Chapter Overviews

Chapter 10: Europe in the Middle Ages

Chapter Overviews

In the High Middle Ages, Europe saw explosive urban growth, a revival of trade, and an emboldened Catholic Church. Yet catastrophic setbacks followed in the form of plague, economic collapse, and war. Christianity remained a focus of European life, but centuries of confrontation with the monarchies left the Church weakened.

Section 1 Peasants, Trade, and Cities
The near doubling of Europe's population in the High Middle Ages was caused by more peaceful and settled conditions and an increase in the food supply. The development of labor-saving devices and improvements in farming increased food production. Under the manorial system, lords owned agricultural estates worked by free peasants and by serfs who were legally bound to the land. Trade also revived, leading to the development of an economic system based on money rather than barter, and to the revival of cities and manufacturing centers. The cities were crowded, dirty places that nevertheless provided new opportunities for men and women. In the cities, guilds regulated employment in many crafts and professions.

Section 2 Medieval Christianity
Pope Gregory VII sought to remove secular influence from the Catholic Church and improve the Church's ability to provide spiritual guidance. The Concordat of Worms barred monarchs from investing bishops, and marked a victory for Pope Gregory VII in his bid to reform the Church and assert papal power. The importance of the sacraments for ordinary Christians gave the Church a central role in people's lives. The veneration of saints was also popular. Christians believed saints could intercede in heaven on their behalf. Religious fervor prompted new monastic orders for men and women. The new orders developed an activistic spiritual model. The Inquisition gave the Church a tool for discouraging heresy. Those who failed to do proper penance for heresy could face execution.

Section 3 Culture of the High Middle Ages
An eleventh- and twelfth-century building boom produced many new churches. Innovations in architecture made it possible to build soaring Gothic cathedrals, one of the artistic triumphs of the High Middle Ages. The first universities were established in twelfth-century Italy, France, and England as educational guilds. Most students received a liberal arts education. Theology was the most prestigious subject and was heavily influenced by scholasticism. Scholasticism sought to reconcile faith and reason and to harmonize Christian teachings with recently rediscovered works of Greek philosophers. The best-known practitioner of scholasticism was Saint Thomas Aquinas. Although Latin was the universal language of medieval civilization, new literature was written in the vernacular.

Section 4 The Late Middle Ages
Bubonic plague carried by infested rats decimated Europe 's population in the mid-1300s. The Black Death led to anti–Semitism, devastated Europe 's economy, and accelerated the end of serfdom. Church power declined as European kings rejected papal claims of supremacy. Popular respect for the papacy was undermined by the Great Schism, a nearly forty-year papal crisis during which a rival papacy was set up in France. The Hundred Years' War introduced new methods of warfare and devastated England and France. The "new monarchies" of the fifteenth century reestablished the centralized power of the monarchies in England, France, and Spain.