reality, consider
the beserkers... More seriously
on one tribe, the Picts: "the
love of arms and rapine was still the ruling passion of the Picts,
and their warriors, who stripped themselves for day of battle, were
distinguished, in the eyes of the [late] Romans, by the strange fashion
of painting [tattooing] their naked bodies in blue and other gaudy
colors and fantastic figures" writes a chronicler. Significance...down to 1683 and Gibbon 1789.
- Led to political fragmentation and urban decline:
defense at local level; recall what
happen in Britain. Compare: Roman and Medieval house
- Dynamics Old and New
Europe. The Mediterranean World vs. Northern Europe. Some themes. Note that there is little in the way of a coherent pattern of life; rather great regional variation.
- Nostalgia for a
lost "better" life;
and reality; Charlemagne will play
on this notion.
- Hierarchy [as imagined and in reality] Roman and
German systems -- the (new) structure of personal allegiance...patronage
under a new name; vassalage; serfdom.
- Urbanization / civilization especially in northern Europe decline sharply. Vienna; the village-manor. From Roman city to medieval castle.
- Political fragmentation/regionalism
vs. central authority. Italy in 11th C.; Spain in the 11th Century; France and England in 11th C.; Germany in 10th C; Germany in 15th Century
- Secular world
- Germanic political
system: collective decision making, personal loyalty. Towns
and villages decline of the former; much more of the latter. Castles/fortified points. Secular power of the church.
- Secular Culture...??
- Ecclesiastical (word refers to the "church" and its institutions) and the history of Christianity
- From tolerance to
official religion. Structure of the church on Roman model.. Conversion of Germanic
tribes (through 1000).
- Unity and diversity in religion: Christianity
divided by occasional schism and frequent heresy, persistence of "paganism" (see
below).
- Conversion of Germanic tribes...Willibald: Life of Boniface
Miracles were an important aid in converting people
from pagan gods. Many of the people of Hesse were converted [by Boniface] to the Catholic faith and confirmed by the grace of the spirit: and they
received the laying on of hands. But some there were, not yet strong of
soul, who refused to accept wholly the teachings of the true faith. Some
men sacrificed secretly, some even openly, to trees and springs. Some secretly
practiced divining, soothsaying, and incantations, and some openly. But
others, who were of sounder mind, cast aside all heathen profanation and
did none of these things, and it was with the advice and consent of these
men that Boniface sought to fell a tree of great size called the oak of
Thor....
The
man of God was surrounded by the servants of God. When he would cut down
the tree, behold a great throng of pagans who were there cursed him bitterly
among themselves because he was the enemy of their gods. And when he had
cut into the trunk a little way, a breeze sent by God stirred overhead,
and suddenly the branchtop of the tree was broken off, and the oak in
all its huge bulk fell to the ground. And it was broken into four huge
sections without any effort of the brethren who stood by. When the pagans
who had cursed did see this, they left off cursing and, believing, blessed
God. Then the most holy priest took counsel with the brethren: and he
built from the wood of the tree an oratory, and dedicated it to the holy
apostle Peter.
- Monasteries: culture and landscape. Ecclesiastical
power of the state
- Christianity as the
basis of common European identity.
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