Chapter Summary

In the High Middle Ages, people were organized into a social order in which everyone knew his or her place. These orders were arranged by function--laboring upon the land, praying, or fighting. There was little room in this social order for those who resided in towns and engaged in the increasingly important activities centered around trade. After the year 1000, advances in agricultural techniques led to an increase in population growth. Trade also quickened, and was accompanied by the growth of cities. The nobility constructed fortified houses across Europe and resisted the centralizing tendencies of kings. The prosperity of the age was accompanied by a flowering of intellectual life. The church also gathered strength and began to exert authority over secular matters. Resistance to this interference led to criticism of the church. The church responded by making some reforms and repressing its critics. The growing threat of the Muslim empire led to a call for the crusades by the church, and many Europeans traveled to far-away lands in defense of Christianity.

Chapter Outline

1. Those Who Work: Agricultural Labor
   Agricultural innovations led to an expansion of Europe's population and changing conditions for those who worked the land.
   1. Harnessing the Power of Water and Wind
   2. New Agricultural Techniques
      1. Three-field cultivation
   3. The Population Doubles
      1. Life span
      2. New freedoms
      3. Environmental consequences
2. Those Outside the Order: Town Life
   Medieval towns offered an ambiguous mix of opportunities and limitations for many residents as these towns flourished with the increase in trade.
   1. Communes and Guilds: Life in a Medieval Town
      1. Communes and guilds
      2. Urban Jews
   2. The Widening Web of Trade
      1. Champagne fairs
      2. Hanseatic League
   3. The Glory of God: Church Architecture
      1. Gothic architecture
      2. Stained glass
   4. The Rise of Universities
      1. Advanced degrees
   5. Scholasticism: The Height of Medieval Philosophy
      1. Anselm and Abelard
      2. Thomas Aquinas
   6. Discovering the Physical World
      1. Hildegard of Bingen
      2. Experimental science
3. Those Who Fight: Nobles and Knights
   Nobles and knights refined the ideals of chivalry in the poetry and literature that accompanied the feudalistic social order.
   1. Castles: Medieval Homes and Havens
      1. Living quarters
   2. The Ideals of Chivalry
      1. Jousts and tournaments
   3. The Literature of Chivalry
   4. In Praise of Romantic Love
      1. Courtly love
4. The Rise of Centralized Monarchies
   Kings in the High Middle Ages struggled against their nobles to exert centralized authority, transforming the map of Europe in the process.
   1. England: From Conquest to Parliament
      1. Conquest of England
      2. Henry I and II
      3. Magna Carta
      4. Parliament
   2. The Spanish Reconquer Their Lands
      1. The Reconquest
   3. France and Its Patient Kings
      1. Capetian dynasty
      2. Louis IX
      3. Philip IV
   4. The Myth of Universal Rule: The Holy Roman Empire
      1. Saxon dynasty
      2. Salian dynasty
      3. Hohenstaufen dynasty
      4. Hapsburg dynasty
5. Those Who Pray: Imperial Popes and Expanding Christendom
   Church leaders also strove toward centralization, which often led them into conflicts with secular leaders and the Muslim and Byzantine empires.
   1. A Call for Church Reform
   2. The Investiture Controversy
      1. Concordat of Worms
      2. Thomas Becket
      3. Innocent III
   3. Christians on the March: The Crusades, 1096 - 1291
      1. Islam strengthened
      2. Pope Urban's call
      3. Crusader states
      4. Subsequent Crusades
      5. Knights Templars
      6. Crusaders expelled
   4. Criticism of the Church
      1. Waldensians
   5. The Church Accommodates: Franciscans and Dominicans
      1. Francis of Assisi
      2. Dominican Order
   6. The Church Suppresses: The Albigensian Crusade and the Inquisition
      1. Albigensian Crusade
      2. The inquisition

The Chapter in Perspective

      During the High Middle Ages, agricultural innovations increased and improved food supplies, and the population of Europe expanded. This growth fueled an expansion in European civilization that represented the high point of the Middle Ages. As the pace of trade picked up, towns prospered, while the rest of society was organized around the feudalistic social order, which consisted of peasants, warriors, and priests. Europeans made great achievements in philosophy, engineering, and literature. Kings consolidated their rule by legal means and warfare, initiating the process of transforming feudal societies into national monarchies. The church also engaged in a process of centralization, although this often led church leaders into conflicts with secular leaders about the role of the church in society. The West had finally regained enough strength to confront great powers and cultures beyond its borders. European confrontations with Muslims brought defeat in the eastern Mediterranean, but victory in the Iberian peninsula. Contact with the Muslims stimulated intellectual developments. However, for all its gains, European society would face major challenges in the form of demographic disasters in the fourteenth century.

1. What structures--manorialism, feudal contracts, centralized monarchies, or a central church organization--do you think would be most vulnerable to social, economic, and military disasters in the century to come? Why?*
2. In what ways did processes of centralization and decentralization shape the decisions of kings and popes in the medieval period?