Medieval Bureaucracy, Feudalism & Sacraments

• Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne in the image.

Bureaucracy in the Medieval Era

• The Roman Catholic Church hierarchy and the Feudal Manor hierarchy both exemplified bureaucracy with a clear chain of command.
• The Roman Catholic Church and Feudalism provided stability in medieval times.

The Rule of Benedict

• It served as a model for monastic rules, emphasizing working, studying, and praying.

Feudalism

• Fief refers to land granted by a Lord in exchange for loyalty and service.
• Monks and nuns took vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, with duties including work, study, and prayer.
• Seven sacraments include Baptism, Confirmation, Reconciliation, Eucharist, Marriage, Ordination, and Last Rites.
• Feudalism was created due to a need for order and protection, and was an economic and political system based on exchanging loyalty and labor for protection.
• Peasants/Serfs were tied to the land in the Feudal System.
• Those who didn't follow the Sacraments were believed to go to Hell/Damnation.
• Medieval European Christians thought humans were basically sinful and weak who needed structure and order to be good.

Viking Warfare

• Longships and weaponry enabled the Vikings to be effective in warfare.

Accomplishments

• St. Patrick spread Christianity through Ireland, built over 300 churches, and converted almost all of Ireland.
• St. Boniface converted the Netherlands and Germany to Christianity, earning the title "Apostle of Germany".
• Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III and unified most of Christian lands of Europe into a single empire.
• Pope Gregory I converted Britain to Christianity after converting the King in 597 CE.
• Clovis became leader of the Franks in 481, led them into Christianity, and extended the boundaries of the Frankish kingdom.
• Charles Martel (The Hammer) stopped the Muslim Moorish invasion of France and Europe, and was the grandfather of Charlemagne.

Succession Crisis in England

• Edward the Confessor, King of England, died and had no children to succeed him.
• Edward promised the throne to his cousin Duke William of Normandy, but the assembly chose Harold Godwinson, Edward's brother-in-law.
• The Bayeux Tapestry tells the story of Duke William’s conquest of England, embroidered onto a linen cloth.

Castle Features

• Motte Bailey Castles included a motte, keep, drawbridge, bailey, and moat.
• Thirteenth Century Castles featured stone walls, ventilation slits, and a shaft for water supply.
• Gothic-style Cathedrals included flying buttresses, a bell tower, facade, gargoyles, arches, and stained glass windows.

Conflicts and Agreements

• King Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII had conflicts.
• In 1215 King John sealed the Magna Carta at Runnymede.
• The Magna Carta prevented the king from exploiting his power and placed limits on royal authority.
• Lay Investiture was the bestowal of a church office by a member of the nobles rather than by church officials.
• The Concordat of Worms in Sept 1122, was an agreement that ended the conflict between church and state over the right to appoint religious office leaders.
• The Magna Carta inspired the Constitution.

The Crusades

• The Crusades were motivated by the desire to recapture the Holy Land (Palestine) from the Muslims.
• They began in 1096 and ended in 1270.

Claims to the Holy Land

• For the Jews, the Torah established a claim to Holy Land, which was God’s gift to Abraham and Lot, the site of King Solomon's Temple, and where King David brought the ark containing the original Torah.
• For Christians it was the site of Jesus' life, death, and ascension, the home of the original cross and stone of Christ's tomb, and the site of the sacred Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
• For Muslims, it was the site of Muhammad's ascent to heaven, believing that God's gift of the Holy Land to Abraham was for Arabs (Muslims) too, and the Qu’ran establishes that both Jews and Arabs are people of Abraham.
• Goods exchanged during the Crusades included languages, chess, paper, arch, and textiles.
• Ideas exchanged during the Crusades included military tactics and Muslim scholarship, such as Arabic works translated into Latin.

The Black Death

• It was a deadly plague that spread across Europe from 1346-1352 caused by a form of bacteria carried by fleas that lived on rats.
• The three different forms of the Black Death were pneumonic (attacks the lungs), septicemic (attacks the bloodstream), and bubonic (caused buboes on the body).
• People couldn't stop the spread of the Black Death due to ignorance and ineffective cures.

The 100 Years' War

• It began when King Charles IV died in 1328 with no male heir, and Edward III of England and Philip of Valois (France) both tried to claim the throne.
• Warfare changed with longbows and cannons, as well as monarchs using armies of common people.
• Joan of Arc was a peasant French girl that believed she was sent from God to save French.
• Joan convinced Charles VII to let her lead an army against the English in 1429 and helped push the English armies out of central France.
• She was later captured, convicted of heresy and burned at the stake, and was sainted in 1922.
• The 100 years’ war contributed to the end of feudalism in France because people became more patriotic and devoted to their monarchs, and monarchs weakened the power of nobles.