A Short History of The Middle Ages [6 ed.] 9781487540982, 9781487541019, 9781487540999, 9781487541002

Table of contents :
Half-Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
The Medieval World Today
Epigraphs
Contents
List of Maps
List of Plates
List of Genealogies
List of Figures
Website
Abbreviations and Conventions
Acknowledgments
Note to Readers
Chapter One Prelude: The Roman World Transformed (c.300–c.600)
Chapter Two The Emergence of Sibling Cultures (c.600–c.750)
Material Culture: Forging Medieval Swords
Chapter Three Creating New Identities (c.750–c.900)
Chapter Four Political Communities Reordered (c.900–c.1050)
Material Culture: Cloth and Clothing
Chapter Five New Configurations (c.1050–c.1150)
Chapter Six Ambitions Realized and Thwarted (c.1150–c.1250)
Material Culture: The Making of an Illuminated Manuscript
Chapter Seven Empires of Land and Mind (c.1250–c.1350)
Chapter Eight Catastrophe and Creativity (c.1350–c.1500)
Sources
Index

Citation preview

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES

A SHORT

HISTORY

OF THE

MIDDLE AGES BARBARA H. ROSENWEIN SIXTH EDITION

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS 2023 Toronto Buffalo London

University of Toronto Press 2023 Toronto Buffalo London utorontopress.com Printed in Canada

ISBN 978-1-4875-4098-2 (cloth)   ISBN 978-1-4875-4101-9 (EPUB) ISBN 978-1-4875-4099-9 (paper)  ISBN 978-1-4875-4100-2 (PDF)

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without prior written consent of the publisher – or in the case of photocopying, a license from Access Copyright, the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: A short history of the Middle Ages / Barbara H. Rosenwein. Names: Rosenwein, Barbara H., author. Description: Sixth edition | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220266727 | Canadiana (ebook) 20220266735 | ISBN 9781487540999 (paper) | ISBN 9781487540982 (cloth) | ISBN 9781487541019 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781487541002 (PDF) Subjects: LCSH: Middle Ages. | LCSH: Europe – History – 476–1492. Classification: LCC D117 .R67 2023 | DDC 940.1 – dc23

We welcome comments and suggestions regarding any aspect of our publications – please feel free to contact us at [email protected] or visit us at utorontopres s.com.

Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders; in the event of an error or omission, please notify the publisher.

We wish to acknowledge the land on which the University of Toronto Press operates. This land is the traditional territory of the Wendat, the Anishnaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, the Métis, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario, for its publishing activities.

For Sophie, Natalie, Joshua, Julian, and Benji, with love.

THE MEDIEVAL WORLD TODAY

Description

The union of the Roman Empire was dissolved; its genius was humbled in the dust; and armies of unknown barbarians, issuing from the frozen regions of the North, had established their victorious reign over the fairest provinces of Europe and Africa. Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

It may very well happen that what seems for one group a period of decline may seem to another the birth of a new advance. Edward Hallett Carr, What Is History?

CONTENTS

List of Maps List of Plates List of Genealogies List of Figures Website Abbreviations and Conventions Acknowledgments Note to Readers

chapter one

Prelude: The Roman World Transformed (c.300– c.600)

chapter two

The Emergence of Sibling Cultures (c.600–c.750) material culture: forging medieval swords

chapter three

Creating New Identities (c.750–c.900)

chapter four

Political Communities Reordered (c.900–c.1050) material culture: cloth and clothing

chapter five

New Configurations (c.1050–c.1150)

chapter six

Ambitions Realized and Thwarted (c.1150–c.1250) material culture: the making of an illuminated manuscript

chapter seven

Empires of Land and Mind (c.1250–c.1350)

chapter eight

Sources Index

Catastrophe and Creativity (c.1350–c.1500)

MAPS

The Medieval World Today 1.1

The Roman Empire, c.300

1.2

The Capital Cities of the Empire

1.3

Christian Populations at the End of the 3rd cent.

1.4

Wijster

1.5

The Huns and the Visigoths, c.375–450

1.6

The Former Western Empire, c.500

1.7

Tours, c.600

1.8

Europe, the Eastern Roman Empire, and Persia, c.600

2.1

Persian Expansion, 602–622

2.2

The Byzantine Empire, c.700

2.3

The Islamic World to 750

2.4

Western Europe, c.750

2.5

Lombard Italy, c.750

3.1

The Byzantine and Bulgarian Empires, c.920

3.2

The Avar Khaganate, 7th–8th cent.

3.3

The Islamic World, c.800

3.4

Europe, c.814

3.5

Northern Emporia in the Carolingian Age

4.1

Constantinople, c.1100

4.2

The Byzantine Empire of Basil II, 976–1025

4.3

Kievan Rus’, c.1050

4.4

Fragmentation of the Islamic World, c.1000

4.5

Vikings, Muslims, and Hungarians on the Move, 9th and 11th cent.

4.6

Europe, c.1050

5.1

The Byzantine and Seljuk Empires, c.1090

5.2

The Almoravid Empire and the Empire of Ghana, c.1050

5.3

Western Europe, c.1100

5.4

Tours c.600 vs. Tours c.1100

5.5

The Mediterranean Region and the First Crusade

5.6

The Norman Invasion of England, 1066–1100

5.7

The Iberian Peninsula, c.1140

6.1

The Almohad Empire, c.1175

6.2

Saladin’s Empire, c.1200

6.3

Chinggis Khan’s Campaigns

6.4

The Angevin and Capetian Realms in the Late 12th cent.

6.5

Spain, Portugal, and North Africa, c.1275

6.6

Italy and Southern Germany in the Age of Frederick Barbarossa

6.7

German Settlement in the Baltic Sea Region, 12th to 14th cent.

6.8

The Fourth Crusade, the Latin Empire, and Byzantine Successor States, 1204–c.1250

7.1

The Mongol Empire, c.1290

7.2

The Islamic West, c.1300

7.3a,b Trade Routes, c.1300 7.4

Piacenza, Late 13th cent.

7.5

Western Europe, c.1300

7.6

East Central Europe, c.1300

8.1

Dispersion of the Plague, 13th to 15th cent.

8.2

The Ottoman Empire, c.1500

8.3

English and Burgundian Hegemony in France, c.1430

8.4

The Duchy of Burgundy, 1363–1477

8.5

Western Europe, c.1450

8.6

Long-Distance Sea Voyages of the 15th cent.

PLATES

1.1

Nereid Astride a Seahorse (1st cent.)

1.2

Harbor Scene (late 1st cent.

1.3

Cinerary Coffer of Vernasia Cyclas (1st cent.)

1.4

Venus and Two Nymphs, Britain (2nd or early 3rd cent.)

1.5

Votive Stela to Saturn, Tunisia (2nd cent.)

1.6

Embracing Tetrarchs (c.300)

1.7

Diptych of the Lampadii (396)

1.8

Orant Fresco, Rome (second half of 4th cent.)

1.9

Sarcophagus of the Twelve Apostles, Ravenna (early 5th cent.)

1.10

Reliquary of Theuderic (late 7th cent.)

1.11

Dome of Hagia Sophia (532–537)

1.12

San Vitale, Ravenna, Apse Mosaics (mid-6th cent.)

2.1

Cross at Hagia Sophia (orig. mosaic 6th cent.; redone

BCE)

768/769) 2.2

Page from an Early Qur’an (568–645)

2.3

Damascus Great Mosque Mosaic (706–715)

2.4

Sutton Hoo Helmet (early 7th cent.)

2.5

The Eagle, Symbol of the Evangelist Mark, Book of Durrow (2nd half of 7th cent.)

2.6

Carpet Page, Book of Durrow (2nd half of 7th cent.)

2.7

First Text Page, Gospel of Saint Mark, Book of Durrow (2nd half of 7th cent.)

2.8

The Altar of Ratchis (737–744)

2.9

The Cividale Tempietto (8th cent.?)

MATERIAL CULTURE: FORGING MEDIEVAL SWORDS 2.10

The Sigurd Portal, Hylestad Stave Church, Norway (12th–13th cent.)

2.11

Ulfberht Sword (9th cent.)

2.12

The Utrecht Psalter (first half of 9th cent.)

3.1

Christ on the Cross amid Saints (9th–early 10th cent.)

3.2

Gregory of Nazianzus Preaches on the Plague of Hail, Gregory’s Homilies (c.880)

3.3

Bowl with Persian Inscription (779)

3.4

Chest or Cenotaph Panel (second half of 8th cent.)

3.5

Ibn Tulun Mosque, Cairo (876–879)

3.6

Pyxis of al-Mughira (968)

3.7

Andromeda (840s?)

3.8

Saint-Vaast Gospels, Northern France (mid-9th cent.)

3.9

Utrecht Psalter, Northeastern France (first half of 9th cent.)

4.1

John the Orphanotrophos Orders the Exile of Constantine Dalassenos (12th cent.)

4.2

Silver Hoard from Grimestad, near Kaupang (921)

4.3

Letter from Yshu‘a ha-Kohen to Nahray ben Nissim (1050)

4.4

Fatimid Cemetery at Aswan (11th cent.)

4.5

Oseberg Ship (834)

4.6

The Maccabean Revolt Depicted (first half of 11th cent.)

4.7

Peasants Plowing and Sowing (2nd quarter of 11th cent.)

4.8

The Raising of Lazarus, Egbert Codex (985–990)

MATERIAL CULTURE: CLOTH AND CLOTHING 4.9

Woman’s Woolen Cap (468–651)

4.10

Guillaume de Machaut, Le Remède de Fortune (c.1350–1355)

4.11

Brunswick Chasuble (early 15th cent.)

5.1

Isfahan Mosque Courtyard (c.1086)

5.2

Isfahan Mosque North Dome (1088–1089)

5.3

Almería Silk (first half of 12th cent.)

5.4

Marble Tombstone from Almería (12th cent.)

5.5

A Sculptor at Work, Modena Cathedral (early 12th cent.)

5.6

A King Invests a Bishop (c.1100)

5.7

Henry IV Kneels before Countess Matilda (1115)

5.8

Crac des Chevaliers (12th and 13th cent.)

5.9

Sénanque Monastery Church, Interior (c.1160)

5.10

Modena Cathedral, Interior (early 12th–14th cent.)

5.11

Modena Cathedral, West Facade (early 12th cent. with 13thcent. additions)

5.12

Adam and Eve, Modena Cathedral (early 12th cent.)

6.1

Kutubiyya Mosque (2nd half of 12th cent.)

6.2

Mongol Armor (bef. 1368?)

6.3

The Great Seal of King John (1203)

6.4

Chartres Cathedral, Interior (1195–1230)

6.5

Chartres Cathedral, South Portals (early 13th cent.)

6.6

Chartres Cathedral, Stained Glass: Death of the Virgin (1205– 1215)

6.7

San Francesco at Assisi (Upper Church; completed by 1253)

MATERIAL CULTURE: THE MAKING OF AN ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT 6.8

Hamburg Bible (1255)

6.9

Miniature of Saint Dunstan (12th cent.)

6.10

Codex Aureus (870)

7.1

Traveling in the Mongol Empire (early 14th cent.)

7.2

Hall of the Ambassadors, Comares Palace, Alhambra (mid14th cent.)

7.3

Rao Pectoral (c.1300)

7.4

Expelling the Jews (14th cent.)

7.5

The Golden Bull (1356)

7.6

Chalice (c.1300)

7.7

Book of Hours (c.1260–1270)

7.8

The Motet Le premier jor de mai (c.1280)

7.9

Giotto, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua (1304–1306)

7.10

Giotto, Lamentation of Christ, Scrovegni Chapel (1304–1306)

8.1

Lancing a Bubo (2nd half of 15th cent.)

8.2

Illustration in A Dispute between the Body and Worms (1435– 1440)

8.3

“Star Ushak” Carpet, Anatolia (late 15th cent.)

8.4

Building Complex, Edirne (1484–1488)

8.5

The Massacre of the Rebels at Meaux (15th cent.)

8.6 8.7

Giovanni Toscanini or Fra Angelico, The Nymph of Fiesole (1430–1440?) Filippo Brunelleschi, Florence Cathedral Dome and Lantern (1420–1446)

8.8

Rock-Crystal Cup of Philip the Good (1453–1467)

8.9

Hubert and Jan van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece, Interior (1432)

8.10

Albrecht Dürer, Portrait of Oswolt Krel (c.1499)

8.11

Lopo Homem, Pedro Reinel, Jorge Reinel, and Antonio de Holanda, The Miller Atlas (1519)

GENEALOGIES

2.1

Muhammad’s Relatives and Successors to 750

2.2

The Merovingians

3.1

The Abbasids

3.2

The Carolingians

4.1

Alfred and His Progeny

4.2

The Ottonians

5.1

The Great Seljuk Sultans

5.2

The Comnenian Dynasty

5.3

The Salian Kings and Emperors

5.4

The Norman Kings of England

5.5

The Capetian Kings of France

6.1

The Angevin Kings of England

6.2

Rulers of Germany and Sicily

7.1

The Mongol Khans

7.2

Henry III and His Progeny

7.3

Louis IX and His Progeny

8.1

Kings of France and England and the Dukes of Burgundy during the Hundred Years’ War

8.2

Yorkist and Lancastrian (Tudor) Kings

FIGURES

1.1

San Vitale, Ravenna, Reconstructed Original Ground Plan, 6th cent.

2.1

Volubilis

2.2

Yeavering, Northumberland, Royal Estate, 7th cent.

3.1

Mosque Plan (Cairo, Ibn Tulun Mosque, 876–879)

5.1

Plan of Fountains Abbey, a Cistercian Monastery Founded 1132

5.2

Modena Cathedral, Cut-Out View

6.1

Chartres Cathedral, Cut-Out View

7.1

Single Notes and Values of Franconian Notation

8.1

Building the Florence Cathedral Dome (1429–1470)

WEBSITE

For practice questions about the text, maps, plates, and other features – plus suggested answers – please go to www.utphistorymatters.com There you will also find all the maps, genealogies, and figures used in the book.

ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS

Abbreviations circa. Used to indicate that dates or other numbers are

c.

approximate. cent.

century

d.

date of death

emp.

emperor

fl.

flourished. This is given when even approximate birth and death dates are unknown.

pl.

plural form of a word

r.

dates of reign

sing.

singular form of a word

Conventions All dates are

CE/AD

unless otherwise noted (the two systems are

interchangeable). The dates of popes are not preceded by r. because popes took their papal names upon accession to office, and the dates after those names apply only to their papacies. The symbol / between dates indicates uncertainty: e.g., Boethius (d.524/526) means that he died sometime between 524 and 526. The Church as an abstract institution is capitalized. But when a church is a physical building in a particular place, the word is not capitalized. Similarly, the abstract State is capitalized, but when state refers to an individual polity, it is not.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank Riccardo Cristiani for reading all chapters and providing pertinent suggestions and cautions. He also authored two “Material Culture” inserts, which I have lightly updated here. I am similarly indebted to Albrecht Diem, who read and commented on all the chapters and wrote the website questions. This sixth edition has benefited

enormously

from

maps

produced

by

medievalist

and

cartographer Erik Goosman, whom I thank most warmly. I owe a debt of

gratitude

as

well

to

archaeologist

Elizabeth

Fentress,

who

generously read and critiqued my discussion of Volubilis/Walila, a North African site; and to sinologist Robert Hymes, who clarified various hypotheses about the original location of the medieval variant of

the

plague.

I

am

equally

grateful

to

all

the

readers,

many

anonymous, who made suggestions for improving earlier editions of A Short History of the Middle Ages. A full list of names of the many scholars who helped with particular sections would begin to sound like a roll call of medievalists, both North American and European; I hope they will forgive me if I thank them collectively here. At UTP, I am indebted to Judith Earnshaw, Natalie Fingerhut, Tania Therien, and Alexandra Grieve. Matthew Jubb at Em Dash Design beautifully enhanced the “look” of the book.

NOTE TO READERS

This new edition continues to stress the changing nature of history by making clear where historians have changed their minds or disagree about key issues. History is not a set of “facts,” though those (when known!)

are

useful.

Equally

important,

if

not

more

so,

are

the

interpretations and connections that historians constantly make – and remake – of those facts. In keeping with recent research, this edition also continues and expands

its

wide

purview,

placing

new

emphasis

on

global

connections where relevant. Although the term “Middle Ages” was coined for a period in European history, I do not find it particularly meaningful except to refer to a chronological slice of time, around 300

to

1500.

That

period

of

time

was

equally

experienced

everywhere. But the particular focus of medieval history – which I take to be the whole region once ruled by Rome, plus the successors of

that

Empire,

plus

the

permutations

experienced

by

those

successors, including their conquests and their conquerors – impels me to bring in the rest of the world where its history intersects with that of the heirs of Rome in important ways.

ONE PRELUDE: THE ROMAN WORLD TRANSFORMED (c.300–c.600)

CHAPTER

ONE

HIGHLIGHTS Reign of Emperor Constantine 306–337 Promotes the Christian God; sponsors Christian churches; issues (with co-emperor Licinius) the Edict of Milan (313); and presides over the Council of Nicaea (325).

Edict of Milan 313 Declares toleration for all the religions of the Roman Empire; restores Church property taken during the persecutions.

Council of Nicaea 325 Declares the laws and doctrines of the Christian Church; condemns the Arian view of Christ’s nature.

Death of Augustine of Hippo 430 The major Church Father in the West. His City of God defines the relationship between this world and the next; his Confessions remains a model of self-exploration.

Reign of Emperor Justinian 527–565 Sponsors major legal initiatives including the Codex Justinianus and the Digest that will be consulted and built upon for centuries; temporarily reconquers North Africa and Italy; builds Hagia Sophia at Constantinople; supports the construction of San Vitale at Ravenna.

Benedictine Rule 530–560 Written mainly for the monks of Monte Cassino, it becomes (9th cent.) the major monastic rule in the West.

Pope Gregory the Great 590–604 Asserts the power and importance of the papacy in Italy and elsewhere; sends missionaries to England to convert the kings and people to the Roman Catholic form of Christianity.

At the beginning of the third century, the Roman Empire wrapped around the Mediterranean Sea like a scarf. (See Map 1.1.) Thinner on the North African coast, it bulked large as it enveloped what is today Spain, England, Wales, France, and Belgium, and then evened out along the southern coast of the Danube River, following that river eastward,

taking

in

most

of

what

is

today

called

the

Balkans

(southwestern Europe, including Greece), crossing the Hellespont and engulfing in its sweep the territory of present-day Turkey, much of Syria, and all of modern Lebanon, Israel, Egypt and the rest of North Africa. All the regions but Italy comprised what the Romans called the “provinces.” All its inhabitants had initially come under Roman rule by force of arms; all its freemen had (by 212) been granted the burdens and privileges of Roman citizenship. This famously

was

the

Roman

proclaimed

by

Empire the

whose

“decline

eighteenth-century

and

fall”

historian

was

Edward

Gibbon. The idea persisted; even today, it prevails in some quarters. But in the 1960s, it was fundamentally challenged by Peter Brown. Dubbing the period 150–750 “Late Antiquity,” he stressed its cultural and

religious

vitality.

Although

more

recently

that

positive

assessment has been called into question by scholars such as Bryan

Ward-Perkins and Kyle Harper, most historians now accept a nuanced view. While it is undoubtedly true, as Ward-Perkins and Harper argue, that some in the Roman Empire suffered from a steep decline in standards of living, climate change, and the ravages of pandemic, others did not. Judith Herren insists that Late Antiquity was an era of extraordinary dynamism because it ushered in “a newly Christianized world.” (For all modern author references, see Further Reading at the end of each chapter.) At this point, it is probably best to stress two points: first, it is not that one historian is “right” and the other “wrong” but that good historians will base their interpretations on different criteria; second, the Roman Empire was not a monolith but rather a patchwork of diverse regions and communities. A decline for one group often meant rejuvenation for another.

Map 1.1 The Roman Empire, c.300

Description

Certainly, the old elites of the cities, especially at Rome itself, generally regretted the changes taking place around them c.250– c.350.

They

were

witnessing

the

end

of

their

political,

military,

religious, economic, and cultural leadership. That role was passing to the provincials (the Romans living outside of Italy) for whom this was in many ways a heady period, a long-postponed coming of age. They did

not

regret

that

Emperor

Diocletian

(r.284–305)

divided

the

Roman Empire into four parts, each ruled by a different man. It was tacit recognition of the importance of the provinces. But even the provinces eventually lost their centrality, as people still farther afield (whom the Romans called “barbarians”) moved in c.400–c.500. The barbarians, in turn, were glad to be the heirs of the Roman Empire even as they contributed to the political demise of its western half.

THE PROVINCIALIZATION OF THE EMPIRE (c.250–c.350) The Roman Empire was too large to be ruled by one man in one place, except in peacetime. This became clear during the so-called crisis of the third century, when

two

different

groups

from

two

different directions bore down on the frontiers of the Empire. From the east came the Persians, an ancient culture ruled by a king whose pride and pretensions were as great as those of the Roman emperors. From the north, beyond the Rhine and Danube Rivers, came diverse peoples whom the Romans dubbed “barbarians,” a demeaning term signifying

“not

us”

–

not

Roman

citizens,

not

Latin-

or

Greek-

speaking. Less unified than the Persians, they nevertheless presented a significant military challenge. To contend with the attacks on both its flanks, the Roman government responded with wide-ranging reforms that brought new prominence to the provinces. Above all, the government expanded the army, setting up crack mobile troops and reinforcing the standing army. Soldier-workers set up new fortifications, cities were ringed with walls, farms gained lookout towers and fences. It was hard to find enough recruits to man this newly expanded defensive system. Before the crisis, the Roman legions had been largely self-perpetuating. The legionaries, drawn mainly from local provincial families, had settled permanently along the

borders

and

raised

the

sons

who

would

make

up

the

next

generation of recruits. Now, however, this supply was dwindling: the birthrate was declining, and c.252–267 an epidemic of smallpox ravaged the population further. Recruits would have to come from farther away, from Germania (the region beyond the northern borders of the Empire) and elsewhere. In fact, long before this time, Germanic warriors had done stints in the Roman army and then gone home. But

in the third century the Roman government began a new policy: it settled Germanic and other barbarian groups within the Empire, giving them land in return for military service. The challenges faced by the Empire were not only the outside invaders, but also the internal woes of disease and political turmoil. Suffering from a pandemic (likely a viral hemorrhagic fever) that began mid-century and persisted for about twenty years, the Empire also endured a political succession crisis. Between the years 235 and 284, more than twenty men were declared emperor; none lasted long. Most of them came from the Lower Danube region, provinces far from Rome. Creatures of the army, they were chosen to rule by their troops. Some led “breakaway empires,” symptomatic of increasing decentralization,

disaffection

with

Rome,

and

the

power

of

the

provincial army legions. The city of Rome itself was too far from any of the fields of war to serve as military headquarters. For this reason, Emperor Maximian (r.286–305) turned Milan into a new capital city, complete with an imperial palace, baths, walls, and circus. Soon other favored cities – Trier, Sardica, Nicomedia, Constantinople (formerly Byzantium),

and

much

overshadowing Rome.

later

Ravenna

–

joined

Milan

in

Map 1.2 The Capital Cities of the Empire

Description

The primacy of the provinces was further enhanced by the need to feed and supply the army. To meet its demand for ready money, the Roman government debased the currency, increasing the proportion of inferior metals to silver. While helpful in the short term, this policy produced severe inflation. Strapped for cash, the state increased taxes and used its power to requisition goods and services. To clothe the troops, it confiscated uniforms; to arm them, it set up factories staffed by artisans who were required to produce a regular quota of weapons (spears, short swords, shields) for the state. Food for the army had to be produced and delivered; here too the state depended on the labor of growers, bakers, and haulers. New taxes assessed on both land and individual

“heads”

were

collected.

The

wealth

and

labor

of

the

Empire moved inexorably toward the provinces, the hot spots where armies were clashing. The whole Empire, organized for war, became militarized. In about the middle of the third century, Emperor Gallienus (r.253–268) forbade the senatorial aristocracy – the old Roman elite – to lead the army. Tougher men from the ranks were promoted to command

positions, and some became emperors. They brought provincial tastes and sensibilities to the very heart of the Empire, as we shall see. From the reaches of the Lower Danube came Diocletian (r.284– 305), who brought the crisis under control, and Constantine (r.306– 337),

who

brought

it

to

an

end.

For

administrative

purposes,

Diocletian divided the Empire into four parts (called the Tetrarchy), later

reduced

to

two.

Although

the

emperors

who

ruled

these

divisions were supposed to confer on all matters (and even be the best of friends, as Plate 1.6

on

p.

19

suggests),

the

partition

was

a

harbinger of things to come, when the eastern and western halves of the Empire would go their separate ways. Meanwhile, the pandemic came to an end, the wars over imperial succession ceased with the establishment of Constantine’s dynasty, and political stability halted the border wars.

A New Religion The Empire of Constantine was meant to be the Roman Empire restored. In fact, his rule marks its transformation, as it was ever more surely marked by the culture and religion of its provinces. The province of Palestine was among the foremost of these. Although the elites of Italy considered it a dismal backwater, in fact Palestine had long been a hotbed of creative religious and social ideas.

Chafing

under

Roman

dominion,

experimenting

with

new

notions of morality and new ethical lifestyles, the Jews of Palestine gave

birth

to

religious

groups

of

breathtaking

originality.

One

coalesced around Jesus. After his death, under the impetus of the Jewturned-Christian

Paul

(d.c.67),

a

new

and

radical

brand

of

monotheism in Jesus’s name was actively preached to Gentiles (nonJews), not only in Palestine, but also beyond. Its core belief was that men and women were saved, that is, redeemed and accorded eternal life in heaven, by their faith in Jesus – at once the son of God and the Messiah (that is, the savior, the Christ, the anointed one). At first, Christianity was of nearly perfect indifference to elite Romans, who were devoted to the gods that had served them so well over years of conquest and prosperity. Nor did it attract many of the lower classes, who were still firmly rooted in old local religious traditions. The Romans had never insisted that the provincials whom

they

conquered

give

up

their

beliefs;

they

simply

added

official

Roman gods into local pantheons. Or (as in Plate 1.5 on p. 18) the locals

changed

the

name

of

their

gods

to

accord

with

those

worshipped by the Romans. For most people, both rich and poor, the rich texture of religious life at the local level was both comfortable and satisfying. In dreams, they encountered their personal gods, who served them as guardians and friends. At home were their household gods, evoking family ancestors. Outside, on the streets, they visited temples and monuments to local gods, reminders of home-town pride. Here and there they encountered monuments to the “divine emperor” put

up

by

rich

town

benefactors.

But

not

just

the

emperor

was

divinized; all the dead left in their wake divine spirits that continued to have power over the living. Their tombs, erected in cemeteries located outside of the cities, were the focal point for a nine-day festival of offerings to the spirits of the dead. That and other religious ceremonies punctuated the Roman year. Paganism was thus at one and the same time personal, familial, local, and imperial. But Christianity had its attractions, too. Romans and other citydwellers of the middle class could never hope to become part of the educated upper crust. Christianity gave them dignity by substituting “the elect” – those saved by God – for the elite. Education, long and expensive, was the ticket into Roman high society. Christians had their own solid, less expensive knowledge. It was the key to an even “higher” society – the one in Heaven. In the provinces, Christianity attracted women and men who had never been given the chance to feel truly Roman. The new religion was confident, hopeful, and open to all. As the Empire settled into an era of peaceful complacency in the second century, its hinterlands welcomed the influence of the center, and vice versa. Men and women whose horizons in earlier times would have stretched no farther than their village now took to the roads as traders – or confronted a new cosmopolitanism

right

at

their

doorsteps.

Uprooted

from

old

traditions, they found comfort in small assemblies – churches – where they were welcomed as equals and where God was the same, no matter what region the members of the church hailed from. The Roman establishment persecuted Christians, but at first only locally,

sporadically,

and

above

all

in

times

of

crisis.

At

such

moments, the adherents of the old religion feared that the gods were

venting their wrath on the Empire because Christians, most of whom were Roman citizens, would not carry out the proper sacrifices. Roman

Jews

also

refused

to

honor

the

pagan

gods,

but

Roman

officialdom could usually tolerate – just barely – Jewish practices as part of their particular cultural identity. Christians, however, claimed their

God

not

only

for

themselves

but

for

all.

Major

official

government persecutions of Christians began in the 250s, with the third-century crisis. By 304, on the eve of the promulgation of Diocletian’s last great persecutory edict, perhaps only 10 per cent of the population of the Roman Empire was Christian. Even so, Christianity was taking root in the major cities (see Map 1.3), and it was spreading beyond the Empire as well: in Edessa (shown on the map) and soon in parts of the Caucasus and in the Aksumite kingdom of Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa.

Map 1.3 Christian Populations at the End of the 3rd cent.

Description

Despite their tiny absolute number, the Christians in the Roman Empire were well organized. Gathered into “churches” (from the Greek word, ekklesia, meaning “assembly”), they formed a two-tiered institution. At the bottom were the people (the “laity,” from the Greek

laikos, meaning “of the people”). Above them were the clergy (from the Greek word kleros, meaning “lot,” or “inheritance,” and referring to the biblical book of Deuteronomy 18:2, where the Levitical priests have no inheritance but “the Lord himself”). In turn, the clergy were supervised by a regional bishop (in Greek episkopos, “overseer”), assisted by his “presbyters” (from the Greek presbyteroi, “elders,” the priests who served with the bishops), deacons, and lesser servitors. Some bishops – those of Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, Jerusalem, and Rome, whose bishop was later called the “pope” – were more important than others. No religion was better prepared for official recognition. This it received in 313. In the so-called Edict of Milan, Emperors Licinius and Constantine declared toleration for all the religions in the Empire “so that whatever divinity is enthroned in heaven may be 1

gracious and favorable to us.”

In fact, the Edict helped Christians

above all: they had been the ones persecuted, and now, in addition to enjoying the toleration declared in the Edict, they regained their property. Constantine was the chief force behind the Edict: it was issued just after his triumphant battle at the Milvian Bridge against his rival Maxentius in 312, a victory that he attributed to the God of the Christians. Constantine seems to have converted to Christianity; he

certainly

favored

it,

erecting

and

endowing

church

buildings,

making sure that property was restored to churches that had been stripped during the persecutions, and giving priests special privileges. Under him, the ancient Greek city of Byzantium became a new Christian city, residence of emperors, and named for the emperor himself: Constantinople. The bishop of Constantinople became a patriarch,

a

“superbishop,”

equal

to

the

bishops

of

Antioch

and

Alexandria, although not as important as the bishop of Rome. In one of the crowning measures of his career, Constantine called and then presided over the first ecumenical (universal) Church council, the Council of Nicaea, in 325. There the assembled bishops hammered out some of the doctrines and laws (known as “canon laws”) of the Church. After Constantine, it was simply a matter of time before most people considered it both good and expedient to convert. Toward the end of the century, as the highest echelons of the Roman elite began to

shower

their

countless

riches

on

Christian

churches,

Emperor

Theodosius I (r.379–395) declared, in a series of laws, that the form of Christianity determined at the Council of Nicaea applied to all. Christianity was now the official religion of the Roman Empire. In some places, Christian mobs took to smashing local pagan temples. Thus did a fragile religion hailing from an obscure province triumph everywhere in the Roman world. But “Christianity” was not one thing. In North Africa, Donatists – who considered themselves purer than other Christians because they had not backpedaled during the period of persecutions – fought bitterly with other believers all through the fourth century, ready to kill and die to prevent priests and bishops from resuming their offices if they had handed over their Bibles, church furnishings, and other emblems of their faith to Roman authorities to escape death. As paganism gave way, Christian disagreements came to the fore: what was the nature of God? where were God and the sacred to be found? how did God relate to humanity? In the fourth and fifth centuries, Christians fought with each other ever more vehemently over doctrine and the location of the holy.

DOCTRINE The so-called Church Fathers were the victors in the battles over doctrine. Already in Constantine’s day, Saint Athanasius (c.295–373) – then secretary to the bishop of Alexandria, later bishop there himself – had led the challenge against the beliefs of the Christians next door. He called them “Arians,” rather than Christians, after the priest Arius (250–336), another Alexandrian and a competing focus of local loyalties. Athanasius promoted his views at the Council of Nicaea (325) and won. It is because of this that he is considered the orthodox catholic “Father,” while Arius is the “heretic.” For both Athanasius and Arius, God was triune, that is, three persons in one: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Their debate was about the nature of these persons. For the Arians, the Father was pure Godhead while the Son (Christ) was created. Christ was, therefore, flesh though not quite flesh, neither purely human nor purely divine, but mediating between the two. To Athanasius and the assembled bishops at Nicaea, this was heresy – the wrong “choice” (the root meaning of the Greek term hairesis) – and a damnable faith. The Council of Nicaea wrote the party line: “We believe in one God, the Father almighty, ... And in

one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, ... 2

begotten not made, of one substance [homousios] with the Father.”

Arius was condemned and banished. His doctrine, however, persisted. It was the brand of Christianity that Ulfila (311–c.382), a Gothic bishop with Roman connections, preached to the Goths beyond the borders of the Empire, at the same time translating the Bible into the Gothic language. (For the Goths, see pp. 23–26.) Arianism was only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, the period 350– 450 might be called the “era of competing doctrines.” Already the Council of Nicaea worried not only about Arians but also about groups (later called Monophysites or Miaphysites) who held that the “flesh” that God assumed as Christ was nevertheless entirely divine. Thus, the Nicene Creed went on to declare that Jesus Christ, “because of us men and because of our salvation came down and became 3

incarnate.” That is, Jesus became human flesh.

Despite that decision,

ratified by later councils, especially one held at Chalcedon (451), Monophysite belief in the divinity of Christ’s flesh nourished the Armenian, Coptic (Egyptian), and Ethiopian Christian churches and still does so today. Even Augustine (354–430), eventually the bishop of Hippo, a saint, and the most influential Western churchman of his day (and for many

centuries

thereafter),

flirted

in

his

youth

with

yet

another

variant of Christianity, Manichaeism. The Manichees, armed with a revelation from Mani, “apostle of Jesus Christ,” believed in two cosmic principles, one godly, spiritual, and light; the other evil, material, and dark. For the Manichees, Jesus’s human nature was not real; its materiality and suffering were only apparent. Human beings were mired in the material world, but they might liberate themselves from its shackles by fasting, renouncing sex, disdaining all forms of property, and clinging to the special knowledge brought to mankind by Christ’s apostles. People who did that were Manichaean saints, but others, too weak to be saints, showed their support of their purer 4

brethren “by their faith and their alms.”

They nurtured the hope of

being reborn in new bodies and eventually becoming one of the saints. Another

heretic

was

Pelagius,

Pelagius also was interested in

a

what

contemporary human

of

beings

Augustine.

could

do

to

achieve salvation. He thought that conversion bleached out sins, and

thereafter people could follow God by their own will. But just as Augustine repudiated the Manichees for their dualism, which made God only one of two cosmic powers, so he rejected Pelagianism for its woeful misreading of human nature. In Augustine’s view, human beings were capable of nothing good without God’s grace working through them: “Come, Lord, act upon us and rouse us up and call us 5

back! Fire us, clutch us, let your sweet fragrance grow upon us!”

Like arguments over sports teams today, these disputes were more than small talk: they identified people’s loyalties. They also brought God down to earth. If God had debased himself to take on human flesh, it was critical to know how he had done so and what that meant for the rest of humanity. For these huge questions, Augustine wrote most of the definitive answers for the Latin West, though they were certainly modified and reworked over the centuries. In the City of God, a huge and sprawling work, he defined two cities: the earthly one in which our feet are planted, in which we are born, learn to read, marry, get old, and die; and the heavenly one, on which our hearts and minds are fixed. The first, the “City of Man,” is impermanent, subject to fire, war, famine, and sickness; the second, the “City of God,” is the opposite. Only there is true, eternal happiness to be found. Yet the first, however imperfect,

is

where

the

institutions

of

society

–

local

churches,

schools, governments – make possible the attainment of the second. Thus “if anyone accepts the present life in such a spirit that he uses it with the end in view of [the City of God], ... such a man may without 6

absurdity be called happy, even now.”

In Augustine’s hands, the old

fixtures of the ancient world were reused and reoriented for a new Christian society.

THE SOURCES OF GOD’S GRACE The City of Man was fortunate. There God had instituted his Church. Christ had said to Peter, the foremost of his twelve apostles (his “messengers”): Thou art Peter [Petros, or “rock” in Greek]; and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven. (Matt. 16:18–19)

This

passage

was

variously

interpreted,

and

the

popes

at

Rome

maintained it meant that, as the successors of Saint Peter, the first bishop of Rome, they held the keys. But no one doubted that the declaration

confirmed

that

the

all-important

powers

of

binding

(imposing penance on) and loosing (forgiving) sinners were in the hands of Christ’s earthly heirs, the priests and bishops. In the Mass, the central liturgy (service) of the earthly Church, the bread and wine on the altar became the body and blood of Christ, the “Eucharist.” Through the Mass the faithful were joined to one another; to the souls of the dead, who were remembered in the liturgy; and to Christ himself. The

importance

of

the

Mass

was

made

clear

in

the

very

architecture and decoration of Christian churches. An example is the sixth-century church of San Vitale in Ravenna, where the apse (a large semi-circular structure at the eastern end of the church) forms a brilliant marble and mosaic halo around the altar. Above the altar, full-length figures of the emperor (on the left) and empress (on the right) along with their retinues bring the bread and wine to the altar. (See Plate 1.12 and further discussion on pp. 33–37.) In this way, the emperor

and

empress

associated

their

earthly

power

with

the

Eucharist and the Mass. The Eucharist was one potent source of God’s grace. There were others. Above all, there were the saints – people so beloved by God, so infused with his grace, that they were both models of virtue and powerful wonder-workers. In the early Church, the saints had mainly been the martyrs, men and women who died for their faith. After the time of Constantine, when Christians were no longer persecuted, the saints of the fourth and fifth centuries found ways to be virtual martyrs even while alive. A few were like Saint Symeon Stylites (c.390–459), who climbed a tall pillar and stood there for decades. But many were inspired by the model of Saint Antony (250–356), who lived as a hermit for a time and eventually led a community of committed ascetics. Symeon, Antony, and others like them were “athletes of Christ.” Purged of sin by their ascetic rigors – giving up their possessions, fasting, praying, not sleeping, not engaging in sex – these holy women and men offered compelling role models. So, for example, twelve-year-old Asella, born into Roman high society, was inspired by such athletes to remain a virgin. She shut herself off from

the world in a tiny cell where, as her admirer Saint Jerome put it, 7

“fasting was her pleasure and hunger her refreshment.”

This sounds a

bit like Manichaeism, and the similarities are certainly real. But Asella was also devoted to the shrines of martyrs, which were very much part of the material world and yet, for Christians, were godly as well. Beyond offering models of Christian virtue, the saints interceded with God on behalf of others and made peace among bickering neighbors. Saint Athanasius told the story of Saint Antony: after years of solitude and asceticism the saint emerged as if from some shrine, initiated into the mysteries and filled with God.... When he saw the crowd [awaiting him], he was not disturbed, nor did he rejoice to be greeted by so many people. Rather, he was wholly balanced, as if he were being navigated by the Word [of God] and existing in his natural state. Therefore, through Antony the Lord healed many of the suffering bodies of those present, and others he cleansed of demons. He gave Antony grace in speaking, and thus he comforted many who were grieved and 8

reconciled into friendship others who were quarreling.

Healer

of

illnesses,

mediator

of

disputes,

worker

of

wonders,

Antony’s power was not only spiritual but also physical and judicial. But who was in charge of such power, and who had the right to control it? Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria claimed Antony’s legacy by writing about it. Yet writing was only one way to appropriate and harness the power of the saints. When holy men and women died, their power lived on in their relics (whatever they left behind – their bones, hair, clothes, sometimes even the dust near their tombs). Pious people knew this very well. They wanted access to these “special dead.” Rich and influential Romans got their own holy monopolies simply by moving saintly bones home with them. Plate 1.8 on p. 21 shows the wall of just such a house, decorated with the image of an orant (a praying figure) – perhaps representing a martyr – and two kneeling women. Above them, hidden and yet tantalizingly present behind a grate, were the precious remains of martyrs. Men like Saint Ambrose (339–397), bishop of Milan, wanted clergymen, not laypeople, to be the overseers of relics. With great fanfare, he “discovered” the bones of the martyrs Gervasius and Protasius. As he reported to his sister, when he transported the relics to his new-built cathedral, he was joined by crowds of people. A blind

man was healed, possessed people were cured, and Ambrose buried the bones under the altar of his church. In this way, he allied himself, his successors, and the whole Christian community of Milan with the power of the saints. His actions set a precedent for many other churches.

But

laypeople

continued

to

find

private

ways

to

keep

precious bits of the saints near to them, enclosed in rings, lockets, purses, and belt buckles.

From Local Identities to Imperial Culture Just as Christianity came from the periphery to transform the center, so too did various provincial artistic traditions. Classical Roman art was

based

on

the

Hellenistic

models

and

styles

that

had

been

introduced to regions east of Greece by Alexander the Great and his successors. After Greece became part of the Roman Empire in 133 BCE,

those styles were emulated by Roman artists. Their main features

are nicely exemplified by two paintings and a cinerary coffer from the first century (Plates 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3). The paintings play with light and shadow, evoke a sense of atmosphere – of earth, sky, air, water, light – and offer the illusion of movement. In all three plates, figures – sometimes lithe, sometimes stocky, always “plastic” – suggest volume and weight. They interact and touch one another, caring little or nothing about the viewer. In Plate 1.1 the muted colors – purples, blues, and orange-pinks – create the impression of watery depths. As if illuminated, a seanymph (a nereid) – a female divinity and model of feminine beauty – holds a lyre and rides a rainbow-hued horse. The artist captures a sense of motion and sun-dappled waves. Even though the nereid is meant to beckon customers to buy the food that has been prepared in pots hidden behind the low wall on which she is painted, she acts as if no one is looking at her. She and the dolphins who leap around her are utterly self-absorbed, glimpsed as if through a window onto their private world.

Plate 1.1 Nereid Astride a Seahorse (1st cent.). Numerous frescoes have been uncovered at Pompeii, once a bustling get-away for Romans before a fatal volcanic eruption at nearby Mount Vesuvius. In what was once a busy town square was this low wall fronting a “street food” counter. Decorated with gorgeous, brightly colored paintings, it was designed to attract the attention of hungry

customers.

The

portion

shown

here

features

a

nereid

riding

an

iridescent seahorse, perhaps alluding to the seafood that vendors were ready to dole out from the pots behind her.

Plate 1.2 Harbor Scene (late 1st cent.

BCE).

One of many painted panels in a

long corridor at the Villa Farnesina (today on display at the Palazzo Massimo in Rome), the scene suggests an idealized outside world: spacious, busy, airy, and light.

Plate 1.3 Cinerary Coffer of Vernasia Cyclas (1st cent.). This marble coffer was commissioned to hold the ashes of the twenty-seven-year-old Vernasia Cyclas, the “most excellent” wife of Vitalis, a former slave of the emperor who eventually became a high-court official. Eventually his own ashes would be added to the box. The sculptor shows husband and wife with right hands joined, a gesture symbolizing their marriage ceremony. It was a moment highly prized by Vitalis, since as a slave he had had no right to marry. The couple stands before the door of a temple, their bodies solid and weighty, as once they were in flesh. Like the nereid in her watery world, they too are entirely absorbed in each other, unaware of the living who might come to visit and honor them.

That viewers

world lived

was

in.

recognizably

Plate 1.2

is

a

natural, panel

much

from

an

like

the

one

extensive

the

fresco

originally painted in a corridor of the Villa Farnesina, located in a suburb

of

Rome.

It

features

lithe

figures

painted

with

rapid

brushstrokes and engaged in various activities. Some (on the far left) fill water jugs at a fountain. Others ready their fishing nets. Still others pass by a two-story villa. In the distance, across the water, are the faint outlines of a building that may be a temple. Here the artist has

evoked

space

and

distance

by

using

the

optical

illusion

of

“perspective,” where some elements seem to recede while others – smaller and less precisely delineated – come to the fore. The Villa Farnesina itself was too far from Rome’s working port for this to represent

its

local

landscape.

But

the

likely

owner,

the

Roman

statesman and architect Agrippa, had in fact built a bridge over the Tiber River and thus was personally involved in the very fabric of the life as depicted here. The cinerary coffer in Plate 1.3 shows a married couple turning to one another, each holding the other’s right hand. The sculptor has created a sense of space by experimenting with different levels of “relief,” so that some elements are carved almost in the round and therefore come to the fore, while others, flatter and nearly twodimensional, seem to recede into the distance. These works of art are without question dominated by Hellenistic classical styles. But very different artistic values and conventions had once flourished in the provinces of the Empire. For many years those local styles had been tamped down, though not extinguished, by the juggernaut of Roman political and cultural hegemony. Then, in the third

century,

with

the

new

importance

of

the

provinces,

some

regional artistic traditions began to compete with those at Rome. Among the provinces that asserted themselves artistically in spite of Rome’s influence were Britain and North Africa. Consider the relief of Venus and two nymphs from the north of Britain in Plate 1.4 on p. 17. Venus is the center of attention here not because she is part of a story meant to draw the viewer into an alternative world but because she is right in the center and taller than anyone else. Neither she nor her handmaids interact with each other; they look straight out, to a reality beyond the viewer. The little here that evokes nature has been turned into a design: the tree on the left plays with diagonal lines; the “grass” is a series of waves. Hair is composed of decorative

swirls. These goddesses seem to exist in a place that transcends the here and now.

Plate 1.4 Venus and Two Nymphs, Britain (2nd or early 3rd cent.). This relief originally decorated the front of a water tank that stood before the headquarters of the Roman fort at High Rochester (today in Northumberland), strategically located on the road to Scotland. Compare the depiction of the nymphs here with the nereid in Plate 1.1 (p. 12) to see the very different notions of the human body and beauty that coexisted in the Roman Empire.

The same emphasis on hierarchy and decoration explains the horizontal zones of the North African limestone votive stela in Plate 1.5 (p. 18). In the center is the god Saturn, seated on a throne and surrounded by animals (a bull and a lamb) that are to be sacrificed to him. Beneath are two worshippers who symbolize the dedicants of the stela. They hold up their arms in the ancient gesture of prayer. In the top tier are two peacocks flanking a stylized tree, an image of the heavenly realm. The sculptor is interested in patterns – flattening the figures, varying them by cutting lines for folds, hands, and eyes, and hair. Any sense of movement here comes from the decoration, not the rigid figures. Unlike the harbor scene of the Villa Farnesina in Plate 1.2, this stela is no window onto a private world; unlike the couple on the cinerary coffer of Plate 1.3, its figures do not interact or betray emotion. Rather, they exist to teach and preach the god’s importance.

Plate 1.5 Votive Stela to Saturn, Tunisia (2nd cent.). After Rome conquered the North African Carthaginian Empire in 146

BCE,

its god Baal was renamed for

the Roman god Saturn. He is depicted here with his traditional attributes: a sickle in his right hand and a mantle draped over his head. Votive stelae (stone slabs offered in fulfillment of a vow) such as this were enormously popular in North

Africa

in

both

the

pre-Roman

period

and

long

after

the

Romans

conquered it – indeed, until the mid-fifth century.

There may be something to the idea that such works of art were “inferior” to the Hellenistic style of Roman products – but not much. The artists who made them had their own values and simply were uninterested in classical conventions. Indeed, in the third century,

even artists at the heart of the Empire – at Rome, at Constantinople – adopted some of the provincial styles. Those conventions spoke best to new needs and interests. The “new” official style is nicely illustrated by the depiction of two emperors in Plate 1.6 (p. 19). Carved out of expensive, “imperial” porphyry stone, it was meant to telegraph amity and authority. When Diocletian divided the Empire into four administrative districts, each ruled by a “Tetrarch” (ruler of a quarter), their unity was broadcast in a profusion of just such sculpted images. The two in Plate 1.6 are nearly identical; gone is the impulse (evident, for example, in the Vernasia Cyclas coffer) to individualize. The sculptor is interested only

in

the

gesture

of

embrace

and

the

impression

of

power,

symbolized by the heavy stone and the orbs both men hold in their left hands. Despite their friendliness, they do not look at each other. Decorative elements – the details of their military garb, the leaves of their laurel wreaths – provide the only relief from the somber message here.

Plate 1.6 Embracing Tetrarchs (c.300). Nearly two feet high, this imperial pair was accompanied by another nearly identical couple, both placed at the midpoint of two separate porphyry columns.

While the Tetrarchs were depicted as equals, other monuments of the fourth century telegraphed hierarchy. Consider Plate 1.7, an ivory carving made in 396 for Lampadius, a high imperial official charged with

organizing

spectacles

to

celebrate

the

“birth”

of

Rome.

Originally the left side of a diptych, it depicts the moment when Lampadius, flanked by two lesser officials, has given the signal for a chariot race to begin. Stiff and straight, he looks out beyond the viewer, heedless of the two men at his side. The sculptor is interested

in decoration and design – the folds of clothing, the cap-like hair-dos, the repeated heads and feet of the horses – rather than in depicting figures of weight and flesh. The ensemble is meant to show the high status of the Lampadii – Lampadius’s whole family – and their importance beyond the here and now.

Plate 1.7 Diptych of the Lampadii (396). Consular diptychs had long been offered as gifts by high-ranking dignitaries to their friends and followers on important occasions in their careers. Although made for a Roman official, this carving was inspired less by the classical forms of the cinerary coffer in Plate 1.3 than by the stylistic conventions of the Tunisian votive stela in Plate 1.5. That style was suited to telegraphing hierarchy and authority, exactly the point of this depiction of Lampadius.

Although this new, official style of art was not initially Christian, it was quickly adopted by Christians. It was suited to a religion that saw only fleeting value in the City of Man, sought to transcend the world, and had a message to preach. A good example is the fourthcentury wall painting decorating a small confessio – a place where martyrs or their relics were buried. (See Plate 1.8, mentioned earlier on p. 13.) The wall, originally in an alcove on the landing of a private house in Rome, is today beneath a church dedicated to two martyrsaints, John and Paul. Much like the figures on the stela in Plate 1.5, the

painting

immediately

communicates

a

spiritual

hierarchy.

Whoever the standing orant (praying man) might represent (there are conflicting interpretations), it is clear that he dominates the scene while two figures in postures of humility touch his feet. The curtains that frame the scene may symbolize a place of eternal rest. Certainly, the fresco, like the stela, marked a burial site, since behind the grill above the orant were the remains of a martyr or martyrs. Like the figures on the stela, those in the fresco have no weight, exist in no landscape, and interact with no one. We shall continue to see the influence of this transcendent style throughout the Middle Ages.

Plate 1.8 Orant Fresco, Rome (second half of 4th cent.). In a private house located in a posh neighborhood in Rome, an imposing figure commands the lower wall of a small room serving as a confessio, which contained the remains of martyrs. At the time, the house functioned as a titulus, or community church. We see here the sorts of lay devotional initiatives – a confessio in a private house – that Bishop Ambrose of Milan hoped to end.

Nevertheless, produced, comeback

the

around

“old”

even

in

the

Roman a

very

same

artistic

Christian

time

styles

context.

as

were

this

fresco

making

Sometimes

a

called

was brief the

“renaissance of the late fourth and early fifth centuries,” this was the first of many recurring infusions of the classical spirit into medieval

art. Consider the sarcophagus of the Twelve Apostles, carved in the early fifth century (Plate 1.9). Already in the second century, inspired by the fashion set by Emperor Hadrian (r.117–138), most Romans chose to be buried (rather than cremated as Vernasia Cyclas had been in the first century) and that practice continued into the Christian period. In Plate 1.9, the person who commissioned the sarcophagus was

certainly

Christian

and

very

wealthy,

possibly

a

bishop

or

archbishop living in or near Ravenna. Here, on the front of the tomb, a young and beardless Christ is approached by three apostles on either side (the remaining six apostles are depicted on the end panels of the sarcophagus). The one to his right, Saint Paul, is reverently receiving the scroll of the New Law from Christ’s own hand; Paul’s hands are covered by a veil, indicating how precious the object is. Although Christ himself is clearly the most important figure – seated on a throne in the center of the composition – there are no upper and lower zones to suggest a hierarchy. And although Christ is immobile, the apostles who come toward him move and gesture, suggesting a drama of awe, humility, and receptivity. All the figures are carved in the round, their garments revealing their form and heft.

Plate 1.9 Sarcophagus of the Twelve Apostles, Ravenna (early 5th cent.). The figures of this relief are carved nearly in the round. They move and gesture, twist and turn. In those ways, they are “classical” in inspiration. However, the fact that they exist in a vast expanse of empty space, framed only by a bit of decorative architecture, betrays the sculptor’s disinterest in the natural world. The event that the sarcophagus memorializes – Christ handing over the scroll of the New Law – is neither historical nor scriptural but rather meant to be understood as a timeless truth.

THE BARBARIANS The classicizing style exemplified by the sarcophagus of the Twelve Apostles did not long survive the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410. The sack was a stunning blow. Like a long-married couple in a bitter divorce, both Romans and Goths had once wooed one another; they then became mutually and comfortably dependent; eventually they fell into betrayal and strife. Nor was the Visigothic experience unique. The Franks, too, had been recruited into the Roman army, some

of

borders.

their

members

settling

peacefully

within

the

imperial

Map 1.4 Wijster

The

Romans

called

all

these

peoples

“barbarians,”

though,

borrowing a term from the Gauls, they designated those beyond the Rhine as “Germani” – Germans. Historians today tend to differentiate these peoples linguistically: “Germanic peoples” are those who spoke Germanic languages. Whatever name we give them (they certainly had

no

collective

name

for

themselves),

these

peoples

were

not

nomads (as an earlier generation of historians believed) but rather accustomed

to

a

settled

existence.

Archaeologists

have

found

evidence in northern Europe of some of their hamlets, built and inhabited

for

centuries

before

any

Germanic

groups

entered

the

Empire. A settlement near Wijster, near the North Sea (today in the Netherlands), is a good example of one such community. Inhabited

largely between c.150 and c.400, it consisted of well over fifty large rectangular wooden houses – these were partitioned so that they could be shared by humans and animals – and many smaller out-buildings, some of which were used as barns or workrooms, others as dwellings. Palisades – fences made of wooden stakes – marked off its streets and lanes. The people who lived at Wijster cultivated grains and raised cattle. They also bred horses, as we know from the fact that they frequently buried their horses in carefully dug rectangular pits. Some were

craftsmen,

like

the

carpenters

who

built

the

houses,

the

ironworkers who made the tools, and the cobbler who made a shoe found on the site. Some were craftswomen, like the spinners and weavers who used the spindle-whorls and loom-weights that were found there. The disparate sizes of its houses suggest that the community at Wijster was hardly egalitarian. Its cemetery made the same point since, while most of the graves contained no goods at all, a few were richly furnished with weapons, necklaces, and jewelry. The elite also seem to have had access to Roman products: archaeologists have unearthed

a

couple

of

Roman

coins,

bits

of

Roman

glass,

and

numerous fragments of provincial Roman pottery. But even the rich at Wijster were probably not very powerful: it is very likely that here, as elsewhere in the Germanic world, kings with military retinues lorded it over this and other communities in their reach, commanding labor services and a percentage of agricultural production. The better-off inhabitants of Wijster probably got their Roman dinnerware through trade with Roman provincials along the border. No physical trait distinguished buyers from sellers. But barbarians and Romans had numerous ethnic differences – differences created by preferences

and

customs

surrounding

food,

language,

clothing,

hairstyle, behaviors, and all the other elements that go into a sense of identity.

Germanic

ethnicities

were

often

in

flux

as

tribes

came

together and broke apart (of course, Roman ethnic identity changed as well, as we have seen with the Lampadii choice of artistic style). In the case of the Goths, historians have been able to trace a long “ethnogenesis” – the many ethnicities that they took on and shed over time. It is best to imagine them as not one people but many. If it is true that a group called the “Goths” (Gutones) can be found in the first century in what is today northwestern Poland, that does not mean

that they much resembled those “Goths” who, in the third century, organized and dominated a confederation of steppe peoples and forest dwellers of mixed origins north of the Black Sea (today Ukraine). The second set of Goths was a splinter of the first; by the time they got to the Black Sea, they had joined with many other groups. In short, the Black Sea Goths were multi-ethnic. Taking advantage – and soon becoming a part – of the crisis of the third century, the Black Sea Goths invaded and plundered the nearby provinces of the Roman Empire. The Romans responded at first with annual payments to buy peace, but before long they stopped, preferring confrontation. Around 250, Gothic and other raiders and pirates plundered parts of the Balkans and Anatolia (today Turkey). It took many years of bitter fighting for Roman armies, reinforced by Gothic and other mercenaries, to stop these raids. Afterwards, once again transformed, the Goths emerged as two different groups: eastern (Ostrogoths), again north of the Black Sea, and western (Visigoths), in what is today Romania. By the mid-330s, the Visigoths were allies of the Empire and fighting in their armies. Some rose to the position of army leaders. By the end of the fourth century, many Roman army units were made up of whole tribes – Goths or Franks, for example – fighting as “federates” for the Roman government under their own chiefs. This was the marriage. It

fell

apart,

however,

in

the

later

fourth

century,

when

the

Visigoths, soon joined by others, requested entry into the Empire. They were fleeing the Huns, largely Turkic-speaking pastoralists from the semi-arid, grass-covered plains (the “steppeland”) of west-central Asia. One branch of this multi-ethnic group invaded the Black Sea region in 376 and then moved west into what is today Romania, uprooting the Gothic groups living there and driving some to treat with the Romans and enter the Empire. Barbarians had long been settled within the Empire’s borders as army recruits. But in this case the numbers were unprecedented: tens of

thousands,

overwhelmed, refugees

perhaps

even

unprepared,

woefully,

and

in

up and

378

to

200,000.

resentful. a

group

of

The

They

Romans mistreated

Visigoths

and

were the other

barbarians rebelled, killing Emperor Valens (r.364–378) at the battle of Adrianople. The defeat meant more than the death of an emperor;

it badly weakened the Roman army. Because the emperors needed soldiers and the Visigoths needed food and a place to settle, various arrangements were tried: treaties making the Visigoths federates; promises of pay and reward. None worked for long. Led by Alaric (d.410), an army of Visigoths set out to avenge their wrongs and to find land. Map 1.5 traces their long trek across Europe. Their sack of Rome in 410 inspired Augustine to write the City of God, but the Visigoths

did

not

long

remain

in

Italy.

Joined

by

many

other

barbarian groups as well as Roman slaves taking advantage of the mayhem, they settled in southern Gaul by 418 and by 484 had taken most of Spain as well. The impact of the Visigoths on the western part of the Roman Empire was decisive enough, however, for some historians to take the date 378 to mark the end of the Roman Empire, while others have chosen the date 410. (Other historians, to be sure, have disagreed with both dates!)

Map 1.5 The Huns and the Visigoths, c.375–450

Description

Meanwhile, beginning late in 406 and perhaps also impelled by the Huns, other barbarian groups – among them Vandals and Sueves – entered the Empire by crossing the Rhine River. They first moved into Gaul, then into Spain. The Vandals crossed into North Africa; the Sueves remained in Spain, though the Visigoths conquered most of their kingdom in the course of the sixth century. When, after the death

in 453 of the powerful Hunnic leader Attila, the empire that he had created along the Danubian frontier collapsed, still other groups – Ostrogoths, Rugi, Gepids – moved into the Roman Empire. Each arrived with a “deal” from the Roman government; each hoped to work for Rome and reap its rewards. In 476 the last Roman emperor in

the

West,

Romulus

Augustulus

(r.475–476),

was

deposed

by

Odoacer (433–493), a barbarian (from one of the lesser tribes, the Sciri) leading Roman troops. Odoacer promptly had himself declared king of Italy and, in a bid to “unite” the Empire, sent Romulus’s imperial insignia to Emperor Zeno (r.474–491), ruler of the eastern half

of

the

Roman

Empire.

But

Zeno,

unamused,

authorized

Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, to attack Odoacer in 489. Four years later, Theodoric’s conquest of Italy was complete; he ruled there from 493 to 526. Not much later the Franks, long used to fighting for the Romans, conquered Gaul under Clovis (r.481/482– 511), king of the Franks, by defeating a provincial governor of Gaul and several barbarian rivals. Meanwhile, other barbarian groups set up their own kingdoms.

Map 1.6 The Former Western Empire, c.500

Description

Around the year 500 the former Roman Empire no longer looked like a scarf flung around the Mediterranean; it looked more like a

jigsaw puzzle. (See Map 1.6.) Much of North Africa was under Vandal rule, the Hispanic Peninsula was dominated by the Visigoths, a large swath of Gaul was ruled by the Franks, and Italy was now the Kingdom

of

the

Ostrogoths.

Continental

immigrants

joined

indigenous populations in lowland Britain; the Burgundians formed a polity centered in what is today Switzerland. Only the eastern half of the Empire – the long end of the scarf – remained relatively intact. And yet few at the time thought that much had changed: most people still considered themselves Roman, and the barbarian kings thought they were ruling within – not against – the Empire.

THE NEW ORDER Indeed, what was new about the “new order” of the sixth century was less the rise of barbarian kingdoms than it was, in the West, the decay of

the

cities

balanced

by

the

liveliness

of

the

countryside,

the

increased dominance of the rich, and the quiet domestication of Christianity. In the East, the Roman Empire continued, made an illfated bid to expand, and, while keeping a foothold in the West, turned eastward to deal with Persia.

The Ruralization of the West Where the barbarians settled, they did so with only tiny ripples of discontent from articulate Roman elites. How was that possible? Perhaps the barbarian kings did not confiscate Roman estates, but rather simply collected the normal imperial estate taxes. More likely, the barbarians were settled as “guests” directly on land belonging to Roman property owners. In that case, barbarian kings, influenced by their Roman advisors, managed to defuse outright conflict. In either scenario, the end result was that elite “Romans” and “barbarians” gradually came to belong to the same community of free landowners. But before this merging could take place, the great barrier to assimilation between Romans and barbarians – divergent religious beliefs

–

had

to

be

overcome.

Recall

that

Ulfila

had

preached

Arianism to the Goths (see above), and many other barbarian groups adopted this brand of Christianity as well. Clovis, king of the Franks,

may have been the first Germanic king to choose the Roman version (though, if so, the ruler of Burgundy was close behind). Clovis had flirted with Arianism early on, but he soon converted to the Catholic Christianity

of

his

Gallic

neighbors.

Bishop

Avitus

of

Vienne 9

welcomed this move with open arms: “Your faith is our victory.”

The new rulers adopted Roman institutions in another important way: they issued law codes that drew on Roman imperial precedents like The Theodosian Code (see below), regulations governing rural life

found

in

Roman

provincial

law

codes,

and

possibly

tribal

customary law as well. The Visigothic Code was drawn up during the course of the fifth through seventh centuries. Another law book was issued in 517 by Sigismund, styling himself king of the Burgundians (r.516–524). A Frankish law code was compiled under King Clovis, fusing provincial Roman and Germanic procedures into a single whole. Written in Latin, these laws revealed their Roman inspiration even in their language. Barbarian kings, some well-educated themselves, depended on classically trained advisors to write up their letters and laws.

In

Italy,

administrators,

in

particular,

judges,

and

a

well-educated

officers

served

the

group

of

Roman

Ostrogothic

king

Theodoric the Great. They included the learned Boethius (d.524/526), who wrote the tranquil Consolation of Philosophy as he awaited execution for treason, and the encyclopedic Cassiodorus (490–583), who wrote the letters issued by King Theodoric. Since the fourth century, Romans had become used to barbarian leaders; in the sixth, it did not seem odd to have them ruling as kings. But the disappearance of the urban middle class was strange indeed. It was largely due to the new taxes of the fourth century. The town councilors – the curiales, traditional leaders and spokesmen for the cities – used to collect the taxes for their communities, making up any shortfalls, and reaping the rewards of prestige for doing so. In the fourth century, new land and head taxes impoverished the curiales, while very rich landowners – out in the countryside, surrounded by their bodyguards and slaves – simply did not bother to pay. Now the tax burdens fell on poorer people. Pressed to pay taxes they could not afford, curial families escaped to the great estates of the rich, giving up their free status in return for land and protection. By the seventh

century, the rich had won; the barbarian kings no longer bothered to collect general taxes. The cities, most of them walled since the time of the crisis of the third

century,

were

no

longer

thriving

or

populous,

though

they

remained political and religious centers. Tours (in Gaul), for example, built a wall around its episcopal complex c.400. But few people apart from the bishop and his entourage actually lived within those walls any longer. At the same time, in a cemetery that the Romans had carefully sited outside the city, a new church rose over the tomb of the local saint, Martin. This served as a magnet for the people of the surrounding countryside and even farther away. A baptistery was constructed nearby to baptize the infants of pilgrims who came to the tomb hoping for a miracle. (See Map 1.7.) Sometimes people stayed for years. Gregory, bishop of Tours (r.573–594), our chief source for the history of Gaul in the sixth century, described Monegundis, a very pious woman: [she] left her husband, her family, her whole house, and went, full of faith, to the basilica of the holy bishop Martin. [After curing a sick girl on her way, she] arrived at the basilica of St Martin, and there, on her knees in front of the tomb, she gave thanks to God for being able to see the holy tomb with her own eyes. She settled herself in a small room [nearby] in which she gave 10

herself every day to prayer, fasts and vigils.

With people like Monegundis flocking to the tomb, it is no wonder that

archaeologists

have

found

habitations right at the cemetery.

evidence

of

semi-permanent

Map 1.7 Tours, c.600

Description

The shift from urban to rural settlements brought with it a new localism. The active long-distance trade of the Mediterranean slowed down, though it did not stop. Consider the fate of pottery, a cheap necessity

in

the

ancient

world.

In

the

sixth

century,

fine

mass-

produced African red pottery adorned even the humblest tables along the Mediterranean Sea coast. Inland, however, most people had to make

do

with

local

handmade

wares,

as

regional

networks

of

exchange eroded long-distance connections. For some (mainly the rich), however, the disconnection of the rural landscape from the

wider world was far less clear. Archeologists have recently found numerous artifacts buried with the dead in graves in northern Europe, including ivory rings, glass, beads, and semi-precious stones such as those used in the reliquary in Plate 1.10. These must have arrived in the West from Byzantium, the eastern Mediterranean, or even more far-flung workshops and trade centers. Indeed, there appears to have been a lively international exchange between East and West that continued

throughout

the

period

covered

by

this

chapter

–

and

beyond.

Plate 1.10 Reliquary of Theuderic (late 7th cent.). This reliquary is shaped like a miniature sarcophagus. Made of cloisonné enamel (bits of enamel framed by metal) and richly adorned with semi-precious stones, it bears the inscription, “Theuderic the priest had this made in honor of Saint Maurice.” Paying for the creation of a reliquary – suitable housing for the remains of the saints – was itself an act of piety.

The Western Church in the New Order Among

the

rich

who

took

advantage

of

this

relatively

abundant

material culture were bishops. They often rose to episcopal status in

their twilight years, after they had married and had sired children to inherit their estates. (Their wives continued to live with them but not to sleep with them – or so it was expected.) Great lay landlords, kings, queens, warriors, and courtiers controlled and monopolized most of the rest of the wealth of the West, now based largely on land. Monasteries,

too,

were

becoming

important

corporate

landowners. In the sixth century, many monks lived in communities just far enough away from the centers of power to be holy, yet near enough to be important. Monks were not quite laity (since they devoted their entire life to religion), yet not quite clergy (since they were only rarely ordained as priests), but something in-between and increasingly admired. It is often said that Saint Antony was the “first monk,” and though this may not be strictly true, it is not far off the mark. Like Antony, monks practiced a sort of daily martyrdom, giving up their personal wealth, family ties, and worldly offices. Like Antony, who eventually gave up the solitary life, monks lived in communities. Some communities were of men only, some of women, some of both (in separate quarters). Whatever the sort, monks lived in obedience to a “rule” that gave them a stable and orderly way of life. While some rules were passed down orally, the ones we know most about were written. Caesarius, bishop of Arles (r.502–542), wrote one for his sister, the “abbess” (head) of a monastery of women. He wrote another for his nephew, the “abbot” of a male monastery. In Italy, Saint Benedict (d.c.550/560)

wrote

the

most

famous monastic rule of all at some time between 530 and 560. With its adoption in the ninth century as the official rule of the Carolingian Empire (see Chapter 3), it became the monastic norm in the West. The Benedictine Rule insisted on the key virtues of obedience and humility. Dividing the day into discrete periods of prayer, reading, and labor, the chief of its activities was the “liturgy” – not just the Mass, but also an elaborate round of formal worship that took place seven times a day and once at night. At these specific times, the monks chanted – that is sang – the “Offices,” most of which consisted of the psalms (a group of 150 poems in the Old Testament). For example, the Benedictine Rule specified that during wintertime ... first this verse is to be said three times: “Lord, you will open my lips, and my mouth will proclaim your praise.” To that should be added Psalm 3 and the Gloria [a short hymn of praise]. After that, Psalm 94

[is sung] with an antiphon [a sort of chorus], or at least chanted. Then an Ambrosian hymn [written by Saint Ambrose of Milan] should follow, and 11

then six psalms with antiphons.

By the end of each week the monks were expected to have completed all 150 psalms. Benedict’s monastery, Monte Cassino, was in the shadow of the city of Rome, far enough to be an “escape” from society but near enough to link it to the popes. Pope Gregory the Great (590–604), a major force in Italy and, arguably, elsewhere as well, took the time to write a biography of Benedict and praise his Rule. Monks may have renounced wealth and power individually, but monasteries became partners of the wealthy and powerful and benefited from their largess. The monks were seen as models of virtue, and their prayers were thought to reach God’s ear. It was crucial to ally with them. Little by little the Christian religion was domesticated to meet the needs of the new order, even as it shaped that order to fit its demands. That is why, for example, a woman such as Monegundis was not afraid to go to the cemetery outside of Tours. There were no demons there; they had been driven far away by the power of Saint Martin. Just

as

Benedict’s

monasteries

had

become

perfectly

acceptable

alternatives to the old avenues of male prestige – armies and schools – so Monegundis, who retreated into a little room to fast and pray, became the center of a group of pious women who found their vocation in the religious life rather than marriage. When Monegundis was

about

to

die,

they

did

what

was

needed

to

perpetuate

the

community she had founded: they begged her “to bless some oil and salt that we can give to the sick who ask for a blessing.” She did so, 12

and they “preserved [it] with great care.” in

a

precious

container,

just

as

the

No doubt they kept the oil

monastery

of

Saint-Maurice

d’Agaune kept some of its saintly relics in a gorgeous reliquary studded with garnets, glass gems, and a cameo (Plate 1.10). Relics like Monegundis’s oil or Saint Martin’s tomb brought the sacred into the countryside and into the texture of everyday life.

Retrenchment in the East After 476 there was a “new order” in the East as well as the West, but initially the changes were less obvious. For one thing, there was still

an

emperor

with

considerable

authority.

The

towns

continued

to

thrive, and the best of the small-town educated elite went off to Constantinople, where they found good jobs as administrators, civil servants, and financial advisors. While barbarian kings in the West were giving in to the rich and eliminating general taxes altogether, the eastern emperors were collecting state revenues more efficiently than ever. For the first time, emperors issued compendia of Roman laws. The Theodosian Code, which gathered together imperial “constitutions” (general laws) alongside “rescripts” (rulings on individual cases), was published in 438. Western barbarian law codes of the sixth century attempted to match this achievement, but they were overshadowed by the great legal initiatives of Justinian (r.527–565), which included an imperial law code known as the Codex Justinianus (529, revised in 534), and the Digest (533), an orderly compilation of Roman juridical thought from the pre-imperial period onward. From then on, the laws of the eastern Roman Empire were largely (though not wholly) fixed, though Justinian’s books were soon eclipsed by short summaries in Greek, while in the West they had little impact until the twelfth century (see Chapter 5). In the fifth and sixth centuries, the eastern half of the Empire recalibrated

its

priorities.

When

the

Visigoths

sacked

Rome,

Theodosius II (r.408–450) did not send an army to fight them; he built walls around Constantinople instead. When roads fell into disrepair, Emperor Justinian let many of them decay. When the Slavs pressed on the Roman frontier in the Balkans, he let them enter. But no policy could fully meet the challenge of the first recorded pandemic, which was caused by the exceptionally deadly plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis. It hit Justinian’s Empire in 541 and lasted for 200 years. (A second wave – the one responsible for the so-called “Black Death” – wreaked terrible damage some six hundred years later and beyond. See Chapter 8.) Coupled with sudden climate change, which brought unaccustomed cold and frost to the eastern Roman Empire, the first pandemic,

as

one

contemporary

observer

put

it,

“came

close

to

13

wiping out the whole of mankind.”

Even so, Justinian financed a major effort to recover North Africa and Italy in a bid to revive the Roman Empire as it once had been. He succeeded, but at enormous cost, leaving much of Italy destroyed and

prey to outside invaders, and crippling the economy of the eastern Empire.

Ultimately,

his

successors

failed

to

hold

on

to

his

reconquests. Above all, Justinian took on the image of concentrated power associated with the ceremony and pomp of the Persian “king of kings,” combining it with an exalted role in the Christian Church. An upstart from the lower classes, he drew on old and revered imperial traditions when, in the wake of fearsome popular tax revolts against his rule, he embarked on an extensive building program of churches, hospitals, and poor houses. Plates 1.11 and 1.12 illustrate some of the dazzling results at Constantinople and Ravenna. At Constantinople, he rebuilt the church of Hagia Sophia (“Holy Wisdom”), burned in the riots against him, making it a symbol of his power. It featured an astonishing dome that seemed to float over the building beneath it. (See Plate 1.11.)

Plate

1.11

Dome

of

Hagia

Sophia

(532–537).

Employing

two

architects

unusually open to experimentation and making use of thousands of workers in its construction, Hagia Sophia featured a dome rising loftily over a rectangular base – an astonishing and unprecedented engineering feat. The church’s white and

gray

marble

floor,

walls,

piers

and

columns,

along

with

its

splendid

mosaics, which reflected light on all sides, completed the effect of heaven prefigured.

After conquering Italy from the Ostrogoths, Justinian asserted his rule at Ravenna. Already in 402 that city had superseded Rome as the capital of the western half of the Roman Empire, and it had remained the capital of Italy under the Ostrogoths. Justinian inserted himself into the city’s very fabric – both politically and physically. Politically, he found natural allies in the Christians living there who had chafed under

the

Arian

Ostrogoths.

Physically,

he

made

his

presence

permanent in the city’s chief church, San Vitale, which was still under construction when his troops arrived. Shaped in the unusual form of an octagon (see Figure 1.1), San Vitale is topped by a lofty dome (like Hagia Sophia) and glows with marble and mosaics. Its main apse – directly

behind

the

altar

–

seamlessly

merges

heaven

and

earth,

Church and State. Plate 1.12 conveys an idea of the whole as the viewer (perhaps a priest entering to celebrate the Eucharist, or others entering the church in liturgical procession at one of the building’s many doors) might have seen it. The plate shows the central half dome of the apse. Beneath a youthful Christ, flanked by angels and sitting on a blue orb, run the Four Rivers of Paradise. Lilies and roses bloom on the rocky ground. The two angels flanking Christ look away from him, attending to the two men at their sides. These are, on the viewer’s right, Bishop Ecclesius, who offers Christ a model of the very church of San Vitale; and on the left, Saint Vitalis (after whom the church is named), who accepts the crown of martyrdom from Christ.

Figure 1.1 San Vitale, Ravenna, Reconstructed Original Ground Plan, 6th cent.

Description

Plate 1.12 San Vitale, Ravenna, Apse Mosaics (mid-6th cent.). The warm colors of the apse mosaics – especially greens and golds – emphasize the rich abundance of the offerings brought to the altar by the emperor and empress, a theme mirrored by the intersecting cornucopias that frame the image of Christ and his companions in heaven.

p

Three large windows below this heavenly scene light the apse. On either side are mosaic panels depicting (on the viewer’s left) Emperor Justinian and (on the right) Empress Theodora. Justinian, the central and largest figure in his panel, has a halo and wears a crown. He holds a

large

golden

paten

–

the

bowl

that

contains

the

bread

of

the

Eucharist – and offers it in the direction of both Christ above him and the altar, which would have been below. To his left is a bishop carrying a gem-studded gold cross; the name MAXIMIANUS is boldly outlined above his head. Justinian’s appointee at Ravenna, Bishop Maximianus clearly wanted to associate himself permanently with the imperial majesty. Behind the bishop other churchmen bring more precious objects to the altar. On Justinian’s right-hand side are members of his court: aristocrats and soldiers. It is no accident that the total number of people led by Justinian is twelve (or possibly thirteen), like the apostles of Jesus. Facing the emperor’s panel is a similar one for Empress Theodora. She, too, has a halo, and her garment (the same sort of purple chlamys that Justinian wears) has at the hem an image of the three Magi offering gifts to the Christ Child. Like them, she makes an offering, holding out to Christ (above her) and to the altar (below) a gold chalice, the vessel for the wine of the Eucharist. To her left are a group of splendidly dressed women, representing her retinue. To her right are two men of high rank. The entire complex – reading it from the viewer’s right to left – depicts a circle of gift-giving and mutual generosity: Theodora offers a chalice to Christ and the altar; Ecclesius, the bishop who initiated the construction of San Vitale, gives it to Christ; Christ presents a crown to Saint Vitalis; and finally, Emperor Justinian completes the circle by offering the paten back to Christ and to the altar on which Christ’s sacrifice is celebrated. Ravenna became a center of early Christendom. Even after the Lombards took most of Italy (see Map 1.8), the “Romans” of the East held on to an hourglass-shaped strip of land running from Ravenna to Rome. Ravenna’s almost impregnable position (surrounded by the marshes and various waters of the Po River estuary) and its location near a major port allowed it to become a linchpin of East-West connectivity.

Yet, the Eastern Roman Empire’s focus was not on Ravenna. Rather it was toward the east, where the Sasanid Empire of the Persians

challenged

its

hegemony.

The

two

“super-powers”

confronted one another with wary forays throughout the sixth century. They thought that to the winner would come the spoils. Little did they imagine that the real winner would be a new and unheard-of group: the Muslims.

Map 1.8 Europe, the Eastern Roman Empire, and Persia, c.600

Description

*

*

*

*

*

The crisis of the third century demoted the old Roman elites, bringing new groups to the fore. Among

these were

the

Christians, who

insisted on one God and one way to understand and worship him. Made

the

official

religion

of

the

Empire

under

Theodosius,

Christianity redefined the location of the holy: no longer was it in private households or city temples but in the precious relics of the saints and the Eucharist; in those who ministered on behalf of the Church on earth (the priests, bishops, and emperors); and in those who led lives of ascetic heroism (the monks).

Politically the Empire, once a vast conglomeration of conquered provinces, was in turn largely conquered by its periphery. In spite of themselves, the Romans had tacitly to acknowledge and exploit the interdependence between the center and the hinterlands. They invited the barbarians in, but then declined to recognize the needs of their guests. That repudiation came too late. The barbarians were part of the Empire, and in the western half they took it over. In the next century, they would show how much they had learned from their former hosts.

For practice questions about the text, maps, plates, and other features – plus suggested answers – please go to www.utphistorymatters.com There you will also find all the maps, genealogies, and figures used in the book.

FURTHER READING Brown, Peter. Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350–550

AD.

Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 2012. Demacopoulos, George E. Gregory the Great: Ascetic, Pastor, and First Man of Rome. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015. Dunn, Marilyn. Arianism. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021. Esders, Stefan, Yaniv Fox, Yitzhak Hen, and Laury Sarti, eds. East and West in the Early Middle Ages: The Merovingian Kingdoms in Mediterranean Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Fleming, Robin. The Material Fall of Roman Britain, 300–525

CE.

Philadelphia:

University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021. Fowlkes-Childs, Blair, and Michael Seymour, eds. The World between Empires: Art and Identity in the Ancient Middle East. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019. Harper, Kyle. The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017. Herrin, Judith. Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020.

Heather, Peter. Empires and Barbarians: Migrations, Development and the Birth of Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Little, Lester K., ed. Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541–750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. McCormick, Michael. “Gregory of Tours on Sixth-Century Plague and Other Epidemics.” Speculum 96, no. 1 (2021): 38–96. O’Donnell, James J. Pagans: The End of Traditional Religion and the Rise of Christianity. New York: HarperCollins, 2015. Potter, David. Theodora: Actress, Empress, Saint. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Rotman, Youval. Slaveries of the First Millennium. Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 2021. Ward-Perkins, Bryan. The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

__________ 1

The Edict of Milan, in A Short Medieval Reader, ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023), pp. 1–2 and in Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic World, 3rd ed., ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018), pp. 1–4.

2

The Nicene Creed, in Reading the Middle Ages, p. 11.

3

The Nicene Creed, in Reading the Middle Ages, p. 11.

4

Manichaean Texts, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 10–11.

5

The Confessions of Saint Augustine 8.4, trans. Rex Warner (New York: A Mentor Book, 1963), p. 166.

6

Augustine, The City of God, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 11–13 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 16–20.

7

Jerome, Letter 24 (To Marcella), in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 28–30.

8

Athanasius, The Life of Saint Antony of Egypt, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 5–8 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 30–34.

9

Avitus of Vienne, Letter to Clovis, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 43–44.

10 Gregory of Tours, The Life of Monegundis, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 38– 40. 11 The Benedictine Rule, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 15–19 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 20–28. 12 Gregory of Tours, The Life of Monegundis, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 38– 40. 13 Prokopios, The Wars of Justinian 2.22,

trans.

H.B.

Dewing,

Kaldellis (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2014), p. 120.

rev.

Anthony

TWO THE EMERGENCE OF SIBLING CULTURES (c.600–c.750)

CHAPTER

T WO

HIGHLIGHTS Merovingian dynasty 481–751 First Germanic dynasty to rule Francia.

Hijra 622 Muhammad’s “flight” from Mecca to Medina; marks the year 1 of the Islamic calendar.

Battle of Badr 624 The first Islamic military victory.

Umayyad caliphate 661–750 First caliphal dynasty; Sunni Muslims, the Umayyads make Damascus their capital city.

Synod of Whitby 664

The meeting at which the English king Oswy chooses the Roman form of Christianity, tying England to the Continent ever more securely.

Islamic armies take Spain 711–715 Led by Musa, governor of Ifriqiya, the Islamic conquest of Spain marks Islam’s arrival in Europe.

Iconoclasm at Byzantium 726–787, 815–843 Bans the depiction of holy beings, calling into question the nature of artistic representation.

The rise of Islam in the Arabic world and its triumph over territories that for centuries had been dominated by either Rome or Persia is the first astonishing fact of the seventh and eighth centuries. The second is the persistence of the Roman Empire both politically, in what historians call the “Byzantine Empire,” and culturally, in the Islamic world

and

Europe.

By

750

three

distinct

and

nearly

separate

civilizations – Byzantine, European, and Islamic – crystallized in and around

the

different

territory

values,

of

the

struggled

old with

Roman

Empire.

different

They

problems,

professed

adapted

to

different standards of living. Yet all three bore the marks of common parentage – or, at least, of common adoption. They were sibling heirs of Rome.

SAVING BYZANTIUM In the seventh century, the eastern Roman Empire was so transformed that, by convention, historians call it something new: the “Byzantine Empire”

or

simply

“Byzantium,”

from

the

old

Greek

name

for

Constantinople. This terminology is entirely modern: the so-called Byzantines called themselves Romans, and their state was Romanía. War,

first

with

the

Sasanid

Persians,

then

with

the

Arabs,

transformed Byzantium. Gone was the ambitious imperial reach of Justinian; by 700, Byzantium had lost all its rich territories in North Africa and its tiny Spanish outpost as well. True, it held on tenuously

to bits and pieces of Italy and Greece. But in the main it had become a medium-sized state, in the same location but about two-thirds the size of Turkey today (see Map 2.2). Yet, if small, it was also tough.

Sources of Resiliency Byzantium survived the onslaughts of outsiders by preserving its capital city, which was well protected by high, thick, and far-flung walls that embraced farmland and pasture as well as the city proper. Within, the emperor (calling himself the Roman emperor) and his officials serenely continued to collect the traditional Roman land taxes from the provinces left to them. This allowed the state to pay regular salaries to its soldiers, sailors, and court officials. The navy, well supplied with ships, patrolled the Mediterranean Sea. It was proud of its prestigious weapon, Greek fire – a mixture of crude oil and resin, heated and projected via a tube over the water, where it burned, 1

engulfing enemy ships with its flames.

The armies of the Empire,

formerly posted as frontier guards, were pulled back in the face of the Arab invaders and set up as large regional defensive units within the Empire itself. Called strategiai (literally, “commands of a general”), they were led by strategoi (generals), appointed by the emperors. Officials were posted throughout the Empire to provide food and weapons to the army. They were authorized to collect foodstuffs as taxes in kind and to purchase materials for the army in the name of the state. Protected by fortresses, the strategiai managed to stave off Arab conquest. Well trained and equipped, Byzantium’s troops served as reliable defenders of their newly compact state.

INVASIONS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES The Sasanid Empire of Persia, its capital at Ctesiphon, its ruler styled king of kings, was as venerable as the Roman Empire – and equally ambitious. (See Map 2.1.) King Chosroes II (r.590–628), not unlike Justinian

a

half-century

before

him,

dreamed

of

recreating

past

glories. In his case the inspiration was the ancient empire of Xerxes and Darius, which had sprawled from a lick of land just west of Libya to a great swathe of territory ending near the Indus River. When Byzantine Emperor Maurice was deposed by Phocas in 602, Chosroes

took advantage of the ensuing political chaos to invade Byzantine territory. By 604 he had captured Dara and soon other cities nearby; he took Theodosiopolis in Byzantine Armenia in 606/607, Damascus by 613, Jerusalem by 614, and Alexandria by 619. By mid-621 the whole of Egypt was in his hands.

Map 2.1 Persian Expansion, 602–622

Description

Around

that

time,

Byzantine

Emperor

Heraclius

(r.610–641)

found a way to turn the tide, deploying both his army and diplomatic initiatives. By 630 all territories taken by the Persians were back in Byzantine hands. On a map, it would seem that nothing much had happened. In fact, the cities fought over were depopulated and ruined, and both Sasanid and Byzantine troops and revenues were exhausted. Although the Persians were pushed back, the Slavs – farmers and stock-breeders in the main – moved into the Balkans, sometimes accompanied

by

Avars,

multi-ethnic

horseback

warriors

and

pastoralists. It took another half-century for the Bulgars, a Turkicspeaking nomadic group, to become a threat, but in the 670s they, too, began moving into what is today Bulgaria, defeating the Byzantine army in 680 and again in 681. By 700 very little of the Balkan Peninsula was controlled by Byzantium. (See Map 2.2.) The place

where once the two halves of the Roman Empire had met was now a wedge – created by Bulgars, Avars, and Slavs – that separated East from West. Map

2.2

shows

an

even

more

dramatic

change

to

the

old

geography across Anatolia, down the coast of the Mediterranean and into North Africa. This was due to the invasion of Islamic armies, which conquered the lower half the Roman “scarf” and took over Persia as well. We shall soon see how and why the Arabs poured out of Arabia. But first we need to know what the shrunken Byzantium was like.

Map 2.2 The Byzantine Empire, c.700

Description

DECLINE OF URBAN CENTERS AND RETRENCHMENT IN THE COUNTRYSIDE The city-based Greco-Roman culture on which the Byzantine Empire was originally constructed had long been giving way. Invasions and raids hastened this development as did the Plague of Justinian. Many urban

centers,

once

bustling

nodes

of

trade

and

administration,

disappeared or reinvented themselves. Some became fortresses; others were

abandoned;

still

others

remained

as

skeletal

administrative

centers. The public activities of marketplaces, theaters, and town squares yielded to the pious pursuits of churchgoers or the private affairs of the family. Old civic centers were turned into churches. Although

some

cities

remained

centers

of

habitation

and

a

few

continued to be productive, turning out ceramics, olive oil, building stones, and the like, they were no longer the hubs of Byzantine life. Constantinople itself was spared this fate only in part. As with other cities, its population shrank, and formerly inhabited areas right within the walls were abandoned or turned into farms. As the capital of both the Byzantine Church and State, however, Constantinople boasted an extraordinarily thriving upper class composed of people attached to both the imperial court and the clerical elite. It also retained some trade and industry. Even in the darkest days of the seventh-century wars, it retained the features of an urban landscape, with taverns, brothels, merchants, and a money economy. Its factories continued to manufacture fine silk textiles. Although Byzantium’s economic life became increasingly rural in the seventh and eighth centuries,

institutions

vital

to

urban

growth

remained

at

Constantinople, ensuring a revival of commercial activity once the wars ended. With the decline of the cities came the rise of the countryside. Agriculture

had

all

along

been

the

backbone

of

the

Byzantine

economy. Apart from a few large landowners, including the state, the Church, and some wealthy individuals, most Byzantines were free or semi-free peasant farmers. In the interior of Anatolia, on the great plateau

that

extends

from

the

Mediterranean

to

the

Black

Sea,

peasants must often have had to abandon their farms when Arab raiders came. Some may have joined the pastoralists of the region, ready to drive their flocks upland to safety. Elsewhere (and, in times of peace, on the Anatolian plains as well), peasants worked small plots

(sometimes

rented,

sometimes

owned

outright),

herding

animals, cultivating grains, and tending orchards. These peasants were subject as never before to imperial rule. With the disappearance of the traditional town councilors (the curiales), the cities and their rural hinterlands were now controlled directly by the reigning imperial governor and the local “notables” – a new elite consisting of the bishop and big landowners favored by the emperor. Freed from the old buffers that separated it from commoners, the state

adopted a thoroughgoing agenda of “family values,” narrowing the grounds

for

divorce,

establishing

new

punishments

for

marital

infidelity, and prohibiting abortions. New legislation gave mothers greater

power

over

their

offspring

and

made

widows

the

legal

guardians of their minor children. Education was still important, but now for many pious Christians, reading the ancient classics took second place to studying the Psalter, the book of 150 psalms in the Old Testament thought to have been written by King David. New family values coexisted with old community practices, but the Church increasingly tried to suppress traditions it associated with paganism. A Church council that met at Constantinople in 691/692 (the so-called Quinisext) forbade, among other things, dancing on the first day of March, wearing comic masks at festivals, and crossdressing in masquerade: “Moreover we drive away from the life of Christians the dances given in the names of those falsely called gods by the Greeks whether of men or women, and which are performed after an ancient and un-Christian fashion; decreeing that no man from this time forth shall be dressed as a woman, nor any woman in the 2

garb suitable to men.”

CHANGES ON THE GROUND: FROM VOLUBILIS TO WALILA Archaeologists have literally unearthed (at least in part) the story of the material changes undergone by the many regions that once made up the capacious Roman Empire. No place is “typical,” but let us focus on one, Volubilis. It was founded in pre-Roman times and remained inhabited, on and off throughout the Middle Ages. Situated near the modern city of Meknes in Morocco, it was at first excavated only for its impressive Roman ruins, including its forum (the center of Roman civic life) and its more

lavish houses,

some

with

richly

decorated mosaic floors. More recently, the very field of archaeology has changed: from looking for imposing artifacts and edifices, it now is devoted to discovering and chronicling the entire material culture of a site – including human, plant, and animal remains – over the course

of

centuries.

Figure

2.1

suggests

the

major

outlines

of

Volubilis’s development. Originally a Mauritanian settlement, Volubilis was annexed by the Romans in the first century own

aesthetics,

the

CE.

Romans

Reforming the city according to their

started

with

the

Mauritanian

center,

where they constructed a forum and other public buildings. Gradually the population grew, expanding toward the north and east. The city’s main street, the decumanus maximus, was paved and flanked by walkways shaded by arcaded porticoes and lined with shops. An aqueduct supplied the city with water for public fountains and baths as well as plumbing for the major private houses. The finest of those were built along the main street in the Roman style, with columned courtyards

and

appearance,

the

elaborate city

was

mosaics. inhabited

Yet,

despite

mainly

by

its

locals.

“Roman” Even

the

curiales, who served the Romans as tax collectors, were recruited from

the

native

population,

as

were

the

builders

responsible

for

constructing the houses. In short, the indigenous inhabitants were happy to identify themselves as “Romans.” Even when, in the wake of the crisis of the third century, Diocletian pulled Roman troops out of the region, the city’s elites continued to build their houses in the Roman style – if anything even more opulently than before. The “House

of

Venus”

–

so

called

from

its

beautiful

mosaic

floor

picturing the goddess – continued to be remodeled into the fourth century.

Figure 2.1 Volubilis

Description

Yet at some time in the fifth or sixth century the original city seems to have been largely abandoned, very likely because of an earthquake.

Much

of

the

old

city

was

eventually

turned

into

a

cemetery. In the sixth century, a new wall was built (in Figure 2.1 it is indicated by orange dashes), and new habitations began to spring up to the wall’s west (here Area D). New Berber (the indigenous terms for whom are sing. Amizigh and pl. Imazighen) settlers moved into this area. Some of the inhabitants of this “new city” were Christians, as is attested by dated tomb inscriptions. No aqueduct served this

population, so it must have depended on water from wells and from the Oued Khomane River. Its habitations were small – one or two rooms, as was typical of Berber housing – alongside barns and storage areas. When Islamic armies arrived in Volubilis – now called Walila – it had lost its urban character. Yet, towards the end of the eighth century (a period taken up in the next chapter) it experienced another building spurt, this one to the west of the Roman wall (Area B in Figure 2.1). Area B and the so-called “Abbasid quarter” were constructed and became important later, as we shall see. To sum up: before 750, Volubilis/Walila experienced much the same transformation from highly urban to largely rural life that took place in the Byzantine world and (as we shall see) in Europe as well.

Iconoclasm Pious tomb inscriptions such as those at Volubilis were one way in which popular Christian beliefs took material form. Saintly relics were another. As in the West, so too in the East, relics were housed in precious containers. Some were kept in churches, often under the altar;

others

were

preserved

at

home

by

pious

Christians.

Many

reliquaries were decorated with precious stones and metals and often, too, with images of saints, Christ, and his mother, Mary. Around 680, these images took on new importance in the Byzantine world. A cult of images became as important there as the cult of saints. The argument on their behalf was straightforward: the sacred could best be grasped by human beings when made visible and palpable. Stories circulated of saintly images that spoke, and it became common for worshippers to bow down to sacred portraits. Images became more than representations of divine beings; they were – like relics, like reliquaries – containers of the holy. These developments responded to the crises of the day. In the late seventh century, as we have seen, Byzantium was confronted by plagues, earthquakes, and (above all) wars. How could this happen to God’s Chosen People (as the Byzantines thought of themselves)? The answer was clear: God was angry with them for their sins. What recourse did they have but to seek new avenues to access divine favor? While still depending on relics to protect and fortify them,

many Byzantines sought the aid of holy images as well. Monks and nuns were especially enthusiastic patrons of these powerful works of art. Soon

there

was

a

backlash

against

these

new-fangled

ideas.

Emperor Leo III the Isaurian (r.717–741) agreed that the crises were God’s punishment for the sins of the Byzantines. But he thought that their chief sin was idolatry – their cult of images, which subverted true Christian belief. In 726, after a terrifying volcanic eruption in the middle of the Aegean Sea, Leo seems to have denounced sacred portraits publicly. Historians used to report that Leo had his soldiers tear down a great golden icon of Christ at the Chalke, the gateway to the imperial palace, and replace it with a cross. Newer research by Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon notes that no contemporary sources record this incident. Most likely it was a legend invented much later. Nevertheless, around 726, or perhaps a bit before, Leo erected a cross – which was an abstract symbol, not the same thing as an image – in front of the imperial palace. It affirmed not only the Cross’s salvific place in the lives of all Christians but also its unwavering role in imperial victories. This may be taken to signify the beginning of the “iconoclastic” (anti-icon or, literally, icon-breaking) period. In 730, Leo required the pope at Rome and the patriarch of Constantinople to subscribe to a new policy: to remove sacred images, or at least to marginalize them, if they inspired the wrong kind of devotion. Leo was the harbinger of a new religious current. There had always been churchmen who objected to compassing the divine in the form of a material image, but they had been in the minority. By the end of Leo’s reign, a majority was inspired to criticize images. At the Synod of 754, over 300 bishops and the emperor himself banned sacred

images

outright.

Their

decrees

made

clear

how

material

representations threatened, according to iconoclasts, to befoul the purity

of

the

divine.

Christ

himself

had

declared

he

should

be

represented through the bread and wine of the Eucharist – and in no other way. As for the saints, they (in the words of the Synod) live on eternally with God, although they have died. If anyone thinks to call them back again to life by a dead art, discovered by the heathen, he makes himself guilty of blasphemy.... It is not permitted to Christians ... to insult 3

the saints, who shine in so great glory, by common dead matter.

Above all, iconoclastic churchmen worried about losing control over the sacred. Unlike relics, images could be reproduced infinitely and without

clerical

authorization.

Their

cultivation

at

monasteries

threatened to encroach on clerical authority. It was in their interest to ban icons. However vehement they may have been, the iconoclasts seem rarely

to

have

wiped

out

already-existing

icons

–

though

later

propagandists on the iconophile (icon-loving) side accused them of great

damage.

One

example

of

obliteration,

however,

certainly

remains from Hagia Sophia. A room used by the patriarch – located just off the southwest corner of the gallery – was originally covered with mosaics, including medallions with images of saints. During the iconoclastic period, the images were cut out and replaced by crosses. (See Plate 2.1.) Elsewhere, new churches were decorated with crosses from

the

start,

commissioned

to

while depict

artists

of

the

(depending

on

iconoclastic the

use

of

period the

were

building)

ornaments, trees, birds, hunting, horse races, and other non-sacred motifs. The iconoclasts thought that they thereby ensured God’s favor – that, once again, the Byzantines were God’s “Chosen People.”

Plate 2.1 Cross at Hagia Sophia (orig. mosaic 6th cent.; redone 768/769). In this section of a mosaic just off the gallery at Hagia Sophia, the original mosaicist depicted a holy figure in a medallion. Beneath the image was an inscription identifying the saint. During the iconoclastic period, the figure and inscription were hacked out. The saint was replaced by a gold cross with flared arm tips; it was surrounded by a rainbow of colored tesserae (the bits of glass or stone used in mosaics) to make the cross seem to glow. Below the cross can clearly be seen the rectangular space in which the original inscription was replaced by tesserae to match the background color.

Ultimately, iconoclasm was an utter failure, though the ban on icons lasted until 787 and was revived, in modified form, between 815 and 843. Not only did the iconoclastic movement come to an end, but

during the eighth century the position of those who supported icons, already argued at the Quinisext Council, was elaborated at great length in learned treatises. Henceforth, the veneration of holy images in the Byzantine (Eastern Orthodox) Church was a normal part of its religious practices.

THE RISE OF THE “BEST COMMUNITY”: ISLAM Like the Byzantines, the Muslims thought of themselves as God’s people. In the Qur’an, the “recitation” of God’s words, Muslims are “the best community ever raised up for mankind ... having faith in God” (3:110). The Muslim’s “God” is the same as the God of the Jews and the Christians. The Muslim community’s common purpose is “submission to God,” the literal meaning of “Islam.” The Muslim (a word that derives from “Islam”) is “one who submits.” Under the leadership of Muhammad (c.570–632) in Arabia, Islam created a new world power in less than a century.

The Shaping of Islam “One

community”

was

a

revolutionary

notion

for

the

disparate

peoples of Arabia (today Saudi Arabia), who converted to Islam in the first decades after 622. Pre-Islamic Arabia lay between the two great empires of the day – Persia and Byzantium – and felt the crosscurrents as well as the magnetic pull of their economies and cultures. Most of its land supported Bedouin pastoralists (the word “Arab” is derived from the most prestigious of these, the camel-herders). But by far the majority of its population was sedentary. To the southwest, where rain was adequate, farmers worked the soil. Elsewhere people settled at oases, where they raised date palms, highly prized for their fruit. Some of these communities were prosperous enough to support merchants organized

and as

artisans.

tribes

–

Whether

roaming

communities

whose

or

settled,

members

all

were

considered

themselves related through a common ancestor. The

pastoralists

lived

in

small

groups,

hunting

on

occasion;

making good use of the products (leather, milk, meat) derived from

their goats, sheep, and camels; and raiding one another for booty. They were proud of their mobile way of life. By the time of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, the tribes of Arabia had a well-developed literary as well as oral culture. Poetry was much honored (and remains so to this day); multipurpose, the ode alone (there were many other forms of poetry) could praise, mock, lament, and wax nostalgic. Most poets were “publicists” for their

tribe,

advertising

its

virtues.

A

few

were

appreciated

even

beyond Arabia. Islam began as and largely remained a religion of the sedentary, though it did find support and military strength among the Bedouin. It arose

at

Mecca,

a

commercial

center

and

the

launching

pad

of

caravans organized to sell tribal products – mainly leather goods and raisins – to the more urbanized areas at the Syrian border. (See Map 2.3.) Mecca was also a holy place. Its shrine, the Ka’ba, was rimmed with the images of hundreds of gods. Within its sacred precincts, where

war

and

violence

were

prohibited,

pilgrims

bartered

and

traded.

Map 2.3 The Islamic World to 750

Description

Muhammad was born in this commercial and religious center. Orphaned as a child, he came under the guardianship of his uncle, a leader of the Quraysh tribe that dominated Mecca and controlled

access

to

children,

the and

Ka’ba.

Muhammad

seemed

became

comfortable

and

a

trader,

happy.

married,

But

he

had

sought

something more: sometimes he would leave home and escape to a nearby mountain to pray. “In the Name of God the Compassionate the Caring / Recite in the name of your lord who created – / From an embryo created the human 4

/ Recite your lord is all-giving.”

Thus began a sequence of searing

words and visions that, beginning around 610 (as tradition has it), came to Muhammad during his retreats. God – one God (the Arabic word for God is Allah) – was the key, and God’s command was to “recite.” Muhammad obeyed, and later his recitations of God’s words were

written

Muhammad’s

down

on

scraps

companions.

of

Once

parchment

arranged

–

and a

elsewhere

process

that

by was

certainly completed by the mid-seventh century – God’s recitations became the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam. (See Plate 2.2.) It is understood to be God’s revelation as told to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel, and then recited in turn by Muhammad to others. Its first chapter – or sura – is the fatihah, or Opening:

In the name of God the Compassionate the Caring Praise be to God lord sustainer of the worlds the Compassionate the Caring master of the day of reckoning To you we turn to worship and to you we turn in time of need Guide us along the road straight the road of those to whom you are giving not those with anger upon them not those who have lost the way.

Plate 2.2 Page from an Early Qur’an (568–645). The parchment used for this Qur’an page has been radiocarbon dated to 568–645. Its precocity calls into question the traditional dating of Muhammad’s revelations as well as when and how they were organized into an official text. Tradition gives the role of organization

to

Caliph

Uthman

(r.644–656),

who

had

an

authorized

text

prepared by a committee and issued c.650. The fragment shown in this plate (and other similar finds) suggests an earlier date and variant compilations of the Qur’an. Reading from right to left and top to bottom, we see the end of sura 19 (“Maryam”) and the beginning of sura 20 (“Ta Ha”). The verses of each sura are marked by little clusters of dots, and the division between the two suras is indicated by a decorative design in red ink.

The Qur’an continues with a far longer sura, followed by others (114 in all) of gradually decreasing length. For Muslims, the Qur’an covers the gamut of human experience – the sum total of history, prophecy, and the legal and moral code by which men and women should live – as well as the life to come. Banning infanticide, Islam gave girls and women new dignity. It allowed for polygyny (a traditional practice within pre-Islamic tribes), but limited it to four wives at one time, all to be treated equally. It mandated dowries (the husband’s monetary obligation to the bride) and offered females some inheritance rights. At first the women even prayed with the men, though that practice ended in the eighth century. The nuclear family (newly emphasized, as was happening around the same

time

at

Byzantium

as

well;

see

pp.

44–45)

became

more

important than the tribe. In Islam, there are three essential social facts: the individual, God, and the ummah, the community of the faithful. There are no intermediaries between the divine and human realms, no priests, Eucharist, icons, or relics. Jesus figures in Islam, but only as a prophet. A community of believers coalesced around Muhammad as God’s final prophet. It adhered to a strict monotheism, prepared for the final Day of Judgment, and carried out the tasks that piety demanded – daily prayers, charity, periods of fasting, and so on. Later these were 5

institutionalized as the “five pillars” of Islam.

The early believers’

idea of the righteous life included living in the world, marrying, and having children. For them, virtue meant mindfulness of God in all things.

They

could

permit

themselves

moderate

–

though

not

excessive – pleasure in God’s bounty. Their notions of righteousness did not call for asceticism. At Mecca, where Quraysh tribal interests were bound up with the Ka’ba and its many gods, Muhammad’s message was unwelcome. But it was greeted with enthusiasm at Medina, an oasis about 200 miles to the northeast of Mecca. Feuding tribes there invited Muhammad to join them and arbitrate their disputes. He agreed, and in 622 he made the Hijra, or flight from Mecca to Medina. There he became not only a religious but also a secular leader. This joining of the political and religious spheres set the pattern for Islamic government thereafter. After Muhammad’s death, the year of the Hijra, 622, became the year

1 of the Islamic calendar, marking the establishment of the Islamic era. Muhammad consolidated his leadership by asserting hegemony over

three

important

pastoralists.

At

groups:

Medina

itself,

the he

Jews,

the

took

Meccans,

control

by

and

ousting

the and

sometimes killing his main competitors, the Jewish clans of the city. Against the Meccans he fought a series of battles; the battle of Badr (624), waged against a Meccan caravan, marked the first Islamic military

victory.

After

several

other

campaigns,

Muhammad

triumphed and took over Mecca in 630, offering leniency to most of its

inhabitants,

who

in

turn

converted

to

Islam.

Meanwhile,

Muhammad allied himself with numerous Bedouin groups, adding their contingents to his army. Warfare was thus integrated into the new religion as a part of the duty of Muslims to strive in the ways of God; jihad, often translated as “holy war,” in fact means “striving.” Through

a

combination

of

military

might,

conversion,

and

negotiation, Muhammad united many of the tribes in the Arabian Peninsula under his leadership by the time of his death in 632.

Out of Arabia “Strive, O Prophet,” says the Qur’an, “against the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and deal with them firmly. Their final abode is Hell; And what a wretched destination” (9:73). Cutting across tribal allegiances, the Islamic ummah was itself a formidable “supertribe” dedicated to victory over the enemies of God. After Muhammad’s death, armies of Muslims led by caliphs – a title that at first seems to have derived from khalifat Allah, “deputy of God,” but that later came to mean “deputy of the Apostle of God, Muhammad” – moved into Sasanid and Byzantine territory, toppling or crippling the once-great ancient empires. (See Map 2.3.) Islamic armies captured the Persian capital, Ctesiphon, in 637 and continued eastward to take Persepolis in 648, Nishapur in 651, and then, beyond Persia, to conquer Kabul in 664 and Samarqand in 710. To the west, they picked off, one by one, the great Mediterranean cities of the Byzantine Empire: Antioch and Damascus

in

635,

Alexandria

in

642,

Carthage

in

697.

By

the

beginning of the eighth century, Islamic warriors held sway from India to the Iberian Peninsula.

What explains their astonishing triumph? Above all, they were formidable fighters, and their enemies were relatively weak. The Persian and Byzantine Empires had exhausted one another after years of fighting. Nor were their populations particularly loyal; in Persia, Syria, and Egypt some Jews welcomed the Muslims, as did those Christians whose beliefs were considered heretical by the Byzantines. The

Muslims

made

no

attempt

to

convert

them,

instead

simply

imposing a tax. Then, too, the Muslims sometimes conquered through diplomacy rather than battle. In Spain, for example, they treated with a local leader, Theodemir (or Tudmir), offering him and his men protection – the promise that “[they will not] be separated from their women and children. They will not be coerced in matters of religion” 6

– in return for loyalty and taxes.

True to their urban origins, the Muslims almost immediately fostered urban life in the regions that they conquered. In Syria and Palestine, most of the soldiers settled within existing coastal cities. Their

leaders,

however,

built

palaces

and

hunting

lodges

in

the

countryside. Elsewhere the Muslims created large encampments of their own, remaining separate from the indigenous populations. Some of these camps were impermanent, but others – such as those at Baghdad and Cairo (or, more precisely, Fustat, today absorbed into Cairo) – became centers of new and thriving urban agglomerations. The caliphs fostered a well-ordered state. They appointed regional governors, who in turn worked with lower-level local indigenous officials to collect taxes, maintain law and order, and provision the military. Consider the administration of Egypt, for which we have a relatively large number of documents. Papyrus sheets, preserved for centuries beneath the ground (thanks to Egypt’s dry climate), reveal a thriving bureaucracy under Islamic rule. The Egyptian governor (the emir) sent out orders to local pagarchs (officials) who in turn ordered underlings to help them collect taxes, regulate water use (of utmost importance in this largely agricultural society), and settle disputes. Numerous scribes dutifully wrote letters and instructions, for even though most transactions were oral, the written word was highly valued. Sails, nails, woolen cloth, and Egyptian wheat – formerly exported to feed the people at Constantinople – were requisitioned for the Islamic army and navy. The Egyptian tax system, too, required the movement not only of money but of vast amounts of goods in kind:

grapes, oil, beans, barley. The pagarchs were evidently very much at the beck and call of the emir. As one of them wrote to an underling: “The emir ... wrote to me with what he has calculated for me, of the amount in coin of the people of the province [and] of their taxes in 7

kind. So pay this to him and ... hurry to me the amount in money.”

Living largely apart from their conquerors, the men and women who

had

long

inhabited

the

Mediterranean

Sea

regions

–Syria,

Palestine, North Africa, and Spain – went back to work and play more or less as they had done before the arrival of Islamic troops. In return for a heavy tax, Christians and Jews could worship in their traditional ways. Safe in Muslim-controlled Damascus, Saint John of Damascus (d.749) was able to thunder against iconoclasm as he would never have

been

allowed

to

do

in

iconoclastic

Byzantium.

Another

Christian, al-Akhtal (c.640–710), found employment at the court of Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik (r.685–705), where he poured forth verses of praise:

So let him in his victory long delight! He who wades into the deep of battle, auspicious his augury, The Caliph of God 8

through whom men pray for rain.

Maps of the Islamic conquest sometimes divide the world into Muslims and Christians. But the “Islamic world” was only slightly Islamic; Muslims constituted a minority of the population. Then too, even as their religion came to predominate, they were themselves absorbed, at least to some degree, into the cultures that they had conquered.

The Culture of the Umayyads Dissension, triumph, and disappointment followed the naming of Muhammad’s successors. The caliphs were not chosen from the old tribal

elites

but

rather

from

an

inner

circle

of

men

close

to

Muhammad. The first two caliphs, Abu-Bakr and Umar, ruled without serious opposition. They were the fathers of two of Muhammad’s

wives. But the third caliph, Uthman, husband of two of Muhammad’s daughters

and

great-grandson

of

the

Quraysh

leader

Umayyah,

aroused resentment. (See Genealogy 2.1.) His family had come late to Islam,

and

some

of

its

members

had

once

even

persecuted

Muhammad. The opponents of the Umayyads supported Ali, the husband

of

Muhammad’s

daughter

Fatimah.

After

a

group

of

discontented soldiers murdered Uthman, civil war broke out between the Umayyads and Ali’s faction. It ended when Ali was killed in 661 by one of his own erstwhile supporters. Thereafter, the caliphate remained in Umayyad hands until 750. Yet the Shi‘ah, the supporters of Ali, did not forget their leader. They became the “Shi‘ites,” faithful to Ali’s dynasty, mourning his martyrdom, shunning the “mainstream” caliphs of the other Muslims (“Sunni” Muslims, as they were later called), awaiting the arrival of the true leader – the imam – who would spring from the house of Ali. Meanwhile, the Umayyads made Damascus, previously a minor Byzantine city, into their capital. Here they adopted many of the institutions of the culture that they had conquered, employing former Byzantine officials as administrators and issuing coins like those of the Byzantines (though, in the east, they minted coins based on Persian models). Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik (who, as we have seen, won high praise from the poet al-Akhtal) turned Jerusalem – already sacred to Jews and Christians – into an Islamic holy city as well. His successor, al-Walid I (r.705–715) built major mosques (places of worship for Muslims) at Damascus, Medina, and Jerusalem. Plate 2.3 suggests

how

effortlessly

the

mosque

at

Damascus

absorbed

Byzantine motifs even as it transformed them into a new Islamic context. Here cityscapes and floral motifs drawn from Byzantine traditions were combined to depict an idealized world created by the triumph of Islam.

Plate 2.3 Damascus Great Mosque Mosaic (706–715). Byzantine artisans were hired to work along with local craftsmen to cover the mosque at Damascus with mosaics. Compare the Christian mosaics decorating San Vitale at Ravenna (Plate 1.12

on

pp.

34–35)

with

this

detail

of

the

western

portico

of

the

Damascus Great Mosque. Both mosaics boast a rich palette of greens and golds; both delight in vegetal forms; and both value symmetries. At the very top of the mosaic scene at San Vitale is an image of heaven: two angels hold a circle with the letter Alpha at the center of its glowing rays; to the viewer’s left is a palace – the image of the heavenly Jerusalem – flanked by a stylized tree; to the right is the heavenly Bethlehem, also demarcated by a tree. Similarly, the Great Mosque mosaic offers a depiction of Paradise: a garden, represented by tall, fruiting trees, and fine bejeweled palaces. If, unlike San Vitale, the mosque mosaic rejected the depiction of human figures, so too would Byzantine art in a very few years, when iconoclasm took hold there.

Genealogy 2.1 Muhammad’s Relatives and Successors to 750

Description

Arabic, the language of the Qur’an, became the official tongue of the Islamic world. As translators rendered important Greek and other texts into this newly prestigious language, it proved to be both flexible and capacious. A new literate class – composed mainly of the old Persian and Syrian elite, now converted to Islam and schooled in Arabic – created new forms of prose and poetry. Muslim scholars began to compile pious narratives about the Prophet’s sayings, or hadith. The economy quickened as Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik refurbished roads, standardized weights and measures, and helped turn the Red Sea into a busy trade route for Egyptian wheat, oil, and textiles to East Africa and Arabia. In return came gold, copper, ivory, and – requisitioned with depressing regularity by the caliph – hundreds of people captured in raids in Nubia (at the southern reaches of the Nile River).

THE MAKING OF WESTERN EUROPE No reasonable person in the year 750 would have predicted that, of the three heirs of the Roman Empire, Western Europe would, by 1500, be well on its way to dominating the world. While Byzantium cut back and reorganized, while Islam spread its language and rule over a territory that stretched nearly twice the length of the United States today, Western Europe remained an impoverished backwater. Fragmented politically and linguistically, its cities (left over from Roman antiquity) mere shells, its tools primitive, its infrastructure – what was left of Roman roads, schools, and bridges – collapsing, Europe lacked identity and cohesion. That these and other strengths did indeed eventually develop over a long period of time is a tribute in

part to the survival of some Roman traditions and institutions and in part to the inventive ways in which people adapted those institutions and created new ones to meet their needs and desires.

Impoverishment and Its Variations Taking in the whole of Western Europe around this time means dwelling long on its variety. Dominating the scene was Gaul, now taken over by the Franks; we may call it Francia. To its south were Spain (ruled first by the Visigoths, and then, after c.715, by the Muslims) and Italy (divided between the pope, the Byzantines, and the Lombards). To the north, joined to, rather than separated from, the Continent by the lick of water called the English Channel, the British Isles were home to a plethora of tiny kingdoms, about three quarters of

which

were

native

(“Celtic”)

(Angles, Saxons, and Jutes).

and

the

last

quarter

Germanic

Map 2.4 Western Europe, c.750

Description

There were clear differences between the Romanized south – Spain,

Italy,

southern

Francia

–

and

the

north.

(See

Map

2.4.)

Travelers going from England to Rome would have noticed them. There were many such travelers: some, like the churchman Benedict Biscop,

were

voluntary

pilgrims;

others

were

slaves

(generally

prisoners of war) on forced march; still others were long-distance traders, keen to find exotic objects – such as the garnets that adorn the Sutton Hoo helmet (see Plate 2.4 on p. 67) – to entice the elites at home. Making their way across England, these voyagers would have taken

still-intact

Roman

roads

as

they

passed

fenced

wooden

farmsteads much like the ones at Wijster (see pp. 23–24). Even royal estates were made of wood, however impressive in size they must

have

been.

Figure

2.2

on

p.

60

shows

an

artist’s

recreation

of

Yeavering (England) based on archaeological excavations there. Built within a landscape dominated by a great twin-peaked hill, it was occupied – and used as a burial site – for millennia without having any special regional status. In the early seventh century, however, it became a major royal estate center that included a great hall, a theater (a

feature

clearly

drawing

on

Roman

precedents),

and

a

large

enclosure probably used for keeping animals but also serviceable for defense. The estate belonged to the king of the northern kingdom of Bernicia, who probably stayed there once or twice a year, hunting in the nearby woods, feasting in the great hall, and calling his chief men together in the theater. Right at the narrow point of this wedge-shaped wooden edifice was a small platform marked by a high post; the best guess is that from this acoustically well-placed spot the king greeted foreign dignitaries and declared his judgments and decisions. Even in the absence of the king, royal officials might have used the theater in this way to carry out business in his name.

Figure 2.2 Yeavering, Northumberland, Royal Estate, 7th cent.

Description

More typically, farmsteads consisted of a relatively large house, outbuildings, and perhaps a sunken structure, its floor below the level of the soil, its damp atmosphere suitable for weaving. Ordinarily constructed in clusters of four or five, such family farmsteads made up tiny hamlets. Peasants planted their fields with barley (used to make a thick and nourishing ale) as well as oats, wheat, rye, beans, and flax. Two kinds of plows were used. One was heavy: it had a coulter and moldboard, often tipped with iron, to cut through and turn over heavy

soils. The other was a light “scratch plow,” suitable for making narrow furrows in light soils. Because the first plow was hard to turn, the fields it produced tended to be long and rectangular in shape. The lighter plow was more agile: it was used to cut the soil in one direction and then at right angles to that, producing a square field. But it worked only on light soils. There were many animals on these farms: cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, and dogs. In some cases, the peasants who worked the land and tended the animals were relatively independent, owing little to anyone outside their village. In other instances, regional lords – often kings – commanded a share of the peasants’ produce and, occasionally, labor services. But all was not pastoral or agricultural in England: here and there, and especially toward the south, were commercial settlements – real emporia. Crossing the Channel, travelers would enter northern Francia, also dotted

with

emporia

(such

as

Quentovic

and

Dorestad)

but

additionally boasting old Roman cities, now functioning mainly as religious centers. Paris, for example, was largely an agglomeration of churches:

Montmartre,

Saint-Laurent,

Saint-Martin-des-Champs

–

perhaps thirty-five churches were jammed into an otherwise nearly abandoned city. In the countryside around Paris, peasant families, each

with

their

own

plot,

tended

lands

and

vineyards

that

were

generally owned by aristocrats. Moving eastward, our voyagers would pass through thick forests and land more often used as pasture for animals than for cereal cultivation. Along the Mosel River they would find villages with fields, meadows, woods, and water courses, a few supplied with mills and churches. Some of the peasants in these villages

would

be

tenants

or

slaves

of

a

lord;

others

would

be

independent farmers who owned all or part of the land that they cultivated. Near the Mediterranean, by contrast, the terrain still had an urban feel.

Here

the

amphitheaters,

great baths,

hulks and

of

walls,

Roman

cities,

dominated

with

the

their

landscape

stone even

though, as at Byzantium, their populations were much diminished. Peasants,

settled

in

small

hamlets

scattered

throughout

the

countryside, cultivated their own plots of land. In Italy, many of these peasants

were

real

landowners;

aristocratic

landlords

were

less

important there than in Francia. The soil of Italy was lighter than in

the north, easily worked with scratch plows to produce the barley and rye (in northern Italy) and wheat (elsewhere) that were the staples – along with meat and fish – of the peasant diet. By 750 little was left of the old long-distance Mediterranean commerce of the ancient Roman world. Nevertheless, although this was an impoverished society, it was not without wealth or lively patterns of exchange. Money was still minted – increasingly in silver rather than gold. The change of metal was due in part to a shortage of gold in Europe. But it was also a nod to the importance of small-scale commercial transactions – sales of surplus wine from a vineyard, say, for which small coins were the most practical. At the same time, North Sea merchant-sailors – carrying, for example, ceramic plates and glass vessels – had begun to link together northern Francia, the east coast of England, Scandinavia, and the Baltic Sea. They probably also traded weapons and protective gear: the English warrior’s helmet in Plate 2.4 on p. 67 has close counterparts to helmets from Sweden. Brisk trade gave rise to new emporia and revivified older Roman cities along the coasts. Alongside this familiar sort of commerce a gift economy – that is, an economy of give and take – flourished. Booty was seized, tribute demanded, harvests hoarded, and coins struck, all to be redistributed to friends, followers, dependents, and the Church. Kings and other rich and powerful men and women amassed gold, silver, ornaments, and jewelry in their treasuries and grain in their storehouses to give out in ceremonies that marked their power and added to their prestige. Even the rents that peasants paid to their lords, mainly in kind, were often couched as “gifts.”

Politics and Culture If variations were plentiful in even such basic matters as material and farming conditions, the differences were magnified by political and cultural factors. We need now to take Europe kingdom by kingdom.

FRANCIA Francia was the major player, a real political entity that dominated what is today France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and much of Germany. In the seventh century, it was divided into three

related kingdoms – Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy – each of which included parts of a fourth, southern region, Aquitaine. By 700, however, the political distinctions between them were melting, and Francia was becoming one kingdom. The line of Clovis – the Merovingians – ruled these kingdoms. (See Genealogy 2.2.) The dynasty owed its longevity to biological good fortune and excellent political sense: it allied itself with the major lay aristocrats and ecclesiastical authorities of Gaul – men and women of high status, enormous wealth, and marked local power. To that alliance, the kings brought their own sources of power: a skeletal Roman

administrative

apparatus,

family

properties,

appropriated

lands once belonging to the Roman state, and the profits and prestige of leadership in war. The royal court was the focus of political life. It was not located in one fixed place but rather was constituted by an elite that moved with the king from one royal estate to another. Many of its members were young aristocrats on the rise. They ate together and hunted together (honing their warlike skills). Many of them later became bishops. The most important courtiers had official positions such as royal treasurer. Highest of all was the “mayor of the palace,” who controlled access to the king and brokered deals with aristocratic factions. Queens were an important part of the court as well. One of them, Balthild (d.680), may once have been among the unwilling captive travelers from England, as her biographer claimed. Or she may have been

an

aristocrat

whose

humility

he

wanted

to

emphasize.

He

praised her for ministering to all the men at court: “with attentive devotion she gave obedience to the king as to a master and showed herself to the princes as a mother, to the bishops as a daughter, to the young

and

immature

as

the

finest

of

9

governesses.”

When

her

husband, King Clovis II, died in 657, Balthild served as regent for her minor sons, acting, in effect, as king during this time. Meanwhile, she gave generously to churches and monasteries. In an era before formal canonization processes, Balthild was nevertheless deemed a saint by her biographer. Just as a king’s power radiated outward from his court, so too did aristocrats command their own lordly centers. Like kings, they had many “homes” at one time, scattered throughout Francia. Tending to their estates or hunting during their time at home, aristocratic men

also regularly led armed retinues to war. They proved their worth in the regular taking of booty and rewarded their faithful followers afterwards at generous banquets.

Genealogy 2.2 The Merovingians

Description

And they had children. The focus of marriage was procreation, the key to the survival of aristocratic families and the transmission of their property and power. Though churchmen had many thoughts about marriage, they had little to do with it. The clergy were not needed

to

make

a

marriage

valid,

nor

were

weddings

held

in

churches. Rather, marriage was a family affair. Parents, especially fathers, arranged marriages for their minor children, and parental consent seems to have been the norm, even for adult children. There were two sorts of marriage: in the most formal, the husband-to-be gave

his

future

bride

a

handsome

dowry

of

clothes,

bedding,

livestock, and land. Then, after the marriage was consummated, he gave his wife a morning gift of furniture and perhaps the keys to the house. Very rich men often had, in addition to their wife, one or more “concubines” at the same time. These enjoyed a less formal type of marriage, receiving a morning gift but no dowry. The wife’s role was above all to maintain the family. A woman passed from one family (that of her birth) to the next (that of her marriage) by parental fiat. When they married, women left the legal protection of their father for that of their husband. Yet wives had some freedom of action. They had considerable control over their dowries.

Some

participated

in

family

land

transactions:

sales,

donations, exchanges, and the like. Upon the death of their husbands, widows received a portion of the household property. We have seen that Balthild became a temporary ruler until her sons came of age. Although inheritances generally went from fathers to sons, many fathers left bequests to their daughters, who could then dispose of their property more or less as they liked. In 632, for example, the nun Burgundofara drew up a will giving to her monastery the land, slaves, vineyards, pastures, and forests that her father had given to her. Burgundofara’s generous piety was extraordinary only in degree. The world of kings, queens, and aristocrats intersected with that of the Church. The arrival (c.590) on the Continent of the fierce Irish monastic reformer Saint Columbanus (543–615) marked a new level of association between the two. Columbanus’s brand of monasticism, which

stressed

exile,

devotion,

and

discipline,

made

a

powerful

impact on Merovingian aristocrats. They flocked to the monasteries that he established in both Francia and Italy, and they founded new ones on their own lands in the countryside. In Francia alone there was an explosion of monasteries: between the years 600 and 700, an astonishing 320 new houses were established, most of them outside of the cities. Some of the new monks and nuns were grown men and women. Other entrants were young children, given to a monastery by their parents. This latter practice, called oblation, was well accepted

and even considered essential for the spiritual well-being of both the children and their families. The Irish monks introduced aristocrats on the Continent to a deepened religious devotion. Those who did not actively join or patronize a monastery still read – or listened to others read – books preaching penance, and they chanted the psalms. Irish and English clerics cultivated private penance; using books called “penitentials,” they reminded people of their possible sins and assigned penances, usually fasting on bread and water for a certain length of time. The Penitential of Finnian, for example, assigns six years of fasting, three of them on bread and water and the last three abstaining from wine 10

and meat, to “any cleric or woman who practices magic.”

Evidently

Finnian did not associate laymen with magic. Deepened piety did not, in this case, lead to the persecution of others – something that (as we shall see) happened in later centuries. In part, that was because the Franks were not particularly expansionist in this period. But perhaps more important, there were relatively few “others” within Francia’s borders. Michael Toch’s careful sifting of the evidence suggests (against much earlier historiography) that, apart from their presence in a handful of cities along the Mediterranean coast, there were no Jewish communities in Francia. The sources mentioning Jews – and there were many – were written not by Jews but by churchmen. For them, the Jews were not a religious group or a people but rather an abstract category against which Christianity could assert its superiority.

THE BRITISH ISLES Roman-conquered population, centuries

though

under

Britain Celts

Roman

in

the

first

preponderated,

rule,

that

century and

diversity

in

only

had the

a

diverse

nearly

increased.

four After

c.410, when the Romans pulled out of Britain, Germanic-speaking families from Saxony and elsewhere arrived piecemeal, settling on Britain’s east coast as farmers. Irish immigrants gradually settled in the west. Celtic polities survived in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Post-Roman England has traditionally been called “Anglo-Saxon.” But the label is now problematic because in the United States it has been confounded with a mythical race, white and pure. Words matter, and these words have been put to dishonest use. Americans never

were Anglo-Saxon and neither were the English. As Stephen J. Harris points out, “Anglo-Saxon England” was “a complex and shifting 11

matrix of race and ethnicity.”

There was no Anglo-Saxon “tradition”

because there was no one sort of Anglo-Saxon – nor one AngloSaxon culture. Diversity and kaleidoscopic change are the key terms for understanding the historical reality of early medieval England. Where the new peoples settled, their tastes, expectations, styles, and religious practices affected the former inhabitants, and vice versa. In

the

eighth

century,

the

monk-historian

Bede

portrayed

this

amalgamated culture as utterly pagan: early medieval England was, in 12

his words, “a barbarous, fierce, and unbelieving nation.”

But the

story that archaeology tells is more nuanced: holy sites dedicated to the

saints

established

during

the

Roman

occupation

remained

magnets long afterward for pilgrimage, burial, and settlement. Most, perhaps all, of the British Isles remained Christian. Wales was already Christian

when,

in

the

course

of

the

fifth

century,

missionaries

converted Ireland and Scotland. (Saint Patrick, apostle to the Irish, is only the most famous of these.) But post-Roman Britain’s Christianity, unlike that of Italy and Francia, was decentralized and local. Wales, Ireland, and Scotland supported

relatively

non-hierarchical

Church

organizations.

Rural

monasteries normally served as the seats of bishoprics as well as centers of population and settlement. Abbots and abbesses, often members

of

powerful

families,

enjoyed

considerable

power

and

prestige. At the end of the sixth century (597) the Roman Catholic brand of Christianity arrived in the British Isles to compete with the diverse forms

already

flourishing

there.

The

initiative

came

from

Pope

Gregory the Great who sent the monk Augustine (not the fifth-century bishop of Hippo) to the court of King Ethelbert of Kent (d.616) to convert him. According to Bede, Ethelbert was a pagan. Yet he was married

to

a

Christian

Frankish

princess,

and

he

welcomed

the

missionaries kindly: “At the king’s command they sat down and preached

the

word

of

life

to

himself

and

all

his

officials

and

companions there present.” While he refused to convert because “[I cannot] forsake those beliefs which I and the whole people of the Angles have held so long,” the king did give the missionaries housing 13

and material support.

Above all, the king let them preach. This was key: Augustine had in mind more than the conversion of a king: he wanted to set up an English Church on the Roman model, with ties to the pope and a clear hierarchy.

Successful

in

his

work

of

evangelization,

he

divided

England into territorial units (dioceses) headed by an archbishop and bishops.

Augustine

himself

became

the

first

archbishop

of

Canterbury. There he constructed the model English ecclesiastical complex: a cathedral, a monastery, and a school to train young clerics. There was nothing easy or quick about the conversion of England to the Roman type of Christianity. The old and the new Christian traditions clashed over matters as large as the organization of the Church and as seemingly small as the date of Easter. Everyone agreed that they could not be saved unless they observed the day of Christ’s Resurrection properly and on the right date. But what was the right date? Each side was wedded to its own view. A turning point came at the Synod of Whitby, organized in 664 by the Northumbrian king Oswy to decide between the Roman and Celtic dates. When Oswy became convinced that Rome spoke with the very voice of Saint Peter, the heavenly doorkeeper, he opted for the Roman calculation of the date of Easter and embraced the Roman Church as a whole. The pull of Rome – the symbol, in the new view, of the Christian religion itself – was almost physical. In the wake of Whitby, Benedict Biscop, a Northumbrian aristocrat-turned-abbot and founder of two important

English

monasteries,

Wearmouth

and

Jarrow,

made

numerous arduous trips to Rome. He brought back books, saints’ relics, liturgical vestments, and even a cantor to teach his monks the proper – the Roman – melodies in a time before written musical notation

existed.

A

century

later,

the

English

monk

Wynfrith

(672/675–754) went to Rome to get a papal commission to preach to people living east of the Rhine. Though they were already Christian, their brand of Christianity was not Roman enough for Wynfrith, who signaled Boniface.

his

own

“Roman”

identity

by

changing

his

name

to

Plate 2.4 Sutton Hoo Helmet (early 7th cent.). This helmet was discovered along with many other useful and beautiful items (including the outlines of what was once a great ship) in a burial mound at Sutton Hoo, a village in eastern England. Now missing many elements, the helmet was once entirely covered with iron plaques incised with warriors, creatures, and interlacing animals. A sloping neck guard and two hinged cheek pieces protected the wearer’s face, while the iron crest over the crown deflected blows. Descending both front and back, the crest is actually a two-headed snake, its eyes flashing with garnets. The form of the helmet, much like those made in Sweden at the same time, attests to England’s close relations with Scandinavia. The most striking aspect of this piece is the “face” formed by the nose piece, eyebrows, and mustache which – viewed another way – also forms a bird, its garnetoutlined wings doubling as the brows.

Roman Christian culture had to confront Insular traditions in the arts as in everything else. The artists of the British Isles liked to adorn flat surfaces with decorative motifs. They embellished belt buckles, helmets, brooches, and other sorts of jewelry with semi-precious stones and enlivened them with abstract patterns, often made up of interlacing creatures and animal forms. The helmet in Plate 2.4 is a striking example of the effects that they achieved. By contrast with these Insular artistic values, the Romans, as we have seen, privileged figures in the round (see Plate 1.9 on p. 22). When Benedict Biscop (and others like him) returned to England with books from Italy, they challenged scribes and artists to combine traditions. The imported books contained not only texts but also illustrations that relied, at least distantly, on late antique Roman artistic forms. Artists in the British Isles found ways to amalgamate decorative motifs with figural representation. The result was perfectly suited to flat pages. Consider

the

Book

of

Durrow,

which

was

probably

made

at

Durrow itself or at a monastery influenced by the sixth-century Irish Saint

Columba.

Not

to

be

confused

with

Columbanus,

Columba

founded the monastery of Iona (on an island off the west coast of Scotland), which, along with its daughter monasteries, became a center of literature and art. The Book of Durrow (see Plates 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7) contains the Gospels (the four canonical accounts of the life and death of Christ in the New Testament) in Latin. The model for the text and the evangelist symbols used by the artists and scribes likely came from Italy, but the artists also delighted in Celtic scrolls and spirals as well as late-Roman interlace patterns. Just as the people of the British Isles valued their traditional artistic styles, so too did they retain their native languages. In Ireland, the vernacular – the language of the people, as opposed to Latin – was turned into a written language known as Old Irish under the influence of Latin. In England, the vernacular was Old English (sometimes also known as Anglo-Saxon), and it was employed in every aspect of English life, from government to entertainment. Even Bede, a master of Latin, praised the common speech of the people, telling the story of Caedmon, a simple monk who dreamed a song in Old English about God’s creation. Bede himself provided only a Latin translation of the poem in his Ecclesiastical History, but vernacular versions

were soon available. Indeed, two manuscripts of Bede’s work from the eighth century still survive today with Caedmon’s hymn in both Latin and Old English.

Plate 2.5 The Eagle, Symbol of the Evangelist Mark, Book of Durrow (2nd half of 7th cent.). The Eagle was usually associated with John, but here it is the symbol of Mark, as in other early Gospel traditions. The idea of prefacing a text with a portrait of the author dates back to late antiquity at least, and the practice continued in many early medieval Gospel books, usually accompanied by the evangelist’s symbol, which derived from animals described in the vision of Ezekiel 1:4–11 and the Book of Revelation 4:6–8. This eagle’s multicolored and patterned plumage echoes bejeweled metalware like that of the reliquary of Theuderic (see Plate 1.10 on p. 30), which was made around the same time as the Book of Durrow. The direction of the eagle’s beak leads the reader to the next page.

Description



Plate 2.6 Carpet Page, Book of Durrow (2nd half of 7th cent.). Turning to the next page, the reader is treated to an astonishing double-page spread. At the very center of this carpet page is a cross formed by intersecting arcs. To shift attention from the leaf-like forms, the artist has painted the arms of the cross itself in bright yellow. Yet viewers had to contemplate this page very carefully to see the presence of the cross, a good preparation for slow and thoughtful reading of the text itself.

Description



Plate 2.7 First Text Page, Gospel of Saint Mark, Book of Durrow (2nd half of 7th cent.). At last, the text of Mark’s Gospel! But even here, the reader is eased into the words by the need to puzzle out the meaning of the first grand and intricate letter. In fact it is not one letter but two, combining I and N, which a smaller (yet still highly decorated) i follows, to read: “Initium evangelii Iesu Christi” (The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ).

THE IBERIAN PENINSULA The mix of cultures characteristic of the British Isles was doubly the case in the Iberian Peninsula and Italy. In Spain, especially in the south and east, Roman cities had continued to flourish after the

Visigoths Mérida,

arrived. and

the

Merchants

from

sixth-century

Byzantium

bishops

there

regularly

visited

constructed

lavish

churches and set up a system of regular food distribution. King Reccared (r.586–601) converted from Arian to Catholic Christianity, thereby cementing the ties between the king and the Hispano-Roman population, which included the great landowners and leading bishops. In 589, at the Third Council of Toledo, most of the Arian bishops followed their king by announcing their conversion to Catholicism, and the assembled churchmen enacted decrees for a united Church in Spain, starting with the provision “that the statutes of the Councils 14

and the decrees of the Roman Pontiffs be maintained.”

Here, as in

England a few decades later, Rome and the papacy became the 15

linchpins of the Christian religion.

The Roman inheritance in Visigothic Spain was clear not only in the dominance of the Hispano-Roman aristocracy and the adoption of its form of Christianity but also in the legal and intellectual culture that prevailed there. Nowhere else in Europe were Church councils so regular

or

royal

legislation

so

frequent.

Nowhere

else

were

the

traditions of classical learning so highly regarded. Only in seventhcentury Spain could a man like Isidore of Seville (c.560–636) draw on centuries of Latin learning to write the encyclopedic Etymologies, in which the essence of things was explained by their linguistic roots. Like so many others of his place and time, however, he took the opportunity to display not only his wide learning but also his sharp prejudices: [On the] heresies of the Jews (De haeresibus Iudaeorum) 1. The name “Jew” (Iudaeus)

can

be

translated

as

“confessor,”

...

for

confession

...

catches up with many of those whom wrong belief possessed earlier. 2. Hebrews (Hebraeus) are called journeyers (transitor). With this name they are reminded that they are to journey ... from worse to better, and abandon 16

their original errors.

Words like Isidore’s constituted but a small sample of the cascade of anti-Jewish writings and legislation churned out in the Visigothic Kingdom. That anti-Jewish focus has been taken to suggest a large Jewish presence on the peninsula, but there is almost no material evidence to support this claim. It is possible that, under enormous pressure, many Jews converted. Or it is possible that, as in Francia so

in Visigothic Spain, “Jew” was largely a useful abstraction for zealous Christians to rail against. On the whole, Visigothic society was high-pitched, its relatively small elite commanding private armies of warriors and peasants. It used

to

be

thought

impoverished.

that

those

Archaeology

peasants

tells

a

were

different

slaves, story,

abject

finding

and that

peasants lived in stable and well-organized communities within a few miles

of

one

another.

These

were

real

villages,

with

clearly

demarcated areas for houses, farming, and numerous storage silos. Strangely powerful yet weak at the same time were the kings. Despite their anointment (following the model of Old Testament kings, they were daubed with holy oil that gave them the status of divine election), their collection of the traditional Roman land tax (something only the Byzantines could match at the time), and their establishment

of

a

royal

capital

at

Toledo,

they

were

unable

to

establish a stable dynasty. Nearly every royal succession provoked a successful rebellion by rival noble families. When King Witiza died in 711, the civil war that followed opened the way to the Islamic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. While royal claimants competed, a large army led by Tariq ibn Ziyad acting in the name of Musa, the governor of Ifriqiya, killed all the Visigothic rivals and marched on Toledo. Its bishop fled and some of its nobles were executed. Musa and his son soon arrived with reinforcements, and between 712 and 715, as we have seen, most of the peninsula was taken over through a combination of war and diplomacy (see Map 2.4 on p. 59). The conquest of Spain was less Arab or Islamic than Berber. Musa, his son, and other generals leading the invasion were Arabs, but

the

rank-and-file

fighters

were

Berbers

from

North

Africa.

Although the Berbers were converts to Islam, they did not speak Arabic, and the Arabs considered them crude mountainfolk, only imperfectly Muslim. Perhaps a million people settled in the Iberian Peninsula in the wake of the invasions, the Arabs taking the better lands in the south, the Berbers getting the less rich properties in the center and north. Most of the conquered population consisted of Christians, along with (perhaps) a sprinkling of Jews. A thin ribbon of Christian states survived in the north. There was thus a great variety of peoples on the Iberian Peninsula. The history of Spain

would for many centuries thereafter be one of both acculturation and war.

ITALY Unlike Visigothic Spain, Italy was partitioned. In the north were Lombard kings; in the center of the peninsula was a swathe of territory claimed by the Byzantines (the Exarchate) and dominated on its southwestern end by the papacy, always hostile to the Lombard kings. To Rome’s east and south were the dukes of Benevento and Spoleto. Although theoretically the Lombard king’s officers, in fact they were virtually independent rulers. (See Map 2.5.) Although many Lombards were Catholics, others, including important kings and dukes, were Arians. The “official” religion varied with the ruler in

power.

conversion

Rather of

the

than

signal

Lombards

a to

major

political

Catholic

event,

Christianity

then,

the

occurred

gradually, ending only in the late seventh century. Partly as a result of this

slow

development,

the

Lombard

kings

never

enlisted

wholehearted support of any particular group of churchmen.

the

Map 2.5 Lombard Italy, c.750

Description

Yet the Lombard kings did not lack advantages. They controlled extensive estates, and they made use of the Roman institutions that survived in Italy. The kings made the cities their administrative bases, assigning dukes to rule from them and designating Pavia as their capital.

Recalling

emperors

like

Constantine

and

Justinian,

the

Lombard kings maintained city walls and roads and issued law codes. Yet,

the

cities

taken

over

by

the

Lombards

were

no

longer

commercially active, even though the urban centers of Byzantine Italy (the narrow strip running from Ravenna to Rome) were still alive with

trade. The Lombards also allowed Roman houses and apartment blocks

to

crumble,

their

places

to

be

taken

by

burial

plots

and

vegetable gardens. More ambitiously, they constructed churches and monasteries. The influence of both classical Roman and “barbarian” or at least “provincial” artistic sensibilities in Lombard Italy is clear in two monuments from the period: the altar of King Ratchis (r.744–749) from the church of San Giovanni at Cividale del Friuli and carved figures in Cividale’s Tempietto (i.e., small temple). Both probably date from the eighth century (though the Tempietto’s date may be later), and both involve religious themes. At first glance, they seem very different. The altar (Plate 2.8) is made of slabs of marble carved in very low relief. The sculptors, here depicting the theme of the Three Magi bringing gifts to the Christ Child, showed no interest in the

volume

and

weight

of

ordinary

human

bodies.

Nevertheless,

considering that most Lombard art was purely decorative, the figures on the altar may be seen as a real concession to Roman traditions.

Plate 2.8 The Altar of Ratchis (737–744). The sculptors of this marble slab – one side of a four-sided carved altar – were interested above all in pattern and transcendence. The three magi advance toward Mother and Child in lock step, their short tunics forming identical triangles, the folds of their clothing turned into incised lines. Mary, mother of God, and the Christ Child look outward, beyond the viewer, interacting with no one. The otherworldly character of the relief is stressed by the landscape – three “half daisy-wheels” rising from a decorative border – and an angel hovering above. A tiny Joseph, husband of Mary, hovers mid-air behind her throne. Originally the altar was studded with gems and was brightly painted in blues, yellows, and reds; traces of polychrome remain. An opening in the back panel of the altar allowed worshippers to view the relics within. A dedicatory inscription running along the top border of the altar declares that it was King Ratchis’s gift to San Giovanni (Saint John).

The Tempietto (Plate 2.9), located next door, is in a very different style. Unlike the Mary of the Ratchis Altar, the women here have

weight and volume. When they were originally made, they were part of an array of such female saints all along the Tempietto’s walls. One turns toward another (see the two figures flanking the open space, the lunette). Yet even in the case of these Tempietto carvings, the artists’ interest in design and decoration is clear: above and below the saints are decorative borders with flowers that recall the “daisy-wheels” of the Altar of Ratchis (Plate 2.8), and their robes fall into folds created by incised lines.

Plate 2.9 The Cividale Tempietto (8th cent.?). These stucco figures stand above the main entrance of the small church of Santa Maria in Valle, originally an oratory for the church of San Giovanni.

Description

Cividale was not the only Lombard center to boast significant artistic

activity.

The

monastery

of

San

Salvatore

at

Brescia,

for

example, also built in the eighth century, was comparably decorated. The importance of both classical and Roman provincial styles in Lombard Italy suggests that the elites there welcomed artists not only from Europe but also from the Byzantine and Islamic worlds. This

should not be surprising: Byzantium ran through the middle of Italy, while the Umayyad caliphs, not far from Sicily and Southern Italy, were themselves enthralled with Romano-Byzantine traditions, as we saw in the case of their mosque at Damascus (Plate 2.3 on p. 54). Emboldened by their achievements in the north, the Lombard kings tried to make some headway against the independent dukes of southern Italy. But that move threatened to surround Rome with a unified Lombard kingdom. The pope, fearing for his position, called on the Franks for help.

THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE: THE POPE At the end of the sixth century, the pope’s position was ambiguous. As bishop of Rome, he wielded real secular power within the city as well as a measure of spiritual leadership farther afield. Yet in other ways he was subordinate to Byzantium. Pope Gregory the Great, whom we have already met a number of times, laid the foundations for the papacy’s later spiritual and temporal ascendency. During Gregory’s tenure, the pope became the greatest landowner in Italy; he organized Rome’s defense and paid for its army; he heard court cases, made

treaties,

expedition

he

and sent

provided to

welfare

England

was

services. only

a

The

small

missionary part

of

his

involvement in the rest of Europe. A prolific author of spiritual works, Gregory digested and simplified the ideas of Church Fathers such as Saint Augustine, making them accessible to a wider audience. In his Moralia in Job, he set forth a model of biblical exegesis that was widely imitated for centuries. His handbook for clerics, Pastoral Care, went hand in hand with his practical Church reforms in Italy, where he tried to impose regular episcopal elections and enforce prohibitions

against

clerical

marriages.

At

the

same

time,

even

Gregory was only one of many bishops in the Byzantine Empire. For a long time, the emperor’s views on dogma, discipline, and Church

administration

largely

prevailed

at

Rome.

However,

this

authority began to unravel in the seventh century. In 691/692, the Quinisext council did not just ban dancing on the first day of March (see p. 45), but drew up 102 rules of discipline for both churchmen and laity. Emperor Justinian II (r.685–695; 705–711) convened the council with the hope that the pope would attend, but Pope Sergius I (687–701) did not come, nor would he agree to the canons produced

by the council. He objected in particular to two, one permitting priests to have wives if their marriages had occurred before ordination and the other prohibiting fasting on Saturdays in Lent (which the Roman Church required). Outraged by Sergius’s refusal, Justinian tried to arrest the pope, but the imperial army in Italy (theoretically under the emperor’s command) came to the pontiff’s aid instead. Justinian’s arresting officer was reduced to cowering under the pope’s bed. Clearly Constantinople’s influence and authority over Rome had become

tenuous.

Sheer

distance

as

well

as

diminishing

imperial

power in Italy meant that the popes had in effect become the leaders of non-Lombard Italy. The gap between Byzantium and the papacy widened in the early eighth century, when Emperor Leo III tried to increase the taxes on papal property to pay for his wars against the Arabs. The papacy responded by leading a general tax revolt. Meanwhile, Leo’s fierce policy of iconoclasm collided with the pope’s tolerance of images. Increasing friction with Byzantium meant that when the pope felt threatened by the Lombard kings, as he did in the mid-eighth century, he looked elsewhere for support. Pope Stephen II (752–757) appealed to the Franks – not to the Merovingians, who had just lost the throne, but to Pippin III, the king who had taken the royal crown. Pippin listened to the pope’s entreaties and marched into Italy with an army to fight the Lombards. The new Frankish/papal alliance would change the map of Europe in the coming decades.

*

*

*

*

*

The “fall” of the Roman Empire meant the rise of its heirs. In the East, the Muslims swept out of Arabia but drew on many Roman governmental and administrative traditions where they conquered. The bit of the Eastern Roman Empire that they did not take – the part ruled from Constantinople – still considered itself the real heir of Rome

(and

would

always

do

so)

even

though

historians

call

it

Byzantium. In the West, impoverished kingdoms looked to the city of Rome for religion, language, culture, and inspiration. However much East and West, Christian and Muslim, would come to deviate from and hate one another, they could not change the fact of shared parentage.

MATERIAL CULTURE: FORGING MEDIEVAL SWORDS The medieval sword was more than a weapon on which the warrior’s life depended. It had magical, sacred, even moral significance. Usually expensive, it was available only to richer men and often handed down over generations. Medieval epic poetry sometimes made swords their very focus. Consider the story of Sigurd (or Siegfried) in the Volsunga Saga. His father’s sword, Gram (in epic tales the hero’s sword had names such as Excalibur and Durendal), broke in two, but the swordsmith Regin forged the two halves together, making Gram better than ever. Now unbreakable, it made possible Sigurd’s slaying of the treasure-guarding dragon, Fafnir. A carved wooden panel, originally part of a twelfth-century (or perhaps early thirteenth-century) church portal in Norway, shows one artist’s view of how Gram was forged (see Plate 2.10). The carvings seem to display a “patternwelded” blade, an early technique in which twisted strips of natural steel (iron with heterogeneous carbon content) and wrought iron (iron low in carbon) were welded

together

on

a

forge

fire

at

a

temperature

of

no

less

than

2,100°F/1,150°C. The result was a distinctive serpentine pattern on the blade’s surface and the unique attributes of durability and resistance to fracture. The sword in the carvings also shows a “fuller,” a groove that runs along almost the entire length of the blade to make the sword lighter. Temperature control was key during the forging process. The lower roundel in Plate 2.10 shows an assistant (or perhaps Sigurd) manning two bellows. These blowing devices – generally made of wood and leather – provided constant air flow into the forge to keep the fire going. The swordsmith used heat-control techniques (and not just mechanical ones, like hammering) to modify the distribution of carbon inside the blade. He repeatedly quenched and then tempered the blade. Quenching had to be performed when the blade was cherry red by rapidly immersing it in cool water (or sometimes brine or oil) to improve its hardness, while tempering called for the blade to be reheated at lower temperatures to relieve brittleness. Among the most remarkable swords from the period 700 to 1200 were those featuring blades in which the fuller sported an iron inlay with Latin lettering. The

inscription

symbols

[+])

ULFBERHT

has

been

(variously

found

on

spelled

many

such

and

accompanied

swords

throughout

by

cross

Europe.

Scholars have long debated the meaning of Ulfberht. Ewart Oakeshott has argued that this likely was the name of a Frankish blacksmith operating in the lower or middle Rhine area (Germany). If so, Ulfberht founded a swordproduction company that long outlived him, its products spreading elsewhere through trade. But Mikko Moilanen has recently argued that the composition of such swords was too diverse to have been produced in one place. While the Norwegian portal romanticized the making of the blade, by the ninth century whole workshops were dedicated to the task, often employing slaves to operate

both forge and bellows. Some produced very fine blades, such as the

ULFBERHT

shops, but if illiterate slaves did the actual forging, this may explain the many variants of the Ulfberht signatures. In Plate 2.11, for example, missing the

R.

ULFBERHT

is

On the other hand, if Ulfberht was a “brand name” for a certain

type of high-quality sword, then its precise spelling might have varied over time or have been different in different regions. It’s also possible that variations were due to accidents in the manufacturing process.

Plate 2.10 The Sigurd Portal, Hylestad Stave Church, Norway (12th–13th cent.). Shown here is the right-hand column of the portal, which reads from bottom to top. At the bottom, Gram is being forged. In the middle roundel, Sigurd (with the helmet) tests the sword, while in the top roundel he slays the dragon Fafnir.

A

Carolingian

Psalter

illustration

sheds

light

on

the

final

step

in

the

production of a sword: sharpening the blade. Plate 2.12 shows two techniques. On the right, the side where the psalmist himself stands inspired by a winged angel above, members of the army of the righteous sharpen a sword on a handoperated rotary grindstone. That was the most up-to-date method, and this drawing is the first we have of it. On the left, the enemy army, the “wicked,” as the psalmist puts it, uses an “old-fashioned” whetstone. The artist seems to be saying that virtue and advanced technology go hand in hand. The invention of the blast furnace, a new technology for smelting iron ores, allowed for transformations in the production of weaponry, and – in particular – made all-steel swords a reality. Scholars now seem to agree that prototypes of this kind of shaft furnace were probably introduced earlier than c.1350 (the traditional

date).

It

was

in

use

at

some

point

between

the

eleventh

and

thirteenth century in central Swabia (southwest Germany). However, from the late fourteenth century, it heralded an “industrial revolution.” The transition from

the

traditional

direct

process

smelting

furnace

to

the

blast

furnace

occurred when shafts were pitched higher and made larger and air was blasted into the furnace with water-powered bellows.

Plate 2.11 Ulfberht Sword (9th cent.). This sword was discovered in 1960 in the Rhine River near Mannheim (Germany).

The furnace temperature could now go far above 2,100°F/1,150°C (the melting point of cast iron) and even up to the melting point of pure iron (2,795°F/1,535°C). This method produced massive quantities of liquid cast iron (or “pig iron”): a single blast furnace could yield up to nine tons of iron from a single “charge” – the load of iron ore and charcoal fed into the top of the furnace. The high carbon content (up to 3–4 per cent) in the liquid cast iron was then reduced in a refining furnace to obtain high quality wrought iron and/or natural steel. With these sweeping, “proto-industrial” improvements, medieval weaponry could include steel plate armor, wrought iron bombards (cannons that hurled stones) and handguns, and cast iron cannons, paving the way to modern warfare.

Plate 2.12 The Utrecht Psalter (first half of 9th cent.). This drawing of the two techniques of blade-sharpening depicts a passage in Psalm 64 (Douay 63):1–4, “Preserve my life from dread of the enemy, hide me from the secret plots of the wicked, from the scheming of evildoers, who whet their tongues like swords, who aim bitter words like arrows, shooting from ambush at the blameless.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY Moilanen, Mikko. Marks of Fire, Value and Faith: Swords with Ferrous Inlays in Finland during the Late Iron Age (ca. 700–1200 Medieval Archaeology in Finland, 2015.

AD).

Turku: Society for

Oakeshott, Ewart, Ian G. Peirce, and Lee A. Jones. Swords of the Viking Age. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2002. Williams, Alan. The Sword and the Crucible: A History of the Metallurgy of European Swords up to the 16th Century. Leiden: Brill, 2012.

For practice questions about the text, maps, plates, and other features – plus suggested answers – please go to www.utphistorymatters.com There you will also find all the maps, genealogies, and figures used in the book.

FURTHER READING Al-Azmeh, Aziz. The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allah and His People. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Brown, Peter. The Ransom of the Soul: Afterlife and Wealth in Early Western Christianity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Brubaker, Leslie, and John Haldon. Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era c.680–850: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Cosentino, Salvatore, ed. A Companion to Byzantine Italy. Leiden: Brill, 2021. Dell’Elicine, Eleonora, and Céline Martin, eds. Framing Power in Visigothic Society: Discourses, Devices, and Artifacts. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. Effros, Bonnie, and Isabel Moreira, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Esders, Stefan, Yitzhak Hen, Pia Lucas, and Tamar Rotman, eds. The Merovingian Kingdoms and the Mediterranean World: Revisiting the Sources. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. Evans, Helen C., with Brandie Ratliff. Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition, 7th– 9th Century. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012. Fentress, Elizabeth, and Hassan Limane, eds. Volubilis après Rome [Volubilis after Rome]. Leiden: Brill, 2019. Fleming, Robin. Britain after Rome: The Fall and Rise, 400 to 1070. London: Penguin, 2010. Harris, Stephen J. Race and Ethnicity in Anglo-Saxon Literature. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Howard-Johnston, James. The Last Great War of Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Hunt, Guy, and Elizabeth Fentress. Volubilis. Updated by Dan Taylor. https://sitedev olubilis.org/. Kreiner, Jamie. Legions of Pigs in the Early Medieval West. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020. Marsham, Andrew, ed. The Umayyad World. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2021. O’Hara, Alexander, and Ian Wood, trans. and eds. Jonas of Bobbio: Life of Columbanus, Life of John of Réomé, and Life of Vedast. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2017. Rambaran-Olm, Mary, “Misnaming the Medieval: Rejecting ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Studies.” History Workshop (November 4, 2019). bit.ly/ 3ay0qcd. Reynolds, Gabriel Said, ed. The Qur’an in Its Historical Context. Abingdon: Routledge, 2008. Robinson, Chase F. ‘Abd al-Malik. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Rouighi, Ramzi. Inventing the Berbers: History and Ideology in the Maghrib. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019. Stathakopoulos, Dionysios. A Short History of the Byzantine Empire. London: I.B. Tauris, 2014. Stevens, Susan T., and Jonathan P. Conant, eds. North Africa under Byzantium and Early Islam. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2016. Toch, Michael. The Economic History of European Jews: Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Trinity College Dublin. “Book of Durrow.” Digital Collections, The Library of Trinity College Dublin. https://doi.org/10.48495/wm117t53k.

__________ 1

For “Greek fire,” see “Reading through Looking,” in Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic World, 3rd ed., ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018), pp. X–XII.

2

The Quinisext Council, Canon 62, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 60–62.

3

Synod of 754, in A Short Medieval Reader, ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023), pp. 27–30 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 62–66.

4

Qur’an Sura 96 (“The Embryo”), in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 33–34 or in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 66–69.

5

The five pillars are: 1) the zakat, a tax to be used for charity; 2) Ramadan, a month of fasting and self-restraint; 3) the hajj, an annual pilgrimage to Mecca to be made at least once in a believer’s lifetime; and 4) the salat, formal worship at

least three times a day (later increased to five), including 5) the shahadah, or profession of faith: “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is His prophet.” 6

The Treaty of Tudmir, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 41–42 or in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 78–79.

7

Letters to ‘Abd Allah b. As‘ad, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 79–82.

8

Al-Akhtal, The Tribe Has Departed, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 82–85.

9

The Life of Queen Balthild, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 42–45 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 88–92.

10 Penitential of Finnian, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 85–87. 11 Stephen J. Harris, Race and Ethnicity in Anglo-Saxon Literature (New York: Routledge, 2003), p. 1. 12 Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 45–50 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 95–103. 13 Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 45–50 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 95–103. 14 The Third Council of Toledo, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 44–48. 15 The word “papacy” is an abstraction referring to the office and jurisdiction of the pope. 16 Isidore of Seville, Etymologies 8.4, in The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, trans.

Stephen

A.

Barney,

W.J.

Lewis,

J.A.

Beach,

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 174.

and

Oliver

Berghof

THREE CREATING NEW IDENTITIES (c.750–c.900)

CHAPTER

THREE

HIGHLIGHTS Abbasid dynasty 750 Displaces the Umayyads, though equally Sunni, signaling a shift of Islamic civilization from the West (Syria) to the East (Baghdad).

Pippin III 751–768 First Carolingian king, ruler of Francia.

Charlemagne (Charles the Great) 768–814 Ruler of Francia, creates the Carolingian Empire.

Coronation of Charlemagne 800 Crowned emperor by the pope on Christmas Day, Charlemagne sets a precedent for imperial rule in France and Germany that lasts for centuries.

Iconoclasm ends 843 The cult of images at Byzantium is reinstated.

Treaty of Verdun 843 Divides the Carolingian Empire into three parts, defining the configuration of Western Europe even today.

Bulgarian khan converts to Christianity c.864 Along with the duke of Moravia, the khan is the first of East Central European rulers to convert to Christianity. Moravia opts for the Roman form, while Bulgaria chooses to follow that of the Byzantines.

In the second half of the eighth century the periodic outbreaks of the Plague of Justinian, which had devastated half of the globe for two centuries, undeniable

came

to

an

upswing

end.

in

In

their

population,

wake

land

came

a

cultivation,

gradual and

but

general

prosperity. At Byzantium an empress took the throne, in the Islamic world the Abbasids displaced the Umayyads, while in Francia the Carolingians deposed the Merovingians. New institutions of war and peace,

learning,

and

culture

developed,

giving

each

culture

–

Byzantine, Islamic, and European – its own characteristic identity.

BYZANTIUM: FROM TURNING WITHIN TO CAUTIOUS EXPANSION By 750 Byzantium had turned its back on the world: its iconoclasm isolated it from other Christians; its strategiai focused its military operations

on

internal

defense;

and

its

abandonment

of

classical

learning set it apart from its own past. By 900, all this had changed. Byzantium was iconophile (icon-loving), aggressive, and cultured.

New Icons, New Armies, New Territories Within the Byzantine Empire, iconoclasm sowed dissension. Some men and women continued to venerate icons even in the face of persecution and humiliation. The tide turned in 780 when Leo IV died and his widow, Irene, became head of the Byzantine state as

regent for her son Constantine VI. (Later she became sole ruler 797– 802 after her son was deposed.) Historians use to think that Irene had always been iconophile. It is more likely (as Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon argue) that she had been indifferent to the issue. The council that she called at Nicaea in 787 to condemn iconoclasm recognized political reality: most people in the provinces were deeply attached to icons, and so were the other patriarchs, not least the pope at Rome. But the council of 787 went further than many iconophiles liked: it actually created a cult of images. All Christians were to prostrate themselves before icons, kiss them, and keep them lit perpetually. No wonder that there was a backlash, and a partial ban on icons was put into effect between 815 and 843. At that point the iconoclastic period definitively came to an end. With

that

end

came

changes

in

the

army,

as

the

old

guard,

supporters of iconoclasm, were replaced. And even before that, the system of territorial strategiai had been reformed. That system had given too much power to a few generals who dominated their regions and often rebelled against imperial power. In the eighth century, the emperors divided the imperial army into smaller regional units (called themes: themata; sing. thema) led by less powerful generals (still called

strategoi).

immediate

Drawing

neighborhood,

the the

recruits emperors

for

each

made

unit

the

from

nearby

its

rural

communities pay for the equipment of any soldiers unable to foot the bill. Thus rooted in the rural landscape, the theme’s very organization made clear how fully the once city-based Roman East had become rural. One key element of the newly reformed army was not, however, based in the countryside: the tagmata (sing. tagma). Created by Emperor regiments

Constantine of

heavy

V

(r.741–775),

cavalry.

At

first

they

consisted

deployed

of

mobile

largely

around

Constantinople itself to shore up the emperors, the tagmata were eventually used in cautious frontier battles. Under the ninth- and tenth-century emperors, they helped Byzantium to expand. Throughout the ninth century, the Byzantines and Bulgarians vied for domination in Greece and the Balkans. By the first half of the tenth century, the region was fairly evenly divided (see Map 3.1). Compared to its size in around 700, the Byzantine Empire had done well, as a comparison of Map 3.1 with Map 2.2 on p. 43 makes clear.

Another glance at the two maps reveals a second area of modest expansion on Byzantium’s eastern front. In the course of the ninth century the Byzantines worked out a strategy of skirmish warfare in Anatolia.

When

Muslim

raiding

parties

attacked,

the

strategoi

evacuated the population, burned the crops, and, while sending out a few troops to harass the invaders, largely waited out the raid within their local fortifications. By 860, the threat of invasion was largely over (though the menace of Muslim navies – on Sicily and southern Italy, for example – remained very real). In 900, Emperor Leo VI (r.886–912) was confident enough to go on the offensive, sending the tagmata in the direction of Tarsus. The raid was a success, and in its wake at least one princely family in Armenia broke off its alliance with the Arabs, entered imperial service, and ceded its principality to Byzantium. Reorganized as the theme of Mesopotamia, it was the first of a series of new themes that Leo created in an area that had been largely a no-man’s-land between the Islamic and Byzantine worlds. The

rise

of

the

tagmata

eventually

had

the

unanticipated

consequence of downgrading the themata. The soldiers of the themes did the “grunt work” – the inglorious job of skirmish warfare – without much honor or (probably) extra pay. The tagmata were the professionals, gradually taking over most of the fighting, especially as the need to defend the interior of Anatolia receded. By the same token, the troops of the themes became increasingly inactive, and the strategoi, whose original job had been to lead the themes, gradually also became regional governors. These were new men, not drawn from the traditional elites. They formed a military aristocracy that mirrored (as we shall see) the rise of a similar class in Europe and the Islamic world.

Map 3.1 The Byzantine and Bulgarian Empires, c.920

Description

Christianity and the Rise of East Central Europe To the north of Byzantium was a huge swathe of territory stretching to the Baltic Sea. New groups, mainly of Slavic and Turkic origins, entered, created ephemeral political entities, and then disappeared. For a time, much of the whole region was dominated by the Avars, Turkic-speaking warrior pastoralists who created a great empire on the Pannonian Plain. (See Map 3.2.) But the Avars were wiped out by the Franks in 796 (see below, p. 104).

Map 3.2 The Avar Khaganate, 7th–8th cent.

Description

Thereafter, East Central Europe took political shape like a carpet unrolled from south to north; Bulgaria was the first to become a fairly permanent state, Lithuania the last. State formation went hand in hand with Christianization. In the ninth century, Byzantines (Orthodox Christians)

and

Franks

(Roman

advantage of the new political

Catholics)

stability

in

competed

the

region.

to

take

For these

proselytizers, spreading the Gospel had not only spiritual but also political advantages: it was a way to bring border regions under their respective

spheres

of

influence.

For

the

fledgling

East

Central

European states, conversion to Christianity meant new institutions to buttress the ruling classes, recognition by one or another of the prestigious

heirs

opportunities.

of

Rome,

and

enhanced

economic

and

military

The process of Christianization began in Moravia and Bulgaria (see Map 3.4 on p. 105). Moravian Duke Ratislav (r.846–870) made a bid for autonomy from Frankish hegemony by calling on Byzantium for

missionaries.

The

imperial

court

was

ready.

Two

brothers,

Constantine (later called Cyril) and Methodius, set out in 863 armed with

translations

of

the

Gospels

and

liturgical

texts.

Born

in

Thessalonica, they well knew the Slavic languages of Moravia and Bulgaria,

which

had

been

purely

oral.

Constantine

devised

an

alphabet using Greek letters to represent the sounds of one Slavic dialect (the “Glagolitic” alphabet). He then added Greek words and grammar where the Slavic lacked Christian vocabulary and suitable expressions. The resulting language, later called Old Church Slavonic, was an effective tool for conversion. The Byzantine Church was willing

to

work

with

different

regional

linguistic

and

cultural

traditions. This contrasted with the Roman Church, which insisted that the Gospels and liturgy be in Latin. Even so, in the end Moravia opted for Rome. But the Byzantine brand of Christianity prevailed in Bulgaria, Serbia, and later (see Chapter 4) Rus’. The hostile relations between the Bulgar rulers and the Byzantine emperors diminished, and around 864, Khan Boris (r.852–889) not only converted to Christianity under Byzantine emperor

auspices

of

the

but

time,

also

adopted

Michael

III

the

name

of

(r.842–867),

the

Byzantine

becoming

Boris-

Michael. It made sense for Bulgaria to end up in the Byzantine camp. The Bulgar

khan

pastoralists

governed

and

a

large

two

disparate

Christian

peoples:

population

of

Bulgar

warrior-

Greek-speaking

former Byzantines. For those, he was obliged to take on the trappings of a Byzantine ruler. He employed Greeks to administer his state, used Greek officials in his writing-office, authenticated his documents 1

with Byzantine-style seals, and adopted Byzantine court ceremonies.

In addition, in the course of the ninth century, Bulgar contact with Byzantines increased as a result of Greek refugees fleeing – and warprisoners being forced – into the Bulgar state. The religion of these newcomers began to “rub off”

on

the

ruling

classes.

Finally,

as

questions Boris-Michael put to the pope in 866 suggest, the pagan religion of the Bulgars involved practices rather than dogma. It was therefore possible (though hardly easy) to convert by exchanging one

sort of act with another: “When you used to go into battle,” the pope replied, “you indicated that you carried the tail of a horse as your military emblem, and you ask what you should carry now in its place. 2

What else, of course, but the sign of the cross?” pope,

Boris

made

clear

that

he

had

no

By writing to the

intention

of

becoming

subservient to Byzantium. Similarly, he arranged for an archbishop independent of Constantinople to live near him at Pliska, his capital city.

Cultural Flowering at Byzantium The creation of the Glagolitic alphabet in the mid-ninth century was just one of many scholarly and educational initiatives taking place in the Byzantine Empire in the ninth century. Constantinople had always had schools, books, and teachers dedicated above all to training civil servants. But in the eighth century the number of bureaucrats was dwindling, schools were decaying, and books, painstakingly written out

on

papyrus,

were

disintegrating.

Ninth-century

confidence

reversed this trend, while fiscal stability and surplus wealth in the treasury greased the wheels. So did competition with the rulers and elites

of

the

Islamic

world,

who

supported

the

translations

of

hundreds of classical Greek texts into Arabic. Emperor Theophilus (r.829–842) opened a public school in the palace headed by Leo the Mathematician,

a

master

of

geometry,

mechanics,

medicine,

and

philosophy. Controversies over iconoclasm sent churchmen scurrying to the writings of the Church Fathers to find passages that supported their cause. With the end of iconoclasm in 843, the monasteries, staunch defenders of icons, garnered renewed prestige and gained new recruits. All of this intellectual and religious activity required more books. Papyrus was no longer easily available from Egypt, and paper was known only in the Islamic world. The new books produced in the Byzantine

Empire

were

made

out

of

parchment

–

animal

skins

scraped and treated to create a good writing surface. (See Material Culture: The Making of an Illuminated Manuscript on pp. 249–51.) Far

more

expensive

than

papyrus

or

paper,

parchment

was

nevertheless much more durable. Books of this period were not printed, since printing was unknown in the West until around 1450.

Rather, books were written by hand; they were “manuscripts” from manus = hand and scriptus = written. This was taxing work, and scribes

often

shared

in

the

production

of

just

one

manuscript.

Practical need gave impetus to the creation of a new kind of script: minuscule. This was made up of lower-case letters, written in cursive, the letters strung together. It was faster and easier to write than the formal capital uncial letters that had previously been used. Words were newly separated by spaces, making them easier to read. A general cultural revival was clearly under way by the middle of the

century.

As

a

young

man,

Photius,

later

patriarch

of

Constantinople (r.858–867; 877–886), had already read hundreds of books, including works of history, literature, and philosophy. As patriarch, he gathered a circle of scholars around him; wrote sermons, homilies, and theological treatises; and tutored Emperor Leo VI. He taught Constantine-Cyril, the future missionary to the Slavs, who had already made a name for himself in his home town, Thessalonica. The new importance of classical Greek texts helped inspire an artistic revival. Even during the somber years of iconoclasm, artistic activity did not entirely end at Byzantium. But the new exuberance and sheer proliferation of mosaics, manuscript illuminations, ivories, and enamels after 870 suggest a new era. Sometimes called the Macedonian Renaissance, after the ninth- and tenth-century imperial dynasty that fostered it, the new movement found its models in both the

hierarchical

style

that

was

so

important

during

the

pre-

iconoclastic period (see Plate 1.12 on pp. 34–35) and the natural style of classical art (see Plate 1.1 on p. 12).

Plate 3.1 Christ on the Cross amid Saints (9th–early 10th cent.). Today this is the front cover of a liturgical book, joined to a matching portrayal of Mary, Mother of God, serving as the back cover. Perhaps originally the two together formed an icon diptych.

Plate 3.1 harks back to the hierarchical style. Christ is entirely flat and perpendicular except for his bent head. Images of the saints and angels appear in roundels made of cloisonné enamel and rimmed with pearls. The figures are complex and glowing, their richness set off by the simplicity of the silver-gilt flat surface of the plaque and its frame, which is made of cut glass and beads of gold and pearl. No one looks at anyone else; the figures are totally isolated from one another. The

artist is far more interested in patterns and color than in delineating bodies.

At

the

same

time,

their

very

weightlessness

suggests

a

permanent, transcendental reality, so that Christ’s tragic crucifixion becomes as triumphant as Justinian’s procession at Ravenna. In Plate 3.2, however, a very different – and more classical – artistic spirit is at play. Painted in a manuscript of homilies (sermons) given by Gregory of Nazianzus, a revered figure of the Byzantine Church, the figures gesture and interact in a landscape beneath a hailfilled sky. It is true that the hail is depicted as a polka-dotted veil, and the picture’s frame is made of decorative curls of ribbon. But it is in just this way that the Byzantines melded classical traditions to their overriding need to represent transcendence. Not surprisingly, the same period saw the revival of monumental architecture. Emperor Theophilus was known for the splendid palace that he commissioned on the outskirts of Constantinople, and Basil I was famous as a builder of churches. Rich men from the court and Church imitated imperial tastes, constructing palaces, churches, and monasteries of their own.

Plate 3.2 Gregory of Nazianzus Preaches on the Plague of Hail, Gregory’s Homilies (c.880). There is a human-interest story behind this miniature, which illustrates silence.”

Gregory’s There

had

Homily

16:

been

hailstorm

a

“On

the in

plague 373

of

that

hail

ruined

and the

his

father’s

harvests

in

Nazianzus, a small town in the province of Cappadocia. Gregory’s father, who as local bishop should have delivered the sermon, was too depressed by the events to do so. Gregory preached in his stead. In the miniature, the hail falls from the sky, a rare medieval portrayal of a real natural disaster. Below are three groups: on the left are Gregory and his father, in the middle are men – villagers, no doubt – and to their right are women. Gregory’s father hides his hands beneath his cloak to show that he cannot preach; Gregory gestures with his right hand to indicate that he is speaking. The villager in red asks for an official response to the disaster; the others indicate their distress. In the homily, Gregory admits the horror of the event, attributes it to God’s just chastisement of sinners, and counsels weeping, prayer, and confession.

THE SHIFT TO THE EAST IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD Just as at Byzantium the imperial court determined both culture and policies, so too in the Islamic world of the ninth century the caliph and his court functioned as the center of power. The Abbasids, who ousted the Umayyad caliphs in 750, moved their capital city to Iraq (part of the former Persia) and attempted to step into the shoes of the Sasanid king of kings, the “shadow of God on earth.”

The Abbasid Reconfiguration Years of Roman rule had made Byzantium relatively homogeneous. Nothing was less true of the Islamic world, made up of territories wildly diverse in geography, language, and political, religious, and social

traditions.

Each

tribe,

family,

and

region

had

its

own

expectations and desires. The Umayyads paid little heed. Their power base was Syria, formerly a part of Byzantium. There they rewarded their hard-core followers and took the lion’s share of conquered land for themselves. They expected every other district to send its taxes to their coffers at Damascus. This annoyed regional leaders, even though they probably managed to keep most of the taxes that they raised. Moreover, with no claims to the religious functions of an imam, the Umayyads could never gain the adherence of the followers of Ali. Soon still other groups began to complain. Where was the equality of believers preached in the Qur’an? The Umayyads privileged an elite; Arabs

who

had

expected

a

fair

division

of

the

spoils

were

disappointed. So too were non-Arabs who converted to Islam: they discovered that they had still to pay the old taxes of their nonbelieving days. The

discontents

festered,

and

two

main

centers

of

resistance

emerged: Khurasan (today eastern Iran) and Iraq. (See Map 3.3.) Both had been part of the Persian Empire; the rebellion represented the convergence of old Persian and newly “Persianized” Arab factions. In the 740s this defiant coalition at Khurasan decided to support the Abbasid family. This was an extended kin group with deep-rooted claims to the caliphate, tracing its lineage back to the very uncle who had cared for the orphaned Muhammad. With militant supporters, considerable

money,

organization,

the

and

the

Abbasids

backing

organized

of an

a

powerful

army

in

propaganda

Khurasan

and,

marching undefeated into Iraq, picked up more support there. In 750 the last Umayyad caliph, Marwan II, abandoned by almost everyone and on the run in Egypt, was killed in a short battle. Al-Saffah was then solemnly named the first Abbasid caliph. The new dynasty signaled a revolution. The Abbasids recognized the crucial centrality of Iraq and built their capital city, Baghdad, there. (Briefly, in the late-ninth century, they relocated to Samarra, 70 miles north.) The Abbasids took the title of imam and even, at one point, wore the green color of the Shi‘ites. (For the Abbasids, see Genealogy 3.1.) Yet, as they became entrenched, the Abbasids in turn created their own elite, under whom other groups chafed. In the eighth century most

of

their

provincial

governors,

for

example,

came

from

the

Abbasid family itself. When building Baghdad, Caliph al-Mansur

(r.754–775) allotted important tracts of real estate to his Khurasan military leaders. In the course of time, as Baghdad prospered and land prices rose, the Khurasani came to constitute a new, exclusive, and jealous elite. Even so, the Abbasids succeeded in centralizing their control more fully than the Umayyads had done, secure in their ability to collect revenues from their many provinces. That control, however, was uneven. Until the beginning of the tenth century, the Abbasid caliphs generally could count on ruling Iraq (their “headquarters”), Syria, Khurasan, and Egypt. But they never conquered the Iberian Peninsula or the Berbers of Morocco, and they lost real (though not nominal) power over Ifriqiya (today Tunisia) by about 800. In the course of the tenth century, they would lose effective authority even in their heartlands. That, however, was in the future (see Chapter 4).

Map 3.3 The Islamic World, c.800

Description

Whatever

sway

the

Abbasids

had

depended

largely

on

their

armies. Unlike the Byzantines, the Abbasids did not need soldiers to stave off external enemies or to expand outwards. (The caliphs led raids to display their prowess, not to take territory. The serious naval wars that took Sicily from Byzantium were launched from Ifriqiya, virtually independent of the caliphs.) Rather, the Abbasids needed

troops

to

collect

taxes

in

areas

already

conquered

but

weakly

controlled. Well into the ninth century the caliphs’ troops were paid, but not mustered, by them. Generals recruited their own troops from their home districts, tribes, families, and clients. When the generals were loyal to the caliphs, this military system worked well. In the dark days of civil war, however, when two brothers fought over the caliphate after the death of Harun al-Rashid (r.786–809), no one controlled the armies. Turkish warriors captured from the Asian steppes made and unmade the caliphs until, beginning in the 870s, the caliphs found a way to ensure loyal Turkish warriors by capturing young boys from the steppes and training them militarily and politically for service. These were the first Mamluks. The caliphs could not foresee that in time they would come to constitute a new elite, one that would eventually help to overpower the caliphate itself.

Genealogy 3.1 The Abbasids

Description

Under

the

Abbasids,

the

Islamic

world

became

wealthy.

The

Mediterranean region had always been a great trade corridor; in the ninth century, Baghdad took advantage of a still wider network that included India, China, and the Khazar Empire. They also turned to sub-Saharan Africa, where urban centers along the Niger river had long been active in commerce, manufacturing, and agriculture. In the time of the Abbasids, the Berbers, once enslaved by the Umayyads, had become organized and were themselves the slavers. Sub-Saharan

entrepots such as Zawila to the east and Sijilmasa in the far west were staging

points

for

traffic

in

gold,

food,

ivory,

animal

skins,

and

enslaved human cargo. From Timbuktu, Gao, Marandet, and other West African towns, Berber traders made good use of oases such as Zawila in the Fazzan as stopping points on the way to coastal cities like Tunis and Tripoli as well as the more distant cities of Córdoba and Cairo. The traders returned south laden with textiles, ceramics, glass, armor, and other manufactured goods.

Islamic Arts and Literature Open in every direction, the Islamic world was cosmopolitan, drawing on

numerous

traditions

of

arts

and

crafts.

With

revenues

from

commerce and (above all) taxes from agriculture in their coffers, the Abbasid caliphs paid their armies and salaried their officials. They drew on the talents of many sorts of men – Persian, Arab, Christian, and Jewish – but, in this relentlessly male-dominated society, not women. The cultural revival here helped to inspire (as we have seen) a similar one at Constantinople. Dining off ornate plates and bowls (see Plate 3.3), pouring their water from richly decorated pitchers, the upper and middle classes in the Islamic world lived amid material splendor. Their clothing was made of richly woven fabrics (see Plate 4.11 on p. 160), and wallhangings and rugs adorned their homes. Luxury followed them even into the graveyard (see Plate 3.4), and their mosques were built to impress. Consider the one built near (now incorporated into) Cairo by Ibn Tulun, the nearly independent ruler of Egypt. Still standing, its outer and inner courts are perfectly square, its interior sanctuary enlivened by an arcade of graceful pointed arches. (See Figure 3.1 and Plate 3.5.)

Plate 3.3 Bowl with Persian Inscription (779). This large and beautiful bowl, nearly one foot across and four inches deep, was probably used for soups; the Persian inscription says, “As long as the soup is good, do not worry if the bowl is pretty!” Ceramic-ware such as this were used communally, each person dipping into the nearest spot.

Plate 3.4 Chest or Cenotaph Panel (second half of 8th cent.). This inlaid wood panel, found in a cemetery near Cairo, brings together numerous different traditions. Marquetry, which uses thousands of pieces of tiny bone and woods of different shades to create an intricate design, was a skill practiced by the Coptic Christians in Egypt. The wings at the top of the columns and holding up the central wheel drew on a Sasanid Persian motif. The geometric pattern was pre-Islamic.

The

sequence

of

arches

is

Romano-Byzantine.

Perhaps

this

remarkable piece may be connected to a military garrison established in the vicinity in the mid-eighth century.

Description



Figure 3.1 Mosque Plan (Cairo, Ibn Tulun Mosque, 876–879)

Description



Plate 3.5 Ibn Tulun Mosque, Cairo (876–879). Built to last on land deemed holy, the mosque commissioned by Ibn Tulun was unusually spacious for its time and place and was meant to accommodate crowds. In the middle of its large courtyard is a defunct fountain; it was originally made of wood, octagonal in shape, and topped by a gilded dome. Thick piers pierced by pointed arches led from the courtyard into the sanctuary, lighted on all sides by an upper tier of arched

windows

in

the

thick

walls.

The

spiral-shaped

minaret

(now

only

partially spiral) recalled the one at Samarra, the temporary alternative to the capital at Baghdad. Market stalls would have lined up along the outer walls. The dome shaped like a “watch cap” on the structure nearest the viewer belongs to a madrasa added in the fourteenth century.

Equally important were developments in literature, science, law, and other forms of scholarship. Books of all sorts were relatively cheap (and therefore accessible) in the Islamic world because they were written on paper. The caliphs launched scientific studies via a massive translation effort that brought the philosophical, medical, mathematical, and astrological treatises of the Indian and classical Greek worlds into Islamic culture. They encouraged poetry of every sort. Thus, to celebrate his conquest of the Byzantine city of Amorium in 838, Caliph al-Mu‘tasim paid the poet Abu Tammam handsomely for a long poem that praised both the victory and the victors:

A victory of victories, so sublime prose cannot speak nor verse can utter A victory at which Heaven threw wide its gates, which Earth put on new dress to celebrate: O battle of Amorium, for which our hopes returned engorged with milk and honey. The Muslims hast thou fixed in the ascendant, 3

pagans and pagandom fixed in decline!

It is obvious why such laudatory poetry, beautifully and cleverly written, should be cultivated under the Abbasids. But other kinds of poetry were equally prized: those celebrating wine and love, for example, were appreciated as adab, a literature (both in verse and prose) of refinement. (Adab means “good manners.”) Shoring up the regime with astrological predictions; winning theological debates with the pointed weapons of Aristotle’s logical and scientific works; understanding the theories of bridge-building, irrigation, and land-surveying with Euclid’s geometry – these were just some of the reasons why scholars in the Islamic world labored over

translations

and

created

original

scientific

works.

Their

intellectual pyrotechnics won general support. Patrons of scientific writing included the caliphs, their wives, courtiers, military generals, and ordinary people with practical interests. Al-Khwarizmi (d.c.850), author of a book on algebra (a term derived from al-jabr, a word in its title), understood math’s practical uses. Even handier was his treatise on the Indian method of calculation – Indian numerals are what we call Arabic numerals – and the use of the zero, essential (to give just one example) for distinguishing 100 from 1. How should one live to be pleasing to God? This was the major question that inspired the treatises on hadith (traditions about the Prophet) that began to appear in the Abbasid period. Each hadith began with a chain of oral transmitters (the most recent listed first) that told a story about Muhammad; there then followed the story itself. Thus, for example, in the compilation of hadith by al-Bukhari (810–870) on the issue of fasting during Ramadan (the yearly period of fasting from sunrise to sunset), he took up the question of the distracted “faster who eats and drinks from forgetfulness”:

‘Abdan related to us [saying], Yazid b. Zurai‘ informed us, saying, Hisham related to us, saying: Ibn Sirin related to us from Abu Huraira, from the Prophet – upon whom be blessing and peace – that he said: “If anyone forgets and eats or drinks, let him complete his fast, for it was Allah who 4

caused him thus to eat or drink.”

Here ‘Abdan was the most recent witness to a saying of the Prophet, while

Abu

Huraira,

a

well-known

“Companion”

of

the

Prophet

Muhammad, was the authority the closest to the original source. Indeed,

Abu

Huraira

was

named

as

the

ultimate

authority

for

thousands of hadith. Even the Qur’an did not escape scholarly scrutiny. While some interpreters read it literally as the word of God and thus part of God himself, others viewed it as something created by God and therefore separate from Him. For Caliph al-Ma’mun, taking the Qur’an literally undermined Byzantine

the

caliph’s

emperor

Leo

religious III

(see

authority.

pp.

47–48),

Somewhat whose

like

the

iconoclastic

policies were designed to separate divinity from its representations, al-Ma’mun determined to make God greater than the Qur’an. In 833 he instituted the Mihna, or Inquisition, demanding that the literalists profess the Qur’an’s createdness. But al-Ma’mun died before he could punish

those

who

refused,

and

his

immediate

successors

were

relatively ineffective in pursuing the project. The scholars on the other side – the literalists and those who looked to the hadith – carried the day, and in 848 Caliph al-Mutawakkil ended the Mihna, emphatically reversing the caliphate’s position on the matter. Sunni Islam thus defined itself against the views of a caliph who, by asserting great power, lost much. The caliphs ceased to be the source of religious doctrine; that role went to the scholars, the ulama. It was around this time that the title “caliph” came to be associated with the phrase “deputy of the Prophet of God” rather than the “deputy of God.” The designation reflected the caliphate’s decreasing political as well as religious authority.

Societies on the Fringe The actual control of the Abbasids did not extend all the way to the western

end

of

their

Empire,

and

local

leaders

there

used

the

opportunity to become independent rulers (see Map 3.3). One was

Idris I, an ‘Alid prince (that is, a descendent of ‘Ali, the revered Shi‘ite leader). On the run from the Abbasids in 787, he made his way to Volubilis/Walila (see pp. 45–47 and Figure 2.1), married a Berber woman, allied himself with the Berber leader who controlled Walila, and

conquered

all

of

northern

Morocco.

Making

Walila

his

headquarters, he built a new settlement just outside of its Roman wall. (See Figure 2.1 Area B). In this, he was following the normal practice of Arab conquerors: they built their communities near – but not quite in – existing settlements, with a mosque serving as the meeting point between the two. Idris’s compound featured a domestic complex fit for perhaps twenty to twenty-five people, large silos for storing grain, and an elaborate bath house – a feature of Byzantine civilization adopted by the Arabs. The bath house at Walila had many rooms, including a cold plunge bath, a hot bath (warmed by fireplaces), and a latrine. Decorated with the relief of a shield taken from the Arch of Caracalla (originally part of the Roman settlement), the structure was a way for Idris to announce his triumphal rulership of northern Morocco. Coins found on the site, minted in Idris’s name and featuring ‘Ali on the reverse, as well as imported tableware and cotton suggest that Walila had once again become a commercial center. That did not last long: Idris II (d.828), moved the capital to Fez, and in the tenth century the Idrisid state split apart as it was parceled out to numerous heirs in accordance

with

Berber

practice.

Walila

seems

to

have

been

abandoned around that time. Even so, in the fourteenth century a new settlement was established within its walls, perhaps associated with the tomb of Idris I that was located there. More successful than the Idrisids were the new rulers of alAndalus (Islamic Spain). In the mid-eighth century Abd al-Rahman I, an Umayyad prince on the run from the Abbasids, managed to gather an army, make his way to Iberia, and defeat the provincial governor at Córdoba. In 756 he proclaimed himself “emir” (commander) of alAndalus. His dynasty governed for two and a half centuries, and in 929, emboldened by his growing power and the depletion of caliphal power at Baghdad, Abd al-Rahman III (r.912–961) took the title caliph. As was true of most parts of the Islamic world, al-Andalus under the emirs was not entirely Muslim, and it was even less Arab. As the

caliphs

came

to

rely

on

Mamluks,

so

the

emirs

relied

on

a

professional standing army of non-Arabs, the al-khurs, the “silent ones” – men who could not speak Arabic. They lived among a largely Christian – and partly Jewish – population; even by 900, only about 25 per cent of the people in al-Andalus were Muslim. This had its benefits for the regime, which taxed Christians and Jews heavily. Although, like most Western European rulers, they did not have the land tax that the Byzantine emperors and caliphs could impose, the emirs did draw some of their revenues from Muslims, especially around their capital at Córdoba. Furthermore, Córdoba was a major entrepot for enslaved men and women. Some were the victims of the trans-Saharan trade; others came from Slavic Central and Eastern Europe. Many were destined for the Abbasid court. Andalusian rulers had the money to pay salaries to their civil servants and to preside over an artistic and literary efflorescence that reflected the region’s unique ethnic and religious mix. An ivory pyxis made for an Andalusian prince is a good example (see Plate 3.6). Its use of pairs – here the prince across from his fan-bearer, with a lutenist between the two – recalls Byzantine textiles (themselves echoes of Sasanian Persian designs). But the carvers’ transformation of traditionally flat patterns into high relief is an original take on those old forms.

Plate 3.6

Pyxis

exceptionally

of

fine

al-Mughira one

was

(968).

carved

A for

pyxis an

is

a

small

Andalusian

container; prince.

this

Likely

commissioned by his mother and carved by eunuchs working for the court’s ivory workshop, it offers lush images of vegetation, animals, and courtly pastimes – hunting, music-making – connected by a continuous interlace that encloses four medallions. The ivory (from the cross-section of an elephant’s tusk) came from West Africa.

Description

The cultural mix extended far beyond the arts. Some Muslim men took Christian wives, and religious practices seem to have melded a bit.

In

fact,

the

Christians

who

lived

in

al-Andalus

were

called

“Mozarabs” – “would-be Arabs” – by Christians elsewhere. It is likely that Christians and Muslims got along fairly well on the whole. Christians dressed like Muslims, worked side-by-side with them in government posts, and used Arabic in many aspects of their life. In the mid-ninth century, there were in the region of Córdoba alone at least

four

churches

and

nine

monasteries.

No

doubt

there

were

synagogues as well, but our sources for Jewish life in Islamic Iberia are very fragmentary until the tenth century, when at least a few highranking Jews burst onto the public stage. To the north of al-Andalus, beyond the Duero River, were tiny Christian principalities. Their spokesmen donned the mantle of the Visigoths, claiming to be the legitimate rulers of Spain. A chronicler from

the

ninth

century

celebrated

their

triumphs

as

God-given:

“Alfonso was elected king by all the people, receiving the royal scepter with divine grace. He always crushed the audacity of his enemies.... Killing all the Arabs with the sword, he led the Christians 5

back with him to his country.”

The hero here was Alfonso I (r.739–

757), whose kingdom of Asturias partook in the general demographic and economic growth of the period. Alfonso and his successors built churches,

encouraged

monastic

foundations,

collected

relics,

patronized literary efforts, and welcomed Mozarabs from the south. As they did so, they looked to Christian models still farther north – to Francia, where Charlemagne and his heirs ruled as kings “by grace of God.”

AN EMPIRE IN SPITE OF ITSELF Between Byzantium and the Islamic world was Francia. While the first two were politically centralized, subject to sophisticated tax systems, and served by salaried armies and officials, Francia inherited the centralizing traditions of the Roman Empire without its order and efficiency. Francia’s kings could not collect a land tax, the backbone of the old Roman and the more recent Byzantine and Islamic fiscal systems. There were no salaried officials or soldiers in Francia. Yet the new dynasty of kings there, the Carolingians, managed to muster armies, expand their kingdom, encourage a revival of scholarship and learning, command the respect of emperors and caliphs, and forge an identity for themselves as leaders of the Christian people. Their

successes bore striking resemblance to contemporary achievements at Constantinople and Baghdad. How was this possible? The answer is at

least

threefold:

“Medieval

Warm

the

Carolingians

Period”

that

took

seems

to

advantage have

of

affected

the the

same North

Atlantic region in general; they exploited to the full the institutions of Roman culture and political life that remained to them; and at the same time, they were willing to experiment with new institutions and take advantage of unexpected opportunities.

The Carolingians The Carolingian takeover was a “palace coup.” After a battle (at Tertry, in 687) between Neustrian and Austrasian noble factions, one powerful family with vast estates in Austrasia came to monopolize the high office of mayor for the Merovingian kings in both places. In the first half of the eighth century these mayors took over much of the power and most of the responsibilities of the kings. Charles

Martel

(mayor

714–741)

gave

the

name

Carolingian

(from Carolus, Latin for Charles) to the dynasty. In 732 he won a battle near Poitiers against an army led by the Muslim governor of alAndalus, ending further raids. But Charles had other enemies: he spent most of his time fighting vigorously against regional Frankish aristocrats intent on carving out independent lordships for themselves. Playing powerful factions against one another, rewarding supporters, defeating

enemies,

monasteries

and

and

dominating

bishoprics

that

whole

served

as

regions focal

by

controlling

points

for

both

religious piety and land donations, the Carolingians created a tight network of supporters. Moreover, they chose their allies well, reaching beyond Francia to the popes and to English churchmen, who (as we have seen) were closely tied to Rome. When the English missionary Boniface (d.754) wanted to preach in Frisia (today the Netherlands) and Germany, the Carolingians readily supported him as a prelude to their military conquests. Although (as we have seen above), many of the areas in which Boniface missionized had long been Christian, their practices were local rather than tied to Rome. By contrast, Boniface’s newly appointed bishops were loyal to Rome and the Carolingians, not to

regional aristocracies. They knew that their power came from papal and royal fiat rather than from local power centers. Men like Boniface opened the way to a more direct alliance between the Carolingians and the pope. Historians used to think that Pippin III (d.768), the son of Charles Martel, obtained approval from Pope Zacharias (741–752) to depose the reigning Merovingian king in 751. More recent research strongly calls this into question: Pippin became

king

because

he

was

supported

by

Frankish

nobles

and

bishops. But it is certainly true that three years after Pippin took the throne, another pope, Stephen II (752–757), traveled to Francia. He anointed Pippin and his two young sons and begged them to send an army against the encircling Lombards: “Hasten, hasten, I urge and protest by the living and true God, hasten and assist! ... Do not suffer this Roman city to perish in which the Lord laid my body [i.e., the body of Saint Peter, with whom the pope identified himself] and which he commended to me and established as the foundation of the faith. Free it and its Roman people, your brothers, and in no way 6

permit it to be invaded by the people of the Lombards.”

In the so-called Donation of Pippin (756), the new king forced the Lombards to give some cities back to the pope. The arrangement recognized that the papacy was now the ruler in central Italy of a territory that had once belonged to Byzantium. Before the 750s, the papacy had been part of the Byzantine Empire; by the middle of that decade,

it

had

become

part

of

the

West.

It

was

probably

soon

thereafter that members of the papal chancery (writing office) forged a document, the Donation of Constantine, which had the fourthcentury Emperor Constantine declare that he was handing the western half of the Roman Empire to Pope Sylvester. Thus did the papacy signal its independence from the East. The chronicler of Charles Martel had already tied his hero’s victories

to

Romanizing

Christ.

The

churchmen

Carolingian added

to

partnership

the

dynasty’s

with

Rome

Christian

and aura.

Anointment – daubing the kings with holy oil – provided the finishing touch. It reminded contemporaries of David, king of the Israelites: “Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brethren; and the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward” (1 Sam. [or Vulgate 1 Kings] 16:13).

CHARLEMAGNE The most famous Carolingian king was Charles (r.768–814), called “the Great” (le Magne in Old French). Large, tough, wily, and devout, he was everyone’s model. The courtier and scholar Einhard (d.840) portrayed

Charlemagne

as

a

Roman

emperor,

patterning

his

biography of the ruler on the Lives of the Caesars, written in the second century by Roman historian Suetonius. Alcuin (d.804), also the king’s courtier and an even more famous scholar, emphasized Charlemagne’s religious side, nicknaming him “David,” the putative author of the psalms, victor over the giant Goliath, and king of Israel. Empress

Irene

at

Constantinople

saw

Charlemagne

as

a

suitable

husband for herself (though the arrangement eventually fell through). Charlemagne’s fame was largely achieved through wars of plunder and conquest. He invaded Italy, seizing the Lombard crown and annexing northern Italy in 774. He moved his armies northward to fight the Saxons and, after more than thirty years of bitter war, he annexed their territory and forcibly converted them to Christianity. To the southeast, he sent his forces against the Avars, capturing their strongholds, forcing them to submit to his overlordship, and making off with cartloads of plunder. An expedition to al-Andalus gained Charlemagne a ribbon of territory north of the Ebro River, a buffer between Francia and the Islamic world called the “Spanish March.” (See Map 3.4.) Even his failures were the stuff of myth: a Basque attack on Charlemagne’s army as it returned from Spain became the core of the epic poem The Song of Roland.

Map 3.4 Europe, c.814

Description

Ventures like these depended on a good army. Charlemagne’s was led by his fideles, faithful aristocrats, and manned by free men, many the “vassals” (clients) of the aristocrats. The king had the bannum, the ban, which gave him the right to call his subjects to arms (and, more generally, to command, prohibit, punish, and collect fines when his ban was not obeyed). Soldiers provided their own equipment; the richest went to war on horseback, the poorest had to have at least a lance, shield, and bow. There was no standing army; men had to be

mobilized for each expedition. No tagmata or Mamluks were to be found here! Yet, while the empire was expanding, the Carolingian military organization was very successful; men were glad to go off to war when they could expect to return enriched with booty. By 800, Charlemagne’s kingdom stretched nearly 1,000 miles from east to west, even more from north to south when Italy is counted. On its eastern edge was a strip of “buffer regions” under Carolingian

overlordship

that

extended

from

the

Baltic

to

the

Adriatic. Connections with the Islamic world, especially with the Abbasids, grew apace, drawing the Franks into sporadic contact with wider economic, diplomatic, and cultural networks. So wide a reach was

reminiscent

of

an

empire,

and

Charlemagne

began

to

act

according to the model of Roman emperors, sponsoring building programs

to

measures,

symbolize

and

acting

his as

authority, a

patron

standardizing of

intellectual

weights and

and

artistic

enterprises. He built a capital city at Aachen, complete with a chapel patterned on San Vitale, the church built by Justinian at Ravenna (see pp. 33–37). So keen was Charlemagne on Byzantine models that he had columns, mosaics, and marbles from Rome and Ravenna carted up north to use in his own structures. Further drawing on imperial traditions, Charlemagne issued laws. These are extant in the form of “capitularies,” summaries of decisions made at assemblies held by the ruler with the chief men of his realm. He appointed regional governors – counts – to carry out his laws, muster

his

armies,

and

collect

his

taxes.

Chosen

from

among

Charlemagne’s aristocratic supporters, they were compensated for their work by temporary grants of land rather than with salaries. This was not Roman; but Charlemagne lacked the fiscal apparatus of the Roman emperors (and of his contemporary Byzantine emperors and Islamic caliphs), so he made land substitute for money. To discourage corruption, he appointed officials called missi dominici (“those sent out by the lord king”) to oversee the counts on the king’s behalf. The missi – abbots, bishops, and counts, aristocrats all – traveled in pairs across Francia. They were to look into the affairs – large and small – of the Church and laity. In this way, Charlemagne set up institutions meant to echo those of the Roman Empire. It was a brilliant move on the part of Pope Leo III (795–816) to harness the king’s imperial pretensions to papal

ambitions. In 799, accused of adultery and perjury by a hostile faction at Rome, Leo narrowly escaped mutilation. Fleeing northward to seek Charlemagne’s protection, he returned home under escort, the king following later in the year. Charlemagne arrived in Rome in late November 800 to an imperial welcome orchestrated by Leo. On Christmas

Day

of

that

year,

Leo

put

an

imperial

crown

on

Charlemagne’s head, and the clergy and nobles who were present acclaimed the king “Augustus,” the title of the first Roman emperor. In one stroke the pope managed to exalt the king of the Franks, downgrade

Irene

at

Byzantium,

and

enjoy

the

role

of

“emperor

maker” himself. About coronation,

twenty he

years

said

later,

that

the

when

imperial

Einhard title

at

wrote first

so

about

this

displeased

Charlemagne “that he stated that, if he had known in advance of the pope’s plan, he would not have entered the church that day, even 7

though it was a great feast day.”

In fact, Charlemagne continued to

call himself simply “king” for about a year; then he adopted a new title that was both long and revealing: “Charles, the most serene Augustus, crowned by God, great and peaceful emperor who governs the Roman Empire and who is, by the mercy of God, king of the Franks and the Lombards.” According to this title, Charlemagne was not

the

Roman

emperor

crowned

by

the

pope

but

rather

God’s

emperor, who governed the Roman Empire along with his many other duties.

CHARLEMAGNE’S HEIRS When Charlemagne died, only one of his sons remained alive: Louis, nicknamed “the Pious.” (See Genealogy 3.2.) He was emperor (from 814 to 840), but his “empire” was a conglomeration of territories with little unity. Louis had to contend with the revolts of his sons, the depredations of outside invaders, the regional interests of counts and bishops,

and

above

all

an

enormous

variety

of

languages,

laws,

customs, and traditions, all of which tended to pull his empire apart. He contended with gusto, his chief unifying tool being Christianity. His imperial model was Theodosius I, who had made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire (see p. 8). Calling on the help of the monastic reformer Benedict of Aniane (d.821), Louis imposed the Benedictine Rule on all the monasteries in Francia. He employed

monks and abbots as his chief advisors. Organizing inquests by the missi,

Louis

looked

into

allegations

of

exploitation

of

the

poor,

standardized the procedures of his chancery, and put all Frankish bishops and monasteries under his control. Charlemagne had employed his sons as “sub-kings,” but Louis made even more political use of his family. Early in his reign he had his

wife

crowned

empress;

he

named

his

first-born

son,

Lothar,

emperor and co-ruler; and he had his other sons, Pippin and Louis (later called “the German”), agree to be sub-kings under their older brother. It was neatly planned. But when Louis’s first wife died, he married Judith, daughter of a relatively obscure kindred (the Welfs) that stemmed from the Saxon and Bavarian nobility and would later become enormously powerful. In 823 Judith and Louis had a son, Charles (later “the Bald”), and this upset the earlier division of the Empire. A family feud turned into bitter civil war (much like the Abbasids at around the same time) as brothers fought one another and their father for titles and kingdoms. In 833 matters came to a head when Louis, effectively taken prisoner by Lothar, was forced to do public penance. Lothar expected the ritual to get his father off the throne for life. But Louis played one son against the other and made a swift comeback. The episode showed how Carolingian rulers could portray themselves as accountable to God and yet, through that very act

of

subservience,

make

themselves

authoritative in the eyes of their subjects.

even

more

sacred

and

Genealogy 3.2 The Carolingians

Description

After Louis’s death, a period of war and uncertainty (840–843) among the three remaining brothers (Pippin had died in 838) ended with the Treaty of Verdun (843). (See Map 3.4a.) The Carolingian Empire was divided into three parts, an arrangement that would roughly define the future political contours of Western Europe. The western third, bequeathed to Charles the Bald (r.843–877), would eventually become France, and the eastern third, given to Louis the German

(r.843–876),

would

become

Germany.

The

“Middle

Kingdom,” which became Lothar’s portion (r. as co-emperor 817– 840; as emperor 840–855), had a different fate: parts of it were absorbed by France and Germany, while the rest eventually coalesced into the modern states of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg – the so-called Benelux countries – as well as Switzerland and Italy. All this was far in the future. As the brothers had their own children, new divisions were tried: one in 870 (the Treaty of Meerssen), for example, and another in 880. (See Map 3.4b and 3.4c.) After the death of Emperor Charles the Fat (888), various kings and lesser rulers,

many of them non-Carolingians,

came

to

the

fore

in

the

irrevocably splintered Empire. Dynastic problems contributed to the breakup of the Carolingian Empire. So did invasions by outsiders – Vikings, Muslims, and, starting in 899, Magyars (Hungarians) – which harassed the Frankish Kingdoms throughout the ninth century (see the next chapter). These certainly weakened the kings: without a standing army, they were unable to respond to lightning raids, and what regional defense there was fell into the hands of local leaders such as counts. The Carolingians lost prestige and money as they paid out tribute to

stave

off

further

attacks.

Above

all,

the

Carolingian

Empire

atomized because linguistic and other differences between regions – and familial and other ties within regions – were simply too strong to be overcome by directives from a central court. Even today a unified Europe is only a distant ideal. Anyway, as we shall see, fragmentation had its own strengths and possibilities.

The Wealth of a Local Economy The

Carolingian

economy

was

based

on

plunder,

trade,

and

agriculture. After the Carolingians could push no further and the raids of Charlemagne’s day came to an end, trade and land became the chief resources of the kingdom. To the north, in Viking trading stations such as Haithabu and Birka (see Map 3.5), archaeologists have found Carolingian glass and pots alongside Islamic coins and cloth, showing that the Carolingian economy meshed with that of the Abbasid caliphate. (See Plate 4.2 on p. 125.) Silver from the Islamic world came north across the Caspian Sea, up the Volga River, and to the Baltic Sea settlements. There the coins were melted down and the

silver traded to the Carolingians in return for wine, jugs, glasses, and other manufactured goods. The Carolingians turned the silver into coins of their own, to be used throughout the Empire for small-scale local

trade.

Baltic

Sea

emporia

such

as

Haithabu

and

Birka

supplemented those – Quentovic and Dorestad, for example – that served the North Sea trade.

Map 3.5 Northern Emporia in the Carolingian Age

Description

Nevertheless, the backbone of the Carolingian economy was land. A few written records, called polyptyques, document the output of the Carolingian great estates – “villae,” as they were called in Latin, “manors,” as we term them. On the far-flung and widely scattered manors

of

rich

landowners

–

churches,

monasteries,

kings,

and

aristocrats – a major reorganization and rationalization was taking place. The most enterprising landlords instituted a three-field rather than a two-field cultivation system. It meant that two-thirds of the land rather than one-half was sown with crops each year, yielding a tidy surplus.

Consider

Lambesc,

near

Aix-en-Provence,

one

of

the

many

manors belonging to the cathedral of Saint Mary of Marseille. It was not a compact farm but rather a conglomeration of essential parts, with its lands, woods, meadows, and vineyards scattered about the countryside. All were worked by peasant families, some legally free, some unfree, each settled on its own holding – here called a colonica; elsewhere often called a mansus, or “manse” – usually including a house, a garden, small bits of several fields, and so on. The peasants farmed the land that belonged to them and paid yearly dues to their lord – in this case the Church of Saint Mary, which, in its polyptyque, kept careful track of what was owed: [There

is

a]

holding

[colonica]

at

Nemphas.

Martinus,

colonus.

Wife

Dominica. Bertemarus, an adult son. Desideria, an adult daughter. It pays the tax: 1 pig, 1 suckling [pig]; 2 fattened hens; 10 chickens; 40 eggs. Savarildis, an adult woman. Olisirga, a daughter 10 years old. Rica, a 8

daughter 9 years old.

Martinus and his family apparently did not work the demesne – the land, woods, meadows, and vineyards directly held by Saint Mary – but they paid a yearly tax of animals and animal produce. Other tenants farmed the demesne, as at Nidis, in the region of Grasse, where a peasant named Bernarius owed daily service and also paid a penny (1 denarius) in yearly dues. On many manors women were required

to

feed

the

lord’s

chickens

or

busy

themselves

in

the

gynecaeum, the women’s workshop, where they made and dyed cloth and sewed garments. (See Material Culture: Cloth and Clothing on pp. 157–60.) Clearly the labor was onerous and the accounting system complex and unwieldy; but manors organized on the model of Saint Mary – including the extensive estates of the Carolingian kings – made a profit. Nevertheless, farming did not return great surpluses, and as the lands belonging to the king were divided up in the wake of the partitioning scattered

of

the

throughout

Empire, their

Carolingian

kingdom

weakness.

The Carolingian Renaissance

dependence

proved

to

be

a

on

manors

source

of

With the profits from their manors, many monasteries and churches invested in books. As in the Byzantine Empire, the Carolingians wrote their manuscripts on parchment. Like Byzantine scribes at around the same time, the Carolingians also created new cursive letter forms. Quick to write and easy to read, “Caroline minuscule” (as the new Carolingian script is called) lasted into the eleventh century, when it gave way to a more angular script, today called “Gothic.” Caroline minuscule was then rediscovered in the fourteenth century – by scholars who thought that it represented ancient Roman writing! – and it became the model for modern lower-case printed fonts, such as those used in this book (see Chapter 8). Assigning themselves the task of reviving Roman culture, the Carolingians encouraged the development of written music so that all churches and monasteries in the Empire would sing the same tunes – the ones sung at Rome. This reform – the imposition of the so-called Gregorian chant – posed great practical difficulties. It meant that every monk and priest had to learn a year’s worth of Roman music; but how? A few cantors were imported from Rome, but without a system of notation, it was easy to forget new tunes. Thus, Carolingian scribes experimented with notes: in the ninth century these were little more than dots and dashes above the words of the liturgy to remind the singers of the melody. But by the end of the Middle Ages, notes had begun to resemble those used in today’s musical scores. The Carolingian court was behind much of this activity. Most of the centers of learning, scholarship, and book production began under men and women who at one time or another were part of the royal court.

Alcuin,

perhaps

the

most

famous

of

the

Carolingian

intellectuals, was “imported” by Charlemagne from England – where, as we have seen, monastic scholarship flourished – to become a key advisor to Charlemagne. He eventually became abbot of Saint-Martin of Tours, where he orchestrated the production of an authoritative edition of the Bible, the so-called Vulgate. More unusual but equally telling was the experience of Gisela, Charlemagne’s sister. She too was a key royal advisor, the one who alerted the others at home about Charlemagne’s imperial coronation at Rome in 800. She was also abbess of Chelles, near Paris, a center of manuscript production. Chelles had a library, and its nuns were well educated. They wrote learned letters and composed a history (the “Prior Metz Annals”) that

treated the rise of the Carolingians as a tale of struggle between brothers, sons, and fathers eased by the wise counsel of mothers, aunts, and sisters. Women and the poor made up the largely invisible half of the Carolingian

Renaissance.

But

without

doubt

at

least

a

few

participated in it. One of Charlemagne’s capitularies ordered that the cathedrals and monasteries of his kingdom should teach reading and writing to all who could learn. There were enough complaints (by rich people) about upstart peasants who found a place at court that we may be sure that some talented sons of the poor were getting an education. A few churchmen expressed the hope that schools for “children” would be established even in small villages and hamlets. Were

they

thinking

of

girls

as

well

as

boys?

Certainly,

the

noblewoman Dhuoda proves that education was available even to laywomen. We would never know about her had she not worried enough about her absent child to write a Handbook for Her Son full of advice. It is clear in this deeply felt moral text that Dhuoda was drawing on an excellent education: she obviously knew the Bible, writings of the Church Fathers, Gregory the Great, and “moderns,” like

Alcuin.

Her

Latin

was

fluent

and

sophisticated.

And

she

understood the value of the written word: My great concern, my son William, is to offer you helpful words. My burning, watchful heart especially desires that you may have in this little volume what I have longed to be written down for you, about how you were 9

born through God’s grace.

The original manuscript of Dhuoda’s text is not extant. Had it survived, it would no doubt have looked like other “practical texts” of the time: the “folios” (pages) would have been written in Caroline minuscule, each carefully designed to set off the poetry – Dhuoda’s own and quotes from others – from the prose; the titles of each chapter (there are nearly a hundred, each very short) would have been enlivened

with

delicately

colored

capital

letters.

The

manuscript

would probably not have been illuminated (illustrated); fancy books were generally made for royalty, for prestigious ceremonial occasions, or for books that were especially esteemed, such as the Gospels. To be sure, there were many such lavish productions. In fact, Carolingian art and architecture mark a turning point. For all its

richness, Merovingian culture had not stressed artistic expression, though

some

produced

of

a

the

few

monasteries

illuminated

inspired

by

manuscripts.

Saint By

Columbanus contrast,

the

Carolingians, admirers and imitators of Christian Rome, vigorously promoted a vast, eclectic, and ideologically motivated program of art and architecture. They were reviving the Roman Empire. We have already seen how Charlemagne brought the very marble of Rome and Ravenna home to Aachen to build his new palace complex. A similar impulse inspired Carolingian art. Here too, the Carolingians revered and

imitated

the

past

while

building

on

and

changing

it.

Their

manuscript illuminations were inspired by a vast repertory of models: from the British Isles (where, as we have seen, a rich synthesis of decorative and representational styles had a long tradition), from lateantique Italy (which yielded its models in old manuscripts), and from Byzantium (which may have inadvertently provided some artists, fleeing iconoclasm, as well as manuscripts). In Plate 3.7, a beautiful woman, half naked, stands with her arms outstretched, bound at her wrists by chains. Small stars are scattered over her body. She is the galaxy Andromeda. In Greek mythology she was the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia, king and queen of Aethiopia.

When

Cassiopeia

boasted

that

Andromeda

was

more

beautiful than even the daughters of the sea god, that god took his revenge on Aethiopia and forced Cepheus to sacrifice his daughter by stripping off her clothes and chaining her to a rock. She was saved by the hero Perseus, who married her, and after her death the goddess Athena

turned

her

into

a

constellation

in

the

northern

sky.

The

Carolingian artist took his inspiration not only from the text he (or she) was illustrating – the Phainomena by the classical Greek poet Aratos (fl. 3rd cent.

BCE)

in the later Latin version by Germanicus

Caesar (fl. 1st cent.

CE)

– but also from ancient classical artistic

models. Compare Andromeda to the nereid in Plate 1.1 on p. 12. Both women have weight and flesh; both are absorbed in their own story and care nothing about hierarchy, ideology, or a world beyond their own.

Plate 3.7 Andromeda (840s?). In this notebook-sized (about 9 × 8 inch) Carolingian manuscript, probably made at Aachen or Metz, an artist painted nearly forty miniatures of the constellations named in a poem by Aratos.

Produced around the same time as Andromeda, a manuscript page in the Saint-Vaast Gospels in Plate 3.8 (p. 113) seems, at first glance, to come from a different world. It is closer to the earlier, Insular Book of Durrow of Plate 2.5 (p. 69) than to Andromeda. Like the Durrow artist,

so

this

Carolingian

illuminator

rejoices

in

the

decorative

possibilities of pattern and interlace, bringing that same sensibility to the text, so that the letters IN are so ornate that it takes a moment to realize that they form a word. And yet in each of the corners of the

elaborate square that encloses the text are four men as fleshy as Andromeda. Their bodies are solid, their garb drapes naturally over their

limbs,

and

their

gestures

suggest

excitement

as

well

as

absorption in their tasks. They care nothing about the viewer: they are authors in the fury of creation, bent over their task, writing, scraping off mistakes, reviewing their work. Were it not for their halos, we would hardly know that they are the evangelists busily composing the four Gospels.

Plate

3.8

sumptuous

Saint-Vaast

Gospels,

manuscript,

much

Northern of

it

France

on

(mid-9th

purple-colored

cent.).

vellum

In

and

this thus

suggesting imperial patronage, the artist has framed the first words of the Gospel

of

John,

“In

principium”

(In

the

beginning),

with

a

majestic

combination of curvilinear forms and small author portraits. Although each evangelist is different, all are writing within a similarly colored blue space. The device suggests the harmony of the Gospels.

Carolingian artists were inspired by still other traditions. Consider the light, impressionistic style of the Roman Empire in its heyday – the busy, almost dancing figures in the Harbor Scene in Plate 1.2 on pp.

14–15.

Carolingian

These

too

Empire,

were

as

we

mirrored may

see

–

and in

refracted

the

Utrecht

–

in

the

Psalter,

commissioned

by

Archbishop

Ebbo

of

Reims

and

executed

at

a

nearby monastery. The manuscript contains all 150 psalms and 16 other

songs

known

as

canticles.

Each

is

accompanied

by

lively

drawings, turning the poems into a running story of human and divine interaction. Plate

3.9

shows

the

page

for

psalms

7

and

8.

The

illustration comes between the two, but refers to psalm 8, whose first verse has the dedication: “Unto the end, for the presses (musical instruments?): a psalm for David.” Beneath the drawing are the first words of verse 2, “Domine dominus noster” (O Lord our Lord), written in gold letters. The words of that verse and those following continue in dark brown ink: 2. O Lord our Lord, how admirable is thy name in the whole earth! For thy magnificence is elevated above the heavens. 3. Out of the mouths of infants and sucklings thou hast perfected praise, because of thy enemies: that thou mayst destroy the enemy and the avenger. 4. For I will behold thy heavens, the work of thy fingers: the moon and the stars which thou hast founded.

The illustrator has taken these words literally. To the left of center in the middle tier (corresponding to the verse 2) is the psalmist praying to the Lord above him. Christ is seated on a globe within a mandorla, symbol of his glory. The clouds beneath show that he is “above the heavens,” elevated there by four angels. Just beneath Christ (illustrating verse 3) are little children looking up and gesturing in praise. Meanwhile, the enemies of the Lord, their hair long and spiky, are being driven into a pit (Hell) by an avenging angel. For verse 4, the artist has depicted (on Christ’s right) the moon and stars.

Plate 3.9 Utrecht Psalter, Northeastern France (first half of 9th cent.). The same drawing illustrates still more verses. In v. (verse) 5 of the psalm, the key question is posed: “What is man that thou art mindful of him?” The answer is that God has made man ruler of the things that God created on earth. Thus, at the far left of the drawing are the mammals (illustrating v. 8. “Thou hast subjected all things under his feet; all sheep and oxen; moreover the beasts also of the fields”). On the far right are the birds and fish (illustrating v. 9. “The birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea that pass through the paths of the sea”). For more such pictorial verse-by-verse depictions, see Plate 2.12 (p. 81), another page from this same charming and influential Psalter.

It may plausibly be said that the various artistic styles elaborated during the Carolingian Renaissance – fed by classical, decorative, and

abstract traditions combined in new and original ways – form the foundation of all subsequent Western art.

For practice questions about the text, maps, plates, and other features – plus suggested answers – please go to www.utphistorymatters.com There you will also find all the maps, genealogies, and figures used in the book.

FURTHER READING Airlie, Stuart. Making and Unmaking the Carolingians, 751–888. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. Brubaker, Leslie, and John Haldon. Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c.680–850: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Cameron, Averil. Byzantine Christianity: A Very Brief History. London: SPCK, 2017. Cooperson, Michael. Al-Ma’mun. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2005. DeJong, Mayke. The Penitential State: Authority and Atonement in the Ages of Louis the Pious, 814–840. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. El-Hibri, Tayeb. The Abbasid Caliphate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Fauvelle, François-Xavier. The Golden Rhinoceros: Histories of the African Middle Ages. Trans. Troy Tice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018. Gantner, Clemens, and Walter Pohl. After Charlemagne: Carolingian Italy and Its Rulers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Gomez, Michael A. African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019. Gordon, Matthew S. Ahmad ibn Tulun: Governor of Abbasid Egypt, 868–884. London: Oneworld Academic, 2021. —. “The Early Islamic Empire and the Introduction of Military Slavery.” In War and the Medieval World, edited by Anne Curry and David A. Graff, pp. 17–49. Vol. 2 of The Cambridge History of War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Heather, Peter. The Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes & Imperial Pretenders. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Hermans, Erik, ed. A Companion to the Global Early Middle Ages. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. Herrin, Judith. Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002. Nelson, Janet L. King and Emperor: A New Life of Charlemagne. Oakland: University of California Press, 2019. Nol, Hagit, ed. Riches beyond the Horizon: Long-distance Trade in Early Medieval Landscapes (ca. 6th–12th centuries). Turnhout: Brepols, 2022. Pohl, Walter. The Avars: A Steppe Empire in Central Europe, 567–822. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018. Turner, John P. Inquisition in Early Islam: The Competition for Political and Religious Authority in the Abbasid Empire. London: I.B. Taurus, 2013. Wormald, Patrick, and Janet L. Nelson, eds. Lay Intellectuals in the Carolingian World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

__________ 1

For one of Boris-Michael’s seals, see “Reading through Looking,” in Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic World, 3rd ed., ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018), Plate I on p. II.

2

Pope Nicholas I, Letter to Answer the Bulgarians’ Questions, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 164–68.

3

Abu Tammam, The sword gives truer tidings, in A Short Medieval Reader, ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023), pp. 51–56 and Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 124–28.

4

Al-Bukhari, On Fasting, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 60–65 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 147–51.

5

The Chronicle of Alfonso III, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 132–35.

6

Pope Stephen II, Letters to King Pippin III, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 65– 72 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 151–58.

7

Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 72–82 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 115–24.

8

Polyptyque of the Church of Saint-Mary of Marseille, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 85–87 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 105–7.

9

Dhuoda, Handbook for Her Son, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 128–31.

FOUR POLITICAL COMMUNITIES REORDERED (c.900–c.1050)

CHAPTER

FOUR

HIGHLIGHTS Fatimids proclaim a Shi‘ite caliphate 910 The Shi‘ite Fatimid caliphate dominates Egypt and North Africa, signaling the decline of the Abbasids and of the Sunni form of Islam in the Islamic world.

Umayyad ruler of al-Andalus takes the title of caliph 929 The tenth century sees the height of Umayyad power in al-Andalus, but a century later, their caliphate splits into taifas (Islamic principalities).

Battle of Lechfeld 955 The victory of Otto I over the Hungarians at Lechfeld is a triumph that leads to his coronation as emperor in 962 and to the establishment of the Ottonian dynasty, which lasts until 1024.

Reign of Basil II the Bulgar-Slayer 976–1025 Basil expands the borders of the Byzantine Empire and successfully staves off the ascendency of the dynatoi (powerful regional leaders).

Peace of God 989 This movement in the Church begins in the tenth century in the south of France. It calls on the nobility to protect ecclesiastical and other property from armed depredations. The Truce of God, declared a bit later, declares certain periods during which warfare among Christians is prohibited.

Scandinavian and East Central European rulers convert to Christianity c.1000 The conversion of the Scandinavian regions, much like that of East Central Europe, suggests that the adoption of the Christian religion goes hand in hand with monarchical power.

The

large-scale

centralized

governments

of

the

ninth

century

dissolved in the tenth. The fission was least noticeable at Byzantium, where, although important landowning families emerged as brokers of patronage

and

power,

the

primacy

of

the

emperor

was

never

effectively challenged. In the Islamic world, however, new dynastic groups established themselves as regional rulers. In Western Europe, the Carolingian Empire collapsed and new political entities – some extremely local and weak, others quite strong and unified – emerged in its wake.

BYZANTIUM: THE STRENGTHS AND LIMITS OF CENTRALIZATION By 1025 the Byzantine Empire once again touched the Danube and Euphrates Rivers. Its emperors maintained the traditional cultural importance of Constantinople by carefully orchestrating the radiating power of the imperial court. At the same time, however, powerful men in both town and countryside gobbled up land and dominated the peasantry, challenging the dominance of the central government.

The Imperial Court

The Great Palace of Constantinople, a sprawling building complex begun under Constantine, was expanded and beautified under his successors.

(See

Map

4.1.)

Far

more

than

just

the

symbolic

emplacement of imperial power, it was the central command post of the Byzantine Empire. Servants, slaves, and grooms; top courtiers and learned clergymen; cousins, siblings, and hangers-on of the emperor and empress lived within its walls. Other courtiers – civil servants, officials, scholars, military men, advisors, and other dependents – tried to live near the palace, for they were “on call” at every hour. The emperor had only to give short notice and all were expected to assemble

for

impromptu

but

nevertheless

highly

choreographed

ceremonies. These were in themselves instruments of power; the emperors manipulated courtly formalities to indicate new favorites or to signal displeasure. The imperial court assiduously cultivated the image of perfect, stable, eternal order.

Map 4.1 Constantinople, c.1100

Description

The court was mainly a male preserve, but there were powerful women at the Great Palace as well. Consider Zoe (d.1050), the daughter

of

Constantine

VIII.

Contemporaries

acknowledged

her

right to rule through her imperial blood, and through her marriages she

“made”

her

husbands,

Romanus

III

and

Michael

IV,

into

legitimate emperors. She and her sister even ruled jointly for one year (1042).

But

their

biographer,

Michael

Psellus,

a

courtier

who

observed them with a jaundiced eye, was happy only when Zoe

married: “The country needed a man’s supervision – a man at once strong-handed and very experienced in government, one who not only understood the present situation, but also any mistakes that had been 1

made in the past, with their probable results.”

There was also a “third gender” at the Great Palace: eunuchs – men who had been castrated. Unable to procreate and thus deemed less potent than other men, exotic because they were both male and yet

not

quite,

they

were

chosen

to

occupy

some

of

the

highest

government offices – financial, administrative, and military. Consider the career of John the Orphanotrophos. (So called because he ran an orphanage among his many other functions.) He was castrated by his parents because they intended for him to become a courtier. He began his career as a favorite of Emperor Basil II (r.976–1025). Thereafter, he served two more emperors and then engineered the elevation to the imperial throne of his brother, Michael IV (r.1034–1041) and his nephew, Michael V (r.1041–1042). Plate 4.1 suggests the power that contemporaries attributed to him, for he is shown enthroned as he orders

the

exile

of

Constantine

Dalassenos,

a

powerful

military

commander and governor who had challenged the regime of Michael IV. Eunuchs were status symbols, markers of the emperor’s supreme power. Originally foreigners, they were increasingly recruited from the educated upper classes in the Byzantine Empire itself, even from imperial families, though John the Orphanotrophos seems to have come from a middle-class background. Eunuchs accompanied the emperor during his most sacred and vulnerable moments – when he removed his crown; when he participated in religious ceremonies; when he dreamed at night. They hovered by his throne, like the angels flanking Christ in the apse of San Vitale (Plate 1.12 on pp. 34–35). No one, it was thought, was as faithful, trustworthy, or spiritually pure as a eunuch.

Plate 4.1 John the Orphanotrophos Orders the Exile of Constantine Dalassenos (12th cent.). The Synopsis of Histories, a chronicle by John Skylitzes (d.1101), was copied and lavishly illustrated. This miniature depicts the time when, according to Skylitzes, eunuch John the Orphanotrophos was ruling on behalf of

his

brother,

the

epileptic

Emperor

Michael

IV.

Determined

to

punish

Constantine Dalassenos, he here sends him into exile. Reading the scene from right to left, we see the Orphanotrophos stretching out his hand to command Dalassenos to be off; on the left, the unhappy exile is rowed out to sea.

A Wide Embrace and Its Tensions Emperor Basil II (r.976–1025), with whom John the Orphanotrophos got his start, liked to portray himself as a tireless warrior. Certainly, his epitaph reads that way: nobody saw my spear at rest, ... but I kept vigilant through the whole span of my life ..., marching bravely to the West, 2

and as far as the very frontiers of the East.

As ruler of the Byzantine Empire for nearly fifty years, Basil built on

the

achievements

of

his

predecessors.

They

had

pushed

the

Byzantine frontiers north to the Danube (taking half of the Bulgarian Empire), east beyond the Euphrates, and south to Antioch, Crete, and Cyprus (see Map 4.2). Basil thus inherited a fairly secure empire except for the threat from Rus’, further to the north (for this new political entity, see below). This he defanged through a diplomatic and religious alliance, as we shall see.

Map 4.2 The Byzantine Empire of Basil II, 976–1025

Description

But if his borders were secure, Basil’s position was not. It was challenged by powerful landowning families from whose ranks his two

predecessors

military

and

had

come.

government

Members

officers,

of

bishops,

the

provincial

abbots,

and

elite

–

others

–

benefited from a general quickening of the economy and the rise of new urban centers. They took advantage of their ascendency by buying land from still impoverished peasants as yet untouched by the economic

upswing.

No

wonder

they

were

called

dynatoi

(sing.

dynatos), “powerful men.” Already, some forty years before Basil came to the throne, Emperor Romanus I Lecapenus (r.920–944) had bewailed in his Novel (New Law) of 934 the “intrusion” of the rich into a village or hamlet for the sake of a sale, gift, or inheritance.... For the domination of these persons has increased the great hardship of the poor ... [and] will cause no little harm to the commonwealth unless the present 3

legislation puts an end to it first.

The dynatoi made military men their clients (even if they were not themselves military men) and sometimes seized the imperial throne itself.

Basil had two main political goals: to stifle the rebellions of the dynatoi and to swell the borders of his empire. When the powerful Phocas and Scleros families of Anatolia, along with much of the Byzantine army, rebelled against him in 987, he created his own personal Varangian Guard, made up of Rus troops. Once victorious, Basil moved to enervate the dynatoi as a group. He reinforced the provisions of Romanus’s Novel and others like it by threatening to confiscate and destroy the estates of those who transgressed the rules. He changed the system of taxation so that the burden fell on large landowners rather than on the peasants. He relieved the peasants and others of local military duty in the themes by asking for money payments

instead.

This

allowed

him

to

shower

wealth

on

the

Varangian Guard and other mercenary troops. At the same time, Basil launched attacks beyond his borders: south to Syria and beyond; east all the way to Georgia and Armenia; southwest conquered Adriatic

to

southern

the

coast.

Italy;

whole

of

Basil’s

the

and

west

to

Bulgarian

victory

over

the

Balkans,

Empire

the

and

Bulgarians

where

reached used

to

he the be

considered his defining feat, and in the fourteenth century he was given

the

Catherine

epithet

“Bulgar-Slayer.”

Holmes

has

stressed

But

more

recently

the

importance

of

historian Basil’s

administrative – rather than military – achievements as he secured sufficient

stability

at

the

borders

of

Byzantium

to

ensure

his

government’s fiscal health. By the time of Basil’s death in 1025, the Byzantine Empire was no longer the tight fist centered on Anatolia that it had been in the dark days of the eighth century. On the contrary, it was an open hand: sprawling, multi-ethnic, and multilingual. (See Map 4.2.) To the east it embraced Armenians, Syrians, and Arabs; to the north it included Slavs and Bulgarians (by now themselves Slavic speaking) as well as Pechenegs, a Turkic group that had served as allies of Bulgaria; to the west, in the Byzantine toe of Italy, the Byzantine Empire included Lombards, Italians, and Greeks. There must have been Muslims right in the middle of Constantinople: a mosque there, built in the eighth century, was restored and reopened in the eleventh. The emperor employed Rus as his elite troops (the Varangian Guard), and by the mid-eleventh

century,

his

mercenaries

included

from Normandy), Arabs, and Bulgarians as well.

“Franks”

(mainly

All this openness went only so far, however. Toward the middle of the eleventh century, the Jews of Constantinople were expelled and resettled in a walled quarter in Pera, on the other side of the Golden Horn (see Map 4.1 on p. 120). Even though they did not expel Jews so

dramatically,

many

other

Byzantine

cities

forbade

Jews

from

mixing with Christians. Around the same time, the rights of Jews as “Roman citizens” were denied; henceforth, in law at least, they had only servile status. The Jewish religion was condemned as a heresy. Ethnic diversity and the emergence of the dynatoi fueled regional political

movements

that

further

threatened

centralized

imperial

control. In southern Italy, where the Byzantines ruled through an official called a catapan, Norman mercenaries hired themselves out to Lombard rebels, Muslim emirs, and others with local interests. In the second half of the eleventh century, the Normans began their own conquest

of

the

region.

On

Byzantium’s

eastern

flank,

dynatoi

families rose to high positions in government. The Dalasseni family was fairly typical of this group. Its founder, who took the family name from Dalassa, a city near Caesarea in Anatolia, was an army leader and governor of Antioch at the end of the tenth century. One of his sons, Theophylact, became governor of “Iberia” – not Spain but rather a theme on the very eastern edge of the Empire. Another, Constantine (the man exiled by John the Orphanotrophos), inherited his father’s position at Antioch. With estates scattered throughout Anatolia and a network of connections to other powerful families, the Dalasseni sometimes defied the emperor (as Constantine did Michael IV) and even coordinated rebellions against him. From the end of the tenth century, imperial control had to contend with the decentralizing forces of provincial dynatoi such as these. But the emperors were not dethroned, and Basil II triumphed over the families that challenged his reign to emerge even stronger than before.

4

The Formation of Rus’

One element of his strength came with his alliance with the Rus. Known

as

Vikings

Scandinavia,

where

in

the

petty

West,

kings

the

Rus

gave

their

originally warrior

came

from

followers

the

opportunity to acquire wealth by supplying them with weapons and

housing

and

by

controlling

regional

agricultural

production,

indigenous crafts, and long-distance trade. Consider Birka, a settlement in eastern Sweden with access to the Baltic Sea. A powerhouse of manufacture as well as exchange, it and places like it produced the items – pendants, amulets, jugs, beads, bridles, and weapons – that the Rus brought with them to the region of Lake Ladoga and Novgorod (Lake Ilmen). (See Map 4.3.) Viking Birka had town ramparts, a market, houses, wells, track-ways, water barricades, and a large round hillfort. Archaeologists have excavated its numerous grave mounds, revealing a cosmopolitan and warlike culture. Beneath some mounds are simple burial pits, but others contain coffins (the nails still survive), and still others boast large chambers

full

of

weapons,

sewing

tools,

beads,

and

sometimes

include feather beds for the corpse; a few make room for horses. Many people were buried with adornments: clothing, brooches, arm rings, and finger rings – including one inscribed in Arabic, “To Allah,” though the owner probably had no idea of its meaning. Recently DNA analysis has shown that the most remarkable grave at Birka was that of a woman. She was fully dressed, outfitted with a large set of weapons, and accompanied by two horses. Whether she was a warrior or not, she certainly had a very high status in this clearly stratified society. Perhaps she had taken on the persona of a Valkyrie – the armed divine female escorts of fallen heroes to the other world’s Hall of the Slain. Or perhaps she was indeed a fighter in Viking raids. It is well known that women accompanied men on their long-distant journeys.

Map 4.3 Kievan Rus’, c.1050

Description

The Vikings who went to Lake Ilmen, Novgorod, and eventually still further, to the region of Kiev (Kyiv), trapped animals for furs and captured people – the indigenous Slavs inhabiting these regions – as slaves. Taking advantage of river networks and other trade routes that led as far south as Iraq and as far west as Austria, they exchanged their human and animal cargos for silks and silver, forming crucial links between east and west, north and south. Such links explain why an Arabic-style finger ring was found in a grave at Birka and why Abbasid

silver

coins

were

hoarded

Scandinavian sites (see Plate 4.2).

there

and

at

many

other

Plate 4.2 Silver Hoard from Grimestad, near Kaupang (921). This coin hoard from Norway boasted seventy-seven Islamic coins as well as arm rings, neck rings, rods, and other silver items, some of them already cut into “hacksilver” to exchange by weight. Hoards similar to this – some with copper and counterfeit coins as well – have been found throughout Russia, in Europe along the Rhine River, in northern Poland and Germany, and, of course, in Scandinavia.

Other long-distance traders in the region were the Khazars, a Turkic-speaking people, whose powerful state, straddling the Black and Caspian Seas, dominated part of the silk road in the ninth century. The Khazars were ruled by a khagan (meaning khan of khans),

much

like

the

Avars,

and,

like

other

pastoralists

of

the

Eurasian steppes, they were tempted and courted by the religions of neighboring states. Unusually, their elites opted for Judaism. The Rus were influenced enough by Khazar culture to adopt the title of khagan for the ruler of their own fledgling ninth-century state at Novgorod, the first Rus polity, but they did not embrace Judaism. Eventually northern Rus moved south – to the region of Kiev – but this was not easy, for the area was already populated by Slavs and others. Moreover, Kiev was very close to the Khazars, to whom it is likely that the Kievan Rus at first paid tribute. While on occasion attacking both Khazars and Byzantines, Rus’ rulers saw their greatest advantage in good relations with the Byzantines, who wanted their fine furs, wax, honey, and – especially – slaves. In the course of the tenth century, with the blessing of the Byzantines, the Rus brought the Khazar Empire to its knees. Nurtured through trade and military agreements, good relations between

Rus’

and

Byzantium

were

sealed

through

religious

conversion. By the mid-tenth century, quite a few Christians lived in Rus’. But the official conversion of the Rus to Christianity came under Vladimir (r.980–1015). Ruler of Rus’ by force of conquest (though from a princely family), Vladimir was anxious to court the elites of both Novgorod and Kiev. He did so through wars with surrounding peoples

that

Strengthening

brought his

him

and

his

troops

position

still

further,

in

plunder

and

988

adopted

he

tribute. the

Byzantine form of Christianity, took the name “Basil” in honor of Emperor

Basil

II,

and

married

Anna,

the

emperor’s

sister.

Christianization of the general population seems to have followed quickly. Vladimir’s

conversion

was

part

of

a

larger

process

of

state

formation and Christianization taking place around the year 1000. In Scandinavia and East Central Europe, as we shall see, the end result was Catholic kingships rather than the Orthodox principality that Rus’ became. Given its geographic location, it was anyone’s guess how Rus’ would go: it might have converted to the Roman form of Christianity of its western neighbors. Or it might have turned to Judaism under the influence of the Khazars. Or, indeed, it might have adopted Islam, given that the Volga Bulgars had converted to Islam in the early tenth century. It is likely that Vladimir chose the Byzantine

form of Christianity because of the prestige of the Empire under Basil.

DIVISION AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD While at Byzantium the forces of decentralization were relatively feeble, they carried the day in the Islamic world. Where once the caliph at Baghdad or Samarra could boast collecting taxes from Kabul (today in Afghanistan) to Benghazi (today in Libya), in the eleventh century a bewildering profusion of regional groups and dynasties divided the Islamic world. Yet this was in general a period of prosperity and intellectual blossoming.

The Emergence of Regional Powers The Muslim conquest had not eliminated, but rather papered over, local

powers

and

regional

affiliations.

While

the

Umayyad

and

Abbasid caliphates remained strong, they imposed their rule through their governors and army. But when the caliphate became weak, as it did in the tenth and eleventh centuries, old and new regional interests came to the fore. A glance at a map of the Islamic world c.1000 (Map 4.4) shows, from east to west, the main new groups that emerged: the Samanids, Buyids, Hamdanids, Fatimids, and Zirids. But the map hides the many territories dominated by even smaller independent rulers. North of

the

Fatimid

Caliphate,

al-Andalus

had

a

parallel

history.

Its

Umayyad ruler took the title of caliph in 929, but in the eleventh century he too was unable to stave off political fragmentation. The key cause of the weakness of the Abbasid caliphate was lack of revenue. When landowners, governors, or recalcitrant military leaders in the various regions of the Islamic world refused to pay taxes into the treasury, the caliphs had to rely on the rich farmland of Iraq, long a stable source of income. But a deadly revolt lasting from 869 to 883 by the Zanj – black slaves from sub-Saharan East Africa who had been put to work to turn marshes into farmland – devastated the Iraqi economy. Although the revolt was put down and the head of

its leader was “displayed on a spear mounted in front of [the winning 5

general] on a barge,” there was no chance for the caliphate to recover.

In the tenth century the Qaramita (sometimes called “Carmathians”), a sect of Shi‘ites based in Arabia, found Iraq easy prey. The result was decisive: the caliphs could not pay their troops. New men – military leaders with their own armies – took the reins of power. They preserved the Abbasid line, but they reduced the caliph’s political authority to nothing.

Map 4.4 Fragmentation of the Islamic World, c.1000

Description

The new rulers represented groups that had long awaited their ascendency. The Buyids, for example, belonged to ancient warrior tribes from the mountains of Iran. Even in the tenth century, most were relatively new converts to Islam. Bolstered by long-festering local discontent, one of them became “commander of commanders” in 945. Thereafter, the Buyids, with help from their own Turkish mercenaries,

dominated

the

region

south

of

the

Caspian

Sea,

including Baghdad. For a time, they presided over a glittering culture that supported (and was in turn celebrated by) scholars, poets, artists, and

craftsman.

Yet

already

in

the

eleventh

century,

competition

between Buyid princes led to the regionalization and fragmentation of

their state, an atomization echoed elsewhere in the Islamic world and in much of Western Europe as well.

THE FATIMIDS The most important of the new regional rulers were the Fatimids. They, like the Qaramita (and, increasingly in the course of time, the Buyids),

were

Shi‘ites,

taking

their

name

from

Muhammad’s

daughter Fatimah, wife of Ali. The Fatimids professed a particular form of Shi‘ism called Isma‘ilism. The Fatimid leader claimed not only to be the true imam, descendant of Ali, but also the Mahdi, the “divinely guided” messiah, come to bring justice on earth. Because of this, the Fatimids were proclaimed “caliphs” by their followers – the true “successors” of the Prophet. Allying with the Berbers in North Africa, by 910 the Fatimids established themselves as rulers in what is today Tunisia and Libya. Within a half-century they had moved eastward (largely abandoning the Maghreb to the Zirids), to rule Egypt, southern Syria, and the western edge of the Arabian Peninsula. They cultivated contacts far beyond their borders as well: across the Mediterranean to Europe and Byzantium and beyond to India and China. Islamic religious scholars often served as the human links among these regions, financing their many voyages to noted centers of learning by acting as merchants or mercantile agents. A flourishing textile industry kept Egypt’s economy buoyant: farmers produced flax (not only for Egypt but for Tunisia and Sicily as well); industrial laborers turned the plant fibers into linen; tailors cut and sewed garments; and traders exported the products from each phase or sold them at home. Public and private investment in both the agricultural and industrial sides of flax production guaranteed its success.

Plate

4.3

Letter

“Greetings,” recounting

from

begins

the

Yshu‘a

this

immediate

long

ha-Kohen letter,

issue:

three

to

Nahray

showering captive

ben

praise

Jews

Nissim

on

have

Nahray

been

(1050). before

brought

to

Alexandria by traders from Amalfi, who are anxious to sell them. (For Amalfi, see Map 4.6 on p. 147.) Before their capture (or purchase) by the Amalfitans, the three had been taken from their ship by Byzantine pirates, robbed of their merchandise, and enslaved. Now in Alexandria, these Jews must be ransomed, and Yshu‘a is trying to raise the money and provide for their upkeep. But even with the “bargain price” offered by the Amalfitans and a bit of money offered in donation by others in Alexandria, he still needs forty dinars. Indirectly, and with plenty of flattering words, he asks Nahray, highly reputed for his charity, to help.

We know about this vibrant Egyptian society in part because of a trove of archival materials left by the Jewish community of Fustat. Following custom, the Jews there established a geniza – a repository for anything containing the name of God. While materials in genizot were usually destined for burial, the ones at Fustat just kept piling up, starting in the eleventh century and continuing for a thousand years. In

effect,

the

geniza

at

Fustat

served

as

the

garbage

dump

for

everything in Hebrew that was worn out or no longer needed. The documents contracts,

from

the

lawsuits,

Fatimid

even

period

shopping

–

lists

including –

reveal

letters, a

amulets,

cosmopolitan,

middle-class community that served as a linchpin for the trade that flourished across the Mediterranean Sea and beyond. Plate 4.3 shows one side of some of the thousands of letters found in the geniza. Written by a Jew living in Alexandria to the wealthy and influential Nahray ben Nissim, a Jewish communal leader in Fustat, the letter suggests some of the vast networks involved in commerce as well as their perils – in this case piracy and enslavement. Wealthy and sophisticated, the Fatimids created a new capital city, Cairo, filling it with palaces, libraries, shops, pavilions, gardens, private houses, and mosques which, following the Shi‘ite practice of calling the congregation to prayer from the mosque door or roof, lacked

minarets.

As

Shi‘ites,

too,

they

emphasized

the

commemoration of the dead (though Sunni Muslims often did so as well), hence the large Fatimid cemetery at Aswan (see Plate 4.4), filled with mudbrick tombs and mausolea (buildings for burials). Muhammad had prohibited ostentatious burials, but that ban was skirted as long as the tombs were open to the elements. That accounts for the many windows in the mausolea at Aswan.

Plate 4.4 Fatimid Cemetery at Aswan (11th cent.). Five hundred miles south of Cairo,

an

exuberant

architectural

imagination

held

sway

at

the

Fatimid

cemetery at Aswan. Here a series of mausolea with cubic bases topped by domes are particularly inventive in the ways in which they manage the zone that bridges

dome

and

base

by

using

octagonal

structures

with

wing-like

projections.

The Fatimids achieved the height of their power before the mideleventh century. But during the rule of al-Mustansir (1036–1094), economic and climatic woes, factional fighting within the army, and a rebellion by Turkish troops weakened the regime. By the 1070s, the Fatimid caliphate had lost most of Syria and North Africa to other rulers.

THE UMAYYADS OF AL-ANDALUS The Umayyad rulers at Córdoba experienced a similar rise and fall. Abd al-Rahman III (r.912–961) took the title caliph in 929 to rival the Fatimids and to assume the luster of the ruler of Baghdad. “He bore [signs of] piety on his forehead and religious and secular authority 6

upon his right hand,” wrote a court poet of the new caliph.

An active

military man backed by an army made up mainly of Slavic slaves,

Abd al-Rahman defeated his rivals and imposed his rule on all of alAndalus. Under the new caliph and his immediate successors, Islamic Iberia became a powerful centralized state. Even so, regional elites sought to carve out their own polities. Between 1009 and 1031 bitter civil war undid the dynasty’s power. After 1031, al-Andalus was split into small principalities, taifas, that were ruled by local strongmen. Thus, in the Islamic world, far more decisively than at Byzantium, newly

powerful

regional

rulers

came

to

the

fore.

Nor

did

the

fragmentation of power end at the regional level. To pay their armies, Islamic rulers often resorted to granting their commanders iqta – lands and villages – from which the iqta-holder was expected to gather revenues and pay their troops. As we shall see, this was a bit like the Western European institution of the fief. It meant that even minor commanders could act as local governors, tax-collectors, and military

leaders.

But

there

was

a

major

difference

between

this

institution and the system of fiefs and vassals in the West: while vassals were generally tied to one region and one lord, the troops under Islamic local commanders were often foreigners and former slaves, unconnected to any particular place and easily wooed by rival commanders.

Cultural Unity, Religious Polarization The emergence of local strongmen meant not the end of Arab court culture but a multiplicity of courts, each attempting to out-do one another

in

brilliant

artistic,

scientific,

theological,

and

literary

productions. The Buyids created what one modern scholar, Joel L. Kraemer, has called a renaissance of literary culture echoing that of Greek

antiquity.

The

Fatimids

embroidered

on

Islamic

themes.

Equally impressive was the Umayyad court at Córdoba, the wealthiest and showiest city of the West. It boasted seventy public libraries in addition to the caliph’s private library of perhaps 400,000 books. The Córdoban Great Mosque was a center for scholars from the rest of the Islamic world, while nearly thirty free schools were set up throughout the city. The pyxis in Plate 3.6 on p. 101 was made at a Córdoban workshop built and supported by Caliph Abd al-Rahman III. Córdoba was noteworthy not only because of the brilliance of its intellectual and artistic life but also because of the role women played

in it. Elsewhere in the Islamic world there were certainly a few unusual women associated with cultural and scholarly life. But at Córdoba this was a general phenomenon: women were not only doctors, teachers, and librarians but also worked as copyists for the many books widely in demand. Male

scholars

were,

however,

everywhere

the

norm,

moving

easily from court to court. Ibn Sina (980–1037), who began his career serving the ruler at Bukhara in Central Asia, is one famous example. In the West, his name was Latinized as Avicenna. From Bukhara he traveled westward to Gurganj, Rayy, and Hamadan before ending up for thirteen years at the court of Isfahan in Iran. Sometimes in favor with regional governors and sometimes decidedly not (he was even briefly imprisoned), he nevertheless managed to study and practice medicine and to write numerous books on the natural sciences and philosophy.

His

pioneering

systematization

of

Aristotle

laid

the

foundations of future philosophical thought in the field of logic. Despite its political disunity, then, the Islamic world of the tenth and eleventh centuries remained in many ways an integrated culture. This was partly due to the model of intellectual life fostered by the Abbasids, which even in decline was copied by the new regional rulers. It was also due to the common Arabic language, the glue that bound the astronomer at Córdoba to the merchant at Cairo. Writing in Arabic, Islamic authors could count on a large reading public. Invented in China, paper was introduced to the Islamic world in the eighth century. Baghdad and Damascus became centers of production, turning rags into sheets that were sold throughout Islamic lands and beyond. Notes such as the letter in Plate 4.3, were written on paper. Finer manuscripts and books were churned out quickly via a well-honed division of labor: scribes, illustrators, page cutters, and binders specialized in each task. Though unknown in Europe and scorned

in

intellectual,

Byzantium, fanciful,

paper

and

was

behind

practical

written

the

extraordinary

outpouring

that

characterized the medieval Islamic world. Children

were

sent

to

school

to

learn

the

Qur’an;

listening,

reciting, reading, and writing were taught in elementary schools along with good manners and religious obligations. Although a conservative educator like al-Qabisi (d.1012) warned that “[a girl] being taught letter-writing or poetry is a cause for fear,” he also insisted that

parents send both boys and girls to school to learn “vocalization, spelling, good handwriting, [and] good reading.” He even admitted that learning about “famous men and of chivalrous knights” might be 7

acceptable.

Educated in similar texts across the whole Islamic world and speaking a common language, Muslims could easily communicate, and this facilitated open networks of trade. With no national barriers to commerce and few regulations, merchants regularly moved from one region to another, dealing in various and sometimes exotic goods. From England came tin and salt; ivory, slaves, and gold arrived from Timbuktu in west-central Africa. Slavic regions and Rus’ supplied slaves, gold, amber, and copper. Merchants from Islamic lands set up permanent headquarters in China and South-East Asia to sell flax and linen from Egypt (as we have seen), pearls from the Persian Gulf, and ceramics from Iraq. Much of this trade was financed by enterprising government officials and other elites, whose investments in land at home paid off handsomely. Ironically, only the religion of Islam pulled Islamic culture apart. In the tenth century the split between the Sunnis and Shi‘ites widened as various sects elaborated on the foundations of their divergent beliefs. One example comes from the Buyid period in Baghdad, when the

Imami

spokesman revelation)

(or in

Twelver)

al-Mufid

in

theology

strand

of

(d.1022). and

Shi‘ism

The

the

use

need

found

of

an

reason

for

eloquent

(guided

by

interpretation

in

jurisprudence were at the core of al-Mufid’s teachings. He argued that the imamate (the true successors of Muhammad) resided not in the caliph nor in any political ruler. Rather, it inhered in men of great religious learning, and it would continue to do so until the end of time, when the Mahdi – the Islamic redeemer – would reappear. Imami quietism – its dissociation of Shi‘ism from political power – was useful to the Buyids. Ruling a primarily Sunni population in Iraq and bolstered by a mainly Sunni Turkish army, the Buyids allowed the Abbasid

caliphs

to

remain

at

Baghdad,

yet

deprived

them

of

a

political role. Much like the Buyids, many of the other new dynasties – the Fatimids

and

the

Qaramita

especially

–

took

splintering of Islamic beliefs to bolster their power.

advantage

of

the

THE WEST: FRAGMENTATION AND RESILIENCE Political

fragmentation

was

equally

true

in

Western

Europe.

Historians speak of “France,” “Germany,” and “Italy” in the postCarolingian period as a shorthand for designating broad geographical areas, and that will be the practice in this book as well. But there were no national states, only various

regions

with

more

or less

clear

borders and rulers with more or less authority. In some places – in parts of “France,” for example – regions as small as a few square miles were under the control of different lords who acted, in effect, as independent rulers. Yet this same period saw consolidated European kingdoms beginning to emerge. To the north were England, Scotland, and

two

relatively

unified

Scandinavian

states

–

Denmark

and

Norway. Toward the east were Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary. In the center

of

Europe,

a

powerful

royal

dynasty

from

Saxony,

the

Ottonians, came to rule an empire stretching from the North Sea to Rome.

New Peoples Arrive in the West Three new peoples arrived in Western Europe during the ninth and tenth centuries: the Vikings, the Muslims, and the Magyars (called Hungarians by the rest of Europe). (See Map 4.5.) While in the short run,

they

people,

in

population

wreaked the and

havoc

long

run,

became

on

previous

they

were

constituents

aggressive European civilization.

arrangements

absorbed of

a

into

newly

of the

land

and

European

prosperous

and

Map 4.5 Vikings, Muslims, and Hungarians on the Move, 9th and 11th cent.

Description

VIKINGS While some Scandinavians made forays eastward toward Novgorod, others traveled to western shores. A few went to fight for foreign kings and share in the fruits of their victories. Others raided under Viking leaders. Traveling in long, narrow, and shallow ships powered by oars, wind, and sails (see Plate 4.5), they navigated the coasts and rivers of France, England, Scotland, and Ireland, terrorizing not only the inhabitants but also the armies mustered to fight them: “Many a time an army was assembled to oppose them, but as soon as they were to join battle, always for some cause it was agreed to disperse, and always in the end [the Vikings] had the victory,” wrote a chronicler in 8

southern England.

Plate 4.5 Oseberg Ship (834). This large ceremonial ship was found buried in a grave mound near the Oslo fjord in 1904. Within were the skeletons of two women, one more than eighty years old, the other in her early fifties. They were accompanied by high-quality artifacts, delicate foods (such as fruits, berries, and walnuts), and many animals and birds. Wooden carvings, including those of the ship’s prow and stern-post, attest to the intricacy and finesse of Viking workmanship, characterized by interlaced animal motifs. Compare the interlace on the prow with that of the Book of Durrow in Plates 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7 (pp. 69– 71). What similarities do you see in artistic motifs across the arc formed by Scandinavia and the British Isles?

Some Vikings crossed the Atlantic, making themselves at home in Iceland or continuing on to Greenland or, in about 1000, reaching the coast of the North American mainland. While the elites came largely for booty, lesser men, eager for land, traveled with their wives and children to settle where the Vikings had a foothold, especially in Ireland, Scotland, and England. In France, they gave their name to the region of Normandy, a word deriving from “Northmen,” another term for the Vikings. A small contingent of Vikings settled for a short time far across the Atlantic, at L’Anse aux Meadows. These attempts to find new homes, many of them lasting and successful, led Judith Jesch recently to reconsider the Viking “invasions” as better termed a “diaspora.”

In Ireland, where their settlements were in the east and south, the newcomers fragmented

added among

their

own

several

claims

to

rule

competing

an

island

dynasties.

In

already

Scotland,

however, in the face of Norse settlements in the north and west, the natives

drew

together

under

kings

who

allied

themselves

with

churchmen and other powerful local leaders. Cináed mac Ailpín (Kenneth I MacAlpin; d.858) established a hereditary dynasty of kings, and by c.900, most people in Alba, the nucleus of the future Scotland, shared a common sense of Scottish identity. England

underwent

a

similar

process

of

unification.

Initially

divided into small and competing kingdoms, it was weak prey in the face of the Vikings. By the end of the ninth century, the newcomers were plowing fields in northeastern England and living in accordance with their own laws, giving the region the name Danelaw. In Wessex, the southernmost English kingdom, King Alfred the Great (r.871– 899) bought time and peace by paying tribute to the invaders with the income from a new tax, later called the Danegeld. (It eventually became the basis of a relatively lucrative taxation system in England.) In 878, inspiring the previously cowed English to follow him, Alfred led a series of raids against the Vikings in his kingdom, eventually camping outside their stronghold until their leader surrendered and accepted baptism. Thereafter the pressure of invasion eased somewhat as Alfred reorganized his army, set up a network of strongholds (burhs), and created

a

fleet

of

ships

–

a

real

navy.

An

uneasy

stability

was

achieved, with the Vikings dominating the east of England and Alfred and his successors gaining control over most of the rest. On

the

Continent,

the

invaders

were

absorbed

above

all

in

Normandy, where in 911 their leader Rollo converted to Christianity and received Normandy as a duchy from the Frankish king Charles the Simple. Although many of the Normans adopted sedentary ways, some of their descendants in the early eleventh century ventured to the Mediterranean, where they established themselves as rulers of petty

principalities

in

southern

Italy.

Normans began the conquest of Sicily.

MUSLIMS

From

there,

in

1061,

the

Sicily, once Byzantine, was the rich and fertile plum of the conquests achieved by the Muslim invaders of the ninth and tenth centuries. That they took the island attests to the power of a new Muslim navy developed by the dynasty that preceded the Fatimids in Ifriqiya. Briefly held by the Fatimids, by mid-century Sicily was under the control of independent Islamic princes, and Muslim immigrants were swelling the population. Elsewhere (apart, of course, from Iberia) the Muslim presence in Western Europe was more ephemeral. In the first half of the tenth century, Muslim raiders pillaged southern France, northern Italy, and the Alpine passes. But these were quick expeditions, largely attacks on churches and monasteries. Some Muslims established themselves at La Garde-Freinet, in Provence, becoming landowners in the region and lords of Christian serfs. They even hired themselves out as occasional fighters for the wars that local Christian aristocrats were waging against one another. But they made the mistake of capturing for ransom the holiest man of his era, Abbot Majolus of Cluny. Outraged, the local aristocracy finally came together and ousted the Muslims from their midst.

MAGYARS (HUNGARIANS) By contrast, the Magyars remained. “Magyar” was and is their name for themselves, though the rest of Europe called them “Hungarians,” from the Slavic “Onoghur,” a people already settled in the Carpathian basin in the seventh century. Before moving into the Danube region from the Urals, the Magyars practiced settled farming alongside the animal husbandry that required annual pasturing migrations. Herding cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and horses, they were organized by clans. Because they were renowned as horsemen and effective warriors – experts at using bows and arrows, sabers, and combat axes – they were employed in military enterprises by European and Byzantine rulers. Between 885 and 902, the Hungarians, as we may now call them, conquered much of the Carpathian basin for themselves. From there, for over fifty years, they raided into Germany, Italy, and even southern France. At the same time, however, they worked for various western rulers. Until 937 they spared Bavaria, for example, because

they

were

allies

of

its

duke.

Gradually

they

left

off

pastoralism in favor of settled farming, and their polity coalesced into

the Kingdom of Hungary (see below). This is no doubt a major reason for the end of their attacks. Nevertheless, the cessation of their raids was widely credited to the German king Otto I (r.936–973), who won a major victory over a Hungarian army at the battle of Lechfeld in 955.

Public Power and Private Relationships The invasions left new political arrangements in their wake. Unlike the Byzantines and Muslims, European rulers had no mercenaries and no salaried officials. They commanded others by ensuring personal loyalty. The Carolingian kings had had their fideles – their faithful men. Tenth-century rulers relied even more on ties of dependency: they

needed

their

“men”

(homines),

their

“vassals”

(vassalli).

Whatever the term, all were armed retainers who fought for a lord. Sometimes these subordinates held land from their lord, either as a reward

for

their

military

service

or

as

an

inheritance

for

which

services were due. The term for such an estate, fief (feodum), gave historians the word “feudalism” to describe the social and economic system created by the relationships among lords, vassals, and fiefs. During the last half century, however, the term has provoked great controversy. Some historians argue that it has been used in too many different and contradictory ways to mean anything at all. Was it a mode of exploiting the land that involved lords and serfs? A condition of

anarchy

and

lawlessness?

Or

a

political

system

of

ordered

gradations of power, from the king on down? Scholars have used all of these definitions. Another area of contention is the date for the emergence of feudal institutions – around the year 1000, as used to be argued? Or in the twelfth century, as more recent historians maintain? In

this

book

the

word

feudalism

is

generally

avoided,

but

the

institutions of personal dependency that historians associate with that term cannot be ignored. As for when they took hold, the answer depends on the region – in most of France by the late tenth century, in much of Germany in the twelfth, and in many parts of Italy never.

LORDS AND VASSALS

Personal

dependency

took

many

forms.

Of

the

three

traditional

“orders” recognized by writers in the ninth through eleventh centuries – those who pray (the oratores), those who fight (the bellatores), and those who work (the laboratores) – the top two were free. The prayers (the monks) and the fighters (the nobles and their lower-class counterparts,

the

knights)

participated

in

prestigious

kinds

of

subordination, whether as vassals, lords, or both. Indeed, they were usually both: a typical warrior was lord of several vassals and the vassal of another lord. In Plate 4.6 the artist has depicted the battle of the Jewish Maccabees against Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Seleucid ruler of Syria who invaded Jerusalem in 167

BCE,

by drawing on his

imagination, the images of the warriors he found in other books, and his own observations of the knights of his day. The manuscript in which this illustration comes was made in a Catalan monastery, proof (if any were needed) that monasteries participated in the world of the warriors. Monasteries normally had vassals to fight for them, and their abbots in turn served as vassals of a king or other lord. At the low end of the social scale, poor vassals looked to their lords to feed, clothe, house, and arm them. At the upper end, vassals looked to their lords to enrich them with more fiefs.

Plate 4.6 The Maccabean Revolt Depicted (first half of 11th cent.). To illustrate a battle of the Maccabees against the Syrians, the artist drew warriors decked out in wild colors. On the left, the army of Judas (the leader of the Jews) attacks the enemy. Some of the fighters wear chainmail armor; all are protected by helmets, and most hold shields and spears. The artist included stirrups in other battle scenes but forgot to include them here. As for the Syrian army: according to 1 Macc 6:35–37, it used elephants, “and upon the beast there were strong wooden towers ... and upon every one [were] thirty-two valiant men, who fought from above.” Never having seen elephants, the artist made them up.

Some women were vassals, and some were lords (or, rather, “ladies,”

the

female

version).

Many

participated in the society of warriors

upper-class

and

monks

laywomen

as

wives

and

mothers of vassals and lords and as landowners in their own right. Others entered convents and became oratores themselves. Through its abbess or a man standing in for her, a convent was itself often the “lord” of vassals. Vassalage

was

considered

to

be

voluntary

and

public.

The

personal fidelity that the Carolingian kings required of the Frankish elites became more general, as all lords wanted the same assurance from

their

retainers.

Over

time

a

ceremony

of

deference

came

increasingly to mark the occasion: a man (a vassal-to-be) knelt and placed his hands together (in a position we associate with prayer) within the hands of another (his lord-to-be) who stood: this was the act of homage. The kneeling man said, “I promise to be your man.” He then rose and promised “fealty” – fidelity, trust, and service – which he swore with his hand on relics or a Bible. Then the vassal and the lord kissed. In an age when many people could not read, a

public moment such as this represented a visual and verbal contract, binding the vassal and lord together with mutual obligations to help each other. On the other hand, these obligations were rarely spelled out, and a lord with many vassals, or a vassal with many lords, needed to satisfy numerous conflicting claims. “I am a loser only because of my loyalty to you,” Hugh of Lusignan complained to his lord, William of Aquitaine, after his expectations for reward were 9

continually disappointed.

LORDS AND PEASANTS At the lowest end of the social scale were those who worked: the peasants. In many regions of Europe, as power fell into the hands of local rulers, the distinction between “free” and “unfree” peasants began to blur; many peasants simply became “serfs,” dependents of lords. This was a heavy dependency, without prestige or honor. It was hereditary rather than voluntary: no serf did homage or fealty to his lord; no serf and lord kissed each other. Indeed, the upper classes barely noticed the peasants – except as sources of labor and revenue. In the tenth century, the three-field system became more prevalent, and the heavy moldboard plows that could turn wet, clayey northern soils came into wider use. Such plows could not work around fences, and they were hard to turn. They produced the characteristic “look” of medieval agriculture – long, furrowed strips in broad, open fields. Peasants knew very well which strips were “theirs” and which belonged to their neighbors. A team of oxen was normally used to pull the plow (see Plate 4.7), but horses (more efficient than oxen) were sometimes substituted. The result was surplus food and a better standard of living for nearly everyone.

Plate 4.7 Peasants Plowing and Sowing (2nd quarter of 11th cent.). To decorate a calendar page for the month of January, an artist in England chose to show peasants plowing and sowing seed for the spring crop. The peasants in this picture

are

very

prosperous,

for

they

have

the

most

up-to-date

and

well-

equipped plow: not only is it pulled by four oxen, relieving the burden on the driver, but it also has wheels, a coulter (behind the wheel) to dig into the earth, and a moldboard to turn and aerate the soil.

In search of still greater profits, some lords lightened the dues and services of peasants temporarily to allow them to open up new lands by draining marshes and cutting down forests. Other lords converted dues and labor services into money payments to provide themselves with ready cash. Peasants, too, benefited from paying fixed rents immune to inflation. As the prices of agricultural products went up, peasants became small-scale entrepreneurs, selling their chickens and eggs at local markets and reaping a profit. In the eleventh century, and increasingly so in the twelfth, peasant settlements gained boundaries and focus, becoming real villages. The nucleus might be a lord’s castle – not a luxurious chateau but rather a defensive

earthwork-and-timber

structure.

And/or

it

would

be

a

church with its declared “protected zone,” including a cemetery, many

houses

of

the

living,

and

the

barns,

animals,

and

tools

belonging to them. Boundary markers – sometimes simple stones, at other times real fortifications – announced not only the physical limits of the village but also its identity as a community. Villagers depended on each other: peasants had to share oxen or horses to pull their plows and they needed craftspeople to fix their plow wheels and shoe their draft animals.

Variety was the hallmark of peasant society. In Saxony and other parts of Germany, free peasants prevailed. In France and England, most were serfs. In Italy, peasants ranged from small independent landowners to leaseholders; most were both, owning a parcel in one place and renting or leasing another nearby. Where the power of kings was weak, peasant obligations became part of systems of local rule. As landlords consolidated their power over their manors, they collected not only dues and services but also fees for the use of their flour mills, bake houses, and breweries. In some regions – parts of France and in Catalonia, for example – lords often built castles and exercised the power of the “ban”: the right to collect taxes, hear court cases, levy fines, and muster men for defense. These lords were “castellans.”

WARRIORS AND BISHOPS Although the developments described here did not occur everywhere simultaneously (and in some places hardly at all), in the end the social, political, and cultural life of the West came to be dominated by landowners

who

styled

themselves

both

military

men

(and

on

occasion women) and regional leaders. The men and their armed retainers shared a common lifestyle, living together, eating in the lord’s great hall, listening to bards sing of military exploits, hunting for recreation, competing with one another in military games. They fought in groups as well – as cavalry. In the month of May, when the grasses were high enough for their horses to forage, the war season began. To be sure, there were powerful vassals who lived on their own fiefs and hardly ever saw their lord – except for perhaps forty days out of the year, when they owed him military service. But they themselves were lords of knightly vassals who were not married and who lived and ate and hunted with them. The marriage bed, so important to the medieval aristocracy from the start, now took on new meaning. In the seventh and eighth centuries, aristocratic families had thought of themselves as large and loosely organized kin groups. They were not tied to any particular estate, for they had numerous properties, scattered all about. With wealth enough to go around, the rich practiced partible inheritance, giving land (though not in equal amounts) to all of their sons and daughters. The Carolingians “politicized” these family relations. As

some men were elevated to positions of dazzling power, they took the opportunity to pick and choose their “family members,” narrowing the family circle. They also became more conscious of their male line, favoring sons over daughters. In the eleventh century, family definitions tightened even further. The claims of one son, often the eldest, overrode all else; to him went the family inheritance. (This is called “primogeniture”; but there were regions in which the youngest son was privileged, and there were also areas in which more equitable inheritance practices continued in place.) The heir in the new system traced his lineage only through the male line, backward through his father and forward through his own eldest son. What happened to the other sons? Some of them became knights, others monks. Nor should we forget that many became bishops. In many ways, the interests of bishops and lay nobles were similar: bishops

were

men

of

property,

lords

of

vassals,

and

faithful

to

patrons, such as kings, who often were the ones to appoint them to their posts. In some places, bishops wielded the powers of a count or duke. Some bishops ruled cities. Nevertheless, bishops were also “pastors,”

spiritual

leaders

charged

with

shepherding

their

flock,

which included the laity, priests, and monks in their diocese (a district that gained clear definition in the eleventh century). As episcopal power expanded and was clarified in the course of the tenth and eleventh centuries, some bishops in southern France, joined by the upper crust of the aristocracy, sought to control the behavior of the lesser knights through a movement called the “Peace of God.” They were not satisfied with the current practices of peacemaking, in which enemies, pressured by their peers, negotiated an end to – or at least a cessation of – hostilities. (Behind the negotiation was the threat of an ordeal – for instance a trial by battle whose outcome was in the hands of God – if the two sides did not come to terms.) The Peace movement began in 989 and grew apace, its forum the regional Church council, where bishops galvanized popular opinion, attracting both grand aristocrats and peasants to their gatherings. There,

drawing

upon

bits

and

pieces

of

defunct

Carolingian

legislation, the bishops declared the Peace, and knights took oaths to observe it. At Bourges a particularly enthusiastic archbishop took the oath of the Peace of God himself: “I Aimon ... will wholeheartedly attack those who steal ecclesiastical property, those who provoke

10

pillage, those who oppress monks, nuns, and clerics.” of

God,

which

by

the

1040s

was

declared

In the Truce

alongside

the

Peace,

warfare between armed men was prohibited from Lent to Easter, while at other times of the year it was forbidden on Sunday (because that was the Lord’s Day), on Saturday (because that was a reminder of Holy Saturday), on Friday (because it symbolized Good Friday), and on Thursday (because it stood for Holy Thursday). To the bishops who promulgated the Peace and Truce of God, warriors fell conceptually into two groups: the sinful ones who broke the Peace, and the righteous ones who upheld Church law. Although the Peace and Truce were taken up by powerful lay rulers, eager to sanctify their own warfare and control that of others, the major initiative for the movement came from churchmen eager to draw clear boundaries between the realms of the sacred and the profane.

CITIES AND MERCHANTS Such clerics were, in part, reacting to new developments in the secular

realm:

the

growing

importance

of

urban

institutions

and

professions. Though much of Europe was rural, there were important exceptions. Italy was one place where urban life, though dramatically reduced in size and population, persisted. Italian power structures still reflected,

if

feebly,

the

political

organization

of

ancient

Rome.

Whereas in northern France great lords built their castles in the countryside, in Italy they often constructed their family seats within the

walls

of

cities

still

standing

since

Roman

days.

From

these

perches the nobles, both lay and religious, dominated the contado, the rural area around the city. In Italy, most peasants were renters or lease holders, paying cash to urban landowners. Peasants depended on city markets to sell their surplus goods; their customers included bishops, nobles, and middleclass

shopkeepers,

artisans,

and

merchants.

At

Milan,

some

merchants were prosperous enough to own houses in both the city center and the contado. Rome, although exceptional in size, was in some ways a typical Italian city. Powerful families built their castles within its walls and controlled

the

churches

and

monasteries

in

the

vicinity.

The

population depended on local producers for their food, and merchants brought their wares to sell within its walls. Yet Rome was special

apart from its size: it was the “see” – the seat – of the pope, the most important

bishop

in

the

West.

In

the

tenth

and

early

eleventh

centuries, the papacy did not control the Church, but it had great prestige, and powerful families at Rome fought to place their sons at its head. Outside Italy cities were less prevalent. Yet even so we can see the rise of a new mercantile class. This was true less in the heartland of the old Carolingian Empire than on its fringes. In the north, England, north Germany, Denmark, and the Low Countries bathed in a sea of silver

coins;

commercial

centers

such

as

Haithabu

reached

their

grandest extent in the mid-tenth century. Here merchants bought and sold slaves, honey, furs, wax, and pirates’ plunder. Haithabu was a city of wood, but a very rich one indeed. In the south of Europe, beyond the Pyrenees, Catalonia was equally commercialized, but in a different way. It imitated the Islamic world of al-Andalus (which was, in effect, in its backyard). The counts of Barcelona minted gold coins just like those at Córdoba. The villagers around Barcelona soon got used to selling their wares for money, and some of them became prosperous. They married into the aristocracy, moved to Barcelona to become city leaders, and lent money to ransom prisoners of the many wars waged to their south.

Western Kingship in an Age of Fragmentation In such a world, what did kings do? At the least, they stood for tradition, serving as symbols of legitimacy. At the most, they united kingdoms and maintained a measure of law and order. (See Map 4.6.)

Map 4.6 Europe, c.1050

Description

ENGLAND King Alfred of England was a king of the second sort. In the face of the

Viking

government,

invasions, creating

he

developed

institutions

that

new

mechanisms

became

the

of

royal

foundation

of

English royal power. We have already seen his military reforms: a system of burhs and the creation of a navy. Alfred was interested in religious and intellectual reforms as well, for defense and education

were closely linked in his mind. The causes of England’s troubles (in his view) were the sins of its people, brought on by their ignorance. Alfred intended to educate “all free-born men.” He brought scholars to his court and embarked on an ambitious program to translate key religious works from Latin into Old English, the vernacular. This was the spoken language of the people, but it also served some literary and administrative needs, and Alfred determined to increase its use. While England was not alone in its esteem of the vernacular – in Ireland, too, the vernacular language was more than oral – the British Isles were unusual by the standards of Continental Europe, where people spoke in the vernacular but wrote almost everything in Latin. As

Alfred

harried

the

Danes

who

were

pushing

south

and

westward, he gained recognition as king of all the English not under Viking rule. His law code, issued in the late 880s or early 890s, was the first by an English king in about two centuries. Unlike earlier codes, which had been drawn up for each separate kingdom, Alfred’s contained laws from and for all the English kingdoms in common. The king’s inspiration was the Mosaic law of the Bible. He believed that God had made a new covenant with the victors over the Vikings; as leader of his people, Alfred, like the Old Testament patriarch Moses, handed down a law for all. His successors, beneficiaries of that covenant, rolled back the Viking rule in England. (See Genealogy 4.1.) Many Vikings fled back to Scandinavia, but others remained. Converted to Christianity, their great men joined the English to attend the king at court. The whole kingdom was divided into districts called “shires” and “hundreds,” and in each shire, the king’s reeve – the sheriff – oversaw royal administration.

Genealogy 4.1 Alfred and His Progeny

Description

Alfred’s grandson Æthelstan (r.924–939) took advantage of all the institutions that early medieval kingship offered. The first king to unite all the English kingdoms, he was crowned in a new ritual created by the archbishop of Canterbury to emphasize harmony and unity. When Æthelstan toured his realm (as he did constantly), he was accompanied by a varied and impressive retinue: bishops, nobles, thegns

(the

English

equivalent

of

high-status

vassals),

scholars,

foreign dignitaries, and servants. Well known as an effective military leader who extended his realm northwards, he received oaths of loyalty from the rulers of other parts of Britain. Churchmen attended him at court, and he in turn chose bishops and other churchmen. Like Alfred, he issued laws and expected local authorities – the ealdormen 11

and sheriffs – to carry them out. From

the

point

of

view

of

control,

however,

Æthelstan

had

nowhere near the power over England that, say, Basil II had over Byzantium at about the same time. The dynatoi might sometimes chafe at the emperor’s directives and rebel, but the emperor had his Varangian Guard to put them down and an experienced, professional civil service to do his bidding. The king of England depended less on force

and

bureaucracy

than

on

consensus.

The

great

landowners

supported the king because they found it to be in their interest. When they ceased to do so, the kingdom easily fragmented, becoming prey to civil war. Disunity was exacerbated by new attacks from the Vikings. One Danish king, Cnut (or Canute), even became king of England for a time (r.1016–1035). Yet under Cnut, English kingship did not change much. He kept intact much of the administrative, ecclesiastical, and military apparatus already established. By Cnut’s time, much of Scandinavia had been Christianized, and its traditions had largely merged with those of the rest of Europe.

SCANDINAVIA Two European-style kingdoms – Denmark and Norway – developed in Scandinavia around the year 1000, and Sweden followed a bit later. In

effect,

plundered

the

Vikings

wealth

implications

for

but

royal

took also power

home its

with

them

prestigious

and

not

only

religion,

state-building.

Europe’s

with

The

all

its

impetus

for

conversion in Scandinavia came from two directions. From the south, missionaries such as the Frankish monk Ansgar (d.865) came to preach Christianity, seconded by German bishops, who imposed what claims they could make. Within Scandinavia itself, kings found it worth

their

while

to

ally

with

these

Christian

representatives

to

enhance their own position. When Danish King Harald Bluetooth (r.c.958–c.986), converted, he

announced

Christianity,

it

he

with

had

a

meaningful

buried

his

ritual.

father

in

a

Before

converting

mound

–

to

prestigious

precisely for its non-Christian, pagan connotations. When he became Christian, he added a giant runestone to the mound and moved the body of his father into a new church he built for the occasion. The runestone included an image of Christ and announced in runes (letters that had magical connotations) that Harald had “won for himself all 12

of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian.”

Thus

Harald graphically turned a pagan site into a Christian one and, at the same time, announced that he was the ruler of a state that extended into

what

is

today

southern

Sweden

and

parts

of

Norway.

(His

successors turned their sights further outward, culminating in the conquest of England and Norway, but that grand empire ended with the death of Cnut in 1035.)

The processes of conversion and kingly rule in Norway are less easily traceable than in Denmark because there are fewer sources from the time. It is clear, however, that after King Olav Haraldsson (r.1015–1030)

was

baptized,

he

helped

organize

the

Norwegian

Church, was active in legislating Christian holidays and banning pagan cults, sent churchmen to evangelize Sweden, and managed through war and alliance to rule most of Norway. After his death he was recognized as a saint, another unifying rallying point. Building on those successes, Olav’s son Magnus the Good and then his halfbrother, Harald Hardrada (r.1046–1066), established a stable dynasty that lasted for four generations. The story of Sweden suffers even more fully from lack of written sources, but the archaeological remains are rich – Birka (see above) is one good example. As was true at Birka, local settlements were often under the control of kings. Conversion to Christianity, initiated by missionaries from England and Germany in the ninth century, did not have much impact until the eleventh. While to some degree connected to the conversion of kings, Swedish Christianization was a slow and often

voluntary

process

on

the

ground

–

quite

literally

“on

the

ground” because it is best traced through runestones erected by free commoners over burials and other important sites. Gradually these came

to

express

unification

of

adherence

Sweden

in

to

the

the

new

faith.

mid-thirteenth

Even

century,

the

eventual

Philip

Line

suggests, may have taken place less because a strong ruler at the top imposed his will than because the free elites agreed that it was in their best interests to form a confederation.

GERMANY Unlike the kings of Sweden, the kings of “Germany” – the former East Frankish Kingdom – were powerful. It is true that as Carolingian power

declined,

Germany

seemed

ready

to

disintegrate

into

five

duchies, each held by a military leader who exercised quasi-royal power. But, in the face of their own quarrels and the threats of outside invaders, the dukes needed and wanted a strong king. With the death in 911 of East Frankish King Louis the Child, they crowned one of themselves. Then, as attacks by the Hungarians increased, the dukes gave the royal title to their most powerful member, the duke of Saxony, Henry I (r.919–936), who proceeded to set up fortifications

and reorganize his army, crowning his efforts with a major defeat of the Hungarians in 933. Soon after coming to the throne, Henry’s son Otto I (r.936–973) defeated all rivals as well as invading Slavic and Hungarian armies. Through astute marriage alliances and political appointments, he was able to get his family members to head up each of the duchies. In 951, he marched into Italy and took the Lombard crown. That gave Otto control, at least theoretically, of much of northern Italy. His victory at Lechfeld in 955 ended the Hungarian threat, and in the same year, he defeated a Slavic group, the Obodrites, who inhabited the territory between the Elbe and the Oder Rivers. (See Map 4.6.) Conquests such as these brought tribute, plum positions to disburse, and lands to give away, ensuring Otto a following among the great men of the realm. Little wonder that in 962 he received the imperial crown from the pope

at

Rome,

an

act

that

recognized

his

far-flung

power

and

burnished his image as a new Charlemagne. Otto I’s successors, Otto II (r.961–983), Otto III (r.983–1002) – hence the dynastic name “Ottonians” – and Henry II (r.1002–1024), built on his achievements. (See Genealogy 4.2 on p. 151.) Granted power by the magnates, they gave back in turn, distributing land and appointing their own supporters to duchies, counties, and bishoprics. But the power of these princes was tempered by hereditary claims and plenty

of

lobbying

by

influential

men

at

court

and

at

the

great

assemblies that met with the king to hammer out policies. The role of kings

in

important

filling to

bishoprics

them

because,

and

archbishoprics

unlike

counties

was

and

particularly

duchies,

those

positions could not be inherited. Otto I created a ribbon of new bishoprics along his eastern border, endowed them with extensive lands, and subjected the local peasantry to episcopal overlordship. Throughout Germany bishops had the right to collect revenues and call men to arms.

Genealogy 4.2 The Ottonians

Description

In fact, bishops and archbishops constituted the backbone of Ottonian rule. Once he had chosen the bishop (usually with the consent of the clergy of the cathedral over which the bishop was to preside), the king received a gift – a token of episcopal support – in return. Then the king “invested” the new prelate in his post by participating in the ceremony that installed him into office. (See Plate 5.6 on p. 183.) Archbishop Bruno of Cologne is a good – if extreme – example of the symbiotic relations between Church and State in the German realm. An ally of the king (as were almost all the bishops), he was also Otto I’s brother. Right after he was invested as archbishop in 953, he was appointed by Otto to be duke of Lotharingia and to put down a local rebellion. Later Bruno’s biographer, Ruotger, strove mightily to justify Bruno’s role as a warrior-bishop: Some people ignorant of divine will may object: why did a bishop assume public office and the dangers of war when he had undertaken only the care of souls? If they understand any sane matter, the result itself will easily satisfy them, when they see a great and very unaccustomed (especially in their homelands) gift of peace spread far and wide through this guardian and teacher of a faithful people.... Nor was governing this world new or unusual

for rectors of the holy Church, previous examples of which, if someone 13

needs them, are at hand.

Ruotger was right: there were other examples near at hand, for the German kings found their most loyal warriors and administrators among their bishops. Consider, as another example, the bishop of Liège; he held the rights and exercised the duties of several counts, had his own mints, and hunted and fished in a grand private forest granted to him in 1006. Bruno was not only duke of Lotharingia, pastor of his flock at Cologne, and head (as archbishop of Cologne) of the bishops of his duchy. He was also a serious scholar. “There was nearly no type of liberal study in Greek or Latin,” wrote the admiring Ruotger, “that escaped the vitality of his genius.” Bruno’s interest in learning was part of a larger movement. With wealth coming in from their eastern tributaries, Italy, and the silver mines of Saxony (discovered in the time of Otto I), the Ottonians presided over a brilliant intellectual and artistic efflorescence. As in the Islamic world, much of this was dispersed; in Germany, the centers of culture included the royal court, the great cathedral schools, and women’s convents. The

most

talented

young

men

crowded

the

schools

at

the

cathedrals of Trier, Cologne, Magdeburg, Worms, and Hildesheim. Honing their Latin, they studied classical authors such as Cicero and Horace as well as Scripture, while their episcopal teachers wrote histories, saints’ lives, and works on canon law. One such was the Decretum (1008/1012) by Burchard, bishop of Worms. This widely influential collection – much like the compilations of hadith produced about a century before in the Islamic world – winnowed out the least authoritative canons and systematized the contradictory ones. It also focused on sins, prescribing penances for immoral acts and putting particular

emphasis

on

newly

precise

sexual

sins,

which

were

becoming preoccupations of the clergy as they dealt with new calls for their own chastity. Thus, Burchard wanted confessors to ask laymen: Have you committed fornication, as sodomites do, that is in a man’s behind and inserted the [male] member into the rear, and in such way mate in the manner of a sodomite? If you have a wife and have done it once or twice, you should do penance for ten years, one of them on bread and water. Yet if you have [done it] habitually, you should do penance for twelve years. If,

however, you have committed the same carnal crime with your brother, you 14

should do penance for fifteen years.

Even seemingly innocuous practices, such as married couples having sex on a Sunday had to be atoned for by days of penance. The men at the cathedral schools were largely in training to become

courtiers,

Churchmen appreciated

such art

as

administrators,

as

Egbert,

well

as

and

archbishop

scholarship.

bishops of

themselves.

Trier

Plate 4.8

(r.977–993),

on

p.

153,

an

illustration of the Raising of Lazarus from the Egbert Codex (named for its patron), is a good example of what is called the “Ottonian style.”

Utterly

otherworldly

unafraid

pastel

of

colors,

open

space,

painters

which

focused

on

was the

rendered figures,

in

who

gestured like actors on a stage. In Plate 4.8 the apostles are on the lefthand side, their arms raised and hands wide open with wonder at Christ. He has just raised the dead Lazarus from the tomb, and one of the Jews, on the right, holds his nose. Two women – Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus – fall at Christ’s feet, completing the dramatic tableau. Other patrons of the arts were Ottonian noblewomen, who lived in convents that provided them with comfortable private apartments. They wrote books and supported other scholars and artists. Equally active patrons of the arts were the Ottonian kings themselves, who were well aware of the propaganda value of pictures.

Plate 4.8 The Raising of Lazarus, Egbert Codex (985–990). This miniature is one of fifty-one illustrations in a Pericopes, a book of readings arranged for the liturgical year. The story of the Raising of Lazarus, which is recounted in John 11:1–45, is read in church during the week before Easter. Of the many elements of this story, the artist chose one important moment, arranging it into a unified scene that made room for abstract design (look at the sky, composed of broad stripes of rosy hues) alongside classically inspired figures suggesting volume and weight, reacting and interacting with no care for the viewer. Only the labels are jarringly didactic, teaching a moral lesson.

Description

FRANCE By contrast with the English and German kings, those in France had a hard time coping with invasions. Unlike Alfred’s dynasty, which started small and built slowly, the French kings had half an empire to

defend. Unlike the Ottonians, who asserted their military prowess in decisive

battles

such

as

the

one

at

Lechfeld,

the

French

kings

generally had to let local men both take the brunt of the attacks and reap the prestige and authority that came with military leadership. Nor did the French kings have the advantage of Germany’s silver mines, Italian connections, or money that came in from tribute. Much like the Abbasid caliphs at Baghdad, the kings of France saw their power wane. During most of the tenth century, Carolingian kings alternated on the throne with kings from a family that would later be called the “Capetians.” At the end of that century the most powerful men of the realm, seeking to stave off civil war, elected Hugh Capet (r.987–996) as their king. The Carolingians were displaced, and the Capetians continued on the throne until the fourteenth century. (See Genealogy 5.5 on p. 196.) The Capetians’s scattered but substantial estates lay in the north of France, in the region around Paris. Here the kings had their vassals and their castles. This “Ile-de-France” (which was all there was to “France” in the period; see Map 4.6 on p. 147) was indeed an “island” – an île – surrounded by independent castellans. In the sense that he, too, had little more military power than other castellans, Hugh Capet

and

his

eleventh-century

successors

were

similar

to

local

strongmen. But the Capetian kings had the prestige of their office. Anointed with holy oil, they represented the idea of unity and Godgiven rule inherited from Charlemagne. Most of the counts and dukes – at least those in the north of France – swore homage and fealty to the king, a gesture, however weak, of personal support. Unlike the German kings, the French could rely on vassalage to bind the great men of the realm to them.

New States in East Central Europe Around

the

same

time

as

Moravia

and

Bulgaria

lost

their

independence to the Magyars and the Byzantines (respectively), three new polities – Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary – emerged in East Central Europe. In many ways, they formed an interconnected bloc as their ruling houses intermarried with one another and with the great families of Germany, the power that loomed to their west. Bohemia and Poland both were largely Slavic-speaking; linguistically, Hungary

was the odd man out, but in almost every other way it was typical of the fledgling states in the region.

BOHEMIA AND POLAND While the five German duchies were subsumed by the Ottonian state, Bohemia in effect became a separate duchy of the Ottonian Empire. (See Map 4.6.) Already Christianized, largely under the aegis of German bishops, Bohemia was unified in the course of the tenth century. (One of its early rulers was Wenceslas – the Christmas carol’s “Good King Wenceslas” – who was to become a national saint after his assassination.) Its princes were supposed to be vassals of the emperor

in

Germany.

Thus,

when

Bohemian

Duke

Bretislav

I

(d.1055) tried in 1038 to expand into what was by then Poland, laying waste the land all the way to Gniezno and kidnapping the body of the revered Saint Adalbert, Emperor Henry III (d.1056) declared war, forcing

Bretislav

to

give

up

the

captured

territory

and

hostages.

Although left to its own affairs internally, Bohemia was thereafter semi-dependent on the Empire. What was this “Poland” of such interest to Bretislav and Henry? Like the Dane Harald Bluetooth, and around the same time, Mieszko I (r.c.960–992), the ruler of the region that would become Poland, became Christian. In 990/991, he put his realm under the protection of the pope, tying it closely to the power of Saint Peter. Mieszko built a network of fortifications, subjected the surrounding countryside to his rule, and expanded his realm in all directions. Mieszko’s son Boleslaw the Brave (or, in Polish, Chrobry; r.992–1025) continued that policy, for a short time even becoming duke of Bohemia. Above all, Boleslaw made the Christian religion a centerpiece of his rule. At his initiative Gniezno was declared an archbishopric in 1000 and Boleslaw declared his alliance with Christ by issuing a coin: on one side he portrayed himself as a sort of Roman emperor, while on the 15

other he displayed a cross.

Soon the Polish rulers could count on a

string of bishoprics – and the bishops who presided in them. A dynastic crisis in the 1030s gave the Bohemian Bretislav his opening, but, as we have seen, that was quickly ended by the German emperor. Poland persisted, although somewhat reduced in size.

HUNGARY

Polytheists at the time of their entry into the West, most Magyars were peasants, initially specializing in herding (as we have seen, above) but soon busy cultivating vineyards, orchards, and grains. Above them was a warrior class, and above the warriors were the elites, whose richly furnished graves reveal the importance of belts, weapons, and horses to this society. Originally led by chieftains, by the mid-tenth century the Hungarians recognized one ruling house – that of Prince Géza (r.972–997). Like the ambitious kings of Scandinavia, Géza was determined to give his power new ballast via baptism. His son, Stephen I (r.997– 1038), consolidated the change to Christianity: he built churches and monasteries, and required everyone to attend church on Sundays. Establishing his authority as sole ruler, Stephen had himself crowned king in the year 1000 (or possibly 1001). Around the same time, he issued a code of law that brought his kingdom into step with other 16

European powers.

*

*

*

*

*

Political fragmentation did not mean chaos. It simply betokened a new order. At Byzantium, in any event, even the most centrifugal forces were focused on the center; the real trouble for Basil II, for example, came from dynatoi who wanted to be emperors, not from people who wanted to be independent regional rulers. In the Islamic world, fragmentation largely meant replication, as courts patterned on or competitive with the Abbasid model were set up by Fatimid caliphs and other rulers. In Western Europe, the rise of local rulers was accompanied dependency

by –

the

widespread

vassalage,

adoption

serfdom

–

that

of

forms

could

of

be

personal

(and

were)

manipulated even by kings, such as the Capetians, who seemed to have lost the most from the dispersal of power. Another institution that kings could count on was the Church. No wonder that in Rus’, Scandinavia,

and

East

Central

Europe,

state

formation

and

Christianization went hand in hand. The real fragmentation of the period c.900–c.1050 Empire.

They

increasingly

did

was not

estranged

among speak

by

their

the

the

former same

religions,

heirs

of

languages, and

they

the

Roman

they

knew

were almost

nothing about one another. In the next centuries, the gaps would only widen.

MATERIAL CULTURE: CLOTH AND CLOTHING In the Middle Ages, as today, cloth was used for more than clothing. Tapestries and other elaborate fabrics covered the walls of churches and palaces; cloth coats adorned horses and flew as military banners; bits of fine brocade wrapped relics before they were inserted into reliquaries. Less luxurious uses, but no less necessary, included the leather thongs that held together the metal in suits of armor and the shrouds in which the dead were wrapped. Even as clothing, textiles served more than the practical goals of protecting people from cold and rain. They vividly, sometimes ostentatiously, displayed (as they do today) gender, rank, and lines of work – or lives of pure leisure.

Plate 4.9 Woman’s Woolen Cap (468–651). This cap, seemingly so plain, was once an attractive headdress worn by a relatively well-off woman living along the northern coast of the Netherlands. To produce it, raw wool had first to be turned into thread using a distaff (a stick on which the cleaned wool was tied) and a hand spindle (a thin rod fixed with a whorl onto which the fibers were twirled and twisted together). The resulting yarn was then woven on a loom, probably (at this early period) an upright one. In the case of this cap, the weave features a repeated diamond pattern. Once woven, the fabric was dyed brown-black and cut into three pieces, one large main panel and two side panels that, when attached, were designed to flip out to form a “Dutch cap.” Using embroidery and other threads of a natural color – to contrast with the dark brown of the cap – the maker employed a variety of decorative stitches to hem the edges and join the side lengths to each other and to the main panel.

What was, however, utterly unlike the textiles of today’s industrialized world was the extraordinary time and labor that was required to grow and gather raw

materials, spin them into thread, weave them into cloth, and finally cut and sew the fabric into even the humblest cap, let alone the most fabulous garb of the wealthy. Apart from the labor of growing and reaping, which was done mainly by men, most of the work involved in textile production was the preserve of women, many of them serfs. Only toward the end of the Middle Ages, when large horizontal looms were set up in workshops – the medieval version of mass production – did men become laborers in the textile industry. Plants and animals formed the raw materials for clothing: linen (from flax) and cotton from plants, wool and fur from animals, and silk from the cocoons of silk worms. Short, rough wool as well as fur and flax were plentiful in the north; cotton, fine long-haired wool, and silk were available in Mediterranean regions. Long-distance trade in these bulky goods dated back to Roman times and became denser and more robust from the tenth century on. The finest cotton came from Egypt. Silk, originally from China, had long been mastered in the Byzantine Empire, and Islamic craftspeople adopted it early on. Rulers in Spain and Sicily set up special silk workshops to clothe the royal household in textiles

of

breathtaking

beauty.

In

the

thirteenth

century,

fine

silk

cloth

production became a specialty in some north Italian cities, and by the end of that century, Paris, too, had become a center of luxury silks. There, unlike most other centers of silk manufacture, women were not only employed as laborers but also controlled the craft as entrepreneurs.

Plate 4.10 Guillaume de Machaut, Le Remède de Fortune (c.1350–1355). At the far left is the lover, accompanied by a bearded companion. He wears a cape decorated at the edges, a patterned tunic padded at the shoulders to emphasize his slender waist, tight-fitting set-in sleeves, skin-tight breeches, and

long-pointed

shoes.

His

lady,

attended

by

her

maids,

is

equally

fashionably dressed in a gown with close-fitting sleeves and bodice, which is decorated with buttons. She points at her lover with her finger to acknowledge his gaze.

Description

The popularity of silk and fine woolens had little to do with its practical advantages and everything to do with fashion. In fourteenth-century Italy, there was no better way to show off wealth and status than to wear it on the streets – in form-fitting, costly, luxurious garb. Sumptuary laws – tied to anxieties about avarice,

gender,

and

social

order

–

tried

to

stamp

out

sartorial

splendor,

especially on the part of women: “no woman or female, of whatever state or condition, may dare or presume to wear on her head or on her person any pearl ... [nor] any belt, of any type or name, that exceeds the value of four gold 17

florins ... [nor wear] any ornament of gold, silver, or any other metal.”

So

read the statutes of the city of Lucca issued in 1337. But such laws were hard to enforce.

In a thirteenth-century romance, Flamenca, written in Old Occitan, the language of southern France, a lover is described as dressing with care before he goes to gaze at his lady, who is imprisoned in a tower. First he puts on his fine undergarments, then a pair of exceptionally tight-fitting breaches, next come

his

elegant

overgarments,

and

finally

his

pointy

shoes.

He

was

a

fashionable fellow, and his type was illustrated often, as in Plate 4.10 in a manuscript about a different love-smitten young man. Colors, like materials, weaves, and stitches, were signs of status. Purple was a privileged color reserved for rulers. Scarlet, extracted from the kermes, an insect that flourished in Mediterranean regions, was highly precious; blue produced from woad, a common plant, cost less. Undyed fabric was the humblest of all. Benedictine monks of the traditional sort wore black habits, a deeply saturated and therefore expensive color. Cistercian monks demonstrated their poverty and simplicity by wearing undyed cloth made from the wool sheered from the sheep that they raised – though they were in fact very wealthy from the thriving wool market that they supplied. Churchmen were to shun the things of this world, and indeed at first, they prided themselves on their plain dress. In Plate 1.12 on pp. 34–35, Emperor Justinian, on your left, is wearing a white tunic with tight sleeves and a purple cloak

embellished

with

a

gold-embroidered

and

begemmed

panel.

All

is

gathered at his shoulder by an enormous brooch decorated with a red gem surrounded by pearls. His shoes echo his clothing in red and purple. By contrast, the churchmen who flank him, even the proud Maximianus, who added his name to the mosaic, are dressed simply, in white vestments with elongated, loose sleeves. Only Maximianus wears a green chasuble – a poncholike garment that priests put on to say Mass. Draped around his neck is a plain white wool scarf – a pallium that modestly suggests his ecclesiastical status. But as the Church began to claim greater dignity for the clerical order, and as it competed with the secular nobility for honor, churchmen (as they dressed for Mass) donned garments of stunning materials – generally embroidered by the industrious fingers of pious women. In Plate 4.11, showing the back of a chasuble, someone has embroidered the coat of arms of the Kerkhof family at the very top of the cross on the sumptuously worked orphrey (the middle strip), thereby associating the family of the donor with the holy garment, its priestly wearers, and the Church, saints, and God they served.

Plate 4.11 Brunswick Chasuble (early 15th cent.). This chasuble, donated to an important parish church in Brunswick, Germany, is made of silk woven in Egypt. The original textile consists in a variety of patterned stripes, the broadest of which contains Kufic script praising the sultan. For the creators of the vestment, the foreign words signaled only the fabric’s high value as an import. They cut and sewed it to make the chasuble, then added an embroidered orphrey employing silk and silver threads in a variety of colors and using specialized stitches. Here and there they added freshwater pearls and sequins. Only very accomplished artists, both in Egypt and in Germany, could have produced work of such fineness.

Description

BIBLIOGRAPHY Coatsworth,

Elizabeth,

and

Gale

R.

Owen-Crocker.

Clothing

the

Past:

Surviving Garments from Early Medieval to Early Modern Western Europe.

Leiden: Brill, 2018. Miller, Maureen C. Clothing the Clergy: Virtue and Power in Medieval Europe, c.800–1200. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014. Piponnier, Françoise, and Perrine Mane. Dress in the Middle Ages. Translated by Caroline Beamish. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997. Scott, Margaret. Fashion in the Middle Ages. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2011.

For practice questions about the text, maps, plates, and other features – plus suggested answers – please go to www.utphistorymatters.com There you will also find all the maps, genealogies, and figures used in the book.

FURTHER READING Bayhom-Daou, Tamima. Shaykh Mufid. London: Oneworld Academic, 2005. Berend, Nora, Przemysław Urban´czyk, and Przemysław Wiszewski. Central Europe in the High Middle Ages: Bohemia, Hungary and Poland c.900–c.1300. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Berend, Nora, ed. Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe, and Rus’ c.900–1200. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Bolton, Timothy. Cnut the Great. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017. Bonfil, Robert, Oded Irshai, Guy G. Stroumsa, et al., eds. Jews in Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Brett, Michael. The Fatimid Empire. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017. Cameron, Averil. Byzantine Matters. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014. Duczko, Wladyslaw. Viking Rus: Studies on the Presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Friðriksdóttir, Jóhanna Katrín. Valkyrie: Women of the Viking World. London: Bloomsbury, 2020. Frenkel, Miriam, ed. The Jews of Medieval Egypt. Brookline, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2021. Graham-Campbell, James. Viking Art. London: Thames & Hudson, 2021.

Hansen, Valerie. The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World – and Globalization Began. New York: Scribner, 2020. Holmes, Catherine. Basil II and the Governance of Empire (976–1025). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Jaritz, Gerhard. Medieval East Central Europe in a Comparative Perspective: From Frontier Zones to Lands in Focus. London: Routledge, 2016. Jesch, Judith. The Viking Diaspora. London: Routledge, 2015. Kaldellis, Anthony. The Byzantine Republic: People and Power in New Rome. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Kraemer, Joel L. Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: The Cultural Revival during the Buyid Age. 2nd rev. ed. Leiden: Brill, 1993. La Rocca, Cristina, ed. Italy in the Early Middle Ages, 476–1000. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Line, Philip. Kingship and State Formation in Sweden, 1130–1290. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Mägi, Marika. The Viking Eastern Baltic. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019. Mossman, Stephen, ed. Debating Medieval Europe: The Early Middle Ages, c.450– c.1050. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020. Nordeide, Sæbjørg Walaker, and Kevin J. Edwards. The Vikings. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019. Outhwaite, B., M. Schmierer-Lee, and C. Burgess. Discarded History: The Genizah of Medieval Cairo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Library, 2017. Exhibition Guide and Translations. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.13917. Raffensperger, Christian. Reimagining Europe: Kievan Rus’ in the Medieval World, 988–1146. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012. Romane, Julian. Byzantium Triumphant: The Military History of the Byzantines, 959–1025. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Military, 2015. Rustow, Marina. The Lost Archive: Traces of a Caliphate in a Cairo Synagogue. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020. Stafford, Pauline. After Alfred: Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and Chroniclers, 900– 1150. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Tinti, Francesca. Europe and the Anglo-Saxons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.

__________ 1

Michael Psellus, Zoe and Theodora, in A Short Medieval Reader, ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023), pp. 117–22 and in Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic

World, 3rd ed., ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018), pp. 200–5. 2

Epitaph of Basil II, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 199–200.

3

Romanus I Lecapenus, Novel, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 115–17 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 177–79.

4

Rus without the apostrophe is used for the people; Rus’ for the state.

5

Al-Tabari, The Defeat of the Zanj Revolt, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 89– 93 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 171–76.

6

Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi, Praise Be to Him, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 93–98 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 179–84.

7

Al-Qabisi, A Treatise Detailing the Circumstances of Students and the Rules Governing Teachers and Students, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 211–13.

8

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 129–30 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 233–34.

9

Agreement

between

Count

William

of

the

Aquitainians

and

Hugh

IV

of

Lusignan, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 106–11 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 190–95. 10 See Andrew of Fleury, Miracles of Saint Benedict, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 111–13 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 196–98. 11 Both ealdormen and sheriffs (shire reeves) were powerful men, and sometimes their functions were the same. Originally the ealdorman was the equivalent of a count or duke who ruled a large region independently of any king. That changed with Alfred and his successors, and by the tenth century the term referred to a local ruler, generally of a shire, who, while certainly a nobleman, acted (or was expected to act) as an agent of the king. Reeves were of more variable status: they were administrators, whether for kings, bishops, towns, or estates. Royal sheriffs were responsible for (among other things) ensuring the peace and meetings of the local court. 12 For

an

image

and

further

discussion

of

this

runestone,

see

The

Jelling

Monument, “Reading through Looking,” in Reading the Middle Ages, p. IV. 13 Ruotger, Life of Bruno, Archbishop of Cologne, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 224–28. 14 Burchard of Worms, Decretum, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 104–6. 15 For an image of this coin, see A Short Medieval Reader, p. 123 and Plate 2, “Reading through Looking,” in Reading the Middle Ages, p. III. 16 King Stephen, Laws, in Reading the Middle Ages, p. 214. 17 Translated from the Latin by Catherine Kovesi Killerby in Medieval Italy: Texts in Translation, ed. Katherine L. Jansen, Joanna Drell, and Frances Andrews (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), pp. 191–92.

FIVE NEW CONFIGURATIONS (c.1050–c.1150)

CHAPTER

FIVE

HIGHLIGHTS Abbacy of Hugh of Cluny 1049–1109 The monastery of Cluny, a model for many monasteries and magnet for pious donations, is at the height of its influence and prestige.

Norman conquest of England 1066 The Normans had already established themselves in southern Italy; in 1066, they take England; and by 1093, they conquer Sicily. Yet this does not create one Norman empire but rather two largely separate Norman regions, one in the south (Sicily and Italy), the other in the north (England and Normandy).

The Almoravids found the city of Marrakesh c.1070 Sunni Muslims, they take over the Maghreb, extend across the western Sahara, and (after entering Spain 1085) straddle the strait of Gibraltar.

Battle of Manzikert 1071 This battle marks the Seljuk Turks’ defeat of the Byzantines in Anatolia. Soon they occupy Jerusalem (c.1075). Eventually they form two states: the Great Seljuk sultanate and the Seljuk sultanate of Rum.

Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085 Promulgator of Gregorian Reform, opponent of lay investiture, clerical marriage, and simony.

Investiture Conflict 1075–1122 Pits King Henry IV against Gregory VII; begins to create a real, as well as theoretical, divide between Church and State.

Reign of Emperor Alexius I Comnenus 1081–1118 Alexius reforms Byzantine government, and his request to Pope Urban II for mercenaries leads to the First Crusade.

King Alfonso VI of León and Castile captures Toledo 1085 The capture of Toledo is a major victory of the reconquista, but further expansion is temporarily prevented by the Almoravids.

Creation of Portugal 1095 Initially granted as a county by Alfonso VI.

Pope Urban II preaches the First Crusade 1095 At a Church Peace Council at Clermont (in southern France), Urban preaches the religious and military undertaking known as the First Crusade to a large and enthusiastic audience.

The First Crusade 1096–1099 Begins with the massacre of Rhineland Jews; ends with the conquest of Jerusalem and the establishment of the Crusader States.

Milan commune established 1097

Evidence of the new power of urban dwellers and the importance of Church reform to the laity.

Cistercian Order established 1098 Benedictines, like the Cluniac monks, but with a different lifestyle. The Cistercians insist on simplicity; separate lay brothers from those of the choir.

Concordat of Worms 1122 Divides the investiture ritual into two, one part granting the spiritual office, the other the material things that go with it.

In the second half of the eleventh century, three powerful groups – Seljuk

Turks

from

the

east,

Almoravids

from

West

Africa,

and

crusaders from Europe – entered the Byzantine and Islamic Empires, changing political, cultural, and religious configurations everywhere. Byzantium, though still a force to be reckoned with, was weakened. The Islamic world, tending toward Shi‘ism with the Fatimids, now saw a revival of Sunnism. It elaborated new cultural forms to express its

pride

in

its

regained

orthodoxy

and

to

proclaim

its

cosmopolitanism. Europe, now connected more than ever with the rest of the world through commerce, created newly dynamic forms of monasticism, expanded its artistic horizons, and established a fragile foothold in the Middle East through conquest.

THE SELJUKS AND THE ALMORAVIDS In the eleventh century, the Seljuks, a Turkic group from outside the Islamic world, entered and took over its eastern half. Eventually penetrating

deep

into

Anatolia,

they

took

a

great

bite

out

of

Byzantium. Soon, however, the Seljuks themselves split apart, and eventually the Islamic world fragmented anew under dozens of rulers. Meanwhile, many Berbers united under the Almoravid dynasty to form a new empire in the Islamic far west.

From Mercenaries to Imperialists: The Seljuk Turks The Seljuk Turks were herders and mercenaries from the Kazakh steppe – the extensive Eurasian grasslands of Kazakhstan. Some of them entered the region around the Caspian and Aral Seas at the end of the tenth century, hired by rival Muslim rulers. During the first half of the eleventh century, they began conquests of their own. The Ghaznavids,

themselves

Buyids

Samanids,

and

Turks could

who

had

perhaps

previously

have

displaced

contained

the

them,

but

Ghaznavid Sultan Mas‘ud I (r.1030–1041) led an ill-prepared and demoralized army against the Seljuks and lost disastrously at the 1

battle of Dandanqan (1040). From

about

the

year

(See Map 5.1.)

1000

to

1900,

the

Middle

East

was

dominated by peoples of steppe origin. The Seljuks, among the first to arrive, soon formed two separate states. The Great Seljuk sultanate (c.1040–1194) dominated the east, from the Aral Sea to the Persian Gulf,

encompassing

a

region

now

occupied

by

Uzbekistan,

Turkmenistan, Iraq, and Iran. The Seljuk sultanate of Rum (c.1081– 1308) was formed to the west, looking a bit like a thumb stuck into what had been Byzantine Anatolia. It took its name from those whom it vanquished: Rum means Rome. Westerners were shocked by the Seljuk

army’s

humiliating

defeat

of

the

Byzantine

emperor

at

Manzikert (today Malazgirt, in Turkey) in 1071, which seemed to mark the conquest of Anatolia. And they were outraged by the Seljuk occupation of Jerusalem (c.1075), which inspired the First Crusade. But the more enduring victory of the Seljuks over formerly Byzantine regions was accomplished by quieter methods, as Seljuk families moved in, seeking pastureland for their livestock. Like the Vikings, the Seljuks generally traveled as families. The Seljuk sultanates were staunchly Sunni. They rolled back the Shi‘ite wave that had engulfed the Islamic world since the decline of the Abbasids. Nizam al-Mulk (d.1092), vizier for Alp Arslan and Malikshah I (see Genealogy 5.1) and in many ways de facto ruler himself for the last twenty years of his life, described Shi‘ism as a fraud

concocted

out

of

pseudo-philosophy

and

mumbo-jumbo:

“obscure words from the language of the imams, mixed up with sayings of the naturalists and utterances of the philosophers, and

consisting largely of mention of The Prophet and the angels, the tablet 2

and pen, and heaven and the throne.”

It was a heresy, and its

followers were dangerous to the state. To counter its influence, he sponsored the foundation of numerous madrasas – a whole “chain” of them named (after him) Nizamiya. He hoped that they would fan new life into political, religious, and cultural Sunnism. The Islamic world had always supported elementary schools; now the madrasas, normally attached to mosques, served as centers of advanced scholarship. There young men attended lessons in religion, law, and literature. Sometimes visiting scholars arrived to debate in lively

public

displays

of

intellectual

brilliance.

More

regularly,

teachers and students carried on a quiet regimen of classes on the Qur’an and other texts. While allowing the Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad to maintain their religious role in a city still splendid in material and intellectual resources, the Seljuks shifted the cultural and political centers of the Islamic world to Iran and Anatolia. Asserting their adherence to Sunni Islam in concrete form, the Great Seljuk sultanate built grand mosques and fitted them out with towering minarets – a feature that Shi‘ite

dynasties

altogether.

such

as

the

Fatimids

downplayed

or

omitted

Map 5.1 The Byzantine and Seljuk Empires, c.1090

Description

Consider the Friday Mosque at Isfahan in Iran. First built in the tenth century, it received a major face-lift under Nizam al-Mulk, who focused his patronage on its courtyard, the heart of the complex. Nizam added four iwans – vaulted halls opening on the courtyard – one at each wall. (See Plate 5.1.) The most important was the south iwan, for that was in the qibla wall – the wall facing Mecca. That iwan led in turn to a large square room housing the mihrab (the niche of the qibla), which was topped by a lofty dome built by Nizam alMulk.

Genealogy 5.1 The Great Seljuk Sultans

Description

Competing with Nizam’s al-Mulk, his rival Taj al-Mulk showed off his own importance by building another square-domed room on the very same axis as the qibla dome, but in his case directly to the north of the courtyard. Less imposing, but more elegant than the southern dome, the northern dome included an inscription dating it to 1088–1089 and naming Taj al-Mulk as its donor. (See Plate 5.2, p. 168.) It was ironic that a people used to being on the move would indulge in such lavish expenditures on buildings. The ruling elite, in particular, was settling down. Malikshah made Isfahan his capital, far

to the west of the original centers of the Seljuk Empire such as Merv. For his part, Nizam al-Mulk cemented his position as virtual ruler by distributing not only money but also iqta – land (see Chapter 4, p. 132). Under the Seljuks the iqta was widely used; it recompensed not only army leaders (emirs), but also bureaucrats, and favored members of the dynasty. Like fiefs, iqtas were theoretically revocable by the ruler, but, again like fiefs, many iqta holders were able to make them hereditary.

Plate 5.1 Isfahan Mosque Courtyard (c.1086). In this view facing south, two of the mosque’s four iwans are visible in full, with a third (to the east) visible in part. The courtyard is bordered by double-decker walls punctuated by openings, each leading to an aisle topped by domes. Note the two minarets towering above the central iwan and telegraphing adherence to Sunni Islam.

Plate 5.2 Isfahan Mosque North Dome (1088–1089). Built according to a precise geometric design, the circular dome sits on a sixteen-sided polygon that rests in turn on an octagon perched on a square base. The design within the dome

is

equally

mathematical,

with

an

oculus

forming

the

mid-point

of

converging triangles.

Fortified by their revenues and land grants, the emirs of Iran and Iraq, originally appointed to represent the sultan’s power at the local level, broke away from the centralized state. In the course of the twelfth century, in a process of fragmentation similar to those we have seen in the previous chapter, the Great Seljuk Empire fell apart. Yet this did not mean the end of Seljuk culture and institutions but rather their replication in numerous smaller centers. The decline of the power of the Great Seljuk dynasty did not end the Great Seljuk era. Meanwhile, the Anatolian branch of the dynasty prospered. It benefited from the region’s silver, copper, iron, and lapis lazuli mines and from the pastureland that supported animal products such as cashmere, highly prized as an export as far away as France. The Anatolian sultans did not need to give out iqtas; they could pay their soldiers. Even so, their Seljuk Sultanate of Rum was a sort of “wild west”: most houses were made of mud, and the elites did not support the madrasas or the arts and literature as generously as did the rulers of most of the other centers of the Islamic world. Further setting it apart from other Islamic regions, the Sultanate of Rum had a significant Christian population as well as a mix of other ethnicities and a large and increasingly influential minority of Sufis – Islam’s main mystical group. In Jerusalem (which the Seljuks took until forced back out by the Fatimids in 1098, after which it was taken by crusaders from Europe), they confronted Jews, Christian pilgrims, and of course the “native” Christians who had lived there for generations. To this eclectic mix, the Seljuks adapted. Rather than tearing down churches, they simply converted them into mosques. Many adopted the farming methods of the peasants. The elites, at least, included Byzantine women as wives or concubines in their harems. The children of those unions spoke Greek as well as the local language (Persian, and perhaps Turkic and Arabic as well). Muslim children in Rum were baptized as a matter of course by Orthodox priests because the rite was thought to ward off demons.

From Pastoralists to State-Builders: The Almoravids In the western half of the Islamic world, tribes from the Sahara Desert forged a state equaling the size of that of the Seljuks (see Map 5.2). Originally Berber pastoralists who moved from one water source to another with their flocks and tents, they learned Islam from Muslim traders who needed guides and protectors to cross the Sahara. We met some of these tribes in Chapter 3, when they were facilitating trade to and from West Africa. In the 1030s they were inspired by a leader named Yahya ibn Ibrahim and his companions to follow a strict form of Sunni orthodoxy. In addition to adhering rigorously to Qur’anic injunctions, the men joined the women in wearing a veil over the lower part of their faces. The earliest sources for this practice did not connect it with Islam per se, but later sources reported that the Berbers had originally lived in Yemen. In order to practice their fledgling monotheism, they were forced to flee to the Sahara with their men disguised as women. Their veils thus demonstrated their devotion to Islam.

Map 5.2 The Almoravid Empire and the Empire of Ghana, c.1050

Description

Fired with zeal on behalf of their religious beliefs (much like the Seljuks) and also seeking economic opportunity, disparate groups of Berbers formed a federation known as the Murabitun (Almoravids) and began conquering the (largely Shi‘ite) regions to their north. Making common cause with local Sunni jurists and various tribal notables there, they took over cities bordering on the Sahara in the 1050s and soon had their eyes on the Maghreb. The foundation of their city of Marrakesh c.1070 was a milestone in their transition

from a pastoral to a settled existence. Under their leader, Yusuf ibn Tashfin (d.1106), and members of his clan, they subdued much of the Maghreb, taking Tangier in c.1078 and Ceuta in the 1080s. Because their main goal was to control the African salt and gold trade, the Almoravids were at first not particularly interested in alAndalus. But the Andalusian taifa rulers kept calling on them to help fight the Christian armies encroaching from the north of Spain. Their chief nemesis was Christian King Alfonso VI of León and Castile. (He was ruler of León 1065–1109 with a one-year interruption in 1071–72, when his older brother usurped the throne, and was king of Castile 1072–1109.) When Alfonso captured Toledo from its Muslim ruler in 1085, Yusuf ibn Tashfin at last took up the challenge, meeting him

near

Badajoz

in

1086

and

dealing

him

a

stunning

defeat.

Dismayed by the taifa leaders’ feuding and (in their eyes) “lax” form of Islam, the Almoravids soon began to conquer the peninsula on their own behalf. By c.1115 all of al-Andalus not yet taken by Christian rulers was under Almoravid control. The gold coin that forms the icon for accessing the website of this book was one of many gold dinars minted under their rule. Almoravid hegemony over the western Islamic world began to end only in 1145 as the Almohads, a rival Berber group, came to replace them. The Almoravids controlled an empire stretching over 2,000 miles, from the northern end of the kingdom of Ghana to half of Spain. Their wealth and power were based on prosperous urban centers and a flourishing rural economy. Farmers produced grains, irrigated their gardens with sophisticated water-management systems, and raised animals. Flax, cotton, and silk – “home-grown” by worms living on the

mulberry

trees

of

southern

Spain

–

supplied

town

textile

industries with plentiful supplies. The silks woven in Almería were famous. When King Alfonso VII of Castile and León took that city (temporarily) in 1147, he looted its silks to cut up and use to wrap precious relics for the cathedral of Sigüenza. Other fragments found their way into other church treasuries. (See Plate 5.3 and Material Culture: Cloth and Clothing, pp. 157–60.) Poised to take advantage of long-distance commercial relations, the Almoravids mined marble, silver, copper, and iron for use and export. With one foot in sub-Saharan West Africa and the other in Spain, they profited from both cultures and the resources of both

regions, a point nicely illustrated by the marble tombstone in Plate 5.4. This was quarried in Iberia; cut, polished, and inscribed with a Qur’anic-inflected poem at Almería; and ferried across the Sahara for wealthy clients in far-off Gao, today in Mali.

Plate 5.3 Almería Silk (first half of 12th cent.). Two unicorns shelter beneath two large peacocks that face a stylized palm tree in this fine silk weaving made by a workshop in Almoravid Almería. At the top and bottom are cartouches with Arabic inscriptions; the bottom one reads “perfect blessing.” Although it originated in an Islamic atelier, Christians valued its beauty and used it to cover precious relics. Just as living bodies were clothed, and corpses were wrapped in shrouds, so relics were enfolded in textiles, preferably beautifully woven and made of costly silk such as this one.

West African Connections That elites in Saney wanted to be buried as Muslims should not be surprising, for the Almoravids were zealous on behalf of both their religion

and

hegemony.

Thus,

the

route

between

Sijilmasa

and

Awdaghust was not only a trade corridor but also a conduit for Islamization.

Andalusian

writer

al-Bakri

(d.

1094),

basing

his

accounts on various written reports and live informants, noted that “in Awdaghust there is one cathedral mosque and many smaller ones, all well attended. In all the mosques there are teachers of the Qur’an.” These madrasas were instruments in the missionary toolkit (along with forceable conversions). Yet the sort of Islam practiced in Gao and elsewhere in the Sahara was not simply derivative of Almoravid forms but rather drew on indigenous customs and sensibilities. The stele in Plate 5.4, for example, would not have been erected over a grave in Almería itself because it included the name of the deceased; in Iberia, that practice was thought to undermine the glory of God.

Plate 5.4 Marble Tombstone from Almería (12th cent.). This is one of five extant steles produced at Almería and erected at a cemetery near what is today the archaeological site of Gao Saney, Mali. (See Map 5.2.) Other tombstones like it were produced by local craftspeople at Saney and elsewhere, including (a bit north of Saney) Essouk-Tadmekka, a thriving market crossroads for the trans-Saharan trade in slaves, gold, and ivory. Essouk-Tadmekka was itself a manufacturing center, producing iron, copper, unstamped gold coins (which probably circulated as money), and high-carbon steel, no doubt used to make weapons of exceptional quality.

At Awdaghust, al-Bakri continued, “transactions are in gold, and they have no silver. There are handsome buildings and fine houses.” It was, he said, a town of expatriate merchants, most of the inhabitants

having come there from Ifriqiya – the North African coast (see Map 3.3 on p. 93). But living there were also “Sudan women, good cooks, one being sold for 100 mithqals or more. They excel at cooking delicious confections such as sugared nuts, honey doughnuts, various other kinds of sweetmeats, and other delicacies. There are also pretty slave girls with white complexions.” For al-Bakri, traffic in human beings was an unremarkable fact of life. But was he inadvertently revealing eleventh-century color-based racism? Are we to think that people were typed by their epidermis even then? It is possible, for Arabic writers dubbed the region south of the Sahara the Bilad al-Sudan, “land of the Blacks.” Historian Michael A. Gomez suggests, however, that al-Bakri’s words were sexualizing,

not

racializing,

distinguishing

between

the

black,

Sudanese servant who works and the “white” one who offers men comfort.

It

is

certainly

true

that

al-Bakri

mentions

the

white

complexions of these slave girls alongside a long list of their other 3

alluring attributes, including “fat buttocks” and “slim waists.” medievalist

Geraldine

Heng

argues

that

racial

thinking

–

But

which

singles out one arbitrary identifier (skin color, religious belief, the food people eat), demonizes it, and applies it to people of diverse origins, languages, traditions, and self-conceptions – did indeed bear its poisonous fruit at this time, as we shall certainly see in connection with the crusades later in this chapter.

BYZANTIUM: BLOODIED BUT UNBOWED The once triumphant empire of Basil II was unable to sustain the territorial successes of the early eleventh century. We have already seen the triumph of the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia; meanwhile, in the Balkans, Turkic Pechenegs raided with ease. The Normans, some of whom

(as

southern conquered

we

Italy, its

saw

in

began last

Chapter 4)

had

attacks

Byzantine

stronghold,

on

Bari,

in

established

1071,

themselves

territory precisely

there when

in

and the

Seljuks defeated the Byzantines at Manzikert. Entering Muslim Sicily in 1060, the Normans conquered it by 1093. Meanwhile, their knights attacked Byzantine territory in the Balkans. (See Map 5.1.) When Norman King Roger II (r.1130–1154) came to the throne, he ruled a

realm that ran from southern Italy to Palermo – the Kingdom of Sicily. It was a persistent thorn in Byzantium’s side. Clearly the Byzantine army was no longer very effective. Few themes were still manned with citizen-soldiers, and the emperor’s army was also largely composed of mercenaries – Turks and Rus, as had long been the case, and increasingly Normans and Franks as well. But the Byzantines were not entirely dependent on armed force; in many instances they turned to diplomacy to confront their invaders. When Emperor Constantine IX (r.1042–1055) was unable to prevent the

Pechenegs

welcoming

from

them,

entering

the

administering

Balkans,

baptism,

he

shifted

conferring

policy,

titles,

and

settling them in depopulated regions. Much the same process took place in Anatolia, where the emperors at times welcomed the Turks to help them fight rival dynatoi. Here the invaders were occasionally also

welcomed

by

Christians

who

did

not

adhere

to

Byzantine

orthodoxy; the Monophysites of Armenia were glad to have new Turkic overlords. The Byzantine grip on its territories loosened and its frontiers became nebulous, but Byzantium still stood. There were changes at the imperial court as well. The model of the “public” emperor ruling alone with the aid of a civil service gave way to a less costly, more “familial” model of government. To be sure, for a time competing dynatoi families swapped the imperial throne. But Alexius I Comnenus (r.1081–1118), a Dalassenus on his mother’s side, managed to bring most of the major families together through a series of marriage alliances. (The Comneni remained on the throne for about a century; see Genealogy 5.2.) Until her death in c.1102,

Anna

Dalassena,

Alexius’s

mother,

held

the

reins

of

government while Alexius occupied himself with military matters. At his revamped court, which he moved to the Blachernai palace, at the northwestern tip of the city (see Map 4.1 on p. 120), his relatives held the

highest

positions.

Many

of

them

received

pronoiai

(sing.

pronoia), temporary grants of imperial lands that they administered and profited from. Just as the Seljuks turned to the iqta and the Europeans to the fief, so the Byzantines resorted to land grants to replace salaries. Despite its territorial contraction, in some ways the Byzantine Empire had never been more prosperous. Its economy was buoyed by agricultural

production

and

population

growth.

Its

manufactured

goods – silks, oil, dyes, pottery, bronzes, ivories, and glass – were in high demand in markets ranging from Rus’ to Spain. Italian traders acted as intermediaries.

Genealogy 5.2 The Comnenian Dynasty

Description

ECONOMIC NETWORKS IN EUROPE AND BEYOND The enhanced role of Italian merchants in the Byzantine world was just one of the ways in which the European economy was now coming to mesh more tightly with that of the wider world. Its economic expansion began in the countryside. Draining marshes, felling trees, building dikes: this was the backbreaking work that brought new land into cultivation. Peasants using heavy moldboard plows, now often more efficiently drawn by horses, reaped better harvests. Profiting from the three-field system, they raised a greater variety of crops. Aristocratic landowners, the same “oppressors” against whom the Peace of God fulminated (see p. 145), became savvy entrepreneurs. They set up mills to grind grain, forced their tenants to use them, and

then charged a fee for the service. Some landlords gave peasants special privileges to settle on especially inhospitable land: the bishop of Hamburg, for example, was generous to those who came from Holland to work soil that was, as he admitted “uncultivated, marshy, 4

and useless.”

Demographic growth fueled the development of real

villages throughout Europe – communities with their own sense of identity, their own representatives, their own “common” structures centered on churches, cemeteries, squares, fields, woods, wasteland, and the blacksmith’s shop where their tools were forged. Taking advantage of their surpluses, villages connected with one another through trade. Better roads allowed wagons laden with goods to pass to and fro, while settlements near rivers were served by flatbottomed barges. At weekly markets villagers bought and sold eggs, poultry, blankets, bales of wool, and animal hides. Barter increasingly gave way to cash. The use of money offered villages access to wider commercial networks as well – those of towns and cities. Urban centers were dispersed all over the map of Europe but were especially dense in a ribbon of cities that began on the two sides of the English Channel (with

trade

between

England

and

Flanders),

curved

around

the

southern coast of the North Sea, and then plunged southward along the Rhine (taking in the cities

of Cologne,

Mainz,

Worms,

and

Speyer). (See Map 5.3.) The ribbon continued into Italy, including the Po River valley, the seafaring cities of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, and, in the south, Naples and Amalfi – cities that were increasingly doing business

in

the

Maghreb

and

at

Constantinople

and

thus

were

linchpins in an increasingly hemisphere-wide circulation of goods. Urban centers were intensely conscious of their interests and goals,

elaborating

new

instruments

of

commerce,

self-regulating

organizations, and forms of self-government. Despite this intense focus on their internal concerns, some of their more enterprising denizens played a part in connecting Europe’s economy more and more fully with markets in North Africa and the Middle East, both of which were fed by even more distant trading networks.

Map 5.3 Western Europe, c.1100

Description

The Formation of Towns and Cities Around castles and monasteries in the countryside or outside the walls of crumbling ancient towns, merchants came with their wares and artisans set up their stalls. In some places, they were attracted by seasonal fairs; those in Lombardy began already in the tenth century. In other places, they stayed on as permanent residents. Recall Tours as

it had looked in the early seventh century (see the left side of Map 5.4), with its semi-permanent settlements around the church of SaintMartin out in the cemetery, and its lonely cathedral within the ancient walls. By the twelfth century (see the right side of Map 5.4), SaintMartin was a monastery, the hub of a small town dense enough to boast eleven parish churches, merchant and artisan shops, private houses, and two markets. To the east, the episcopal complex was no longer alone: a market had sprung up outside the old western wall, and private houses lined the street leading to a bridge. Smaller than the town around Saint-Martin, the one at the foot of the old city had only two parish churches, but it was big and rich enough to warrant the construction of a new set of walls to protect it.

Map 5.4 Tours c.600 vs. Tours c.1100

Description

As at Tours, walls were a general feature of medieval cities. So, too were marketplaces, one or more fortifications, and many churches. City streets, made of packed clay or gravel, were narrow, dirty, dark, smelly, and winding. Most cities were situated near waterways, over which bridges were constructed to facilitate land routes; the bridge at Tours was built in the 1030s. Many cities had to adapt to increasingly crowded conditions. Towns ranged in size from (perhaps) less than 40 acres to over 500, and they had populations (equally uncertain) of less than 5,000 to 20,000 or more. Both size and population grew over time.

This

happened

at

Tours

(which

is

why

a

new

wall

was

constructed), but it happened even more spectacularly elsewhere, as at

London, where the population ballooned from around 20,000 in 1100 to 40,000 a century later. At first town housing was made of cheap materials – wood or unfired clay held together by woven twigs. Houses rose no more than two or three stories, with the ground floor serving as a shop or warehouse. Swelling populations inflated property values, and many families ascended to wealth and prominence through the rental and real estate markets. From the late eleventh century on, houses were increasingly

constructed

in

stone

and

brick,

evidence

of

active

quarries and transport facilities. Those in turn were stimulated by a spate of major building projects – from parish churches to cathedrals, from castles and fortified towers to palaces. Yet, behind many houses, even the most splendid, were enclosures for livestock and a garden. City dwellers clung to rural pursuits, raising much of their food themselves.

Urban Arrangements The revival of urban life and the expansion of trade are together dubbed the “commercial revolution” by historians. In the first half of the twelfth century merchants succeeded in getting rights to trade in cities other than their own; tolls were lifted for them and, in many port cities along the Baltic, North Sea, and Mediterranean coasts, they were

given

special

sites

to

use

for

warehouses

and

temporary

residences. A few of these may be seen on Map 4.1 on p. 120, where traders from Genoa, Pisa, Amalfi, and Venice had their own separate districts at Constantinople, strung like pearls along the Golden Horn. Especially active in cross-Mediterranean trading networks were the ports of Alexandria (to which spices from South Asia came via the Red Sea) and al-Andalus, the most important of which was Almería, from which were exported timber, oil, fruit, gold, and, of course, luxury silks – see Plate 5.3. The ships that plied such routes made good use of important intermediate commercial centers in Sicily and above all at Kairouan, the Tunisian port of call for transSaharan gold and slaves. (See Map 5.5 on p. 187.) In Chapter 4, we saw one painful consequence of this lively yet predatory activity, as Jewish merchants from Egypt were taken by Byzantine pirates, sold to Amalfitan middlemen, and then returned to Alexandria for ransom.

Enterprising proto-capitalists invented new businesses and pooled their

collective

resources

to

finance

large

undertakings.

They

underwrote cloth industries powered by water mills and deep-mining technologies that provided Europeans with hitherto untapped sources of

metals.

Forging

techniques

improved

(see

Material

Culture:

Forging Medieval Swords on pp. 78–81), and iron was for the first time regularly used for agricultural tools, plows, and weapons. Beer, a major source of nutrition in the north of Europe, moved from the domestic hearth and monastic estates to urban centers, where brewers gained special privileges to ply their trade.

Plate 5.5 A Sculptor at Work, Modena Cathedral (early 12th cent.). The artisans who built and decorated the cathedral at Modena were intensely aware of the dignity of manual labor in general and of their own craft in particular. In stone carvings on the so-called Princes’ Doorway (on the south side of the cathedral [see Figure 5.2 on p. 205]), sculptors working in the tradition of master Wiligelmo carved images of (among others) a blacksmith, a musician, a reaper, and the sculptor shown here, each with his most important tool (the sculptor is holding a chisel as he carves, upside-down, the decorative top – the capital – of a column). Each worker is delicately enclosed like a blossom within vine tendrils. For carvings by Wiligelmo himself, see Plate 5.12 on p. 204.

Brewers, like other urban artisans, cultivated a sense of group solidarity. Plate 5.5 illustrates one way in which sculptors working at Modena celebrated themselves, their craft, and all who worked with their hands. Whether driven by machines or human labor, the new economy was soon organized by guilds. In these social, religious, and economic associations, members prayed for and buried one another even as they regulated and protected professions ranging from trade and finance to shoemaking. Craft guilds determined standards of

quality for their products and defined work hours, materials, and prices. Merchant guilds regulated business arrangements, weights and measures, and (like the craft guilds) prices. Guilds guaranteed their members – mostly male, except in a few professions – a place in the market. They represented the social and economic counterpart to urban walls, giving their members protection, shared identity, and recognized status. The political counterpart of the walls was the “commune” – town self-government. City dwellers were keenly aware of their special identity

in

a

world

dominated

by

knights

and

peasants.

They

recognized their mutual interest in reliable coinage, laws facilitating commerce,

freedom

from

servile

dues

and

services,

and

independence to buy and sell as the market dictated. They petitioned or rebelled against the political powers that ruled over them – bishops, kings, counts, castellans, dukes – for the right to govern themselves. Collective movements for urban self-government were especially prevalent in Italy, France, and Germany. Italy’s political life had long been city-centered, and communes there began already in the second half

of

the

eleventh

century.

At

Milan,

for

example,

popular

discontent with the archbishop, who effectively ruled the city, led to numerous armed clashes that ended, in 1097, with the transfer of power from the archbishop to a government of leading men of the city. Outside Italy, movements for urban independence – sometimes violent, as at Milan, at other times peaceful – often took place within a larger political framework. For example, around 1130, in return for a hefty sum, King Henry I of England freed the citizens of London from numerous customary taxes while granting them the right to “appoint as sheriff from themselves whomsoever they may choose, and

[they]

shall

appoint

from

among

themselves

as

justice 5

whomsoever they choose to look after the pleas of my crown.”

The

king’s law still stood, but it was to be carried out by the Londoners’ officials.

CHURCH REFORM AND ITS AFTERMATH Disillusioned citizens at Milan denounced their archbishop not only for his tyranny but also for his impurity; they wanted their pastors to be untainted by sex and money. In this they were supported by a

newly zealous papacy, keen on reform in the Church and society. The “Gregorian Reform,” as modern historians call this movement, broke up clerical marriages, unleashed civil war in Germany, changed the procedure for episcopal elections, and transformed the papacy into a monarchy. It began as a way to free the Church from the world, but in the end the Church was deeply involved in the new world it had helped to create.

The Coming of Reform Free the Church from the world: what could that mean? In 910 the duke and duchess of Aquitaine founded the monastery of Cluny with some unusual stipulations. (For all the places involved, see Map 5.3 on p. 176.) They endowed the monastery with property (normal and essential if it were to survive), but then they did something unusual: they gave Cluny and its worldly possessions to Saints Peter and Paul. In this way, they put control of the monastery into the hands of the two most powerful heavenly saints. They designated the pope, as the successor of Saint Peter, to be the monastery’s worldly protector if anyone should bother or threaten it. But even the pope had no right to infringe on Cluny’s freedom: “From this day,” the duke wrote, those same monks there congregated shall be subject neither to our yoke, nor to that of our relatives, nor to the sway of any earthly power. And, through God and all his saints, and by the awful day of judgment, I warn and abjure that no one of the secular princes, no count, no bishop whatever, not the pontiff of the aforesaid Roman see [i.e., the pope], shall invade the property of these servants of God, or alienate it, or diminish it, or exchange it, or give it as a benefice to any one, or constitute any prelate over them 6

against their will.

Cluny’s

prestige

was

great

because

of

the

influence

of

its

founders, the status of Saint Peter, and the fame of the monastery’s elaborate round of prayers. The Cluniac monks fulfilled the role of “those who pray” in dazzling manner. Through their prayers, they seemed to guarantee the salvation of all Christians. Rulers, bishops, rich landowners, and even serfs (if they could) gave Cluny donations of land, joining their contributions to the land of Saint Peter. Powerful men

and

women

called

on

the

Cluniac

monasteries along the Cluniac model.

abbots

to

reform

new

The abbots of Cluny came to see themselves as reformers of the world as well as the cloister: priests should not have wives; powerful laymen should cease their oppression of the poor. In the eleventh century, the Cluniacs began to link their program to the papacy. When they disputed with bishops or laypeople about lands and rights, they called on the popes to help them out. The popes were ready to do so. A parallel movement for reform had entered papal circles via a small group of influential monks and clerics.

Mining

canon

(Church)

law

for

their

ammunition,

these

churchmen emphasized two abuses: nicolaitism (clerical marriage) and simony (buying Church offices). There were good reasons to single out these two issues. Married clerics were considered less “pure” than those who were celibate; furthermore, their heirs might claim

Church

property.

As

for

simony:

the

new

profit

economy

sensitized reformers to the crass commercial meanings of gifts. It was wrong, even heretical (they asserted), for a priest to accept payment for

administering

a

sacrament

such

as

baptism;

it

was

evil

and

damnable for a man to offer money to gain a bishopric. These were attempts to purchase the Holy Spirit. Initially, the reformers got imperial backing. German king and emperor Henry III (r.1039–1056) thought that, as the anointed of God, he was responsible for the well-being of the Church in the Empire. (For Henry and his dynasty, see Genealogy 5.3 on p. 181.) Henry denounced simony and personally refused to accept money or gifts when he appointed bishops to their posts. He presided over the Synod of Sutri (1046), which deposed three papal rivals and elected another. When that pope and his successor died, Henry appointed Bruno of Toul, a member of the royal family, seasoned courtier, and reforming bishop. Taking the name Leo IX (1049–1054), the new pope surprised his patron: he set out to reform the Church under papal, not imperial, control.

Genealogy 5.3 The Salian Kings and Emperors

Description

Leo revolutionized the papacy. He had himself elected by the “clergy and people” to satisfy the demands of canon law. Unlike earlier popes, he often left Rome to preside over Church councils and make the pope’s influence felt outside Italy, especially in France and Germany. Leo brought to the papal curia the most zealous Church reformers of his day: Peter Damian, Hildebrand of Soana (later Pope Gregory VII), and Humbert of Silva Candida. They put new stress on the passage in Matthew’s Gospel (Matt. 16:19) in which Christ tells Peter that he is the “rock” of the Church, with the keys to heaven and the power to bind (impose penance) and loose (absolve from sins). As the successor to the special privileges of Saint Peter, the Roman Church, headed by the pope, was declared the “head and mother of all

churches.” What historians call the doctrine of “papal primacy” was thus announced. Its

impact

was

soon

felt

at

Byzantium.

On

a

mission

at

Constantinople in 1054 to forge an alliance with the emperor against the Normans and, at the same time, to “remind” the patriarch of his place in the Church hierarchy, Humbert ended by excommunicating the

patriarch

and

his

followers.

In

retaliation,

the

patriarch

excommunicated Humbert and his fellow legates. Clashes between the Roman and Byzantine Churches had occurred before and had been patched up, but this one, though not recognized as such at the time, marked a permanent schism. After 1054, the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches largely went their separate ways. More generally, the papacy began to wield new forms of power. It waged unsuccessful war against the Normans in southern Italy and then made the best of the situation by granting them parts of the region and Sicily as well as a fief, turning former enemies into vassals. It supported the Christian push into the taifas of al-Andalus, and Pope Alexander II (1061–1073) transformed the “reconquista” (the conquest of Islamic Spain) into a holy war when he forgave the sins of the Christians on their way to the battle of Barbastro.

The Investiture Conflict and Its Effects The papal reform movement is associated particularly with Pope Gregory VII (1073–1085), hence the term “Gregorian Reform.” A passionate advocate of papal primacy, Gregory was not afraid to clash directly with the king of Germany, Henry IV (r.1056–1106), over Church leadership. In Gregory’s view – an astonishing one at the time, given the religious and spiritual roles associated with rulers – kings and emperors were simple laymen who had no right to meddle in

Church

affairs.

Henry,

on

the

other

hand,

brought

up

in

the

traditions of his father, Henry III, considered it part of his duty to appoint bishops and even popes to ensure the well-being of Church and Empire together.

Plate 5.6 A King Invests a Bishop (c.1100). In this manuscript made at SaintOmer, a monastery named after Merovingian Saint Audomar in the region between Belgium and France today, King Dagobert is shown giving the saint a pastoral staff, the emblem of his ecclesiastical duty as the “shepherd” of his “flock.” Though the monk-artist was painting this right in the middle of the Investiture Conflict and its reform ideas, he drew tranquilly on older practices. The fact that the king is slightly higher than the saint even suggests that he has greater dignity.

The pope and the king first collided over the appointment of the archbishop of Milan. Gregory disputed Henry’s right to “invest” the archbishop (i.e., put him into his office). In the investiture ritual, the emperor or his representative symbolically gave the church and the

land that went with it to the bishop or archbishop chosen for the job. (See Plate

5.6.)

In

the

case

of

Milan,

two

rival

candidates

for

archiepiscopal office (one supported by the pope, the other by the emperor) had been at loggerheads for several years when, in 1075, Henry invested a new man. Gregory immediately called on Henry to “give more respectful attention to the master of the Church,” namely 7

Saint Peter and his living representative – Gregory himself!

In reply,

Henry and the German bishops called on Gregory, that “false monk,” 8

to resign.

This was the beginning of what historians delicately call

the “Investiture Conflict” or “Investiture Controversy.” In fact, it was war.

In

February

1076,

Gregory

convened

a

synod

that

both

excommunicated Henry and suspended him from office: I deprive King Henry [IV], son of the emperor Henry [III], who has rebelled against [God’s] Church with unheard-of audacity, of the government over the whole kingdom of Germany and Italy, and I release all Christian men from the allegiance which they have sworn or may swear to him, and I 9

forbid anyone to serve him as king.

The last part of this decree gave it real punch: anyone in Henry’s kingdom

could

rebel

against

him.

The

German

“princes”

–

the

aristocrats – seized the moment and threatened to elect another king. In part, they were motivated by religious sentiments, for many had established links with the papacy through their support of reformed monasteries. But they were also in part opportunists, glad to free themselves from the restraints of strong German kings who had tried to

keep

their

Gregory’s

power

supporters,

in a

check. major

Some blow

bishops,

to

Henry,

too, who

joined needed

with the

prestige and the troops that they supplied. Attacked on all sides, Henry traveled in the winter of 1077 to intercept Gregory, barricaded in a fortress at Canossa, high in the Apennine Mountains. It was a refuge provided by the staunchest of papal supporters, Countess Matilda of Tuscany. (See Plate 5.7.) In an astute and dramatic gesture, the king dressed as a penitent, stripping himself of all the trappings of kingship. Standing barefoot outside the fortress walls, he suffered in the cold and snow for three days. Gregory was forced, as a pastor, to lift his excommunication and to receive Henry back into the Church, precisely as Henry intended. For his part, the pope had the satisfaction of seeing the king humiliate himself before the papal majesty. Although it made a great impression

on contemporaries, the whole episode solved nothing. The princes elected an antiking, the emperor an antipope, and bloody civil war continued intermittently until 1122.

Plate 5.7 Henry IV Kneels before Countess Matilda (1115). This depiction of the confrontation at Canossa is among the illustrations in a Life of Matilda written

by

Donizo,

monk

and

later

abbot

of

Sant’Apollonio

of

Canossa.

Donizo’s account makes her the chief figure in the drama, since the king begs her pardon, not the pope’s. Matilda is seated high on a throne and sheltered by a ciborium, an ornamental canopy. Henry IV, following the directive given him by his godfather Abbot Hugh of Cluny (1049–1109) (on the left), kneels before the countess, supplicating her favor and pardon. Matilda was a major supporter of Gregory VII, supplying both troops and finances to back him. Compare this image of royal power with that in Plate 5.6.

The Investiture Conflict ended with a compromise: the Concordat of Worms (1122). It relied on a conceptual distinction between two parts of investiture – the spiritual (in which the bishop-to-be received the symbols of his office) and the secular (in which he received the symbols of the material goods that would allow him to function in the world). Under the terms of the Concordat, the ring and staff, symbols of Church office, were to be given by a churchman in the first part of the ceremony. Then the emperor or his representative would touch the bishop with a scepter, signifying the land and other possessions that went with his office. Elections of bishops in Germany would take place “in the presence” of the emperor – that is, under his influence. In Italy, the pope would have a comparable role. In the end, then, secular rulers continued to have a role in the appointment of churchmen. But just as the new investiture ceremony broke the ritual into spiritual and secular halves, so too it implied a new notion of kingship separate from the priesthood. The Investiture Conflict did not produce the modern distinction between Church and State – that would develop only very slowly – but it set the wheels in motion. At the time, its most important consequence was to shatter the delicate balance between political and ecclesiastical powers in Germany and Italy. In Germany, the princes consolidated their lands and powers at the expense of the king. In Italy, the communes came closer

to

their

goals:

it

was

no

accident

that

Milan

gained

its

independence in 1097, as the conflict raged. In every domain the papacy gained new authority. In Church law, papal

primacy

Decretum,

was

written

enhanced by

a

by

teacher

the of

publication canon

law

c.1140 named

of

the

Gratian.

Collecting nearly two thousand passages from the decrees of popes and councils as well as the writings of the Church Fathers, Gratian set out to demonstrate their essential agreement. In fact, the book’s original title was Harmony of Discordant Canons. If he found any “discord”

in

his

sources,

Gratian

usually

imposed

the

harmony

himself by arguing that the conflicting passages dealt with different situations. A bit later another legal scholar revised and expanded the Decretum, adding Roman law to the mix. At a more intimate level, papal denunciations of married clergy made

inroads

Carolingian

on

family

Empire

few

life.

While

in

the

eleventh-century

old

priests

heartland were

of

the

wed,

the

practice was fairly common in England, Normandy, and Italy. The Gregorian reformers were determined to end this, and they were eventually quite successful. For example, at Saint Paul’s in England c.1100, even after a half-century push for reform, many of the canons (the priests who served the cathedral church) were married, and Church offices and their associated properties (prebends) passed from father to son. But thereafter the practice seems to have fallen off. Similarly, at Verona, “sons of priests” disappeared from the historical record in the twelfth century. Nevertheless, in some places, clerics resisted

the

call

to

repudiate

their

wives

and

children

into

the

thirteenth century. While reformers might rail against the “lustful” women

who

tempted

their

priestly

husbands

to

evil

sin,

other

churchmen were glad to recognize and praise the help, piety, and benefactions of priest’s wives. As the papacy consolidated its territory, promulgated its laws and discipline,

established

an

administrative

bureaucracy,

and

set

up

collection agencies and law courts, it came to resemble the monarchs of its day.

The First Crusade It resembled them, too, in calling for wars. Monarchs might consider their wars “just”; popes could claim that their wars were “holy.” In effect, Alexander II declared the reconquista in Spain to be holy when he forgave the sins of its soldiers. (See above) It was in the wake of this that the taifa rulers implored the Almoravids for help. When Byzantine Emperor Alexius asked Pope Urban II (1088–1099) for mercenaries responded

to

by

help

retake

declaring

a

Anatolia

holy

war

from to

the

Seljuks,

Jerusalem,

the

the

pope

movement

historians call the First Crusade. After attending a Peace Council in southern France, Urban called for a pious pilgrimage to the Holy Land

to

be

undertaken

by

an

armed

militia.

It

would

be

commissioned like those of the Peace of God, but thousands of times larger. And it would fight under the leadership of the papacy. “Let your quarrels end,” admonished Urban. “Let wars cease, and let all dissensions and controversies slumber. Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulcher; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it 10

to yourselves.”

What was that “wicked race”? Europeans adopted a catch-all word for it: Saracens. Originally referring to one group of Arabs living in the Sinai Peninsula, in Europe the term came to refer to all Muslims. By collapsing numerous factions, ethnicities, dynasties, and traditions into that simple word, Europeans created fertile soil at home for anti-Muslim racism to flourish. In a somewhat parallel development, Muslims came to call all crusaders iFranj, Franks. The

First

100,000

Crusade

people,

(1096–1099)

including

mobilized

warriors,

old

a

men,

force

of

bishops,

some

priests,

women, children, and hangers-on. Its armies were organized not as one military force but rather as separate militias, each authorized by Urban II and commanded by a different leader.

THE MASSACRE OF RHINELAND JEWS Several unofficial bands were not authorized by the pope. Though called

collectively

the

“Peasants’

(or

People’s)

Crusade,”

these

irregular armies included nobles. They were inspired by popular preachers,

especially

the

eloquent

Peter

the

Hermit,

who

was

described by chroniclers as small, ugly, barefoot, and – partly because of those very characteristics – utterly captivating. Starting out before the other armies, the Peasants’ Crusade took a route to the Holy Land through the Rhineland in Germany. This detour was no mistake. The crusaders were looking for “wicked races” closer to home: the Jews. Under Henry IV many Jewish settlers had gained a stable place within Germany, particularly in the prosperous cities that lined up along the Rhine River. The Jews there

received

protection

from

the

local

bishops

(often

imperial

11

appointees) in return for paying a tax.

While scattered communities of Jews had lived in this region during the tenth century, they became clearly important players only in the eleventh. Established in their own neighborhoods within the cities, the Jews built synagogues to serve as schools, community centers, and places of worship, and they consecrated cemeteries to act as

sites

of

communal

and

ancestral

memories.

Each

community

followed its own rules, based in part on Jewish learned tradition and in part on the norms of the Christians around them, and they and the bishops of each city negotiated the form of law that would be applied in their law court (kehal). Just as they adapted to their surrounding

Christian community, so the Jews were much in demand by Christians for their skills as merchants and doctors – professions they and their ancestors had earlier plied in southern Italy, southern France, and Byzantium. On the whole, the Rhineland Jews coexisted peacefully with their Christian

neighbors

until

the

First

Crusade.

Then

the

Peasants’

Crusade, joined by some local nobles and militias from the region, threatened the “Jews,” lumping them all together with this one now racialized word, no matter their differences. Giving them two bitter choices – forced conversion or death – some persecutors relented when

their

victims

paid

them

money.

Others,

however,

attacked.

Beleaguered Jews occasionally found refuge with bishops or in the houses

of

Christian

friends,

but

in

many

cities

–

Metz,

Speyer,

Worms, Mainz, and Cologne – they were massacred even so. “Even the bishop [of Mainz] fled from his church for it was thought to kill him also because he had spoken good things of the Jews,” lamented 12

chronicler Solomon bar Samson.

Leaving the Rhineland, some of the irregular militias disbanded, while others sought to gain the Holy Land via Hungary, at least one stopping off at Prague to massacre more Jews there. Only a handful of these armies continued on to Anatolia, where most of them were quickly slaughtered. From the point of view of Emperor Alexius at Constantinople, even the “official” crusaders were problematic. One of the crusade’s leaders, the Norman warrior Bohemond, had, a few years before, tried to conquer Byzantium itself. Alexius got most of the leaders to swear that if they conquered any land previously held by the Byzantines, they would restore it; and if they conquered new regions, they would hold them from Alexius as their overlord. Then he shipped the armies across the Bosporus. (For the various armies and their routes, see Map 5.5 on p. 187.)

Map 5.5 The Mediterranean Region and the First Crusade

Description

TAKING JERUSALEM The main objective of the First Crusade – to conquer the Holy Land – was accomplished largely because of the disunity of the Islamic world and its failure to consider the crusade a serious military threat. Spared by the Turks when they first arrived in Anatolia, the crusaders’ armies were initially uncoordinated and their food supplies uncertain, but soon they organized themselves. They set up a “council of princes” that

included

all

the

great

crusade

leaders,

and

the

Byzantines

supplied them with food at a nearby port. Surrounding Iznik (Nicaea) and besieging it with catapults and other war machines, the crusaders, along with a small Byzantine contingent, took the city on June 19, 1097. The city surrendered directly to Alexius, who rewarded the crusaders amply but also insisted that any leader who had not yet taken the oath to him do so. However,

the

crusaders

soon

forgot

their

promise

to

the

Byzantines. While most went toward Antioch, which stood in the way

of their conquest of Jerusalem, one leader went off to Edessa, where he took over the city and its outlying area, creating the first of the Crusader

States:

the

County

of

Edessa.

Meanwhile

the

other

crusaders remained stymied before the thick and heavily fortified walls of Antioch for many months. Then, in a surprise turnabout, they entered the town but found themselves besieged by Muslim armies from the outside. Their mood grim, they rallied when a peasant named Peter Bartholomew reported that he had seen in many visions the Holy Lance that had pierced Christ’s body – it was, he said, buried right in the main church in Antioch. (Antioch had a flourishing Christian

population

even

under

Muslim

rule.)

After

a

night

of

feverish digging, the crusaders believed that they had discovered the Holy Lance, and, fortified by this miracle, they defeated the besiegers. From Antioch, it was only a short march to Jerusalem, though disputes among the crusade leaders delayed that next step for over a year. One leader claimed Antioch. Another eventually took charge – provisionally – of the expedition to Jerusalem. His way was eased by quarrels among Muslim rulers, and an alliance with one of them allowed free passage through what would have been enemy territory. In early June 1099, a large crusading force amassed before the walls 13

of Jerusalem and set to work building siege engines.

In mid-July

they attacked, breaching the walls and entering the city. Jerusalem was now in the hands of the crusaders.

RULERS WITH CLOUT While the papacy was turning into a monarchy, other rulers – some of them women, such as Matilda of Canossa – were beginning to turn their territories into states. They discovered ideologies to justify their hegemony, hired officials to work for them, and found vassals and churchmen to support them.

The Crusader States In the Holy Land, the leaders of the crusade set up four tiny states, European colonies in the Levant. Two (Tripoli and Edessa) were counties, Antioch was a principality, Jerusalem a kingdom. (See Map

5.5 again.) These (except for Edessa) lasted – tenuously – until the late thirteenth century (the last holdout fell in 1291). Many new crusades had to be called in the interval to shore them up. The whole region was multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and habituated to rule by a military elite, and the Crusader States (apart from the religion of its elite) were no exception. Yet, however much they engaged with their neighbors, the Europeans in the Levant saw themselves as a world apart, holding on to their Western identity through their political institutions

and

the

old

vocabulary

of

homage,

fealty,

and

Christianity. The new rulers carved out estates to give as fiefs to their vassals, who, in turn, gave portions of their holdings in fief to their own men. Indigenous

peasants

continued

to

work

the

land

as

before,

and

commerce boomed as the new rulers encouraged lively trade at their coastal ports. Italian merchants, especially the Genoese, Pisans, and Venetians, were the most active, but others – Byzantines and Muslim traders – participated as well. Enlightened lordship dictated that the mixed population of the states – Muslims, to be sure, but also Jews, Greek Orthodox Christians, Monophysite Christians, and others – be tolerated for the sake of production and trade. Most Europeans had gone home after the First Crusade; those left behind were obliged to coexist

with

the

inhabitants

that

remained.

Eastern

and

Western

Christians learned to share shrines, priests, and favorite monastic charities; when they came to blows, any violence tended to be local and sporadic. The main concerns of the Crusader States’ rulers were military. Knights had to be recruited from Europe from time to time, and two new and militant forms of monasticism developed in the Levant: the Knights Templar and the Hospitallers. Both were vowed to poverty and chastity, yet devoted themselves to war at the same time. They defended the town garrisons of the Crusader States and ferried money from Europe to the Holy Land. Some of the castles that bristled in the Crusader

States’

countryside

were

constructed

by

these

warrior-

monks. One of the most impressive, and still standing, is Crac des Chevaliers, originally a simple fortification built by Muslims to fight the crusaders. It was taken, along with the fertile lands around it, by Count Raymond II of Tripoli in 1140, who granted both to the Hospitallers four years later. The stronghold was well situated to

dominate the countryside, but it was also dangerously near Homs, which

was

under

Islamic

rule.

Taking

up

the

challenge,

the

Hospitallers proceeded to turn the originally modest structure into a model center of both defense and administration. (See Plate 5.8.)

Plate 5.8 Crac des Chevaliers (12th and 13th cent.). This enormous castle, which

housed

a

garrison

of

perhaps

2,000

men,

was

built

in

stages.

An

enclosure with defensive square towers and two gates was built before 1170. Within were vaulted chambers and a chapel. Earthquakes in 1170 and 1202 destroyed much of this structure and ushered in the busiest period of building, during which the castle took its present form. A huge outer circuit of walls surrounds the entire castle, which included halls, residences, and a chapel. The view here shows the aqueduct on the eastern side; it supplied water for drinking and for the moat. Jutting out from the wall at intervals are round towers – a very new shape for such structures. The archery slits in the turrets allowed bowmen to shoot in almost complete safety.

Yet none of this could prevent Zangi, a Seljuk emir, from taking Edessa in 1144. The slow but steady shrinking of the Crusader States began at that moment. The Second Crusade (1147–1149), called in the wake of Zangi’s victory, came to a disastrous end. After only four days

of

besieging

the

walls

of

Damascus,

the

crusaders,

whose

leaders could not keep the peace among themselves, gave up and went home.

England under Norman Rule A more enduring conquest took place in England. Linked to the Continent by the Vikings, who had settled in its eastern half, England was further tied to Scandinavia under the rule of Cnut in the early eleventh century (see above, p. 149). But only when it was conquered

by Duke William of Normandy (d.1087) was it drawn inextricably into the Continental orbit. (See Map 5.6.)

Map 5.6 The Norman Invasion of England, 1066–1100

Description

When William left his duchy with a large army in the autumn of 1066 to dispute the crown of the childless King Edward the Confessor (r.1042–1066), who had died earlier that year, he avowed that Edward had sworn on oath to leave the kingdom to him. Opposing his claim were Harald Hardrada, king of Norway, and Harold Godwineson, who had been crowned king of England the day after Edward’s death.

At Stamford Bridge in the north of England, Harold defeated the Norwegian

king

and

then

wheeled

his

army

around

to

confront

William at Hastings. That one-day battle was decisive, and William was crowned the first Norman king of England. (See Genealogy 5.4.)

Genealogy 5.4 The Norman Kings of England

Description

Treating his conquest like booty (as rulers in the Crusade States would do a few decades later), William kept about 20 per cent of the land for himself and divided the rest, distributing it in large but scattered fiefs to a relatively small number of his barons – his elite followers – and to family members, lay and ecclesiastical, as well as to some lesser men, such as personal servants and soldiers. In turn, these men maintained their own vassals. They owed the king military service along with the service of a fixed number of their vassals; and they

paid

him

certain

dues,

such

as

reliefs

(money

paid

upon

inheriting a fief) and aids (payments made on important occasions). The king also collected land taxes, as English kings had done since the early eleventh century. To know what was owed him, in 1086

William

ordered

a

survey

of

the

land

and

landholders of

England. His officials consulted ancient tax lists and took testimony from locals, who were sworn to answer a series of formal questions truthfully. Compilers standardized the materials, using a shorthand vocabulary. Consider, by way of example, the entry for the manor of Diddington: the bishop of Lincoln had 2½ hides to the geld. [There is] land for 2 ploughs. There are now 2 ploughs in demesne; and 5 villans having 2

ploughs. There is a church, and 18 acres of meadow, [and] woodland pasture half a league long and a half broad. TRE worth 60s; now 70s. William holds 14

it of the bishop.

This needs unpacking. The hides were units of tax assessment; the ploughs and acres were units of area; the leagues were units of length. The villans (sometimes spelled villeins) were one type of peasant (there were many kinds). Finally, the abbreviation TRE meant “in the time of King Edward.” Anyone consulting the survey would know that the manor of Diddington was now worth more than it had been TRE. As for the William mentioned here: he was not William the Conqueror but rather a vassal of the bishop of Lincoln. No wonder the survey was soon dubbed “Domesday Book”: like the records of people who will be judged at doomsday, it provided facts that could not be appealed. Domesday was the most extensive inventory of land, livestock, taxes, and people that had as yet been compiled anywhere in medieval Europe. England

and

the

Continent

nearly

merged.

The

new

English

barons who arrived with William spoke a brand of French; they talked more easily with the peasants of Normandy (if they bothered) than with those tilling the land in England. They maintained their estates on the Continent and their ties with its politics, institutions, and culture. English wool was sent to Flanders to be turned into cloth. The most brilliant intellect of his day, Saint Anselm of Bec (and Canterbury; 1033–1109), was born in Italy, became abbot of Bec, a Norman monastery, and was then appointed archbishop of Canterbury in England. English adolescent boys were sent to Paris and Chartres for schooling. The kings of England often spent more time on the Continent than they did on the island. When, on the death of King Henry I (r.1100–1135) no male descendent survived to take the throne, two counts from the Continent – Geoffrey of Anjou and Stephen of Blois – disputed it as their right through two rival females of the royal line, Matilda and Adela. (See Genealogy 5.4 again.)

Christian Spain and Portugal While

England

was

conquered

in

a

day,

the

reconquista

took

centuries. (Then, again, Iberia is four and a half times as large as England!) It was a very lucrative enterprise, initially made possible by

the disintegration of al-Andalus into weak and competitive taifas. The fledgling Christian states in the north – León, Castile, Navarre, and Aragon – staged plundering raids, confiscated lands and cities, and (until the Almoravids put an end to it) collected tribute in gold from taifa rulers anxious to stave off attacks. Nor were the northern states the only beneficiaries of these wars. When Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, the Cid (from the Arabic sidi, lord), fell out of favor with his lord, Alfonso VI, king of Castile and León, he and a band of followers found employment with al-Mutamin, ruler of Zaragoza. There he defended the city against Christian and Muslim invaders

alike.

In

1090,

he

struck

out

on

his

own,

conquering

Valencia in 1094 and ruling there until his death in 1099. He was a Spaniard, but other opportunistic warriors sometimes came from elsewhere. In fact, Pope Alexander II’s call to besiege Barbastro in 1064 appealed to knights from France. Spain’s French connections were symptomatic of a wider process: the

Europeanization

of

Christian

Spain.

Initially

the

northern

kingdoms were isolated islands of Visigothic culture. But already in the tenth century, pilgrims from France, England, Germany, and Italy clogged

the

roads

to

the

shrine

of

Saint

James

(Santiago

de

Compostela; see Map 5.7), while in the eleventh century, monks from the French monastery of Cluny arrived to colonize Spanish cloisters. At

the

same

time,

Alfonso

VI

actively

reached

out

beyond

the

Pyrenees. He cultivated ties with Cluny, doubling the annual gift of 1,000 gold pieces that his father, Fernando I, had given to the monks there in exchange for prayers for his soul. He also sought recognition from Pope Gregory VII as “king of Spain,” and in return he imposed the Roman liturgy throughout his kingdom, stamping out traditional Visigothic music and texts. In 1085 Alfonso made good his claim to be more than the king of Castile and León by conquering Toledo. This was the original reason why the Almoravids came to Spain, as we saw on p. 170. After Alfonso’s death, his daughter, Queen Urraca (r.1109–1126), ruled in her own right a realm larger than England. Her strength came from the usual sources: control over land, which, though granted out to counts

and

others,

was

at

least

in

theory

revocable;

Church

appointments; a court of great men to offer advice and give their

consent; and an army to which all men – even arms-bearing slaves – were liable to be called up once a year. In the wake of Almoravid victories, however, two new Christian states,

Aragon-Catalonia

and

Portugal,

began

to

challenge

the

supremacy of Castile and León. Aragon had always been a separate entity, but Portugal was the creation of Alfonso VI himself. As king of León, he ruled over the county of Portugal (the name came from Portucalia: land of ports), and in 1095 he granted his rights there to his illegitimate daughter Teresa and her husband, Henry of Burgundy. They became the first count and countess of Portugal as Alfonso’s vassals. But their son, Count Afonso Henriques, chafed under the lordship of León, took the title of prince of Portugal in 1129, and began to encroach on Islamic territory to his south. In 1139 he defeated the Almoravids at the battle of Ourique and took the title of king of Portugal as Afonso I. The continuing pressure of the reconquista, together with fierce opposition from a new group in the Maghrib – the Almohads (as we shall see in the next chapter) – ended in the defeat of the Almoravids c.1150–c.1175.

Map 5.7 The Iberian Peninsula, c.1140

Description

Praising the King of France Not all rulers had opportunities for grand conquest. Yet they survived and even prospered. Such was the case of the kings of France. Reduced to battling a few castles in the vicinity of the Ile-de-France (see Map 5.3 on p. 176), the Capetian kings nevertheless wielded many

of

the

same

instruments

of

power

as

their

conquering

contemporaries: vassals, taxes, commercial revenues, military and religious reputations. Louis VI the Fat (r.1108–1137), so heavy that he had to be hoisted onto his horse by a crane, was nevertheless a tireless defender of royal power. (See Genealogy 5.5.) Louis’s virtues were amplified and broadcast by his biographer, Suger

(1081–1151),

the

abbot

of

Saint-Denis,

a

monastery

just

outside Paris. A close associate of the king, Suger was his chronicler and propagandist. When Louis set himself the task of consolidating his rule in the Ile-de-France, Suger portrayed the king as a righteous hero. He was more than a lord with rights over the French nobles as his vassals; he was (asserted Suger) a peacekeeper with the Godgiven duty to fight unruly strongmen. Careful not to claim that Louis was head of the Church, which would have scandalized the papacy and its supporters, Suger nevertheless emphasized Louis’s role as a vigorous protector of the faith and insisted on the sacred importance of the royal dignity. When Louis died in 1137, Suger’s notion of the might and right of the

king

of

France

reflected

reality

in

an

extremely

small

area.

Nevertheless, Louis and his propagandist laid the groundwork for the gradual extension of royal power. As the lord of vassals, the king could call upon his men to aid him in times of war (though the great ones might refuse). As king and landlord, he collected dues and taxes with the help of his officials. Revenues came from Paris as well, a thriving commercial and cultural center. With money and land, Louis employed civil servants while dispensing the favors and giving the gifts that added to his prestige and power.

Genealogy 5.5 The Capetian Kings of France

Description

NEW FORMS OF LEARNING AND RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION The commercial revolution and rise of urban centers, the newly reorganized Church, close contact with the Islamic world, and the revived polities of the early twelfth century paved the way for the

growth of urban schools and new forms of religious expression in Europe. Money, learning, and career opportunities attracted many to city schools. At the same time, some people rejected urbanism and the newfangled scholarship it supported. They retreated from the world to seek poverty and solitude. Yet the new learning and the new money had a way of seeping into the cracks and crannies of even the most resolutely separate institutions.

The New Schools and What They Taught Connected

to

monasteries

and

cathedrals

since

the

Carolingian

period, traditional schools had trained young men to become monks or priests. Some were better endowed than others with books and teachers; a few developed reputations for particular expertise. By the end of the eleventh century, the best schools were generally connected to cathedrals in the larger cities: Reims, Paris, Bologna, Montpellier. But some teachers (or “masters,” as they were called), such as the charismatic and brilliant Peter Abelard (1079–1142), simply set up shop by renting a room. Students flocked to his lectures. What the students sought, in the first place, was knowledge of the seven

liberal

arts.

Grammar,

rhetoric,

and

logic

(or

dialectic)

belonged to the “beginning” arts, the so-called trivium. Grammar and rhetoric focused on literature and writing. Logic – involving the technical analysis of texts as well as the application and manipulation of arguments – was a transitional subject leading to the second, higher part of the liberal arts, the quadrivium. This covered four areas of study that would today be called theoretical math and science: arithmetic

(number

theory),

geometry,

music

(theory

rather

than

practice), and astronomy. Of these arts, logic had pride of place in the new schools, while masters and students who studied the quadrivium generally did so outside of the classroom. Scholars looked to logic to clarify what they knew and lead them to further knowledge. Nearly everyone believed that God existed. But a

scholar

like

Anselm

(whom

we

met

above

as

archbishop

of

Canterbury), was not satisfied by belief alone. His faith, as he put it, “sought understanding.” He emptied his mind of all concepts except

that of God; then, using the tools of logic, he proved God’s very existence in his Monologion. In Paris a bit later, Peter Abelard declared that “nothing can be believed unless it is first understood.” He drew together conflicting authoritative texts on 158 key subjects in his Sic et Non (Yes and No). The issues that he dealt with included matters of belief, such as “That God is one and the contrary,” and of morality, such as, “That it is permitted to kill men and the contrary.” Leaving the propositions unresolved, Abelard prefaced his book with techniques for critical reading. The easiest way to reconcile different authorities, he advised, was “to admit that the same words are given different meanings by 15

different authors.”

He offered other, more complex techniques as

well. Soon Peter Lombard (c.1100–1160) adopted Abelard’s method of juxtaposing discordant viewpoints, but he also supplied his own resolutions. In this way, he created the most widely read theology textbook of the Middle Ages: the Four Books of Sentences. Although logic was the tool that scholars such as Abelard and Peter Lombard considered crucial to solving the issues of their day, they had little access to the most systematic work on the topic, the treatises of Aristotle (d.323

BCE).

Aristotle wrote in Greek, which

Western Christians could not read. In the Islamic world, by contrast, Aristotle’s works had not only been translated into Arabic but also commented upon by scholars such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna; 980–1037) (see

above,

towards

the

p.

133)

end

of

and the

Ibn

Rushd

twelfth

(Averroes;

century

and

1126–1198).

extending

into

So, the

thirteenth, Western scholars traveled to Islamic or formerly Islamic cities – Toledo in Spain, Palermo in Sicily – to learn from Arabic as well as Hebrew translators and to arrive at workable Latin versions of Aristotle. In the course of the thirteenth century, Aristotle’s works became

the

primary

philosophical

authority

for

the

scholars

of

medieval European universities, known as the “scholastics.” The lofty subjects of the schools had down-to-earth, practical consequences in training preachers and advising rulers. They were written down in manuals for priests, textbooks for students, and guides for laypeople. Particularly important for “rulers with clout” were the scholars at Bologna, where Gratian worked on canon law. Other scholars achieved fame by teaching and writing about Roman law. By the mid-twelfth century, they had made real progress toward a

systematic understanding of Justinian’s law codes (see above, p. 31). The lawyers who emerged from the school at Bologna went on to serve popes, bishops, kings, princes, or communes. In this way, the learning of the schools was used by the newly powerful twelfthcentury states, preached in the churches, and consulted in the courts.

Monastic Splendor and Poverty Even as schools drew young men to them in droves, monasteries continued to exert their own magnetic pull. In the twelfth century they proliferated and took on new forms. There were “old-fashioned” Benedictine houses that continued to prosper – Cluny was a good example of that. Filled with many monks, model for numerous other monasteries both near and far, leader of an “order” of houses that were expected to coordinate their way of life with that of the “mother house,” Cluny itself was a miniature city enclosed in walls. Under Abbot Hugh (1049–1109) its church was the largest in Christendom. The monastery had a refectory where the monks ate, a dormitory where they slept, a “chapter room” where they read the Benedictine Rule, an infirmary for the sick, and many other structures built so as to form a square around an open “cloister,” lush and green, a taste of paradise. The whole purpose of this complex was to allow the monks to carry out a life of beautiful, arduous, and nearly continuous prayer. Every detail of their lives was ordered, every object splendid, every space adorned to render due honor to the Lord of heaven. But not all medieval people agreed that such extravagance pleased or

praised

God.

At

the

end

of

the

eleventh

century,

the

new

commercial economy and the profit motive that fueled it led many to reject wealth and to embrace poverty as a key element of the religious life. The Carthusian order, founded by Bruno of Cologne (d.1101), represented one such movement. La Grande Chartreuse, the chief house

of

the

order,

was

built

in

an

Alpine

valley,

lonely

and

inaccessible. Each monk took a vow of silence and lived as a hermit in his own small hut. Only occasionally would the monks join for prayer

in

a

common

oratory.

When

not

engaged

in

prayer

or

meditation, the Carthusians copied manuscripts: in their view, scribal work was a way to preach God’s word with the hands rather than the

mouth. Slowly the Carthusian order grew, but each monastery was limited to only twelve monks, the number of Christ’s Apostles. Another watchword Cîteaux

(in

new was

monastic

the

Latin,

group

Cistercians. Cistercium),

proclaiming

The

first

founded

poverty

Cistercian

in

1098

by

as

house

its was

Robert

of

Molesme (d.1111) and a few other monks seeking a more austere way of life. Austerity they found – and also success. With the arrival of Saint Bernard (c.1090–1153), who came to Cîteaux in 1112 along with about thirty friends and relatives, the original center sprouted a small congregation of houses in Burgundy. (Bernard became abbot of one of them, Clairvaux.) The order grew, often by reforming and incorporating existing monasteries. By the mid-twelfth century there were more than 300 Cistercian monasteries. Many were in France, but some were in Italy, Germany, England, Austria, and Spain. By the end of the twelfth century, the Cistercians were an order: their member houses adhered to the decisions of a General Chapter; their liturgical practices and internal organization were standardized. Many nuns, as eager as monks to live the life of simplicity and poverty that the Apostles had endured and enjoyed, adopted Cîteaux’s customs, and some convents later became members of the order. Although the Cistercians claimed the Benedictine Rule as the foundation of their customs, they elaborated a style of life and an aesthetic all their own. Dividing the tasks of the monastery into two kinds, they had the manual labor done by illiterate “lay brothers,” while the “work of God” – prayer – was performed by the others. This made the Cistercian monastery a house divided (see Figure 5.1). While built around a cloister (like other Benedictine houses), the Cistercian plan relegated the western half to the lay brothers, while the eastern part was reserved for the “choir” monks. Each half had its own dining room, latrines, dormitories, and infirmaries. The two sorts of monks were strictly separated from each other, even in the church, where a rood screen kept them from seeing one another.

Figure 5.1 Plan of Fountains Abbey, a Cistercian Monastery Founded 1132

Description

In general, the lifestyle of the Cistercians was governed by the goal of simplicity. All their churches were dedicated to one saint, Mary, the mother of God and model of perfect love. All of their liturgy was simplified, eliminating the many additions that had been tacked on to the daily prayers of monks at Cluny, where the whole day was spent chanting and celebrating Masses. Only one daily Mass, only the prayers in the Rule: that was the Cistercian ideal. They rejected the conceit of dyeing their robes – hence their nickname, the “white monks.” Their insistence on simplicity translated into the

appearance of their churches as well. Plate 5.9 shows the nave of Sénanque, a French monastery begun in 1139. Although very plain, the articulation of the pillars and arches and the stone molding that gently breaks the vertical thrust of the vault lend the church a sober charm.

Plate 5.9

Sénanque

Monastery

Church,

Interior

(c.1160).

Because

of

the

geography of the valley where the monastery was constructed, the church is oriented so that the “north” end takes the usual place of the “east.”

Yet enlisted

their all

spiritual their

lives

emotions

were and

not

simple

senses

into

at

all.

Rather,

they

understanding

and

exploring God’s love for them and theirs for God. Historians have dubbed this “affective piety.” Meditating on the life of Christ, they rejoiced and wept as the story unfolded. They longed to be welcomed as “brides” into the Lord’s bedchamber. They did not hesitate to use

maternal imagery to describe the nurturing care provided to humans by Jesus himself.

Plasticity vs Simplicity in Art and Architecture “Romanesque” churches aimed at glorifying God. Most did so richly and grandly. But some, inspired by the new emphasis on simplicity, shunned all but the most basic motifs.

MAGNIFICENT ROMANESQUE The size and splendor of the church at Cluny was meant to showcase both the solemn intoning of the chant and the honor due to God. Its architectural style, called Romanesque, represents the first wave of European monumental building. Constructed of stone or brick clad with stone, Romanesque edifices – whether cathedrals or monastic churches – were echo chambers for the sound of prayers. Massive, weighty, and dignified, they were often enlivened by sculpture, wall paintings, or patterned textures. The Italian cathedral at Modena (see Map 5.3 on p. 176), begun in 1099, may serve as a case study of Romanesque architecture and sculpture. We have already seen a bit of this church when viewing the sculptor depicted in Plate 5.5 (on p. 179). The building as a whole is an impressive work both in conception and execution. The decision to replace an earlier, more modest church was made by the leading citizens of the city, and they and the canons (priests) connected to the cathedral chose master architect Lanfranco to build it, while its initial sculptures were the work of Wiligelmo, who inscribed his name near the central door on the west end. Figure 5.2 shows the main features of Modena cathedral and, by extension, of other Romanesque churches. It boasts three stories: the first is delineated by an arcade of arches, the second by the triforium (here round arches delicately bisected in three by thin pillars), and the third level is the clerestory, which lets in the light of the sun. The whole sets up an undulating horizontal rhythm marked by the curves of the triforium, which continue all around the church. The curves are repeated by the round arcades, which extend the length of the nave

and are held up by graceful pillars topped by carved “capitals” that look like fancy hats.

Figure 5.2 Modena Cathedral, Cut-Out View

Description

Countering these horizontal thrusts are suggestions of upward movement, as heavy walls are progressively pierced by openings. Consider the Modena campanile, a feature of most Italian churches. Here

the

lower

tiers

are

“blind

arcades”

behind

which

is

pure

masonry. But the viewer’s eye is inexorably drawn upward as the tower’s walls gradually sprout windows.

The most characteristic aspect of Romanesque churches are their round “tunnel” vaults (see Plate 5.10), though by the time the vault at Modena

was

finished,

the

“pointed”

arches

of

Gothic

style

had

become fashionable. Even so, as in all Romanesque churches, here too the viewer’s eye is drawn toward the east, where the altar is located, rather than upward.

Plate 5.10

Modena

Cathedral,

Interior

(early

12th–14th

cent.).

The

chief

impression is of solidity and strength, made slightly less intimidating by the triforium and clerestory. Note the importance of the round arches that open onto the side aisles.

Description

Much of the interior of this Romanesque church is anticipated on the exterior, which alerts the visitor to the three-part division of nave and flanking side aisles and the triforium level. (See Plate 5.11.) The sculptures on four panels flanking both sides of the central portal and above each of the side doors were carved by Wiligelmo, who was clearly inspired by classical Roman models. (See Plate 5.12.)

Plate 5.11 Modena Cathedral, West Facade (early 12th cent. with 13th-cent. additions). The rose window and the jutting porch supported by lions were added to this otherwise early twelfth-century facade created by Lanfranco and Wiligelmo. The sculpted panels tell the sacred story, starting on the far left with creation (Plate 5.12). It continues (at the left of the central door) with the expulsion from the garden and (at the right of the central door) the murder of Cain. The sequence ends (above the far right door) with the landing of Noah’s ark.

Description



Plate 5.12 Adam and Eve, Modena Cathedral (early 12th cent.). God the Creator, holding a book that says “I am the light of the world, the true way, eternal life,” creates Adam and then (as Adam sleeps) pulls Eve out of the side of his swollen belly. At the right Adam bites into the apple; already he and Eve feel shame at their nakedness and cover their genitals. To see how closely the sculptor observed ancient and late antique precedents, compare the deep and anatomically expressive carving of this twelfth-century relief by Wiligelmo with the figures on the cinerary coffer of Vernasia Cyclas in Plate 1.3 on p. 16 or those on the sarcophagus of the Twelve Apostles in Plate 1.9 (p. 22).

Cistercian Plainness By

contrast

with

Modena’s

splendor,

yet

equally

“Romanesque,”

Cistercian churches were simple and devoid of ornament. Foursquare and

regular,

they

were

small

and

constructed

of

smooth-cut,

undecorated stone. Any sculpture was modest at best. Yet the very simplicity

of

their

buildings

radiated

a

quiet

sort

of

beauty.

Illuminated by the pure white light that came through clear glass windows, Cistercian churches were luminous, cool, and serene. (See Plate 5.9 on p. 200.)

*

*

*

*

*

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Seljuk Turks and Berber Almoravids reconfigured the geography of the Islamic world and put their stamp on religion by affirming Sunnism. Byzantium, badly maimed by the Seljuks on its eastern flank, hoped to recoup its losses

by calling on the papacy to help man its army. The papacy, however, had its own agenda. Invigorated by the Investiture Conflict, it called for an armed pilgrimage to the east that would both ensure peace in Europe and Christian control over regions that suddenly did not seem so far away. Women partook in this seemingly all-male world in ways large and small. Countess Matilda, key to the success of Gregory VII, was also deeply involved in the building of the cathedral of Modena, which lay in her territory. Other women took advantage of the new learning of the schools; Abelard fell in love with one of the besteducated women of his day, Heloise, who shared in his philosophical breakthroughs. Other women partook in the new religious fervor of the era, and women’s reformed monasteries proliferated at the same time as those of men. Women were involved in the crusades – as wives, as prostitutes, as suppliers of retinues, and as members (though probably not as warriors) of the military orders. But in the next century (as we shall see in Chapter 6) they, like so many others, found themselves increasingly silenced by sometimes overwhelming forces of conformity and intolerance.

For practice questions about the text, maps, plates, and other features – plus suggested answers – please go to www.utphistorymatters.com There you will also find all the maps, genealogies, and figures used in the book.

FURTHER READING Barrow, Julia. The Clergy in the Medieval World: Secular Clerics, Their Families and Careers in North-Western Europe, c.800–c.1200. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Bennison, Amira K. The Almoravid and Almohad Empire. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016. Berzock, Kathleen Bickford, ed. Caravans of God, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019.

Bom, Myra Miranda. Women in the Military Orders of the Crusades. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Catlos, Brian A. Muslims of Medieval Latin Christendom, c.1050–1614. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Christie, Niall. Muslims and Crusaders: Christianity’s Wars in the Middle East, 1095–1382, from the Islamic Sources. London: Routledge, 2014. Cobb, Paul M. The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Freestone, Hazel. “Evidence of the Ordinary: Wives and Children of the Clergy in Normandy and England, 1050–1150.” In Anglo Normal Studies XLI: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2018, edited by Elizabeth van Houts, pp. 39–58. Suffolk, UK: Boydell & Brewer, 2019. Gomez, Michael A. African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. Griffiths, Fiona. “Froibirg Gives a Gift: The Priest’s Wife in Eleventh-Century Bavaria.” Speculum 96, no. 4 (2021): 1009–38. Heng, Geraldine. The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Jamroziak, Emilia. The Cistercian Order in Medieval Europe, 1090–1500. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2013. Levtzion, Nehemia, and J.F.P. Hopkins, eds. Corpus of Early Arabic Sources of West African History. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2000. Little, Lester K. Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978. Miller, Maureen C., ed. Power and the Holy in the Age of the Investiture Conflict: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford, 2005. Newman, Barbara. Making Love in the Twelfth Century: “Letters of Two Lovers” in Context. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Nicholson, Helen J. Knights Templar. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021. Nixon, Sam, ed. Essouk-Tadmekka: An Early Islamic Trans-Saharan Market Town. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Peacock, A.C.S. The Great Seljuk Empire. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015. Peacock, A.C.S, and Sara Nur Yildiz, eds. The Seljuks of Anatolia: Court and Society in the Medieval Middle East. London: I.B. Taurus, 2015. Rubenstein, Jay. The First Crusade: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015.

Yavari, Neguin. The Future of Iran’s Past: Nizam al-Mulk Remembered. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Yildiz, Sara Nur. The Seljuk Empire of Anatolia. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016.

__________ 1

For an eyewitness account of the battle, see Abu’l-Fazl Beyhaqi, The Battle of Dandanqan, in Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic World, 3rd ed., ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018), pp. 241–43.

2

Nizam al-Mulk, The Book of Policy, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 244–46.

3

Nehemia Levtzion and J.F.P. Hopkins, eds., Corpus of Early Arabic Sources of West African History (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2000), p. 68.

4

Frederick of Hamburg’s Agreement with Colonists from Holland, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 246–47.

5

Henry I, Privileges for the Citizens of London, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 250–51.

6

Cluny’s Foundation Charter, in A Short Medieval Reader, ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023), pp. 98–104 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 184–87.

7

Gregory VII, Admonition to Henry IV, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 131–33 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 251–53.

8

Henry IV, Letter to Gregory VII, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 134–35 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 253–54.

9

Roman Lenten Synod, in The Correspondence of Pope Gregory VII: Selected Letters

from

the

Registrum,

ed.

and

trans.

Ephraim

Emerton

(New

York:

Columbia University Press, 1969), p. 91. 10 Robert the Monk, Pope Urban II Preaches the First Crusade, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 136–38 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 261–63. 11 The Jews of this region in Germany and in northern France called themselves Ashkenazi, after one of the descendants of Noah. Gradually the term came to refer to most European Jews with the exception of those from Spain (the Sefarad). However, in the medieval period, the Jews also had many other and more

precise

terms

to

refer

to

various

regional

groups

–

e.g.,

Sicilians,

Yemenites – and since medieval borders constantly shifted, even the notions of Ashkenaz and Sefarad were fluid. 12 Solomon bar Samson, Chronicle, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 138–40 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 263–66. 13 For siege engines, see “Reading through Looking,” in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. XII–XIII, esp. Plate 8. 14 Domesday Book, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 275–78.

15 Peter Abelard, Sic et Non, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 142–44.

SIX AMBITIONS REALIZED AND THWARTED (c.1150–c.1250)

CHAPTER

SIX

HIGHLIGHTS Almohads begin to displace Almoravids 1145 Almohads begin to displace the Almoravids as rulers of al-Andalus and the Maghreb. In West Africa, Ghana reorganizes, casting its lot with the Abbasid caliph rather than with the Almohads.

Diet of Roncaglia 1158 Emperor Frederick Barbarossa claims imperial rights over northern Italy. But his harsh rule creates a coalition of cities there, the Lombard League, which (joined by the papacy) defeats him in 1176.

Assize of Clarendon 1166 King Henry II creates a common system of criminal justice for all of England.

Reign of Saladin 1171–1192 In 1187, at the battle of Hattin, the Muslim leader Saladin conquers Jerusalem.

The Fourth Crusade 1204 Crusaders conquer Constantinople and fracture the Byzantine Empire, creating a Latin Empire on Byzantine soil.

Temüjin is declared Chinggis Khan 1206 Mongols begin conquests east- and westward.

Battle of Bouvines 1214 King John of England loses Normandy to King Philip the Fair of France.

Magna Carta 1215 King John agrees to this charter, which ratifies the customs of England and limits royal power.

Fourth Lateran Council 1215 Its canons specify the key obligations of Christians, stigmatize Jews and Muslims, and try to stamp out heresies.

Death of Frederick II 1250 Grandson of Frederick Barbarossa, he tries mightily to unify Sicily with Germany, but his ambitions are thwarted by the papacy (which even declares a crusade against him), and he loses the adherence of the German princes. After his death, Italy and Germany are no longer linked as an empire.

In the second half of the twelfth century, the Almohads defeated the Almoravids

and

created

a

new

Islamic

state

in

Spain

and

the

Maghreb. To the east, the Ayyubids took over the Fatimid empire and all but extinguished the Crusader States. Much further eastward, the Mongols under Chinggis Khan began to fulfill his aspiration to rule the world.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Fourth Crusade, while failing to recover the Holy Land, took Byzantium instead. At Rome, the pope held a council to declare new Church laws and affirm old ones. In England, King John used every tool of royal power to gain money and claim his recently lost French territories. In Germany the emperor managed to end the civil war there. European lords and ladies turned manors into money-making units and supported coteries of

singers

and

poets,

while

Gothic

architecture

expressed

the

confidence of the Church and city-dwellers. High ambitions seemed on the cusp of fulfillment. Yet within the next fifty years or so, the Almohad empire had disappeared; the Ayyubids had been supplanted by the Mamluks, and the Byzantines regained their empire (much weakened to be sure). John lost his bid to keep his lands in France, the German emperor was thwarted in his efforts to put imperial rule on a new footing, and the Church came up against the limits of control. Around

the

year

1250,

only

the

Mongols’

ambitions

were

undimmed.

THE ISLAMIC WORLD RESHAPED While

the

Almohads

and

Ayyubids

created

what

seemed

to

be

relatively stable and reliably Sunni polities in the west, ferment on the easternmost boundary of the Islamic world brought to the fore a new group, the Mongols.

The Maghreb and West Africa The Almohads, Berber tribesmen who espoused a militant form of Sunni Islam, combined conquest with a program to “purify” the morals of their fellow Muslims. In al-Andalus their appearance in 1145 induced some Islamic rulers to seek alliances with the Christian rulers to the north. But other Andalusian rulers joined forces with the Almohads, who replaced the Almoravids as rulers of the Islamic far west. (See Map 6.1.)

Map 6.1 The Almohad Empire, c.1175

Description

Like the Almoravids, the Almohads saw themselves as moral reformers, but unlike the Almoravids, they emphasized interpretation rather than literal readings of the sacred texts. At first biding their time

in

the

Almoravids

mountainous were

weak,

regions

the

of

the

Almohads

Maghreb,

stoked

where

numerous

the

tribal

resentments. In 1146, they conquered Tlemcen and Fez and entered al-Andalus. Over time, they created a grand empire which, at its greatest extent, stretched from Cuenca (today in Spain) to Tunis. But their sway did not extend as far south as the Almoravids had managed to go. Compare Map 6.1 with Map 5.2 on p. 169.

Plate 6.1 Kutubiyya Mosque (2nd half of 12th cent.). The ruins of the original Almohad building are visible in this view to the south. While most of the structure was in brick, sandstone was used for the minaret, whose shape is unusual,

being

square

rather

than

round.

Great

care

was

lavished

on

the

minaret’s horseshoe-arch windows, finely carved lattice-work, and (toward the top) bands of green and white mosaic tiles, which form a design of interlocking hexagons.

Seeing themselves as purifiers of religion, the Almohads imposed restrictions

on

Jews,

persecuted

Muslim

literalists,

and

built

monuments to mark their triumphs. At Marrakesh, they tore down the Almoravid palace and replaced it with one of their grandest mosques, the Kutubiyya. Then, dissatisfied with that mosque, perhaps because

they

considered

the

qibla

wall

(the

one

facing

Mecca)

to

be

imprecisely oriented, they rebuilt it entirely c.1158, adding, as a final touch at the end of century, a striking minaret. (See Plate 6.1.) The Almohad victory over the Maghreb had reverberations in West

Africa,

reorganized recognized

where itself.

(if

the

Its

only

now

ruler

fully

Islamized

rejected

nominally)

the

kingdom

Almohad distant

of

Ghana

overlordship

caliph

at

and

Baghdad.

Regrouping commercially, Ghana fostered new trading centers to ensure that the desires of the sub-Saharan populations for salt and of the northern elites for gold and slaves would continue to be met. But Ghana’s power, very much in evidence c.1200, soon began to decline as a new regional polity – Mali – was aborning, as we shall see in Chapter 7.

The Rise of Saladin To the east of the Maghreb, the crusades destabilized a Seljuk world already in the process of fragmentation. Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen of different stripes, Mamluks, and Berbers displaced the sultans in many locales. Yet that development did not prevent the Jazira – the upper half of the hourglass formed by the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers – to become a center of wealth. Caravans and armies passed through the region, enriching local elites, some of whom began to pick away at the Crusader States. That was how Zangi, a young protégé of the ruler of Mosul, got his military training, and when he himself became lord of Mosul (r.1127–1146), he continued his forays, conquering the city of Edessa in 1144. Zangi’s son Nur al-Din (r.1146–1174) continued in his father’s footsteps. He occupied the entire territory east of the Orontes River and absorbed the whole County of Edessa; in 1154 he seized Damascus and began to consolidate his rule over all of Syria. These conquests were aided by a Kurdish family of warriors known as the Ayyubids, after Ayyub, the name of its patriarch. Already in Zangi’s service in Mosul, Ayyub, his brother Shirkuh, and his son Saladin aided Nur al-Din’s progressive domination of the region. Called upon to resolve a dispute over the Fatimid vizierate in Egypt, Nur al-Din took advantage of the opportunity by sending Shirkuh and Saladin to lead expeditions there.

Map 6.2 Saladin’s Empire, c.1200

Description

In 1169, without formally deposing the Fatimid caliph, Shirkuh took over the powerful position of the Egyptian vizier in the name of Nur al-Din. Shortly thereafter, when Shirkuh died, Saladin succeeded him and began to return Egypt to the Sunni fold. The process was complete substituted

when, the

in

name

1171, of

the

the

Shi‘ite

Sunni

caliph

Abbasid

died

caliph

and at

the

Saladin Friday

sermons. All this was done in the name of Nur al-Din, but already Saladin (r.1171–1193) was de facto ruler of Egypt. Taking up the

jihad after Nur al-Din’s death in 1174, Saladin marched into Syria and in due course created a principality that stretched across Egypt and Syria and into Iraq. In 1187, at the battle of Hattin, he conquered Jerusalem and reduced the Crusader States to a few port cities (see Map 6.2). For about a half-century thereafter, the Ayyubids held on to the lands Saladin had conquered, dividing rule over the major cities among family members. But Saladin’s empire proved to be a fragile creation. Men from within the army, the Mamluks, competed with the Ayyubids for the sultanate, and in 1260, after defeating the seemingly unstoppable Mongols at Ain Jalut (a stone’s throw from Jerusalem), the Mamluks established themselves as rulers of Egypt and Syria.

The Ever-Expanding Empire of the Mongols What were Mongols doing so near to Jerusalem? In 1200 that would have been a wild fantasy. At that time, the Mongols were herding livestock in the steppe grasslands between (on the east) the sedentary Jin Chinese Empire and (on the west) the warrior-pastoralist Qara Khitai

Empire,

a

multi-ethnic

and

multi-religious

polity

roughly

defined by the Altai and Tian Shan Mountain ranges. To their south was the Tangut state of Xi Xia, just above the Qilian Mountains. (See Map 6.3.) Like the Qara Khitai, the Mongols were warrior-pastoralists, a mode of life that required all men and women to ride, shoot, herd, and hunt: military and economic activities were inseparable. Divided into many tribes, each sharing a vague sense of common ancestry, they included Turkic as well as Mongol peoples. Tribes were fluid entities, constantly breaking apart and coalescing in new configurations. At crisis moments such as the succession of a chief, the winners were ratified by an assembly of notables. But the losers might well form new tribes.

Map 6.3 Chinggis Khan’s Campaigns

Description

Chinggis Khan (c.1162–1227) tamed this fractured political order. Although of a relatively obscure lineage and given the modest name Temüjin (“blacksmith”) at birth, he built up a super-tribe by relying on loyal “companions” (nökers) no matter their origin. In 1206, by a combination

of

ferocity,

generosity,

savvy

alliances,

luck,

and

charisma, he managed to subsume all the region’s tribes under his sole rule and was granted a brand-new title – Chinggis Khan. Even before that moment, he had begun to centralize Mongolian institutions. In his super-tribe, every male from age 6 to 60 was deemed a soldier. The army was organized in groups of 10, 100, 1,000, and 10,000 men. They were led not by traditional tribal chiefs but

by

the

Khan’s

nökers.

An

elite

corps

of

10,000

personal

bodyguards were magnificently equipped and armed. (See Plate 6.2.) Meanwhile, Chinggis set up a new judicial apparatus and instituted record-keeping by making use of the Uighur script. Over time he developed a veritable writing office to record his edicts in Chinese, Persian, Uighur, and Mongolian. Victory brought huge economic gains – in the short term from booty, and over the long term from tribute, taxes, and control over trade routes. Religious fervor justified these

conquests:

Chinggis

claimed

the

powers

of

a

shaman

and

proclaimed Heaven’s mandate that the Mongols should rule the world.

Plate 6.2 Mongol Armor (bef. 1368?). Mongol heavy horsemen wore armor composed of small rectangular scales, whether made of leather (as here) or of iron. These were sewn together with leather thongs. Under the armor they generally wore a heavy sheepskin coat, while their feet were protected by leather boots.

Map 6.3 shows how quickly and thoroughly he carried out this mandate. By Chinggis Khan’s death, he had conquered the Xi Xia state to the south, the Jin to the east, the Qara Khitai to the west, and well

beyond

those,

he

had

defeated

the

Khwarazmian

Empire,

successors of the Great Seljuks in the region of the Oxus River. Everywhere, new recruits joined his army. Chinggis’s heirs continued

his project, and in 1258 his grandson Hulegu marched into Baghdad and

killed

the

Abbasid

caliph

–

a

symbolic

blow

of

major

proportions. Two years later, as we have seen, the Mongols were threatening Syria. But let us momentarily return to the very first years of Mongol conquest. For therein lies a new theory of the source of the plague pandemic commonly dated 1346–1353 and popularly known as the Black Death (see Chapter 8). The new thinking locates its origins in the thirteenth century, when the Mongols were attacking and then occupying regions abutting the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. This hypothesis relies on the fruitful synergy of modern scientists and historians. Recent studies by modern geneticists of ancient DNA samples of the bacterium that causes plague, Yersinia pestis, strongly suggest that it suddenly evolved (in a sort of slow Big Bang) into four strains between 1142 and 1339. This multifurcation took place on or near the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and one of the strains that it produced caused the Black Death. Normally a disease of rodents, who catch it from the fleas that feed on them, Yersinia pestis must have jumped from its enzootic hosts to humans at some point during this time. Historians,

putting

this

together

with

their

knowledge

of

written

sources and of Mongol conquests, diet, and habits, have pinpointed two

slightly

different

moments

and

locations

in

which

Mongol

movements would have disturbed rodent habitats in the region to so great a degree that the fleas would turn (rather unwillingly) to biting people. This would happen when the affected rodents hitched rides in grain stores, were eaten for food, or were used for leather or fur, to name just a few scenarios. These sources would then seed new reservoirs. Robert Hymes, a specialist in medieval Chinese medicine, places that disruptive moment in the very earliest Mongol attacks on the Xi Xia state (starting in 1205, ending in 1227), for soon thereafter, when the Mongols began to move into China, epidemics followed. Based on written sources, Hymes identifies these as epidemics of plague. A somewhat different moment of habitat disturbance is proposed by medical historian Monica Green: when the Mongols took over and occupied the Tian Shan Mountains (today in Kyrgyzstan) between the years 1216 and 1218 in their drive to conquer the Qara Khitai Empire.

In either case, it seems that the Mongols threw into disarray a major reservoir of Yersinia pestis in the marmot population of some upland regions on the north rim of the Tibetan Plateau. Thus, the Mongols, who cooked marmot meat and used its skin for fur as well as for a warm and rainproof leather – used also, just possibly, for their armor (see Plate 6.2) – were unwitting vectors for the transmission of this disease from animals to humans, from the mountains to men on the move, and from them to those whom they conquered. Taken together, the evidence strongly hints that the Black Death began in the aftermath of the Mongol sieges of Jin China between 1218 and 1232 and of Baghdad a quarter century later.

EUROPEAN AMBITIONS AND THEIR LIMITS In 1200, Europeans had no knowledge of the Mongols. They flexed their muscles in the Mediterranean, captured Constantinople, fought territorial

wars,

sang

songs

of

love

and

longing,

created

bureaucracies, and built soaring churches. When they did hear about the Mongols, in 1221, they hoped (they had reason to hope) that they had

found

allies

against

their

Muslim

opponents,

new

souls

to

missionize and save, and unheard-of commercial opportunities. They were not entirely wrong, though the Mongols devastated Poland and Hungary in the 1240s and remained a threat in the region. Nevertheless, with the exception of the reconquista, the English conquest of Ireland, and the so-called Baltic crusades, most European expansionist efforts failed. So did the political ambitions of the kings of England and Germany. Meanwhile, the Church tried to lay down the law for all, but ran up against those who could not – or would not – conform. More enduring were quieter European developments: the efficient organization

of

the

countryside;

the

growth

of

administrative

bureaucracies and legal systems; the elaboration of a courtly culture of romance and play; the development of urban institutions and of an architectural style – Gothic – suited to the pride of city-dwellers both lay and ecclesiastical.

England: Law, Order, and Rebellion

In

his

day,

English

King

Henry

II

(r.1154–1189)

was

the

most

powerful ruler in Europe. Arriving on the English throne after a long and anarchic civil war (1135–1154) between the forces of two female descendants

of

William

the

Conqueror,

he

began

his

rule

by

destroying or confiscating the private castles that English barons and high churchmen had built during the war to declare their political independence. He was the first “Angevin” – or, as he is sometimes called, the first “Plantagenet” – king of England. (See Genealogy 6.1.) Henry was called “Angevin” because he was count of Anjou. He was also duke of Normandy, and overlord of about half the other counties of northern France. Even more important were his claims as duke

of

Aquitaine,

which

he

became

when

he

married

Eleanor,

heiress of that vast southern French duchy. As for his power in the British Isles: the princes of Wales swore him homage and fealty, the rulers of Ireland were forced to submit to him, and the king of Scotland was his vassal. In short, Henry exercised sometimes more, sometimes less power over a realm stretching from Ireland to the Pyrenees. (See Map 6.4.) For his Continental possessions, he was vassal of the king of France. Henry increased his power in England by extending the reach of royal justice. Already the English kings of Alfred’s day (see Chapter 4) claimed rights in local courts, particularly in capital cases, even though powerful men largely dominated those courts. The Norman kings under William the Conqueror and his heirs added royal rights over landholding disputes. Nor did the Norman kings themselves need to be present to implement royal decisions, for government officials handled administrative matters and record keeping.

Genealogy 6.1 The Angevin Kings of England

Description

Henry II built on these institutions, regularizing, expanding, and systematizing them. The Assize of Clarendon in 1166 recorded that the king decreed that inquiry shall be made throughout the several counties and throughout the several hundreds ... whether there be ... any man accused or notoriously suspect of being a robber or murderer or thief.... And let the justices

inquire

into

this

among

themselves

and

the

sheriffs

among

1

themselves.

The phrase “throughout the several counties and throughout the several hundreds” referred to the districts into which England had long been divided. Henry aimed to apply a common law regarding chief crimes – a law applicable throughout England. Moreover, he meant his new system to be habitual and routine. There had always been royal justices to enforce the law, but under Henry there were many more of them; they were trained in the law, and they were 2

required to make regular visitations to each locality.

At each stop,

“inquiry

[was]

made”

(to

quote

the

Assize)

about

crimes

and

suspected crimes. The king required twelve representatives of the local knightly class – the middling aristocracy, later on known as the “gentry” – to meet during each eyre and either give the sheriff the names of those suspected of committing crimes in the vicinity or arrest the suspects themselves and hand them over to the royal justices for a hearing. While convicted members of the knightly class often got off with only a fine, ordinary criminals found guilty were hanged or mutilated. Even if acquitted, people “of ill repute” were exiled from England.

Map 6.4 The Angevin and Capetian Realms in the Late 12th cent.

Description

Henry also introduced new mechanisms to resolve the sort of cases that are today termed “civil,” requiring all hearings about property ownership to be authorized by a royal writ. Unlike his reforms of criminal law, this requirement affected only free men and women – a minority. (At this point in time, most men and women were considered servile to one degree or another.) While often glad to have

the

king’s

protection,

free

landholders

grumbled

about

the

expense and time required to obtain writs. Not only had they to buy

the writs, but they had also to pay for “gifts” to numerous officials, line up witnesses, hire a staff (generally made up of clerics) and – because the royal court was itinerant – pay all travel expenses. The whole system was no doubt originally designed to put things right after the civil war. Although these law-and-order measures were initially expensive for the king, they ultimately served to increase royal income. Fines came from condemned criminals and also from knightly representatives who failed to show up at the local hearing when summoned; revenues poured in from the purchase of writs. The exchequer, as the financial bureau of England was called, recorded all the fines paid for judgments and the sums collected for writs. The amounts, entered on parchment leaves sewn together and stored as rolls, became the Receipt Rolls and Pipe Rolls, the first of many such records of the English monarchy and an indication that writing had become a tool of institutionalized royal rule in England. Perhaps

the

most

important

outcome

of

this

expanded

legal

system was the enhancement of royal power and prestige. The king of England touched (not personally, of course, but through men acting in his name) nearly every man and woman in the realm. However, the extent of royal jurisdiction should not be exaggerated. Most petty crimes did not end up in royal courts but rather in more local ones under the jurisdiction of a manorial lord – whether a baron, knight, bishop, or monastery. These lords could punish tenants and charged fines, so it is no surprise that they held on tenaciously to their judicial prerogatives. While peasants came before a local court for a petty crime, clerics were always tried in Church courts, even if their crimes were major. Any layperson accused of murder was tried in a royal court; but homicidal clerics were brought before Church courts, which could be counted on to hand down a mild punishment. No churchman wanted to submit to the jurisdiction of Henry II’s courts. But Henry insisted – and not only on that point, but also on the king’s right to have ultimate jurisdiction over Church appointments and property disputes. The ensuing contest between the king and the archbishop of Canterbury

Thomas

Becket

(1118–1170)

was

the

greatest

battle

between the Church and the State in the twelfth century. At a meeting held at Clarendon in 1164, Becket agreed that clerics might be tried in royal courts, but soon thereafter he clashed with Henry over the

rights of the Church of Canterbury – Becket’s own church – to recover or alienate its own property. The conflict mushroomed to include control over the entire English Church, its property, and its clergy. Soon the papacy joined, with Becket its champion. King and archbishop henchmen

remained murdered

at

loggerheads

Thomas,

for

six

unintentionally

years,

until

turning

Henry’s

him

into

a

martyr. Although Henry’s role in the murder remained ambiguous, public outcry forced him to do public penance for the deed. In the end, the struggle made both institutions stronger as both Church and royal courts expanded to address the concerns of an increasingly litigious society. Henry II and his sons Richard I the Lion-Heart (r.1189–1199) and John (r.1199–1216) were English kings, but they had an imperial reach. Richard was rarely in England, since half of France was his to subdue (see Map 6.4, paying attention to the areas in various shades of peach). Responding to Saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem, Richard went on the abortive Third Crusade (1189–1192), capturing Cyprus on the way (see Map 6.2 on p. 212) and arranging a three-year truce with

Saladin

before

rushing

home

to

reclaim

territory

from

his

brother John and the French king, Philip II (r.1180–1223). But his haste did him no good; he was captured by the duke of Austria and released only upon payment of a huge ransom, painfully squeezed out of the English people. When Richard died in battle in 1199, John ascended to the throne. It was a high point in English kingship, and the seal that John commissioned shortly after taking power (see Plate 6.3) expressed his proud identity as both all-powerful ruler and warrior. But the next years brought home the fragility of his position. In 1204, the king of France, Philip II, claimed that John had defied his overlordship; as a consequence, Philip confiscated John’s northern French territories in a quick military victory. John was confident that he could win the land back. But he needed a better army, and for that he had to squeeze everyone for money. He forced his barons and many members of the gentry to pay him “scutage” – a tax – in lieu of army service. He extorted money in the form of “aids” – the fees that his barons and other vassals ordinarily paid on rare occasions, such as the knighting of the king’s eldest son. He compelled the widows of his barons and other vassals to marry men of his choosing or pay him a hefty fee to

remain

single.

unpopular

With

measures,

wealth John

pouring

was

able

in to

from pay

these

for

a

effective

navy

and

but hire

mercenary troops.

Plate 6.3 The Great Seal of King John (1203). King John sits on a throne, facing the viewer. He holds a sword and the orb of the world topped by a flowering scepter. The inscription around him declares him to be “by grace of God king of England and lord of Ireland.” On the reverse of the seal, John proclaims his military might: the king – equipped with a sword, helmet, and shield – rides off to battle on a fine horse. The use of seals to authenticate documents dated from third-century Rome, while the portrayal of the English king as enthroned in majesty borrowed from Roman imperial images such as the Lampadii Diptych in Plate 1.7 (p. 20) and, more directly, from a seal first used by Edward the Confessor.

But all was to no avail. Although John masterminded a broad coalition of German and Flemish armies led by Emperor Otto IV of Brunswick, he was soundly defeated by the French king at the battle of Bouvines in 1214. It was a defining moment, not so much for English

rule

on

the

Continent

(which

would

continue

until

the

fifteenth century) as for England itself, where the barons – supported by many members of the gentry and the towns – organized, rebelled, and called the king to account. At Runnymede, just south of London, in June 1215, the barons forced John to affix his seal to the charter of baronial liberties called Magna Carta, or “Great Charter.” Magna Carta was intended to define the “customary” obligations and rights of the English elite and to forbid the king from changing them without consulting his barons. Beyond this, it maintained that all free men in England had certain rights that the king was obliged to

uphold. “To no one will we [that is, the king] sell, to no one will we 3

refuse or delay right or justice.”

The charter protected women’s

rights far more feebly, but it did ensure that noble widows were to have their inheritance “at once” and that they could not be forced to remarry. In short, Magna Carta was in substance a conservative document, but in its very existence, it was new and radical, for it made the king subordinate to written provisions. It was not quite a “constitution,” but it did imply that the king was subject to the law. Copies of the charter were sent to sheriffs and other officials, to be read aloud in public places. Everyone knew what it said, and later kings continued to issue it – and have it read out – in one form or another. Magna Carta thwarted the ambitions of royal government in England and helped create the foundations of a constitutional state.

Spain and France in the Making Spain and France, unlike England, started small and beleaguered but slowly grew to embrace the territory we associate with them today. In Spain, the reconquista was the engine driving expansion. The kings from northern Spain came south as subjugators. By the mid-thirteenth century, Spain had the threefold political configuration that would last for centuries (see Map 6.5): to the east was the kingdom of Aragon; in the middle was Castile; and along the western coast was Portugal. (Navarre, never a major player, shuttled between France, Aragon, and Castile.)

Map 6.5 Spain, Portugal, and North Africa, c.1275

Description

It was one thing to conquer, another to remain, and still another to rule. To hold on to their new territories, the Spanish kings had military religious orders (similar to the Templars and Hospitallers) establish garrisons along their ever-moving frontiers. To rule their newly conquered regions, they issued laws and worked out systems of justice and taxation. A typical solution was the one King Alfonso VIII of Castile found for Cuenca. After taking it in 1177, he established a bishopric and gave the city a detailed set of laws (fueros) that codified the

rights

Christians,

of

all

Jews,

groups: and

the

clergy, many

laity,

townspeople,

Muslims

who

peasants,

remained.

Local

officials to enforce the laws were elected by an elite group of property owners. Although

the

strong

position

of

the

Spanish

kings

in

1177

contrasted with the weakness of the king of France, within a quarter century, that was no longer the case. When King Philip II (r.1180– 1223) came to the French throne at the age of fifteen, his kingdom consisted largely of the Ile-de-France, a dwarf surrounded by giants. He seemed an easy target for the ambitions of the English king and

the counts of Flanders and Champagne. Philip, however, played them off against one another. Through inheritance he gained a fair portion of the county of Flanders in 1191. Soon his military skills became clear as he wrenched Normandy from John, the king of England, in 1204. In the wake of that conquest, he forced the lords of Maine, Anjou, and Poitou to submit to him. A contemporary chronicler dubbed him Philip Augustus, recalling the triumphant first Roman emperor. Philip integrated his conquests into his kingdom. John’s former vassals promised Philip homage and fealty, and in Normandy, his royal officers taxed and heard cases, careful not to tread on local customs, but equally vigilant to enhance the flow of income into the French king’s treasury. Gradually, the Normans were brought into a new “French” orbit just beginning to take shape, constructed partly out of the common language of French and partly out of a new notion of the king as ruler of all the people in his territory. He was no longer called the king of the “Franks” (a tribe) but rather the king of France (a state). Although French kings never established a “common law” to supersede local ones, they extended their power by developing royal administrative institutions – bureaus to write and keep records of their decrees, legal decisions, and tax collection. As in England, the kings of France relied on members of the lesser nobility – knights and clerics, most of them educated in the city schools – to do the work of government. Some served as officers of the court, others as officials who oversaw the king’s estates and collected his taxes. They made the king’s power felt locally as never before.

From Empire to “Holy Roman Empire” Small states were the norm. In that sense the Empire, ruled by the German king but spanning both Germany and Italy, was an oddity. The fact that it included the papacy made the Empire different as well. Every other medieval state was far from the pope, but the Empire had the pope in its throat. Tradition, prestige, and political self-respect demanded that the German king also be the emperor: Conrad III (r.1138–1152), though never actually crowned at Rome, nevertheless delighted in calling himself “August Emperor of the

Romans” (while demeaning the Byzantine emperor as “King of the Greeks”). But being emperor meant controlling Italy and Rome. The difficulty was not only the papacy, defiantly opposed to another major power in Italy, but also the northern Italian communes, which were independent city-states in their own right. This is what confronted Frederick I Barbarossa (r.1152–1190) when he (like Henry II in England) became king after a long period of bitter civil war. In Frederick’s case, the war, spawned in the wake of

the

Investiture

Conflict,

was

between

two

powerful

German

families, the Staufen and the Welfs. Staufen on his father’s side and Welf on his mother’s, Frederick reconciled the two. (See Genealogy 6.2.) But Frederick did not have the wealth of Henry II that would allow him to impose his might. He was forced to rely on personal loyalties, not salaried civil servants. He was not powerful enough to tear down princely castles as Henry had done. Instead, he conceded to the German princes the powers that they claimed, but he required them in turn to recognize him as the source of those powers. He also committed them to certain obligations, such as attending him at court and providing him with troops. In short, he tried to make them his vassals.

Genealogy 6.2 Rulers of Germany and Sicily

Description

Frederick also had to manage relations with the papacy. In 1157, at the diet (assembly) of Besançon, Pope Adrian IV sent Frederick a letter

that

coyly

referred

to

the

imperial

crown

as

the

pope’s

beneficium – “benefit” or, more ominously, “fief.” “A great tumult and uproar arose from the princes of the realm at so insolent a message,” wrote Rahewin, a cleric who had access to many of the documents and people involved at the time. “It is said that one of the [papal] ambassadors,

as

though

adding

sword

to

flame,

inquired:

‘From

whom then does he have the Empire, if not from our lord the pope?’ Because of this remark, anger reached such a pitch that one of [the 4

princes] ... threatened the ambassador with his sword.”

Frederick

calmed his supporters, but in the wake of this incident, he countered the sancta ecclesia – the “holy Church” – by coining an equally charged term for his Empire: sacrum imperium: the “sacred Empire.”

Map 6.6 Italy and Southern Germany in the Age of Frederick Barbarossa

Description

Finally, Frederick had to deal with Italy. As emperor, he had claims on the whole peninsula, but he had no hope – or even interest

– in controlling the south. By contrast, northern Italy beckoned: it was near his own estates in Swabia (in southwestern Germany), and its rich cities promised to provide him with both a compact power base and the revenues that he needed. (See Map 6.6.) But

taking

northern

Italy

was

nothing

like,

say,

conquering

Normandy, which was used to ducal rule. The communes of Italy were

themselves

states,

each

consisting

of

an

urban

center

and

surrounding land (contado). They were jealous of their liberties, rivalrous, and fiercely patriotic. Frederick made no concessions to their sensibilities. Emboldened by theories of sovereignty that had been elaborated by the revival of Roman law, he marched into Italy and, at the diet of Roncaglia (1158), demanded imperial rights to taxes and tolls. He insisted that the Italian cities be ruled by podestà – short-term governing officials not from the cities over which they were to preside. The institution made sense: the cities could indeed have made use of neutral officials to keep the peace among violent urban factions and guarantee the public welfare. But Frederick chose men

who

spoke

only

German

and

cared

little

about

communal

traditions. The cities resented them bitterly. By 1167, most of the cities of northern Italy had joined with Pope Alexander III (1159–1181) to form the Lombard League against Frederick. Defeated at the battle of Legnano in 1176, Frederick agreed to the Peace of Venice the next year and withdrew most of his forces from the region. His failure in the north led Frederick to try a southern strategy. By marrying his son Henry VI (r.1190–1197) to Constance, heiress of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, he linked the fate of his dynasty to a well-organized

monarchy

that

commanded

dazzling

wealth.

Both

multilingual and multi-religious, the Kingdom of Sicily embraced Jews,

Muslims,

Greeks,

and

Italians.

Its

government

combined

Byzantine, Islamic, and Norman institutions in a highly centralized system, with royal justices circuiting the kingdom and salaried civil servants drawn from the ranks of knights and townsmen. Frederick II (1194–1250), the son of Henry VI and Constance, tried to unite this realm with Germany into a single imperial unit. He failed spectacularly. The popes, eager to carve out their own wellordered state in the center of Italy, could not allow a strong monarch to encircle them. Declaring war on Frederick, the papacy not only

excommunicated him several times but also declared him deposed and accused him of heresy, a charge that led to declaring a crusade against him in the 1240s. These were fearsome actions. The king of France

urged

negotiation

and

reconciliation,

but

others

saw

in

Frederick the devil himself. In the words of one chronicler, Frederick was “an evil and accursed man, a schismatic, a heretic, and an 5

epicurean, who ‘defiled the whole earth’ (Jer. 51:25).”

That was one potent point of view. There were others, more admiring. Frederick II was a poet, a patron of the arts, and the founder

of

the

first

state-supported

university,

which

he

built

at

Naples. His administrative reforms in Sicily were comparable to those of Henry II in England. With the Constitutions of Melfi (1231), he made sure that his salaried officials worked according to uniform procedures, required nearly all litigation to be heard by royal courts, regularized

commercial

privileges,

and

set

up

a

system

of

royal

taxation. The struggle with the papacy obliged Frederick to grant enormous concessions to the German princes to give himself a free hand. In effect, he allowed the princes to turn their territories into independent states. Until the nineteenth century, Germany was a hodgepodge of principalities. During the years between Frederick’s death in 1250 and 1272 many kings were elected by various factions of the nobility, but none gained the adherence of all. Strangely enough, it was during this low point of the German monarchy that the term “Holy Roman Empire” was coined. In 1273, the princes at last united and elected Rudolf I (r.1273–1291), whose family, the Habsburgs, was new to imperial power. Rudolf used the imperial title to help him gain Austria

for

his

family.

But

he

intervened

little

in

Germany’s

principalities and did not try to assert his power in Italy at all. For the first time, the word “emperor” was freed from its association with Rome. The Kingdom of Sicily was similarly parceled out. The papacy tried to ensure that the Staufen dynasty would never rule there again by calling upon Charles of Anjou, brother of the king of France, to take

it

over

in

1263.

Undeterred,

Frederick’s

granddaughter,

Constance, married the king of Aragon (Spain) and took the proud title “Queen of Sicily.” In 1282, the Sicilians revolted against the Angevins in the uprising known as the “Sicilian Vespers,” begging

the Aragonese for aid. Bitter war ensued, ending only in 1302, when the Kingdom of Sicily was split: the island became a Spanish outpost, while its mainland portion (southern Italy) remained under Angevin control. Thus, a bid for Italian-German unity literally ended in pieces, as Germany turned into a mosaic of principalities nominally ruled by an emperor, northern Italy became a collection of independent citystates, central Italy was controlled by a papacy whose claims were growing even as they were being contested (as we shall see), and southern Italy and Sicily were ruled by mutually hostile kings.

THE CHURCH IN THE WORLD The papacy’s crusade against Frederick and its offer of the Kingdom of Sicily to a French prince were consistent with its newly grand selfimage. Innocent III (1198–1216) – the first pope to be trained at the city schools and to study both theology and law – claimed that the pope ruled in the place of Christ the King. In his view, secular kings and

emperors

existed

to

help

the

pope,

who

was

the

ultimate

legislator – the maker of the laws that led to moral reformation. In the thirteenth

century,

the

Church

sought

to

redefine

Christianity,

embracing some doctrines, rejecting others, turning against Jews and Muslims with new vigor, and calling crusades even within Europe (as happened with Frederick II) while making the best of a crusade that went “astray” and took Christian Constantinople instead of Jerusalem.

The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) A council was the traditional place to declare Church law, and that is what Innocent intended to do when he convened the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. It marked the high point in papal power. Presided over by the pope himself, it produced a comprehensive set of canons to reform both clergy and laity and to protect them from the perceived threats of outsiders. In the wake of these changes, the clergy came to exert

a

greater

Christians.

control

than

ever

over

the

lives

of

all

Catholic

For clerics, the impact was clear: they were henceforth to be under constant scrutiny by “prudent and upright persons” appointed by their diocesan bishop. Priests were to turn full-time to pastoral care – teaching the basics of the faith to all, hearing the confession of their parishioners at least once a year, acting as local models of Christian charity. Handbooks proliferated; presenting the basics of the faith, they offered handy checklists for orthodoxy. Priests who were accused of abuses, whether moral or pastoral, were to be brought before annual meetings (synods), where their bishop would impose appropriate punishments. The important role of the priest was further reinforced by the provision that, along with yearly confession, all Christians were to take Communion – that is, receive the Eucharist. Already decades before 1215, a newly rigorous formulation of this miracle declared that Christ’s body and blood were truly present in the bread and wine on the altar. The Fourth Lateran Council not only adopted this idea of “real presence” as Church doctrine but also explained it by using a technical term coined by twelfth-century scholars. The bread and wine were “transubstantiated”: although the Eucharist continued to look like bread and wine after its consecration during the Mass, the bread had become the actual body and the wine the true blood of Christ.

Only

the

priest

could

celebrate

this

mystery

(the

transformation of ordinary bread and wine into the flesh of Christ) through which God’s grace was transmitted to the faithful. The

council

also

pronounced

on

the

sacrament

of

marriage,

giving bishops jurisdiction over marital disputes and ordering priests to uncover any evidence that might impede an upcoming marriage. There were many such impediments: people were not allowed to marry their cousins, nor anyone related to them by god-parentage, nor anyone related to them through a former marriage. Furthermore, forbidding secret marriages, the council decreed that any children so conceived were henceforth to be considered illegitimate – unable to inherit property from their parents or to become priests. In this way, the Church entered the lives of ordinary Christians as never before. And yet rules may be flouted – and often are. For example, despite the canons of Fourth Lateran, well-to-do London fathers included their bastard children in their wills. On English manors, sons conceived out of wedlock regularly took over their

parents’ land. And the prohibition against clandestine marriages was trumped by a still more potent principle: that the consent of both parties made a marriage (even a secret one) valid. Even as the Fourth Lateran Council provided rules for good Christians, it turned against all others. “We excommunicate every heresy that arises, condemning all heretics [to] be handed over to the secular rulers to be punished,” reads one law. Another, concerned with preventing Christians from having sex with Jews and Muslims, declares that Jews and Muslims “shall be marked off in the eyes of the 6

public from other peoples through the character of their dress.”

While it was impractical to legislate dress, it was easy to require, as did a mandate in the name of the boy-king Henry III of England in 1218, that Jews wear – on their chest for all to see – two white tablets made of linen or parchment. That requirement and others like it elsewhere were put into effect during the course of the thirteenth century. (See Plate 7.4 on p. 270.) Such laws were of a piece with wider movements within the Church. With the development of a papal monarchy that confidently declared a single doctrine and the laws pertaining to it, dissidence was perceived as heresy, non-Christians seen as treacherous.

The Embraced, the Rejected, and the Subdued The newly defined Church welcomed only a few of the religious movements of the time. Friars, who were male, were embraced and eventually allowed women a place within their order. Beguines, who were female, were tolerated – though warily. Other movements, such as the Waldensians and the Cathars, were persecuted.

FRIARS Saint Dominic (1170–1221), founder of the Dominican order, had been a priest and regular canon (much like a monk, but following the Rule of Saint Augustine rather than the Benedictine Rule). On an official trip from his cathedral church at Osma (Spain) to Denmark, while passing through Languedoc (southern France) in 1203, he and his companion, Diego, reportedly converted a heretic with whom they lodged. This was a rare success; most anti-heretic preachers were

failing

miserably

around

this

time.

Dominic,

Diego,

and

their

followers guessed that the reason for such failure was the arrogance of the

preachers,

who

traveled

on

horseback,

richly

adorned,

and

followed by a retinue. After gaining a privilege from the pope to preach and teach, the Dominicans (named after Dominic) went about on foot in poor clothes and begged for their food. They took the name “friars,” after the Latin word for “brothers.” Because

their

job

was

to

dispute,

teach,

and

preach,

the

Dominicans quickly became university men. Even in their convents they established schools requiring their recruits to follow a formal course of studies. Already by 1206 they had established the first of many Dominican female houses. Most of those followed the same Rule,

but

their

relationship

to

the

Dominican

order

was

never

codified. Married men and women associated themselves with the Dominicans by forming a “Tertiary” Order. Unlike Dominic, Saint Francis (1181/1182–1226), founder of the Franciscans, was never a priest. Indeed, he was on his way to a promising

career

as

a

cloth

merchant

at

Assisi

(Italy)

when

he

experienced a complete conversion. Rejecting wealth, he accepted no money,

walked

without

shoes,

wore

only

one

coarse

tunic,

and

refused to be confined even in a monastery. He and his followers (who, like the Dominicans, were called “friars”) spent their time preaching, ministering to lepers, and doing manual labor. As Francis recounted in his Testament, “And those who came to receive life gave whatever they had to the poor and were content with one tunic, patched inside and out, with a cord and short trousers. We desired 7

nothing more.”

Normally, only bishops had authority to preach and to allow others to preach. But Francis’s little group – with the help of the bishop of Assisi – found acceptance at the papal court, and around 1209 Pope Innocent authorized it to preach penance. Thereafter, the order grew and dispersed. Soon there were Franciscans throughout Italy, France, Spain, the Crusader States, and a bit later in Germany, England, Scotland, Poland, and elsewhere. Always they were drawn to the cities. Sleeping in “convents” on the outskirts of the towns, the Franciscans became a regular part of urban community life as they preached to crowds and begged their daily bread. Early converts included

women:

in

1211

or

1212

Francis

converted

the

young

noblewoman

Clare.

She

joined

a

community

of

women

at

San

Damiano, a church near Assisi. Clare wanted her group to follow the rule and lifestyle of the friars. But the pope disapproved of the women’s worldly activities. Soon the many sisters following Francis – by 1228 there were at least twenty-four female communities inspired by him in central and northern Italy – were confined to cloisters under the Rule of Saint Benedict. In the course of the thirteenth century, laypeople, many of them married, formed their own Franciscan order, the “Tertiaries.” They dedicated themselves to works of charity and to daily

church

Dominicans,

attendance. added

Eventually

learning

and

the

Franciscans,

scholarship

to

their

like

the

mission,

becoming part of the city universities.

BEGUINES The Beguines, pious women who lived together, were even more integral to town life than the friars. In the cities of northern France, the Low Countries, and Germany, the Beguines worked as launderers, weavers, and spinners. (Their male counterparts, the “Beghards,” were far less numerous.) Choosing to live in informal communities, taking no vows, and free to marry if they liked, they dedicated themselves to simplicity and prayer. If outwardly ordinary, however, inwardly their religious lives were often emotional and ecstatic. Some were mystics, seeking union with God. Mary of Oignies (1177–1213), for example, imagined herself with the Christ Child, who “nestled between her breasts like a baby.... Sometimes she kissed him as though he were a little child, and sometimes she held him on her lap 8

as if he were a gentle lamb.”

The beguines were popular among the

laity and were particularly supported by pious women. Churchmen tended to be less enthusiastic, for beguinages were not enclosed, implying sexual mischief to the suggestible. Furthermore, beguine mysticism sometimes overran the bounds of official theology and led to accusations of heresy. Eventually the movement was suppressed.

WALDENSIANS The Waldensians were almost immediately vilified and persecuted. At Lyon (in southeastern France) in the 1170s, the rich merchant Waldo decided to take literally the Gospel message, “If you wish to be

perfect, then go and sell everything you have, and give to the poor” (Matt. 19:21). The same message had inspired countless monks and would worry the Church far less several decades later, when Saint Francis established his new order. But when Waldo went into the street and gave away his belongings, announcing, “I am not out of my 9

mind, as you think,”

he scandalized not only the bystanders but the

Church as well. Refusing to retire to a monastery, Waldo and his followers, men and women called Waldensians, lived in poverty and went about preaching, quoting the Gospel in the vernacular so that everyone would understand them. But the papacy rejected Waldo’s bid

to

preach

freely;

and

the

Waldensians

–

denounced,

excommunicated, and expelled from Lyon – wandered to Languedoc, Italy, northern Spain, and the Mosel valley, just east of France, a persecuted minority.

CATHARS The

groups

that

Dominic

confronted

in

Languedoc

were

called

“heretics” by the Church, which drew a line in the sand between the Christian

communities

that

it

accepted

vilified. It had other names for the

and

those

heretics

that

it

utterly

in southern France:

Albigensians or Cathars. Words matter, and the Cathars referred to themselves

as

“Good

Men”

and

“Good

Women.”

Particularly

numerous in urban, highly commercialized regions such as southern France, northern Italy, and the Rhineland, they were dissatisfied with the reforms achieved by the Gregorians and resented the Church’s newly

centralized

organization.

Precisely

what

these

dissidents

believed may be glimpsed only with difficulty, largely through the reports of those who questioned and persecuted them. At a meeting in Lombers (see Map 6.4 on p. 217) in 1165 to which some of them apparently voluntarily agreed to come, they answered questions put to them

by

the

bishop

of

Lodève.

Asked

about

the

Eucharist,

for

example, “they answered that whoever consumed it worthily was saved, but the unworthy gained damnation for themselves; and they said that it could be consecrated [that is, transformed into Christ’s body and blood] by a good man, whether clerical or lay.” When questioned about whether “each person should confess his sins to priests

and

ministers

of

the

church

–

or

to

any

layman,”

they

responded that it “would suffice if they confessed to whom they

wanted.”

On

this

and

other

questions,

then,

the

Good

Men

of

Lombers had notions at variance with the doctrines that the postGregorian

Church

was

proclaiming.

Above

all,

their

responses

downgraded the authority and prerogatives of the clergy. When the bishop at Lombers declared the Good Men heretics, “the heretics answered that the bishop who gave the sentence was the heretic and not

they,

that

he

was

their

enemy

and

a

rapacious

wolf

and

a

10

hypocrite....”

By the time that Dominic confronted these dissidents, Church leaders were in crisis mode. They dubbed the Cathars “dualists,” accusing them of believing that the world was torn between two great forces, one good and the other evil. This was a term and an idea churchmen knew very well from their reading: Saint Augustine had briefly flirted with the dualists of his own day – the Manichees – before

decisively

Moreover,

Western

breaking

with

churchmen

them.

were

(See

well

above,

aware

that

pp.

9–10.)

one

of

the

reasons why the Byzantines had clamped down on heretics (the Bogomils)

in

the

twelfth

century

was

to

counter

groups

who

questioned the sacraments and the institutional Church and who were also

reputedly

dualists.

Classifying

heretics

as

such

created

a

powerful new tool of persecution and coercion that came to be used by both ecclesiastical and secular rulers.

New Crusades, North and South Pope Innocent III demanded that northern princes take up the sword, invade Languedoc, wrest the land from the heretics, and populate it with orthodox Christians. This Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229) marked the first time in which the pope offered warriors who were fighting

an

enemy

within

Christian

Europe

all

the

spiritual

and

temporal benefits of a crusade to the Holy Land. Unsurprisingly, the political ramifications were more notable than the religious results. After twenty years of fighting, leadership of the crusade was taken over in 1229 by the Capetian kings. Southern resistance was broken and Languedoc (see Map 6.4 on p. 217) was brought under the control of the French crown. The

Church

also

launched

crusades

to

the

northeast.

By

the

twelfth century, the peoples living along the Baltic coast – partly

pagan, mostly Slavic- or Baltic-speaking – had learned to make a living and even a profit from the inhospitable soil and climate. They supplied the rest of Europe and Rus’ with slaves, furs, amber, wax, and dried fish. Like the earlier Vikings, they combined commercial competition with outright raiding, so the Danes and the Saxons (i.e., the

Germans

in

Saxony)

both

benefited

and

suffered

from

their

presence. It was Saint Bernard (the most prestigious Cistercian of his day) who, while preaching the Second Crusade in Germany, urged the armed “conversion” of the people to the north as well. Thus began the Baltic

Crusades,

which

continued

intermittently

until

the

early

fifteenth century. (See Map 6.7.)

Map 6.7 German Settlement in the Baltic Sea Region, 12th to 14th cent.

Description

In key raids in the 1160s and 1170s, the king of Denmark and Henry the Lion (duke of Saxony), worked together to bring much of the region between the Elbe and Oder Rivers under their control. They took some of the land outright, leaving the rest in the hands of the Baltic princes, who surrendered, converted, and became their vassals. Churchmen arrived: the Cistercians built their monasteries right up to the banks of the Vistula River, while bishops took over newly declared dioceses. In 1202 the “bishop of Riga” – in fact he had to bring some Christians with him to his lonely outpost amidst

the Livs – founded a military/monastic order called the Order of the Brothers of the Sword. The monks soon became a branch of the Teutonic Knights (or Teutonic order), a group originally founded in the Crusader States and vowed to a military and monastic rule like the Hospitallers and Templars. The Knights organized crusades, defended newly conquered regions, and launched their own holy wars against the “Northern Saracens.” By the end of the thirteenth century, they had brought the lands from Prussia to Estonia under their sway. Meanwhile German knights, peasants, and townspeople streamed in, colonists of the new frontier. Although less well known than the crusades to the Levant, the Baltic Crusades had more lasting effects, settling the region with a German-speaking population that brought its Western institutions – cities, laws, guilds, universities, castles, manors, vassalage – with it. Colonization was the unanticipated consequence of the Fourth Crusade as well. Called by Innocent III, who intended to re-establish the Christian presence in the Holy Land, the crusade was diverted when

the

organizers

overestimated

the

numbers

joining

the

expedition. The small army mustered was unable to pay for the large fleet of ships that had been fitted out for it by the Venetians. Making the best of adversity, the Venetians convinced the crusaders to “pay” for the ships by attacking Zara (today Zadar), one of the coastal cities that Venice disputed with Hungary. Then, with the excuse of taking up the cause of one claimant to the

Byzantine

throne,

the

crusaders

turned

their

sights

on

Constantinople. They looted the city, hauling off, among other things, its precious relics to proudly display in European churches. More significantly, they implanted one of their own on the imperial throne – Baldwin I of Flanders – and created various Latin states on Byzantine territory. Vigorous resistance from the Byzantines, who were strong enough to found their own successor states, left the “Latin Empire” very small indeed after around 1235. (See Map 6.8.) The real winner was Venice, which had instigated the enterprise in the first place; it won part of Constantinople, crucial territories along the east coast of the Adriatic Sea, Negroponte, and various islands in the Aegean Sea. With its purchase and conquest of Crete, Venice aimed to dominate the region’s trade.

Map 6.8 The Fourth Crusade, the Latin Empire, and Byzantine Successor States, 1204–c.1250

Description

CULTURE AND INSTITUTIONS IN TOWN AND COUNTRYSIDE Whether living in towns (like the north Italian nobility) or in the countryside (like many aristocrats in the rest of Europe), all medieval elites adhered to the ideal of the “chivalrous knight.” This was true even though many Italian aristocrats were in fact more business tycoons than warriors. Rural lords, too, while enjoying the sports of jousts and the tales of brave knights and their beautiful ladies, were also savvy landowners. As these elites closed ranks as “knights,” the wealthy middle classes in the cities turned their guilds into enclaves of privilege, shutting out some laborers and most women while giving high status to

masters.

Universities

were

one

such

guild,

with

even

greater

privileges than most because their members were clerics. Gothic architecture came to symbolize the pride and power of medieval urban communities.

Taxes, Inventories, and Other Mechanisms of Control Northern

Italian

percentage

of

cities

their

were

adult

republics

male

in

the

population

sense

that

participated

a

high

in

their

governance, but they were also dictatorial. To feed themselves, they prohibited the export of grain while commanding the peasants in their contado to bring them a certain amount of grain by a certain date each year. City governments told the peasants which crops to grow and how many times per year they should plow the land. They controlled commerce as well. At Venice, exceptional in lacking a contado

but

boasting

a

vast

maritime

empire

instead,

merchant

enterprises were state run, using state ships. When Venetians went off to buy cotton in the Levant, they all had to offer the same price, determined by their government back home. Italian city-state governments outdid England, Sicily, and France in their bureaucracy and efficiency. While kingdoms were still taxing by “hearths,” Italian communes devised taxes based on a census (catasto) of property. Already at Pisa in 1162 taxes were being raised in this way; by the middle of the thirteenth century, almost all the communes had such a system in place. But even efficient methods of taxation did not bring in enough money to support the two main needs of the commune: paying its officials and, above all, waging war. To meet their high military expenses, the communes created state loans, some voluntary, others forced. They were the first in Europe to do so. The Italians were not the only ones who organized their finances. Great

lords

everywhere

hired

literate

agents

to

administer

their

estates, calculate their profits, draw up accounts, and make marketing decisions.

Money

importantly

it

financed

enhanced

luxuries,

aristocratic

to

be

honor,

sure,

but

which

even

more

depended

on

personal generosity, patronage, and displays of wealth. In the late twelfth

century,

when

some

townsmen

could

boast

fortunes

that

rivaled the riches of the landed nobility, noble extravagance tended to exceed income. Most aristocrats went into debt. The nobles’ need for money coincided with the interests of the peasantry, whose numbers were expanding. The solution was the extension of farmland. By the middle of the century, isolated and

sporadic attempts to bring new land into cultivation had become regular and coordinated. Great lords offered special privileges to peasants who would do the backbreaking work of plowing marginal land. In Flanders, which was regularly inundated by seawater, great monasteries sponsored drainage projects, and canals linking the cities to the agricultural hinterlands let boats ply the waters to virtually every nook and cranny of the region. In other regions, free peasants acted

on

their

own

to

clear

land

and

relieve

the

pressure

of

overpopulation. On old estates, the rise in population strained to its breaking point the manse organization that had developed in Carolingian Europe, where each household was settled on the land that supported it. Now, in the twelfth century, many peasant families might live on what had been, in the ninth century, the manse of one family. Labor services and dues had to be recalculated, and peasants and their lords often turned services and dues into money rents, payable once a year. With this change, peasant men gained more control over their plots – they could sell them, will them to their sons, or even designate a small portion for their daughters. However, for these privileges they had either to pay extra taxes or, like communes, join together to buy their collective liberty for a high price, paid out over many years to their lord. Peasants, like town citizens, gained a new sense of identity and solidarity as they bargained with a lord keen to increase his income at their expense.

The Culture of the Courts Identity and solidarity were important to aristocrats as well. By the end of the twelfth century, nobles and knights had begun to merge into one class, threatened from below by newly rich merchants and from above by newly powerful kings. On the battlefield, knights – mounted on horses, lances at the ready – were less essential than they pretended. Close formations were hard to achieve; even nobles often fought on foot, seconded by archers and infantrymen equipped with pole-axes, spears, and gisarmes (long poles ending in a scythe-like blade). knights

Nevertheless, and

nobles

as

if

denying

claimed

for

the

situation

themselves

the

on

the

high

ground,

virtue

of

“chivalry.” The word, deriving from the French cheval (“horse”),

emphasized the knight’s high perch atop a steed. With his sharp sword and heavy shield (see King John in Plate 6.3), he cut an imposing and menacing figure. Chivalry made him gentle, gave his battles a higher meaning, whether for love of a lady or of God. The chivalric

hero

was

constrained

by

courtesy,

fair

play,

piety,

and

devotion to an ideal. He deserved to be praised and celebrated. And that is what took place at the courts of the great, where a considerable number of men and women made their living as poets and

musicians.

They

were

called

troubadours

(or

their

female

equivalent, trobairitz) in southern France, Spain, and Italy; they were known

as

Minnesänger

in

Germany.

Some

came

from

well-off

families, some did not. Those of the Mediterranean regions sang in the vernacular of the southern France; those of Germany composed in German. Mainly they sang of love – its joys, sorrows, desires, sighs of hope, and tears of despair. This was the tender part of chivalry: the ideal knight was not only a marvel on the battlefield but a true, patient, and courteous lover. Consider one of the verses of troubadour Bernart de Ventadorn (fl. c.1147–1170).

Qan vei la lauzeta mover

When I see the lark beat his wings

de joi sas alas contra·l rai,

With joy in the rays of the sun

que s’oblid’e·is laissa cazer

and forget himself and fall

per la doussor c’al cor li vai,

In the warmth that fills his heart,

ai! Tant grans enveia m’en ve

Oh, I feel so great an envy

de cui que veia jauzion,

Of one I see who’s merry

meravillas ai car desse

I wonder that my heart

lo cors de desirier no·m fon.

Does not melt with desire.

11

The rhyme scheme seems simple: mover goes with cazer, rai with vai. Then comes a new pattern: ve rhymes with desse and jauzion with fon. But consider that all seven verses that come after this one have

that

same

-er, -ai,

-e,

-on

pattern.

Enormous

ingenuity

is

required for such a feat. The poem is extremely complex and subtle, not only in rhyme and meter but also in word puns and allusions, essential skills for a composer whose goal was to dazzle his audience with brilliant originality.

In both themes and melodies, troubadour songs resembled Latin liturgical chants of the same region and period. Monks, too, chanted of love. Although they focused on the love between human beings and God, while the troubadours sang about erotic passion, the two kinds of love were deliciously entangled. The verse in which Bernart envies the lark continues:

Oh, I thought I knew so much About love, but how little I know! I cannot stop loving her Though I know she’ll never love me. . . . I get no help with my lady 12

From God or mercy or right.

By putting his lady in the same stanza as God, Bernart elevates her to the status of a religious icon. At the same time, he degrades God: should the Lord really help Bernart with his seduction? Finally, he plays with the association of “my lady” with the Virgin Mary, the quintessential “our Lady.” Historians and literary scholars used to refer to the sort of love sung about by medieval poets as “courtly.” They assumed that such love was never consummated in sexual relations or marriage because the poet was always of lower rank than his lady. Today scholars know that some of the poetry in fact expressed the feelings of spouses. The phrase “courtly love” is giving way to fin’amor (refined or true love), a term found in some medieval literature itself. But as Linda Paterson points out, the meaning of even that term varied from poet to poet. In fact, the troubadours sang about many sorts of love: some boasted of sexual conquests; others played with the notion of equality between lovers; still others sang of love and desire as the source of virtue. Some troubadours, like the poet Bertran de Born (fl. second half of 12th cent.), wrote about war, not love:

Trumpets, drums, standards and pennons And ensigns and horses black and white 13

Soon we shall see, and the world will be good.

But warfare was more often the subject of another kind of poem, the long chanson de geste, “song of heroic deeds.” Originally recited orally, these vernacular poems appeared in written form at about the same

time

as

troubadour

poetry

and,

like

them,

played

with

aristocratic codes of behavior. Like Bertran de Born, the chansons de geste celebrated cavalry accompanied by “trumpets, drums, standards and

pennons.”

But

they

also

examined

the

moral

issues

that

confronted knights, taking up the often-contradictory values of their society: love of family vied with fealty to a lord; desire for victory clashed with pressures to compromise. While the chansons focused

on

battles,

de

other

geste, long

sometimes

poems,

later

also

called

called

“epics,”

“romances,”

explored relationships. Enormously popular in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, romances took up such themes as the tragic love between Tristan and Isolde and the virtuous knight’s search for the Holy Grail. Most were woven around the many fictional stories of King Arthur and his court. In one of the earliest of these, Chrétien de Troyes (fl. c.1150–1190) wrote about the noble and valiant knight Lancelot, in love with Queen Guinevere, wife of Arthur. Finding a comb bearing some strands of her radiant hair, Lancelot is overcome:

He gently removed the queen’s Hair, not breaking a single Strand. Once a man Has fallen in love with a woman No one in all the world Can lavish such wild adoration 14

Even on the objects she owns.

By making Guinevere’s hair an object of adoration, a sort of secular relic, Chrétien here not only conveys the depths of Lancelot’s feeling but also pokes a bit of fun at his hero, who seems to need nothing more than a tangle of hair to make him happy. But he is happier still when he and Guinevere also spend a glorious night in bed together:

... the queen reached out her arms and drew him down, Holding him tight against

Her breast, making the knight As welcome in her bed, and as happy, As she possibly could.

Alas, the dawn arrives and the delights must come to an end. Lancelot’s life is dedicated to this overwhelming love. Once while fighting and on the point of killing an evil opponent, he overhears Guinevere say that she wishes the “final blow be withheld.” Then

Nothing in the world could have made him Fight, or even move, No matter if it cost his life.

Such perfect obedience and self-restraint even in the middle of a bloody battle made Lancelot the paragon of chivalry. Did real knights live up to these ideals? They knew perfectly well that they could not and that it would be absurd if they tried to do so in every particular. But they loved playing with the idea. They were the audience for epics and romances, and no doubt they liked to think of themselves as fitting into the tales.

Urban Guilds Incorporated The codes of chivalry were poetic and playful. The codes drawn up by guilds were drier but similarly served to mark status and offer their members a sense of identity and belonging – or, to non-members, the hardships of marginalization. Some guilds were more prestigious than others. Among the cloth guilds, for example, the status of the merchant guild that imported the raw wool was higher than the standing of others in the industry – the shearers, weavers, fullers (the workers who beat the cloth to shrink it and make it heavier), and dyers. In Florence, professional guilds of notaries and judges ranked higher than craft guilds in prestige and power. Within each guild was another kind of hierarchy. Apprentices were at the bottom, journeymen and -women in the middle, and masters

at

the

top.

Young

boys

and

occasionally

girls

were

the

apprentices; they worked for a master for room and board, learning a trade. An apprenticeship in the felt-hat trade in Paris, for example, lasted seven years. After their apprenticeship, men and women often

worked many years as day laborers, hired by a master when he needed extra help. A very few men, and almost no women, worked their way up to master status. They were the ones who dominated the guild’s offices and set its policies. Indeed, the codification of guild practices and membership tended to work against females, who were slowly being ousted from the world of workers during the late twelfth century. In Flanders, for example, as the manufacture of woolen cloth shifted from rural areas to cities, and from light to heavy looms, women were less involved in cloth production than they had been on traditional manors. Similarly, water- and animal-powered mills took the place of female hand labor to grind grain into flour – and most millers were male. Nevertheless, there were exceptions: at Paris, guild regulations for the silk fabric makers assumed that the artisans would be women: No journeywoman maker of silk fabric may be a mistress [the female equivalent of “master”] of the craft until she has practiced it for a year and a day.... No mistress of the craft may weave thread with silk, or foil with silk.... No mistress or journeywoman of the craft may make a false hem or 15

border.

Universities, too, were guilds. Indeed, universitas was another word for guild. At the same time, because they grew out of cathedral schools,

universities

were

considered

clerical

institutions

and

therefore admitted only males. Around the year 1200, students and masters (we would call them professors today) began to draw up codes

to

regulate

student

discipline,

scholastic

proficiency,

and

housing, and they determined the masters’ behavior in equal detail. At the University of Paris, for example, the masters were required to wear long black gowns, follow a particular order in their lectures, and set the standards by which students could become masters themselves. The University of Bologna was unique in having two guilds, one of students and one of masters; there the students participated in the appointment, payment, and discipline of the masters. The University of Bologna was unusual because it was principally a school of law, and the students were generally older men, well along in

their

wielding

careers power.

(often At

the

in

imperial

University

service) of

Paris,

and by

accustomed contrast,

to

young

students predominated, drawn by its renown in the liberal arts (see p. 197) and theology. The universities of Salerno (near Naples) and

Montpellier (in southern France) specialized in medicine. Oxford, once a sleepy town where students clustered around one or two masters,

became

a

center

of

liberal

arts,

theology,

science,

and

mathematics. The curriculum of each university depended on its specialty and its traditions. At Paris in the early thirteenth century, students spent at least six years studying the liberal arts before gaining the right to teach the subject. If they wanted to specialize in theology, they attended lectures on the subject for at least another five years. With books both expensive and hard to find, lectures were the chief method of

communication.

These

were

centered

on

important

texts:

the

master read an excerpt aloud, delivered his commentary on it, and disputed any contrary commentaries that rival masters might have proposed. Students committed the lectures to memory. Within the larger association of the university, students found more intimate groups within which to live: “nations,” linked to the students’ place of origin. At Bologna, for example, students belonged to one of two nations, the Italians and the non-Italians. Each nation protected its members, wrote statutes, and elected officers. Since

both

masters

and

students

were

considered

clerics,

university men were subject to Church courts rather than the secular jurisdiction of towns or lords. Many universities could also boast generous privileges from popes and kings, who valued the services of scholars. The combination of clerical status and special privileges made universities virtually self-governing corporations within the towns. This sometimes led to friction. When the townsmen of Oxford tried to punish a student suspected of killing his mistress, the masters protested by refusing to teach and leaving the city. (They set up shop at Cambridge instead – the origin of that university.) Such disputes are

called

masters

“town

wore

against

gowns

(the

gown”

struggles

because

distant

ancestors

of

students

today’s

and

graduation

gowns). But since university towns depended on scholars to patronize local taverns, shops, and hostels, town and gown normally negotiated with each other to their mutual advantage.

Gothic Art and Architecture

Certainly,

town

and

gown

agreed

on

building

style:

by

c.1200,

“Gothic” (the term itself comes from the sixteenth century) was their architecture of choice. Beginning as a variant of Romanesque in the Ile-de-France, Gothic quickly took

on

an

identity

of its

own.

It

masked the heavy walls of Romanesque churches with sculpture, glass,

and

soaring

vaults.

Suger,

abbot

of

Saint-Denis

and

the

promoter of Capetian royal power (see p. 195), was the style’s first sponsor. When he rebuilt portions of his church around 1135, he tried to express royal and ecclesiastical ideals in material form. At the west end

of

his

church,

the

point

where

the

faithful

entered,

Suger

decorated the portals with sculptures of Old Testament kings, queens, and patriarchs, signaling the links between the present king and his illustrious predecessors. Reconstructing the interior of the east end of his church as well, Suger used pointed arches and stained glass to let in

light,

which

Suger

believed

to

be

God’s

own

“illumination,”

capable of transporting the worshipper from the “slime of earth” to the “purity of Heaven.”

Figure 6.1

Chartres

Cathedral,

Cut-Out

View.

The

flying

buttresses

push

against the walls, which (given that most of them are filled with glass) could not otherwise support the weight of the heavy vault. Since the glass looks opaque on the outside, and the cathedral is made of stone, the exterior of the church looks

rather

heavy,

as

if

concealing

the

lightness

within.

However,

lively

sculpture on the portals, large rose windows, and delicate rows of columns relieve this ponderous impression, as Plate 6.5 makes plain.

Description

Gothic was an urban architecture, reflecting – in its grand size, jewel-like windows, and bright ornaments – the aspirations, pride, and

confidence

of

rich

and

powerful

merchants,

artisans,

and

churchmen. The Gothic cathedral, which could take centuries to complete, was often the religious, social, and commercial focal point of a city. Funds for these buildings might come from the city’s bishop himself, from the canons (priests) who served his cathedral, or from townsmen.

Although there never was a “model” Gothic church, Chartres Cathedral may serve as a useful example. In 1194, a fire burned down much of the older church there but spared its most sacred relic, the Virgin’s veil. That sign of divine favor inspired the bishop of Chartres and

his

canons

(the

priests

who

served

him)

to

dedicate

their

enormous wealth in tithes and estates to rebuild. The guilds of the city

turned

over

much

of

their

income

to

the

enterprise.

Rich

donations poured in from every corner of France. The cathedral rose anew in record time. (For the location of Chartres, see Map 6.4 on p. 217.) The architects of Chartres put a premium on soaring height, lancet windows, pointed arches, and light, as a comparison of its interior (Plate 6.4 on p. 240) to that of the Romanesque church at Modena (Plate 5.10 on p. 202) makes clear.

Plate

6.4

Chartres

Cathedral,

Interior

(1195–1230).

The

impression

of

enormous height is the result of both fact – as the building is over 120 feet high – and architectural artifice, since the pointed arches used throughout lead the viewer’s eye skyward. The ribbon of lancet windows along the nave are as large as

the

huge

arched

openings

between

the

piers,

and

still

more

windows

illuminate the side aisles. It was possible to open up so much wall space to windows because of external flying buttresses (see Figure 6.1), which bore the weight of the vault. The light coming through the windows was not pure daylight; rather it glowed through colored glass.

On the exterior, Chartres is crammed with architectural features (window

tracery,

columns,

buttresses,

gargoyles)

and

theological

teachings, as if the builders hoped to express the universe in stone. The three south portals alone (see Plate 6.5 on pp. 242–43) feature figures of heavenly beings, personifications of the virtues and vices, sober images of key saints, and writhing figures of the damned.

Plate 6.5 Chartres Cathedral, South Portals (early 13th cent.). The portals of a church are transition points – from the humdrum world to sacred space. Those at Chartres both welcome and intimidate. From afar, they seem ready to enfold the worshipper, but as she nears their capacious precincts, she is overwhelmed by information – religious, decorative, and emotional. Consider the central doorway, the so-called Last Judgment portal. Dominating the top half of the pillar

between

the

doors

(the

trumeau)

is

the

towering

figure

of

Christ.

Although he looks mild-mannered, he is standing triumphantly on two demons. Above

him

is

a

half-moon

shaped

tympanum.

There

Christ,

showing

his

wounds, sits enthroned between the Virgin and John the Baptist. Beneath, on the strip of the tympanum known as the “lintel,” are the souls of the damned and blessed. Those to Christ’s right (the viewer’s left) are being led to Heaven; those to his left are on their way to Hell, where devils greet them with gleeful grins. In these and other ways the portals of a Gothic church such as Chartres awe, teach, preach, welcome, and warn.

Perhaps most astonishing are the 143 enormous stained-glass windows at Chartres: they tell stories along the side aisles, set the transepts aglow with rose windows, and form a parade of illuminated saints down the nave. Many images involve the Virgin, so important to this church, which was dedicated to her and had several of her relics. Along the south nave aisle, for example, one window illustrates the death of the Virgin and her assumption into heaven. (See Plate

6.6.) The affective piety that we saw in relation to the Cistercians (see p. 201) was by now widespread. It is made manifest here as the mourners around Mary wipe their tears with the edge of their mantles and implicitly invite viewers (who can see the image very well from the floor) to participate in their sorrow.

Plate 6.6 Chartres Cathedral, Stained Glass: Death of the Virgin (1205–1215). “Stained” glass is not stained. To the potash, lime, and wood ash that were the chief ingredients of all medieval glass, artisans produced colors by adding various metals to the molten mix and controlling its oxidation. The glaziers who made this window at Chartres no doubt bought the colored glass they needed; it was made by glass-makers elsewhere and sold in the form of flat sheets.

The

glaziers

would

already

have

designed

the

window

to

the

specifications of their patron – in this instance the guild of shoemakers, as is l

h

b

f

h

d

h

h

k

h

l

h

clear at the bottom of the window, where a shoemaker is shown plying his trade. The glaziers’ next step was to cut the glass into pieces to fit the design and then to paint on details using a flux made of copper filings and ground glass held together by a binder that was burnt away when the glass piece was fired at high temperature. The finished pieces were then soldered to lead strips, and the whole was fixed into the stone opening for the window. Reading from bottom to top: first comes the shoemaker, then the Virgin on her deathbed. In the lozenge above her, Christ carries her soul (represented as a tiny doll-like figure with a halo), and above that (not included here) are scenes of her funeral, burial, Assumption, and Coronation as Queen of Heaven.

By the mid-thirteenth century, Gothic architecture had spread to most of Europe, the style varying greatly by region. San Francesco in Assisi is an example of what Italian architects meant by a Gothic church. Like Chartres, it has lancet windows filled with stained glass and a pointed, ribbed vault (see Plate 6.7). But its focus is not on light and height but on walls, painted decoration, and well-proportioned space.

Plate

6.7

San

Francesco

at

Assisi

(Upper

Church;

completed

by

1253).

Influenced by French Gothic, this church of the Franciscan order in Assisi nevertheless asserts a different aesthetic. Compare it with Chartres in Plate 6.4 on p. 240, where the piers and ribs mark off units of space (called “bays”). By contrast, San Francesco presents a unified space. Chartres celebrated its soaring height; San Francesco balanced its height by its generous width. Unlike French Gothic, Italian Gothic churches gloried in their walls; at San Francesco they were decorated in the 1280s and 1290s with frescoes by the famous artist Giotto or an imitator.

Description

*

*

*

*

*

In the years flanking 1200, the Islamic world saw the rise and fall of the Ayyubids and the Almohads. The Ayyubids, most famously led by Saladin, took Jerusalem and prevailed in the region of Egypt and Syria until c.1250, when they were replaced by a new group, the Mamluks. The Almohads, rulers of the Maghreb and al-Andalus, lost power

around

crusading

the

Christian

same

time

armies

of

as the

the

Ayyubids,

reconquista

undone

and

rival

by

the

Berber

groups. But the Mongols, moving fast both east- and westward, went from one victory to another.

Meanwhile, Christian crusaders poured into the Baltic region and breached the walls of Constantinople. Bruised, but not crushed, the Byzantines founded new states and eventually, in 1261, retook their capital city. But the peoples of the Baltic region largely succumbed to their conquerors, who imposed their religion and institutions. England, flush with its conquest of Ireland and strengthened by its new legal institutions, was weakened by the King of France on the Continent and a rebellion at home. The Church lay down the law for all Christians in 1215, but it found itself enmeshed in battles – against Frederick II, against the Albigensians, and against Constantinople – that diminished its stature and prestige. In some ways this era marked a heyday for the elites rather than for royal and other ruling dynasties. Aristocrats in Europe – whether Christian or Islamic – listened to and read poems and tales of love. Rich townsmen and bishops built soaring Gothic churches. Citizens in Italy

ousted

the

emperor

and

maintained

their

communal

independence. Enterprising business- and craftspeople created guilds. Lords

colluded

with

peasants

in

changing

labor

services

into

monetary payments. An orderly society would require that these multiple institutions be able to respond flexibly to new challenges. But in the next century, while smooth harmony was the ideal and sometimes the reality, discord was an ever-present threat.

MATERIAL CULTURE: THE MAKING OF AN ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT Before the use of paper became widespread in the West in the fourteenth century, European books were made of parchment, the product of animal skins. The most common parchment was made from goats and sheep, while calfskin was considered the finest sort (commonly known as vellum, from the Latin vitulinum, i.e., “of a calf”). All parchments were produced through an elaborate process by a percamenarius, a parchmenter. To

begin,

the

parchmenter

cleaned

the

skin

in

fresh,

running

water

–

generally a river – for a day or two. Then he (almost never she) soaked it for many

days

in

vats

filled

with

a

thick

mixture

of

lime

and

water.

Lime,

composed mainly of calcium carbonate, helped to de-hair the skin, which the parchmenter then scraped off with a long, concave knife. Once meticulously and thoroughly de-haired, the skin was rinsed in fresh water. Still wet, it was

stretched on a wooden frame for the second stage of the process. Now the parchmenter scraped both sides of the skin (known as the flesh and hair sides) with a lunellum, a special, half-moon-shaped knife that reduced the risk of scratches while smoothing and thinning the skin (Plate 6.8).

Plate 6.8 Hamburg Bible (1255). In this decorated initial letter (D for Daniel) of a Bible made at Hamburg’s Cathedral canonry, a monk – possibly Saint Jerome (note the halo) – buys parchments from a lay craftsman.

The

parchmenter’s

wooden

frame

and

scraping

tool,

the

lunellum, are depicted in the lower half, between the two standing figures.

Even while he was scraping, the parchmenter was constantly stretching the skin by expertly tightening the pegs of the wooden frame. The parchment stretched even more as it dried. After the parchmenter did a final scraping and

smoothing of the dried skin, it was removed from the frame and rolled up. It was now ready to be used. Between the fifth and the twelfth centuries, the entire production of books was monopolized – almost exclusively – by monks. By the thirteenth century, some commercial manuscript makers opened shops in urban centers. In a model book-production schedule, monks first cut the parchment to the desired size of the book that was to be made, folding the rectangular sheet in half to obtain two pages (a bifolium), each page (folium in Latin) with a recto and a verso (technical terms for the two sides of one page). They put together several folded sheets to form a quire (or gathering). The sheets in a quire were assembled so that two facing pages presented the same side of the parchment: two facing flesh sides followed by two facing hair sides. At this point, the scribes – monks charged with copying texts – further prepared each folium by rubbing it with a pumice stone, a procedure that made the surface receptive to inks and paints. The scribes then had to “rule” the pages – make the lines that would keep their writing even and straight – by joining up prick marks made through a closed quire along a measured grid. Then the scribes “drew” barely visible lines with a tool that had a hard metal point; by the twelfth century this was commonly made of lead and was called a plummet marker. Later, ruling was also done in ink or in pigment. With everything set, the scribe was ready to write. He or she (for there were many female monasteries, and women, too, were trained as scribes) wrote the text with a quill pen made from a wing feather – usually a goose or a swan feather (penna in Latin, a word that has been passed down for centuries!). In their free hand, scribes held a knife (see Plate 6.9), which they used for several operations: to cut the parchment, keep the pages firm while writing, erase errors (which occurred quite frequently), and sharpen the quill pen itself. Because

the

writing

was

done

by

hand,

the

resulting

book

manuscript (from the Latin manus, hand and scriptus, written).

is

called

a

Plate

6.9

Miniature

of

Saint

Dunstan

(12th

cent.).

In

this

full-page

miniature made between c.1170–c.1180 at the Benedictine cathedral priory of Holy Trinity or Christ Church, Canterbury, Saint Dunstan (d.988), former archbishop of Canterbury, is shown copying Smaragdus of SaintMihiel’s Commentary on the Rule of Saint Benedict. The lavish image, embellished with gold leaf, shows the saint in full episcopal attire. With a quill pen in his right hand, a knife in his left, and a handy inkwell below, he writes by following the pale-gray lines that were drawn with a plummet.

If

the

manuscript

was

to

be

“illuminated”

–

illustrated

–

production

continued with the participation of illuminators. Illustrations might be as simple as an ornamental letter or as elaborate as a full page, as in Plate 6.9. The illuminator first made a sketch, then began to apply gold leaf. But gold was

very expensive and therefore used in only the most extravagant of books. Alternatives included tin leaf or even “poorer” natural substances such as saffron. The “gold” was applied to selected letters or figures, using gesso, in most cases, as a ground. Next, illuminators painted the rest of their sketch. Paints were made with coloring agents (pigments) obtained from vegetables, animals, and minerals and bound with glair (made from egg white), gum and/or glue, and water. Additives such as salt, stale urine, honey, and ear wax were also used to alter the shade and the consistency of the paints. Red and blue, followed

by

green,

were

the

most

common

colors

used

in

medieval

manuscripts. The final production stage was carried out by bookbinders. In monastic scriptoria, binding could be performed by any monk who knew the techniques. Later, when books were produced by commercial workshops, lay professionals or stationers became widespread. The binder’s job was to put together a stack of

loose

quires

in

the

correct

order

(according

to

the

progressive

folio

numeration) and to sew them onto bands or thongs across the spine of the book. Two wooden boards served as front and back covers and were often covered with leather and reinforced with corner metal pieces. Luxury binding was typically reserved for whole Bibles or the four Gospels. Some bejeweled bindings remain today, attesting to the full artistry of medieval book-making (see Plate 6.10).

Plate 6.10 Codex Aureus (870). This so-called Golden Book of Gospels received royal treatment with a bejeweled upper cover. It was most likely produced at the monastery of Saint-Denis, near Paris, by artists patronized by Emperor Charles the Bald, Charlemagne’s grandson. At the center, Christ in Majesty is surrounded by the four evangelists and scenes from the life of Christ.

Description

BIBLIOGRAPHY Clemens, Raymond, and Timothy Graham. Introduction to Manuscript Studies. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008.

De

Hamel,

Christopher.

Medieval

Craftsmen:

Scribes

and

Illuminators.

London: British Museum Press, 1992.

For practice questions about the text, maps, plates, and other features – plus suggested answers – please go to www.utphistorymatters.com There you will also find all the maps, genealogies, and figures used in the book.

FURTHER READING Bennison, Amira K. The Almoravid and Almohad Empires. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2016. Biran, Michal. Chinggis Khan. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2007. Bysted, Ane L., Carsten Selch Jensen, Kurt Villads Jensen, et al., eds. Jerusalem in the North: Denmark and the Baltic Crusades, 1100–1522. Turnhout: Brepols, 2012. Catlos, Brian A. Kingdoms of Faith: A New History of Islamic Spain. New York: Basic Books, 2018. Clanchy, Michael T. From Memory to Written Record, 1066–1307. 3rd ed. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons, 2012. Curta, Florin. Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages (500–1300). Leiden: Brill, 2019. Eddé, Anne-Marie. Saladin. Translated by Jane Marie Todd. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011. El-Azhari, Taef. Zengi and the Muslim Response to the Crusades: The Politics of Jihad. New York: Routledge, 2016. France, John. “A Changing Balance: Cavalry and Infantry, 1000–1300.” Revista de História das Ideias 30 (2009): 153–177. —. Hattin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Franco, Bradley R., and Beth A. Mulvaney, eds. The World of St. Francis of Assisi: Essays in Honor of William R. Cook. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Green, Monica H. “The Four Black Deaths.” American Historical Review 125, no. 5 (2020): 1600–1631. Hymes, Robert. “Epilogue: A Hypothesis on the East Asian Beginnings of the Yersinia pestis Polytomy.” In Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World:

Rethinking the Black Death, edited by Monica Green, pp. 285–308. Vol. 1 of The Medieval Globe. Amsterdam: Arc Humanities Press, 2015. Kaeuper, Richard W. Medieval Chivalry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Madden, Thomas F. The Concise History of the Crusades. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013. Mooney, Catherine M. Clare of Assisi and the Thirteenth-Century Church: Religious Women, Rules, and Resistance. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Moore, R.I. The War on Heresy. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2012. Mayr-Harting, Henry. Religion, Politics and Society in Britain 1066–1272. Harlow, UK: Pearson, 2011. Newman, Barbara. Making Love in the Twelfth Century: “Letters of Two Lovers” in Context. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Paterson, Linda. “Fin’amor and the Development of the Courtly Canso.” In The Troubadours: An Introduction, edited by Simon Gaunt and Sarah Kay, pp. 28– 46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Skoblar, Magdalena, ed. Byzantium, Venice and the Medieval Adriatic: Spheres of Maritime Power and Influence, c.700–1453. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Smith, Thomas W., ed. Authority and Power in the Medieval Church, c.1000– c.1500. Turnhout: Brepols, 2020. Vincent, Nicholas. John: An Evil King? London: Allen Lane, 2020. Whalen, Brett Edward. The Two Powers: The Papacy, the Empire, and the Struggle for Sovereignty in the Thirteenth Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019.

__________ 1

The

Assize

of

Clarendon,

in

A

Short

Medieval

Reader,

ed.

Barbara

H.

Rosenwein (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023), pp. 171–73 and in Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic World, 3rd ed., ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018), pp. 302–5. 2

The justices were therefore called “itinerant” – from iter, Latin for journey. The local hearing that they held was called an “eyre,” also from iter.

3

Magna Carta, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 175–80 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 330–36.

4

The Diet of Besançon, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 326–30.

5

The Chronicle of Salimbene de Adam, in Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies 40, ed. and trans. Joseph L. Baird, Giuseppe Baglivi, and John Robert Kane (Binghamton, NY: MRTS, 1986), p. 5.

6

Decrees of Lateran IV, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 151–55 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 366–71.

7

Saint Francis, The Testament, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 164–66 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 375–78.

8

Jacques de Vitry, Life of Mary of Oignies, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 160– 62 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 373–75.

9

Chronicle of Laon, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 159–60 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 371–72.

10 Translation of the text in Pilar Jiménez Sánchez, “L’évolution doctrinale du catharisme, XIIe–XIIIe siècle,” 3 vols. (PhD diss., University of Toulouse II, 2001), Annex 1: Actes de Lombers. 11 Bernart de Ventadorn, “When I see the lark,” in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 149–51 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 350–52. You can hear it on YouTube sung by Elizabeth Aubrey at bit.ly/3xzqmNN. Its simple and moving melody was very popular in the Middle Ages. 12 Bernart de Ventadorn, “When I see the lark,” in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 149–51 and in Reading the Middle Ages, p. 351. 13 Bertran de Born, “Half a sirvents,” in Reading the Middle Ages, p. 354. 14 Chrétien de Troyes, Lancelot, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 356–66. 15 Guild Regulations of the Parisian Silk Fabric Makers, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 317–18.

SEVEN EMPIRES OF LAND AND MIND (c.1250–c.1350)

CHAPTER

SEVEN

HIGHLIGHTS Spanish cortes includes townsmen 1188 Townsmen join the clergy and nobility at the cortes, a recognition of their wealth and importance in Spain.

Thomas Aquinas c.1225–1274 Author of the Summa Theologiae, a monumental synthesis of human and divine knowledge, Thomas Aquinas is among the most important scholastics (that is, theologians, logicians, and philosophers who are trained and/or teach at medieval universities).

Mamluks stop the western Mongol expansion 1260 Originally soldier slaves, the Mamluks dominate Egypt and Syria. Their sultanate lasts until 1517.

Byzantines take back Constantinople 1261 After their defeat in 1204, the Byzantines set up governments in exile; in 1261 they retake Constantinople, reestablishing the Byzantine Empire until its final defeat in 1453.

Dante Alighieri 1265–1321 His vernacular poetry expresses the order of the scholastic universe, the ecstatic union of the mystical quest, and the erotic and emotional life of the troubadour.

Alberto Scotti becomes signore of Piacenza 1290 One example among many of the men who transform North Italian communes into signorie around this time.

King Edward I expels the Jews from England 1290 The culmination of more than a century of persecution and harassment, the Jews are expelled from England, and soon thereafter (1306) they are banished from France by Philip IV the Fair.

Ghazan Kahn converts to Islam 1295 Ghazan Kahn’s conversion to Islam is the model for the Mongol rulers of the Golden Horde (1313) and those of Central Asia (1330s).

Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel 1304–1306 Giotto’s dramatic visual presentation of the story of salvation and damnation is a sort of artistic equivalent of Thomas Aquinas’s synthesis of faith and reason.

Avignon papacy 1309–1377 Although sober and efficient, the papacy in residence at Avignon is French-leaning and scandalous to many.

The Great Famine 1315–1322 The result of poor harvests, warfare, and calculated hoarding by elites, the Great Famine is felt everywhere in Europe, and particularly regions north of the Mediterranean.

Mansa Musa, king of Mali, makes the hajj to Mecca 1324 The pilgrimage of Mansa Musa symbolizes West Africa’s full participation in the Islamic world.

Casimir III the Great rules Poland 1333–1370 Lays foundation for united Poland.

By 1300, the Mongols had created the largest empire known to history, and by 1350 most of it was Islamic. To the west of the Mongols were the Mamluks, equally Islamic, as were the Islamic successor states of the Almohads in the Maghreb. In the sub-Saharan south

arose

the

sprawling

new

Islamic

Empire

of

Mali.

While

“Islamic” is a relative term – there were always people of various beliefs living in these regions, and Islam itself was never monolithic – nevertheless it may be fairly said that c.1350 much of the globe’s eastern hemisphere was under Islamic rule in one way or another. But that did not mean that the Christian portion of that hemisphere (equally varied, if smaller) was cowed. To the contrary, it too was teeming with new ideas, new institutions, new modes of expression. And its political, intellectual, and artistic elites were perhaps even keener than the Mongols to exert control – over peoples, territories, thoughts, and sexualities. But the empires of land and mind that these elites created inevitably came up against opposition in the form of discord, dissent, and deviance.

THE EXPANSION OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD The Mongol Empire was and remains the largest ever known (it extended about 4,000 miles from east to west), and by the 1330s much of it was Islamic. Meanwhile the Mamluks – warriors originally of slave status – quietly and decisively ousted Saladin’s dynasty, the Ayyubids, and became rulers of the long-lived Mamluk sultanate, centered on Egypt. In the Maghreb, various Islamic dynasties reigned in the wake of Almoravid collapse. Further south, Islam reached across the Sahara to new states perched on the Sahel (the transition

zone between desert and savannah). One of them, the Empire of Mali, stretched 1,200 miles – from the Atlantic Ocean to Timbuktu and beyond. All of these regions were interconnected via seas and trade routes and crisscrossed by intrepid travelers.

The Mongols Conquer ... and Settle Down Under Chinggis Khan the Mongols evolved from pastoralists and raiders to conquerors and settlers. In the course of the thirteenth century, they picked off the states to their south, east, and west, one right after the other. Sometimes killing everyone in a city, they gained a reputation for murder and mayhem. Often, too, they left a belt of destruction around their conquests, not incidentally creating a path for their armies and their storied “postal service” (see Plate 7.1) as well as pastureland for their animals. Frequently they evacuated whole cities, despoiling them utterly before allowing the inhabitants back in. The young men of conquered territories were forced into their armies as “arrow fodder,” while seasoned warriors who defected to the Mongols were welcomed. Artisans – especially weapons-makers and weavers – were relocated to serve the Mongols’ needs, as were physicians,

astronomers,

astrologers,

bureaucrats,

engineers,

and

many other talented professionals. Manpower and taxes were the twin pillars empire.

on

which

And

Chinggis

after

the

and

initial

his

successors

mayhem,

they

built

their

established

mighty relative

stability and peace. By the middle of the thirteenth century, the Mongol Empire had taken on the contours of a settled state. (See Map 7.1.) It was divided into

four

Chinggis.

khanates, (See

each

Genealogy

under

the

7.1.)

rule

The

of

various

westernmost

progeny

quadrant

of

was

dominated by the so-called Golden Horde (“horde” derived from the Turkic word for “khan’s residence”). Settled along the lower Volga River valley, the Mongols of the Golden Horde combined traditional pastoralism

with

more

sedentary

concerns,

founding

cities

and

fostering trade. While they demanded regular and carefully calculated tribute,

troops,

indigenous

Rus

and

recognition

rulers,

they

of

their

nevertheless

overlordship allowed

the

from Rus

the

elites

considerable autonomy. Their policy of religious toleration allowed the Orthodox Church to flourish, and the Mongols further privileged

it by exempting it from taxes and freeing its clergy from army conscription, a fact that led to a rush of young men to the Orthodox priesthood! In return, the Church was glad to support Mongol rule. It was only in the fifteenth century, as Mongol power waned, that the Rus

princes

to

the

north

took

charge,

creating

centered state that came to be called Russia.

a

new

Moscow-

Plate 7.1 Traveling in the Mongol Empire (early 14th cent.). This watercolor illustration is one of many made for the Compendium of Chronicles, a history written by Rashid al-Din (1247–1318) to celebrate the genealogy, virtues, and achievements of the Mongol rulers from before the time of Chinggis Khan to just prior to the death of the author. It was commissioned by Ghazan (r.1295– 1304), the Chinggisid khan who ruled the Ilkhanate (see Map 7.1) and with whom Rashid al-Din was close as both friend and advisor. His history glorified Ghazan, the first Mongol ruler to convert to Islam, as the culmination of God’s plan for rulership over the lands that had once been held by the Persians and the Abbasids. The book was recopied every year in both Arabic and Persian, and Rashid al-Din himself determined its illustrative program. The artist of this picture depicts an elegant lord traveling with several retainers. He rides on a path strewn with flowers, while behind him one of his men wears around his neck a large passport – the authorization needed to go from one relay station to the next in the exceptionally efficient Mongol postal system. Finding fresh horses at each post, messengers, traders, nobles (as here), and officials could cover over 100 miles a day.



Map 7.1 The Mongol Empire, c.1290

Description

Despite their favorable treatment of the Orthodox Church, the Mongols of the Golden Horde did not become Christian. Rather, they chose to identify with their Ilkhanid brethren and to adopt Islam. The Ilkhanids had created a flourishing state in which Mongol shamanism coexisted

in

peace

with

various

forms

of

Christianity,

Islam,

Buddhism, and Judaism. But right at the start of his reign, Ghazan Khan (r.1295–1304) broke with the Mongols of China (who had adopted Tibetan Buddhism) and converted to Islam, adhering to the religion of much of the population living in his area of control. The Golden Horde followed suit in 1313 and the Chaghataids, who ruled Central Asia, adopted Islam in the 1330s.

Genealogy 7.1 The Mongol Khans

Description

At the height of its power, from the mid-thirteenth to the midfourteenth century, the Mongol Empire fostered what historian Marie Favereau

has

called

the

“Mongol

exchange.”

She

considers

it

analogous to the “Columbian exchange” that tied together the earth’s eastern

and

western

hemispheres

in

the

wake

of

Christopher

Columbus’s voyages. At the core of the Mongol exchange was the desire, even the need, for goods to circulate. Constant trade, giftgiving, and an empire-wide monetary system based on silver all served

to

emphasize

the

generosity

of

the

khans,

create

status

symbols for the elites, and foster ties of loyalty and dependency from everyone else. To be sure, contemporary Europeans, too, valued these things. What was different in the Mongol realm was the sheer expanse of their networks. The Mongols patronized and attracted artists, poets, and

scientists.

fashionable weapons.

They

wanted

clothing,

They

–

musicians,

facilitated

the

and

could

pay

porcelain Eurasian

for

–

tableware, pathways

fine and

that

silks, costly

inspired

merchants such as the Italian Polo brothers to trade with China and that

enabled

Franciscan

missionaries

there

to

set

up

a

Church,

complete with bishops and archbishops. In a sense, the Mongols initiated

the

taste

for

exploration,

exotic

goods,

and

missionary

opportunities that culminated in the European “discovery” of what they called the Americas.

African Connections As we saw in Chapter 6, the Mamluks, already masters of Egypt, halted the Mongols in their tracks as they attempted to capture the Syrian city of Ain Jalut in 1260. Mamluks were trained warriors, fully armed and expert horsemen, but of unfree origins. Under the Ayyubids, they had been employed to help govern and serve in the army. After they defeated the Mongols, they created a staunchly Sunni empire – the Mamluk Sultanate – that lasted until 1517. (See Map 7.2.) To the west of the Mamluks, rulers in the Maghreb and the last Umayyads in Spain profited from the newly interconnected global economy, fueled in part by gold from the sub-Saharan Empire of Mali.

Map 7.2 The Islamic West, c.1300

Description

EGYPT, THE MAGHREB, AND GRANADA The Mamluks presented themselves as the Middle East’s bulwark against the Mongols. Superficially, they were like many of the other rulers that the Islamic world had known since the time of the Seljuks: they were (for the most part) Turks, like the Seljuks and Ayyubids; they upheld Sunni Islam; and they protected the last (symbolically important

though

utterly

powerless)

Abbasid

caliphs,

who,

after

having been ousted by the Mongols, now lived at Cairo. Nevertheless, the Mamluks of the sultanate were also something new. They rarely formed a hereditary dynasty: rather, they created a military state ruled by army units fiercely loyal to their leaders. Since sons of Mamluks could not inherit their father’s property or titles (at least theoretically), the army had constantly to be replenished by new Mamluks from the steppes. Living in garrisons, they followed a military code, their lives dominated

by

constant

drilling

and

military

exercises.

Largely

isolated from the general population, they nevertheless fostered art,

architecture, and scholarship just as the caliphs and emirs of old had done,

and

they

tolerated

the

many

religions

practiced

in

their

sultanate. To the west of the Mamluks, all along the North African coast, tribal dynasties such as the Marinids and Hafsids reigned, serving as guarantors of a spider’s web of trade routes. Slightly to the north – in Europe, in fact – was the last remnant of Muslim Spain: Granada. It was dominated by the Nasrids. Undeterred – or perhaps prodded – by the infinitesimal size of their state, the Nasrids presided over an exceptionally rich cultural outpouring. Their viziers were poets, and they encouraged medical and theological studies. But above all, they invested in architecture. Even their defensive structures were majestic as well as strong. When they added to the Alhambra, initially a ninthcentury citadel, they turned it into a palace complex. It astonished – and was meant to astonish – with its splendor, size, bright colors, and extraordinary craftsmanship. The imposing Comares Palace – begun under Sultan Yusuf I (r.1333–1354) and completed by his successor Muhammad V (d.1391) to serve as the ruler’s reception hall – not only dazzled but also educated. Its inscriptions urged its distinguished visitors to pause and reflect on the nature of divine and worldly power. Its decorative elements – deliberately abstract and repetitive – alluded to infinity. (See Plate 7.2.) In effect, the Alhambra constituted an empire in miniature – an attempt to sum up and contain heaven and earth within one overwhelming architectural construction.

Plate 7.2 Hall of the Ambassadors, Comares Palace, Alhambra (mid-14th cent.). Once gleaming with color, this reception hall conveyed the splendor and refinement of the Nasrid sultans as well as their association with divinity. Start at the top, with the epigraphs around the ceiling. They quote Qur’an 57:3: “[He] who created the seven heavens one upon another.” The ceiling itself, composed of thousands of pieces of wood of different colors that form exploding star-burst patterns,

represents

the

heavens.

Daylight

arrives

through

the

windows,

originally made with stained glass. Their geometric designs are repeated as shadows on the once-tiled floor and mimicked in part by the brightly colored tiles at the bottom and sides of the heavy piers. Between the windows and the tiles are bands of stucco. Some offer inscriptions – poetic epigrams or Qur’anic quotations. Others depict abstract motifs based on stars, arches, and flowers, exemplifying the sinuous repeated designs known as “arabesque.” The sultans and their viziers were closely involved in determining every element of the building.

THE EMPIRE OF MALI South of the Nasrids of Granada and the Marinids of Morocco was the Empire of Mali, which lasted from the mid-thirteenth until the early fifteenth century. Its origins are recounted in the oral epic Sunjata, sung for centuries by Mande bards. Sunjata was first written down in the seventeenth century and is still recited today, taking its details from the particular traditions of each Mande poet who tells it. This is a very different sort of primary source from those – written or material – hitherto used in this book. Yet many historians rely on it to understand what Mali meant (and means) to the Mande people. From Sunjata emerges the story of two powerful antagonists, the tyrannical Sumaworo Kanté of Soso and, to his south, the hero Sunjata Keita of Konfara (near Buré and its alluvial gold – see Map 7.2). Written sources back up the core of its narrative, which tells how Mali emerged from the recentering of culture from the Sahel (Soso) to the Sudanese savanna (Buré). What the epic reveals beyond that includes the progressive gendering of political power as male; the creation of a complex society of clans, castes, and status groups; and the new prestige of hunters – men who knew how to use weapons, provided their communities with meat, and were in close touch with forest spirits. Spirits, magical powers, and other indigenous beliefs melded easily with West African forms of Islam.

Plate 7.3 Rao Pectoral (c.1300). This large and heavy gold pendant was found in the 1940s in Rao/Nguiguela, Senegal, in the tomb of a young man. It was just one of many other precious objects made of gold, silver, and copper in the tomb. Featuring concentric circles of finely worked filigree punctuated by dome cabochons, it was inspired by the same arabesque decoration that was employed at the Alhambra (above, Plate 7.2), at the Kutubiyya Mosque (see Plate 6.1 on p. 211), and elsewhere in the Islamic world. Nevertheless, it was most certainly made in West Africa. Carbon dating places it c.1300, when the young man, clearly of high status, would have been subject to Malian rule, possibly under Mansa Musa, whose control of the alluvial gold along the Senegal River contributed to his wealth, reputation, and power.

And Islamic it was. Many pilgrims from Mali passed through Cairo in order to perform the hajj to Mecca, paying their way with slaves, whom they sold, and with gold dust, with which they made

outright purchases. The most famous such pilgrim was Mansa (King) Musa, who arrived in 1324 with camels loaded with perhaps 15 tons of

gold.

(See

Plate

7.3.)

His

lavish

purchases,

gifts,

and

alms

depressed the price of gold in Egypt for years to come. But his diplomacy

was

oriented

towards

the

Maghreb

as

well,

to

which

Malians continued to ply the lucrative trans-Saharan trade routes that we have seen in earlier chapters, and where Malian scholars flocked in search of theological instruction. They returned afterward to centers in Mali such as Timbuktu, which also attracted scholars from the Maghreb and Egypt.

THE ELASTICITY AND RIGIDITY OF EUROPE Europeans rapidly took advantage of the new opportunities for trade and missionizing. Yet even as they adjusted to the new situation, tolerating and sometimes even admiring the Mongols next door, they turned against the strangers in their own backyard – persecuting Jews, lepers, heretics, and sexual non-conformists. The Church became more militant, yet the papacy became less powerful as it was forced to pull up stakes and move from Rome to Avignon. Scholastics created Summae (compendia), attempting to sum up all knowledge, human and divine. Theirs were “empires” of the mind, claiming to embrace everything on earth and in heaven. But, much as empires of land were vulnerable to attack, so each scholastic synthesis was soon challenged by another. Royal governments increased their power and prestige; yet they were elastic enough to allow for – and manipulate – newly minted representative institutions. Musicians and artists elaborated flexible new forms of expression. But ecological disaster in the form of famine threatened to disrupt these harmonies.

Expanding Horizons The

Mongol

exchange

opened

new

opportunities

for

trade,

and

Europeans took advantage of the possibilities. Meanwhile, Baltic Sea routes connected northern European cities through the Hanseatic League. Roads and bridges within Europe made land trade faster and

more

profitable.

This

burgeoning

economy

called

for

large-scale

payments, necessitating the introduction of gold coinage. Europeans now had access to material goods of every sort, but wealth also heightened social tensions, especially in the cities.

WINNERS AND LOSERS IN THE PROFIT ECONOMY Even after the Byzantines reconquered Constantinople in 1261, they benefited little from the new economic opportunities. Instead, Venice and Genoa retained their special privileges in Byzantine cities and monopolized most of the trade that passed through their ports. On

the

western

coast

of

Europe,

a

hemispheric

shift

was

beginning, as the waters of the Atlantic became familiar to navigators. The

first

ships

to

ply

the

ocean

were

the

galleys

of

Genoese

entrepreneurs, which left the Mediterranean via the Strait of Gibraltar, stopped to trade at various ports along the Spanish coast, and then made their way north to England and northern France. Majorca, recently conquered by the king of Aragon, sent its own ships to join the Atlantic trade at about the same time. Soon the Venetians began state-sponsored Atlantic expeditions using new-style “great galleys” that held more cargo yet required fewer oarsmen. Eventually, as sailing ships – far more efficient than any sort of galley – were developed by the Genoese and others, the Atlantic passage replaced older

overland

and

river

routes

between

the

Europe’s north. (See Map 7.3a on the next page.)

Mediterranean

and

Map 7.3a

Map 7.3b Trade Routes, c.1300

Description

Equally important to Europe was its commerce with the various states

of

North

Africa.

Genoa

had

outposts

in

all

the

major

Mediterranean ports of the Maghreb and established new ones down the Atlantic coast, as far south as Safi (today in Morocco). Pisa, Genoa’s traditional trade rival, was entrenched at Tunis. Catalonia and Majorca

found

their

commercial

stars

rising

fast

in

the

region.

Catalonia established its own settlements in the port cities of the Maghreb; Majorcans went off to the Canary Islands. Profits were enormous.

Besides

acting

as

middlemen

that

traded

goods

or

commodities from northern Europe, the Italian cities had their own products to sell (Venice had salt and glass, Pisa had iron) in exchange for African cotton, linen, spices, slaves, and, above all, gold. At the same time as Genoa, Pisa, Venice, Majorca, and Catalonia were plying trade networks in the south, some cities in the north of Europe were creating their own marketplace in the Baltic Sea region. Built on the back of the Northern Crusades, the Hanseatic League was formed by German merchants, who, following in the wake of Christian knights, hoped to prosper in cities such as Danzig (today Gdansk, in Poland), Riga, and Reval (today Tallinn, in Estonia). The city of Lübeck, founded by the duke of Saxony, formed the Hansa’s center. Formalized through legislation, the League agreed that Each city shall ... keep the sea clear of pirates.... Whoever is expelled from one city because of a crime shall not be received in another.... If a lord besieges a city, no one shall aid him in any way to the detriment of the 1

besieged city.

There were no mercantile rivalries here, unlike the competition between Genoa and Pisa in the south. But there was also little glamor. Pitch, tar, lumber, furs, herring: these were the stuff of northern commerce. The opening of the Atlantic and the commercial unification of the Baltic

were

dramatic

developments.

Elsewhere

the

pace

of

commercial life quickened more subtly. By 1200 almost all the cities

of

pre-industrial

Europe

were

in

existence.

By

1300

they

were

connected by a web of roads that brought even small towns of a few thousand inhabitants into wider networks of trade. To be sure, some old trading centers declined: the towns of Champagne, for example, had been centers of major fairs characterized by periodic but intense commercial activity. By the mid-thirteenth century the fairs’ chief functions were as financial markets and clearing houses. On the whole, however, urban centers grew and prospered. As the burgeoning population of the countryside fed the cities with immigrants, the populations of many cities reached their medieval maximum: in 1300, Venice and London each had perhaps 100,000 inhabitants, Paris an extraordinary 200,000. Many of these people became part of the urban labor force, working as apprentices or servants; but others could not find jobs or became disabled and could not keep them. The indigent and sick posed new challenges for urban communities. Rich townspeople

and

princes

alike

supported

the

building

of

new

charitable institutions: hospices for the poor, hospitals for the sick, orphanages, refuges for penitent prostitutes. But in big cities the numbers that these could serve were woefully inadequate. Beggars (there were perhaps 20,000 in Paris alone) became a familiar sight, and not all prostitutes could afford to be penitent.

NEW MONEY Workers were paid in silver pennies. There were silver mines to meet that need, and many new ones were discovered at this time. Mints proliferated. century,

Small

gave

workshop

way

to

mints,

mint

typical

factories

before

run

by

the

thirteenth

profit-minded

entrepreneurs. Rulers added to their power by making sure that the coins of the mints that they controlled prevailed throughout their dominions. Large-scale transactions required coins worth more than pennies. Between the early thirteenth and mid-fourteenth centuries, new, heavy silver coins were struck. Under Doge Enrico Dandolo (r.1192–1205), Venice began to mint great silver coins, grossi (“big ones” in Italian; sing. grosso), in order to make convenient payments for the Fourth Crusade, even as it continued to use its little silver coins, the piccoli. Soon Venice’s commercial rival, Genoa, produced similarly large coins, and the practice quickly spread to other cities in northern Italy,

Tuscany, and southern France. In 1253, Rome doubled the size of its grosso, a coinage model that was followed in Naples and Sicily. The practice of minting these heavy silver coins spread northward. Heavy silver was one way to pay for large transactions. Gold coins were another. They were already common in the Islamic world but in Europe had been limited to the regions that bordered on that world, such as Sicily and Spain. Now, in the mid-thirteenth century, Genoa and

Florence

minted

gold

coins

for

the

first

time.

Other

states

followed suit. Most of the gold came from West Africa; the rest came from new mines discovered in Hungary.

INTRA-CITY CONFLICTS The most commercialized regions tended to be the most restive. That certainly was true of Flanders, where the urban population had grown enormously since the twelfth century. Flemish cities depended on a large

working

class

to

manufacture

woolen

textiles.

But

their

governments were run by wealthy merchants, the “patricians,” whose families had held their positions for generations. When, in the early 1270s, England, the chief supplier of raw wool, slapped a trade embargo on Flanders, discontented laborers, now out of work, went on strike to demand a role in town government. While most of these rebellions resulted in few changes, workers had better luck early in the next century, when the king of France and the count of Flanders went to war. The workers (who supported the count) defeated the French forces at the battle of Courtrai in 1302. Thereafter the patricians, who had sided with France, were at least partly replaced by artisans. In the early fourteenth century, Flemish municipalities had perhaps the most inclusive governments of Europe. Similar population growth and urban rebellion beset the northern Italian cities, which were torn by factions that fought under the party banners of the Guelfs (papal supporters) or the Ghibellines (imperial supporters). This was the dolorous inheritance of the era of Frederick Barbarossa and his heirs, even though for the most part the high-sounding labels of the parties were cover for very local battles. As in the Flemish cities, the late thirteenth century saw a movement by the Italian urban lower classes to

participate

in

city

government.

The

popolo

(“people”)

who

demanded the changes were in fact made up of many different groups, including crafts and merchant guildsmen, fellow parishioners, and

even members of the elite. The popolo acted as a sort of alternative commune within the city, a sworn association dedicated to upholding the

interests

of

its

members.

Armed

and

militant,

the

popolo

demanded a say in government, particularly in matters of taxation. While no city is “typical,” the case of Piacenza may serve as an example. The commune there was originally dominated by nobles, but in 1222 it granted the popolo – led, in fact, by a charismatic nobleman from the Landi family – a measure of power, allowing the popolo to take over half the governmental offices. A year later the popolo and the nobles worked out a plan to share the election of their city’s

podestà,

or

short-term

governing

official,

an

office

that

remained even after Frederick Barbarossa’s retreat. Even so, conflict flared up periodically. In 1250, when a grain shortage provoked protest, the common people of Piacenza saw that they were being badly treated regarding foodstuffs: first, because all the corn [grain] that had been sent from Milan, as well as other corn in Piacenza, was being taken to Parma ... [and]

second

because

the

Parmesans

were

touring

Piacentine

territory

buying corn from the threshing floors and fields.... The Parmesans could do this in safety because Matteo da Correggio, a citizen of Parma, was podestà 2

of Piacenza.

This podestà evidently favored his home town at the expense of the city he was supposed to govern. As in 1222, some members of noble families took the lead in the 1250 uprising, but this time the popolo of Piacenza split into factions, each supporting a different competing leader. Eventually one came to the fore – Alberto Scotti, from a family deeply immersed in both commerce and landholding. In 1290, he took over the city, gaining the grand title of “defender and rector of the commune and the society of merchants and craft guilds and of all the popolo.” He was, in short, a lord, a signore (pl. signori). Map 7.4 shows some of the features of the Piacenza of his day. It boasted

various

neighborhoods

devoted

to

trades

and

crafts,

an

impressive number of churches and monasteries, and a generous sprinkling of private towers put up by proud and often warring members

of

the

nobility.

Its

swelling

population

had

to

be

accommodated by new walls: that of 872 was replaced in 1169 by another that embraced former suburbs. A century later, that one had to be torn down to build a wall enclosing a still larger area.

Map 7.4 Piacenza, Late 13th cent.

Description

A similar evolution – from commune to the rule of the popolo and then to the hegemony of a signore – took place in cities throughout northern Italy and in much of Tuscany as well. It was as if the end of imperial rule in Italy, marked by the fall of Frederick II, ironically brought in its train the creation of local monarchs – the signori – who maintained order at the price of repression. By 1300 the commune had almost everywhere given way to the signoria (a state ruled by a signore), with one family dominating the government.

Xenophobia Urban discord was defused in Flanders, silenced in Italy. In neither instance was pluralism valued. Europeans resisted hearing multiple voices; rather, they were eager to purge and purify themselves of the “pollutants” – among them Jews, lepers, heretics, and sexual nonconformists – in their midst. Refusing the subtle distinctions many historians try to make – such as between medieval anti-Judaism and modern antisemitism – Geraldine Heng (see Chapter 5) bluntly calls the persecutions of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries racist.

JEWS As we have seen (above, p. 227), Canon 68 of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) forbade sex between Jews and Christians and, to that end, demanded that all Jews wear visible markers of their identity. That provision was necessary because Jews and Christians lived in the same neighborhoods, dressed similarly, spoke the same vernacular languages, and often worked together cooperatively. Nevertheless, by 1215, many Christians, guided by literate elites, considered Jews to be threats to the very health and integrity of their community. Indeed, Jews came increasingly to be viewed as creatures of the devil. One of their most heinous practices, it was alleged, was the ritual crucifixion of Christian children. Most terrible of all was the myth (later termed the “blood libel”) that Jews used the blood of their victims in their Passover rites. As Magda Teter has shown, these charges became most virulent after the spread of printing. But they (and others like them) infected medieval populations as well, leading to the trials, executions, and massacres of Jews in various locales in England, France, Spain, and Germany. Given license by these pernicious ideas, English King Henry III (r.1216–1272; see Genealogy 7.2) imposed unusually harsh taxes on the Jews in the 1240s and 1250s. Around the same time, some local municipal

governments

in

England

expelled

the

Jews

from

their

cities. By the end of Henry’s reign, the Jews in his realm were impoverished and their numbers depleted. There were perhaps 3,000 of them left when King Edward I (r.1272–1307) drew up the Statute of the Jewry in 1275, stipulating that “from henceforth no Jew shall 3

lend anything at usury, either on land or rent, or anything else.”

The

Church considered usury (lending money at interest) to be a sin and prohibited Christians from engaging in it (although many Christians found savvy ways to practice it anyway.) In general, historians have accepted

the

idea

that

the

English

Jews

were

indeed

mainly

moneylenders, explaining that the profession was not due to any unusual venality but because usury was the only occupation left open to them. Recently, however, Julie L. Mell has argued that Jews were called usurers in order to vilify them, not to describe their economic role.

Her

study

documentation

is

suggests quite

that,

good,

at

very

least few

in

England,

Jews

were

where

ever

the

wealthy

enough to be professional moneylenders. Certainly by 1290, when Edward expelled the Jews from England, almost none had any money to speak of. (See Plate 7.4.)

Genealogy 7.2 Henry III and His Progeny

Description

Plate 7.4 Expelling the Jews (14th cent.). The expulsion of the Jews from England as well as from Aquitaine, England’s possession in southern France, is described on a page of a fourteenth-century manuscript known as the Rochester Chronicle. The detail here is on the bottom margin, where a man holding a club is beating three others with impunity. Two of the victims throw up their hands to defend themselves from the blows. They are Jews, an identity made clear by the white badge they wear; it is in the form of the tablets of the Law of Moses. The man who is hitting them wears no such marker: he must be Christian. The Chronicle was written by Edmund of Haddenham, a monk at Rochester, who based it on an earlier chronicle and who was perhaps also its scribe and illustrator.

The fate of the Jews in France was similar. (See Genealogy 7.3.) At Blois in 1171 they were accused of killing a young boy and, although no body was found, thirty-two of the forty adult Jews living in the city were executed. Blois was close to the royal domain, and in 1182 King Philip II Augustus took the next logical step. He expelled the Jews from the Ile-de-France. (They were allowed to return, minus their property, in 1198.) Philip’s grandson King Louis IX (r.1226– 1270) reportedly could not bear to look at Jews and worried that their “poison” might infect his kingdom. In 1242, he presided over the burning

of

two

commentaries

dozen

known

cartloads as

the

of

the

Talmud.

ancient Actively

rabbinic

Bible

promoting

the

conversion and baptism of Jews, Louis offered converts pensions, new names, and an end to special restrictions. He was later canonized as Saint Louis. His grandson, Philip IV the Fair (r.1285–1314), gave up on conversion and expelled the Jews from France (not just the Ile-deFrance) altogether in 1306. By contrast with England, the French Jewish population was large. As a result of the 1306 decree, perhaps 125,000 French Jews – men, women, and children – became refugees in the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, and Italy. Most of the few who were later allowed to return to France were wiped out in popular uprisings in the early 1320s.

Genealogy 7.3 Louis IX and His Progeny

Description

LEPERS AND BEGGARS One such massacre started in 1321 with an attack on lepers in the south

of

France.

They

were

said

to

be

plotting

to

poison

the

kingdom’s wells, fountains, and rivers. Seized by local vigilantes or hauled in by local officials, the lepers were tortured, made to confess, and burned. Soon Jews and Muslims were associated with their nefarious plans. Historians used to consider this incident typical, emphasizing the leper’s status as an outcast. They highlighted the medieval association of sin with leprosy – a skin disease caused by a bacterium and often leading to disfigurement. Other scholars spoke of the fear of contagion that lepers inspired. Thus, they explained, lepers carried clappers to warn others to flee, and leprosaries (hospitals for lepers) were located outside of town walls to quarantine their disease. But Elma Brenner and other historians have reconsidered the place of the leper in medieval society. While the persecution of 1321

was a fact, so was the reign of King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem (r.1174–1185), who developed leprosy as a child and yet remained on the

throne

until

his

death

at

the

age

of

twenty-three.

Fears

of

contagion grew in the early thirteenth century, but (these historians argue)

the

charitable

lepers’ donors

clapper, to

far

approach

from and

scaring offer

people

alms.

away,

Leprosaries

called were

located near town gates in order to attract the charity of pilgrims and other travelers. Saint Francis ministered to lepers and kissed them on their hands and mouths. Both reviled and beloved, lepers held a particularly ambivalent place in medieval society. On that point, they were similar to beggars. Certainly, the mendicants like the Franciscans and Dominicans, who went about begging, were understood to be exercising the highest vocation. And even involuntary beggars were thought (and expected) to pray for the souls of those who gave them alms. Nevertheless, the sheer and unprecedented number of idle beggars in the towns led to calls for their expulsion.

HERETICS No group suffered social purging more than heretics. Beginning in the thirteenth century, Church inquisitors, aided by secular authorities, were zealous in finding and eradicating heretics. The Inquisition was a continuation (and expansion) of the Albigensian Crusade by other means. Working in the south of France, the mid-Rhineland, and Italy, inquisitors began their scrutiny in each district by giving a sermon and calling upon heretics to confess. Then they granted a grace period for heretics to come forward. Finally, they called suspected heretics and witnesses to inquests, where they were interrogated: Asked if she had seen Guillaume [Austatz, accused of being a heretic] take communion [at Mass] or doing the other things which good and faithful Christians are accustomed to do, [one of Guillaume’s neighbors] responded that for the past twelve years she had lived in the village of Ornolac and she 4

had never seen Guillaume take communion.

This was pretty damning testimony, and others said worse. Guillaume was arrested, questioned, and confessed to his “crimes.” We do not know whether he was punished or allowed to return home.

As in the case of Guillaume, imprisonment, along with both physical and mental torture, was used to extract a confession. Then penalties were assigned. Bernard Gui, an inquisitor in Languedoc from 1308 to 1323, gave out 633 punishments. Nearly half involved further imprisonment, a few required penitential pilgrimages, and forty-one people (6.5 per cent of those punished by Bernard) were burned alive. Many former heretics were forced to wear crosses sewn to their clothing, rather like Jews, but shamed by a different marker.

SEXUALITIES Only

since

the

1970s

have

historians

begun

to

consider

variant

sexualities as a persecuted category in the Middle Ages. Sexual intercourse except that between a husband and wife was considered sinful,

and,

even

in

marriage,

it

was

hedged

about

with

many

prohibitions. Deviance was condemned already in the early Church and Roman imperial legislation. Various laws of Justinian railed against what he delicately called “the crime against nature,” warning that it stirred up God’s wrath not just against the perpetrators but also the community at large – in the form of floods, plagues, and famines. Churchmen such as Burchard of Worms (see Chapter 4) prescribed penances for “sexual sins.” He had in mind not only “fornication as sodomites do,” as might be expected, but also marital sex on a Sunday. During the Gregorian reform (see Chapter 5), priests were strictly barred from marrying, and their chastity was touted as the foundation of their power and virtue. Priestly “sexuality” was unthinkable; lay sexuality other than for the narrow purpose of procreation within the confines of marriage was condemned. That was the Church’s official view, and many municipal and royal governments parroted it. But it was not the only view. Plenty of medieval people celebrated and enjoyed a variety of sexual practices. Medieval troubadours sang of the kisses they stole from their ladies; Lancelot was frankly in love with the wife of King Arthur, and his and Guinevere’s joyful love-making was the delight of the courtly audiences that heard about it in oral performances or read about it in books. The troubadour Tribolet played with pronouns, making the “one

he

loves”

masculine

rather

than

feminine.

Saint

Marina

reportedly entered a monastery and lived his entire life as a monk.

Only when he died and was prepared for burial was he discovered to have the “body of a woman.” Working miracles from the grave, he was declared a saint – a female saint. There was no escaping one’s 5

birth sex.

Perhaps many people who crossed sexual boundaries escaped punishment.

Although

the

Church

solemnly

condemned

clerical

sexual activity of any sort, Dyan Elliott has recently called attention to

many

instances

when

priests,

bishops,

and

other

churchmen

sexually abused the boys in their care yet were protected by a clerical cloak of secrecy. But we glimpse mainly those who paid grievously for their acts. From the same inquisitorial proceedings at which Guillaume Austatz was accused of heresy comes the record of Arnaud of Verniolle, accused reported

of

both

their

heresy

sexual

and

sodomy.

encounters

with

Several him,

penitent

some

witnesses

forced,

others

apparently voluntary. Arnoud claimed (they reported) that he “could not stay with either a man or a woman without semen flowing out” and that he believed “it was less sinful to commit sodomy than to know a woman carnally.” The witnesses were young men, generally students. Their testimony suggests the existence of a gay university subculture in which Arnaud took part. The inquisitors’ punishment was fierce: before, during, and after the testimony against Arnoud he was tortured and held in a tower. Then, pronouncing his sentence, the inquisitors had him “placed in iron chains in the strictest prison, to be 6

fed a diet of bread and water for life.”

Still more painful was the punishment of Rolandina Roncaglia by the magistrates of Venice. Born with male genitals, she nevertheless passed for years as a woman and practiced prostitution with men. The judges refused to accept her gender change and sentenced her to be 7

burned to death as a man, Rolandino, for “sodomitic sin.”

Strengthened Monarchs and Their Adaptations To be sure, secular governments, whether at Venice or in England or France, worried about morals. But they were even more keen to tap wealth, control people, and exercise power. Expelling the Jews meant confiscating their property and calling in their loans while polishing an image of zealous religiosity. Burning lepers was one way to gain

access to the assets of leprosaria and claim new forms of hegemony. Imprisonment and burning heretics and sodomites put their property into the hands of secular authorities. But

even

as

kings

and

other

great

lords

manipulated

the

institutions and rhetoric of piety and purity for political ends, they also learned how to adapt to, mollify, and use – rather than stamp out – new and up-and-coming groups. As their power increased, they came

to

welcome

the

broad-based

support

that

representative

institutions afforded them. All

across

Europe,

from

Spain

to

Poland,

from

England

to

Hungary, rulers summoned parliaments. (See Map 7.5.) Growing out of ad hoc advisory sessions that kings and other rulers held with the most

powerful

institutionalized

people as

in

solemn

their formal

realms, assemblies

parliaments in

the

were

thirteenth

century. They afforded key moments in which rulers celebrated their power and the “orders” – clergy, nobles, and commons – exercised their right to assent (rarely to dissent). Eventually parliaments became organs through which groups not ordinarily at court could articulate their interests.

Map 7.5 Western Europe, c.1300

Description

The orders (or “estates”) were based on the traditional division of society into those who pray, those who fight, and those who work. Unlike modern classes, defined largely by social and economic status, medieval orders cut across such boundaries. The clerics, for example, included humble parish priests as well as archbishops; the commons included wealthy merchants as well as impoverished peasants. That, at least, was the theory. In practice, rulers did not so much command representatives of the orders to come to court as they summoned the

most powerful members of their realm, whether clerics, nobles, or important townsmen. Above all they wanted support for their policies and tax demands.

THE SPANISH CORTES The

cortes

of

representative

the

Spanish

assemblies.

kingdoms

As

the

were

among

reconquista

the

pushed

earliest

southward

across the Iberian Peninsula, victorious kings encouraged Christians from the north to settle in freshly conquered regions, and sometimes, when the opportunity was alluring (as it was in the case of conquered Córdoba), they happily flooded in. Fledgling villages soon burgeoned into major commercial centers. Like the cities of Italy, Spanish towns dominated the countryside. Their leaders – called caballeros villanos, or

“city

horsemen,”

because

they

were

rich

enough

to

fight

on

horseback – monopolized municipal offices. Thus in 1258, when Alfonso X (r.1252–1284), king of Castile and León, called for a meeting of the cortes at Valladolid, he convened the counsel with “the archbishops and with the bishops and the magnates of Castile and León

and

with

the

good

men

of

the

8

towns.”

In

fact,

the

representatives of the towns were in the majority. Alfonso found it useful to call meetings of the cortes regularly to consent to new laws and taxes.

LOCAL SOLUTIONS IN THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE In 1356 the so-called Golden Bull freed imperial rule from the papacy but at the same time made it dependent on the German princes. The princes had always participated in ratifying new kings and emperors; now seven of them were given the role and title of electors. When a new emperor was to be chosen, each prince knew in which order his vote would be called, and a majority of votes was needed for election. (See Plate 7.5.) After the promulgation of the Golden Bull, the royal and imperial level of administration of the Holy Roman Empire was less important than the local. Yet every local ruler had to deal with the same two classes on the rise: the townsmen (as in Castile and elsewhere) and a group

particularly

important

in

Germany,

the

ministerials.

The

ministerials were legally serfs whose services – collecting taxes,

administering justice, and fighting wars – were so honorable as to accord them both high status and wealth. By 1300 they had become “nobles” in every way but one: they needed their lord’s permission to marry.

Apart

from

this

indignity

(which

itself

was

not

always

imposed), the ministerials, like other nobles, profited from German colonization in the Baltic region to become enormously wealthy landowners. Some held castles, and many controlled towns. They became counterweights to the territorial princes who, in the wake of the downfall of the Staufen, had expected to rule unopposed. In Lower Bavaria in 1311, for example, when the local duke was strapped for money, the nobles (by now merged with the ministerials), in tandem with the clergy and the townsmen, granted him his tax but demanded in return recognition of their collective rights. The privilege granted by the duke was a sort of Bavarian Magna Carta. By the middle of the fourteenth century, princes throughout the Holy Roman Empire found themselves negotiating periodically with various noble and urban leagues.

Plate 7.5 The Golden Bull (1356). Called a “bull” because of its golden seal (bulla), this document was in effect the eighty-six-page constitution of the Holy Roman

Empire.

The

product

of

exhaustive

negotiations

between

Emperor

Charles IV and the Empire’s small but powerful elites, it established elaborate rules – including the schedule, ceremonies, and officers – for the elections of the emperor. This plate shows the last page of the bull’s first chapter and (on your right) the beginning of chapter two (“Concerning the election of a king of the Romans”).

THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT In England, the consultative role of the barons at court had been formalized

by

the

guarantees

of

Magna

Carta.

When

Henry

III

(r.1216–1272) was crowned at the age of nine, a council consisting of a few barons, professional administrators, and a papal legate governed in his name. Although not quite “rule by Parliament,” this council set a precedent for baronial participation in government. Once grown up and firmly in the royal saddle, Henry not only burdened the Jews with exceptionally heavy taxes (see above) but also so alienated barons and

commoners alike by his wars, debts, favoritism, and lax attitude toward reform that the barons threatened rebellion. At Oxford in 1258, they forced Henry to dismiss his foreign advisors (he had favored Frenchmen, the Lusignans). Henceforth, he was to rule with the advice of a Council of Fifteen, chosen jointly by the barons and the king, and to limit the terms of his chief officers. Yet even this government was riven by strife, and civil war erupted in 1264. At the battle of Lewes in the same year, the leader of the baronial opposition, Simon de Montfort (c.1208–1265), routed the king’s forces, captured the king, and became England’s de facto ruler. By Simon’s time the distribution of wealth and power in England had changed from the days of Magna Carta. Well-to-do merchants in the cities could potentially buy out most knights and even some barons many times over. Meanwhile, in the rural areas, the “knights of the shire,” as well as some landholders below them, were rising in wealth and standing. These ancestors of the English gentry were politically active: the knights of the shire attended local courts and served as coroners, sheriffs, and “justices of the peace,” a new office that gradually replaced the sheriff. The importance of the knights of the shire was clear to Simon de Montfort, who called a parliament in 1264 that included them; when he summoned another parliament in 1265, he added, for the first time ever, representatives of the towns – the “commons.” Even though Simon’s brief rule ended that very year and Henry’s son Edward I (r.1272–1307) became a rallying point for royalists,

the

idea

of

representative

government

in

England

had

emerged, born of the interplay between royal initiatives and baronial revolts. Under Edward, parliaments met fairly regularly, a by-product of the king’s urgent need to finance his wars against France, Wales, and Scotland.

FRENCH MONARCHS AND THE “ESTATES” French King Louis IX was a born reformer. He approached his kingdom as he did himself: with zealous discipline. As an individual, he

was

(by

all

accounts)

pious,

dignified,

and

courageous.

He

attended church each day, diluted his wine with water, and cared for the poor and sick. Twice Louis went on crusade, dying on the second expedition.

Generalized and applied to the kingdom as a whole, Louis’s discipline meant offering due justice to all, and – given the notions of justice at the time – that included persecuting Jews and heretics. As the upholder of right in his realm, Louis pronounced judgment on some disputes himself, most famously under an Vincennes Louis’s

Forest,

image,

near

but

his

his

palace.

This

wide-ranging

oak

personal

tree

touch

administrative

in

the

polished

reforms

were

more important for his rule. Most cases that came before the king were not, in fact, heard by him personally but rather by professional judges in the Parlement, a newly specialized branch of the royal court (and therefore nothing like the English “Parliament,” which was a representative institution). There were discordant political voices in France, but they were largely

muted

and

unrecognized.

At

the

royal

court,

no

regular

institution spoke for the different orders. This began to change only under Louis’s grandson, Philip IV the Fair (r.1285–1314). When Philip challenged the reigning pope, Boniface VIII (1294–1303), over rights and jurisdictions (see below for the issues), he felt the need to explain,

justify,

representatives townspeople

–

of to

and the Paris

propagandize French in

his

estates

1302,

Philip

position. –

clergy,

presented

Summoning nobles,

his

case

and in

a

successful bid for support. In 1308 he called another representative assembly, this time at Tours, to ratify his actions against the Knights Templar, who had become very wealthy. He had accused the Templars of heresy, arrested their members, and confiscated their wealth. Now he wanted the estates to applaud him, and he was not disappointed. Such assemblies, ancestors of the French Estates General, were convened sporadically until the Revolution of 1789 overturned the monarchy. Yet representative institutions were never fully or regularly integrated into the pre-revolutionary French body politic.

NEW FORMATIONS IN EAST CENTRAL EUROPE Like a kaleidoscope – the shards shuffling before falling into place – East Central Europe was shaken by the Mongol invasions and then stabilized in a new pattern. (See Map 7.6.) In Hungary, King Béla IV (r.1235–1270)

complained

that

the

invaders

had

destroyed

his

kingdom: “most of the kingdom of Hungary has been reduced to a desert by the scourge of the Tatars [i.e. the Mongols],” he wrote,

9

begging the pope for help.

But the greatest danger to his power came

not from the outside but rather from the Hungarian nobles, who began to build castles for themselves – in a move reminiscent of tenthcentury

French

castellans.

Eventually

they

elected

an

Angevin

–

Charles Robert, better known as Carobert (r.1308–1342) – to be their king.

Under

Carobert,

Hungary

was

controlled by the king was quite small.

Map 7.6 East Central Europe, c.1300

Description

very

large,

but

the

region

Bulgaria and Poland experienced similar fragmentation in the wake of the Mongols. At the end of the twelfth century, Bulgaria had revolted against Byzantine rule and established the Second Bulgarian Empire. Its ruler, no longer looking back to the khans, took the title tsar, Slavic for “emperor.” He wanted his state to rival the Byzantines. But the Mongol invasions hit Bulgaria hard, and soon its neighbors (Byzantium included) were gnawing away at its borders. Meanwhile, its nobles – the boyars – began to carve out independent regional enclaves for themselves. While the tsar took back much territory in the course of the early fourteenth century, feuding within the ruling family made a unified state impossible. Bulgaria was ripe for Ottoman conquest in the second half of the fourteenth century. (See Map 8.2 on p. 301.) In Poland, as one commentator put it, “as soon as the pagans [the Mongols] entered, ... this land was dominated by knights, each of 10

whom seized whatever pleased him from the duke’s inheritances.”

The author was abbot of a monastery in Silesia, which in his day – the mid-thirteenth century – was ruled by one branch of the Piast ducal dynasty,

while

different

Piast

heirs

held

sway

in

other

Polish

territories. The abbot looked back with nostalgia to the days of Duke Henry II, when one man ruled over all. In fact, a centralized Poland was gradually reconstructed. The Church favored kingship, and at the end of the thirteenth century an archbishop crowned Duke Przemysł II king. The title stuck, and Casimir III the Great (r.1333–1370) was able to declare his program to be “one prince, one law, one coinage.” He worked tirelessly to turn the ideal into reality and succeeded fairly well except on the last point, for Poland’s coinage continued to depend on the gold and silver powerhouse of well-endowed Hungary. But Hungary, in turn, came to depend on Polish salt. Avoiding the threats

on

his

western

flank

from

Bohemia,

Casimir

joined

expeditions to conquer and convert the Lithuanians. Lithuania was by now nearly alone in resisting the pressure of Christian

missionaries

(r.c.1315/1316–1341) churches

representing

and

flirted both

with the

warriors. Christian Roman

Duke

Gediminas

missionaries

Catholic

and

to

build

Orthodox

Christian forms of worship, and he encouraged merchants from both regions to trade in his duchy. Declaring war against the Teutonic Knights,

he

took

Riga

and

pressed

yet

farther

eastward

and

southward. By the time of his death, Lithuania was the major player in Eastern Europe. Under the heirs of Gediminas (known as the Jagiellon dynasty), Lithuania continued its relentless expansion into Russia. After Jogaila (r.1377–1434) married the heiress of Poland, he converted to the Roman Catholic form of Christianity. Taking the Polish regal name Władysław II, he united Poland and Lithuania under one ruler, creating a large and long-lasting state in East Central Europe. On the other, western edge of East Central Europe, Bohemia, too, became a powerhouse. Taking advantage of the weak position of the German emperors, Bohemia’s rulers now styled themselves “king.” Ottokar

II

(r.1253–1278)

and

his

son

Vaclav

II

(r.1283–1305)

welcomed settlers from Germany and Flanders and took advantage of newly discovered silver mines to consolidate their rule. Bohemia’s Charles IV (r.1347–1378) even became Holy Roman Emperor. At the same

time,

however,

Czech

nobles,

who

had

initially

worked

as

retainers for the dukes and depended on their largesse, now became independent lords who could bequeath both castles and estates to their children. Despite their many differences, the polities of East Central Europe c.1300 were all starting to resemble Western European states in a variety of ways. They were beginning to rely on written laws and administrative documents, and their nobles were becoming landlords and castellans. Their economies were increasingly urban and marketoriented, their constitutions were defined by charters reminiscent of Magna

Carta,

and

their

kings

generally

ruled

with

the

help

of

representative institutions of one sort or another. All – except for Lithuania until after Gediminas’s death – were officially Christian, and even Lithuania under Gediminas supported Christian institutions such as monasteries, churches, and friaries. Universities, the symbolic centers of Western European culture, were transplanted eastward in quick succession: one was founded at Prague in 1348, another at Krakow in 1364, and a third at Vienna in 1365.

The Western Church: Militant, Humiliated, and Revamped

During the years around 1300, French King Philip the Fair and Pope Boniface VIII clashed. On the surface, their dispute seemed yet one more episode in the ongoing struggle between medieval popes and rulers for power and authority. But by 1300, the tables had turned: the kings had more power than the popes, and the confrontation between Boniface and Philip was one sign of the dawning new principle of national sovereignty.

THE ROAD TO AVIGNON The issue that first set Philip and Boniface at loggerheads involved the English king Edward I as well: taxation of the clergy. Eager to finance new wars, chiefly against each other, both monarchs needed money. When the kings paid for their wars by taxing the clergy as if they were going on crusade, Boniface reacted, threatening to excommunicate both clergymen who paid taxes to the king and kings who demanded such taxes. Reacting swiftly, the kings soon forced Boniface to back down. But in 1301, Philip precipitated another crisis when he tested his jurisdiction in southern France by arresting a bishop there on a charge of treason. Boniface responded to the arrest by issuing the bull Unam sanctam (1302), which declared that “it is altogether necessary to 11

salvation for every human being to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”

As we have seen, Philip adroitly rallied public opinion in his favor by calling the estates of his kingdom together. He also sent his agents to invade Boniface’s palace at Anagni (southeast of Rome). He meant for them to capture the pope and bring him to France so that he could try

him

for

heresy

and

other

trumped-up

charges.

Although

the

citizens of Anagni drove the agents out of town, Philip’s power could not be denied. A month later, Boniface died, and the next two popes quickly pardoned Philip and his men. The papacy was never quite the same thereafter. In 1309, forced from Rome by civil strife, the popes settled at Avignon, a Provençal city administered by the Angevins of Naples but very much under the influence of the French crown. They remained there until 1377. In some

ways,

papal

authority

grew

during

this

time:

the

Avignon

papacy established a sober and efficient organization that took in regular revenues and gave the papacy more say than ever before in the appointment of churchmen and the distribution of Church benefices

and revenues. It became the unchallenged judge of sainthood, and the Dominicans

and

Franciscans

became

its

foot

soldiers

in

the

evangelization of the world and the purification of Christendom. At the same time, however, the Avignon papacy was mocked and vilified

by

contemporaries.

Francis

Petrarch

(Francesco

Petrarca,

1304–1374), one of the great literary figures of the day, called the Avignon papacy the “Babylonian Captivity,” referring to 2 Kings 25:11, when the ancient Hebrews were exiled and held captive in Babylonia.

Pliant

and

accommodating

to

the

rulers

of

Europe,

especially the kings of France, the popes were slowly abandoning the idea of leading all of Christendom and were coming to recognize the right of secular states to regulate their internal affairs.

LAY RELIGIOSITY Secular states, yes; but their populations took religion very seriously. With the doctrine of transubstantiation (see p. 318), Christianity became more securely than ever a religion of the body: the body of the wafer of the Mass, the body of the communicant who ate it, and equally the body of the believers who celebrated together in the feast of Corpus Christi (the Body of Christ). Eucharistic piety was already widespread in the most urbanized regions of Europe when Juliana of Mont

Cornillon

(1193–1258),

prioress

of

a

convent

in

the

Low

Countries, announced that Christ himself wanted a special day set aside to celebrate his Body and Blood. Taken up by the papacy and promulgated as a universal feast, the feast of Corpus Christi was adopted throughout Western Europe. Cities created new processions for the day. Fraternities dedicated themselves to the Body of Christ, holding their meetings on the feast day and focusing their regular charity on bringing the viaticum (or final Eucharist) to the dying. Dramas were elaborated on the theme. Artists decorated the chalices used in the Mass with symbols that made the connection between the wine and the very blood that Christ had shed on the cross. (See Plate 7.6 on p. 281.)

Plate 7.6 Chalice (c.1300). This gilded silver chalice, one of a pair made in the Rhineland, graphically shows the connection between the wine of the Eucharist and Christ’s blood. On a large knob just below the cup, the goldsmith has placed medallions stamped with Christ’s head alternating with rosettes that represent the five wounds of Christ. Each rosette sprouts a vine tendril that spreads its leaves on the base of the chalice, reminding communicants of the grapes that were pressed into the wine.

Along with new devotion to the flesh of Christ came more fervent devotion to his mother. Books of Hours – small prayer books aimed especially at laywomen – almost always included all the prayers for the Hours of the Virgin. These were eight short devotional texts to be

repeated by laymen and -women in their own homes at the eight canonical times of the day. Often illustrated, as the one in Plate 7.7, they attest to the important place of Mary in the lives of the devout.

Plate 7.7 Book of Hours (c.1260–1270). The opening page of this Book of Hours, made for a laywoman by an English workshop, features an illuminated initial D (the first letter of the word Domine, Lord). Within the letter, the Virgin sits on a throne flanked by two angels who wave smoking censers. The Child on her lap gestures his blessing. Beneath, in a space barely penetrated by Mary’s shoe, is the image of a kneeling woman, the Book of Hours in her hands. She serves as a kind of mirror for the devout user of the book, who – as evidenced by the well-thumbed decoration at the bottom of the page – contemplated the image often. Although the overall theme is humble piety before the divine majesty, diverting creatures disport across the top of the frame, offering comic relief.

The fact that worship could be a private matter, practiced at home as well as in a church, signaled wider changes in pious beliefs and practices. The doctrine of Purgatory, declared dogma in 1274, held that Masses and prayers said by the living could shorten the purgative torments that had to be suffered by the souls of the dead. Soon families were endowing special chapels for themselves, hallowed spaces for offering private Masses on behalf of their own members. High churchmen and wealthy laymen and -women insisted that they and members of their family be buried within the walls of the church rather than outside of it, reminding the living – via their effigies – to pray for them.

SCHOLASTICISM Widespread lay religiosity went hand in hand with increasing literacy. In some rural areas, schools for children were attached to monasteries or established in villages. In the south of France, where the Church still feared heresy, children were taught to read in order to inculcate the tenets of the faith. In the cities, most merchants and artisans had some functional literacy: they had to read and write to keep accounts, and,

increasingly,

they

owned

religious

books

for

their

private

devotions. For that, Books of Hours were most fashionable in France, while Psalters were favored in England. Friars populated the institutions of higher learning. Franciscans and Dominicans now established convents and churches within cities; their members attended the universities as students, and many went on to become masters. Friars like the Dominican Thomas Aquinas (c.1225–1274) and the Franciscan Bonaventure (c.1217–1274) were among the most outstanding of the scholastics, mastering the use of logic to summarize and reconcile all knowledge, both divine and human. Thomas Aquinas’s summae (sing. summa) were empires of the mind, written to harmonize all that was known through faith and reason. Using the technique of juxtaposing contrary positions, as Abelard

had

Sentences

done

(see

in

his

Chapter

Sic et Non

5),

Thomas

and

Peter

carefully

Lombard

explained

in

away

his or

reconciled contradictions, using Aristotelian logic as his tool for analysis

and

exposition.

Thomas

intended

to

demonstrate

the

harmony of religious belief and human understanding even though (in

his view) faith ultimately surpassed reason in knowing higher truths. In his massive Summa Theologiae, written as a sort of textbook for budding theologians, he summed up the natures of man and God and the relations between them. His theme was salvation: how human beings had been offered a way back to God even though they were sinful heirs of Adam and Eve. The way entailed belief, virtue, and – crucially – the human capacity to love. People loved many things, all of which they considered good. That was right, according to Thomas, 12

because “the proper object of love is the good.”

But often people

chose as the good the wrong things – impermanent things or even bad things. Nevertheless, they could also learn to love the right good, the highest good, God. And as they did so, they returned to God. In the summae of Saint Bonaventure, for whom Augustine was more important than Aristotle, the human mind became the recipient of God’s beneficent illumination. For Bonaventure, minister general of the Franciscan order, spirituality was the font of theology. Yet it was

the

spiritual

Franciscan

Peter

Olivi

(1248–1298)

who

first

defined the very practical word “capital”: wealth with the potential to generate

more

wealth.

With

this

concept,

he

hoped

to

reassure

merchants when they consulted churchmen in the confessional. Olivi’s desire to have an impact on laypeople was shared by all the scholastics, whose teachings were not just for other scholars. They were meant to be used by parish priests in their sermons and by friars as they preached to townspeople. These popularizers turned the Latin of the universities into the vernacular of the streets. The Dominican Meister Eckhart (d.1327/1328) is one example. A mystic who saw union with God as the goal of human life, he enriched the German language with new words for the abstract ideas of the schools. But the mental empires created by the scholastics were fragile, and soon their weaknesses became clear. The Franciscan John Duns Scotus (1265/1266–1308) cast doubt on the possibilities of human reason. Like Bonaventure, he argued that even the most erudite could know truth only by divine illumination. But unlike Bonaventure, he argued that this illumination came not as a matter of course but only when God chose to intervene. Duns Scotus’s God was willful, not reasonable, and He alone determined whether human reason could soar to divine knowledge.

Further unraveling the knot tying reason and faith together was William of Ockham (d.1347/1350), another Franciscan who played down the reach of reason altogether. It was apt only for things human and worldly. His theories were of a piece with a new movement among fourteenth-century scholars to direct their attention to human institutions such as coinage and government and to abstractions such as space, time, and motion.

Harmony and Dissonance in Writing, Music, and Art On

the

whole,

writers,

musicians,

architects,

and

artists,

like

scholastics, presented complicated ideas and feelings in harmony. Writers

explored

the

relations

between

this

world

and

the

next;

musicians found ways to bridge sacred and secular genres of music; artists used fleshy, natural forms to evoke the divine.

VERNACULAR LITERATURE In

the

hands

of

Dante

Alighieri

(1265–1321),

vernacular

poetry

expressed the order of the scholastic universe, the ecstatic union of the mystical quest, and the erotic and emotional life of the troubadour. His Commedia – later known as the Divine Comedy – presents Dante (writing in the first person) as a traveler who passes through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Even so, the poem is anchored in the world: when Dante sees souls in Hell, they are identifiable people with their own personal stories of woe. Thus, poor Francesca da Rimini explains why she must suffer eternal torment: she and Paolo (her husband’s brother) fell in love while reading the story of Lancelot:

When we read how the desired smile was kissed by such a lover, this one, who never shall be parted from me, 13

kissed my mouth all trembling.

It was not love but illicit love that put the two lovers in Hell. The right sort of love would have put them in Heaven. Indeed, Dante’s poem

was a parable about the soul seeking and finding God in love’s blinding light. The

harmony

differently

of

expressed,

heaven in

and

other

earth

was

writings

of

equally the

sought,

period.

In

if the

anonymous prose Quest of the Holy Grail (c.1225), the adventures of the knights of King Arthur’s Round Table were turned into a fable to teach the doctrine of transubstantiation and the wonder of the vision of God. In The Romance of the Rose, begun by one author (Guillaume de Lorris, a poet in the romantic tradition) and finished by another (Jean de Meun, a poet in the scholastic tradition), a lover seeks the rose, his true love, but is continually thwarted by personifications of shame,

reason,

abstinence,

and

so

on.

They

present

him

with

arguments for and against love. In the end, erotic love is embraced in the divine scheme – and the lover plucks the rose.

THE MOTET Already

by

the

tenth

century,

the

traditional

plain

chant

of

the

monasteries had been joined by a chant of many voices: polyphony. Initially voice met voice in improvised harmony, but in the twelfth century

polyphony

thirteenth

century,

was

increasingly

polyphony’s

most

composed

as

characteristic

well. form

In

the

was

the

motet. Created at Paris, probably in the milieus of the university and the royal court, the motet harmonized the sacred with the worldly, the Latin language with the vernacular. Two to four voices joined together in a motet. The lowest voice, singing a chant taken from church liturgy, generally consisted of one or two words. Sometimes it was played on an instrument (such as a vielle or lute) rather than sung. The other voices had different texts and

melodies,

sung

simultaneously.

The

form

allowed

for

the

mingling of religious and secular motives. Very likely motets were performed by the clerics who formed the entourages of bishops or abbots – or by university students – for their entertainment and pleasure. In the motet Le premier jor de mai, whose opening music is pictured in Plate 7.8, the top voice begins (in French): “On the first day of May I composed this cheerful quadruplum [a four-part song].” But it goes on to lament, “But I find myself disconsolate on account of love.”

Plate 7.8 The Motet Le premier jor de mai (c.1280). The motet begins in the middle of the page (the decorated initial is the L of Le), and two voices are shown here. While the voice on the left sings “On the first day of May...” the one on the right, which begins on exactly the same note, sings something quite different: “One morning I got up ... I found a girl sitting in an orchard.” As it turns out, the girl rejects her would-be lover. The third voice (whose music and words begin on the next page), also sings at the same time as the other two. That voice starts on a lower note with the words, “I can no longer endure without you ...” Accompanying all three voices is the lowest one, which intones simply the word Justus (meaning “the just man”), the first word of an antiphon from Church liturgy that continues “the just man will sprout like the lily and flower in eternity.”

Complementing the motet’s complexity was the development of new schemes to indicate rhythm. The most important was created by Franco of Cologne in his Art of Measurable Song (c.1260). It used different shapes to mark the number of beats for which each note should be held. (See Figure 7.1; the music in Plate 7.8 uses a similar rhythmic system.) Allowing for great flexibility and inventiveness in composition, Franco’s invention became the basis of modern musical notation.

Figure 7.1 Single Notes and Values of Franconian Notation

NEW CURRENTS IN ART Flexibility and inventiveness describe the art of Franco’s time as well. Artists had new patrons to serve: the urban elite. In the Paris of Saint Louis’s day, for example, wealthy merchants coveted illuminated law books

and

romances;

rich

students

prized

illustrated

Bibles

as

essential fashion accessories; churchmen wanted beautiful service books; the royal family craved lavishly illustrated Bibles, Psalters, and Books of Hours; and the nobility aspired to owning the same books as their

sovereigns.

The

old-fashioned

monastic

scriptoria

that

had

previously produced books, with scribes and artists working in the same place, gave way to specialized workshops, often staffed by laypeople. Some workshops produced the raw materials: the ink, gold leaf, or parchment; others employed scribes to copy the texts; a third kind was set up for the illuminators; and a fourth did nothing but bind the

finished

books.

(See

Material

Culture:

The

Making

of

an

Illuminated Manuscript on pp. 249–51.) At the same time, painters began to adopt – even on flat surfaces – the

weighty,

natural

forms

already

evident

in

the

Romanesque

sculpture on Modena’s Cathedral (Plate 5.12 on p. 204). This was especially true of Italian painters, who lived in a world still permeated by ancient Roman art and models from Byzantium. When Giotto (1266/1267–1337) decorated the private chapel of the richest man in Padua,

he

filled

the

walls

with

frescoes

narrating

humanity’s

redemption through Christ, culminating in the Final Judgment. (See Plate 7.9 on p. 287.) Throughout, Giotto experimented with the illusion

of

depth,

weight,

and

volume,

his

figures

expressing

unparalleled emotional intensity as they reacted to events in the world-space created by painted frames. In the Lamentation of Christ (see Plate 7.10 on pp. 288–89), Mary cradles her son’s head, while Mary Magdalene holds his feet. Others stand or kneel with gestures of grief, while the angels above mirror their anguish.

Plate 7.9 Giotto, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua (1304–1306). Giotto organized the Scrovegni Chapel paintings like scenes in a modern comic book, to be read from left to right, with the Last Judgment over the entryway. Like the summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas, but in visual form, the Scrovegni Chapel joins the faith necessary for salvation with the work of human reason and emotion.

Description

Plate 7.10 Giotto, Lamentation of Christ,

Scrovegni

Chapel

(1304–1306).

Compare this depiction of collective weeping over the body of Christ with the delicate depiction of grief over the death of the Virgin in Plate 6.6 on p. 244. In Giotto’s telling, even the angels in heaven bewail the event.

Description

An Age of Scarcity? Giotto’s Lamentation was created not long before the horrific event that historians call the Great Famine (1315–1322), one of many waves of food shortages that shook the medieval world on either side of the year 1300. The chief causes of this calamity have traditionally been sought in demographics and declining food production. But newer research, summed up in a book edited by John Drendel, points out that the Mediterranean region did not suffer the Great Famine and that everywhere human action and inaction were as much to blame for food scarcity as natural factors.

OVERPOPULATION, UNDERSUPPLY There is certainly much to be said for the demographic argument, particularly for the north of Europe. While around the year 1300 farms were producing more food than ever before, population growth meant that families had more hungry mouths to feed. In general, such growth seems to have leveled off by the mid-thirteenth century, but climate change wrought its own havoc. A mini ice age took hold in the north of Europe (though not in the south), leading to wheat

shortages. In 1309, the cold weather was joined by an extremely wet growing season that ruined the harvests in southern and western Germany; the towns, into which food had to be imported, were hit especially

hard,

overpopulated,

not

swollen

least by

because immigrants

they

were

from

the

themselves overcrowded

countryside.

HUMAN MANIPULATION OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND Yet nature and demography were not the only causes of the Great Famine. Human actions, too, were responsible for aggravating food shortages across Europe. Warfare, for example, took a major toll on economic

life.

As

states

grew

in

power,

rulers

hired

soldiers

–

mercenaries – and depended less on knights. But these troops were paid such poor wages that they plundered the countryside even when they were not fighting. Warring armies had always disrupted farms, ruining fields as they trampled over them, but in the thirteenth century burning crops became a battle tactic, used both to devastate enemy territory and to teach the inhabitants a lesson. Towns were vulnerable in a different way. They could defend their walls against roving troops, but they could not easily stop the flow of refugees who sought safety inside. Lille’s population, for example, nearly doubled as a result of the wars between Flanders and France during the first two decades of the thirteenth century, and yet, as elsewhere, the city was obliged to impose new taxes on everyone to pay for its huge war debts. Reacting to the depredation of their lands and motivated as well by the desire for gain, landlords (like municipal officials) strove to collect more money. Everywhere, customary and other dues were deemed inadequate. In 1315 the king of France offered liberty to all his serfs, mainly to assess a new war tax on all free men. In other parts of France, lords imposed an annual money payment, and many peasants had to go into debt to pay it. Some lost their land entirely. To enforce

their

new

taxes,

great

lords,

both

lay

and

ecclesiastical,

installed local agents. Living near villages in fortified houses, these officials kept account books and carefully computed their profits and their costs. But great lords, rulers, and merchants did not simply keep records of agricultural production; they planned ahead and manipulated the

markets. The global economy meant that Italian cities no longer fed themselves from nearby farms: they relied on imports. Florentines got their grain from Sicily, the Genoese from as far away as the Black Sea. Controlling these imports were the cities themselves, which functioned like mini-states. Great merchants worked in collusion with the political powers in place. In England, major landowners were now as much agro-businessmen as they were feudal lords. Anticipating food shortages, middlemen hoarded food stocks until prices rose steeply. Rulers were torn by their desire to make money and their duty to the common good. The kings of Aragon (in Spain) prohibited the export of wheat in times of scarcity, but they also sold special licenses to individuals, allowing them to ignore the law. City governments found themselves in a balancing act: they could sell their food reserves at below-market cost to the needy, but they could also please their merchants by doing nothing to help the poor. Peasants were not passive in the face of the new conditions. They too were involved in markets – not, of course, in the grand “Mongol exchange,” but in small-scale exchanges among local hamlets and villages. The countryside had its own sort of commerce, petty but active. The little Provençal village of Reillane, for example, with a population

of

2,400,

supported

thirteen

cloth

makers.

Such

shopkeepers might also extend credit, on the side, to local peasants. The

Mediterranean

region

–

Italy,

Spain,

southern

France,

and

Provence – boasted more diversified crops than the north: this meant that, when wheat harvests were poor, peasants could survive on chestnuts and millet. Or they could relocate to regions better suited to their needs. When peasants in Navarre found that they could not afford to pay their lord his dues, they moved to the Ebro valley, where they found a place in the flourishing commercial economy there. All was not bleak in the age of the Great Famine; much depended on who and where you were – and the fairness of the markets.

*

*

*

*

*

The Mongol invasions brought fear, war, and dislocation to both the Christian and Islamic worlds. Eventually, however, a new global order emerged. The Ilkhanids and Khans of the Golden Horde converted to Islam;

the

Buddhist

Mongols

of

China

welcomed

traders

and

European missionaries. In many ways, this was a prosperous era across all of Europe, Eurasia, and North and West Africa. In the thirteenth century, medieval Europe reached the zenith of its prosperity. Its population grew and its cities became centers of culture and wealth. Universities took wing, fostering “scholasticism,” a breakthrough in logic and systematic thought. The friars, among the most

prominent

of

the

scholastics,

ministered

to

an

attentive,

prosperous, and increasingly literate laity. Empires boasted

of

open

land

trade

could routes

be

welcoming:

and

embraced

the

Mongol

various

khanates

religions.

The

Mamluk empire did so as well. The pagan ruler Gedimas of Lithuania was glad to have both Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches and churchmen. European kings gave new, representative roles to all the orders – clergy, nobility, commons – in their lands. Empires of the mind could be welcoming as well. European scholastic summae brought together vast bodies of knowledge never before

reconciled.

The

great

artistic

innovations

of

the

day

demonstrated the harmonies of heaven and earth – think of the Alhambra’s

mingling

of

Qur’anic

inscriptions

with

the

worldly

purposes of a caliphal receiving hall; or of Giotto’s angelic and human mourners. Motets combined liturgical chants with songs of disappointed love. Yet empires often paper over cracks, weaknesses, and sources of internal discord. European states that were willing to deal with their many orders and estates were equally eager to suppress the voices of Jews, heretics, and many others who deviated from ever-narrowing definitions of normalcy and acceptability. Scholars soon doubted the harmony of earthly and heavenly knowledge. In the next century wars and plague would reveal vulnerabilities as yet undreamt.

For practice questions about the text, maps, plates, and other features – plus suggested answers – please go to www.utphistorymatters.com There you will also find all the maps, genealogies, and figures used in the book.

FURTHER READING Ames, Christine Caldwell. Righteous Persecution: Inquisition, Dominicans, and Christianity in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. Brenner, Elma. “Recent Perspectives on Leprosy in Medieval Western Europe.” History Compass 8, no. 5 (2010): 388–406. Bush, Olga. Reframing the Alhambra: Architecture, Poetry, Textiles and Court Ceremonial. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2018. Drendel, John, ed. Crisis in the Later Middle Ages: Beyond the Postan-Duby Paradigm. Turnhout: Brepols, 2015. Elliott, Dyan. The Corruptor of Boys: Sodomy, Scandal, and the Medieval Clergy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020. Favereau, Marie. The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021. Gertsman, Elina. The Absent Image: Lacunae in Medieval Books. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2021. Heng, Geraldine. The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Jones, P.J. The Italian City-State: From Commune to Signoria. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Kamola, Stefan. Making Mongol History: Rashid al-Din and the Jami’ al-Tawarikh. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019. LaFleur, Greta, Masha Raskolnikov, and Anna Klosowska, eds. Trans Historical: Gender Plurality before the Modern. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021. McCausland, Shane. The Mongol Century: Visual Cultures of Yuan China, 1271– 1368. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2014. Mell, Julie L. The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender. 2 vols. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017–18. Moore, R.I. The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Authority and Deviance in Western Europe 950–1250. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007. O’Callaghan, Joseph F. The Cortes of Castile-León, 1188–1350. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989. Rubin, Miri. Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Soyer, François. Medieval Antisemitism? Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2019. Strayer, Joseph R. The Reign of Philip the Fair. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980.

Teter, Magda. Blood Libel: On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020. Watts, John. The Making of Polities: Europe, 1300–1500. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Zorzi, Andrea. “The Popolo.” In Italy in the Age of Renaissance, 1300–1550, edited by John M. Najemy, pp. 145–64. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

__________ 1

Decrees of the League, in A Short Medieval Reader, ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023), p. 188 and in Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic World, 3rd ed., ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018), pp. 414– 15.

2

Ghibelline Annals of Piacenza, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 412–14.

3

Statute of the Jewry, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 190–91 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 424–26.

4

Jacques Fournier, Episcopal Register, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 204–10 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 418–24.

5

Jacobus de Voragine, “The Life of Saint Marina, Virgin,” in The Golden Legend:

Readings

on

the

Saints,

trans.

William

Granger

Ryan,

2

vols.

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 1: 324–25. 6

“Against Arnoud of Verniolle, Son of William of Verniolle of Le Mercadal Parish

of

Pamiers,

Concerning

the

Crime

of

Heresy

and

Sodomy,”

trans.

Michael Goodich, in Michael Goodich, Other Middle Ages: Witnesses at the Margins of Medieval Society (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), pp. 122–23, 143. 7

Court Record of Rolandina Roncaglia, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 211–12.

8

Alfonso X, Cortes of Valladolid, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 184–88 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 427–31.

9

Béla IV, Letter to Pope Innocent IV, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 181–83 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 387–90.

10 The Henryków Book, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 402–4. 11 Boniface VIII, Unam sanctam, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 195–96 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 438–39. 12 Thomas Aquinas, On Love, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 197–98 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 439–41. 13 Dante, Inferno, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 199–204 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 441–43.

EIGHT CATASTROPHE AND CREATIVITY (c.1350– c.1500)

CHAPTER

EIGHT

HIGHLIGHTS The Hundred Years’ War 1337–1453 Pits England against France. Lasting for more than one hundred years, the war transforms both realms. New military tactics and hardware – including guns and canons – are introduced.

Mongol Empire disintegrates c.1340 In the mid-14th cent., the Ming Dynasty begins in China; Tamerlane dominates (until 1405) the regions of Iran and Iraq; the Ottomans in Anatolia begin expanding.

Black Death 1346–1353 One deadly phase of the plague’s outbreak in Europe, the Black Death is part of a long-term pandemic that began in the 13th cent. and lasted until the 18th, affecting many parts of Afro-Eurasia.

The ciompi (woolworkers) revolt at Siena 1355

A workers’ revolt typical of many north Italian cities; only temporarily successful.

Jacquerie 1358 Uprising of the French peasantry against the aristocracy, who are judged to have failed their job as warriors and protectors during the Hundred Years’ War.

Great Western Schism 1378–1417 First (1378–1409) two rival popes, one in Avignon, the other in Rome, claim the papacy. Then (1409–1417) yet a third pope claims primacy. The Schism is healed by the Council of Constance (1414–1418).

Wat Tyler’s Rebellion 1381 A revolt by English peasants, small shopkeepers, and clerics against new war taxes and against serfdom.

Invention of the printing press c.1450 The invention of a press that could use moveable type goes hand in hand with the use of paper, the discovery of inks that would adhere to both paper and metal, and increased literacy.

Portuguese inaugurate exploratory voyages 1450s The Portuguese explore the coast of Africa, penetrate deeply inland, and find new routes to India.

Ottomans conquer Constantinople 1453 The end of the Byzantine Empire.

Wars of the Roses 1455–1487 Yorkists and the Lancastrians fight to take the English throne; Henry VII wins as the first Tudor king.

Ferdinand and Isabella expel the Jews from Spain 1492 In just this one year they expel the Jews, conquer Granada (the last Muslim polity in the peninsula), and dispatch Christopher Columbus to find an Atlantic passage to China.

In the fourteenth century, much of Afro-Eurasia was battered by a new plague pandemic. The “Black Death,” which took place from 1346

to

1353,

is

the

most

famous

outbreak,

but

it

should

not

overshadow the many lethal waves of the plague that had afflicted many regions earlier and continued long thereafter. Yet rulers and elites continued to pursue their interests as if the mortality of perhaps half of the population in affected areas hardly mattered. Despite the plague, the Ottoman Turks emerged in Anatolia in the thirteenth century, took much of the Balkans in the first half of the fifteenth century, and conquered Byzantium in 1453. The kings of France and England pursued the Hundred Years’ War, which swept much of the rest of Western Europe into its vortex. Wars not only kill soldiers but also dislocate populations and destroy economic stability, opening up new avenues for the spread of the plague. The period c.1350–c.1500 was catastrophic for many people. In spite of that – or perhaps because of it – it was also creative in many ways. The plague contributed to the end of peasant servitude in England,

the

Ottomans

ultimately

established

a

stable

Islamic

political order that hung on until 1924, fifteenth-century rulers found new bases on which to exercise greater power than ever before, and intellectuals and artists looked to antiquity to help them confront and solve the problems of their day. Seaworthy ships, manned by hopeful European adventurers and financed by rich patrons, plied the oceans east- and westwards.

CRISES AND CONSOLIDATIONS In 1281, the first Ottoman dynasty established itself on the western fringes

of

Anatolia,

most

of

which

was

then

controlled

by

the

Mongols. Although beset by the Black Death in the mid-fourteenth century, the Ottomans pursued their dream of conquest, toppling

Constantinople and moving into Europe, itself much weakened by the plague. Meanwhile, King Edward III, who was determined to win back English fiefs in France, began the long and debilitating Hundred Years’

War.

insurrections

In –

many the

parts

bitter

of

harvest

Europe, of

popular

plague,

war,

revolts

and

and

economic

contraction – rocked both town and countryside. In general, these upheavals resulted in the ascendency not of the lower classes but rather

of

new

and

powerful

princes.

Almost

everywhere

in

the

medieval world, the multiple lordships and political fragmentation of the past came to an end.

The Second Plague Pandemic (13th–18th centuries) The Mongol Empire increased the interconnectedness of the AfroEurasian world. As a result, the second pandemic of Yersinia pestis had a broad geographical reach. Map 8.1 suggests the general outlines of its spread.

Map 8.1 Dispersion of the Plague, 13th to 15th cent.

Description

As noted in Chapter 6, the plague’s earliest victims were initially the Mongols themselves and then the inhabitants of China. Thereafter the disease followed the paths of the Mongol conquests. In the mid-

1340s, it crossed the Black Sea (probably in contaminated grain shipments) and arrived in Constantinople, Alexandria, Sicily, and Genoa. Shortly thereafter, it spread throughout much of Europe. Its march was uneven: some places, such as Milan, were spared its first wave but suffered grievously about ten years later. The divergences depended on numerous factors: local climatic conditions, the health of the population, housing and sanitary conditions, and (of course) luck.

Plate 8.1 Lancing a Bubo (2nd half of 15th cent.). Saint Sebastian Chapel, Lanslevillard, France. This fresco, which decorates an Alpine village chapel, is part of a cycle depicting the life of Saint Sebastian, an early Christian martyr who miraculously survived the arrows inflicted by his imperial executioners (though he soon succumbed to a different torment). The scene here illustrates a key moment in the story of Sebastian: a terrible plague hit Rome and Pavia in the seventh century, long after the saint’s death. “At this time there appeared to some a good angel followed by a bad angel carrying a spear. When the good angel gave the command, the bad one struck and killed, and when he struck a house, all the people in it were carried out dead.” The plague ended only when 1

“an altar was raised in Pavia in honor of Saint Sebastian.”

He was the victor

over spears and arrows. To bring the scene to life, the painter of the fresco has depicted an entire family – even a little baby in a crib – suffering from the plague. The bad angel here is the Devil himself.

Description

After its largely seaborne passage, the Black Death arrived in Florence in early 1348; two months later it hit Dorset in England. Dormant during the winter, it revived the next spring to infect French ports and countryside, moving on swiftly to Germany. By 1351 it reached Moscow, where it stopped for a time, only to recur in ten- to twelve-year cycles throughout the fourteenth century. The disease continued to strike, though at longer intervals and with somewhat less deadly effects, until the eighteenth century. There are still outbreaks of plague today. The symptoms, then and now, usually include chills, fever,

headaches,

and

painfully

swollen

lymph

nodes

known

as

buboes. In Plate 8.1, a medieval doctor treats the bubo of a welldressed woman with a lancet. It is doubtful that the treatment cured her,

for

once

an

unsterilized

lancet

has

come

into

contact

with

Yersinia pestis, it will transmit the plague, not heal it. Other

remedies

were

less

lethal.

At

Damascus,

one

traveler

witnessed Muslims, Jews, and Christians fasting, praying, and coming together in processions to implore “the favor of God through His 2

Books and His Prophets.”

Rather similarly, the archbishop of York

ordered special processions, masses, and prayers in his diocese. Some physicians counseled flight – to another house, to the countryside – to escape the poisonous air that they assumed gave rise to the plague. Many

urban

governments

instituted

new

sanitation

measures.

At

Pistoia, for example, legislation passed in 1348 prohibited travel in or out of the city, regulated funerals and mourning rituals to avoid crowds, and mandated various laws to circumvent contaminated meat and clothing. In the next century, as the theory of “bad air” gave way to

a

theory

of

human

transmission,

quarantines

were

sometimes

ordered. We know a good bit about the plague’s deadly demographics in Europe, where writers dwelled on it and cities kept useful records. On average,

it

wiped

out

50

per

cent

of

the

population.

In

eastern

Normandy, perhaps 70 to 80 per cent succumbed. At Bologna, 35 per cent of even the most robust men – those able to bear arms – were felled in the course of 1348. So many deaths led to acute labor shortages in both town and country. In 1351, King Edward III of England (r.1327–1377) issued the Statute of Laborers, forbidding workers to take pay higher than pre-plague wages and fining employers who offered more. Similar

laws were promulgated – and flouted – elsewhere. In the countryside, landlords needed to keep their profits up even as their workforce was decimated. They were obliged to strike bargains with enterprising peasants, furnishing them, for example, with oxen and seed; or they turned their land to new uses, such as pasturage. In the cities, the guilds and other professions recruited new men, survivors of the plague. Able to marry and set up households at younger ages, these nouveaux riches helped replenish the population. Although many widows were now potentially the heads of households, deep-rooted customs tended to push them either into new marriages (in northern Europe) or (in southern Europe) into the homes of male relatives, whether brother, son, or son-in-law. The plague affected both desires and sentiments. Upward mobility in town and country meant changes in consumption patterns, as formerly impoverished groups found new wealth. They chose silk clothing

over

wool,

beer

over

water.

In

Italy,

where

communal

governments liked to maintain a veneer of equality among all citizens, cities passed newly toughened laws to restrict finery and restrain envy. In Florence in 1349, for example, a year after the plague first struck there, the town crier roamed the city shouting out new or renewed prohibitions: clothes could not be adorned with gold or silver; capes could not be lined with fur; the wicks of funeral candles had to be made of cotton; women could wear no more than two rings, only one of which could be set with a precious stone; and so on. As always, such sumptuary legislation affected women more than men. Death became an obsession, and newly intense interest in the macabre led to original artistic themes. Plate 8.2 shows a pen-andink-wash illustration of a poem of a dream vision: the poet, who is on a pilgrimage in a time of “huge mortality,” enters a church and falls asleep by the tomb effigy of a fine lady. In the picture, her body, unspoiled as if alive, lies on the top tier of a double tomb. On the lower level is her corpse, covered with lizards, worms, and maggots. The text of the poem beneath the skeleton begins,

Take heed unto my figure here above and see how at one time I was fresh and gay. Now I am turned to worms’ meat and corruption, 3

Both foul earth and stinking slime and clay.

Plate 8.2 Illustration in A Dispute between the Body and Worms (1435–1440). Double tombs such as the one drawn here were well known in the later Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, especially in northern Europe. Known as cadaver or transi tombs (from the verb transire, to go across), they feature nearly life-sized, fully clothed effigies of the deceased in blissful repose while beneath them lie their rotting corpses. Such tombs contrast the beauty of living flesh with its decay at death, and, even when the two images are not explicitly talking to each other (as here, in the poem), their juxtaposition inevitably suggested a dispute. And who has the last word? The skeleton, it would seem, embodying the moral of Ecclesiastes 3:20, “of earth they were made, and into earth they return together.” On the other hand, the fact that the body, glowing with color, lies triumphantly atop the ravaged corpse declares the ultimate victory to be the restored body of the Resurrection.

Description

esc

pt o

In the artistic and literary genre known as the Dance of Death, men and women from every class were escorted to the grave by ghastly skeletons. Blaming their own sins for the plague, penitent pilgrims,

occasionally

bearing

whips

to

flagellate

themselves,

crowded the roads. Rumors flew, some accusing the Jews of causing the plague by poisoning the wells. The idea spread from southern France and northern Spain (where, as we have seen [p. 270], similar charges

had

already

been

leveled

in

the

1320s)

to

Switzerland,

Strasbourg, and throughout Germany. At Strasbourg, more than 900 Jews were burned in 1349, right in their own cemetery.

The Rise of the Ottomans and the Fall of Byzantium The Mongol Empire fell apart around 1340. Soon the Ming dynasty took control in China. To China’s west, Tamerlane (Timur the Lame, 1336–1405), a central Asian warlord, conquered much of the rest of the

Mongol

Empire.

His

state

was

his

personal

confection

and

disintegrated soon after his death. By contrast, the Ottomans, initially a

small

tribe

located

on

the

western

fringe

of

Mongol

power,

ultimately created a large, powerful, and long-lived polity. This should be surprising, not least because Anatolia, where the Ottomans

first

consolidated,

was

beset

by

the

plague.

Historian

Nükhet Varlik has suggested that nomadism may have been one source of the disease. Shifting seasonally from the highlands of their summer pastures, dense with rodents, to their lowland encampments, the Ottomans traded hides, dyes, and furs to city dwellers; joined military enterprises; and hired themselves out as harvesters. During the

early

phases

of

the

plague,

when

the

Ottomans

controlled

Anatolia and the Balkans, the plague recurred in their Empire as it did in Europe – on average, every ten to twelve years. But after the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in 1453, it reappeared more frequently.

The

explanation

seems

to

be

that,

as

the

Ottomans

expanded, they requisitioned and forcibly moved food, people, and livestock, unwittingly bringing Yersinia pestis along for the ride.

All that was in the future, however, when, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, Othman (d.1324/1326), after whom the Ottomans were named, began to carve out a small principality for himself in the interstices between Mongol-ruled Rum and the Byzantine Empire. As his

later

biographer,

Ashikpashazade,

wrote,

Othman

“feigned

friendship” with some of the nearby leaders, while starting feuds with 4

others.

Soon

he

controlled

a

small

state

right

in

Byzantium’s

backyard. Then rival factions within the Byzantine Empire tried to make use of the Ottomans. Their troops arrived in Gallipoli in 1354 at the request of one claimant to the Byzantine throne. Then they moved into the Balkans, their way eased by indigenous religious and political rifts there. In the course of the fourteenth century, the western half of the

Ottoman

Empire

came

to

embrace

Thrace,

Macedonia,

and

Bulgaria. (See Map 8.2.) For a moment, the Ottoman advance eastward was set back by a major defeat at the hands of Timur in 1402 at Ankara. But Timur’s death

soon

thereafter

allowed

them

to

regroup

and

conquer.

Meanwhile, they re-centered their power in Europe and established a capital

at

Edirne

(the

former

Adrianople).

Ottoman

hegemony

depended not only on the disunity of their enemies but also the superiority of their military power. They adopted the new hardware of the west: cannons and harquebuses (heavy matchlock guns). And they deployed elite troops, the Janissaries. These were Christian boys from the conquered regions who were enslaved, converted to Islam, and trained not only for military service but also for the highest positions in government.

Map 8.2 The Ottoman Empire, c.1500

Description

Under Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror (r.1444–1446 and 1451– 1481), Ottoman cannons accomplished what former sieges had never done,

breaching

the

thick

walls

of

Constantinople

in

1453

and

bringing the Byzantine Empire to an end. The city was looted for days, whole neighborhoods were turned to rubble, numerous people were killed, and those who were not were enslaved. True, the crusade of 1204 had also destroyed Constantinople, but the Byzantine polity had lived on in its provinces and eventually recovered the capital city. That did not happen after the Ottoman conquest, and gradually it became clear to contemporaries (as well as historians today) that the fall of Constantinople was a historical turning point. And yet, if officially “fallen,” Byzantium nevertheless had an afterlife. The sultan recognized the need for a Christian religious leader, and he re-established the patriarch, who still headed up a Church organization and served a flock of Orthodox believers, some of which were refugees invited back to the capital by Mehmed. Russia took up the mantle of the Third Rome, claiming itself to be the heir of the “Second Rome,” that is, of Byzantium. In the West, the Greeks

who fled the Ottomans kept their customs, language, and religion. This was especially true in Venice, where a large group of Greek immigrants – perhaps 4,000 in a city of around 100,000 people – made a home for themselves. There they served as sailors, soldiers, shipyard workers, tailors, barbers: a whole miscellany of occupations. While Venice attracted the largest number of Greeks, some settled in other Italian cities. A few became university professors, teaching Greek and translating important Greek texts into Latin. The fall of Byzantium made clear to many Italians the irrefutable end of the Roman Empire, an event of epochal proportions. Intensely saddened by this realization, some joined a movement already underway to resuscitate the ancient world by reading and absorbing the lessons of Greek and Roman writers – the movement that historians call the Renaissance. The idea of Byzantium continued, at least for a while, within the new

Ottoman

regime

Constantinople

became

name

remained

as

well.

Istanbul

“Qustantiniyya”

Although

(meaning –

the

in

“the

City

of

popular city”),

speech

its

official

Constantine.

The

Ottoman sultans saw themselves as the successors of the Roman emperors

–

but

better,

true-believing

successors.

Mehmed

commissioned an edition of Homer’s Iliad, negotiated with Genoese and Venetian traders, and asked the Venetian artist Gentile Bellini (c.1429–1507) to work for him. On the walls of the sultan’s splendid Topkapi palace were tapestries from Burgundy portraying the deeds of Alexander the Great. They suggested parity between the ancient hero and the new conqueror. But if there were “Western” influences at the Ottoman court, Islamic traditions reigned there as well. Mehmed and his successors staffed their cities with men schooled in Islamic administration and culture and set up madrasas to teach the young. At workshops built by

the

sultan

in

Istanbul,

artists

and

craftsmen

produced

books,

ceramics, and textiles decorated in styles drawn from Mamluk and Timurid models. New buildings – both religious and secular – needed furnishings: tiles, lamps, candelabra, wall hangings, ceramics, and carpets. The designs were controlled and to some extent standardized by court workshops under the sultan’s patronage. In the fifteenth century,

carpets

woven

in

Anatolia

found

buyers

even

on

the

European market. The “Star Ushak” carpet in Plate 8.3 is much like

those that showed up in numerous fifteenth- and sixteenth-century paintings from Italy and northern Europe.

Plate 8.3 “Star Ushak” Carpet, Anatolia (late 15th cent.). The painstaking techniques involved in producing this carpet are all the more impressive given its large size – more than 14 feet long and 7 feet wide. Made on a loom (as is fabric), the warp is in the natural color of the wool and the weft is of yarn died bright red. What makes a carpet different from fabric – giving it exceptional density and thickness – are knots, densely packed together, each twisting around two adjacent warp cords. Here the knots are in many different colors and form an overall design derived from Persian manuscript painting. So complex a composition would have been impossible to produce without the help of a prior pattern (a “cartoon”), probably prepared by artists at the sultan’s court. Little wonder that this kind of carpet was highly regarded both in the Ottoman world and by elites throughout Europe.

Plate 8.4 Building Complex, Edirne (1484–1488). Edirne, in Thrace, was the Ottoman gateway to Europe. There Bayezid II (r.1481–1512) built an enormous architectural complex centered on a mosque. It included an insane asylum, a medical school, four madrasas, a kitchen, toilets, dining halls, baths, two mausolea, a hospital, and a hospice for Sufi dervishes (Islamic holy men). All, even the courtyard arcades, were covered with domes.

The new Ottoman state had come to stay. Its rise was due to its military power and the weakness of its neighbors. But its longevity – it did not begin to decline until the late seventeenth century – was due to more complicated factors. Building on a theory of absolutism that echoed similar ideas beginning to take shape in the Christian West, the Ottoman rulers acted as the sole guarantors of law and order. Taking the title of caliphs in 1517, they considered even the leaders of the mosques to be their functionaries, soldiers without arms. The Ottoman rulers dominated everything, even architecture, where the domed square (a masonry dome resting directly on the walls) became their signature feature. (See Plate 8.4.) Prospering from taxes pouring in from their conquered lands and their relatively well-to-do peasantry, the new rulers spent their money on roads to ease troop transport and a navy powerful enough to oust the Italians from their eastern Mediterranean outposts. Eliminating all signs of rebellion (which meant, for example, brutally putting down Serb and Albanian revolts), the Ottomans created a new world power.

The

Ottoman

state

eventually

changed

Europe’s

orientation.

Europeans could – and did – continue to trade in the Mediterranean. But, on the whole, they preferred to treat the Ottomans as a barrier to the Orient. Not long after the fall of Constantinople, as we shall see, the first transatlantic voyages began as a new route to the East.

The Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453) The Hundred Years’ War began in 1337, ten years before the Black Death arrived in Europe. It started as a dynastic conflict between two descendants of French King Philip III – Edward III and Philip VI. (See Genealogy 8.1.) It also recalled England’s long-standing claims to Continental lands which, as we have seen, the English king held as “vassal” of the French king. (But by 1300, most of those fiefs had been confiscated by the French, so that only Gascony remained. See Map 7.5 on p. 274.) Fundamental to the conflict were Flemish– English economic relations, to which English prosperity and taxes were tied. Ultimately, the war marked the transformation of France and England into nation-states. Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc) articulated the new view of France: to her, it was indivisible, a hallowed entity uniting all within its borders as Frenchmen and -women and ruled by one consecrated king.

Genealogy 8.1 Kings of France and England and the Dukes of Burgundy during the Hundred Years’ War

Description

At the start, however, it was imagined as a gentleman’s war. Looking back on it, the chronicler Froissart tried to depict its knightly fighters as gallant protagonists: As soon as Lord Walter de Manny discovered ... that a formal declaration of war had been made ... he gathered together 40 lances [each lance being a knight, a servant, and two horses], good companions from Hainaut and England, ... [because he] had vowed in England in the hearing of ladies and lords that, “If war breaks out between my lord the king of England and Philip of Valois who calls himself king of France, I will be the first to arm 5

himself and capture a castle or town in the kingdom of France.”

But it soon became an almost endless conflict fueled by new weapons, first the longbow employed by the English and eventually gunpower-fired projectiles dominated by the French. Because of their longbowmen, the English won a major victory at Crécy in 1346 (see Map 8.3) even though the French employed Genoese mercenary crossbowmen. The longbow had a long range and rapid rate of fire, while the crossbows used bolts that penetrated deeply but had a short 6

range. And crossbows took a long time to reload. It

is

possible

that

in

the

wake

of

Crécy,

the

movements

of

demobilized soldiers helped spread the plague. If so, that was of little concern to the kings who fought the war; the battles continued. By 1360, the size of English possessions in southern France had more than doubled. But

English

successes

did

not

last.

Harrying

the

border

of

Aquitaine, French forces chipped away at it in the course of the 1380s. Meanwhile, sentiments for peace were gaining strength in both England and France; a treaty to put an end to the fighting for a generation was drawn up in 1396. Yet the “generation” had hardly reached adulthood when Henry V (r.1413–1422) came to the throne and revived England’s claims on the continent. Demanding nearly all of the land that the Angevins had held in the twelfth century, he struck France in 1415. Soon Normandy was his, and in order to keep it, he forced all who refused him loyalty into exile, confiscated their lands, and handed their property over to his followers. (See Map 8.3.)

Map 8.3 English and Burgundian Hegemony in France, c.1430

Description

Henry’s plans were aided by a new regional power: Burgundy. A marvel of shrewd marriage alliances, canny purchases, and outright military conquests, the Duchy of Burgundy became a European superpower, albeit for a short time. Forged by Philip the Bold (r.1364– 1404), it had two centers, one at Dijon (the traditional Burgundy) and another at Lille, in the north (the traditional Flanders). The only unity in these disparate regions was provided by the dukes themselves, who traveled

tirelessly

from

one

end

of

their

duchy

to

the

other,

participating in elaborate ceremonies – lavish entry processions into cities, wedding and birth festivities, funerals – and commissioning art and music that both celebrated and justified their power. (See Map 8.4 on the following page and Plate 8.8 on p. 325.) Like the kings of France, Duke Philip the Bold was a Valois. Even so, his grandson, Philip the Good (r.1419–1467), decided to link his destiny with England, long the major trading partner of Flanders. Because of his support, the English easily marched into Paris, and the Treaty of Troyes (1420) made English King Henry V the heir to the throne of France. Had Henry lived, he might have made good his claim. But he died in 1422, leaving behind an infant son to take the crown of France under the regency of the duke of Bedford. Meanwhile, Charles VII, the French “dauphin,” or crown prince, was disheartened by the defeats. Only in 1429 did his mood change: Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc), a sixteen-year-old peasant girl from Domrémy (part of a small enclave in northern France still loyal to the dauphin), arrived at Chinon,

where

Charles

was

holed

up,

to

convince

him

and

his

theologians that she had been divinely sent to defeat the English. As she wrote in an audacious letter to the English commanders, “The Maid [as she called herself] has come on behalf of God to reclaim the blood royal. She is ready to make peace, if you [the English] are 7

willing to settle with her by evacuating France.”

Map 8.4 The Duchy of Burgundy, 1363–1477

Description

In effect, Jeanne inherited the moral capital that had been earned by the Beguines and other women mystics (see p. 229). When the English forces laid siege to Orléans (the prelude to their moving into southern France – see Map 8.3), Jeanne not only wrote the letter to the English quoted above but was allowed to join the French army. Its “miraculous” defeat of the English at Orléans (1429) turned the tide. Soon

thereafter

Jeanne

led

Charles

to

Reims,

deep

in

English

territory, where he was anointed king. Captured by Burgundians in

league with the English in 1430, Jeanne was ransomed by the English and tried by them as a heretic the following year. Found guilty, she was burned, eventually becoming a symbol of martyrdom as well as of triumphant French resistance. It took many more years, indeed until 1453, for the French kings to win the war. One reason for the French victory was their systematic use of gunpowder-fired artillery: in one fifteen-month period around 1450, the French relied heavily on siege guns such as cannons to 8

capture more than seventy English strongholds. helped

the

French

as

well:

after

1435,

the

Diplomatic finesse duke

of

Burgundy

abandoned the English and supported the French, at least in lukewarm fashion.

Kings and Princes, Knights and Citizens It

might

be

devastated

imagined

Europe

that

and

the

events

emboldened

of

only

the the

period

1350–1500

Ottomans.

But

the

Ottoman rulers were, it seems, bellwethers of the political climate of their day. For, in the aftermath of the various outbreaks of plague and warfare, kings and princes everywhere either consolidated their power or lost out entirely. As for knights, who had in effect handed over their military jobs to foot soldiers, archers, and artillery experts, they became useful functionaries and prestigious adornments to royal and princely courts. Exceptions to the new, concentrated model of power existed but were rare – in the very few “republics” of the age.

CONCENTRATED POWER IN THE HANDS OF MONARCHS AND PRINCES The Hundred Years’ War devastated France in the short run. Armies destroyed cities and harried the countryside, breaking the morale of the population. Even when not officially “at war,” bands of soldiers – “Free Companies” of mercenaries that hired themselves out to the highest

bidder,

whether

in

France,

Spain,

or

Italy

–

roved

the

countryside, living off the gains of pillage. Nevertheless, soon after 1453, France began a long and steady recovery. Merchants invested in commerce, peasants tilled the soil, and the king exercised more power than ever before. As one arm of his new authority, he created a

professional weapons,

standing

including

army,

“fiery”

trained,

billeted,

(gunpowder)

and

artillery.

supplied His

army

with was

supplemented by mercenaries, equally “professional,” but loyal only to the ruler who paid them. Employing these forces, the king of France led an expedition into Italy in 1494 to claim the crown of Naples. Meanwhile the duchy of Burgundy disintegrated; its southern territories

were

absorbed

into

France,

while

half

of

its

northern

portion was incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire and the other half into France. In England, the Hundred Years’ War brought about a similar political transformation. Initially France’s victory affected mainly the topmost rank of the royal house itself. The progeny of Edward III formed two rival camps, the families of York and Lancaster (named after some of their lands in northern England). (See Genealogy 8.2 on p. 309.) A series of dynastic wars – later dubbed the “Wars of the Roses” after the white rose badge of the Yorkists and the red of the Lancastrians – was fought from 1455 to 1487. In 1485, Lancastrian Henry VII was crowned king; two years later he defeated the last rival claimant to the throne, ushering in the Tudor dynasty, the most powerful England had yet known.

Genealogy 8.2 Yorkist and Lancastrian (Tudor) Kings

Description

Newly powerful, too, were the monarchs of Spain, Ferdinand (r.1479–1516) and Isabella (r.1474–1504). They united Aragon and Castile

with

instrument

of

their

marriage

royal

and

sovereignty.

made In

militant

1478,

they

Catholicism

an

established

an

inquisition to look into the faith of the conversos – descendants of Jews who had converted when, in 1391, a wave of anti-Jewish rioting left them little choice but between death and apostasy. In 1492, the monarchs gave the small number of remaining Jews the choice of conversion or expulsion. But the work of the Spanish Inquisition continued against the newly converted as well as the heirs of the old, executing those deemed insufficiently “Christian” and confiscating their lands for the crown. In the same year, 1492, the king and queen conquered the last bit of Muslim-ruled Granada and, in an equally crusading spirit, sent Christopher Columbus off to discover a western route to China. The explorer took with him a converted Jew who spoke Arabic, presumed to be the language of the peoples he would meet on the way, in order to forward the religious ambitions of the Spanish king and queen.

Meanwhile the crown displaced the pope to control much of the Church in Grenada and soon in its New World conquests as well. Moreover, beyond harnessing religious institutions, Ferdinand and Isabella increased their power by collecting taxes more efficiently, recovering royal estates, and reducing their dependence on the cortes. In the Holy Roman Empire, the Electors and other major princes did not have royal titles, but they ruled there as if monarchs in the new style. So too, in Italy, did the signori of the northern cities. Machiavelli’s The Prince, written in the early teens of the sixteenth century, offered them theoretical justification. While earlier Mirrors of Princes had given rulers moral counsel based on Christian virtues, Machiavelli looked to history, not religion, for his lessons. The Prince was written for Giuliano and Lorenzo Medici, who ruled Florence but were

hoping

elsewhere

in

to

carve

Italy.

It

out

a

explains

better how

principality power

may

for

be

themselves

gained,

kept,

enhanced, and used by a ruler who knows how to manipulate all the instruments of statecraft. The prince cultivates his image to suit the moment, understands when to use diplomacy or resort to force, and (most important of all for Machiavelli) controls a stable army, one made up not of fickle mercenaries but rather of citizens who have an interest in the outcome of the battles they fight. Machiavelli did not so much reject virtue as redefine it as virtù, the ethics of a virtuoso – one who combines confidence, spirit, restraint, flexibility, and expertise.

KNIGHTLY ADJUSTMENTS In this world of super-princes, knights found profitable niches for themselves. In England the “knights of the shire” continued to play an important role in the system of royal justice that had been initiated under Henry II (see pp. 215–20). Constituting a class below the very great landowning barons, the knights (or, as we may now term them, gentry; there were perhaps 3,000 of them) had high social status and considerable property. Some of them served the king or important barons. Throughout administrators

Europe, and

nobles

courtiers.

As

and

knights

served

administrators,

they

rulers

as

went

on

diplomatic missions, sat on judicial courts both royal and local, and acted as royal councilors. As courtiers, they participated in chivalric

military feats that had little to do with military reality but very much to do with reenacting the imaginary world of King Arthur and his knights – heroes of immensely popular literary fictions. They fought as entertainers in jousts and tournaments, rode finely caparisoned horses, played games, and feasted at lavish dinner parties. Heraldry, a system of symbols that distinguished each knight by the sign on his shield, came into full flower around the same time. Originally meant to advertise the fighter and his heroic deeds on the battlefield, it soon came to symbolize his family, decorating both homes and tombs. Kings and other great lords founded and promoted chivalric orders with fantastic names – the Order of the Garter, the Order of the Golden Buckle, the Order of the Golden Fleece. All had mainly social and honorific functions. They clothed naked power with a gossamer veil of pageantry and illusion.

REPUBLICS While super-princes were the norm, there were some exceptions. In the mountainous terrain of the alpine passes, a coalition of urban and rural communes along with some members of the lesser nobility promised to aid one another against the Habsburg emperors. Taking advantage of rivalries within the Holy Roman Empire, the Swiss Confederation created c.1500 a state of its own. Structured as a league, the Confederation put power into the hands of urban citizenry and

members

of

peasant

communes.

The

nobility

gradually

disappeared, and new elites from town and countryside took over. Switzerland may have been a republic, but it nevertheless served its princely neighbors as a reservoir of mercenary troops. Venice, too, continued as a republic, but one dominated by an elite. Many of the officers of the state were elected from its Great Council, including the “doge,” a life-long position. Between 1297 and 1324 the size of the Council grew dramatically: in 1296 it had 210 members, but by 1340 its membership was over one thousand. At the same time, however, the Council was gradually closed off to all but certain families, which were in this way turned into a hereditary aristocracy. The lower classes accepted this fact because, in turn, the ruling families largely suppressed their private interests in favor of the general welfare of the city.

Venice’s

well-being

depended

mainly

on

the

sea

for

both

necessities and wealth. Only at the end of the fourteenth century did the Venetians begin to expand within Italy itself, becoming a major land power in the region. But as it gobbled up Bergamo and Verona, Venice collided with the interests of Milan. Wars between the two city-states ended only with the Peace of Lodi in 1454. Soon the other major Italian powers – Florence, the papacy, and Naples – joined Venice and Milan in the Italic League. (See Map 8.5.)

Map 8.5 Western Europe, c.1450

Description

The situation in Naples eventually brought this status quo to an end. Already in 1442 Alfonso V of Aragon had entered Naples as Alfonso I, ending Angevin rule there. A half century later, the Valois king of France’s desire to reinstate French rule over Naples helped fuel his invasion of Italy in 1494. The super princes of Europe were turning Italy into their bloody playground, as Machiavelli bitterly lamented at the end of The Prince.

Discontents in Town and Countryside In the face of the crises of the period, almost every region suffered economic dislocation. While power at the top consolidated, popular uprisings gave vent to discontent. The “popular” component of these revolts should not be exaggerated, as many were led by petty knights or wealthy burghers. But they also involved large masses of people, some of whom were very poor indeed. Although at times articulating universal principles, these revolts were nevertheless deeply rooted in local grievances. Most of them grew out of the woes of the Hundred Years’

War

or

the

unprecedented

needs

of

workers

in

proto-

industrialized cities. Such revolts were only partially successful.

ECONOMIC DECLINE In much of Europe economic decline was the norm. After 1340, with the disintegration of the Mongol Empire, easy trade relations between Europe and the Far East ended. Within Europe, rulers’ war machines were fueled by new taxes and loans – some of them forced. Rulers seldom paid back the loans. The great import-export houses, which loaned money as part of their banking activities, found themselves advancing too much to rulers all too willing to default. In the 1340s the four largest firms went bankrupt, producing, in domino effect, the bankruptcies of hundreds more. War

did

more

than

gobble

up

capital.

Where

armies

raged,

production stopped. Even in intervals of peace, roving bands of outof-work

mercenaries

attacked

not

only

the

countryside

but

also

merchants on the roads. That was why, to ensure its grain supply from Bologna, Florence was obliged to provide guards all along the route.

Merchants began investing in insurance policies, not only against losses due to weather but also against robbers and pirates. Meanwhile,

the

plague

dislocated

normal

economic

patterns.

Urban rents fell as houses went begging for tenants, while wages rose as employers sought to attract scarce labor. In rural areas, whole swathes of land lay uncultivated. As the population declined and the demand for grain decreased, the Baltic region – chief supplier of rye to the rest of Europe – suffered badly; by the fifteenth century, some villages had disappeared. Yet, as always, the bad luck of some meant the prosperity of others. While Tuscany lost its economic edge, cities in northern Italy and southern Germany gained new muscle, manufacturing armor and fustian (a popular textile made of cotton and flax) and distributing their products across Europe. The center of economic growth was in fact shifting northwards, from the Mediterranean to the European heartlands. There was one unfortunate exception: the fourteenth and fifteenth-century slave trade. As we have seen, traffic in slaves was nothing new. But its importance in the Black Sea region was indeed novel. Dominated by Genoa, Venice, and the Mamluk sultanate, it profited from people captured in wars or raids or (in the case of children) sold by parents. They were transported across the Black Sea for purchase by wealthy elites. The Mamluks groomed boys for army duty and service at court. The Venetians and Genoese exploited women as convenient sexual partners. Everywhere enslaved women and men did household labor and acted as servants.

REVOLTS Many slaves resisted. Some revolted on board the ships transporting them, others committed suicide after they arrived on land, and still others killed their masters (and suffered grievously for doing so). But the major revolts of the medieval period were carried out not by slaves but rather urban workers and rural peasants. The citizens of Flanders were badly affected by the Hundred Years’ War because they depended on raw English wool for their looms. When England prepared for the opening of the Hundred Years’ War by cutting off wool exports to Flanders, the weavers lost their jobs. At Ghent, one of Flanders’s richest and most powerful cities, the textile workers rallied to the English cause. Led by Jacob

van

Artevelde,

rebels,

the

himself

weavers

a

landowner

overturned

the

but city

now

spokesman

government.

for

By

the

1339,

Artevelde’s supporters dominated not only Ghent but also much of northern

Flanders.

A

year

later,

he

welcomed

the

English

king

Edward III to Flanders as king of France. Although Artevelde was assassinated in 1345 by rebels who thought he had betrayed their cause, the tensions that brought him to the fore continued. Like a world war, the Hundred Years’ War engulfed its bystanders. In

France,

uprisings

in

the

mid-fourteenth

century

revealed

further strains of the war. In the wake of the terrible defeat of French forces and the capture of King John II of France at Poitiers in 1356, the Estates General, which prior to the battle had agreed to heavy taxes to counter the English, met to allot blame and reform the government. When the dauphin (the king’s heir, who now ruled in John’s absence) stalled in instituting the reforms, Étienne Marcel, head of the merchants of Paris, led a plot to murder some royal councilors and take control of Paris. Ousted from the city by royal forces,

his

revolt

was

soon

mirrored

elsewhere

by

villagers

and

peasants who, for their part, were outraged by the cowardice of the nobility at Poitiers and more generally by the ravaging of their lands by roving military bands. Their uprising in 1378 was soon called the Jacquerie, a term derived from the nickname for a peasant, “Jacques Bonhomme” (Jack Goodman). In alliance with some Paris rebels, the peasants attacked the castles and manor houses of the nobility. But both groups – Parisians and Jacques – were brutally put down at Meaux. (See Plate 8.5.) Soon thereafter, Étienne Marcel was killed in a riot, Paris fell to royal troops, and the dauphin began the lengthy process of reconciliation.

Plate 8.5 The Massacre of the Rebels at Meaux (15th cent.). In Froissart’s account of the Jacquerie, the count of Foix and the captal (lord) de Buch came to pay their respects to the hundreds of noble ladies who had fled to Meaux’s fortified marketplace in fear of rebellious peasants. Once the peasants and Parisian rebels heard that an assembly of nobles had gathered together at Meaux, they arrived “with the most evil intentions.” Then the count and the captal, accompanied by their troops, “faced the villeins, small and dark and very poorly armed ... striking them with their lances and swords and beating them down.... They went on killing until they were stiff and weary, and they 9

flung many into the River Marne.”

In this illustration from a manuscript of

Froissart’s chronicle, the city buildings look like fairy-tale castles from one of which some noble ladies, smartly dressed as if for a tournament, venture out to take a peek.

Description

Equally

thoroughly

suppressed

were

the

protests

of

the

“commons” in England – peasants, craftspeople, petty shopkeepers, some

radical

clerics

–

known

as

Wat

Tyler’s

Rebellion

(1381).

Outraged by repeated poll taxes imposed to finance England’s wars,

numerous sworn groups of rebels from southeastern England burned the

homes

monasteries.

of

local

They

authorities,

killed

stormed

many

officials

castles, and

and

nobles,

broke and

into

burned

documents recording rents and customs. Some marched on London to meet with the king. They were not demanding an end to monarchy but rather its elevation over all other authorities: their only lord should be the king, the only law royal law. His “traitorous” ministers must be executed, and serfdom must end. Richard II (r.1377–1399) feared for his life but agreed to talk with the rebels at Mile End, a large park. There he apparently agreed to the protestors’ demands, gave out royal banners, and told them to go home. That gave encouragement to many rebels (local leader Richard de Leycester was one) to think they were acting on behalf of the king. But the king reneged on his promises, and people like Richard were either summarily killed outright or brought

to

trial

and

executed

for

“felonies,

seditions

and

other

10

misdeeds.”

Although Wat Tyler’s Rebellion did not end serfdom in England, the plague had already loosened those bonds, and the rebellion, having destroyed many manorial documents, allowed some peasants to negotiate new terms with their landlords. In northern Italy, revolts were not the bitter fruits of war but rather grew out of the political discontents of cloth workers, who chafed under communal regimes that gave them no say in government. The revolt by the woolworkers (the ciompi) at Siena was typical. In 1355, they rose up against their employers, the Wool Guild, overturned the existing government of the city – until then the most stable city-state regime in Italy – and briefly established their own rule. In 1371, “demanding to be paid according to the ordinance of the Sienese commune” rather than according to the less generous wages of their 11

guild, they again took up arms.

Joined by the popolo minuto –

literally the “little people,” but in reality a mix of salaried workers, artisans, merchants, and even some nobles – they clashed with the elites of the city and again set up a short-lived government. A similar set of events took place in Florence in 1378 when the ciompi there briefly took over the city. In both instances, the old elites were soon back in power. But, while they largely retained their position in Siena, in fifteenth-century Florence, even the old elites were forced to give way to the rule of one powerful banking family, the Medici.

The Catholic Church Divided The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries also saw deep divisions within the Church. A schism, a split between vehemently opposed factions, set first two, then three popes against one another. All illusions of harmony within Christendom were shattered as popes fought over who had the right to the papacy. Ordinary Catholics disputed about that as well as the very nature of the Church itself, setting some of the groundwork for the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century.

THE GREAT WESTERN SCHISM (1378–1417) Between 1378 and 1409, rival popes – those based in Avignon and those of Rome – claimed to rule as vicar of Christ. From 1409 to 1417, those based in Bologna added their own claim. The popes at each place excommunicated one another, surrounded themselves with their

own

colleges

of

cardinals

and

loyal

followers,

and

forced

European states to choose among them. The Great Western Schism (1378–1417) – as this period of popes and antipopes is called – was both a spiritual and a political crisis. Nor was it separate from the other issues of the day. It fed the Hundred Years’ War because France supported the pope at Avignon, while England rallied behind the pope at Rome. In some regions, the schism polarized a single community: for example, around 1400 at Tournai, on the border of France and Flanders, two rival bishops, each representing a different pope, fought over the diocese. Portugal, more adaptable and farther from the fray, changed its allegiance four times. The crisis began with the best of intentions. Stung by criticism of the Avignon papacy, Pope Gregory XI (1370–1378) left Avignon to return to Rome in 1377. When he died a year later, the cardinals elected an Italian as Urban VI (1378–1389). Finding Urban highhanded, however, the French cardinals quickly thought better of what they had done. They declared Urban’s election invalid, called on him to resign, and elected Clement VII, who installed himself at Avignon. The papal monarchy was now split. The group that went to Avignon depended largely on French resources; the popes at Rome survived by establishing a signoria, complete with mercenary troops to collect its taxes and fight its wars. Urban’s successor, Boniface IX (1389–1404), reconquered the papal states and set up governors (many of them his

family members) to rule over them. Desperate for more revenues, the popes at Rome turned all their prerogatives into sources of income. Boniface, for example, put Church benefices on the open market. He also commercialized penance, a move that was made possible by the development of the doctrine of Purgatory, the place where the souls of the dead were “purged” of their sins. In the thirteenth century, the Church taught that certain pious acts here and now (such as viewing a relic

or

attending

a

special

Church

feast)

could

reduce

time

in

Purgatory. Such reductions were called “indulgences.” Now, in the time of the schism, money payments were declared equivalent to performing the acts. Many people willingly purchased indulgences; others were outraged that Heaven was for sale. Solutions to end the schism eventually coalesced around the idea of a Church council. The “conciliarists” – those who advocated convening a council that would have authority over even the pope – included

both

university

men

and

princes

anxious

to

flex

their

muscles over the Church. At the Council of Pisa (1409), which neither of the popes attended, the delegates deposed both popes and elected a new man. But the two deposed popes refused to budge: there were now three popes, one at Avignon, one at Rome, and a third at Bologna. The successor of the newest one, John XXIII, turned to the emperor to arrange for another council. This one, the Council of Constance (1414–1418), met to resolve the papal crisis as well as to institute reforms. It succeeded in the first task, deposing the three rivals and electing Martin V as pope, but it was less successful in reforming the Church, which remained fragmented. National, even nationalist, churches had begun to form, as we saw in the case of the control that Spanish rulers claimed over Church offices and benefices in its conquered territories.

POPULAR RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS IN ENGLAND AND BOHEMIA While the conciliarists worried about the structure of the Church, others

began

to

rethink

its

very

role.

In

England,

the

radical

theologian John Wyclif (c.1330–1384) argued for a very small sphere of action for the Church. In his view, secular rulers should concern themselves with temporal things, the pope’s decrees should be limited to what was already in the Gospels, the laity should be allowed to

read and interpret the Bible for itself, and the Church should stop promulgating the absurd notion of transubstantiation. Wyclif argued that the substance of the Eucharistic bread did not become the flesh of Christ nor the wine his blood. Rather, the believer should understand that those are the things that the bread and wine stand for. At first the darling of the king and other powerful men in England (who were glad to hear arguments on behalf of an expanded place for secular rule), Wyclif appealed as well (and more enduringly) to the gentry and literate urban classes. Derisively called “lollards” (idlers) by the Church and persecuted as heretics, the followers of Wyclif were largely, though not completely, suppressed in the course of the fifteenth century. Considerably more successful were the Bohemian disciples of Wyclif. In Bohemia, which was part of the Holy Roman Empire but long used to its own monarchy, the disparities between rich and poor helped create conditions for a new vision of society in which religious and national feeling played equal parts. In the hands of Jan Hus (1369/71–1415), the writings of Wyclif were transformed into a call for a reformed Church and laity. All were to live in accordance with the laws of God, and the laity could disobey corrupt clerics. Hus translated parts of the Bible into Czech while encouraging German translations as well. Furthering their vision of equality within the Church, Hus’s followers demanded that all the faithful be offered not just the bread but also the consecrated wine at Mass. (This was later called Utraquism, from the Latin sub utraque specie – communion “in both kinds.”) In these ways, the Hussites gave shape to their vision of the Church as the community of believers – women and the poor included. Hus’s friend Jerome of Prague identified the whole reform movement with the good of the Bohemian nation itself, appropriating the traditional claim of the nobility. Hus was burned as a heretic at the Council of Constance, but he inspired a movement that transformed the Bohemian Church. The Hussites

soon

disagreed

about

demands

and

methods

(the

most

radical, the Taborites, set up a sort of government in exile in southern Bohemia, pooling their resources while awaiting the Second Coming of Christ), but most found willing protectors among the Bohemian nobility. For two decades, wars between the Hussite armies and imperial forces raged. Even though the pope called five crusades

against the Hussites during that time, the “heretics” (as the pope called them) prevailed each time. At last, in the course of the 1430s, a peace was patched up, and from the ashes of war emerged a peculiarly Bohemian Church. Loyal to Rome, it reserved Church benefices for Bohemians; faithful to most of the traditional rites, it gave both men and women the special privilege of partaking of the Eucharist in both bread and wine.

NEW MOVEMENTS TO MATCH THE TIMES Everywhere, then, the old sources of power were either consolidating or losing their hold. The Church was challenged by the Czechs and by rulers throughout Europe, who demanded to intervene in Church affairs. Newly powerful rulers wrested local prerogatives from the nobility and imposed lucrative taxes to be gathered by their zealous and

efficient

salaried

agents.

The

Ottomans

and

the

Mamluks

monopolized the Islamic world, and Constantinople was no longer the heir of Rome. The plague was killing off neighbors, friends, and families. To some living at the time, the old teachings seemed out of date,

the

art

and

architecture

of

Gothic

style

no

longer

seemed

beautiful, and the lure of alternative forms beckoned. In Italy, the ancient world of Greece and Rome, still evident everywhere (though mostly in ruins) offered alluring possibilities. It did so north of the Alps

as

well,

but

with

a

hefty

admixture

of

mystical

religious

yearning. Everywhere, brilliant courts used the new idioms created by contemporaries to burnish the image of the prince. This was no less true when it came to exploratory enterprises.

Renaissance Italy Near the end of his life, Francis Petrarch (1304–1374) was in despair. He remembered how the cities of Italy had flourished in his youth; now they were “shattered” by the effects of the plague, by internal dissension, by corruption and poverty. Petrarch had studied law at Bologna, when it was alive with “the great gathering of students, the order,

the 12

desolate.

alertness,

the

majesty

of

the

teachers.”

Now

it

was

This was not the rant of an old man: it was a call to action. Petrarch had a remedy for the woeful present: eloquence. Not the eloquence of pretty words but rather of speech and writing that would persuade and arouse creative spirits. Not the eloquence of the Middle Ages

but

that

of

the

literature,

philosophy,

and

language

of

the

ancients. Eloquence would lead all who practiced it and all who heard it to virtue – or rather, as Machiavelli would later put it, to virtù. Petrarch

was

one

of

the

many

men

of

his

day

who

learned

classical Latin for a profession but stayed with it for its wisdom. This was the case above all in Italy, where legal practices demanded not only judges but notaries – hundreds of them in each city – who drew up contracts, wills, and official letters in Latin. Petrarch was not a notary, but he had trained to be one. Supported by a small benefice provided to him as a man in minor orders, he was able to travel around Europe and collect the manuscripts of ancient writings that monks had copied out for their own pious ruminations. (He was among the many scholars of his day who mistook Caroline minuscule for ancient Roman letter forms.) For

Petrarch

these

books,

though

found

in

monasteries,

had

nothing to do with religion: rather, they were windows onto a different – a better – world and an entirely new view of human nature. He found in the writings of Cicero, an eminent Roman of the first century BCE,

an appreciation of humanitas – the cultivation of the qualities

that makes a man a moral being, active, aware of himself, refined, his nature perfected to the highest degree. In admiring imitation, men like Petrarch wanted

called to

themselves

depend

not

on

“humanists.” God

but

For

rather

their on

morality,

themselves,

they their

observations of the world, and their own self-fashioning. About a century after Petrarch’s time, Pico della Mirandola – a polymath

who

studied

the

Hebrew

cabala,

Arabic

writings,

the

philosophy of Plato, and many more ancient texts – gave the idea of self-fashioning a myth of its own when he “rewrote” the book of Genesis in his Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486). After the creation of the heavens and the earth (so went the traditional story in the Bible), God created Adam and Eve. But they defied their Maker, committed original sin, and suffered the Fall from Paradise. Not so in Pico’s

telling.

Rather,

after

creating

the

cosmos,

God

wanted

“someone to ponder the plan of so great a work.” Since he had

already distributed all the forms and virtues that existed to the angels, plants,

animals

and

so 13

indeterminate nature.”

on,

he

created

man

“a

creature

of

The kind of creature a man became was up to

his own free choice. The possibilities were endless: he might make himself into a brute or a god. Pico’s

“man”

was

self-fashioned,

and

so

was

Machiavelli’s

Prince. This was an ideal. But it was not – it could not be – the reality. Pico’s work was as much conditioned by the scholastics as by the cabala, and he never got to give his Oration because of papal opposition. Machiavelli’s Prince was a “job application.” He wrote it so that he could work for the Medicis, the very rulers whose rise in Florence

had

brought

about

his

unemployment.

Humanists

knew

(though they rebelled against it) that they were subject to outside forces – nature (diseases, base impulses, mortality) and fortune (the art of being the right place at the right time). The humanists were in the vanguard of the Italian “Renaissance.” The term itself – which means rebirth – came later and is borrowed from the French. But even in their own day, the humanists saw themselves classical

as

past

signaling was

a

something

great

abyss

new.

they

Between

thought

them

they

and

could

the

bridge

through their studies of ancient texts. They called the abyss the “Middle Age.” As readers of this book know, the Middle Ages (in English we now make it plural) also boasted people –men and women – who drew on the eloquence and values of the ancients to deal with the realities

of

their

own

day.

But

the

new

humanists

were

more

numerous than earlier ones, and they were more aware of a calling to revivify

a

long-lost

past

and

put

it

to

work

in

their

own

day.

Disillusioned with the institutions handed down to them, they were willing to critique all, subjecting them to scrutiny. Thus, through careful study of the evolution of the Latin language, Lorenzo Valla (d.1457) proved that the Donation of Constantine (see p. 104), a major prop of papal claims to power, was a fake. Yet, if their passion was antiquity, the humanists’ services were demanded with equal ardor by contemporary ecclesiastical as well as secular princes. Some worked for prelates, others for princes and kings, and many served both groups. As Italian artists and architects associated themselves with humanists and worked in tandem with

them,

they

too

became

part

of

the

movement.

The

Renaissance

offered to city communes and wealthy princes alike new words, symbols, arguments, and styles that were drawn from a resonant and heroic past. In the service of its own era, Renaissance writers, poets, artists and statesmen twisted, turned, and adjusted “classical” models to their own tastes and needs. Thus, when the Medici family in the mid-fifteenth century (not yet

quite

the

commissioned

signori an

they

elaborate

would

wedding

be

in

chest,

Machiavelli’s

they

wanted

it

day) to

be

“classical” yet relevant. With that in mind, they commissioned an artist to illustrate a story written in the form of a Greek myth. The tale, originally told by the humanist Boccaccio (d.1375), suited the Medicis because it gave them an illustrious ancestry in a supposedly ancient Greek world. Further, the artist portrayed it in a “classical” style. (See Plate 8.6 on pp. 320–21.)

Plate 8.6 Giovanni Toscanini or Fra Angelico, The Nymph of Fiesole (1430– 1440?). In Boccaccio’s story, Africo, a young man from a region near what would (much later) become Florence, falls in love with a nymph. Venus, goddess of love, encourages him in a dream. Together with the nymph, both naked in a pool of water, he “restrains” her, resulting in a son whom the Medici family claimed as an ancestor. That is why this wedding chest was no doubt paraded through the streets of Florence, demonstrating Medici wealth, power, and

their

humanistic

bona

fides.

Although

it

was

painted

more

than

a

millennium after the classical period, the key elements of that style were revived

here:

the

figures

have

substance

and

volume,

they

move

in

a

recognizably natural world, and they hint at private goings-on into which the viewer is intruding.

Description

Note the ambivalence of the nymph on the chest; she tries to escape yet does not turn away. Again, consider that a half century later, Machiavelli wrote Il Principe,

not

La Principessa.

Finally,

observe that Pico talked about the creation of Adam, not Eve. What agency did women have in these schemes? Or, as Joan Kelly asked in the 1970s, “Did women have a Renaissance?” Her answer was largely negative. Italian women were under the rule of their fathers, then of their husbands or brothers. Boccaccio’s Decameron was filled with stories of women’s clever schemes to make end runs around such constraints, although in the main such stratagems had to remain fantasies. But it is a fact that many Italian urban women were welleducated, they wrote letters, and they took care of family businesses. Many may have yearned to be humanists, and a few of them managed to be heard and accepted as such. In the early fifteenth-century, Amedea degli Aleardi, inspired above all by Petrarch’s love poetry, momentarily took on the persona of Medea in her poem “Ah, Do Not Be Jason.” In the original story, well-known to the ancient Greeks, Medea is abandoned by her husband, Jason; she kills their children in revenge. In the Greek story, she is a witch and a monster. But, in Amedea’s Renaissance reworking, Medea becomes every abandoned woman.

Bereft

of

her

lover,

she

calls

on

Love

itself

(her

“cara

speranza” – her dear hope) to return to her, or she will not hesitate to kill herself. She does not follow the Greek model; she forges her own path. Thus,

even

as

Renaissance

writers

and

thinkers

admired

and

borrowed from the classics, they also strove to “improve” on ancient traditions. The artists and architects of the time did so as well. Consider the huge and ingeniously constructed new dome for the cathedral at Florence, planned and executed by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446). It was a first. Even the Roman Pantheon, which rivalled it in size, had a relatively shallow dome that sat atop a round building, nothing like the enormous half eggshell that Brunelleschi built on the octagonal base of the Florentine Cathedral. (See Plate 8.7 and Figure 8.1.)

Plate 8.7 Filippo Brunelleschi, Florence Cathedral Dome and Lantern (1420– 1446). The dome and lantern built to crown the Florentine Cathedral was a major engineering feat. Brunelleschi accomplished it by designing a light inner shell on top of which the workers could then construct the heavier outer dome. But the design would never have worked had he not also invented an unusual hoist as well as new-style cranes and hooks to lift the stones, marble blocks, mortar, and wooden beams as needed. (See Figure 8.1.) The lantern was not finished when Brunelleschi died, but his successors doubtless took advantage of his machines to carry out the rest of his design.

The new interest in mechanical and architectural feats evident in Brunelleschi’s work went hand in hand with precise calculations of spatial perspective, sophisticated military engineering, mathematical studies, and keen observations of the natural world. Italy was not alone in cultivating these skills.

Figure 8.1 Building the Florence Cathedral Dome (1429–1470)

Description

The Northern Renaissance Although north and south supported the literature, the arts, and the expertise associated with the Renaissance rather differently, the two sides of the Alps were constantly in touch. As Map 7.3a on p. 264 demonstrates, trade across Europe was constant. So too did writers and artists crisscross the continent. Christine de Pisan, one of the few

female humanists of the time, came from Italy to write for patrons at the French court. Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), who lived most of his life in Germany, went to Italy to study with Italian artists. The Medici family in Florence avidly collected art from Flanders. The Duchy of Burgundy – that ephemeral creation of the Hundred Years’ War – embraced nearly all the possibilities of Renaissance culture in music, art, literature, and pageantry. Its dukes traveled from one end of their dominions to the other with gorgeous tapestries in tow. At their palace in Brussels, they built a garden filled with bronze statues and fountains; their great hall was large enough to host indoor tournaments. In addition to their court artists and artisans, hundreds of

craftspeople

occasions,

from

producing

nearby

cities

embroideries,

were

recruited

stained

glass,

jewelry, and gold and silver objects. (See Plate 8.8.)

for

special

manuscripts,

Plate

8.8

Rock-Crystal

extraordinarily

high

Cup

level

of

of

Philip

goldwork

and

the

Good

hardstone

(1453–1467). carving

The

achieved

in

Burgundy was readily exploited by the dukes, who commissioned countless objects such as this cup – itself just one small part of a forty-eight-piece crystal dinner service that included jugs and platters. It is made of four pieces of faceted crystal decorated with hollowed-out spheres fastened together with gold mounts lavished with pearls, enamel, diamonds, and rubies.

Although perhaps more ostentatious than most, nevertheless the dukes’ extravagant tastes were similar to those of other northern European

patrons.

possibilities

of

art

But in

many the

also

service

favored of

employing

devotion,

the

rich

sentiment,

and

immediacy. The artists working in Burgundy’s northern half – so-

called Netherlandish Burgundy – cultivated true-to-life expressivity, made possible in part by oil-based pigments that were capable of showing the finest details and the subtlest shading. The enormous altarpiece

in

composition

Plate and

8.9

the

is

a

good

significance

example. of

its

The

many

meaning

elements

of

are

its still

disputed today. But it is undeniable that the artists depicted every jewel, every ray of light, every hair – even the thick, curly wool of a lamb – with translucent clarity. The hyper-realism of the altarpiece was equally present in secular paintings of the time. In Albrecht Dürer’s Portrait of Oswolt Krel (see Plate 8.10 on p. 328), we see Krel, a merchant in a huge German trading company, showing off his wealth with a fur-trimmed coat, elegant rings, and a coat of arms. Yet Dürer does not idealize him one whit: not only does his bulbous nose and pained expression signal a man of bad temper, but he is flanked on both sides by “wild men,” symbols of passions gone amok. As befitting a Renaissance man, Krel’s portrait shows him as the conqueror of his baser instincts, supremely resolute and disdainful of the crazy wild men at his side.

Plate 8.9 Hubert and Jan van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece, Interior (1432). Two enormous painted oak panels open to reveal a scene of exceptional complexity and stunning beauty. Beneath the vision of heaven centering on a crowned and enthroned Christ is an earthly panorama. In its center is the Lamb of God on a high altar – symbol of the sacrificed Christ. His blood pours into a Eucharistic chalice. Surrounding the Lamb are adoring angels who pray and swing censers, while directly beneath the Lamb is the Fountain of Life, its healing waters echoing the Lamb’s streaming blood. To the left of the Fountain are groups of men

wearing

hats

and

cloaks

of

many

different

shapes

and

colors.

They

represent the Jews, who will convert at the end of time. At their head, kneeling and holding forth books are men representing the Prophets or perhaps the transmitters of the Laws of Moses. To the right of the Fountain are kneeling apostles, while behind them are three men in papal tiaras, likely representing the unity of the Church after the Great Schism. On the left side wings are crusading knights followed by Just Judges; on the right are hermits followed by pilgrims. The altarpiece proclaims the unity of all peoples in the divine light of Christ.

Description

Both the Italian and Northern Renaissances cultivated music and musicians, above all for the aura that they gave rulers, princes, and great churchmen. In Italy, Isabella d’Este (1474–1539), marchioness of Mantua, hired her own musicians – singers, woodwind and string players, percussionists, and keyboard players – while her husband

employed a different band. In Burgundy, the duke had a fine private chapel and musicians, singers, and composers to staff it. In England, wealthy patrons founded colleges – Eton (founded by King Henry VI in 1440–1441) was one – where choirs offered up prayers in honor of the Virgin. Motets continued to be composed and sung, but now polyphonic music for larger groups became common as well. In the hands of a composer such as John Dunstable (d.1453), who probably worked for the duke of Bedford, regent for Henry VI in France during the

Hundred

Years’

War,

dissonance

was

smoothed

out.

In

the

compositions of Dunstable and his followers, harmonious chords that moved together even as they changed replaced the old juxtapositions of

independent

lines.

Working

within

the

old

modal

categories,

composers made their mark with music newly sonorous and flowing.

Plate 8.10 Albrecht Dürer, Portrait of Oswolt Krel (c.1499). In this portrait, Dürer does not idealize, allegorize, or elevate his subject, as portraits from the Roman period onward were wont to do. Krel is simply an individual, with his own powerful – if severe – personality.

Description

New Horizons

Experiment and play within old traditions were the watchwords of the period. They may be seen in explorations of interiority, in creative inventions,

even

in

the

attempt

to

conquer

the

globe.

Their

consequences may fairly be said to herald a new era.

INTERIORITY Dürer’s Oswolt Krel has an interior life far more complex than that of pious angels contemplating the Lamb, an amorous lover pursuing his nymph,

a

heroic

martyr

caring

nothing

for

his

wounds.

Dürer’s

portrait is the artist’s statement about the interior worth of a human being – any and every human being. That new emphasis on interiority was typical of its age and was expressed

in

religious

contexts

as

well.

In

the

Low

Countries,

northern Germany, and the Rhineland, the devotio moderna (the “new devotion”) movement carried out by the Brethren of the Common Life found solace in individual reading and contemplation. Founded c.1380 by Gerhard Groote (1340–1384), the Brethren lived in male or female communities that focused on education, copying manuscripts, material simplicity, and individual faith. The Brethren were not quite humanists and not quite mystics, but they drew from both for their religious program, which depended very little on the hierarchy or ceremonies

of

the

church.

Their

style

of

piety

would

later

be

associated with Protestant groups.

INVENTIONS The enormous demand for books – whether by ordinary laypeople, adherents of the devotio moderna, or humanists eager for the classics – made printed books a welcome invention, though manuscripts were neither quickly nor easily displaced. The printing press, however obvious

in

thought,

marked

a

great

practical

breakthrough:

it

depended on a new technique to mold metal type. This was first achieved by Johann Gutenberg at Mainz (in Germany) around 1450. The next step was getting the raw materials that were needed to ensure ongoing book production. Paper required water mills and a steady supply of rag (pulp made of cloth); the metal for the type had to be mined and shaped; ink had to be found that would adhere to metal letters as well as make consistent marks on paper.

By 1500 many European cities had publishing houses, with access to the materials that they needed and sufficient clientele to earn a profit. Highly competitive, the presses advertised their wares. They turned

out

not

only

religious

and

classical

books

but

fliers,

manifestoes, and whatever else the public demanded. Martin Luther (1483–1546) did not in fact nail his Ninety-five Theses to the door of the church at Wittenberg in 1517 (as the myth goes), but he certainly allowed them to be printed and distributed in both Latin and German. Challenging prevailing Church teachings and practices, above all the sale of indulgences, the Theses ushered in the Protestant Reformation. The

printing

press

was

a

powerful

instrument

of

mass

communication. More specialized, yet no less decisive for the future, were new developments in navigation. Portolan maps charted the shapes of coastlines. Compasses, long known in China but newly adopted in the West, provided readings that were noted down in nautical charts; sailors used them alongside maps and written information about such matters as harbors, political turmoil, and anchorage. But navigating the Atlantic also depended on methods for astronomical navigation and for exploiting the powerful ocean currents and wind systems. New ship designs featured the masts and sails needed to harness the breezes. (See Plate 8.11.)

Plate 8.11 Lopo Homem, Pedro Reinel, Jorge Reinel, and Antonio de Holanda, The Miller Atlas (1519). Commissioned by the king of Portugal, this portolan map is one of a collection of enormous charts designed to show the mighty reach of the Portuguese empire. Key to that state’s power, as the map makes clear, are the ships that ply the Atlantic Ocean. There are numerous sorts, two of which are shown here. To the west of the coasts of France and Portugal are several three-masted carraks, which featured deep holds for carrying large cargo. Further south, off the coast of Africa, is a small caravel, the chief ship used for coastal exploration. The Treaty of Tordesillas (1491) neatly divided the New World (the MVNDVS NOVVS on the map) between Portugal and Spain, and a slight modification in 1506 allowed Portugal to claim the east coast of what is today Brazil. The cartographers emphasized this by festooning the coast with a riot of flags.

Description

VOYAGES As

we

have

seen,

thirteenth-century

merchants

from

Genoa

and

Majorca made the initial forays into the Atlantic. In the fifteenth century, the initiative to go further came from the Portuguese royal house. The enticements were gold and slaves as well as honor and glory. Under King João I (r.1385–1433) and his successors, Portugal extended its rule to the Muslim port of Ceuta and a few other nearby cities. (See Map 8.6.) A bit later came expeditions to explore the African coast. In the mid-1450s, Portuguese sailors reached the Cape Verde Islands and penetrated inland via the Senegal and Gambia

Rivers. A generation later, they were working their way far past the equator. In 1487, Bartolomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa (soon thereafter named the Cape of Good Hope), opening a new route that Vasco da Gama sailed about ten years later all the way to Calicut (today Kozhikode) in India. At the end of the century, Portuguese navigators began to explore the Spanish Main and Brazil.

Map 8.6 Long-Distance Sea Voyages of the 15th cent.

Description

Such voyages had goals beyond trade and adventure. They were the

prelude

to

colonization.

Already

in

the

1440s,

João’s

son

Henrique (known as Henry “the Navigator”) was portioning out the uninhabited

islands

of

Madeira

and

the

Azores

to

those

of

his

followers who promised to find peasants to settle them. The Azores produced grain, but, with financing by the Genoese, Madeira began to grow cane sugar. The product took Europe by storm. Demand was so high that some decades later, when few European settlers could be found to work sugar plantations on the Cape Verde Islands, the Genoese Antonio da Noli, discoverer and governor of the islands, brought

in

Black

Africans

as

slaves

instead.

Cape

Verde

was

a

microcosm of later European colonialism, which depended on just such forced labor.

Portugal’s

successes

and

pretensions

roused

the

hostility

and

rivalry of Castile. Ferdinand and Isabella’s determination to conquer the Canary Islands was in part their “answer” to Portugal’s Cape Verde. When, in 1492, they half-heartedly sponsored the Genoese Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) on a westward voyage across the Atlantic, they were trying to best Portugal at its own game. Although the conquistadores confronted a New World, they did so with the expectations and categories of the Old. When the Spaniard Hernán

Cortés

(1485–1547)

began

his

conquest

of

Mexico,

he

boasted in a letter home that he had reprimanded one of the native chiefs for thinking that Mutezuma, the Aztec ruler who controlled much of Mexico at the time, was worthy of allegiance: I replied by telling him of the great power of Your Majesty [Emperor Charles V, who was king of Spain] and of the many other princes, greater than Mutezuma, who were Your Highness’s vassals and considered it no small favor to be so; Mutezuma also would become one, as would all the natives of these lands. I therefore asked him to become one, for if he did it would be greatly to his honor and advantage, but if, on the other hand, he 14

refused to obey, he would be punished.

Kings, emperors, vassals: the old expectations lived on.

*

*

*

*

*

Between the years 1350 and 1500, much of the Islamic world came under

the

control

of

the

Ottomans,

who

also

gobbled

up

the

Byzantine empire and made inroads even further west. The plague hit the

Afro-Eurasian

continent,

and

perhaps

half

the

population

of

Western Europe and many others elsewhere perished. The Hundred Years’ War wreaked havoc in Europe when archers shot and cannons roared, and it let loose armies of freebooters in both town and country even during its interstices of peace. The Roman Church splintered as the Great Schism and then national churches tore at the loyalties of churchmen and laity alike. These events were transformative, and not always for the worse. Much of the Islamic world found stability under the Ottomans, and although the Byzantines suffered much, some found homes elsewhere – or lived on under Ottoman rule. The Black Death helped the peasants in England to loosen the bonds of serfdom. It galvanized

new interest in the body – in death but also in pleasure, in mystical experiences, and in the arts. Inventions allowed sea-faring adventurers to take gold and land via the high seas; and everywhere bibliophiles and artists found wisdom and beauty in the classical past. Princes east and west flexed the muscles of sovereignty. History books normally divide this period into two parts, the “crises” going into a chapter on the

Middle

Renaissance. demonstrate, another.

Ages, But a

the the

crisis

creativity two

for

one

saved

happened group

for

a

together,

was

a

chapter and,

creative

on as

moment

the they for

EPILOGUE All periods are “named” arbitrarily. No one woke up in 1500 thinking that the Middle Ages was over. But the humanists did have a name for the period between classical antiquity and their own day, and that term has prevailed. And so, by general common agreement, the “Middle Ages” is said to end in about 1500, when Europeans became aware

of

the

Americas,

when

Nicolaus

Copernicus

(d.1543)

discovered that the earth circles the sun and not the other way around, and when the Protestant Reformation shattered whatever was left of a united Christendom. Nevertheless, we may wish to challenge the date – and even the idea of an “end.” Certainly, many aspects of the Middle Ages remain today in recognizable bits and pieces. This is easy to see when we consider the persistence of universities, parliaments, ideas about God and human nature, the papacy, and Romanesque and Gothic churches. The

monks

and

nuns

living

today

still

follow

the

sixth-century

Benedictine Rule. It is less easy to see, but certainly arguable, in the instance of less palpable things: our loves and hates, our pleasures and pains. Much of the past lives on, much falls by the wayside, and much is periodically revived. Nothing is exactly as it once had been. The fascination of history is to understand how everything around and within us partakes of both old and new.

For practice questions about the text, maps, plates, and other features – plus suggested answers – please go to www.utphistorymatters.com There you will also find all the maps, genealogies, and figures used in the book.

FURTHER READING Aberth, John. The Black Death: A New History of the Great Mortality in Europe, 1347–1500. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. Archambeau, Nicole. Souls under Siege: Stories of War, Plague, and Confession in Fourteenth-Century Provence. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021.

Barker, Hannah. The Most Precious Merchandise: The Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260–1500. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019. Barker, Juliet. 1381: The Year of the Peasants’ Revolt. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014. Compton, Rebekah. Venus and the Arts of Love in Renaissance Florence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration. New York: Norton, 2006. Firnhaber-Baker, Justine. The Jacquerie of 1358: A French Peasants’ Revolt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Fudge, Thomas A. Jerome of Prague and the Foundations of the Hussite Movement. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Imber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power. 2nd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Jones, Robert W., and Peter Coss, eds. A Companion to Chivalry. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer, 2019. Kamen, Henry. The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision. 4th ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014. Kelly, Joan. “Did Women Have a Renaissance?” In Women, History, and Theory: The Essays of Joan Kelly, pp. 19–50. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Sumption, Jonathan. The Hundred Years War. 4 vols. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991–2015. Taylor, Larissa Juliet. The Virgin Warrior: The Life and Death of Joan of Arc. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010. Tzafrir, Barzilay. Poisoned Wells: Accusations, Persecutions, and Minorities in Medieval Europe, 1321–1422. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022. Varlik, Nükhet. Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman Experience, 1347–1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Watts, John. The Making of Polities: Europe, 1300–1500. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Wheeler, Bonnie, and Charles Wood, eds. Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc. New York: Routledge, 1996.

__________

1

Jacobus

de

Voragine,

The

Golden

Legend,

trans.

William

Granger

Ryan

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 1:101. 2

Ibn Battuta, Travels, in A Short Medieval Reader, ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023), p. 220 and in Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic World, 3rd ed., ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018), pp. 451– 52.

3

As translated by John Aberth, The Black Death: A New History of the Great Mortality in Europe, 1347–1500 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), p. 140.

4

Ashikpashazade, Othman Comes to Power, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 213–15 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 455–57.

5

Froissart, Chronicles, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 225–30 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 468–72.

6

For longbows and crossbows, see “Reading through Looking,” in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. XVIII–XIX.

7

Jeanne d’Arc, Letter to the English, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 231–33 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 472–74.

8

For cannons and other siege guns, see “Reading through Looking,” in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. XX–XXIII.

9

Froissart, Chronicles, ed. and trans. Geoffrey Brereton (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1968), pp. 154–55.

10 The Case of Richard de Leycester, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 230–31. 11 Chronicle of Siena, in A Short Medieval Reader, pp. 221–25 and in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 474–78. 12 Francesco Petrarch, Res seniles 10.2, in Letters of Old Age, trans. Aldo S. Bernardo, Saul Levin, and Reta A. Bernardo, 2 vols. (New York: Italica Press, 2005), 2:359–74. 13 Pico

della

Mirandola,

Oration

on

the

Dignity

of

Man,

trans.

Paul

Oskar

Kristeller, in The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, ed. Ernst Cassirer, Paul Oskar Kristeller, and John Herman Randall Jr. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), p. 224. 14 Hernán Cortés, The Second Letter, in Reading the Middle Ages, pp. 497–500.

SOURCES

PLATES 1.1

Photo by Luigi Spina. Reproduced by permission of the Ministero della Cultura–Parco Archeologico di Pompei.

1.2

Scala/Luciano Romano/Art Resource, NY.

1.3

Marble cinerary urn of Vernasia Cyclas. 1st century, marble. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.

1.4

The Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne/© Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums/Bridgeman Images.

1.5

Votive Stele to Saturn. 2nd century

CE.

Limestone, 75 x 42 x 10.2 cm.

Courtesy of Yale University Art Gallery. 1.6

Scala/Art Resource, NY.

1.7

© Archivio fotografico Civici Musei di Brescia–Fotostudio Rapuzzi.

1.8

“Orant” Fresco, SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Rome, view of confessio (late 4th c.). Reprinted by permission of the Ministero dell’Interno–Dipartimento per le Libertà civili e l’Immigrazione–Direzione Centrale per l’Amministrazione del Fondo Edifici di Culto.

1.9

Lanmas/Alamy Stock Photo.

1.10 © Trésor de l’Abbaye de Saint-Maurice. Photo by Jean-Yves Glassey and Michel Martinez. 1.11 Artur Bogacki/picfair.com. 1.12 Mihai Barbat/Alamy Stock Photo. 2.1

Cross from South Tympanum, Hagia Sophia. The Courtauld Institute of Art, London. Photograph by Ernest Hawkins. Reproduced by permission.

2.2

Islamic Arabic 1572a fol. 2r. Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections, University of Birmingham. Reproduced by permission.

2.3

Umayyad Mosque, Damascus, Syria. Photo © Andrea Jemolo/Bridgeman Images.

2.4

The Sutton Hoo helmet. Late 6th century–early 7th century, iron and copper alloy. 1939, 1010.93. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.

2.5

Reproduced by permission of The Board of Trinity College Dublin. Images may not be further reproduced from software. For reproduction, application

must be made to the Head of Digital Collections, Trinity College Library Dublin. 2.6

Reproduced by permission of The Board of Trinity College Dublin. Images may not be further reproduced from software. For reproduction, application must be made to the Head of Digital Collections, Trinity College Library Dublin.

2.7

Reproduced by permission of The Board of Trinity College Dublin. Images may not be further reproduced from software. For reproduction, application must be made to the Head of Digital Collections, Trinity College Library Dublin.

2.8

Scala/Art Resource, NY.

2.9

Cameraphoto Arte, Venice/Art Resource, NY.

2.10 Janzig/Europe/Alamy Stock Photo. 2.11 Spatha (FG2187). Photograph © Germanisches Nationalmuseum. Reproduced by permission. 2.12 MS 32, fol. 35v. Courtesy of Utrecht University Library. 3.1

Werner Forman Archive/Bridgeman Images.

3.2

MS Grec 510, fol. 78r. Bibliothèque nationale de France.

3.3

Bowl with Persian inscription. AH 779/AD 1377. Stonepaste. Anonymous Gift, 1970. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

3.4

Panel (lid from a chest?), second half 8th century, wood (fig); mosaic with bone and four different types of wood, Samuel D. Lee Fund, 1937. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

3.5

eFesenko/Alamy Stock Photo.

3.6

© RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.

3.7

Andromeda from the same MS as old 3.6 (MS Voss. lat. Q. 79, fol. 30v. 830s, Leiden, University Library). CC BY 4.0.

3.8

Arras, BM 0233 (1045), fol. 8, Media Library of the Abbey of Saint-Vaast. Courtesy of the Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes.

3.9

MS 32, fol. 4v. Courtesy of Utrecht University Library.

4.1

Vitr/26/2, fol. 208v. Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid.

4.2

© Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, Norway. CC BY-SA 4.0.

4.3

T-S 12.338 (1r). Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

4.4

Ivan Vdovin/Alamy Stock Photo.

4.5

akg-images/De Agostini Picture Library.

4.6

Detail from MS Vat. lat. 5729, fol. 342r. © 2022 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

4.7

Cotton MS Tiberius B V/1, fol. 3r. British Library, London, UK/Bridgeman Images.

4.8

MS

24,

fol.

52v.

Reproduced

Trier/Stadtarchiv Trier.

by

permission

of

Bibliothek

der

Stadt

4.9

National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden (a 1913/11.223d).

4.10 MS Fr. 1586, fol. 23r. Bibliothèque nationale de France. 4.11 bpk Bildagentur/Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum/B.-P. Keiser/Art Resource, NY. 5.1

B. O’Kane/Alamy Stock Photo.

5.2

Uploaded by Sbuarchi. CC BY-SA 4.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F ile:Inner_view_of_north_dome_of_Isfahan_Jame_mosque.jpg.

5.3

CPA Media Pte Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo.

5.4

© Marie-Lan Nguyen. CC BY 4.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: Stele_Almeria_Gao-Saney_MNM_R88-19-279.jpg.

5.5

Archivio fotografico del Museo Civico di Modena. Photo by Ghigo Roli.

5.6

Saint-Omer, BA, MS 698, fol. 7v. Reproduced by permission of Bibliothèque d’Agglomération du Pays de Saint-Omer.

5.7

MS Vat. lat. 4922, fol. 49r. © 2022 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

5.8

Sklifas Steven/Alamy Stock Photo.

5.9

Reproduced by permission of Stan Parry.

5.10 © Alinari Archives/Ghigo Roli/Art Resource, NY. 5.11 © Marage Photos/Bridgeman Images. 5.12 akg-images/De Agostini Picture Library/A. De Gregorio. 6.1

shoults/Alamy Stock Photo.

6.2

Uploaded by BabelStone. CC BY-SA 3.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wik i/File:Inner_Mongolia_Museum_suit_of_armour_A.jpg.

6.3

Reproduced by permission of the Provost and Fellows of Eton College.

6.4

Thomas Dutour/Alamy Stock Photo.

6.5

iStock.com/ValeryEgorov.

6.6

Danita Delimont/Alamy Stock Photo.

6.7

Ivoha/Alamy Stock Photo.

6.8

Courtesy of the Royal Danish Library.

6.9

British

Library,

London,

UK.

©

British

Library

Board.

All

Rights

Reserved/Bridgeman Images. 6.10 Evangeliar (Codex Aureus). BSB Clm 14000. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. 7.1

Courtesy of Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-PK. CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. http://resolver. staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/SBB00002C0D00000114.

7.2

Courtesy of the Archive and Library of the Board of Trustees of the Alhambra and Generalife.

7.3

akg-images/André Held.

7.4

British

Library,

London,

UK.

©

British

Library

Board.

All

Rights

ISG

FFM),

Reserved/Bridgeman Images. 7.5

Institut

für

Stadtgeschichte

Frankfurt

am

Main

(abbreviated:

H.01.01 (Privilegien) no. 107, Golden Bull of Emperor Charles IV from 1356, Frankfurt copy from 1366. Photograph by Uwe Dettmar.

7.6

Copyright © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Cologne, rba_c007428.

7.7

British

Library,

London,

UK.

©

British

Library

Board.

All

Rights

Reserved/Bridgeman Images. 7.8

Chansons anciennes (en latin et en français) avec la musique. MS H196, fol. 49v. Copyright BIU Montpellier/DIAMM, University of Oxford. Reproduced by

permission

of

the

Bibliothèque

interuniversitaire

de

Montpellier,

Bibliothèque universitaire historique de médecine. 7.9

Reprinted by permission of the Comune di Padova–Assessorato alla Cultura.

7.10 Lamentation over Christ. Giotto di Bondone (1266–1336). Cameraphoto Arte, Venice/Art Resource, NY. 8.1

Godong/Alamy Stock Photo.

8.2

British

Library,

London,

UK.

©

British

Library

Board.

All

Rights

Reserved/Bridgeman Images. 8.3

“Star Ushak” carpet. Late 15th century. Wool. Gift of Joseph V. McMullan, 1958. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

8.4

Gokhan Balci/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images.

8.5

Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo.

8.6

Fra Angelico, Scenes from Boccaccio’s “Il ninfale fiesolano,” ca. 1415–20. Tempera on panel, 11 3/8 in. x 49 13/16 in. (28.9 cm. x 126.5 cm.). Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 1961.100.1.

8.7

© Susanne Kremer.

8.8

Inv. KK 27. KHM-Museumsverband.

8.9

Saint-Bavo’s Cathedral, www.artinflanders.be, photo by Dominique Provost, Hugo Maertens.

8.10 akg-images. 8.11 Miller Atlas, fol. 6r. Bibliothèque nationale de France.

FIGURES 1.1

From Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge

University

Press,

2010),

fig.

78,

p.

227.

Reproduced

with

permission of Cambridge University Press through PLSclear. 2.2

Yeavering, drawing

of

Northumberland Saxon

(also

Yeavering

AD

known 627,

by

as

Ad

Peter

Gefrin). Dunn

Reconstruction

(English

Heritage

Graphics Team). Historic England/Mary Evans. 3.1

Adapted from J.J. Norwich, ed., Great Architecture of the World (DeCapo, 2001), p. 133.

5.1

Adapted from Wolfgang Braunfels, Monasteries

of

Western

Europe:

The

Architecture of the Orders (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 84. © Dumont Buchverlag GmbH. 8.1

© George Retseck. Reproduced by permission.

MAPS 1.7

© Henri Galinie.

3.1

“Imperial

Territory

and

the

Themes,

c.

917,”

from

Mark

Whittow,

The

Making of Orthodox Byzantium, 600–1025, p. 166. © Mark Whittow, 1996. Reproduced by permission of Red Globe Press, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. 4.1

Adapted

from

Linda

Safran,

Heaven

on

Earth:

Art

and

the

Church

in

Byzantium (University Park, PA: Penn State UP, 1998), Images 1.7 and 1.9 (pp. 21 and 23). 5.1

“Byzantium and the Islamic World, c. 1090,” from Christophe Picard, Le monde

musulman

du

XIe

du

XVe

au

siecle.

©

Armand

Colin,

2000.

ARMAND COLIN is a trademark of DUNOD Editeur. Reproduced with permission of Dunod Editeur, 11, rue Paul Bert, 92247 Malakoff. 6.7

From Atlas of Medieval Europe (Routledge, 2007). Reproduced by permission of Robert Bartlett.

8.4

From Atlas of Medieval Europe (Routledge, 2007). Reproduced by permission of Michael C.E. Jones.

INDEX

Note: Page numbers in italics indicate plates and figures.

Aachen, 106, 112, 112 Abbasids economy, 109, 127–28 genealogy, 94 intellectual life, 95–100, 133 reconfiguration and rule of Islamic world, 90, 92–95, 100 ‘Abd al-Malik (caliph, r.685–705), 54–55, 58 Abd al-Rahman I (emir), 101 Abd al-Rahman III (caliph, r.912–961), 101, 132 Abelard. See Peter Abelard Abu-Bakr (caliph, r.632–634), 55 Abu Huraira, 97, 100. See also hadith Abu Tammam, 96 Adalbert (saint), 155 Adela (sister of Henry I of England), 193 administration. See bureaucracy Adrian IV (pope), 222, 223 Adrianople, 301 battle of, 25 See also Edirne Adriatic Sea, 106, 124, 233 Aegean Sea, 48, 233 Æthelstan (king of England, r.924–939), 149 “affective piety”, 201 Afonso Henriques or Afonso I (king of Portugal), 194 Africa, 134, 329, 332 East, 58, 127 Horn of, 7 sub-Saharan, 95, 127, 170, 211, 255, 258 West, 163, 169, 171, 210–11, 266, 292 See also Ghana; Maghreb; Mali; North Africa agriculture in Byzantium in 7th cent., 44 of Carolingians, 110

city control over, in Italy, 233–34 in England in 11th cent., 143 in Europe in 11th–12th cent., 175 examples in 7th cent., 60, 61 expansion of, 234 lords and peasants in 10th–12th cent., 143–44 manse system, 110, 234 and population growth in 13th–14th cent., 290 three-field system, 143, 175 Agrippa (Roman statesman and architect), 17 al-Akhtal (c.640–710), 54–55 Alaric (leader of Visigoths, d.410), 25 Alba. See Scotland Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229), 231, 272 Albigensians (Cathars), 230 Alcuin (d.804), 104, 111 Alexander II (pope, 1061–1073), 183, 186, 194 Alexander III (pope, 1159–1181), 224 Alexius (emperor), 186, 188 Alexius I Comnenus (emperor, r.1081–1118), 174 Alfonso I (king of Asturias, r.739–757), 102 Alfonso VI (king of Castile and León, r.1065–1109), 170, 194 Alfonso VII (king of Castile and León), 169 Alfonso VIII (king of Castile, r.1158–1214), 221 Alfonso X (king of Castile and León, r.1252–1284), 275 Alfred the Great (king of Wessex, r.871–899), 135, 140, 148–49 genealogy, 148 Alhambra citadel, 260–61, 261 Ali (caliph, r.656–661), 55 Alighieri, Dante (1265–1321), 285 al-khurs. See warfare Almería (Almoravid) marble tombstone, 172 silk, 170, 171 Almohads, 170, 210–11 map of empire (c.1175), 210 Almoravids (Murabitun) in 11th–12th cent., 168–70, 171–73, 194, 195, 210 map of empire (c.1050), 169 Alp Arslan (sultan, r.1063–1072), 164 altar of Ratchis, 73, 74, 74 Amalfi, 129, 175, 178 Amazigh. See Berbers Ambrose (saint, bishop of Milan, 339–397), 13 Amedea degli Aleardi (poet), 322–23

Americas, 258, 334. See also New World Amorium, 96 Anagni, 281 Anatolia, 25, 86, 123–24, 174, 186, 188 geography of, 43 Ottomans in, 295, 300, 302 peasants in, 44 Seljuk conquest of, 163–64, 173 al-Andalus (Islamic Spain) in 8th to 10th cent., 101–2 Almohads in, 210 Almoravids in, 170, 194, 195, 210 armies, 101 intellectual and artistic life in 10th–11th cent., 132–33 reconquista, 183, 186, 193–95, 220, 275 Umayyads in, 132–33 See also Iberian Peninsula, Spain Andromeda, 112, 112, 115 “Angevin”, as term, 215 Angevins, 225, 307 genealogy of kings in England, 216 of Naples, 281 realms in 12th cent. (map), 217 “Anglo-Saxon”, as label, 65 Anglo-Saxon language. See Old English language Anjou, 222 Ankara, 301 Anna Dalassena (d.c.1102), 174 anointment of kings, 104 Anselm of Bec (and Canterbury; 1033–1109), 193, 197 Ansgar (d.865), 150 Antioch, 8, 53, 122, 124, 189 Antiochus IV Epiphanes (ruler of Syria), 142 Antonio da Noli, 333 Antony (saint, c.250–c.356), 11, 12–13, 29 apprenticeships, 238 Aquinas. See Thomas Aquinas Aquitaine, 62, 270, 305 duke and duchess of, 180, 215 arabesque designs, 261, 262 Arabia, 43, 53, 58, 77, 128, 129 pre-Islamic, 49 under Muhammad, 49–52 See also Mecca Arabian Peninsula. See Arabia

Arabic language, 58, 133–34 Arabic numerals, 97 Arabic script. See Kufic script Arabs, 41–43, 92, 100–2, 124 and Byzantium, 76, 86, 100 conquest of Spain, 72 See also al-Andalus (Islamic Spain); Muslims; Saracens Aragon, Kingdom of, 194, 221, 225, 263, 291, 310 Aral Sea, 163, 164 Aratos (fl. 3rd cent.

BCE),

112, 115

archaeology Africa, 172 Northern Europe, 109, 125 Roman Empire, 45–47, 46 in Volubilis/Walila, 45–47, 100–1 Western Europe, 59–60, 72 architecture in Byzantium in 9th cent., 90 Carolingian, 112 decorative, 22 dome squares of Ottomans, 304, 304 Mamluk, 260 in Renaissance, 323, 323, 324 See also churches and architecture Arianism, 9, 27, 68, 73 aristocrats in Francia in 7th cent., 62, 64 as knights, 235 Aristotle (d.323

BCE),

treatises, 198

Arius (Alexandrian priest, 250–336), 9. See also Arianism Armenia, 42, 86, 124, 174 army after Hundred Years’ War, 309, 310 battle depiction in 11th cent., 142 Byzantine Empire, 42, 86–87, 173–74 and economy in 14th–15th cent., 312 Islamic world, 43, 47, 93, 101, 132 Roman Empire, 4, 5, 42 See also warfare Arnaud of Verniolle, 273 Artevelde, Jacob van, 314 arts in British Isles in 7th cent., 67–68 in Byzantium in 9th–10th cent., 89–90 of Carolingians, 112, 112, 115–16

currents in 13th–14th cent., 286, 290 in Germany in 10th cent., 154 hierarchical style, 89–90, 90 in Islamic world in 8th–10th cent., 95, 101–2 Lombard Italy in 7th cent., 73–75 natural style, 90, 91 and origin of Western art, 116 of Ottomans, 302 plague and death in, 298–300, 299 in Roman Empire, 13, 17, 17–18, 21–23 Vikings, 139 See also mosaics Asella (Roman virgin), 11 Ashikpashazade, 304 Asia, 25, 133, 134, 178, 258 steppes of, 93, 126, 163 Assisi, 228, 245, 245 Assize of Clarendon (1166), 216 Asturias, Kingdom of, 102 Aswan, 129, 131, 132 Athanasius (saint, bishop of Alexandria, c.295–373), 9, 12 Atlantic exploration, 332–33 trade, 263–64 Attila (Hunnic leader), 25 Augustine (monk), 66 Augustine (saint, bishop of Hippo, 354–430), 9, 10, 76, 230, 284 City of God, 25 Rule of, 227 Austrasia, 62, 103 See also Francia Austria, 125, 200, 225 duke of, 219 authors, portraits of, 68 Avar Khaganate, map (7th–8th cent.), 87 Avars, 43, 87, 104 Averroes. See Ibn Rushd Avicenna. See Ibn Sina Avignon papacy, 281, 317 Avitus of Vienne (bishop), 27 Awdaghust (town), 172, 173 Ayyubids, 211, 212 Azores, 332

Badajoz, 170 Badr, battle of (624), 52

Baghdad as capital of caliphate, 92, 94, 97, 127–28, 134 al-Bakri (d. 1094), 171, 173 Baldwin I of Flanders (emperor), 233 Baldwin IV of Jerusalem (king, r.1174–1185), 271 Balkan peninsula, and Byzantium, 43 Balthild (queen, d.680), 62 Baltic, 232, 264 Baltic Crusades, 231–32 bannum (ban), 106 barbarians definition, 4 law codes, 27, 31 religion, 9, 27 in Roman Empire, 4, 23–28, 37 See also names of individual peoples Barbastro, battle of (1064), 183, 194 Barcelona, 146 Bari, 173 Bartholomew, Peter, 189 Bartolomeu Dias, 332 Basil II (Byzantine emperor, r.976–1025), 122–25, 149 Bavaria, 141 Lower, 276 Bayezid II (sultan, r.1481–1512), 304 Bec, Norman monastery, 193 Becket, Thomas (1118–1170), 219 Bede (monk-historian), 65, 66, 68 Bedford, duke of, 307, 328 beggars, 272 Beghards, 229 Beguines, 227, 229, 308 Béla IV (king of Hungary, r.1235–1270), 279 Bellini, Gentile (c.1429–1507), 302 Benedict (saint, d.c.550/560), and monastic rules, 29–30, 107, 228 Benedict of Aniane (d.821), 107 Benedict Biscop, 58–59, 66, 67 Benedictine Rule (530–560), 29–30, 107, 228 Benevento, Lombard duchy, 73 Berbers conquest of Spain, 72–73 and Islam, 95, 168–70, 210 at Walila, 100–1 Bernard (saint, abbot of Clairvaux, c.1090–1153), 199–200, 231 Bernard Gui, 272 Bernart de Ventadorn (fl. c.1147–1170), 235–36 Bernicia, Kingdom of, 60

Bertran de Born (fl. second half of 12th cent.), 236 Bible, 112, 148, 320 rabbinic commentaries, 270 for taking oaths, 142 translated, 9, 318 Vulgate, 111 binding of books, 251 Birka (settlement), 125, 150 bishops in 10th–11th cent., 145, 152 definition of, 8 power and importance, 29, 145, 152, 228 Black Death (1346–1353), 214, 295 See also plague Black Sea, 24–25, 44, 291, 296, 314 blast furnaces, 80 Boccaccio (d.1375), 322 Boethius (d.524/526), 27 Bohemia, 155, 280, 318 Bohemond (warrior), 188 Boleslaw I the Brave (or Chrobry; duke and king, r.992–1025), 155–56 Bologna, 197, 198, 298, 312 popes based in, 316, 317 University of, 239, 319 Bonaventure (saint, c.1217–1274), 284 Boniface (saint, d.754), 66, 103 Boniface VIII (pope, 1294–1303), 277, 280–81 Boniface IX (pope, 1389–1404), 317 Book of Durrow (7th cent.), 67–8, 69–71, 72 Book of Hours (c.1260–1270), 282, 283. See also liturgy books Byzantine, 89 Carolingian, 111–12, 112 cover, 90 Islamic, 96, 198 materials for and writing of, 89 printed and printing press, 329 production of, in 12th–15th cent., 249–51, 290, 329 See also illuminated manuscripts Boris (khan, r.852–889), then Boris-Michael, 88 Bosporus, 188 Bourges, 145 Bouvines, battle of (1214), 220 Brenner, Elma, 271 Brethren of the Common Life, 329 Bretislav I (prince of Bohemia, d.1055), 155

Britain diversity of population, 65 languages, 68, 148 post-Roman Christianity, 65–67 provincial art in Roman Empire, 17, 18, 21 See also England British Isles politics and culture in 7th cent., 65–68 Vikings in, 135, 140 Brown, Peter, 1 Brubaker, Leslie, 48, 85 Brunelleschi, Filippo (1377–1446), 323, 323 Bruno of Cologne (archbishop), 152–53 Bruno of Cologne (Carthusian abbot, d.1101), 199 Bruno of Toul. See Leo IX Brunswick chasuble, 160 Buddhism, 257 Bukhara, 133 al-Bukhari (810–870), 97, 100 Bulgaria, 87, 88, 124, 155, 279, 301 Bulgars, 43, 88, 127 bull, definition, 276 Burchard (bishop of Worms), 153–54, 273 bureaucracy and administration in 12th–13th cent., 222, 225, 234 in Byzantium, 89 and Carolingians, 106 and Islamic rule, 53–54 Burgundofara (nun), 64 Burgundy, 27, 62 See also Francia Burgundy (Duchy) disintegration of, 309 dukes of, during the Hundred Years’ War, 306, 307, 308 map (1363–1477), 308 map (c.1430), 307 and Northern Renaissance, 325, 325, 328 Buyids, 127, 134 Byzantine Empire (Byzantium) army, 42, 86–87, 173–74 centralization strengths and limits, 119–27, 156 changes and expansion (c.750–c.900), 85–90 Christianity in, 88 and crusade of 13th cent., 233 culture in 8th–9th cent., 89–90 description and changes in 7th–8th cent., 44–45, 47

description in 11th–12th cent., 173–74 dynatoi, 122–3, 124, 156, 174 fall and “continuation”, 300–2 iconoclasm, 47–49, 85–86, 89 imperial court in 10th–11th cent., 119, 121–22, 124, 174 losses of territory in 11th–12th cent., 164, 173–74 map (c.700), 43 map (c.920), 87 map (976–1025), 123 map (c.1090), 165 map of successor states (1204–c.1250), 232 as model for Charlemagne, 106 Ottoman conquest, 53, 55, 58 terminology for, 41 See also Eastern Roman Empire Byzantium (city), 8 See also Constantinople

caballeros villanos (city horsemen), 275 Caesarea, 124 Caesarius (bishop of Arles, r.502–542), 29 Cairo, 53, 95, 96, 97, 258, 262 capital city of the Fatimids, 129 Calicut, 332 caliphs, 53, 55, 100, 304 See also individual caliphs Canary Islands, 264, 333 cane sugar, 332–33 canon law (or Church law), 8, 145, 182, 185, 226 See also Burchard; Gratian Canossa, 184, 185 Canterbury, Church of, 219 Canute. See Cnut cap, woolen, 157 Cape of Good Hope, 332 Capetians, 154–55, 195, 231 genealogy of kings in France, 196 realms in 12th cent. (map), 217 Cape Verde Islands, 333 capital, and wealth, 284 capitularies, 106, 111 Carmathians. See Qaramita Carobert (king of Hungary, r.1308–1342), 279 Carolingians alliance with pope, 103–4

army, 106 dynastic problems, 107, 109 economy and trade, 109–10 as empire in 8th–10th cent., 102–9, 154 genealogy, 108 laws and institutions, 106 Renaissance of, 111–12, 112, 115–16 takeover of Francia, 103 Carpathian basin, 140–41 carpets, 302, 303 Carthage, 8, 53 Carthusian order, 199 Casimir III the Great (king of Poland, r.1333–1370), 280 Caspian Sea, 109, 126, 128, 163 Cassiodorus (490–583), 27 castellans, 144, 155, 179, 279, 280 Castile, Kingdom of, 194, 221, 275, 310, 333 Cathars (Albigensians), 230 Celtic peoples and polities, 58, 65 cemeteries. See graves and cemeteries Ceuta, 170, 332 chalice (c.1300), 281 chanson de geste (“song of heroic deeds”), 237 charitable institutions, 266 Charlemagne (or Charles the Great) (king and emperor, r.768–814), 104, 106–7, 111 heirs of, 107–9, 111 Charles (later “the Bald”), 107, 109 Charles IV (emperor, r.1347–1378), 276, 280 Charles Martel (mayor, 714–741), 103 Charles Robert. See Carobert Charles the Great. See Charlemagne Charles VII (1422–1461), 307, 308 Chartres Cathedral (1195–1230) cut-out view, 241 description, 245 interior, 240 south portals, 242–43 stained glass, 244, 245 charts and maps, as inventions, 329 chasuble, 160 Chelles monastery, 111 children, education of, 111–12, 133 China, 95, 129, 134, 258, 296, 329 Jin, 214

Ming, 300 Mongols of, 257, 292 paper invented in, 133 silk from, 159 western route to, 310 Chinggis Khan (ruler of Mongols, c.1162–1227), 213–14, 256 map of campaigns, 213 chivalry, 235, 238, 311 Chosroes II (king of Persians, r.590–628), 42 Chrétien de Troyes (fl. c.1150–1190), 237 Christianity in al-Andalus, 102 art in Roman Empire, 22–23 body in, 283, 318 (See also Church sacraments, Eucharist) and Carolingians, 107–9 conversion to (See conversion to Christianity) doctrines, 9–10 and earthly Church, 10–11 expansion in East Central Europe, 87–88 and God’s grace, 10–13, 102 iconoclasm in Byzantium, 47–49, 86 and Jews in 14th cent., 269 Latin vs. linguistic differences, 88 lay religiosity, 283 Mass, 11, 283 monastic rules, 29–30 official recognition, 8, 37 organization, 7–8 populations in 3rd cent. (map), 7 relics and reliquaries, 30, 31, 47 rise and appeal in Roman Empire, 6–9, 37 sacred images ban, 48–49 sexual sins, 153–54, 273 simplicity and austerity in, 198–200, 205 transubstantiation, 218, 283 See also Roman Catholic brand of Christianity Christ on the Cross amid Saints (9th–early 10th cent.), 90 Church (as institution) aristocrats (nobles) in, 64 Byzantine, 44–45 councils, 226–27, 317–18 courts in England, 218–19 definition of, 7 indulgences, 317 movements of 13th cent., 227–30 and “new order”, 29–31

penance and piety, 64–65 popular religious movements in 15th cent., 318 power and rule, 318–19 reform movements in, 183, 181–83 rules in 13th cent., 226–27 schisms in 14th–15th cent., 316–18 and scholasticism, 283–85 and sexualities, 273 See also Church sacraments churches and architecture Cistercian style, 200, 206 dome and lantern in Florence, 323, 323, 324 Gothic, 240, 241–44, 245, 246–47 and Mass, 11 Romanesque, 201, 202–4, 204, 205 See also individual churches Church Fathers, 9, 76, 89, 112, 185 Church law. See canon law Church sacraments 182, 230 baptism, 28, 182 confession, 226 Eucharist, 11, 36, 48, 226, 283, 318 marriage, 227, 273 Cicero, 153, 320 Cid (Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar), 194 Cináed mac Ailpín (Kenneth I MacAlpin; d.858), 135 cinerary coffer of Vernasia Cyclas (1st cent.), 16, 17 ciompi, 316 Cistercian churches, 200, 206 Cistercians, 199, 199–201, 206 Cîteaux monastery, 199–200 cities conflict in, 266–68 decline in Byzantium, 44–45 formation and arrangements in Europe, 177–80 governments, 266–67, 275 and Islamic rule, 53 and the plague, 298 population in 14th cent., 266, 267 in Roman Empire, 5, 28, 31, 45–47, 46 and trade, 265–66 in Western Europe in 10th–11th cent., 146 See also towns Cividale Tempietto, 73, 74, 75 Clare (noblewoman), 228

Clement VII (pope), 317 clergy, 106, 221, 230, 257, 276 in bishops’ election, 152, 182 and chastity, 153 definition of, 7 English, 219 married, 185 as “order”, 274, 277, 292 reformed, 226, and taxation, 281 climate change, 32, 290 cloth and clothing in 14th cent., 158, 159 and Church, 34–35, 159–60, 160 description, production, and use, 157, 159–60 guilds, 238 woolen cap, 157 Clovis I (king of the Franks, r.481/482–511), 26, 27 genealogy, 63 Cluny monastery, 180–82, 198, 201 Cnut (or Canute) (king of England, r.1016–1035), 149, 192 Codex Aureus (870), 251 Codex Justinianus (529, revised in 534), 31 coins, 109, 125, 266 Cologne, 152, 153, 175, 188 colonization, 233, 332–33 colors and dyes, 159 Columba (saint), 67–68 Columbanus (saint, 543–615), 64 Columbus, Christopher, 310, 333 Comares Palace, Alhambra (mid-14th cent.), 260–61, 261 Commedia (Dante), 285 “commercial revolution”, 178 communes, in Italy, 179–80, 224, 234, 267 Communion. See Church sacraments, Eucharist Comnenian dynasty, genealogy, 174 compass, 329 Compendium of Chronicles, 256 Concordat of Worms (1122), 184 confessio (small room), 21, 22 Conrad III (king and emperor, r.1138–1152), 222 Constance (heiress of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily), 224 Constantine (later called Cyril), 88 Constantine (Roman emperor, r.306–337), 5, 8 Constantine Dalassenos, 121, 122, 124

Constantine V (emperor of Byzantium, r.741–775), 86 Constantine IX (emperor of Byzantium, r.1042–1055), 174 Constantinople, 8, 44, 119–21, 233, 302 map (c.1100), 120 Constitutions of Melfi (1231), 225 consular diptychs, 20 contado, 146, 224, 233–34 conversion to Christianity in Baltic, 232 in Britain, 65, 66 in Bulgaria, 88 of Jews, 310 in Poland, 155–56 in Roman Empire, 8 of Rus’, 126–27 in Scandinavia, 150 in Spain, 68, 310 by Vikings, 140 conversion to Islam, 49, 52, 58, 72, 256, 257–58 conversos, 310 Córdoba, 101, 132–33 Cortés, Hernán (1485–1547), 333 cortes. See Spain cotton, 157, 159 Council of Constance (1414–1418), 317–18 Council of Constantinople (691/692), 45, 49, 76 Council of Nicaea (325), 8, 9 Council of Nicaea (787), 85–86 Council of Pisa (1409), 317 Council of Toledo (589), 68 countryside crops as market in 13th–14th cent., 291–92 and formation of towns, 177 monasteries in, 64 and the plague, 298 rise in Byzantium, 44–45 roving soldiers in 15th cent., 309 and ruralization in 6th cent., 27–28 courtiers, in 14th–15th cent., 311 Courtrai, battle of (1302), 267 courts in Byzantine Empire in 10th–11th cent., 119, 121–22, 124, 174 Carolingian, 111 culture in 11th–12th cent., 235–38 in England in 11th–12th cent., 218–19 in Francia, 62

Ottoman, 302 See also Spain, cortes Crac des Chevaliers, 190–91, 191 Crécy, battle of (1346), 305 Crete, 122, 233 cross, as symbol, 48, 48, 49, 70, 72 Crusader States, 189–92, 211 crusades in 13th cent., 231–33 Albigensian, 231, 272 and colonization, 232–33 First Crusade, 186–89 Second Crusade, 191–92 Third Crusade, 219 Fourth Crusade, 232, 233 Cuenca, 210, 221 curiales (town councilors), 28, 44, 45 Cyprus, 122, 219 Cyril (or Constantine-Cyril), 88

Dagobert (king), 183 Dalassenos family, 124, 174 Damascus, as capital, 55 Damascus Great Mosque mosaic, 54, 55, 58 Damian, Peter. See Peter Damian Dance of Death (genre), 300 Dandanqan, battle of (1040), 164 Dandolo, Enrico (Venetian doge, r.1192–1205), 266 Danelaw, 135 Danes, 148, 150, 231 Dante Alighieri. See Alighieri, Dante Danube River and region, 1, 4, 5, 119, 122, 140 Danzig, 264 Death of the Virgin (1205–1215) stained glass, 244 Decretum (by Burchard, 1008/1012), 153–54 Decretum (by Gratian, c.1140), 185 Denmark, kings and conversion, 150 devotio moderna (the “new devotion”) movement, 329 Dhuoda (noblewoman), 111–12 Dias, Bartolomeu, 332 Diddington manor, 193 Diego (friar), 228 Digest (533), 31 Dijon, 307 Diocletian (Roman emperor; r.284–305), 4, 5 diptych of the Lampadii (396), 20, 21–22

A Dispute between the Body and Worms (1435–1440), 299 Divine Comedy. See Commedia dome and lantern of cathedral, 323, 323, 324 Domesday Book, 193 Dominic (saint, 1170–1221), 227–28, 230 Dominicans, 228 Donation of Constantine, 104, 322 Donation of Pippin (756), 104 Donatists, 8 Donizo (monk/abbot), 185 dowries, 64 Drendel, John, 290 dualism (doctrine). See Manichees and Manichaeism Duero River, 102 Duns Scotus, John (1265/1266–1308), 284 Dunstable, John, 328 Dunstan (saint, d.988), 250 Dürer, Albrecht, 325, 328, 329 dynatoi. See Byzantine Empire; elite

eagle, as symbol, 68, 69 East Central Europe Christianity and rise of, 87–88 map (c.1300), 278 new states, 155–56, 279–80 Eastern Roman Empire after “fall” of Roman Empire, 77 and changes in Western Empire, 26 law codes, 31 map (c.600), 36 “new order” in, 31 retrenchment in, 31–33, 36–37 See also Byzantine Empire; Roman Empire Ebbo of Reims (archbishop), 115 Eckhart (d.1327/1328), 284 economy Abbasid, 109, 127–28 Byzantine, 44, 174 Carolingian, 109–10 decline in 14th–15th cent., 312, 314 expansion in Europe, 175, 178–79 Fatimid, 129 food and crops in 13th–14th cent., 291 gift economy in 7th cent., 61 Iraqi, 128 and the plague, 298

profit, 182, 263–66 rural, 170 See also guilds; trade Edessa, County of, 189, 191, 211 Edict of Milan (313), 8 Edirne, 301 building complex, 304 Edmund of Haddenham, 270 education. See learning Edward I (king of England, r.1272–1307), 269, 277, 281 Edward III (king of England, r.1327–1377), 296, 298, 305, 314 Edward the Confessor (king of England, r.1042–1066), 192 Egbert Codex, Raising of Lazarus (985–990), 153, 154 Egbert of Trier (archbishop, r.977– 993), 154 Egypt Fatimids in, 129–32 flax, 129 Islamic rule, 53–54 Jews in, 129, 129, 178 Saladin in, 211–12 Einhard (d.840), 104, 107 Elbe River, 151, 232 Eleanor (duchess of Aquitaine), 215 elite in 14th–15th cent., 311 as art patrons, 286, 290 in barbarians, 24, 27 changes in Roman Empire, 37 dynatoi as, 122–23, 124 in England in 13th cent., 220 in Islam, 92 knights as, 233, 235 Elliott, Dyan, 273 emotions, 201, 229, 243, 285, 290 England in 11th–12th cent., 215–20 agriculture in 11th cent., 143 connection with Continent, 193, 220 conquest of, 150 hegemony in France (map, c.1430), 307 Hundred Years’ War, 305–8, 310, 314 and Jews in 14th cent., 269–70, 270 kings and army in 15th cent., 310 kingships 9th–11th cent., 148–49 kings in Hundred Years’ War, 306

kings of Yorkist and Lancastrian (Tudor) dynasties, 309 knights in 14th–15th cent., 311 land inventory in 11th cent., 192–93 local authorities in 10th cent., 149n11 Magna Carta (1215), 220 music in Renaissance, 328 Norman rule (1066–1100), 192–93 Parliament, 276–77 and the plague, 298 popular religious movements in 15th cent., 318 power and rule in 14th cent., 276–77 reforms of Alfred, 140, 148 revolts, 315–16 royal estate in 7th cent., 59–60, 60 royal justice in 12th cent., 215–19, 311 union and disunity in 10th cent., 149 Vikings in, 135, 140 See also Britain English Channel, 58, 175 enslavement in 14th–15th cent., 314 in Egypt, 129, 178 in Islamic world, 101, 127–28 Essouk-Tadmekka (Ghana), 172 “estates” (or orders), 275, 277–79 Estates General (French), 279, 314 Estonia, 232 Ethelbert (king of Kent, England), 66 ethnicity, in barbarians, 24 Etymologies (Isidore of Seville), 68, 72 Euclid, 96 eunuchs, 121 Euphrates River, 119, 122, 211 Europe ambitions and changes in 11th–12th cent., 215 in Crusader States, 189–92 economic expansion, 175, 178–79 expanding horizons in 13th–14th cent., 263–68 map (c.600), 36 map (c.814), 105 map (c.1050), 147 power and rule in 14th cent., 274–79 towns and cities in 11th–12th cent., 175, 177–80 trade in 11th–12th cent., 175, 178 trade in 13th–14th cent., 263–66 See also East Central Europe; Western Europe

exploration. See travels and voyages Eyck, Hubert and Jan van, 326–27

families and heirs, in 11th cent., 145 “family values”, in 7th cent. Byzantium, 44–45 farming, 61, 72, 110, 168 Magyar, 140–1 farms, 4, 44, 60, 290–91 See also manors farmsteads, example in 7th cent., 60 fashion, in 14th cent., 159 fasting Christian, 10, 11, 64, 76, 297 Islamic (Ramadan), 52, 97 Fatimids cemetery, 129, 130–31, 132 as rulers, 129, 132, 140 Favereau, Marie, 258 fealty (to a lord). See homage feast of Corpus Christi (the Body of Christ), 283 Ferdinand (king of Spain, r.1479–1516), 310, 333 feudalism, as term and in Europe, 141 fief (feodum), description of, 141 finances, organization of, 234 First Crusade (1096–1099), 186–89 map, 187 Flamenca (text), 159 Flanders, 266–67, 314 flax, 129 Florence, 312, 320 Black Death in, 297, 298 cathedral, dome and lantern (1420–1446), 323, 323, 324 mint, 266 professional guilds in, 238 revolt by the ciompi at, 316 rulers of, 310, 321, 325 food shortages in 13th–14th cent., 290–92 Fountains Abbey, 199, 200–1 Fourth Crusade, 233 map (1204–c.1250), 232 Fourth Lateran Council (1215), 226–27, 269 Fra Angelico, 320–21 France in 11th–13th cent., 195, 221–22 heretics in, 230 Hundred Years’ War, 305–8, 309, 314

as Ile-de-France, 154–5, 195, 222, 270 Jews in 14th cent., 270 king and army in 15th cent., 309 kingships 10th–11th cent., 154–55 kings in Hundred Years’ War, 306 monarchs and estates in 13th–14th cent., 277, 279 “Peace of God” movement, 145 power and rule in 14th cent., 278–79 revolts, 314–15 taxation in 13th–14th cent., 291 See also Francia Francia in 8th–10th cent., 102–12, 115–16 description in 7th cent., 60–62 politics and culture in 7th cent., 62, 64–65 See also France; Gaul Franciscans, 228 Francis of Assisi (saint, 1181/1182–1226), 228 Franconian notation, 286 Franco of Cologne, 286 Franks, 23, 26, 76 Frederick I Barbarossa (king and emperor, r.1152–1190), 222–25 Frederick II (king and emperor, 1194–1250), 224–25 Free Companies. See mercenaries friars, 227–29, 283–84 Friday Mosque. See Isfahan mosque Frisia, 103 Froissart, Jean (chronicler), 305, 315 fueros. See laws Fustat (Egypt), 129

Gallienus (Roman emperor, r.253–268), 5 Gallipoli, 300 Gambia River, 332 Gao (or Saney) site (Ghana), 171, 172 garments. See cloth and clothing Gaul, in 6th cent., 28 Gediminas (duke of Lithuania, r.c.1315/1316–1341), 280 Genghis Khan. See Chinggis Khan Genoa, 263, 264, 266 Gepids, 25 “Germani”, description of, 23 “Germanic peoples”, 23–24 Germanicus Caesar (fl. 1st cent. Germany and devotio moderna, 329

CE),

115

and Empire in 12th cent., 222–25 free peasants in, 144 genealogy of rulers in 12th cent., 223 in Investiture Conflict, 183–84, 185 Jews in, 186–88 kingships 10th–11th cent., 151–54 learning in 10–11th cent., 152–53, 154 map in 12th cent., 224 map of settlement in the Baltic Sea region (12th–14th cent.), 231 ministerials in 14th cent., 275–76 Gervasius (saint), 13 Géza (prince of Hungary, r.972–997), 156 Ghana empire/kingdom, 171, 172, 211 map (c.1050), 169 Ghazan (khan, r.1295–1304), 256, 257 Ghent Altarpiece, 325, 326–27 Gibbon, Edward, 1 Gibellines (imperial supporters), 267 Gibraltar, Strait of, 263 gift economy in 7th cent., 61 Giotto (1266/1267–1337), 287–89, 290 Gisela (sister of Charlemagne), 111 “Glagolitic” alphabet, 88, 89 God God’s grace and Christianity, 10–13, 102 in Qur’an, 100 in Trinity, 9 gold coins, 266 Golden book of Gospels, 251 Golden Bull (1356), 275, 276 Golden Horde khanate, 256–57, 258 goldwork, 325 Gomez, Michael A., 173 Gothic architecture in churches, 240, 241–44, 246–47 description, 240, 245 Gothic script, 111 Goths, 24–25 See also Ostrogoths; Visigoths governance, of towns, 233–34 governments in cities and towns, 179–80, 266–68, 275 representative government, 277 secular in 14th cent., 274 Granada, in 14th cent., 260 Grand Chartreuse monastery, 199 Gratian (Italian scholar), 185, 198

See also canon law graves and cemeteries in Almería (Almoravid), 172 double tombs, 298, 299 of Fatimids, 129, 130–31, 132 and goods from Senegal in 14th cent., 262 of Vikings and Rus, 125, 139 Great Famine (1315–1322), 290–92 Great Palace of Constantinople, 119–21 Great Seal of King John (1203), 219 Great Seljuk sultanate (c.1040–1194), 164–67 genealogy, 166 Great Western Schism of papacy (1378–1417), 316–17 Greece and art in Roman Empire, 13, 17, 23 and fall of Byzantium, 302 language and texts in Byzantium, 88, 89 Greek fire. See weapons Greek Orthodox Church, 182 Green, Monica, 214 Gregorian chant, 111 “Gregorian Reform” movement, 181–83 Gregory, bishop of Tours (r.573–594), 28 Gregory VII (pope, 1073–1085), 182, 183–84, 194 Gregory XI (pope, 1370–1378), 317 Gregory of Nazianzus, 90, 91, 92 Gregory’s Homilies (c.880), 92 Gregory the Great (pope, 590–604), 30, 66, 76 Groote, Gerhard (1340–1384), 329 Guelfs (papal supporters), 267 Gui, Bernard (inquisitor), 272 guilds, 179, 216, 233, 238–40 Guillaume de Lorris, 285 Guillaume de Machaut, 157 Guinevere and Lancelot, 237–38 Gutenberg, Johann, 329 Gutones. See Goths

Habsburgs (dynasty), 225 hadith (Prophet’s sayings), 58, 97, 100 Hagia Sophia church (532–537) cross in mosaic, 48, 49 description, 33 dome, 32 hairesis. See heresy

Haithabu (settlement), 109–10, 146 Haldon, John, 48, 85 Hamburg Bible (1255), 249 Handbook for Her Son (Dhuoda), 111–12 Hanseatic League, 264–65 Harald Bluetooth (king of Denmark, r.c.958–c.986), 150 Harald Hardrada (king of Norway), 192 Harmony of Discordant Canons. See Decretum (by Gratian) Harold Godwineson (king of England), 192 Harper, Kyle, 1 Harris, Stephen J., 65 Hastings, battle of (1066), 192 Hattin, battle of (1187), 212 heaven, in mosaics, 55 Hellespont, 1 helmet, from Sutton Hoo, 67 Heng, Geraldine, 173, 269 Henrique (Henry “the Navigator”; 1394–1460), 332 Henry I (king of England, r.1100–1135), 180, 193 Henry I (king of Germany, r.919–936), 151 Henry II (king and emperor, r.1002–1024), 152 Henry II (king of England, r.1154–1189), 215, 216, 218, 219 Henry III (d.1056), 155 Henry III (king and emperor, r.1039–1056), 182 Henry III (king of England, r.1216–1272), 269, 276–77 genealogy of progeny, 269 Henry III of England (boy-king), 227 Henry IV (king and emperor, r.1056–1106), 183–84, 185 Henry V (king of England, r.1413–1422), 307 Henry of Burgundy (count of Portugal), 194 Henry the Lion (duke of Saxony), 232 Henry “the Navigator.” See Henrique (Henry “the Navigator”) Heraclius (emperor of Byzantium, r.610–641), 43 heraldry, 311 heresy, 6, 9, 273, 283 Beguines accused of, 229 Jewish religion as, 124 Templars accused of, 279 heretics, 230, 231, 272 Herren, Judith, 1 Hijra (622), 52 Hildebrand of Soana (later Pope Gregory VII), 182 Hildesheim, 153 hoards discovered, 125 Holland, 175 Holmes, Catherine, 124

Holy Land, 188, 189, 191, 209, 231, 233 pilgrimage to the, 186 See also Crusader States Holy Roman Empire, 225, 275, 276, 310 homage, act of, 142–43, 155, 190, 215, 222, 237 See also vassals and vassalage Homer, 302 Homilies (of Gregory, c.880), 92 homosexuality, 273–74 Horace, 153 Hospitallers, 191 houses, in Europe in 11th–12th cent., 178 Hugh (abbot, 1049–1109), 198 Hugh Capet (king of France, r.987–996), 154, 155 Hulegu (d.1265), 214 humanitas and humanists, 319–21, 322 human trafficking, 173 Humbert of Silva Candida, 182 Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453), 305–8, 314 consequences, 309–10 genealogy of kings and dukes, 306 Hungarians, map of travels (9th and 11th cent.), 136–37 See also Magyars Hungary, 156, 279 Huns, 25 map (c.375–450), 24 Hus, Jan (1369/71–1415), 318 Hussites, 318 Hylestad, 79 Hymes, Robert, 214

Iberian Peninsula in 11th cent., 193–95 Berbers in, 72–73 map (c.1140), 195 politics and culture in 7th cent., 68, 72–73 Ibn Rushd (1126–1198), 198 Ibn Sina (980–1037), 133 Ibn Tulun Mosque description, 95, 97 plan, 97, 98–99 Iceland, 135 iconoclasm in Byzantine Empire, 47–49, 85–86, 89 Idris I, 100–1 Idris II (d.828), 101 Ifriqiya, 72, 92, 93, 140, 173

Ile-de-France, 154–55, 195, 222, 270 Iliad (Homer), 302 Ilkhanid khanate, 257–58 illuminated manuscripts, 249, 250, 251 making of, 249–51 imam. See Islam Imazighen. See Berbers India, 53, 95, 129, 332 indulgences of Church, 317 Indus River, 42 inheritances, in 7th cent., 64 Innocent III (pope, 1198–1216), 226, 228, 231, 233 Inquisition, 100, 272 interiority (in humans), 329 inventions, 329 Investiture Conflict (or Controversy), 183, 183–85 See also “Gregorian Reform” movement iqta, 132, 165, 167 Iran, 92, 128, 133, 164 emirs of, 167 Iraq, 92, 126–27, 164 emirs of, 167 Ireland, 65, 135 English conquest of, 215, 248 vernacular language in, 68, 148 Irene (empress of Byzantines, 797–802), 85–86, 104 Isabella (queen of Spain, r.1474–1504), 310, 333 Isabella d’Este (marchioness, 1474–1539), 325 Isfahan mosque, 165, 167, 168 Isidore of Seville (c.560–636), 68, 72 Islam Arabic language, 58, 133–34 caliphs in, 53, 55, 100, 304 cemetery, 129, 130–31, 132 conversion to, 49, 52, 58, 72, 256, 257–58 culture in al-Andalus, 102 culture of the Umayyads, 55, 58 expansion and conquests, 53–55, 72 “five pillars”, 52n5 hadith (Prophet’s sayings), 58, 97, 100 imam, 55, 92, 129, 134 iwans, 165, 167 jihad (“striving”), 52 Mahdi, 129, 134 in Mali in 14th cent., 262

meaning of, 49 Mihna (or Inquisition), 100 Muhammad, 50–51, 52, 55, 56–57, 94 quietism, 134 Qur’an, 49, 51, 51–52, 100 rise and shaping of, 49–55, 58 Shi‘ism, 129, 134, 163, 164 Sufis, 168 Sunnism, 163, 164, 206 ulama, 100 ummah (community of the faithful), 52, 53 See also Muslims; Qur’an Islamic era. See Hijra Islamic Spain. See al-Andalus Islamic world arabesque designs, 261, 262 army, 43, 47, 93, 101, 132 artistic and intellectual life in 10th–11th cent., 132–34 arts and literature in 8th–10th cent., 50, 95–97, 100, 101–2 decentralization in 10th–12th cent., 127–32, 156, 211 eastern shift in 8th–9th cent., 90–97 expansion in 13th–14th cent., 255–62 and First Crusade, 188 influences on Ottomans, 302–4 knowledge and books, 96, 198 map (to 750), 50 map (c.800), 93 map (c.1000), 128 map of West (c.1300), 260 minaret, 211 reshaping in 11th–12th cent., 209–14 silver coins, 109, 125 state and regions in 7th–8th cent., 53–54 taxes, 92, 101, 127 trade, 58, 95, 134, 211 translations, 96 western fringes in 8th–10th cent., 100–2 Isma‘ilism, 129 Israel, 1 Istanbul, 302 See also Constantinople Italic League, 312 Italy Carolingian conquest of, 104 city governments, 267–68

city-states, 222, 225, 312 coins, 266 communes, 179–80, 224, 234, 267 description in 7th cent., 61, 73 and Empire in 12th cent., 224–25 food as market in 13th–14th cent., 291 Lombard, 73–76 map in 12th cent., 224 Normans in, 173 politics and culture in 7th cent., 73–75 Renaissance in, 319–23 revolts, 316 rulers in 15th cent., 310 taxation, 234 towns and governance, 233–34 trade, 263–64 urban life and merchants, 146, 179–80 women in 15th cent., 322–23 Iznik (Nicaea), 188

Jacquerie uprising (1378), 314–15 Jacques Bonhomme, 315 Jagiellon (dynasty), 280 Janissaries, 301 Jarrow monastery, 66 Jazira, 211 Jean de Meun (poet), 285 Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc), 305, 307–8 Jerusalem and First Crusade, 186, 188–89 Seljuks in, 168 Jesch, Judith, 135 Jesus, 6, 9–10 Jews in al-Andalus, 102 badge with white tablets, 227, 269, 270 in Byzantine Empire, 124 and Christianity, 6, 7 in Egypt, 129, 178 in England in 14th cent., 269–70, 270 and First Crusade, 186, 188 in Francia, 65 geniza, 129, 129 in Germany, 186–88 identification in 13th cent., 227 and the plague, 300

prejudices towards, 72 in Spain in 15th cent., 310 terms for, 187n11 and xenophobia in 13th–14th cent., 269–70, 274 João I (king of Portugal, r.1385–1433), 332 Jogaila (r.1377–1434) (also Władysław II), 280 John (king of England, r.1199–1216), 219, 219–20, 222 John II (king of France), 314 John XXIII (pope), 317 John of Damascus (d.749), 54 John Skylitzes (d.1101), 122 John the Orphanotrophos, 121, 122 Juliana of Mont Cornillon (1193–1258), 283 Justinian (emperor of Byzantium, r.527–565) clothing, 34, 159 law code and rule, 31, 32–33, 36 in mosaics of San Vitale church, 36, 37 Plague of, 44, 85 and sexualities, 273 Justinian II (emperor of Byzantium, r.685–695; 705–711), 76

Ka’ba shrine (Mecca), 50, 52 Kabul, 53, 127 Kazakhstan, 163 Kelly, Joan, 322 Kenneth I MacAlpin (Cináed mac Ailpín; d.858), 135 Khazars, 125–26 Khurasan, and Islam, 92 al-Khwarizmi (d.c.850), 97 Kievan Rus’, 125–26 map (c.1050), 126 See also Rus’ (state) knights in 12th–13th cent., 233, 235 in 14th–15th cent., 311 See also names of individual knightly orders Knights Templar, 191, 279 Kraemer, Joel L., 132 Kufic script, 160 Kutubiyya Mosque, 211, 211

La Garde-Freinet, 140 laity and the Bible, 318 definition of, 7 reform of, 226

Lambesc, 110 Lamentation of Christ (1304–1306), 288–89, 290 Lampadii (396) diptych, 20, 21–22 Lampadius (Roman consul), 21–22 Lancastrian (Tudor) kings, 310 genealogy, 309 Lancelot and Guinevere, 237–38 land and economy of Carolingians, 110 grants in Byzantium, 174 inventory in England in 11th cent., 192–93 iqta, 132, 165, 167 Landi (family), 267 landlords, and food issues in 13th–14th cent., 291 landownership, 29, 44, 144, 218 Lanfranco (architect), 201, 202 Languedoc, crusade of 13th cent., 231 Latin Empire, map (1204–c.1250), 232 Latin language, 88, 319, 322 law civil law, 218 common law, 216 expansion in England in 12th cent., 215–19, 311 law codes, 27, 31, 148–49, 198 law courts, 185, 275 laws against the Jews, 227 Carolingian, 106, 107 Eastern polities, 280 English, 135, 148, 149 Italian city-states, 179 Spanish fueros, 221 sumptuary, 159 See also canon law lay religiosity, 283 learning and education in 12th cent., 197–98 in al-Andalus, 132–33 and Carolingians, 111–12 in Germany in 10–11th cent., 152–53, 154 madrasas, 164, 171 and scholasticism, 283–85 schools, 89, 133, 153, 197–98 in Spain in 7th cent., 68, 72 See also universities Lechfeld, battle of (955), 141

legionaries, 4 Legnano, battle of (1176), 224 Leo III (pope, 795–816), 106–7 Leo III the Isaurian (emperor of Byzantium, r.717–741), 47–48, 76, 100 Leo VI (emperor of Byzantium, r.886–912), 86 Leo IX (pope, 1049–1054), 182 Leo the Mathematician, 89 León, Kingdom of, 170, 194, 275 lepers, 270–72 leprosaries (hospitals for lepers), 271, 274 letters (correspondence), 129, 129 letters (in scripts). See scripts Lewes, battle of (1264), 277 liberal arts, 197, 239 libraries, in al-Andalus, 132–33 Licinius (Roman emperor), 8 Life of Matilda (Donizo), 185 Line, Philip, 150 literature courtly, 235–38 in Islamic world, 50, 96–97, 100, 167 vernacular literature in 13th–14th cent., 285 Lithuania, 280 liturgy, 11, 29, 88, 194, 201, 286 Lives of the Caesars (Suetonius), 104 Lodi, peace of (1454), 312 logic, as knowledge, 197, 198 Lombard. See Peter Lombard Lombard Italy, 73–75, 103–4 map (c.750), 73 Lombards, 37, 58, 73 and the Franks, 76, 103–4, 107 included in the Byzantine Empire, 124 London, and urban independence, 180 lords, in 10th–11th cent., 141–44 Lothar (r. as co-emperor 817–840; as emperor 840–855), 107, 109 Lothar (son of Louis), 107 Louis (king, later called “the German”), 107, 109 Louis VI the Fat (king of France, r.1108–1137), 195 Louis IX (king of France, r.1226–1270), 270, 277 genealogy of progeny, 271 Louis the Pious (emperor, 814–840), 107, 109 love, 236, 237–38, 285 lovers, and clothing, 158, 159 Low Countries, 146, 229, 283, 329 Luther, Martin (1483–1546), 329

Luxembourg, 62 Lyon, 229

Maccabean Revolt (11th cent.), 142 Macedonian Renaissance, 89–90 Machiavelli, 310, 321 Madeira, 332 madrasas, 164, 171 Maghreb, 170, 210–11, 260, 261, 264 Magna Carta, or “Great Charter” (1215), 220, 276 Magyars (Hungarians), 137, 140–41, 156 map, 137 See also Hungary Majolus (abbot of Cluny), 140 Mali, as empire in 14th cent., 261–62 Malikshah I (sultan, r.1072–1092), 164, 165 Mamluks, 93, 212, 255, 258, 260 al-Ma’mun (caliph, r.813–833), 100 Manichees and Manichaeism, 9–10 manors, and Carolingians, 110 al-Mansur (caliph, r.754–775), 92 manuscripts, production in 12th–13th cent., 249–51 See also illuminated manuscripts Manzikert, battle of (1071), 164 maps and charts, as inventions, 329 Marcel, Étienne, 314, 315 marginalized groups in 13th–14th cent., 269–74 Marina (saint), 273 marquetry, 96 marriage in 10th–11th cent., 145 and Church in 13th cent., 227 of clerics, 182, 185, 273 description in 7th–8th cent., 62, 64, 144–45 types, 64 Martin (saint), 28 Martin V (pope), 317 Marwan II (caliph), 92 Mary (mother of God) in Altar of Ratchis, 74 and Book of Hours, 282, 283 Mary of Oignies (1177–1213), 229 Mass, 11, 283 See also liturgy masters, in universities, 239, 240 Mas‘ud I (sultan, r.1030–1041), 164

mathematics, in Islamic world, 97 Matilda (countess), 184, 185 Maurice (emperor of Byzantium), 42 Maurice (saint), 30 Maxentius (Roman emperor), 8 Maximian (Roman emperor, r.286–305), 5 Maximianus, clothing of, 34, 159 Meaux, massacre of the rebels, 315 Mecca, and rise of Islam, 50, 52 Medici, Giuliano and Lorenzo, 310 Medici family, 320, 322, 325 medicine, schools of, 239 Medina, and rise of Islam, 52 Mediterranean region, 93, 157, 159, 235, 290, 291 map, 187 Mehmed II the Conqueror (sultan, r.1444–1446 and 1451–1481), 301–2 Meister Eckhart. See Eckhart Mell, Julie L., 269 mercenaries, 141, 173, 312, 317 and the First Crusade, 186 Free Companies, 309 Genoese, 305 Gothic, 25 Norman, 124 Seljuk Turks, 163 Turkish, 128 Varangian Guard, 123, 124 merchants, 146, 177, 178, 291, 312 See also trade Merovingians, 62, 63, 103, 112 Mesopotamia, 86 Methodius (saint), 88 Metz, 112, 188 Prior Annals of, 111 Mexico, 333 Michael IV (r.1034–1041), 121 Middle Ages, end as period, 334 Mieszko I (duke of Poland, r.c.960–992), 155 Mihna (or Inquisition), 100 mihrab, 165 Milan, 179–80, 183, 312 Miller Atlas (1519), 330–31 Milvian Bridge, battle of (312), 8 Ming (dynasty), 300 miniature of Saint Dunstan (12th cent.), 250

ministerials, 275–76 mints, 266 minuscule letters, 89, 111 missi dominici. See officials Modena Cathedral cut-out view, 205 description, 201, 204 interior, 202, 204 sculpted panels, 179, 202, 204, 204 west facade, 203 Moilanen, Mikko, 78 Monegundis, 28, 31 money, 61, 109, 266 See also coins money lending (usury), 269 Mongol Empire armor, 214 description and expansion, 212–15, 255, 256, 256–58, 279, 296, 300 genealogy of khans, 259 khanates, 256–57, 257 map (c.1290), 257 and the plague, 214, 296 “Mongol exchange”, 258 monks and monasteries and aristocrats in 7th cent., 64 book production, 249–50 changes and learning in 12th cent., 198–201 in Crusader States, 191 lay vs. choir monks, 200–1 pope as protector, 180–81, 182 in Roman Empire in 6th cent., 29–31 rules for, 29–30 songs, 236 and vassals, 142 Monte Cassino monastery, 30 Montmartre (Paris), 61 Montpellier, 197 University of, 239 Moravia, 88 Morocco, 45, 92, 100, 261, 264 mosaics cross in, 48, 49 in Damascus Great Mosque, 54, 55, 58 Islamic vs. Christian, 34, 55 in San Vitale church, 11, 33, 34–35, 36–37, 55

mosques, building by Great Seljuk sultanate, 164–67 See also individual mosques motet, 286, 286, 328 al-Mufid (caliph, d.1022), 134 Muhammad, 50–51, 52, 55, 56–57, 94 Murabitun. See Almoravids Musa (Arab general), 72 Musa (Mansa [king of Mali]), 262 music and Carolingians, 111 motet, 286, 286, 328 notation, 111, 286, 286 polyphony, 286 in Renaissance (14th cent.), 325, 328 rhythm, 286 musical scores, 111 Muslims conquest of Byzantine Empire, 53, 55, 58 in Europe in 9th–10th cent., 137, 140 and First Crusade, 186 as God’s people, 49 map of travels (9th and 11th cent.), 136–37 meaning, 49 Shi‘ites vs. Sunni, 55, 134, 164 See also Islam al-Mustansir (caliph, 1036–1094), 132 al-Mutamin (ruler), 194 al-Mu‘tasim (caliph), 96 al-Mutawakkil (caliph, r.847–861), 100 Mutezuma (Aztec ruler), 333 mystics and mystical yearning, 229, 308, 319, 333 Islamic Sufis, 168

Nahray ben Nissim, 129, 129 Naples, in 14th–15th cent., 312 Nasrids, 260 national sovereignty, 281 Navarre, Kingdom of, 194, 221 peasants in, 292 navy Anglo-Saxon, 140, 148 Byzantine, 42 English, 220 Islamic, 54, 140 Ottoman, 304 Nereid Astride a Seahorse (1st cent.), 12, 13

Neustria, 62 See also Francia new order of 6th cent., 27–33, 36–37 New World, 310, 329, 333 Nile River, 58 Nizam al-Mulk (d.1092), 164, 165 nobles, in 14th–15th cent., 311 Normandy, Vikings in, 140 Normans in Byzantium, 173 in France, 222 in genealogy of kings in England, 192 map, 193 rule of England (1066–1100), 192–93 in Sicily, 173, 182–83 North Africa, 1, 18, 32, 43 Berbers in, 72, 129 Byzantines in, 41 commerce in, 175, 264 Donatists in, 8 Fatimids in, 132 map (c.1275), 221 map (c.1300), 260 Vandals in, 25–26 northern Europe archaeology, 109, 125 Renaissance (14th cent.), 324–25 trade, 109–10, 125–26, 264–65 North Sea, 23, 61, 110, 134, 175, 178 Norway, kings and conversion, 150 Novel (New Law) (934), 122–23 Novgorod, 125, 126, 135 Nubia, 58 Nur al-Din (emir, r.1146–1174), 211, 212 Nymph of Fiesole (1430–1440?), 320–21, 322

Oakeshott, Ewart, 78 oblation (monastic practice), 64 Oder River, 151, 232 Odoacer (king of Italy, 433–493), 26 officials Abbasid, 95 Byzantine, 121 Carolingian missi dominici, 106 English sheriffs, 149, 180, 216, 218, 220, 277 French, 195, 222, 270, 291

Italian podestà, 224, 267 Mongol, 256 pagarchs, 53, 54 Roman, 22, 42 salaried, 102, 141, 225, 234 Spanish, 221 Umayyad, 55 Olav Haraldsson (king of Norway, r.1015–1030), 150 Old Church Slavonic, 88 Old English language, 68 Olivi, Peter (1248–1298), 284 Orant fresco (second half of 4th cent.), 13, 21, 22 Order of the Brothers of the Sword, 232 Order of the Garter, 311 Order of the Golden Buckle, 311 Order of the Golden Fleece, 311 orders (or “estates”), 275, 277 Orléans, siege of (1429), 308 Orontes River, 211 Orthodox Church, and Mongols, 257 Oseberg ship, 138–39 Osma, 228 Ostrogoths, 25, 33 Oswy (king), 66 Othman (sultan, d.1324/1326), 300 Otto I (king and emperor, r.936–973), 141, 151–52 Otto II (king and emperor, r.961–983), 152 Otto III (king and emperor, r.983–1002), 152 Otto IV of Brunswick (emperor), 220 Ottokar II (king of Bohemia, r.1253–1278), 280 Ottoman Empire dome squares, 304, 304 map (c.1500), 301 rise and expansion, 295–96, 300–4 Ottonians genealogy, 151 rule of, 151–54, 155 Ourique, battle of (1139), 194 Oxford, 276 University of, 239

Padua, 290 paganism, 6, 8, 45 paint, 251 paintings, in 13th–14th cent., 290 Palermo, 173, 198

See also Sicily and Kingdom of Sicily Palestine, 6 pandemics, first one, 32 papacy. See Pope and papacy “papal primacy” doctrine, 182–83, 185 paper, in Islamic world, 89, 96, 133 papyrus, 89 parchment and parchmenters, 89, 249, 250 Paris description in 7th cent., 60–61 University of, 239 Parlement in France, 277 parliaments, in 13th–14th cent., 274, 276–77 See also courts; Estates General; law courts Paterson, Linda, 236 Patrick (saint), 65 Paul (saint), 6, 22, 23, 180 “Peace of God” movement, 145 peasants in 10th–11th cent., 143–44 manse system, 110, 234 “Peasants’ (or People’s) Crusade”, 186, 188 Pechenegs, 124, 173, 174 Pelagius (heretic), 10 penances, 64 Penitential of Finnian, 64 pens, 250 Pericopes, 153 Persia, 4, 53, 95 map (c.600), 36 map of expansion (602–622), 42 Persian Gulf, 134, 164 Peter (saint, bishop of Rome), 10–11, 66, 103, 155, 180, 183 Peter Abelard (1079–1142), 197–98, 284 Peter Damian, 182 Peter Lombard (c.1100–1160), 197–98, 284 Peter the Hermit, 186 Petrarch, Francis (1304–1374), 281, 319–20 Phainomena (Aratos), 115 Philip II (king of France, r.1180–1223), 219, 220, 221–22 Philip II Augustus (king), 270 Philip IV the Fair (king of France, r.1285–1314), 270, 277, 279, 280–81 Philip VI (king of France, 1328–1350), 305 Philip the Bold (duke of Burgundy, r.1364–1404), 307 Philip the Good (r.1419–1467), 307, 325

Phocas (Byzantine emperor), 42 Photius (patriarch, r.858–867; 877–886), 89 Piacenza, 267–68 map (late 13th cent.), 268 Piast (ducal dynasty), 279 Pico della Mirandola, 319–20 pilgrimage, 65, 186, 206, 272, 298, 300 Muslim hajj, 52n5, 262 pilgrims, 28, 59, 168, 194, 272 at Mecca, 50, 262 Pippin III (king of the Franks, d.768), 76, 103–4 Pisa, 175, 178, 234, 264, 265 plague in 7th cent., 297 Black Death (1347–1353), 214, 295 and death, 298–300, 299 deaths in, 298 as first pandemic, 32 impact on 14th–15th cent., 295–96, 298, 312, 314 map of dispersion (13th–15th cent.), 296 remedies and rules, 297–98 second pandemic, 296–300 plows, 60, 143, 143, 175 podestà. See officials poetry, 50, 96, 237–38, 285 Poland as new state, 155–56 power in 14th cent., 279–80 Polo brothers (Italian traders), 258 polyptyques, 110 Pompeii, frescoes, 12 Pope and papacy in 8th cent., 76 alliances, 76, 103–4 at Avignon, 281, 317 as central ruler, 104 and crusades of 13th cent., 231 in Empire in 12th cent., 222, 223–25 “holy” wars, 186 as institution, 185 in Investiture Conflict, 183–84, 185 “papal primacy” doctrine, 182–83, 185 power and role, 76, 185, 226, 280–81 protection of monasteries, 180–81, 182 and reforms, 182–83 rivalries in 14th–15th cent., 316–17

in Rome, 76, 146 war on Frederick I, 222–25 See also Church (as institution); individual popes popolo (“the people”), 267–68, 316 Po River, 37, 175 portals of Chartres Cathedral, 242–43 portolan maps, 329, 330–31 Portrait of Oswolt Krel (c.1499), 325, 328, 329 ports, and trade in 11th–12th cent., 178 Portugal map (c.1275), 221 portolan map of empire in 16th cent., 330–31 sea voyages, 332–33 as state, 194 pottery, in 6th cent., 28, 29 poverty (religious), 159, 191, 197, 198–200, 229 Prague, 188 University of, 280 Le premier jor de mai (motet, c.1280), 286, 286 priests definition of, 8 garments of, 34–35, 159–60, 160 See also clergy primogeniture, 145 The Prince (Machiavelli), 310, 321 printing press (c.1450), 329 property law, 218, 219 taxation, 234 Protasius (saint), 13 Protestant Reformation, 329 Provence, 140, 291 Prussia, 232 Psellus, Michael, 121 publishing houses, in 15th cent., 329 Purgatory, doctrine of, 283, 317 Pyrenees, 146, 194, 215 pyxis of al-Mughira (968), 101, 101–2, 133

al-Qabisi (d.1012), 133 Qaramita, 128 quadrivium, 197 queens, in Francia, 62 Quest of the Holy Grail, 285 Quinisext council. See Council of Constantinople

Qur’an, 49, 51, 51–52, 100 Quraysh tribe, 50, 52, 55 See also Umayyads “Qustantiniyya”, 302

racism, 173 Rahewin (cleric), 223–24 Raising of Lazarus, Egbert Codex (985–990), 153, 154 Rao pectoral (c.1300), 262 al-Rashid, Harun (caliph, r.786–809), 93 Rashid al-Din (co-vizier, 1247–1318), 256 Ratchis (king of the Lombards, r.744–749), 73, 74 Ratislav (duke in Moravia, r.846–870), 88 Ravenna, as capital, 33, 37 Raymond II of Tripoli (count), 191 real estate and rental markets, 178 Reccared (Visigothic king, r.586–601), 68 reconquista (conquest of Islamic Spain), 183, 186, 193–95, 220, 275 relics and reliquaries, 30, 31, 47 reliquary of Theuderic (late 7th cent.), 30 Le Remède de Fortune (c.1350–1355), 157 Renaissance (14th cent.) architecture in, 323, 323, 324 goldwork with gems, 325 influence, 328–29 and the “Middle Age”, 322 as movement, 322–23 and music, 325, 328 in northern Europe, 324–25 origins, 302, 319–22 Renaissance of Carolingians, 111–12, 112, 115–16 representative government, 277 republics, in 14th–15th cent., 311–12 Reval, 264 revolts and uprisings in 14th–15th cent., 312, 314–16 massacre at Meaux, 315 Rhineland Jews, 186–88 Rhine River, 25, 80, 125, 186 Richard I the Lion-Heart (king of England, r.1189–1199), 219 Richard II (king of England, r.1377–1399), 315–16 rich people, in 6th cent., 29 Riga, 264 Robert of Molesme (d.1111), 199 Rochester Chronicle, 270

Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, the Cid, 194 Roger II (king of Sicily, r.1130–1154), 173 Rollo (Viking leader), 140 Roman Catholic brand of Christianity approach, 88 in Britain, 65–67 divisions in 14th–15th cent., 316–18 in Italy, 73 in Spain, 68 split with Orthodox Church, 182 romances (poems), 237–38 Roman Empire archaeological evidence, 45–47, 46 army and weapons, 4, 5, 42 art – Christian, 22–23 art – classical Roman, 13, 17, 23 art – provincial, 17, 17–18, 21 barbarians, 4, 23–28, 37 as Byzantine Empire, 41 capital cities (map), 5 and Christianity’s rise and appeal, 6–9, 37 cities, 5, 28, 31, 45–47, 46 division of, 5 end of, 302 “fall’s” consequences, 77 internal problems and invaders, 4–5 law codes, 27, 31 map (c.300), 2–3 map (c.500), 26 military service, 4 “new order” of 6th cent., 27–33, 36–37 provinces’ description and role, 1, 4, 5 provincialization, 4–13, 17–18, 21–23 taxes, 28 trade, 24, 29, 61 transformation, 1, 4, 77 See also eastern Roman Empire; western Roman Empire Romanesque architecture in churches, 201, 202–4, 204, 205 Romanus I Lecapenus (Byzantine emperor, r.920–944), 122 Rome (city) and Carolingians, 103–4, 111, 112 pope and papacy, 76, 146 in Roman Empire, 5 sack of, 23, 25 Romulus Augustulus (Roman emperor, r.475–476), 26 Roncaglia, diet of (1158), 224

Roncaglia, Rolandina, 274 Rudolf I (emperor, r.1273–1291), 225 Rugi, 25 Rum. See Seljuk sultanate of Rum Ruotger (biographer), 152 rural areas. See countryside Rus (people), 125–27, 257 Rus’ (state), 125, 126–27

sacraments. See Church sacraments al-Saffah (caliph), 92 Safi, 264 Sahara Desert, 168 Saint-Denis monastery, 195, 240, 251 Saint-Laurent (Paris), 61 Saint-Martin (Tours), 28, 111, 177 Saint-Martin-des-Champs (Paris), 61 Saint Mary (Marseille), 110 Saint-Maurice d’Agaune monastery, 31 saints, in Christianity, 11–13, 21 Saint-Vaast Gospels (mid-9th cent.), 112, 113, 115 Saladin (sultan, r.1171–1193), 211–12 map of empire (c.1200), 212 Salerno, University of, 239 Salian kings and emperors, genealogy of, 181 Samarqand, 53 Samarra, 92, 97, 127 Saney (or Gao) site (Ghana), 171, 172 San Francesco church at Assisi, 245, 246–47 San Giovanni church at Cividale del Friuli, 73–74, 75 San Salvatore church at Brescia, 74 Santiago de Compostela, 194 San Vitale church at Ravenna apse mosaics, 11, 33, 34–35, 36–37, 55 description, 33 ground plan, 33 Saracens, 186, 232 sarcophagus of the Twelve Apostles (early 5th cent.), 22, 23 Sardica, 5 Sasanid Empire of Persia, 42–43 map, 42 Saturn, 18 Saxons, 58, 104, 231 Saxony, 65, 134, 144, 231 silver mines of, 153 Scandinavia, kingships and conversion, 149–50

scholasticism, 283–85 “scholastics”, 198 schools, 89, 133, 153, 197–98 See also learning and education scientific works, in Islamic world, 96–97 Scotland, 65, 68, 134, 135, 228, 277 Scotti, Alberto, 267 scribes, 250, 290 scripts, 89, 111 Scrovegni Chapel, Padua (1304–1306), 287–89 sculpted panels, 179, 202, 204, 204 sculptors, 179 Sebastian (saint), 297 Second Crusade, 191–92 secular governments, in 14th cent., 274 self-government, of towns, 179–80 Seljuk Empire, map (c.1090), 165 Seljuk sultanate of Rum (c.1081–1308), 164, 167–68 Seljuk Turks, 163–68 See also Great Seljuk sultanate Sénanque monastery church, 200, 201 Senegal River, 262, 332 serfs, 143 Sergius I (pope, 687–701), 76 sexualities in 13th–14th cent., 272–74 sexual sins, 153–54, 273 Shi‘ites and Shi‘ism Fatimids, 129, 132 vs. Sunni, 55, 134, 164 ships in 16th cent., 329 and exploration, 332–33 Oseberg ship of Vikings, 138–39 portolan map of 16th cent., 330–31 and trade, 178, 263 Shirkuh (vizier), 211 “Sicilian Vespers”, 225 Sicily and Kingdom of Sicily Frederick I and II in, 224–25 genealogy of rulers in 12th cent., 223 Muslims in, 140 Normans in, 173, 182–83 Siena, and woolworkers, 316 Sigismund (king of Burgundians, r.516–524), 27 signori, 267, 268

Sigurd (or Siegfried), sword story, 78, 79 Sigurd portal (12th–13th cent.), 79 silk, 157, 159, 160, 170, 171, 238–39 silver coins, 109, 125, 266 Simon de Montfort (c.1208–1265), 277 simony, 182 slave trade, in 14th–15th cent., 314 See also enslavement Slavs, 43 sodomy, 273–74 “song of heroic deeds” (chanson de geste), 237 Song of Roland, 104 songs, 235–37, 273, 286, 286 Spain in 11th cent., 193–95 in 12th–13th cent., 220–21 city governments, 275 conversion to Christianity, 68, 310 cortes, 275, 310 Europeans in 11th–12th cent., 194 Islamic conquest, 72–73 kings in 7th–8th cent., 72 map (c.1275), 221 monarchs in 15th cent., 310 trade, 264 See also Andalus (al-Andalus) Spanish Inquisition, 310 Spanish March, 104 Spoleto, Lombard duchy, 73 stained glass, 244, 245 Stamford Bridge, battle of (1066), 192 “Star Ushak” carpet, 302, 303 State, battle with Church, 185, 219 Statute of the Jewry (1275), 269 Staufen (dynasty), 222, 225, 276 genealogy, 223 Stephen I (prince and king of Hungary, r.997–1038), 156 Stephen II (pope, 752–757), 76, 103–4 Stephen of Blois, 193 Strasbourg, 300 students, in universities, 239–40 sub-Saharan Africa, and Islam, 95 Suetonius, 104 Sueves, 25 Suger (abbot, 1081–1151), 195, 240, 245

summae, 284 Summa Theologiae, 284 Sunjata, 261–62 Sunni and Sunnism Seljuk Turks, 164–65 vs. Shi‘ites, 55, 134, 164 Sutton Hoo helmet, 67 Swabia, 80, 224 Sweden, kings and conversion, 150 Swiss Confederation, 311 swords, 80, 81 description, 78 forging, 78–80, 79 sharpening, 80, 81 Sylvester (pope), 104 Symeon Stylites (saint, c.390–459), 11 Synod (754), 48 Synod of Sutri (1046), 182 Synod of Whitby (664), 66 Synopsis of Histories, 122 Syria, and Umayyads, 92

taifas, 132, 183, 193 Taj al-Mulk, 165 Tamerlane (Timur the Lame, 1336–1405), 300, 301 Tangier, 170 Tariq ibn Ziyad, 72 taxes and taxation barbarian, 31, 72 Byzantine, 42, 76, 123 Carolingian, 106, 110 of the clergy, 281 English, 180, 192–93, 305, 315 English Danegeld, 140 English scutage, 220 French, 195, 222, 291, 314 German imperial, 225, 275 Islamic, 53–54, 92, 101, 127, 304 Islamic zakat, 52n5 Italian communes, 233–34, 267 of the Jews, 187, 269, 276 Mongol, 213, 256, 257 rights, 144, 224 Roman imperial, 5, 27, 28, 45 Roman papal, 317 Spanish, 221, 310

Teresa (daughter of Alfonso VI), 194 “Tertiaries”, 228–29 Tertry, battle of (687), 103 Teter, Magda, 269 Tetrarchs, 19, 21 Teutonic Knights (or Teutonic order), 232 textiles. See cloth and clothing Theodemir (Visigothic leader), 6 Theodora (empress), in mosaics, 36, 37 Theodoric the Great (king of the Ostrogoths), 26, 27 Theodosian Code (438), 27, 31 Theodosius I (Roman emperor, r.379–395), 8, 107 Theodosius II (Roman emperor, r.408–450), 31–32 Theophilus (emperor of Byzantium, r.829–842), 89, 90 Theophylact (of Dalassenos family), 124 Thessalonica, 88, 89 Third Crusade (1189–1192), 219 Thomas Aquinas (c.1225–1274), 283–84 Tiber River, 17 Tigris River, 211 Timbuktu, 95, 134, 255, 262 Timur the Lame. See Tamerlane titulus (community church), 21 Toch, Michael, 65 tombs. See graves and cemeteries Toledo, 72, 170, 198 Toscanini, Giovanni, 320–21 Tours, 28, 177 maps (c.600 and c.1100), 28, 177 towns culture and institutions in 13th cent., 233–35, 238–40 formation and arrangements in Europe, 177–80 governance, 233–34 self-government, 179–80 See also cities trade, maps of routes (c.1300), 264–65 See also economy; merchants; specific region or country transi tombs, 299 translations, 88, 96 transubstantiation, 218, 283 travels and voyages in 14th–15th cent., 332–33 in 16th cent., 330–31 of Columbus, 310 map, 332

Treaty of Meerssen (870), 109 Treaty of Tordesillas (1491), 329 Treaty of Troyes (1420), 307 Treaty of Verdun (843), 109 Tripoli, County of, 189, 191 trivium, 197 troubadours and songs, 235–37, 273 Tudor kings. See Lancastrian kings Tunis, 18, 129, 210, 264 Tyler, Wat, 315–16

ULFBERHT,

as inscription, 78, 80

Ulfberht sword, 80 Ulfila (bishop, 311–c.382), 9 Umar (caliph), 55 Umayyads, 55, 58, 92, 127, 132–33 ummah. See Islam Unam sanctam bull (1302), 281 universities, 239–40, 280 See also individual universities (by city); learning and education upward mobility, 298 Urban II (pope, 1088–1099), 186 Urban VI (pope, 1378–1389), 317 Urraca (queen, r.1109–1126), 194 usury, 269 Uthman (caliph, 644–656), 51, 55 Utraquism, 318 See also Church sacraments, Eucharist Utrecht Psalter (first half of 9th cent.), 80, 81, 114, 115–16

Vaclav II (king of Bohemia, r.1283–1305), 280 Valencia, 194 Valens (Roman emperor, r.364–378), 25 Valla, Lorenzo (d.1457), 322 Valois (dynasty), 307, 312 Vandals, 25 Varangian Guard, 123, 124 Varlik, Nükhet, 300 Vasco da Gama, 332 vassals and vassalage, in 10th–11th cent., 141–43, 144, 155, 156, 232 vellum, 249 Venice, 233, 234, 263, 266, 311–12 Peace of, 224 Venus and Two Nymphs (2nd or early 3rd cent.), 17, 18, 21 vernacular literature in 13th–14th cent., 285 Vernasia Cyclas, 16

Verona, 185, 312 viaticum (final Eucharist). See Church sacraments, Eucharist Vienna, University of, 280 Vikings burials, 125, 139 Oseberg ship, 138–39 travels and map of, 135, 136–37 in Western Europe, 135, 139–40, 148–50 Villa Farnesina, painted panels, 13, 14–15, 17 villages, development of, 144, 175 Visigothic Code, 31 Visigothic Spain, 68, 72 Visigoths, 23, 24–25 map (c.375–450), 24 Vistula River, 232 Vitalis (official), 16 Vitalis (saint), 36, 37 See also San Vitale church at Ravenna Vladimir (ruler of Rus’, r.980–1015), 126–27 Volga River, 109, 256 Volsunga Saga, 78 Volubilis/Walila (town) description and archaeology, 45–47, 100–1 development, 45, 46 votive stelae, description of, 18 votive stela to Saturn (2nd cent.), 18, 21 voyages. See travels and voyages

Waldensians, 229 Waldo, 229 Wales, 1, 65, 215, 277 al-Walid I (caliph, r.705–715), 55 Walila. See Volubilis Ward-Perkins, Bryan, 1 warfare archers, 235, 309, 333 artillery, 308, 309 battle tactics, 291 cavalry, 86, 144, 237 English burhs, 140, 148 and food, 291 “holy” wars of papacy, 186 infantry, 235, 309 in Islam (jihad), 52 al-khurs (“silent ones”), 101

season and days for, 144, 145 siege engines, 189 skirmish, 86 in songs, 236–37 strategiai and strategoi in Byzantine army, 42, 85, 86, 97 tagmata and themata in Byzantine army, 86–87 See also individual battles; mercenaries; navy; weapons warriors, in 10th–11th cent., 141, 144–45 “Wars of the Roses”, 310 Wat Tyler’s Rebellion (1381), 315–16 wealth, and capital, 284 weapons bombards, 80 Greek fire, 42 longbows and crossbows, 305 swords, 78–80 Wearmouth monastery, 66 Welf (dynasty), 107, 222 genealogy, 223 welfare services, 76 Wenceslas (prince of Bohemia), 155 Wessex, Kingdom of, 135 Western Europe archaeological evidence, 59–60, 72 fragmentation and consolidation in 9th–11th cent., 134, 141, 156 kingships 10th–11th cent., 146–55 map (c.750), 59 map of kingdoms (c.1050), 147 map (c.1100), 176 map (c.1300), 274 map (c.1450), 313 politics and culture in 7th–8th cent., 61–68, 72–77 power relationships 9th–11th cent., 141–46 power relationships 14th–15th cent., 309–12 status and differences in 7th cent., 58–59, 60–61 western Roman Empire after “fall” of Roman Empire, 77 crumbling of, 26 law codes, 27 map (c.500), 26 “new order” and Church, 29–31 ruralization, 27–29 See also Roman Empire Wijster (settlement), 23–24 Wiligelmo (sculptor), 201, 202, 204, 204

William of Normandy (d.1087), 192–93 William of Ockham (d.1347/1350), 284–85 Witiza (king), 72 Wittenberg, 329 Władysław II (also Jogaila, r.1377–1434), 280 women in al-Andalus, 133 burials in Vikings, 125, 139 in Byzantine Empire, 121 and Carolingians, 111–12 in Church movements of 13th cent., 228, 229, 230 enslavement, 314 and family in 7th cent., 64 fashion in 14th cent., 159 in guilds, 238–39 in Qur’an, 51 and religion in 6th cent., 31 in Renaissance, 322–23 as scribes, 250 as vassals or “lords”, 142 woolen cap, 157 wood panel (second half of 8th cent.), 96 wool and yarn, 157, 157, 159 woolworkers’ revolts, 314, 316 Wool Guild of Siena, 316 Worms, 153, 175, 188 writing, as institutional tool, 218 Wyclif, John (c.1330–1384), 318 Wynfrith. See Boniface (saint)

Yahya ibn Ibrahim (leader), 169 yarn. See wool and yarn Yeavering (England), 59–60, 60 Yersinia pestis, 32, 214, 296, 297, 300 See also plague Yorkist kings, 310 genealogy, 309 Yshu‘a ha-Kohen, 129 Yusuf ibn Tashfin (Almoravid ruler, d.1106), 170

Zacharias (pope, 741–752), 103 Zangi (emir, r.1127–1146), 191, 211 Zanj slaves, 127–28 Zaragoza, 194 Zeno (Roman emperor, r.474–491), 26 Zirids, 127, 129

Zoe (empress of Byzantines, d.1050), 121

Extending from Greenland to Indonesia, the map shows the states and capital cities of all of Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and northern and central Africa.

Back to Map

The provinces are labeled, as are the most important cities (going roughly west to east) of Trier, Milan, Rome, Pompeii, Sardica, Byzantium, Chalcedon, Nicomedia, Nicaea, Ephesus, Antioch, Palmyra, Damascus, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Carthage. The dividing line between the Western and Eastern halves of the Roman Empire begins to the east of Dalmatia and extends vertically to North Africa across the Mediterranean Sea just east of the heel of Italy. The Sasanid Empire of the Persians borders the easternmost Roman provinces, while Germania borders the Empire’s northernmost provinces.

Back to Map

Trier is to the north; Milan, Ravenna, and Rome are in what is now Italy; Sardica is farther west in what is now Bulgaria; and Constantinople and Nicomedia are in what is now Turkey.

Back to Map

Christian populations are mainly associated with the major cities within the Roman Empire. They are more

numerous in the eastern half of the Empire.

Back to Map

An early stage of Hunnic settlement is north of the Caspian Sea. Arrow and new settlement areas show them just above the Sea of Azov and sweeping down into what is today Turkey in the 390s. Later (450s) they are in Hungary and making incursions into Gaul and northern Italy. An early stage of Visigothic settlement is just above the Black Sea. In the 370s they are at Adrianople and Constantinople, then (in the 390s), they begin their long migration into Greece, across the Balkans, into Italy (where, in 410, they reach Rome) and thereafter into southern Gaul and the Iberian Peninsula.

Back to Map

The main point is the fragmentation of the Western Roman Empire; only the eastern half of the Empire remains intact. The main players in the West (from west to east) are the Visigothic Kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula; the kingdom of the Franks in what is today northwestern France; the Burgundians; and the kingdom of the Ostrogoths (Italy and the eastern Balkans).

Back to Map

Situated on the bank of the Loire River, Tours includes an episcopal church and palace along with other churches. It is surrounded by a fortified wall built c.400. Outside the city is the cemetery and, by c.600, a zone of pilgrimage and semi-permanent habitation. At its center is the church of Saint-Martin and a baptistery, the focus of the pilgrimages.

Back to Map

A square atrium adjoins the long side of the elongated oval narthex, which provides doorways into the octagonal central core. Topped by a dome, this area leads to the east, the apse, which contains the Justinian and Theodora panels.

Back to FG

The initial impression is of a resurgent Eastern Roman Empire, which includes part of Italy, North Africa, and southern Spain. The major players in the West are the Visigothic Kingdom, dominating the Iberian Peninsula, and the Frankish kingdoms. An inset map labels those kingdoms: Austrasia in the northeast, Burgundy in the southeast, Aquitaine in the southwest, and Neustria in the northwest.

Back to Map

The conquests go from east to west, with their dates ranging from 604 (Dara on the Tigris River) to

Jerusalem (614), to Alexandria (Egypt; 619), and finally back up to Anatolia with the conquest of Ankara (620 or 622).

Back to Map

Most of the Empire is in Anatolia. It also holds bits of southwestern Greece, Thessalonica, an hourglassshaped territory from Ravenna to Rome, and Sicily and the toe of Italy. The strategia are labeled. The Bulgarian Khanate extends from the coast of the Black Sea inland. The Avar Khanate is northwest of the Bulgarians.

Back to Map

The original Mauritanian settlement has been encroached on and surrounded by the Roman settlement. Key features of the Roman settlement are labeled: the Roman wall of the second century; the decumanus maximus (main street); the aqueduct running parallel to the main street; the House of Venus to the south of the main street and aqueduct; and the forum and basilica in the area of the original Mauritanian settlement. Bisecting the Roman settlement is a sixth-century wall that runs across Volubilis roughly north to south. West of that wall is an area of medieval settlement. Area D (an excavation site) and a silo are located in the southern part of that settlement. The Abbasid quarter and Area B (also an

excavation site) are between the Roman wall and the Oued Khomane River slightly to the west. An inset map locates Volubilis in North Africa, just south of Gibraltar.

Back to Figure

By 632, the Hejaz was mainly Islamic. By 661, Islam had spread throughout Arabia, westward into Egypt and Libya as far as Tripoli, northward to Armenia and Khurasan, and eastward throughout Mesopotamia and Persia. By 750, the expansion included the North African coastal regions of Ifriqiya and the Maghreb, across the straits into Spain as far north as Narbonne, and farther east to Transoxiana and the area around the Indus River.

Back to Map

Of special note are the ruling descendants of the Dynasty of Ali: Abu-Bakr, caliph (632–634); and Umar I, caliph (634–644). The ruling descendants of the Umayyad Dynasty are Uthman, caliph (644–656); Mu‘awiyah I, caliph (661–680); Marwan I, caliph (684–685); Yazid I, caliph (680–683); ‘Abd al-Malik, caliph (685–705); Umar II, caliph (717–720); Marwan II, caliph (744–750); Mu‘awiyah II, caliph (683–684); al-Walid I, caliph (705–715); Sulayman, caliph (715–717); Yazid II, caliph (720–724); Hisham, caliph (724–743); Yazid III, caliph (744);

Ibrahim, caliph (744); and al-Walid II, caliph (743– 744).

Back to Genealogy

The major players now are (roughly west to east) Islamic Spain (the Iberian Peninsula), Francia, England, the Lombard kingdom of Italy, and the remnants of the Byzantine Empire in Italy.

Back to Map

The estate is set in the countryside, with rolling hills, a distant river, and smoke puffing from holes in the roofs of the buildings. The great hall is represented by a large, pitched-roof building. An enclosure for animals extends from behind the hall to another, smaller, pitched-roof building. Beyond this complex is a wedge-shaped structure, the theater, and a small platform. There are outbuildings clustering around the larger structures, and dirt roads criss-cross the landscape. In front of the great hall a fenced-in area enclosing animals is partially visible.

Back to Figure

Of special note are the ruling descendants: Theuderic I (511–533); Chlodomer (511–524); Childebert I (511–558); Clothar I (511–561); Charibert I (561– 567); Guntram (561–593); Sigibert I (561–575); Chilperic I (561–584); Childebert II (575–596);

Clothar II, king of Neustria (584–629), king of Burgundy (613–629), king of Austrasia (613–623); Theudebert II, king of Austrasia (596–612); Theuderic II, king of Burgundy (596–613), king of Austrasia (612–613); Dagobert I, king of Austrasia (623–632), king of Neustria and Burgundy (629– 639); Sigibert III, king of Austrasia (632–c.656); Clovis II, king of Neustria and Burgundy (639–657), king of Austrasia (c.656–657); Clothar III, king of Neustria and Burgundy (657–673); Theuderic III, king of Neustria and Burgundy (673, 675–690/691), king of Austrasia (687–690/691); Childeric II, king of Austrasia (662–675), king of Neustria and Burgundy (673–675); Clovis III (690/691–694); Childebert III (694–711); Dagobert III (711–c.715); Theuderic IV (721–737); and Childeric III (743–c.751).

Back to Genealogy

The eagle—its head a circle, its body patches of three different colors—stands upright. Its wings are like long sleeves. It is framed by an interlace border of the same colors that make up its body.

Back to Plate

Interlaced ribbons of three colors echo those of Plate 2.5. The ribbons make up both the circles and the patterns that weave in and out of them. At the very

center of the page is a circle inside of which is delicate interlace using paler colors.

Back to Plate

The Lombard Kingdom in the north includes the cities of Cividale del Friuli, Venice, Verona, Brescia, and Pavia. The Lombard Kingdom in the south includes the cities of Spoleto and Benevento. In between these two regions lies the Exarchate, with its duchies of Pentapolis and Rome. The Duchy of Rome includes the city of Rome.

Back to Map

Three female figures stand in a row on either side of a small decorative arch, which appears to be held up by columns. The two outer figures carry wreaths or crowns and small crosses. The two figures flanking the arch reach out toward it. The larger doorway arch below is deeply carved with a design of grapes and leaves.

Back to Plate

The Byzantine Empire stretches (from east to west) from the theme of Mesopotamia to Calabria and (from north to south) from Cherson, on the north coast of the Black Sea, to the Peloponnese. The Bulgarian Empire abuts the Byzantine Balkan to its

south and the Danube to the north. Its cities of Pliska and Sardica are labeled.

Back to Map

The Avar Khaganate lies to the north-northwest of the Bulgarian Empire, taking in portions of the Danube, Drava, and Tisza Rivers.

Back to Map

Umayyad al-Andalus (including Toledo and Córdoba) and Idrisid Morroco (including Walila, Fez, and Sijilmasa) are regions under independent Muslim administration. The much larger area under Abbasid administration stretches eastward along the North African coastline, across Ifriqiya, Libya, and Egypt. It continues eastward, taking in the Arabian Peninsula, Syria, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Persia.

Back to Map

Of special note are the ruling descendants: Abu al-‘Abbas al-Saffah, caliph (750–754); al-Mansur, caliph (754–775); al-Mahdi, caliph (775–785); alHadi, caliph (785–786); Harun al-Rashid, caliph (786–809); al-Amin, caliph (809–813); al-Ma’mun, caliph (813–833); al-Mu‘tasim, caliph (833–842); alWathiq, caliph (842–847); al-Mutawakkil, caliph (847–861); al-Musa‘in, caliph (862–866); alMuntansir, caliph (861–862); al-Mu‘tazz, caliph

(866–869); al-Mu‘tamid, caliph (870–892); alMu‘tadid, caliph (892–902); al-Muqtafi, caliph (902– 908); al-Muqtadir, caliph (908–932); al-Qahir, caliph (932–934); and al-Radi, caliph (934–940). Abbasid caliphs continued at Baghdad—with, however, only nominal power—until they were conquered by the Mongols in 1258. Thereafter, a branch of the family in Cairo held the caliphate until the sixteenth century.

Back to Genealogy

Rows of columns and arches flank a central square, which is anchored at the corners by a diamond motif. A circular design appears in the center of the square. Small pieces of inlaid material create mosaic-like patterns throughout the panel.

Back to Plate

A square outer court encloses a square central court, with a fountain for ablutions. The central court is enclosed by two rows of arcades with pointed arches on three sides and five rows on the fourth. This fourth side is the sanctuary; it is fronted by the qibla wall that faces Mecca, in the center of which is the mihrab (a niche in the inner wall). At the mid-point of the side opposite the qibla wall stands a minaret, with its spiral form recalling the minaret at Samarra.

Back to Figure

On the portion shown is a lozenge featuring a lutanist flanked by two seated figures: a slave with a fan and a nobleman holding a scepter and flask. Surrounding them are plants, animals, and birds. Just below the lid is an Arabic inscription.

Back to Plate

The Carolingian Kingdom in 768 extended from Frisia northwest to the Mediterranean coast in the south of today’s France. From the west, it was bounded by Brittany, and at the east by the Ems in the north and the Elbe River in the south. Subsequent conquests brought it Saxony (in the northeast), the Avars (in the southeast), North Italy, and the Spanish March to the south. Inset Map A illustrates the Treaty of Verdun (Partition of 843). It divides the Carolingian Empire into three parts: the Eastern Frankish Kingdom, a region that runs from the North Sea to northern Italy; the Middle Kingdom that extends from the North Sea farther west and includes northern Italy; and the West Frankish Kingdom, taking up most of France today. Inset Maps B and C illustrate the gradual disappearance of the Middle Kingdom and the further fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire.

Back to Map

Of special note are the ruling descendants: Pippin III, king (751–768); : Charles (Charlemagne), king (768– 814), emperor (800–814); Carloman, king (768–771); Pippin, king of Italy (d.810); Louis the Pious, king and emperor (814–840); Lothar, co-emperor (817– 840), emperor (840–855), king of Middle Kingdom (843–855); Pippin I, king of Aquitaine (d.838); Louis the German, king of East Franks (843–876); Charles the Bald, king of West Franks (843–877), emperor (875–877); Louis II, king of Italy, emperor (855– 875); Louis the Younger, king of East Franks (d.882); Louis the Stammerer, king of West Franks (877–879); Arnulf, king of East Franks (887–899); Louis III, king of West Franks (879–882); Carloman, king of West Franks (879–884); Charles the Simple, king of West Franks (898–922); Louis the Blind, king of Provence (887–928), king of Italy (900–905), emperor (901–905); Louis the Child, king of East Franks (900–911); Louis IV D’Outremer, king of West Franks (936–954); Lothar, king of West Franks (954–986); Louis V, king of West Franks (986–987);

Back to Genealogy

Hamwic is mid-way along the southern coast of England. Across the English Channel, going from south to north along the coast, are Quentovic, Domburg, Dorestad, and Medemblik. On the Baltic Sea coast of Jutland is Hedeby (Haithabu), while Birka is on the east coast of Sweden.

Back to Map

Surrounded on three sides by water (the Golden Horn, Bosporus, and Sea of Marmara), Constantinople is enclosed by an extensive sea wall (the Theodosian Walls, early fifth century). The key buildings are, from east to west, the Great Palace and Hagia Sophia; then the Hippodrome and Basilica Cistern; then (at the south) the Eleutherios Palace. Along the Golden Horn to the north are the (again east to west) Genoese, Pisan, Amalfitan, and Venetian merchant quarters. At the far northwest, just within the later walls, is the Blachernai Palace. The Golden Gate is at the opposite (the southwest) end.

Back to Map

At Basil’s accession the Empire includes much of what is Turkey today, some of the heel and toe of Italy, a bit of what is today the Crimea, and much of Greece and the eastern Balkans. At Basil’s death in 1025, the Empire had added all the Balkans, more territory to the east of Turkey and south to Tripoli, and more land in southern Italy.

Back to Map

The northern boundary of Kievan Rus’ lies at the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga. Bordered on the west by the Lithuanians, Prussians, and Poland, it extends

south nearly to Hungary. Also shown: half of Sweden (including Birka on the coast), and the eastern boundary of the German Empire.

Back to Map

The Umayyad Caliphate remains united, but the Abbasid Caliphate has fragmented. The major players are (in North Africa) the Zirids and the Fatimid Caliphate (which includes Egypt and the Red Sea coast of Arabia). Beyond are the Hamdanids (extending from Aleppo to Mosul); the Shaddadids to their east (up to the Caspian Sea); and the Qaramita (along the Persian Gulf). The Buyids, whose state includes Baghdad, dominate the region between the Fatimids (to the west) and the Samanids whose state extends eastward to Samarqand.

Back to Map

The Vikings, who come from what are today Denmark, southern Sweden, and Norway, found settlements to the east at Ladoga, Novgorod, and down to Kiev. To the west, they settle in Normandy (northwest France today), the Danelaw (the English coast), the north of Scotland, and Iceland. They raid in the same directions, going south across the Black Sea, hitting the coast of the Iberian Peninsula and as far west as Genoa (Italy), raiding much of France down to Marseille, and touching down at L’Anse aux

Meadows in Newfoundland. The Hungarians, based in Hungary, raid in three directions: across Bulgaria and into the Byzantine Empire (Constantinople and toward the south); into Italy (beyond Rome and looping back); and, finally, through Bavaria (a label indicates the battle at Lechfeld). The Muslims go from the Mediterranean coast of today’s Algeria and Tunisia to Sardinia, Sicily, and a few other regions in the Mediterranean.

Back to Map

The Empire includes Germany, Bohemia, the Kingdom of Burgundy, and much of Italy down to Rome. Its major regions are Saxony, Lotharingia, Swabia, and Bavaria. The map also shows France and its many counties and duchies. The states of East Central Europe are labeled: Poland, Hungary, the Byzantine Empire, and Croatia disputed in between. To the north are Denmark, Norway, Sweden, England, and Ireland. The Iberian Peninsula is divided between the Islamic Taifas and the Christian states to the north, which are (west to east) León, Castile, Navarre, Aragon, and Catalonia.

Back to Map

Of special note are the ruling descendants: Edward the Elder, king (899–924); Æthelstan, king (924– 939); Ælfweard, king (924); Edmund, king (939–

946); Eadred, king (946–955); Eadwig, king (955– 959); Edgar, king (959–975); Edward, king (975– 978); Æthelred II, king (978–1016); and Edmund, king (1016).

Back to Genealogy

Of special note are the ruling descendants: Henry I, duke of Saxony, king (919–936); Otto I, king (936– 973), king of Italy (951–973), emperor (962–973); Otto II, king (961–983), emperor (967–983); Otto III, king (983–1002), emperor (996–1002); and Henry II, duke of Bavaria (995–1002), king (1002–1024), emperor (1014–1024).

Back to Genealogy

Christ stands to the left. The tomb is open and Lazarus, in a hooded shroud, stands up. A group of men (labeled “Jews”) on the right watches. One holds his nose and another carries the lid of the tomb. Two women kneel at Christ’s feet: one looks back at Lazarus with hands raised. She is labeled Martha, so the other one, who holds Christ’s foot, must be Mary. Behind Christ is another group of men labeled “Apostles.”

Back to Plate

A lady comes down a stairway under the arched entrance to a castle. A group of ladies-in-waiting

stand on the ground, one of them holding the lady’s long train, another gesturing to tell her some news. To the left are two men: one elderly, the other young and handsome.

Back to Plate

Richly decorated stripes run vertically along the cape. In the center, running from top to bottom, is a thick ribbon of cloth cut and sewn in the form of a cross. Embroidered on this cross (top to bottom) is a heraldic shield, Christ on the Cross, and small holy figures.

Back to Plate

The major players are the Seljuks, who create an empire that extends from east of Merv to Iznik (Nicaea) and from Jerusalem to the Aral Sea. The Normans invade the Balkans from their Kingdom of Sicily. The Byzantine Empire now consists of the Balkans, Greece, Crete, Cyprus, and a thin strip of coast north and south in Anatolia.

Back to Map

Of special note are the Seljuk sultans: Tughril (r.1037–1063); Alp Arslan (r.1063–1072); Malikshah I (r.1072–1092); Mahmud (r.1092–1094); Berkyaruq (r.1092–1104); Muhammad Tapar (r.1105–1118); Malikshah II (r.1105); Mahmud II (r.1118–1131);

Tughril II (r.1132–1134); Mas‘ud (r.1134–1152); Sulaymanshah (r.1160–1161); Da‘ud (r.1131–1132); Malikshah III (r.1152–1153); Muhammad II (r.1153– 1159); Arslan (r.1161–1176); and Tughril III (r.1176– 1194).

Back to Genealogy

The Empire of Ghana forms a rough circle between the Senegal and Niger Rivers. Near its center is Awdaghust. To its east are Essouk-Tadmekka and (on the Niger River) Sanay (Gao). The Amoravid Empire stretches from Zaragoza in the Iberian Peninsula to Azuggi (just above Ghana).

Back to Map

Forming the Comnenian line are Isaac Comnenus (1057–1059); Alexius I Comnenus (1081–1118); John II Comnenus (1118–1143); Manuel I Comnenus (1143–1180); Andronicus I Comnenus (1183–1185); and Alexius II Comnenus (1180–1183).

Back to Genealogy

This map is almost the same as Map 4.2 but has three major changes: Normandy and England are linked by color (because they were linked politically with the Norman Conquest of England), the Christian states of the Iberian Peninsula have gained territory all the way to Toledo, and the Normans have established the

Kingdom of Sicily (in 1130) that includes southern Italy.

Back to Map

The map of Tours c.600 shows the small inhabited area surrounded by walls built c.400. A circular area to the left of this indicates a zone of pilgrimage and semi-permanent habitation, with the church of SaintMartin at its center. The map of Tours c.1100 shows the expansion of both settlement areas and their increasing commercial activities. Roads link the two settlement areas (around Saint-Martin and around the episcopal church and palace) and a number of buildings and markets. Walls built in the tenth century enclose the area around the church. In the twelfth century, new walls appear on the western side of the episcopal complex. Near it, a bridge (built in 1034) spans the Loire River.

Back to Map

Of special note are the Salian rulers: Henry III, king (1039–1056) and emperor (1046–1056); Henry IV, king (1056–1106) and emperor (1084–1106); Henry V, king (1106–1125) and emperor (1111–1125); Conrad III, king and emperor (1138–1152).

Back to Genealogy

Arrows indicate the routes of the crusaders. The first, taking a route through the Rhineland and Hungary, is that of Peter the Hermit and later of Godfrey of Bouillon. The second route, of Raymond Toulouse, begins at Lyon, goes through northern Italy, and then south down the Adriatic coastline from Trieste. The third route, that of most of the other leaders, begins at Vienne and goes down the west coast of Italy. The Crusader States c.1140 are shown along the coast from Aleppo to Jerusalem, and some of their more important castles are labeled.

Back to Map

Of special note are the Norman kings: William II (1087–1100); Henry I (1100–1135); and Stephen (1135–1154).

Back to Genealogy

William starts in France at Caen and launches from St. Valéry sur Somme, arriving at Hastings in England. Godwineson starts in northeastern England at Stamford Bridge and meets William in Hastings. After the battle William and his army continue their movement in the southern quadrant of England. In 1066 William has taken southeastern England. In 1068–69, regions in southwestern and northeastern England are added. In 1069–70, a region farther to the

northeast is added, along with more of central England. In 1100, portions of Wales are conquered.

Back to Map

The Almoravid Empire covers the southern half of the peninsula and reaches up the eastern coast to include Valencia, Tarragona, and Lérida. To the north are the Christian kingdoms: from west to east, Portugal, León, Castile (extending south to Toledo), Navarre, Aragon, and Catalonia.

Back to Map

Of special note are the Capetian kings: Robert I (922– 923); Raoul, duke of Burgundy, king (923–936); Hugh Capet (987–996); Robert the Pious (996–1031); Henry I (1031–1060); Philip I (1060–1108); Louis VI the Fat (1108–1137); Louis VII (1137–1180); Philip II Augustus (1180–1223); Louis VIII (1223–1226); and Louis IX (Saint Louis) (1226–1270).

Back to Genealogy

At its heart is the cloister, surrounded by living quarters and the church. The plan is divided between the eastern half, which has the monks’ choir in the church and the monks' common room (under their dormitory) and refectory, and the western half, which is devoted to the lay brothers. Outbuildings include

the infirmary to the east of the complex and guest lodgings to the west.

Back to Figure

An arcade of arches at ground level runs along either side of the nave. Above is the gallery, bordered by a triforium of rounded arches held up by columns; it mimics the arches below on a smaller scale. Above that is the clerestory with windows. The vaulted ceiling is from a later period.

Back to Plate

Most of the lower half is original. Horizontals dominate: for example, the triforium that extends across the entire front, though skipping a deep recess over the central of the three portals. Flat bands covered with figures appear above the side portals and flank the main door. The campanile rises to the southeast.

Back to Plate

The cathedral has the form of a basilica, with a semicircular apse at its east end. On the north side of the building is the Royal portal (Porta regia) behind a jutting gateway. Farther to the west is the smaller Princes’ portal (Porta dei principi). The building is cut out to reveal the interior. An arcade of columns separates the side aisle from the nave. Above that is

the second story gallery, or triforium, marked by a long row of arches and columns. The third story clerestory, similarly demarcated, lets light into the building through a row of windows.

Back to Figure

In Africa, the territory of the Almohads starts southwest of Marrakesh and Sijilmasa and sweeps eastward along the coastline to Gafsa and Gabès. It takes in the Maghreb region and includes centers such as Fez and Tunis. It takes up the southern third of the Iberian Peninsula, and holds the Balearic Islands.

Back to Map

Saladin’s empire stretches eastward along the Mediterranean Sea, from the west coast of Libya today to Edessa (today in Turkey) and southward on both sides of the Red Sea. The Crusader States, which are surrounded by Saladin’s empire, are small isolated pockets along the coast. Near them took place the battles of Hattin and Ain Jalut.

Back to Map

Chinggis Khan’s campaigns began from Karakorum in Mongolia. One took him south to Xi Xia and east to China, others westward to Qara Khitai and the Khwarazmian Empire. The campaigns of Chinggis Khan’s generals leave from Samarqand, head west to

Iran, then north to Astrakhan (at the top of the Caspian Sea), then to the Black Sea, and finally back to Qara Khitai.

Back to Map

Of special note are the Angevin kings: Henry II (1154–1189); Richard I the Lion-Heart (1189–1199); John Lackland (1199–1216); Henry III (1216–1272); Edward I (1272–1307); and Edward II (1307–1327).

Back to Genealogy

Henry II inherited England, Normandy, Maine, and Anjou. He claimed Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Brittany, and Languedoc by right of suzerainty or conquest. Through his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, he acquired Poitou, La Marche, Aquitaine, Auvergne, and Gascony. The Ile-de-France, centered on Paris, lies between Blois and Champagne. The non-royal French duchies and counties are, from roughly north to south, Flanders, Champagne, Blois, Burgundy, and Toulouse.

Back to Map

Just above Africa is Granada, ruled by the Nasrids. Below, in Africa, are the states of (from west to east) the Marinids, the ‘Abd al-Waddids (Ziyanids), and the Hafsids. All are Islamic. Most of the Iberian Peninsula is taken up by Christian states: Portugal,

Léon and Castile, Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia and, to the south, Valencia. The battle site of Las Navas de Tolosa lies just north of the Guadalquivir River.

Back to Map

In the Staufen Dynasty, of special note are the rulers: Henry V, king (1106–1125) and emperor (1111– 1125); Conrad III, king and emperor (1138–1152); Frederick I Barbarossa, king (1152–1190) and emperor (1155–1190); Henry VI, king (1190–1197) and emperor (1191–1197); Philip of Swabia, king (1198–1208); Frederick II, king of Sicily (1197– 1250), king of Germany (1212–1250), and emperor (1220–1250); Manfred, king of Sicily (d.1266); and Constance, queen of Sicily (d.1302). In the Welf Dynasty, the ruler is Otto IV, king (1198–1215) and emperor (1209–1215).

Back to Genealogy

The popes claimed what is today Umbria. The Venetians hold a crescent at the north tip of the Adriatic Sea and many cities and islands along the Adriatic’s east coast, including Zara (Zadar) and Ragusa (Dubrovnik). The Empire of Frederick Barbarossa begins in Swabia and extends southward to Pisa. There is a battle sign where the battle of Legnano took place, near Milan. The island of Corsica comes under Pisan control c.1020, while

Sardinia does the same c.1050. Southern Italy and Sicily have united as the Kingdom of Sicily.

Back to Map

Circa 1100, German settlement was concentrated in Saxony. By c.1300, German settlement had spread east, taking in the regions of Brandenburg, Silesia, Pomerania, and parts of Prussia. Towns with German population or law are mainly within those regions, as are many bishoprics. By 1390, the lands of the Teutonic Knights included Prussia, Livonia, and Estonia.

Back to Map

The route of the Fourth Crusade starts in Venice and continues, by sea, to Zara (Zadar), Split, and Dyrrhachion (Durzazzo). From there it rounds the Greek Peninsula and moves across the Aegean Sea to Constantinople. Conquered, Constantinople fell to the Latin Empire, which included southern Greece, while the Byzantine successor states form in the interstices: the Despotate of Epirus in northern Greece, the Empire of Nicaea in what is today Turkey, and the Empire of Trezibond, a strip of land along the southern coast of the Black Sea. Venice holds or has under its protection many cities and islands along the east coast of the Adriatic Sea, Crete, and the Negroponte.

Back to Map

Another three-story church, but here the walls are supported by flying buttresses that allow huge glass windows. Key to the light are the rose windows that appear at the west end and at the ends of the transepts. The parts of the cathedral are labeled: the west portals, the south portals, the clerestory, transept, choir, and apse.

Back to Figure

A horizontal band of frescos on both sides tells the story of Saint Francis. The windows are of stained glass, the ceiling is a ribbed vault, but the impression is less of light and height than of richness and solidity.

Back to Plate

The cover has a heavy border composed of cabochons and pearls set in gold filigree. Within the border is a stylized cross, also of gold and gems, in the middle of which is Christ holding a book in one hand and blessing with the other. The spaces in between the border and the cross are taken up by shallow reliefs in gold.

Back to Plate

The Khanate of the Golden Horde (from the Danube to the Yemisei Rivers) is directly to the north of the Ilkhanate, which begins at the south coast of the Black Sea, skirts Aleppo, and extends to the Oxus River. East of the Ilkhanate, from the Oxus to Mongolia, is the Chagatai Khanate. The Empire of the Great Khan begins where the Golden Horde and Chagatai Khanates end and finishes with the eastern seas: the Japanese, Yellow, and East China.

Back to Map

Of special note are the Great Khans: Ogedei (r.1229– 1241); Guyuk (r.1246–1248); Mongke (r.1251–1259); and Qubilai (r.1260–1294).

Back to Genealogy

The labeled Islamic regions include Granada and (from west to east) the Canary Islands, Morocco (held by the Marinids), and the regions of the ‘Abd alWaddids and the Hafsids. The Mamluk Sultanate dominates the entire Red Sea region. In Sub-Sahara is the Islamic Empire of Mali. Arrows north of Mali, the Kanem-Bornu Empire, and the Mamluk Sultanate penetrate south and west to indicate the spread of Islam. Alluvial gold is found in Mali and regions along the north coast of the Gulf of Guinea (the socalled Gold Coast).

Back to Map

While Map 7.3b shows the major international routes across Africa and Asia, Map 7.3a illustrates more local routes within Europe, especially those of the Hanse (in the Baltic and North Sea); of Genoa (forming a spider’s web throughout Europe and touching the North African coast); and of Venice, dominating the sea trade in the Adriatic and Aegean and competing with Genoa in the Mediterranean and along the north Atlantic coast.

Back to Map

The original (late antique) wall probably enclosed an area about a quarter of the size that is covered by the wall of 1265, still standing in part. The earliest craft was leather, followed by smithing, and later on by textiles. Fishing, kilns (for pottery), and shipwrights were probably always located near the Fodesta Canal to the city’s northeast.

Back to Map

Of special note are the ruling descendants: Edward I (1272–1307); and Edward II (1307–1327).

Back to Genealogy

Of special note are the ruling descendants: Philip III, king of France (1270–1285); Philip IV the Fair

(1285–1314); Charles of Valois (d.1325); Philip VI, king of France (1328-1350); John II, king of France (1350–1364); Louis X (1314–1316); Philip V (1316– 1322); Charles IV (1322–1328); John I (1316); and Edward III, king of England (1327–1377).

Back to Genealogy

In the Iberian Peninsula (from west to east) are Portugal, Castile-León, and Aragon-Catalonia. North of the Iberian Peninsula are (west to east) Ireland, England, France, the Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary. To the south of the Holy Roman Empire are the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples.

Back to Map

The major states are (north to south) Livonia, Lithuania (much expanded under Gediminas, who died in 1341). Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria.

Back to Map

Rows of frescos in panels that are separated by decorative borders fill the chapel all the way to its vault, which is filled with stars. On the west end, the golden halos of Christ, the angels, and the blessed glow. Only at the lower corner on Christ’s left is there red smoke and darkness.

Back to Plate

The three Marys (mother of God, Mary Magdalene, and Mary of Cleophas) cradle the crucified Christ and hold his hands and feet. Other grieving figures surround them. Above, the sky is filled with haloed angels. Decorative borders frame the scene.

Back to Plate

The region around the Tian Shan mountains marks the point of origin. The thirteenth-century dispersion involves China and regions of Mesopotamia; that of the fourteenth century the region west of the Tibetan Plateau including Africa, western Europe, the Mediterranean, the Byzantine Empire, and Turkey. In the fifteenth century, the dispersion affects areas of northern Europe, east Africa, and inner Asia.

Back to Map

A man holds a woman while a doctor lances a bubo on her neck. Another man, with half of his chest exposed, raises his arm to show a bubo in his armpit. A child stands in front of him and a baby, its face green with illness, lies in a crib.

Back to Plate

The tomb is decorated with coats of arms. The noblewoman's head rests on a pillow and her hands

rest on her chest. Below the tomb lies the corpse, which appears to be partially wrapped in a shroud and is covered with the worms, lizards, and insects. Beneath the corpse, the text of a poem explains the image.

Back to Plate

In 1359, the Ottomans held a small territory mainly east of Constantinople. By 1451, it held most of what is today Turkey and much of Bulgaria and the Balkans. After 1453, when it captured Constantinople/Istanbul, it included all of Turkey, much of Ukraine, and all of the Balkans and Greece.

Back to Map

Of special note are the kings of England and France: Philip III, king of France (1270–1285); Philip IV the Fair (1285–1314); Louis X (1314–1316); Philip V (1316–1322); Charles IV (1322–1328); John I (1316); Edward III, king of England (1327–1377); Richard II, king of England (1377–1399); Henry IV, king of England (1399–1413); Henry V, king of England (1413–1422); Henry VI, king of England (1422– 1461); Philip VI, king of France (1328–1350); John II, king of France (1350–1364); Charles V, king of France (1364–1380); Charles VI, king of France (1380–1422); Charles VII, king of France (1422–

1461); Louis XI, king of France (1461–1483); and Charles VIII, king of France (1483–1498).

Back to Genealogy

France is divided into rough thirds. Regions under the control of the kings of England extend from England and Wales to about a third of northern France, including Normandy and Champagne. Gascony, the region around Bordeaux, was also under English rule. The duchy of Burgundy included traditional Burgundy and Flanders. Apart from Brittany, Charles VII held the rest of France.

Back to Map

The duchy, made up of territorial fragments, straddled the border between France and the Holy Roman Empire. Its core regions were in Flanders and Burgundy. It added Luxembourg and the Netherlands between 1384 and 1443. Between 1465 and 1476, it partially filled the area in between the core regions.

Back to Map

Of special note are the kings: in the Yorkist Dynasty, Richard II (1377–1399); Richard III (1483–1485); Edward IV (1461–1483); and Edward V (1483). In the Lancastrian Dynasty, Henry IV (1399–1413); Henry V, king of England (1413–1422); Henry VI (1422–1461); and Henry VII (1485–1509).

Back to Genealogy

The map highlights the extreme fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire, the development of independent territorial city-states in Italy (including Venice), and the northern expansion of the Papal States. The Kingdom of Aragon includes southern Italy, Sardinia, and Sicily. The Swiss Confederation has carved out an independent state between the duchy of Burgundy and the Holy Roman Empire.

Back to Map

In the foreground, a bridge spans a river in which the defeated rebels’ bodies float. Knights in armor wield spears and swords while others on horseback hold banners and lances. Meaux is the backdrop; it is depicted as a fairy-tale city, with castles, towers, and a church with a lofty belfry. Elegantly dressed women stand in the doorway of a building.

Back to Plate

On the right, two figures stand in a pool of water while a large group (also in the water) watches them. Three figures stand onshore, as if in a discussion. In the center of the panel, a shadowy figure enveloped in a circle of light floats above another figure that lays on a bed underneath a canopy. To the left, a large group of people stand in front of a seated woman.

Back to Plate

Small inset diagrams show the oculus and lantern (built at the top of the dome), and the machines used to build the dome and lantern: a reversible hoist, crane, and lantern-building crane. The reversible hoist sits on the floor of the cathedral and ropes extend from it to a pulley at the top of the dome. The crane stands on a platform on one side of the dome. On the exterior of the dome, scaffolding protrudes from the top and the lantern-building crane stands on a platform. Small figures are visible on an exterior staircase that wraps around the scaffolding.

Back to Figure

Each of the panels depicts a person or scene: (top left to right) Adam, singing angels, the Virgin enthroned, the deity enthroned, John the Baptist enthroned, angel musicians, and Eve; (bottom left to right) knights of Christ, adoration of the lamb, hermits, and pilgrims.

Back to Plate

Krel is shown as a young man wearing an expensive darkly colored fur-trimmed coat. Behind him is a brightly colored wall, which contrasts with the sober colors of his garment.

Back to Plate

The sea itself, filled with numerous sailing ships, takes up most of the map. The islands and coast of the “New World” (as the label proclaims) are studded with flags. Animals are depicted in the northern regions; indigenous people in the south.

Back to Plate

The main voyages shown are Columbus’s in the 1490s to San Salvador and the Portuguese voyages in the 1480s and 1490s around the Cape of Good Hope and eastward to India.

Back to Map