Europe: 600-1200 CE

Quick Essay

• What happened in the Mediterranean between 200-600 CE?

Historical Interpretation

“The Dark Ages is a term applied in its widest sense to that period of intellectual depression in the history of Europe from the establishment of the barbarian supremacy in the fifth century (400 AD) to the revival of learning at about the beginning of the fifteenth (1400 AD), thus nearly corresponding in extent with the Middle Ages.”

- The American Cyclopaedia: A Popular Dictionary of

General Knowledge, 1883

Should we call the period 600-

1450 “The Dark

Ages”?

Rum/Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine

• Continuities between pax Romana and Byzantine Empire?– Roads– Taxation system– Military structures– Centralized administration– Imperial court– Laws– Christian church

Eastern Orthodox Church vs. Western Catholicism

SIMILARITIES DIFFERENCES

Teachings of Jesus & the Bible

Local languages vs. Latin

Church hierarchy of patriarchs, bishops,

priests

Theological differences (i.e.

original sin; nature of Christ)

Missionary impulse Priests can marry vs. celibacy

Intolerance toward other religions

Caesaropapism vs. Pope

100 CE900 CE

0

200000

400000

600000

800000

1000000 1,000,000

10,000

Population of Rome

Population

1. Invasions2. Feudalism3. Power of Catholic Church

3 Major Developments, 500-1000CE

1. Invasions

Alcuin, English cleric in 793

“Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race, nor was it thought that such an inroad from the sea could be made. Behold, the church of St. Cuthbert spattered with the blood of the priests of God…”

Ermentarius, a monk in the 860s

“The number of ships increases, the endless flood of Vikings never ceases to grow bigger. Everywhere Christ’s people are the victims of massacre, burning, and plunder…”

2. Feudalism

3. Power of the Catholic Church

• Modeled after Roman institutions– Hierarchy reporting

to Rome– Latin used in mass

(so who read the Bible?)

Constantinian Churches in and

around Rome

Church gained lots of wealth from donations (patrons) & owning land

Pope Gregory, Advice to the English Church, 601

The temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed…For if those temples are well built, it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God; that the nation, seeing that their temples are not destroyed, may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true God, may the more familiarly resort to the places to which they have been accustomed.

Pope Gregory, Advice to the English Church, 601

…For there is no doubt that it is impossible to efface everything at once from their obdurate minds; because he who endeavors to ascend to the highest places, rises by degrees or steps, and not by leaps…

Viking Coin, St. Peter & Thor’s Hammer (10th century)

Charlemagne’s Capitulary

3. If any one shall have entered a church by violence and shall have carried off anything in it by force or theft…let him be punished by death.6. If any one deceived by the devil shall have believed, after the manner of the pagans, that any man or woman is a witch and eats men, and on this account shall have burned the person, or shall have given the person’s flesh to others to eat, or shall have eaten it himself, let him be punished by a capital sentence.

Charlemagne’s Capitulary

7. If any one, in accordance with pagan rites, shall have caused the body of a dead man to be burned…let him be punished capitally…17. Likewise, in accordance with the mandate of God, we command that all shall give a tithe of their property and labor to the churches and priests;19. …all infants shall be baptized within a year…

Competition: Religion vs. Political Power1077

Pope Gregory VII Excommunicating Henry IV

…And therefore I believe it to be through [St. Peter’s] grace and not through my own deeds that…that the Christian people…should obey me….for the honor and security of your church, in the name of Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I withdraw, through your power and authority, from Henry the king…who has risen against your church with unheard of insolence, the rule over the whole kingdom of the Germans and over Italy. And I absolve all Christians from the bonds of the oath which they have made or shall make to him; and I forbid any one to serve him as king…

Competition: Religion vs. Political Power

Significant change: 1000-1300

1000 CE1300 CE

0

20,000,000

40,000,000

60,000,000

80,000,000

35,000,000

80,000,000

Population of Europe

Population

Significant change: 1000-1300

• More land?• Rise of Italian cities of Florence,

Genoa, and Venice • Causes?

Crusades: Why Did They Happen?

Crusades

Primary Sources!

Crusades• Legacy of “Clash of Civilizations” (cf.

President Bush)• Spain, Sicily, and the Baltic Byzantine

Empire was very weakened• Pope’s authority • European contact with Islamic world,

picking up a taste for luxury and Asian goods– Sugar

• Absorption of Muslim scholarship

Sacred spaces: the Catholic Church

Santa Sabina Basilica (5th century CE)

Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris

Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris

Is “The Dark Ages” a Valid Term?