Chapter 14 - The Formation of Western Europe  

14.1 - Church Reform and the Crusades

• Some priests were almost illiterate, unable to read their own prayers. Some of the popes were morally dubious men.

•  Many bishops and abbots were more concerned with their roles as feudal lords than with their responsibilities as spiritual leaders. 

  • Three primary issues bothered reformers the most.

• Popes Leo IX and Gregory VII upheld Church regulations prohibiting simony and priestly marriage. 

  • Following Leo and Gregory, the Church was reformed in order to continue the reforming policy.

•  The Church was reconstructed in the 1100s and 1200s to resemble a kingdom, with the pope at its helm. 

  • The papal Curia was the pope's council of counselors.

• Wandering friars preached and promoted the Church's doctrines from place to place in the early 1200s.

  •  Friars, like monks, took chastity, poverty, and obedience vows. Friars, unlike monks, did not dwell in monasteries isolated from the rest of society. 
  • Instead, they preached to the underprivileged in villages and cities across Europe.

• A fresh spirit in the church, as well as more money from towns' and trade's expanding prosperity, fueled the construction of churches in numerous European countries.

• In 1212, the Children's Crusade took place. Thousands of children set out to conquer Jerusalem in two different movements. 

  • Stephen of Cloyes, a 12-year-old French boy, commanded one of the groups.

  

14.2 - Changes in Medieval Society

• Peasants had relied on oxen to pull their plows for hundreds of years. Oxen were easy to keep because they just ate the weakest straw and stubble.

  •  Horses required better nutrition, but they could plow three times as much ground in a day as an oxen team.

• The majority of trade took conducted in cities. On fair days, peasants from nearby manors came to town with stuff to trade. 

  • Great fairs were held several times a year, mainly during religious holidays when a large number of people were in town. 
  • Merchants from all around Europe set up stalls, which drew crowds.

• As traders went from one fair to the next, they required vast sums of cash or credit, as well as methods to exchange a variety of currencies.

• Entrepreneurial merchants devised solutions to these issues.

• The changes brought about by the Commercial Revolution were gradual, but they had a significant impact on Europeans' lives.

  •  Increased trade, as indicated in the graphic above, resulted in numerous changes in society.

• Trade was the lifeblood of the new cities that sprang up at ports and crossroads, on hilltops, and along rivers in the later Middle Ages. 

  • Towns all around Europe flourished with population as trade grew.

• The medieval merchants and crafters did not fit into the typical medieval social order of nobles, clergy, and peasants.

• Christian intellectuals from around Europe began visiting Muslim libraries in Spain in the 1100s. Only a few Western scholars knew Greek, but the vast majority knew Latin.

  •  As a result, Jewish scholars in Spain translated Aristotle's and other Greek writers' works from Arabic into Latin.

• A new European institution—the university—stood at the epicenter of the rise of learning.

  •  The term "university" originally referred to a gathering of scholars wherever they could be found.

• The ideas of Greek philosophers enthralled Christian intellectuals. 

  • They asked if a Christian scholar could apply Aristotle's logic to truth while remaining faithful to the Bible.

  

14.3 - England and France Develop

• Denmark Viking raids wreaked havoc on Britain in the 800s. These invaders were dreaded so much that churches prayed, "God, deliver us from the anger of the Northmen."

  •  Only Alfred the Great, the AngloSaxon monarch who reigned from 871 to 899, was able to repel the Viking invasion.

• From 1154 to 1189, Henry II ruled England. By sending royal judges to every section of England at least once a year, he strengthened the royal courts of justice. 

  • They were in charge of collecting taxes, settling claims, and punishing criminals. 
  • In English courts, Henry also instituted the jury system.

• Richard the LionHearted, hero of the Third Crusade, was Henry's first successor. Richard's younger brother John ascended to the kingdom after his death.

  •  From 1199 through 1216, John governed. As a military leader, he failed miserably, receiving the moniker John Softsword.

• Another key step toward democracy occurred during the reign of Edward I, the next English king, who needed to raise taxes to fund a war against the French, Welsh, and Scots.

• Hugh Capet, his son, and his grandson were all weak kings, but the Capetians were favored by time and location.

• During the reign of Philip's grandson, Louis IX, who reigned from 1226 to 1270, France's central government grew even stronger.

  •  Louis, unlike his grandfather, was a devout and saintly man.

  

14.4 - The Hundred Years’ War and the Plague

• In 1300, Pope Boniface VIII endeavored, as previous popes had, to impose papal authority on rulers. 
• Boniface answered with an official document when King Philip IV of France asserted his authority over French bishops. 
  • According to the document, kings must always obey popes.
• The epidemic first appeared in Asia. It infected portions of Asia, the Muslim world, and Europe via trade routes.

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