Capetian France

• Hugh Capet - came to power after Charlemagne’s heirs died out

  • Created Paris (expands in arrondisements, rings)

• France is super absolutist and becomes more so throughout time

• Notable Leaders

  • Philip Augustus - made France super powerful

  • Louis IX - instated a court of appeals increasing his own power

  • Philip IV - Estates-General

Norman and Plantagenet England/City-States

• French William the Conqueror overtook England from Vikings and stuff

  • Creates Domesday Book census for taxing people

• England is super absolutist but becomes less so over time

• Notable rulers

  • Henry II; tried to limit church authority

    • Married Eleanor of Aquitaine and claimed Aquitaine

    • Made legal reforms, juries, and basis of English Common Law

  • Richard the Lionheart (oldest son of Henry II)

    • Captured in the 3rd crusade (the big important one), doesn’t live for long after

  • John

    • There’s never another King John because King John sucked

    • He sucked so bad that the nobles made the Magna Carta (1215) so they could control money

  • Edward I

    • More legal stuff, warred with France (Philip IV)

• Italy/Iberia

  • Italy; No overall ruler, bunch of different states but all run by the church technically

  • Iberian peninsula: Muslim and Catholic city states all fighting for power

Ag Developments/Urbanization

Iberian peninsula: Muslim and Catholic city states all fighting for power

Agricultural Developments and Urbanization

• As a response to bigger populations, people created more agricultural land. They experimented and had more crops and stuff; water mills, plows, horseshoe, horse collars, new crops.

• Population growth 🤯

• Urbanization

• Paris, London, Toledo, etc. got revitalized, textiles.

• Italy especially flourished; trade within Mediterranean and Black seas.

• Business; banking, credit, etc.

• Hanseatic League

• Baltic and Northern countries trading group, linked with Mediterranean through rivers.

Social Changes

The Three Estates: those who pray, those who fight, and those who work

• clergy, military, workers

• simple classes

• chivalry

• troubadours; poets, singers, entertainers, etc

Eleanor of Aquitaine: most wealthy and powerful woman of her day, promoted troubadours and good manners

• independent cities

• guilds organized by merchants and traders to obtain power, social infrastructure

• women and female-only guilds

Religion +:

• there weren’t many schools because societies couldn’t support them

• Eventually formed cathedral schools with Latin curriculums

• Student guilds and universities

• Influence from aristotle

St. Thomas Aquinas: theological scholasticism

• proving God exists

• Most common people didn’t hear anything about theology; scholars wrote to the upper class

• sacraments

• devotion to saints (popularly the Virgin Mary); saint’s relics

• pilgrimage to other cities, inns and businesses formed along the routes whatever

Reform and Heresy:

• higher-ups believed the church was getting more materialistic

• St. Dominic and St. Francis; dominicans and franciscans; worked zealously to combat heretics and materialism

• Heretics; Waldensians; Bogomils, Cathar

Medieval Expansion:

• Vinland; ‘wine land’, found by Leif Ericcson (Newfoundland); viking explorations in the north

• Scandinavians converted to Christianity

• Crazy military-religious organizations like the Templars formed during crusades

• Re-conquering of Sicily, Spain from Islam

Crusades:

• Pope Urban II launched the first one

• they sucked

• trading