Patience Moses
The period between the fall of Rome in 476 C.E., and the 1400s, when the Renaissance began is called the Middle Ages. During the Low Middle Ages, Europe practiced a political, economic, and social system called feudalism. This system, a series of reciprocal relationships between weak kings, strong lords, and serfs, allowed for a lack of travel and trade, since there was no central government to build, repair or provide protection for roads, and the feudal manors were self-sufficient. Even with the presence of some stable governments, the High Middle Ages was still filled with political and religious chaos, diseases and war. From the unsuccessful Crusades, to the corruption and loss of prestige in the Catholic Church, to the Hundred Years’ War to the Black Death, which took one-third of the population, Europe experienced difficult times. The Catholic Church was the most dominant institution of medieval Europe. In fact, the ordained officers of the Church composed The First Estate, the highest social class during that time. The Church affected every aspect of life in Europe. It controlled the learning In Europe. It decided what was true and what was heresy. This philosophy was known as scholasticism. In fact, nearly everything in feudal Europe was under the influence of religion. The Church even claimed authority over the emperor and all other political figures. The people saw the Church as their link to God, as the Church held that doing good works and obeying the sacraments was the way to get to heaven. The Church also had power over the nobility through interdiction, which prohibited the performance of any of the sacraments in a district. The Church had great power and wealth, but began to lose their prestige and credibility because they could not provide answers or solutions to the disasters that struck Europe during the High Middle Ages. The people also began to question the influence of the Church and the authority of the Pope because of issues like the Babylonian Captivity and the Great Schism. The nobility, made up of feudal lords and knights, were another dominant institution in Medieval Europe. They leased property to a vassal, who then paid them with military service and was responsible to them. They were even richer and more powerful than the kings since they provided and paid for soldiers for the royal army. Serfs, which were like peasants, worked on the land owned by the lords. They received protection from the lords and kept part of the production from the land. Serfs suffered the most during the Low and High Middle Ages. They worked all the time with no hope for moving up the social ladder. Their villages and fields were the scenes of battles for the near-constant warfare, and therefore suffered the damages. The only thing that kept them going was the hope of their reward during the after-life. It was The Crusades, a series of religious wars fought by kings and nobles in response to a call from the Pope to reclaim the Holy Land of Jerusalem, that ended feudalism. Although the Crusades were unsuccessful, it re-established trade in Europe, and created the new middle class that consisted of merchants and craftsmen. These new traders and craftsmen replaced feudalism with the guild system. The system allowed members of the guild to control the quality and prices of goods and services, to monopolize trade, and to control the number of people in a business. The Crusades also strengthened the role of kings, who now had more money, and brought about stronger, more centralized governments. People began to look to kings, rather than lords who were mostly killed off during the Crusades. But this new change still had consequences. It was trade that brought the Bubonic Plague from China to Italy, and then to all of Europe, and then left an estimated 25 million to 33 million dead. And even though there were more stable governments now than before, there was still political chaos like the Hundred Years’ War (a series of big wars, raids, and guerilla attacks between England and France), and the peasants’ revolt in England and France. Overall it seems that Europe is not in a good place, compared to other regions of the world during this period. In China, gunpowder was already being used and printing was already invented. The Black Death also wiped out populations in China, but they were still better off than Europe. The Middle Ages was also a golden age for Chinese poetry. In the Muslim world, there were great advancements in learning and knowledge. Muslim scholars translated the works of Greek philosophers and scientists, and they preserved Buddhist and Hindu Manuscripts. But in Europe, there was no advancement in technology, science, and education. But some good things came out of the Middle Ages in europe, like the creation of modern nation-states, the beginning of nationalism, and the exploration of a parliamentary form of government. These things created a root for bigger revolutions that will come down the line. Also, the loss of credibility in the Church created a new sense of curiosity that allowed Europeans to explore and look elsewhere for answers. This allowed for the Renaissance to happen. The medieval European society appears to be a society that will still end up thriving, but not dominating the world. This is because Europe had opened themselves to trade and travel, and had begun to explore the products and lifestyle of the East. Of course, these discoveries are bound to bring a positive change to Europe. Inventions and discoveries would always spread, especially since Europe is geographically placed near the Middle East and East Asia. Ideas would spread and be exchanged and that’s why I say that Europe seems like a society that would thrive. But it does not seem like a society that would dominate the world because compared to other regions, it was still very behind. A lot of political improvements need to be made to get to that status. The national governments, that are already developing, would need to invest more in exploration, technological advancements, and education. Europe would need to open itself to the world and look beyond the Christian dogma. Today, many governments in Europe are parliamentary, where an executive branch is accountable to a legislative branch. After the Hundred Years’ War, England began to explore this form of government which the creation of a national assembly. There are still a number of monarchies in Europe, England being one of them. But today, a constitutional monarchy is practiced. This a type of government where the monarch is still subject to a written or unwritten constitution. Most European countries have a republic form of government. Vincent Fiery The state of Europe during the rule of the Roman Empire was the peak of unified Western Europe and that is the reason why many people tried to resurrect the greatness of the empire. Under Roman rule Western Europe experienced a period of vast wealth, unity, strength, and trade. The administrative ability of the Roman Empire was impressive for quite awhile with for a time a system of representative government. At a point the Roman Empire become too big to sustain itself as the empire lasted long enough to encounter many issues that accumulate overtime. Rome fell due to many reasons the main ones being the inability to properly administer such a vast area, military invasion, and not being able to create enough wealth. When in 476 A.D. the Roman Empire was considered to be officially conquered by the warring German tribes the Western European areas under Roman rule became much less prosperous and very divided. Although the Roman Empire did live on in the Eastern Europe and parts of the Mediterranean it was an essentially different empire with a different culture. Europe was very divided after the fall of Rome and the powerful centralized nations that would eventually dominate Europe had not yet been created. With the fall of Rome the prestige of Europe was lost and trade declined as the world lost reason to trade with most of Europe. The many tribes in Europe had little influence over Europe in the future except for three tribes that dominated parts of Western Europe, The Franks in Northern and Western Europe, The Angles in Great Britain, and the Vandals who did not strongly control any land area. The tribe that would eventually conquer most of Western Europe was the Franks who were ruled by Charlemagne from 768-814 A.D., when he led his people to conquer most of Western Europe. Charlemagne was eventually crowned the Holy Roman Emperor in 800 A.D. and around this time he also installed many good policies and instituted a strong government and led a small period of intellectual resurgence. After the death of Charlemagne the Holy Roman Empire remained but the entirety of Western Europe was led mainly by weak kings and non-centralized governments with the only real authority being the papal authority of the Roman Catholic Church which would come to have a major political and cultural influence on Western Europe. The system of feudalism is the dominant governmental system at the time. Feudalism is the system of a king granting land to other lower nobles in exchange for their support and help in administration of their land. This system keeps many nations from becoming strong mainly because the power is not as centralized as it could be. The system of feudalism is also what helps the Roman Catholic Church to take such great power because they can exert a greater influence due to their ability to have power over these weak nobles and kings. The system of feudalism was not efficient and it allowed for the breakdown of trade and neglect over proper infrastructure due to the self reliance of the system. Europe following the system of feudalism stays in a state of weakness categorized by a lack of learning, trade, and travel. The social structure of Western Europe is in a system where the church is on top and the the kings below them with the peasants and slaves at the bottom, which is characterized as the first, second, and third estates respectively. This system stays in place for a long time but is in the process of changing as the crusades allowed for a change in European culture and economic power. The crusades called by Pope Urban II allowed for a shift in Europe's backwards ways. The crusades allowed for the peasantry to go along with the nobles to the Middle Eastern lands and fight for a higher purpose and gain wealth that was unmatched in Europe as the Muslim Empire was still in its golden age. The crusades were a big deal mainly because they brought wealth and trade back to europe which allowed for certain craftsmen and traders to develop guilds which increased economic prosperity and power in Europe. The technologies gained from the Muslims also helped to lure Europe into a more modern way of life. The system of feudalism is on the brink of collapse also because of this new European wealth and the death of many nobles in the crusades. This led to the rise of the middle class along with the craftsmen as many peasants had wealth to be freed from their estates. Along with these changes the strong nationalized nation states are forming especially with the Holy Roman Empire, France, and Britain. The divide in Western Europe only increases with the hundreds years war as sides start to be chosen and alliances created to shape Western Europe for years to come. The Hundreds years war coupled with the plague essentially acted as another baptism of fire for Western Europe as the economic state and political state of Europe changed with due to the vast amounts of deaths and new governments becoming more and more centralized by the years. The church would undergo a few changes with Europe as the nature of governments and power balances shifted due to the many important events at the time. The state of Europe is currently in a state of weakness as it readies to branch forth into the renaissance. Feudalism and the guild system will still be part of Europe for a long time but these economic systems will be changed and lost gravity in time due to new renaissance ideas. The warlike nature of Europe will keep the many Western European nations in petty rivalries and conflicts for many years in many mainly pointless wars. As the church stays in power it will alter and shape the many kingdoms in many ways including forcing many nations to due its will as it did in the crusades. Europe is becoming more and more cultured as the spread of ideas increases as it did shortly after the crusades. Europe's social hierarchies will still dominate Europe for years to come as it prepares for the massive shift of the renaissance.
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