Last Test

Today we took our final test. I got a 90 which I am happy with. Our last class is Monday, bittersweet. Thank God for Delaney because she reminded Mr. Schick about the 5 extra credit points for writing out something from the book. So that's kind of it, until Monday.

Kappel the Teacher

Review / test questions

• Medieval period; 476 - 1453 AD
• New society has roots in the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church, classical heritage of Rome, and customs of various Germanic tribes.
• Germanic invaders overrun the western half of the Roman empire causing: disruption of trade, downfall of cities, and population shifts to rural areas.
• Effects of Invasion
• Decline in learning.
• Germanic warriors' loyalty is to the lord of the manor he provided them with food, weapons, and treasure.
• Clovis rules Gaul (Franks) until death in 511
• in 496 he has a battle conversion - him and 3000 warriors became Christians
• Church in Rome likes this
• by 511 the Franks are united into one kingdom, with Clovis and the Church working as partners.
• Church + Frankish rulers = rise in Christianity
• In 520, Benedict writes rules for monks:
• live simple
• no marital relations
• obedience
• Sister Scholastica writes similar rules for nuns.
• Pope Gregory 1 goes secular (worldly power)
• Bead wrote the history of England
• Church revenues are used to help the poor, build roads, and raise armies = theocracy.
• Clovis' descendants include Charles Martel, knows as Charles the Hammer.
• Hammer defeats a Muslin raiding party from Spain in 732.
• Charles Martel's son is Pepin the Short.
• Son #1 - Carloman - dies in 771
• Son #2 - Charles, known as Charlemagne, meaning Charles the Great.
• Charlemagne
• became the most powerful king in western Europe
• kept close watch on his huge estates
• Louis' three sons - Lothair, Charles the Bald, and Louis the German split up the kingdom at the Treaty of Verdun in 843 AD (they were weenies)

Germanic Kingdoms Unite under Charlemagne

• Medieval Europe is fragmented.
• Middle Ages = medieval period
• 476 - 1453 AD
• What happened in 476 AD?
• Romoulus Augustulus was told to step down. (no more emperor, no more Roman empire)
• This new society has roots in:
• Classical heritage of Rome
• Beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church
• Customs of various Germanic tribes
• Invaders overrun the western half of the Roman Empire causing:
• Disruption of trade
• Downfall of cities
• Population shifts to rural areas
• Decline of learning:
• Tribes had oral traditions, songs,couldn't read Greek or Latin
• Roman languages evolve (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian)
• Few besides priests were literate
• Germanic Kingdoms emerge: 400-600 AD
• Germanic warriors' loyalty is to the lord of the manor he provides them with food, weapons, treasure, etc.
• Results:
• no orderly government for large areas
• small communities rule
• Clovis rules the Germanic people of Gaul, knows as the Franks (France)
• in 496 he has a battlefield conversion - he and 300 of his warriors become Christians
• the Church in Rome likes this
• By 511 the Franks are united into one kingdom, with Clovis and the Church working as partners.
• Church + Frankish rulers = rise in Christianity
• In 520, Benedict writes rules for monks:
• vows of poverty (live simply in monasteries)
• chastity (no marital relations)
• obedience (listen to church superiors)
• Pope Gregory 1 goes secular (worldly power)
• Church revenues are used to help the poor, build roads, and raise armies.
• This is a theocracy
• Gregory's spiritual kingdom (Christendom) extends from Italy to England, from Spain to Germany
• Clovis rules the Franks in Gaul until his death in 511
• Most of the rest of Europe consists of smaller kingdoms (7 in England alone)
• Clovis' descendants included Charles Martel, aka Charles the Hammer
• Hammer defeats a Muslim raiding party from Spain at the Battle of Tours in 732
• if he hadn't won, western Europe could have become part of the Muslim Empire
• Charles Martel's son is Pepin the Short
• He works with the Church and is named "king by the grace of God" by the Pope
• Pepin the Short dies in 768, leaving two sons
• #! Carloman dies in 711
• #2 Charles, aka Charlemagne meaning Charles the Great
• 6'4 of rocking ruling warrior greatness!
• Charlemagne's grandsons:
• Lothair
• Charles the Bald
• Louis the German
• Split up the kingdom at the Treaty of Verdun in 843 AD

Continued

• Essay Questions:
• How did Christianity evolve from a cult like group to one of the most practiced religions in the wold?
• A European Empire Evolves
• Franks control largest European kingdom
• The Roman province formerly known as Gaul
• Ruled by Clovis - The Merovingian Dynasty
• Major domo - mayor of the palace - ruled the kingdom
• Charles Martel - Charles the Hammer
• extended the Franks' reign to the north, south, and east.
• defeated a Muslim army from Spain at the Battle of Tours in 732 - historic battle

Germanic Kingdoms unite under Charlemagne

• Main Idea
• Many Germanic kingdoms that succeeded the Roman Empire were reunited under Charlemagne's empire.
• Why it matters
• Charlemagne spread Christian civilization throughout northern Europe, which is where many of us came from.
• Setting the stage
• Middle Ages = medieval period
• 500 - 1500 AD
• Medieval Europe is fragmented
• Invasions trigger changes in western Europe
• Invasions and constant warfare spark new trends
• Disruption of trade
• Europe's cities are no longer economic centers
• Money is scarce
• Downfall of cities
• Cities are no longer centers of administration
• Population shifts
• Nobles retreat to the rural areas
• Cities don't have a strong leadership. 
• Decline in learning
• Germanic invaders are illiterate, but they communicate through oral tradition
• Only priests and church officials could real and write
• Knowledge of Greek (and literature, science, philosophy) is almost lost
• Loss of a common language
• Dialects develop in different regions
• By the 800's French, Spanish and other Roman-based languages are evolving from Latin.
• Germanic kingdoms emerge
• The concept of gov. changes
• Roman society: loyal to public gov
• Germanic society: loyal to family
• Germanic chief led warriors
• During peace, he provided food, weapons, treasure, a place to live
• During wartime, warriors fought for the lord
• "The king? Who's that? You want to collect taxes from me? Who the heck are you?"
• Franks lived in the Roman province of Gaul - their leader is Clovis.
• The Franks under Clovis
• Another battlefield conversion (Constantine)
• Clovis and 3000 of his warriors are baptized by the bishop
• The Church in Rome approves of this "alliance"
• Clovis and the Church begin to work together
• Clovis' military expertise + the Church's support and money = a strategic alliance between two powerful forces
• Germanic peoples adopt Christianity 
• 511 AD - Clovis unites Franks into one kingdom
• 600 AD - Church + Frankish rulers convert many
• fear of Muslims in southern Europe spur many to become Christians
• Monasteries and convents
• 520 AD - Benedict wrote the rules for monks and monasteries
• Poverty, chastity (virgin), obedience, study
• His sister Scholastica did the same for nuns in convents
• 731 AD - the Venerable Bede wrote a killer history of England
• Monks opened schools, maintained libraries, and copied books (Bibles, Greek texts)
• (Pope) Gregory 1 expands papal power
• Papacy = pope's office
• Secular power = worldly power
• So... under Gregory the Great
• Papal power (power of the pope) is Political power, presented from the pope's palace.
• the Church can use church money to:
• Raise armies
• Repair roads
• Help the poor
• Gregory the Great began to act as mayor of Rome, and as head of an earthly kingdom (Christendom)

The Middle Ages

• Feudalism
• a political, military and economic system based on land-holding and protective alliances.
• the system based on personal loyalty to people who can help you.
• rich dudes; lord
• tough dudes; vassals (worked for the lord)
• Pyramid
• king
• the most powerful vassals (nobles and bishops)
• knights - mounted warriors who received fiefs for defending their lord's land)
• peasants (mostly serfs) landless, powerless, money-less, rights-less, just working for the land for "the man" (their lord)
• (very little middle class)
• Manor: the lord's estate
• a lord's manor house
• a church
• some workshops
• 15-30 families
• all on a few square miles
• Good news: its a self-sufficient community
• Bad news: its harsh if you're a peasant
• Peasants 
• poor and pay high taxes
• tax on grain
• tax on marriage
• church tax (10% of their income)
• they live in crowded cottages

Test Day

Today in western civ we took our last test on Rome before the final. Now we move onto the Middle Ages. Our homework for tonight is to read p. 151 and put the notes in your blog and for five extra points, copy the Chronology found on page 152.

• The first two early medieval centuries set the patterns for how this renewal would later take place in western and eastern Europe. 
• The Germanic kingdoms had taken over the western half of the Roman Empire.
• Roman institutions gradually stopped working.
• Cities ceased to be centers of trade and social life.
• Warfare became more important than education and culture. 
• Missionary-monks brought Christianity and Roman traditions to peoples beyond the empires's old frontiers.
• Both the missionaries and the Frankish rulers created precedents for spectacular later renewal in western Europe.
• The Roman Empire's surviving eastern half contributed to westerns Europe's chaos by efforts at reconquest.

Chronology:

• Fifth century:
• Angles and Saxons invade Britain.
• 486
• Clovis leads Frankish confederacy against Romans and rival Germanic invaders in Gaul
• 527-565
• Reign of Emperor Justinian in the Eastern empire
• 542
• Plague hits Egypt, then spreads throughout the Mediterranean area and much of western Europe.
• 568
• Lombard's conquer most of northern Italy
• 570-632
• Life of Muhammad
• 595
• Missionaries sent by the pope begin to convert the pagans of England
• 711
• Muslim invasion of Spain
• 800
• Slavs occupy almost all of eastern Europe