Medieval Europe: Agricultural Innovation, Urban Growth, and Intellectual Progress

1. AGRICULTURE • Base of High Medieval civilization rested on improvements made in agriculture after 1050 • Heavy plow, tandem harness, and redesigned horse collar allowed animal power to increasingly replace human power • New crops, such as peas and beans, were introduced and added protein to the European diet

2. POPULATION AND CITIES • Population grew as a result of agricultural improvements • Population had been stagnant since 400 AD • 38-40 million people by 1000 • By 1300, population had doubled to 80 million • Parallel trend towards urbanization • By 1300, cities had once again become a crucial factor in Europe’s economy, culture, and social structure • Milan, Venice, Florence, and Genoa were over 100,000 • Northern European cities were smaller (except Paris) but were also growing • Cities would contribute to growth of trade and commerce and be the financial base for the great cultural achievements of the period

3. LITERACY • Europe evolved from preliterate into a literate society • Most still could not read or write but most had come to depend on written records to define their rights, property, and status • As opposed to memory and tradition • Literacy skills become vital to the functioning of government, Church, urban business, and even agriculture • People who possessed these skills moved into positions of power and changed character and attitudes of medieval society

4. INTELLECTUAL INNOVATION • The possibilities for greater social mobility which opened up increased anxiety for many • Resulted in increased awareness of self and growth of introspection • Example was Pierre Abelard • Attacked view that the world was a “theater of miracles” • Argued that God created rules and laws that allowed universe to function on its own • Without day-to-day divine interference • Broke with old, static, medieval mindset and paved the way for future progress in human thought

5. MASSIVE IMPACT • Shifts in attitudes towards self and vast economic and social changes that accompanied them marked Europe’s “coming of age” • Represented essential preconditions for modern western civilization • Behind 17th century Scientific Revolution lies Abelard’s idea of a universe functioning according to natural laws • Behind the invention of printing in the 15th century lies the shift from a preliterate to a literate society • Behind the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century lies the revival of trade and commerce between 1100 and 1300

6. URBAN REVIVAL • Few towns that survived collapse of Roman Empire served as “cathedral towns” • Where bishops had their headquarters • As commerce revived after 1000, old declining towns were invigorated and new ones emerged • Still remained centers of church administration but also were commercial centers and developed their own political institutions Archbishop’s Palace in Narbonne

7. TAKE-OFF • Commerce around the year 1000 depended on Jewish merchants, who traded with other Jewish merchants in the Middle East • This activity increase between 1000-1100 • Jewish merchants increased their trade in cloth, grain, salt, slaves, and wine • At the same time they adopted sophisticated accounting and commercial techniques • contracts, letters of exchange, etc. • Growing profits in this trade eventually attracted Christian merchants • First from northern Italy, then from elsewhere Jewish merchants

8. BURGHS • Commercial settlements began to spring up • Sometimes as suburbs of old cathedral towns; sometimes outside walls of monasteries; often around a large castle • These towns became known as “burghs” (or “borough” in English) • Inhabited by “burghers” • Later would be a new class called the “bourgeoisie”

9. URBAN GROWTH • Earliest commercial towns were in northern Italy • Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Sienna, Amalfi, and Lucca • Always more urbanized than northern Europe and well situated to trade with Middle East • Later, commercial towns appeared in northern Europe • Based mostly on trade within Europe itself • Towns of Flanders (Boulogne, Liege, Ghent, Bruges, and Cologne) • Centers of trade with northern France, England, Rhineland, and Baltic coast

10. WOOL, FLANDERS, AND ENGLAND • Flanders was great sheep-raising district and its towns became centers of woolen textile production • Shortage of wool eventually caused Flemish merchants to import wool from England (around 1000) • Drew isolated island into the growing network of international trade and established Flanders as premier industrial center in northern Europe

11. SPECIALIZATION • Agricultural specialization increased • Local areas began to concentrate on whatever crops they could produce most efficiently and used profits to buy other necessities they no longer produced • Paris-grain • Germany-salt and fish • England-wool and beer • Burgundy-wine

12. RISE OF MONEY ECONOMY • Important results • Meant rulers could collect taxes in cash • Allowed them to reward officials with money instead of land and also to use hired mercenaries • Nobles used money to buy luxuries • Expanded market for Middle Eastern products • Burghers could and did express pride in themselves, their towns, and their religious devotion by building vast cathedrals and elaborate city halls

13. GUILDS • City people came from surplus of growing population • Vagabonds, runaway serfs, third and fourth sons of minor nobility • Merchants early on formed guilds • To protect themselves from exactions of feudal nobility • Merchants had to have degree of personal freedom, freedom of movement, freedom from exorbitant tolls, right to own property, right to enter contracts, and right to buy and sell freely • Merchants organized into guilds had power to bargain for these rights • Rights embodied in “charters” • Obtained in a number of ways

14. CHARTERS • Made towns semi-independent political and legal entities • Own governments, courts, tax collection agencies, customs • Guilds had to pay for a charter and still pay taxes to lord • But it was town as a collective unit that paid taxes and dealt with lord • Individuals did not have to deal with lord directly • Townspeople won privilege of handling their own affairs

15. GENERAL TRENDS • Guilds of wealthy merchants and master craftsmen profited most from charters and they controlled town government • Population of towns grew in time as cities became manufacturing as well as commercial centers Guild hall in Bruges

16. CRAFT GUILDS • Manufacturers worked in their own shops, producing their own products and selling them directly to merchants or general public • Many organized craft guilds to limit competition and ensure standardized quality of products • Had strict admission requirements and strict rules on prices, wages, quality standards, and operating procedures

17. CRAFT MOBILITY • Guild rules required young would-be craftsmen serve as apprentices for 7 years • Might become master craftsmen and guild members after 7 years, if young man was lucky and had rich parents • Most became journeymen • Worked for wages in order to save up enough to someday become masters and guild members • Process became more difficult as time went on and many stayed journeymen their whole lives • Made up majority of urban population but never had a voice in local affairs

18. FAIRS AND MONEY • Series of annual fairs established during 12th and 13th centuries • Along overland trade routes • Provided merchants with new opportunities to sell goods • Credit and banking facilities also grew • Generally controlled by a small number of very wealthy Italian families

19. RELIGION • Money from trade combined with ardent faith to build the great cathedrals, support the Crusades, finance royal charities, and give life to religious culture of the time • Urban dwellers exhibited a faith that was more vibrant and intense than that of the peasantry or aristocracy • In the electric atmosphere of the cities, religion acquired an emotional content unknown to the villages and manor houses of the period Peter Waldo St. Francis of Assisi

20. RISE OF UNIVERSITIES • Schools sprang up everywhere during this period • Due to increase importance of literacy • Greatest of these schools were the universities, the product of the growth of cities • Growth of cities brought about decline of monastic schools • Superceded north of the Alps by schools centered on urban churches • Superceded in Italy by semi-secular municipal schools • Both rose to prominence in 11th and 12th centuries • Some of them grew until they evolved into real universities by the 12th century

21. STUDIUM GENERALE • Term “university” meant nothing more than a group of people associated for any purpose • An association of students and teachers engaged in the pursuit of higher learning was called “studium generale” • Differed from lesser schools in that students from different lands received instruction from specialized scholars in a variety of disciplines • Offered basic program in the “Seven Liberal Arts • Astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, music, grammar, rhetoric, and logic • Also in either law, medicine, or theology

22. MOBILE INSTITUTION • Medieval university was neither a campus nor a complex of buildings • It was a privileged corporation of teachers, or sometimes students • A guild • Classes were held in rented rooms • Highly mobile institution • Would often threaten to leave a town when it became dissatisfied with local conditions

23. STUDENT POWER • In 13th century, universities flourished in Paris, Bologna, Naples, Montpellier, Oxford, Cambridge, and elsewhere • Paris, Oxford, and others were dominated by teachers’ guilds • Bologna was governed by a guild of students • Threatened to leave down because of high prices for food and lodging • Established strict rules of conduct for teachers • Had to begin and end classes on time and cover prescribed curriculum

24. LEGACY • Modern universities are a direct outgrowth of medieval ones • Such things as the formal teaching license, the practice of group instruction in a classroom, the awarding of academic degrees, the idea of liberal arts curriculum, and the stupid custom of academic regalia all come from medieval universities

25. UNIVERSITY OF PARIS I • Intellectual atmosphere alive with philosophical disputes and passionate intellectual rivalries • Also frequent tavern brawls between students and townspeople or between rival student gangs • New students were hazed and unpopular teachers were hissed, shouted down, and sometimes pelted with stones

26. UNIVERSITY OF PARIS II • Students began studies when they were 17 • Came from all over Europe • Mostly from middle strata of town dwellers and lesser landowners • Poor boys sometimes attended but sons of the aristocracy did not go to universities until the 1500s • No female students • In the 13th century, wealthy benefactors founded residential colleges where poor students received room and board • But most students lived in rented rooms

27. UNIVERSITY OF PARIS III • Began school day at 5 or 6 in the morning • Headed to lecture halls scattered around the Latin Quarter • Bare, cold rooms • Some had benches, students sat on floor in others • Took notes on wax tablets • Lectures could last all morning

28. UNIVERSITY OF PARIS IV • Afternoons spent in nearby meadows, playing various sports, races, long-jump contests, lawn bowling, swimming, ball games, and free-for-all fighting • Serious students would study in the evenings • Fun-lovers would gather in taverns and brothels

29. DECLINE OF VASSALS • Rise of commerce and urbanization had critical impact on feudal nobility • Increased circulation of money eroded service relationship between lord and vassal • Rulers came to rely less on military service of vassals and more on mercenary troops and salaried officials • First in England, and then in France, fiefholders were required to pay a tax in lieu of personal military service

30. NEW ATTITUDES • Nobles still fought and were still military men at heart • But now it was more often as mercenaries • Also developed taste for luxuries and became more and more interested in personal pleasures than anything else

31. AN ARISTOCRACY • Many nobles began to pride themselves on their “refinement” • Developing good manners, a fondness for troubadour songs, and a superficial respect for women • Made possible by increased circulation of money which freed them from personal service, paid for their luxuries, and gave them the leisure time to cultivate a sophisticated lifestyle • Real aristocracy began to emerge in Europe • Saw itself as superior to the rest of society