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Birth of Medieval Europe · Acedra
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In the Middle Ages, a new civilization was forged on the European continent. Nobles and kings, faith and warfare, culture and learning, trade and innovation, these set the foundations of the modern era. This is the story of how Europe was born. In the first two centuries CE, the vast Roman Empire engulfed the Mediterranean Sea. It was a time of stability, prosperity, and peace. The Pak Romana citizens enjoyed its flourishing culture, fair quality of life, and relative security. This was achieved
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through Rome's centralized government and advanced infrastructure. In the remote eastern margins of the empire, a new religion was born, Christianity. Beginning as a small Jewish sect, it slowly spread throughout the pagan Roman world. In the 4th century, it was embraced by the emperors, becoming the official state religion. But by then, Rome's glory days were over. The empire was suffering from inflation plagues famine and invasions. Managing it from a single
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center was becoming impossible. In 395 CE, the empire was divided in two. a western empire with Rome as its capital and an eastern one ruled from Constantinople, also known as the Byzantine Empire. While the east was urban, rich, and prosperous, the west was rural, poor, and weak. It didn't last long. In the deep forests beyond the empire's borders, barbarian peoples were on the move. These were mostly Germanic tribes led by warlords and their loyal bands of warriors. These
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groups were pressing harder and harder on the Rine and Danube rivers. Without much choice, the Western Empire began allowing them entry. Eventually, the frontiers were breached, enabling various peoples to migrate and settle within the borders of the empire. Whether guests or invaders, these peoples carved up Roman territory while imperial authority was crumbling. In 476, the barbarian leader Ottoacer deposed the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Agugustus.
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This child emperor had no real power, but his removal stands as a milestone. The Western Roman Empire was no more. The so-called dark ages had begun. Romans Christians barbarians these were the three main ingredients that combined to create medieval Europe.
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Around 500 CE, Europe was covered by newly established kingdoms ruled by barbarian kings. Their elites emerged between Romans and barbarians had gradually converted to Christianity. The most prominent kingdoms were those of the Ostrogoths in Italy, the Visiggoths in Spain, and the Franks in Gaul. But these kingdoms were lacking key elements necessary to manage successful states. The great cities of antiquity were depopulated, some left in ruins. The Roman transportation system
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decayed, eroding communication and long-distance trade. Coins vanished, leaving no economic system to support professional armies. Literacy plummeted, crippling administrative systems. And most notably, peace and security were gone. This impoverished rural West was becoming more and more localized, fragmenting politically and linguistically. In the first centuries of the Middle Ages, it pald in comparison to its stronger neighbors.
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[Music] In the sixth century, Byzantine Emperor Justinian I strove to reconquer the west and restore the Roman Empire to its past grandeur. But after conquering Italy from the Romanized Ostrogoths, the peninsula fell prey to new invaders, the Lombards. The Byzantines had to accept that the division between east and west was final. But soon they had to acknowledge yet another division, this time between north and south. In the 7th century, Arab armies swept through the Middle
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East and North Africa with astonishing speed, creating an immense Islamic caliphate. Where one civilization once thrived, now there were three, Islamic, Byzantine, and medieval. For a brief moment in the 8th century, it seemed as if the fragile and weak West might be overwhelmed by the caliphate. Muslim armies crushed the Visigothic kingdom in Spain, then went on to raid Frankia. But in 732 in the battle of T, they were defeated by the Franks under the leadership of Charl Martell.
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Islamic expansion in the west was halted and the victorious Charl gave his name to a dynasty that was to change European history forever, the Carolynians. [Music] Charl Martell's son, Pepin the Short, seized the Frankish throne in a coup. He fought the Lombards in Italy, granting the Pope his own most desired autonomous state. Pepin's son was the famous Charlemagne. After ascending the Frankish throne in 768, he spent decades fighting and expanding his kingdom. Ultimately, he
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held sway over most of western christrysendom. In 800 CE, Pope Leo III anointed Charlemagne emperor of the Romans. More than 300 years after the fall of Rome, the West had an emperor once again. The Carolindian Empire was the first great power of the medieval West, leaving an enduring legacy. Charlemagne backed an intellectual and cultural flowering, the first of several medieval renaissances, intending to revive the lost knowledge and culture of antiquity. The empire disseminated throughout the
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west various political structures, institutions titles ranks ideas and dreams. Most importantly, an ideal of a unified Christian West. These formed the bedrock of medieval civilization.
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The Carolinian Empire was short-lived. The attempt to create centralized rule in the west suffered from insufficient infrastructure, small cities, weak economy, limited bureaucracy, and poor communications. After Charlemagne's death, his three grandsons fought one another and in 843 in the Treaty of Verdon, divided the Frankish Empire among themselves. The Middle Kingdom quickly diminished, leaving only West Frankia, which would eventually become France, and East
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Frankia, which will one day become Germany. These kingdoms continued to splinter and fragment, a process accelerated by external pressure. In the 9th and 10th centuries, a new wave of invaders attacked the crumbling Carolinian world from every direction. The Vikings came from the north, roaming the coasts and rivers of Europe, raiding and terrorizing the population. The Maguars, better known as Hungarians, flowed in from the east, plundering defenseless settlements.
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And finally, Muslim pirates and raiders landed on Europe's southern shores. Europe was under siege.
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As the West was crumbling under repeated attacks, kings lost their power while local elites grew stronger. Europe was getting covered with a dense network of wooden castles serving as fortified residences of local noble families. From these strongholds, lords subjugated the peasants in their vicinity, extracting their resources. Lords ruled their lands by coercive force. In previous centuries, peasants were an integral part of infantry armies. But new military innovations
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such as the stirrup further established cavalry as a decisive force. This new kind of warfare required resources only nobles could obtain. Consequently, European elites became full-time professional fighters. In a world ruled by a warrior nobility, territorial power was attained by vaselage. One noble granted another land and protection and expected in return his fieldalty and military service. Kingdoms were becoming complex networks of personal relationships and mutual obligations.
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Kings were often weak and could be easily overshadowed by their strong vassels. This is often described as the feudal system. Centuries would pass before centralized states would emerge again in the west.
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In the 10th century, things started to change. Better climate increased agricultural yield. External invasions ceased as Vikings and Hungarians settled down and were absorbed into western Christrysendom. And in some regions, royal authority was gaining ground. In Britain, King Alfred the Great and his successors unified the various Anglo-Saxon realms, creating the Kingdom of England for the first time. In West Frankia, while political fragmentation continued, Vikings who settled in the
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north swore loyalty to the Frankish king. They became French Christians known as the Normans. The Duche of Normandy created a buffer against other raiders. In East Frankia, Otto I, King of the Germans, managed to defeat the Hungarians in the battle of Lechfeld in 955, putting an end to the invasions from the east. The settled Hungarians eventually established a Christian kingdom of their own. The victorious Otto the Great was crowned emperor in 962. Europe had an empire once again, this
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time a German one. It was later known as the Holy Roman Empire. After centuries of turmoil, Europe was finally gaining stability and confidence, ready to change course. The year 1000 marks a turning point in European history, ushering in 300 years of growth and prosperity.
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Better climate combined with new technologies and techniques led to an agricultural revolution. Europeans produced more food, resulting in population growth. New villages and towns were established and existing ones expanded. Throughout Europe, forests were cleared as more and more land came under cultivation. This enabled immense economic expansion and commercial revival. Bustling trade networks fed a massive urbanization process. Old and new cities grew larger,
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becoming international hubs for a new class of merchants. These merchants won their independence from feudal land owners, forming self-governing cities. This was most evident in Italy, where merchants revived the Mediterranean trade. As quality of life improved, art, architecture, and music flourished. Europe was becoming increasingly literate and the first universities were founded under the opaces of the church. European intellectuals initiated a new renaissance based on the rediscovery and
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revival of ancient knowledge. But Europeans were not only conquering internal frontiers, they were also pushing outward.
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During the central middle ages, aristocrats from the Carolinian heartland conquered and colonized new territories, pushing the boundaries of western christrysendom. This process, described as the Europeanization of Europe, resulted in an expanded and more homogeneous civilization. In 1066, William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, invaded England. In the Battle of Hastings, he delivered a decisive blow to the Anglo-Saxons. England was transformed into a Norman stronghold.
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In Iberia, the Christian kingdoms of the north fought the Muslims to their south, gradually extending their control over the peninsula. This was viewed as a reconquest. In southern Italy and Sicily, Norman warriors conquered vast territories from the Byzantines and Muslims. They allied with the Pope and established another Norman kingdom. In Eastern Europe, German aristocrats and peasants gradually moved eastward, settling on Slavic lands. But Europeans were casting their gaze
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further still. In 1095, Pope Urban II called on Christian warriors to liberate Jerusalem and other holy sites from the hands of Muslim infidels. Crusader armies swarmed to the east, establishing several states on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. These states proved to be a weak western outpost. Over the course of 200 years, they were reconquered by Muslim forces. Nevertheless, they signaled an important message. The Catholic Church had awakened.
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In the early Middle Ages, the Pope was weak, holding little influence outside Italy. The church was a loose network of priests and monks appointed and controlled by local aristocrats. In the 10th and 11th centuries, a movement emerged set on reforming the church and society as a whole. The reformers demanded to free the church from the world, to extract it from the influence of kings and nobles, and rebuild it as a papal monarchy. Pope Gregory VIIth, an enthusiastic
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reformer, clashed with the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IVth, over the authority of appointing bishops in the empire. The first round of conflict ended with Henry waiting for 3 days in the snow outside a fortress at Kenosa, begging for the pope's forgiveness. The second round, however, ended as Henry invaded and appointed his own pope, forcing Gregory into exile. Although it seemed as if the emperor had won in the 12th century it became clear that the papacy and the reform were
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victorious. The church had become a robust centralized hierarchical organization with elaborate administrative and legal systems and immense resources. Its power stretched across Europe. At the top of the pyramid was the pope ruling the church as an absolute monarch. As popes grew stronger, kings were left envious. Then they followed suit. [Music] The power of medieval kings was constrained by the armed aristocracy. During the central middle ages, their numbers vastly increased and castles
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were multiplying with wood being replaced by stone and designs getting bigger and stronger. aristocratic lifestyle and culture underwent refinement with the advent of the Christian knight ideal and the code of conduct known as chivalry. But at the same time, aristocrats in some regions were faced with the emergence of stronger kings and kingdoms. In England, the Angloorman dynasty formed a small and consolidated state free of the feudal mess abundant on the continent.
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In Iberia, the reconquest of land from the Muslims strengthened the Christian kings, enabling centralized states to emerge. In France, the kings of the Capcian dynasty gradually expanded their personal domains, enabling a functioning state to form there as well. However, in the Holy Roman Empire, the exact opposite occurred. The once mighty empire disintegrated, forming a mosaic of autonomous principalities. Emperor Frederick Barbar Roa attempted to restore the empire's former glory,
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but failed. The title of emperor, now bestowed by electors, became an empty one. The central middle ages saw an agricultural revolution, urbanization, expansion, stronger popes, stronger kings, and vibrant culture. But around 1300, the climate worsened, growth halted, and famine spread. A great calamity was approaching.
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The 14th century marks a watershed in European history. In 1347, a global plague now known as the Black Death reached Europe. It rapidly spread across the continent and within a few short years killed approximately 1/3 of the population. It was an unprecedented demographic disaster. Entire settlements were wiped off the map. Recurrent outbreaks of the plague would continue striking Europe for centuries. However, during the 14th and 15th centuries, Europe recovered, and for
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some survivors, the consequences of the plague were not so grim. As the population dropped, land became widely available, and the demand for labor rose dramatically. The bargaining power of peasants and workers increased, and they demanded improved conditions. When elites refused, revolts erupted across Europe. Nearly all of them were brutally suppressed. Yet in the long run, change was inevitable. In Western Europe, peasants gained new freedoms and opportunities, and workers enjoyed
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higher wages. Out of the darkness of the Great Plague, creativity emerged. Technological innovation brought forth the wind and water mills, eyeglasses, new techniques for metal production and processing, and of course, the printing press. In the quickly recovering cities, new cultural trends flourished. A new Renaissance thrived in Italy, set on reviving and surpassing the cultural achievements of ancient Greece and Rome. Renaissance scholars developed a new outlook on the
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world and on man's place within it. They defined the past millennium as dark ages and so positioned themselves as the transition between the medieval and modern world.
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In the late 14th and 15th centuries, gunpowder transformed European warfare. The bravest knight could be shut down by simple infantrymen from a distance, and the most fortified castle could be breached with cannons. Supporting the new infantry and artillery armies was a costly affair which only kings could manage. As they strove to monopolize the use of force within their territories, kings consolidated their power and asserted their authority over the aristocracy.
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These nobles who lost their military superiority began serving their rulers as administrators and courters. The sovereign state was emerging. In these troubled times, Europe's new military innovations were constantly put to the test. The hundred Years War waged between England and France devastated the French countryside. The war's course was reversed by a peasant girl, Joan of Ark, who rallied French troops against the English. Eventually, England was pushed out of France.
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In Iberia, the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile led to the emergence of a unified Spain. Their combined armies conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold in the peninsula. These developments lay the foundations for the modern nation states of England, France, and Spain. Other regions such as Germany and Italy would have to wait several centuries for their unification.
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As the Middle Ages came to a close, Europe had not only recovered from the crisis brought by the black plague, but had also rebuilt itself on strong foundations. Gradually, its focus shifted outward. By 1500, Portugal had traversed Africa and the Indian Ocean, opening up commercial routes to the Far East, while Spain turned westward, crossing the Atlantic Ocean and reaching the Americas. Columbus's voyage in 1492 is sometimes considered to mark the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of
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the modern era. Over the next centuries, European expansion would transform the globe and create the modern world we live in today. [Music]
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