Medieval Society

• Four Distinct Classes– Nobles– Clergy– Peasants– Merchants

• Two Distinct living situations– Land/manors– Towns

Nobles

• Warriors– The invention of stirrups

• Creates a class structure within the military– Lower-infantry

» Doesn’t take much to wield a sword– Upper-Calvary

» Good horses and weaponry was expensive– War was good

• Ability to move up in rank and prestige• Gain spoils of war

– Peace was bad• Boredom and stagnation• Kept busy with games

– Not looked well upon by kings and clergy» Created many feuds

• Knights– Distinctiveness between other nobles and the

common man with knighthood• Early knighthood could be given to men of wealth and

bravery• 12th Century it is restricted to men of high birth

– But kings still remained free to give nobility at their whim» Causes tensions between nobles and merchants

• Sports– It was for nobles because laws restricted the common

man from hunting and access to lands• Courtly love

– Social conduct and etiquette

Clergy

• Regular Clergy– Monks who lived special ascetic rule (regula)

separated from the world• Secular Clergy

– Those who lived and worked directly with the outside world (saeculum)

– Defined hierarchy• Top

– Cardinals, archbishops, bishops• Middle

– Urban priests, cathedral canons, court clerks• Bottom

– Parish priests

• New orders– Aspired to a life of poverty and self-sacrafice– Came about with Gregorian Reforms

• Canons Regular (f. 1050-1100)• Carthusians (f. 1084)• Cistercians (f. 1098)• Praemonstratensians (f. 1121)

• Prominence– Numbers grew– Amassed great wealth– Had great influence with nobles and kings

Peasants

• Importance dominates that of Nobles and Clergy– They did the work!

• Class system– Coloni

• Landed who traded possessions for security– Serfs

• Had little to bargain with

• Life of a Serf– Hard life but beneficial for lord to keep them healthy and happy

• They did the work and could revolt– Changes in land and inventions

• Go from working several days a week to 1 or 2– Hardships, taxes, and restricted migration did cause riots

• These were usually handled with extreme brutality

Towns

• Growing merchant class– Men who traded increased their wealth and prestige

• Protected themselves by creating guilds and associations (sort of like modern day unions)

• Challenged the old lords– Unlike birth right and landed nobility, merchants could rise

through social ladders with wealth

– Importance of towns• Ability for laymen with skills to acquire wealth• Afforded a freedom not found on lands/manors• Later alliance with kings made towns increasingly important

and would bring an end to feudal society and rise of kingdoms

Jews

• Found many opportunities in towns– Increased wealth and prestige

• Also found many hardships– Wealth and intelligence made many suspicious and envious– Kings

• Confiscate their wealth and property– Church

• Used them to hold their dominance as they lost political power

• 12th and 14th Centuries– Jews would be exiled and persecuted– Much of the same reasons for attacks on Jews would be seen

through out history• Hitler’s Mien Kamph and Germany and the West in general during

the 1930’s-1960’s

Universities

• Long forgotten ideas and works had been rediscovered with the Crusades and Trade– Islamic societies refreshed the works of the Greeks,

math, astronomy, and Roman Law• Liberal Arts

– Trivium- grammar, rhetoric, logic– Quardrivium- arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and

music• The first were Cathedral Schools

– Taught liberal arts to train the clergy– Began to teach nonclerical students

• Especially merchants needing to learn Latin

• University of Bologna– Established by Frederick I n 1158– Famous for the revival of Roman law Theology

• Students studied Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis• Headed by Irnerius in early 12th Century

– Students commented and defined current law that of Justinian law

– 1140• Monk named Gratian created the standard legal text (canon)

of the church– Concordance of Discordant Canons or Decretum

University of Bologna

• University of Paris– Chartered by Pope Innocent III in 1200– Grew out of the cathedral school Notre Dame– Most famous college was the Sorbonne

• Founded by Robert de Sorbon in 1257

– Medicine and Liberal Arts– Also known for snobbery

• Students looked down on ordinary citizens• Laws show that students had to be protected

Sorbonne

Curriculum• Basic learning

– Truth already existed• Do find it, but organize and defend it

– Scholasticism• Students wrote commentaries on texts

– Logic and dialectic

• Philosophy– Aristotle and the Church

• The two just did not mix– Peter Abelard

• Applied Aristotle to Scripture• Intent over deed

– Motives outwieghed actions• Made a lot of enemies

– Down fall was Heloise• 1141 church synod order his works burned

Women in Medieval Society

• Not merely wives or nuns– Women did join the cloister especially during

the 9th century• But no more than 3,500• Those that did rose to positions of leadership

– Women did marry• Seen more as equals than subjects of men’s

authority– Worked along side men in towns and fields

» There was love and companionship more than sex and wrath