MEDIEVAL PERIOD
Scholars once described the five centuries following the fall of Rome as a “dark age” whose cultural achievements fell far short of those of ancient Greece and Rome. Our present understanding suggests otherwise: the Early Middle Ages (ca. 500–1000) was one of the most creative periods in Western history. During this time, three distinct traditions— Classical, Germanic, and Christian came together to produce a vigorous new culture. While Germanic invasions contributed to the decline and decentralization of the Roman Empire, Germanic practices slowly blended with those of ancient Rome and rising Christianity. In the territories that would come to be called “Europe,” the political and military system known as feudalism would shape the social and cultural patterns of early medieval life.
The Germanic peoples were a tribal folk who followed a migratory existence. Dependent on their flocks and herds, they lived in pre-urban village communities throughout Asia and frequently raided and plundered nearby lands for material gain, yet they settled no territorial state. As early as the first century b.c.e., a loose confederacy of Germanic tribes began to threaten Roman territories, but it was not until the fourth century c.e. that these tribes, driven westward by the fierce Central Asian nomads known as Huns, pressed into the Roman Empire. Lacking the hallmarks of civilization—urban settlements, monumental architecture, and the art of writing—the Germanic tribes struck the Romans as inferiors, as outsiders, hence, as “barbarians.”
The Battle of Adrianople opened the door to a sequence of barbarian invasions. During the fifth century, the Empire fell prey to the assaults of many Germanic tribes, including the Vandals, whose willful, malicious destruction of Rome in 455 produced the English word “vandalize.� In 476, a Germanic commander named Odoacer deposed the reigning Roman emperor in the West, an event that is traditionally taken to mark the official end of the Roman Empire.
Germanic law was not legislated by the state, as in Roman tradition, but was, rather, a collection of customs passed orally from generation to generation. The Germanic dependence on custom would have a lasting influence on the development of law, and especially common law, in parts of the West.
Germanic Literature Germanic traditions, including those of personal valor and heroism associated with a warring culture, are reflected in the epic poems of the Early Middle Ages. The most famous of these was Beowulf. The 3000-line epic known as Beowulf is the first monumental literary composition in a European vernacular language. The tale of a daring Scandinavian prince, Beowulf brings to life the heroic world of the Germanic people with whom it originated
Purse cover - Gold with garnets and cloisonnĂŠ enamel, 8 in. long. The Germanic tribes carried west techniques and motifs popular in the arts of the nomadic peoples of Mesopotamia and the Russian steppes.
Buckle, from first half of seventh century. Gold and niello. Monsters and serpents, which figure in the Germanic epic Beowulf, were associated with the dark forces of nature, while knots and braids were often seen as magical devices.
Charlemagne and the Carolingian Renaissance From the time he came to the throne in 768 until his death in 814, the Frankish chieftain Charles the Great (in French, “Charlemagne�) pursued the dream of restoring the Roman Empire under Christian leadership. Charlemagne's imperial mission was animated by a passionate interest in education and the Charlemagne assumed his symbolic role as mediator between God and ordinary mortals. Alert to the legacy of his forebears, he revived the bronze-casting techniques of Roman sculptures.
Equestrian statuette of Charlemagne. Bronze with traces of gilt. Although this sculpture is less than 10 inches high, it shares the monumental presence of its Classical predecessor, the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius
During the Carolingian Renaissance, Charlemagne authorized the construction of numerous Benedictine monasteries, or abbeys.
When Charlemagne died in the year 814, the short-lived unity he had brought to Western Europe died with him. Although he had turned the Frankish kingdom into an empire, he failed to establish any legal and administrative machinery comparable with that of imperial Rome. There was no standing army, no system of taxation, and no single code of law to unify the widely diverse population. Following his death, the fragile stability of the Carolingian Empire was shattered by Scandinavian seafarers known as Vikings. Charlemagne's sons and grandsons could not repel the raids of these fierce invaders, who ravaged the northern coasts of the Empire; at the same time, neither were his heirs able to arrest the repeated forays of the Muslims along the Mediterranean coast. Lacking effective leadership, the Carolingian Empire disintegrated.
Derived from Roman and Germanic traditions of rewarding warriors with the spoils of war, feudalism involved the exchange of land for military service. In return for the grant of land, known as a fief or (the Germanic word for “property�), a vassal owed his lord a certain number of fighting days (usually forty) per year. The contract between lord and vassal also involved a number of other obligations, including the lord's provision of a court of justice, the vassal's contribution of ransom if his lord were captured, and the reciprocation of hospitality between the two.
Although the feudal class monopolized land and power within medieval society, this elite group represented only a tiny percentage of the total population. The majority of people—more than 90 percent— were unfree peasants or serfs who, along with freemen, farmed the soil. Medieval serfs lived quite differently from their landlords. During the Middle Ages, the reciprocal obligations of serfs and lords and the serf's continuing tenure on the land became firmly fixed. At least until the eleventh century, the interdependence between the two classes was generally beneficial to both; serfs needed protection, and feudal lords, whose position as gentlemen-warriors excluded them from menial toil, needed food. For upper and lower classes alike, the individual's place in medieval society was inherited and bound by tradition.
Early Medieval Culture • In the turbulent century following the fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire, feudalism, the exchange of land for military service, gave noblemen the power to rule locally while providing protection from outside attack. • The artistic monuments of the Early Middle Ages—the Song of Roland, the Norman castle, and the Bayeux Tapestry—all describe a heroic age that glorified feudal combat, male prowess, and the conquest of land. Manorialism, the economic basis for medieval society, offered the lower classes physical protection in exchange for food production.
High Medieval Culture
• Changing patterns of secular life between the years 700 and 1300 reflect the shift from a feudal society to an urban one. The values of merchants and craftspeople differed from those of the feudal nobility, for whom land had provided the basis of wealth and chivalry dictated manners and morals. In the courtly literature of the High Middle Ages, sentiment and sensuousness replaced the heroic idealism and chivalric chastity of the early medieval era. Romantic love, a medieval invention, dominated both the vernacular romance and troubadour poetry. Vernacular tales and poems often satirized inequality between classes and antagonism between the sexes.