Barbarians at the Gate
Rise of the Medieval Period

The Decline of the Pax Romana

• External Pressures
  • Barbarians
  • Unprotected frontiers
• Internal Pressures
  • City entitlements - Free Corn
    • City magnets and rural flight
    • Bread, circuses, wine, oil, baths, etc.
• Roman response
  • Taxes and debased currency
  • Coercion to keep people in the country side
• The Effect
  • Fragmentation of the central government
  • Trade in Kind
  • Emergence of Feudalism

The Rise of the Middle Ages

• Feudalism
  • Land ownership and personal loyalty
  • A fief was given to a vassal by a lord in exchange for fidelity
    • Fief - Title to a piece of land
    • Vassal - The person whom receives a fief sealed with a pledge of fidelity
    • Lord - The person whom gave a fief to a person (making them a vassal) with the promise of fidelity given in exchange
  • A hierarchy of mutual obligations
• Instability
  • War
  • Famine
  • Bubonic plague - Black Death
  • Cultural effects
    • Decline of the humanistic perspective
    • Worldly torment and heavenly afterlife
• A Society in Three Stratums
  • "Those that fight"
    • Nobility
    • Kings, knights and castles
  • "Those that pray"
    • Ecclesiastical order
    • Pope, monks and cathedrals
    • Seat of learning
  • "Those that work"
    • Commoner
    • Peasants, peasants and more peasants

Three Phases of the Medieval Age

• Early Christian Era
  • The initial centuries right after the fall of Rome (6th, 7th, 8th centuries)
  • Also called the Dark Ages as a reflection of their chaos and violence
• Romanesque
  • Around the 11th and 12th century
  • Feudal society is firmly established though violence is still the norm
• Gothic
  • The waning days of the Middle Ages - about the 13th and 14th century
  • A noticeable return of humanism and civic life including an vital economy
  • The Renaissance is on the horizon
    

Humanities Resource of Mark Hunter