The Growth of Europe

The Plan:
1. Middle Ages in Europe
4. The Legacy of the Middle Ages
1.1. Frankish Empire
5. Glossary
1.2. Vikings
1.3. English King Alfred the Great
2. Middle Ages in England
2.1. Feudal System
2.2. William I, The Domesday Book
2.3. Richard I the Lion-Heart
2.4. Magna Carta the Great Charter
2.5. Education in Middle Ages
2.6. Johann Gutenberg and William Caxton
2.7. A Medieval Town
3. England in the 14th Century
3.1. The Hundred Years War
3.2. The Peasants Revolt of 1381
3.3. The Maid of Orleans Joan of Arc
3.4. The War of the Roses

1. The Middle Ages in Europe

The Middle Ages was a
time of change in Western
Europe between the 5th and
15th centuries. During the
5th century the Roman
Empire fell, to be replaced
by invading German tribes.
Western Europe broke up
into many kingdoms. Trade
collapsed, and people had
to make their living from the
land. Gradually the feudal
system developed. The early
Middle Ages are called the
Dark Ages because the
learning of Ancient Greece
and Rome almost
disappeared.

But the Christian

Church gave leadership
to the people. Trade
gradually improved. By
about the 13th century
the Middle Ages had
reached their height.
Feudalism governed
society, and monasteries
(where monks lived) were
the centers of learning.
The Middle Ages
ended in the 15th century
when the Renaissance
swept through Europe.

1.1. Frankish Empire

In the 6th century a

group of people known as
the Franks began to
establish a powerful
kingdom in Europe. The
Franks had lived on the
North European Plain for
centuries. The Franks
conquered neighboring
people and extended their
power. By the late 700s a
large part of Europe was
under their control.

Charlemagne, or
Charles the Great, was
one the Franks greatest
rulers. People called him
the greatest man of all
those living. Charles the
Great ruled from 768 to
814. During his 46-year
rule, he doubled the size
of his kingdom.
On Christmas Day in
the year 800 Pope Leo III
declared Charlemagne
emperor.

Charles the Great

This was an important

turning point in European
history. For the first time
since the end of Roman
Empire, Europe had an allpowerful emperor. For his
court in Aachen
Charlemagne invited
Europes best scholars.
There was a music teacher
from Italy, a poet from
Spain.
Charlemagnes court
became an important
center of learning.

1.2. Vikings

When Charlemagne died in

814, the Franks were being
attacked by northern raiders. The
Northmen, also called Vikings,
were skillful sailors and fierce
warriors from Scandinavia. From
their home ports, the Vikings
could easily reach the British
Isles and mainland Europe. The
Vikings were daring raiders
whose methods were speed and
surprise. They attacked churches
and homes and killed many
people. For 250 years Europe
was terrorized by such raids. By
the middle of the eleventh
century, the Vikings began to
settle down. They became
traders instead of raiders.

1.3. English King Alfred the Great

King Alfred the Great was one

of the best kings in the history of
England. He saved his land from
the Viking invaders and initiated
many social and educational
reforms. He is the only English
monarch who got the name the
Great.
Alfred was born in 849. He was
the youngest son of the king of
Wessex. Alfred was brought up
and educated mainly by his
mother. Alfred was very young,
but he learned to read and write
Latin and English. He continued
to understand the importance of
knowledge throughout all his life.

Alfred the Great

Alfred lived during one of the

worst periods of invasion in English
history. The Danes (Vikings) were
raiding along the English coast. By
the year 870 they had invaded all
the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, except
Wessex. In 870 the Danes attacked
Wessex.
In 871 Alfred became the king of
Wessex. He gathered a big army
and gave the Danes (Vikings) a
great battle at Maldon. Although the
Danes were defeated in this battle,
they still remained very strong and
dangerous. So Alfred decided to sue
for peace. The only possible way
was to pay money to the enemy and
persuade them to live somewhere
else. The Danes took money, but
every two or three years they
returned and asked for more.

In 876 the Danes again

started attacks on the Wessex.
In 886 Alfred had to sign a
treaty with them, which is
known as the Treaty of
Wedmore. The Treaty of
Wedmore divided England in
two parts: the south-western
part was ruled by the English,
and the north-eastern part was
Danish territory. The treaty
was good for both parties in
addition to Wessex, Alfred got
control of West Mercia and
Kent.

There were some years of peace, and Alfred began to

introduce his reforms:
1. He reorganized his army and built the first English navy.
2. He established a code of laws.
3. Alfred understood the importance of education and set
up many schools.
4. In his time many books were translated from Latin into
Anglo-Saxon.
5. Alfred himself translated The Church History and some
parts of the Bible.
6. Alfred started to write the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the
first history of England.
Alfred the Great died on October 26, 899 and was buried
in Winchester.

2. Middle Ages in England

2.1. Feudal System

The central idea of feudal society

was that all land was owned by the
king, but it was held by others,
called vassals, in return for
services and goods.
The king gave large estates to
his main nobles in return for a
promise to serve him in war. The
nobles also had to give him part of
the produce of the land. The
greater nobles gave part of their
lands to lesser nobles, called
knights, and other freemen. Some
freemen paid for the land by doing
military service, while others paid
rent.

The noble kept serfs to

work on his land. These
serfs were not free to leave
the estate and were often
little better than slaves.
There were two basic
principles to feudalism:
every man had a lord, and
every lord had land and
vassals.
At each level a man had to
promise loyalty and service
to his lord. On the other
hand, each lord had
responsibilities to his
vassals. He had to give
them land and protection.

2.2. William I, The Domesday Book

William was a nephew of the
English King Edward the
Confessor, who had promised
his relative the English throne.
Having French roots, William
wanted very much to be the
king of England. Edward the
Confessor died in 1066 without
an obvious heir. And the Witan
(council) elected Harold, a
Saxon nobleman, the king of
England, because the most
Saxon nobles didnt want a
French king.

William gathered a great army and sailed across the

English Channel on hundreds of ships. Harold had to fight
against two enemies at the same time: in the south it was
William of Normandy, in the north the Danes began to attack
England.
Harolds and Williams armies met on the English coast.
There was a great battle at Hastings on October 14, 1066.
Harold was killed and the battle was lost. So William became
King of England. He was crowned in Westminster Abbey on
Christmas day, the 25th of December, 1066.

William was king for

twenty-one years. The official
language of the court was
Norman-French, because
William and his barons didnt
know Anglo-Saxon. William
took lands from Saxon nobles
and gave them to his Norman
barons. That made him
unpopular among people of
England and there were a lot of
rebellions in the country. But
William cruelly put down all the
rebellions. To protect himself
from possible attacks of the
Saxons, William ordered to
build a strong tower on the left
bank of the Thames. Now we
know it as the Tower of
London.

We know a lot of about

England in Williams time,
because Williams men went to
every town and village to ask
hundreds of questions about
peoples property. Then they
put the answers in a big book
called the Domesday Book.
By means of the
Domesday Book, Williams
government knew exactly
where everyone lived and
how much property they
owned. The aim of this book
was to collect the right taxes
for the king. William was a
strong king, and people
remember him because his
children were kings of England
for two hundred years.

2.3. Richard I the Lion-Heart

Richard was the second
king of the Plantagenet
dynasty. He was born in 1157.
He was famous for his good
education and courage.
Richard was described as a
man of excellent manners,
kind to his friends and cruel to
his enemies. Most of his time
he spent in crusades in
Palestine.
In the absence of Richard
I, Prince John, the kings
brother, tried to seize the
English throne. When Richard
was killed in one of the battles
in France, the English throne
passed to his brother John
Lackland.

He was the most

unpopular king: he lost
most of his French
possessions, quarreled
with the Pope, etc. King
John wanted a lot of
money to wage wars
against France, because
he decided to win back
the English territory in
France. John made the
barons to give him that
money, but they didnt
want to do it. They
organized an open
rebellion against the king.

2.4. Magna Carta the Great Charter

In 1215 king John was

forced to sign a document
called the Great Charter
(Magna Carta Libertata in
Latin).
For the first time in the
history of England, the Great
Charter limited the power of
the Crown and officially stated
certain rights and liberties of
the people, which the king had
to respect. It was the
beginning of the English
constitutional demands for
freedom and justice.

2.5. Education in Middle Ages

Before the 12th century most
people in England were illiterate.
Monasteries were centers of
education. And priests and monks
were most educated people. But
with the development of medicine
and law, the first universities
appeared in Italy and France.
A university had four faculties:
1. Theology (the study of
religion)
2. Canon Law (church laws)
3. Medicine
4. Art (included Latin
grammar, rhetoric, logic,
arithmetic, geometry, astronomy
and music).

In the middle of the

12th century a group of
professors from France
came to Britain and
founded the university in
the town of Oxford in
1168. It was the beginning
of the first English
university.
A second university was
founded in 1209 in
Cambridge. It was the
second eldest university
of Britain.

2.6. Johann Gutenberg and William Caxton

Getting an education in those

times was very difficult. Printing had
not yet been invented. All the books
were handwritten. Thats why books
were rare and very expensive.
Printing was invented in the 15th
century in Germany by Johann
Gutenberg. To England it was
brought by William Caxton. In his
youth he lived in Flanders and
worked as a hand copier of books for
the royal family. He was an educated
man and did translations from
French into English. When he was
on business in Germany, he learned
the art of printing. In 1476 he
returned to England and set up the
first English printing-press in London.

2.7. A Medieval Town

Medieval towns were

surrounded with walls. It
was done to defend the
town from possible attacks
of enemies.
Round many towns there
were moats filled with
water. You entered the town
by the drawbridge over the
moat and through a wide
archway with very strong
gates which were closed
every night.

The houses in medieval towns were built of stone or

wood. The second floor overhung the first floor. The
streets were very narrow and dirty, covered with mud.
The streets were never cleaned. There is no wonder that
epidemics were very frequent.
On market days the citizens and the farmers were fond
of watching plays performed by wandering actors. They
usually acted scenes from the Bible.
Many people were engaged in craftsmanship. They
developed different crafts.

Specialists of different professions were united

into corresponding trade guilds, which were a kind
of professional clubs. Members of a guild obeyed
the rules of the guild. When members fell ill and
lost their trade, they received help. If they died, the
guild paid for the funeral, supported the widow and
educated the children.

3. England in the 14th Century

3.1. The Hundred Years War
In the 14th century the king of
England was Edward III. He was
a powerful king and he wanted to
become King of France as well,
because his mother was a French
princess. Besides, the feudal
lords in France were making
plans to seize the free towns of
Flanders. For England it would
mean losing its wool market,
because it became rich by trading
with Flanders. The English
traders shipped wool to Flanders,
where it was sold as raw
material.

Edward III

Saying that he wished to

defend English trade, Edward
declared war on France in 1337.
This war is called the Hundred
Years War, because it lasted
over a hundred years. At first
England was successful in the
war. The English fleet defeated
the French fleet in the English
Channel.
Then the English also won
battles on land. For the first time
the English had certain
advantages over the French:
they invented cannons, which
the French army did not have.
Besides, the English archers
could shoot their arrows from a
distance, but the French knights,
armed with swords, could only
fight in hand-to-hand combats.

Gradually the situation had changed. England

was weakened by an epidemic of the plaque (the
Black Death) and by the Peasants Revolt of
1381. One-third of Englands population had
perished. After all, the Hundred Years War, in
which England lost practically all its lands in
France, ended in 1453.

3.2. The Peasants Revolt of 1381

The ruin of France and the famine that followed caused an
epidemic of the plague. It was so infectious that people died
within twenty-four hours. From France the epidemic was brought
to England. The English soldiers called it the Black Death. By
the year 1348 one-third of Englands population had perished.
The position of the peasants was very hard. They had to give
part of their harvest to the lord. They also had to work on the
lords fields regularly. After the epidemic of the Black Death, the
surviving peasants were made to work on the lords fields much
more. They were paid for their work, but the payment was very
little. Besides, Parliament voted for the war. It made the life of the
peasants still harder.

In 1381 the peasants revolted. Sixty thousand people

marched to London led by Wat Tyler and Jack Straw. In
London they opened the prisons, destroyed many buildings
and killed many royal officials. They came to the royal
palace and demanded to see the king. The king of England
Richard II was then a 14-year-old boy. He appeared before
the crowd of rebels and promised to fulfill their demands.
But the king did not keep his promise. Wat Tyler was
beheaded and the rebellion was suppressed.

3.3. The Maid of Orleans Joan of Arc

In the 15th century the French

finally defeated the English during
the Hundred Years War. The
warrior who led the French into
battle was a woman. She became
one of the best-loved heroines of
French history. Joan of Arc was
born into a poor family in 1412.
She never learned to read or write,
but she was inspired and could
argue with educated people. When
Joan was a young girl, she heard
voices of saints and angels. The
voices told her that she had to
restore the rightful king to the
throne of France.

Joan of Arc

Joan managed to convince the heir to

the throne Charles VII to support her. In
1429 when she was only 17, she led the
French army to victory at Orleans. Joan
led her countrys troops in other
successful battles, but in 1430 she was
caught by the Burgundians, a powerful
group of the French people. They sold
her to the English, who imprisoned her
and then put her on trial as a heretic.
Heretic is a person who does not believe
in the teachings of the Church.
Joan was executed in Rouen by being
burned alive. After her death the English
were driven out of France, and Joans
reputation as a French heroine grew. In
1920 she was made a saint by Catholic
Church.

The Maid of Orleans

3.4. The War of the Roses

After the Hundred Years War
the bloody struggle for English
crown took place. Two royal
Houses were fighting for supreme
power: the House of Lancaster
and the House of York. Each
House had its symbol. The
Lancastrians had a red rose in
their coat of arms.
The Yorkists had a white rose.
That is why the war between them
got the name of the War of the
Roses. The interests of the House
of Lancaster, supported by big
barons, collided with the interests
of the lesser barons, who
supported the House of York.

This war lasted for thirty years

(1455-1485). It was a dark time for
England, when the kings and
nobles fought and murdered each
other. The war of the Roses ended
with the battle of Bosworth in 1485.
King Richard III of the House of
York was killed in the battle. Thus
Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond,
was proclaimed King of England.
The war was over at last. Henry
Tudor was head of the House of
Lancaster. In a year he married the
Yorkist Princess Elizabeth of York.
This marriage was of great
political importance, because the
red rose of the House of Lancaster
united with the white rose of the
House of York. And Henry Tudor
was crowned as Henry VII of
England and marked the beginning
of the Tudor dynasty.

4. The Legacy of Middle Ages

Lets come to the conclusion:

5. Glossary
Crusades holy wars in the Middle Ages in
which European Christians attempted to
recapture the Holy Land (Palestine) from
Muslims.
Commerce the buying and selling of goods.
Pilgrimage a journey to a holy place for a
religious purpose.
Monastery a religious community in which
monks live simple lives of work and prayer.
Knight a son of a noble, who was trained
soldier and gave military service in exchange for
the right to hold land.

 Vassal a person who during the Middle Ages,

promised to fight when needed by his lord, in
exchange for land.
Serf a person who was bound to live and work
on a land of noble.
Slave a person who is the property of another
person.
Cathedral a large Christian church.
Manor a large self-sufficient farming estate
where nobles and serfs lived and worked.
Monk a religious man who lives in a
monastery and worships God with other monks.

 Nun a religious woman who lives in a convent

and worships God with other nuns.
Convent religious communities in which nuns
lead simple lives of work and prayer.
Guild an organization of people, who practiced
the same craft, formed to set standards and
promote the interests of the craft.
Holy Land a name given to Palestine by
European Christians because it was the birthplace
of Christianity.
Apprentice a person who lived and worked,
without pay, with a master craftsman in order to
learn a trade.