Figure 13 Barbarian Invasions of Rome 100-500 AD
Ancient history has reached its end. This is the start of a new era. As pointed out above, most scholars think these times, between the fall of the Western Roman Empire (about AD 455) and the Renaissance (about AD 1400 to 1500) should not receive a pejorative moniker.[56] The Middle Ages is a neutral term resulting in a non-judgment of the times. Medieval is another term we apply to this epoch, but I think we should stick with the term Dark Ages; and you will see why after discovering what was going on. In this section, we will consider only Western Europe. The Dark Ages can be easily divided into two parts: the early Middle Ages, and the High Middle Ages. About 1000 AD is the turning point from the early to the High Middle Ages. The High Middle Ages began with a population gain, and new agricultural techniques that increased crop yields. The population increase led to growing towns and a new class of people—the city businessman or burgher. This new merchant class gained power as the High Middle Ages moved on and brought prosperity to the townsfolk. By 1200 the future looked bright, and then a triple whammy brought the good times to an end. The Black Plague (1346), the Little Ice Age (1300), and the Hundred Years War (1346) hit and effectively destroyed the future. The Mongol invasions (1241) did not help Eastern Europe either because they also denuded the area of people. The Mongols really liked killing.
Total Loss Of Roman Culture
The fall of the Western Roman Empire shattered Europe. Unity evaporated, and isolation of the various towns and villages returned. Cities disappeared, trade collapsed, the population decreased, culture was gone, quality in the crafts vanished, language changed (Latin was no longer universal), thus, people from different areas could not understand each other), and safe travel was a distant memory. Walls started going up around the towns and villages because the regional government’s protection buckled. Isolation, economic and social, had returned to the land. The need forProtection became a vital problem.
Another feature of the Dark Ages was the loss of knowledge. In the ancient world, the Romans, Egyptians, Hittites, and others, knew how to make frame and panel doors, light wheels with spokes, and other rather simple but effective craft works. After the fall of Rome, these methods of construction were lost. This is especially hard to understand because this kind of knowledge commonly passes from father to son, or one can learn from looking at the construction itself. This knowledge could only be lost if all the people knowing these crafts were dead or had left the area. For example, if only one craftsman knew how to construct a frame and panel door, the usefulness of the technique was so obvious it would rapidly spread to others in the same line of work. Instead, we have the baffling total loss of these craft skills. To speculate on almost no information, the craftsmen probably left for the Eastern Roman Empire on those wonderful Roman roads. The result of this loss of knowledge was slab doors, solid wood wheels, and a lack of medical techniques, illiteracy and other problems for Europe.
Knowing how to administer urban environments was also lost, resulting in many urban centers heading for nonexistence due to terrible living conditions. Civilization was collapsing. Cities of the Dark Ages were profoundly different from the cities of Rome. With no efficient removal of trash and human waste, disease was common. The inability to bring fresh water and food into large urban areas, such as the city of Rome, resulted in the collapse of urban populations as people moved to the rural areas to find food and work. As cities disintegrated, trade fell apart completely changing everything. Until the return of cities Europe was stuck fast in the doldrums. Some good news seemed to appear about AD 800, when a warming period began in Europe, and more cereal crops sprouted in northern climates; thus, for a while the population expanded. Even in the best of times, the peasant lived on the edge of starvation, but abundant food crops at least allowed healthier living. Then the climate changed bringing disaster. The cold of the Little Ice Ageset in about 1300, dramatically cutting food production, and leading to widespread famines throughout Europe.
The shattering of the Western Roman Empire was forever. Today the effects are obvious. Germans cannot speak to Frenchmen, Italians, Englishmen, etc., without an interpreter. You get the picture. The tribes overrunning Europe could not speak to one another, and eventually nations developed that could not speak to one another. The money, cultures, traditions, and languages became different all over Western Europe.[57] All this was a direct result of the cataclysmic fall of Rome in the West.
Events of the Dark Ages
Worse yet, between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the year 1453 (or so), the following events fell upon Europe in addition to the problems of dissolution and economic collapse:
o The Black Death: Numerous plagues swept over Europe starting first in about 452 and ending with the last plague (named the Black Death) which began in about 1346. The Black Death ended around 1350. These plagues killed about 25,000,000 to 100,000,000 people by some estimates. (Figures from this time are very rough). Some experts think about fifty percent of the population died during the last great plague; others put the death toll at one third. The huge variations in death figures stems from the lack of reliable statistics from the era. What we do know is enormous numbers of people died.
o The Little Ice Age: The Little Ice Age was a 500 year period of cold and rainy weather that descended on the world about 1300 AD and stayed until 1800. Prior to the Little Ice Age there was a 400 year medieval warming period in Europe starting about AD 800 and lasting until about AD 1200, during which crops fared much better because of healthier growing conditions. Grapes were being grown as far north as England, and Viking explorers settled Greenland. A climatic reversal set in by 1300, and in 10 years the average temperatures dropped by 4 degrees. This cold hit Europe especially hard, and was responsible for numerous crop failures, famines, and hardships killing millions because of the extreme cold. In 1315, unusually heavy rains began, lasting until 1320, destroying the cereal crops that were the foundation of medieval society. The ice age drove the Vikings out of Greenland as well as putting end to grape growing in England. Famine caused 1.5 million deaths by 1320. The worst cold hit between 1605 and 1680 when the temperature averaged 7 degrees cooler.
o The Muslim Invasion of Spain: Beginning about AD 711 when the Muslims entered Iberia and involving constant warfare until 1492 when the Muslim expulsion was complete.
o The Mongol Invasions: The Mongols devastated Hungary and Poland in 1241, and the threat went on for decades as the Mongols kept returning. The Mongols slaughtered people by the hundreds of thousands as they turned cities into empty villages, murdering, raping, and plundering their way across the globe.
o The Viking (Northman) Raids: Starting about 793 and continuing for centuries, the raids grew in size and consequence until the raiders became settlers. The result was regular warfare between the Vikings and the peoples already on the land. The Viking raids were so fierce they kicked Europe back into the Dark Ages for many extra decades.
o The Crusades: From 1095 to 1291, Christian Europe waged a series of campaigns to win back the Holy Land from the forces of Islam. Islam conquered Jerusalem in 638, going on to conquer vast areas in North Africa and Spain annihilating Christians throughout their areas of conquest. Eventually, the Eastern Roman Empire fell to Islam after Constantinople fell in 1453. These were religious wars of astonishing brutality. After these wars ended, Europe was unable to regain Christian territory except for Spain, but it gained knowledge of the ancient Roman and Greek world that had been lost for centuries. This knowledge was essential for the future growth of Europe as it led to the European Renaissance.
o The Hundred Years War: Commencing in 1346 and lasting through 1453, France and England engaged in endless battles for control of France (the war was in France) and destroyed a large part of the French countryside and its economy. Peasants suffered needlessly as armies trampled and burned crops, destroyed villages, and battered the peasant’s meager existence decade after decade.
o The Fall of Byzantium and the Muslim Invasions of Europe: After the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire in 1453 (the Byzantine Empire with its capitol at Constantinople), the Muslims pushed into Eastern Europe threatening to overrun Vienna. These were religious offensives that resulted in massive casualty tolls. The Fall of Byzantium is often used as a milestone to mark the end of the Dark Ages.
o The Growth of Cities finally pulled Europe out of the morass of feudalism, disunity, economic isolation, and local tyranny. After the Black Plague finished killing off nearly everyone in 1350, the population began to recover, the discovery of better farming techniques made farming more productive, new foods arrived from the New World to supplement the Old World’s crops, and competence began to return to city administration. As the trade routes opened up, the cities began to increase in size and power. It was this slow but steady improvement in urban development, coupled with the ideas of the Renaissance, which was pulling Europe out of its perpetual darkness.
This is NOT an exhaustive list, but displays how especially rough life was for common people in this era. Life during this period was awful due to appalling weather after 1300, numerous crop failures, constant hunger, warring armies trampling fields of crops, plagues and sickness everywhere, and foreign raiders killing everyone in sight (Muslims, Vikings, Mongols and others). In the late medieval period groups of clerics traveled around accusing people of being witches or warlocks, [58] killing them if they failed certain ridiculous tests (like being boiled alive). Life was austere, to put it gently. This justifies the Dark Ages label for this era because the common person suffered a terrible hammering for centuries.
Of course, not everything was bad. The age saw important agricultural advances such as the iron-tipped plow, three field crop rotation, and other “delights” making farming much more productive; however, remember who would get almost all the additional crop production—everyone but the peasant growing the crops.
The Catholic Church
Very few institutions can directly trace its dress, organization, rituals, and a lot more to the age of knights, castles, and courtly ladies. Nevertheless, when men were still hacking away with swords while puffing around in armor, the Catholic Church was fully formed and a key part of the feudal world. It is still with us in 2010, and still running very much as it ran in AD 1,000. Some details changed, but when attending Catholic Church services one is experiencing a tiny slice of medieval culture firsthand.
The Catholic (meaning universal) Church, centered at Rome, developed as the Western Roman Empire fell becoming a mainstay of life in the Dark Ages. The Roman Catholic Church grew from the ashes of the Western Roman Empire, and its boundaries approximated those of the Western Empire. The Church held together the various cultures growing in Europe, it was the repository of learning, and it was uniform in its language (Latin—the same as the Roman Empire). Often its monasteries were centers of commerce. The Church alone set forth a moral code embodied in Christian teachings. The Catholic Church tried to limit the impact of the constant fighting between the various warlords in Europe. The knights serving the lords were often hired thugs who galloped about oppressing the peasants and clergy as well as attacking other knights. Many of these heavily armed men were recruited to battle the Vikings; but as the raids subsided, the warlords went back to local skirmishing. The Catholic Church tried to establish the “Truce of God,” where the knights vowed to avoid killing the innocent (peasants, clergy, and townsfolk for example), and the “Peace of God”, where knights promised to refrain from waging war during certain times of the year (Christmas for example). How well this worked is unknown, but at least the Catholic Church was trying to bring a moral order into people’s lives.
The Church built immense cathedrals, monuments dedicated to the worship of the Christian God. These shrines of the High Middle Ages (1400 to 1500) became wondrous examples of architecture’s response to the age. Early cathedrals were of the Romanesquestyle, with thick walls and smallish windows; however, they remain imposing monuments. Later cathedrals, termed Gothic, were taller with very detailed carved stone interior decorations, and flying buttresses that allowed thinner walls with stain glass windows. At the very top of these impressive structures, in places unseen, are stone gargoyles fabricated with great skill, even though cloistered. The mindset was one of creating for God, who could see all, and not man, who would probably never see them.
The Christian Church split in half in AD 1054, after the Western and Eastern churches had enough of one another and formally diverged onto their own paths. The Eastern Church (Orthodox—or true) maintained control in Byzantium, Eastern Europe, Russia, the Ukraine, and Greece. The Western Church (Roman Catholicism—or universal) maintained sway in Western Europe. The split centered on cultural and political considerations, although doctrine was different. The sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 was key to widening the split. The Eastern Church saw Latin Christians destroy their beautiful city and slaughter its inhabitants. Meanwhile, the West thought the East was recalcitrant in not recognizing the primacy of Rome. The failure of the West to help defend Constantinople in 1453 during the Ottoman Turk attacks made the split even worse. Just to make things even on all sides, the leaders of each church, the pope in the west and the Patriarch of Constantinople in the east, excommunicated the followers of the other. Thus, at least one-half of Christianity will burn in hell—according to the other half. Interestingly, a similar thing happened in Islam. After the death of Mohammad, their spiritual founder, Islam split in two (Shea and Sunni sects), each side saying the other was bound for hell. (It seems many people are hell bound, according to people claiming to be heaven bound . . .)
Feudalism
A foundation point for the age was the institution of feudalism, a system of governance that included economic relationships as well as social and legal undertakings. The local king (normally the top warlord in the area) owned all the land, but the warlord needed people to farm the land. Therefore, the warlord allowed the serfs to farm his land for a portion of the crops. In times of war, the serfs could form part of the army protecting their warlord’s land. As time progressed, some of the warlords gave their land to the Catholic Church, thereby establishing the Catholic Church as a major power in economic and spiritual realms.
How all this came about is guesswork, because when the Western Roman Empire fell learning was lost and little was written down. What we can discern are the results, warlords—often called kings—ruling over small areas coming under their protection. (Sounds like modern Los Angeles gangs) Warlords built large castles for protection (walls again) and for internecine warfare, each trying to better his lot by battering his neighbors.
The Guild System
The important institution of guilds grew up during the Dark Ages. Under the guild system, a craftsman applied to join a group of skilled workers doing his type of work (building with bricks or stone for example), and if accepted, he would agree to keep the methods taught confidential and otherwise obey the guild’s rules. Guilds were social as well as professional organizations. The guild would test and assign certain categories of work skill to their members and set payment guidelines for that level of skill. The category of apprentice might be the entry-level skill group, then journeyman, and finally master. The guilds would impart knowledge regarding the craft to their members and encourage study to advance the group’s knowledge; however, this knowledge was secret. The guilds were powerful and important groups. It is said that in Paris even the prostitutes had a guild.
The problem was guilds imparted additional rigidity to the economic system hindering trade and industry growth. Some people might be able to do the job for less, but the guilds were powerful; thus, those with money (the ones doing the construction or buying the goods) wanted to maintain good relations. As bad as the plagues were in Europe, they did accomplish one important economic benefit, they created a real labor shortage and in those conditions the guild’s power to limit commerce diminished.
Government During The Dark Ages
During the early Dark Ages (453-1000), Europe shattered into little governments. The Roman imperial governmental system crashed, and the governments that remained were local in nature and thoroughly inept. Nation states, empires, and other regional governments simply did not exist immediately after Rome’s demise. Not until cities began to grow in size, wealth, and power did competent government begin to reassert itself.
Figure 14 Holy Roman Empire.
Cities favored the central government of a king over local warlords because the king could subdue a larger area, thus helping trade flow. Kings looked to the growing wealth of cities to fill their coffers. Slowly, central governments grew until kings controlled large areas forming states. The first areas advancing to the European nation state concept were France and England.
The Franks—France
In AD 496 the King of the Franks, Clovis, converted to Christianity. This was the start of the Merovingian dynasty. By the time of his death in AD 530, he conquered the area we now call France, and formed it into a state. None of the regional “kings” of the era governed like a national government today. Many of the local warlords still ran local areas, but they were allied with the king of the region and owed him feudal duties. It was nothing like our unified nation states in 2010. The Carolingian Empire arose in 751 in Gaul (France) when Pepin the Third deposed the last Merovingian ruler becoming the king. Thereafter, he expanded his rule to include an area nearly as large as the old Western Roman Empire. After the death of Pepin III in 768, his son Charlemagne (786 to 814) continued to expand the empire. He was a truly great ruler. For over forty-six years Charlemagne ruled his lands, termed the Holy Roman Empire, by constantly traveling and waging war. He refused to sit about his castle letting others tell him what was going on (smart guy), he went out and saw for himself. He established special schools and began pulling Central Europe out of its Dark Age.
On Christmas Day, in the year AD 800, the Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Roman Emperor. If this sounds odd, it should. The Roman Empire was gone, so how was this fellow being crowned emperor? To many Germanic tribes, Rome, as a central government, was all they knew. Anyone who controlled Gaul (the West) had to be a Roman emperor. Accordingly, the empire continued in the minds of people even though gone for hundreds of years. Such was the impact of Rome. In the East at Constantinople, the Emperor ( a woman named Irene who had killed her son to reach the position) did not like the pope crowning someone Roman Emperor. After all, the Eastern Empire of Byzantium considered themselves the real Roman Empire, while the pope controlled a backwater group of near barbarians. By giving the crown of Rome the pope implied the true crown of Rome was his alone to give. Charlemagne did not like the pope crowing him either. If the pope had the power to give the position he also had the power to take it away. The clear implication was the Church was greater than the state. The great king said nothing and went away not realizing what the pope had started.
Charlemagne kept governing and ignoring the Roman crown. Through his efforts alone he put many Dark Ages scourges to flight. The Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne died in 814, but the Dark Ages, which seemed to be ending with his rule, resumed with a sudden vengeance. The cause was bloodthirsty raiders from the north.
The Viking raids on Europe and England started about 800 and continued unabated for decades. These raids, along with intense plagues, crammed Europe back into the putrid pit of the Dark Ages. One ongoing theme did mark the tenure of the Holy Roman Empire. This empire, and its successors the Hapsburg dynasty, stood between the Muslims and the conquest of Europe for centuries after the fall of the Byzantine Empire and Constantinople in 1453.
The disintegration of Charlemagne’s large empire came quickly after his death. His grandsons divided the empire into three parts with Henry the Fowler establishing the Saxon dynasty of German kings and Hugh Capet starting the Capetian dynasty of France.Lothair got the center between the kingdoms of the east (Germany in modern times) and the west (France of modern times). One side or the other was forever overrunning the land of King Lothair between the two great peoples of France and Germany. Alsace—Loraine lies in this area, and Germany and France have contested the region for generations.
France was having trouble enough when the English King Edward III claimed the throne of France in 1337 and invaded in 1346. This was the start of the Hundred Years War between France and England to determine who would rule the country. The English won tremendous bloody victories at Crecy (1346), Poitiers (1356), and Agincourt (1415), crippling France for a generation. Incompetent French leadership was the main cause for the unmitigated series of disasters. By 1422 Charles, the dauphin (crown prince) of France, was holed up in a dingy castle in Touraine and ruled almost nothing. To become king he had to be consecrated in the cathedral of Reims, but the cathedral and the surrounding area was held by hostile forces. Out of nowhere, a 16 year old girl who had heard voices telling her to save France arrived and told the dauphin she would raise the English siege of Orleans on the Loire River. Her name was Joan of Arc. The illiterate gal led the royal army to the attack on a ring of English forts surrounding the city of Orleans. She decisively defeated the English and broke the siege. The voices then told Joan to get the dauphin to Reims so he could be anointed. Her army fought its way through to the cathedral and the dauphin was consecrated on July 17, 1429. France now had a legit king.
Joan’s life did not end well. Eventually captured in battle she was tried and burned as a witch by the English. This was a large error. By burning Joan the English really ticked off the French populace and ensured their own defeat in the Hundred Years War. By dying a martyr Joan had won the war for France. The French king made a deal with his local enemies and then turned on the English. In a series of victories he drove the English off the continent. In 1453 the war was at last over with the French king in control of France.
Thus, an illiterate 16 year old farm girl saved France. Guess the voices knew what they were doing.
England
Early on, the Anglo Saxons ruled England, but the Viking raids (Danes to the English) and settlements were putting pressure on them. Alfred the Great (849-899) managed to drive them out from most of their conquests and established the Anglo Saxons as the undisputed rulers. The Anglo Saxons had few noblemen but a good sized class of land owning men (thanes), both governed by the unwritten laws of tribal customs as much as anything else. It was during this era that the epic tale of Beowulf was created (the Danish and Scandinavian connections are strong in this story). In 1066, Harold Godwinson was the most powerful man in England, but he had problems with the succession to the throne which led to a few bigger problems.
William, leader of the Normans, had a claim to the English throne but Harold had the title. William decided to mount an invasion, and assembled 700 transport vessels to move on isle of England. The Normans invaded in 1066 and managed to defeat the Anglos and Saxons at the Battle ofHastings after an arrow killed Harold Godwinson. The Normans now became the rulers of England and the last successful invaders of the island. William the Conqueror, leader of the Normans, created a new society in England. They created a written survey, named the Doomsday Book, in 1086 listing all the assets William controlled—for tax purposes of course. The tally was precise down to the last sheep. This was the most comprehensive survey undertaken in the middle ages. William constructed large castles and handed out land to his loyal servants who fought by him in battle. Thereafter, William engaged in constant warfare keeping his kingdom secure and trying to expand it in France (Normandy) by warring against France’s King Philip I. Wounded in battle while in France, William died in 1087. The Norman conquest brought England, which had been tending toward Scandinavian ties, into the culture of Western Europe.
Henry II took over in 1154 and brought great prosperity to the kingdom. He laid the foundations of common law and the jury system. Richard the Lion Hearted followed Henry II but spent most of his time fighting in the Holy Land and France. He died in battle and was replaced by King John. John’s reign was an unhappy one, and he ended up being forced to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede in June of 1215. The Magna Carta (Great Charter) gave rights to various noblemen, the church, merchants and more, and it established that the king could not imprison or deprive a free man of land without a legal judgment “. . . of his peers or by the law of the land.” Thus, the king was put below the law and forced to recognize the rights of others. The Magna Carta was a big deal in the history of democracy. At last, the king was brought under control of the law. John’s son, Henry III, took the throne in 1216 and went even further by allowing Parliament’s powers to increase. By the time Edward I took power in 1272 Parliament was growing more powerful, and Edward fully cooperated with the representative body. The Model Parliament of 1295 gained control of the nation’s finances, eventually developing into the House of Commons. At this point England was well on its way to its modern form.
The Viking Raids
Bold raids by Scandinavian Vikings began around 793 when Lindisfarne in eastern England was stormed, and increased in severity throughout the next 200 years. Because of their shallow draft boats, which were eminently seaworthy, the raiders not only invaded coastal areas they could foray up large rivers and plunder deep inland. Paris and Poitiers, in France, suffered plundering in 843 and 864 respectively. England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and others experienced large Viking strikes. England was a favorite target and, in 866, an enormous landing force captured the city of York and then stayed. Over the next 40 years a constant state of warfare existed in the area of York, as the Vikings—called the Great Heathen Army by their opponents—sought to expand their territory while seizing loot and women. Alfred the Great of England realized the Vikings were fierce but lightly armed hit and run raiders seeking gold and other valuables; hence, not a stable long-term army. Alfred calculated they were not equipped mechanically or mentally to sit out long sieges; accordingly, he constructed sturdy forts around the Viking areas. When incursions came, people just ran into the fort and then waited for the raiders to leave. As the Vikings had no ability to storm robust forts, their era of expansion in England collapsed. The Great Heathen Army was at last defeated.
Vikings were efficient traders and bold colonist. They ventured as far as Moscow and Kiev, and founded the kingdom of the Rus. (and you thought Russian’s were Mongols) They traveled down the great rivers to Novgorod and set up trade links to Byzantium (Constantinople) by AD 907. As seafarers and raiders, the Vikings have never been surpassed.
Even as the Viking raids battered Europe, another invader began gathering power in the Middle East. After AD 600, Islam became an aggressive force in the eastern Mediterranean, conquering the Middle East, North Africa, eastern Europe, Constantinople, and even Spain for a time. Islam’s ruthless warriors murdered Christian in the hundreds of thousands, demanding conversion to Islam or death. Only Spain was re-conquered, and that did not occur until 1492. In essence, Christianity inherited the Western Roman Empire and Islam the Eastern Roman Empire (and a lot more).
The Mongols
Figure 15 The Mongol Empire about 1253
The Mongols of central and eastern Asia united under Genghis Khan in 1206 (ruling from1206 to 1227). The Great Khan eventually conquered China, Persia, Rus (Russia), and Eastern Europe, never knowing defeat. In 1211, Genghis devastated the Chin Empire in China then moved west destroying the Khorezm Empire in campaigns lasting from 1215 to 1245. (Genghis was replaced by his heirs after his death, and the campaigns went on) The Mongol conquest spread from northern China to the Black Sea. Sacking Kiev in Russia in 1240, the Mongols reduced the once great city to ashes and slaughtered everyone in the place. Genghis Khan died in 1227, splitting the empire between four of his sons. Batu, Genghis Khan’s grandson, fell on Europe in 1241, riding to the gates of Vienna while defeating and butchering the Poles, Templars, and Teutonic Knights at the battle of Legnica. Batu then defeated the Hungarian army in 1241 at the battle of the Sajo River again taking a tremendous toll on his enemies. The Mongols were prepared to march on Central Europe when Batu died, and the Mongols retreated to bury Batu and choose a new leader. With the death of the Great Khan Batu in 1241 the Mongol pressure on Europe eased somewhat; nevertheless, they held Rus (western area of Russia) until the late 1400s. In 1279 the Mongol Empire reached its zenith as the largest land empire in history. By controlling the 5000 mile “Silk Road” between China and Europe, they derived enormous wealth. The trading centers of Central Asia began declining as trade shifted to sea routes away from the land-bound caravans passing through Mongol territory. Around 1260 the Mongol Empire split into four large units with Kublai Khan ruling Mongolia and China, the Golden Horde ruling Russia and some of Eastern Europe, and Il-Khan ruling the Middle East. (and converting to Islam) The fourth Mongol state was the Jagadai Khanate that continued to rule over central Asia until the 1400s. In the late 1300’s, Timur, yet another great Mongol conquer, set out to repeat the conquests of Genghis, and he did quite well. He took central Asia, Northern India, Persia, parts of Russia, and the Middle East. Timur died in 1405, his conquests remaining in Mongol hands until the 1500’s.
Like all empires, the immense Mongol Empire did not last. Ivan the III of Rus refused tribute to the Khans and re-conquered Moscow in 1480; thereafter, he married the niece of the last emperor of Byzantium and claimed for himself the title of Czar (Caesar). Ivan conquered a large area to the east of Poland and established himself as a monarch rightfully demanding respect. He began the myth that Moscow was the Third Rome and the center of the true faith (note the references to Rome once again). This was to be Russia, land of the Rus, destined for great power and wealth. With Ivan’s conquests, the Mongol’s time had passed.
Europe Battles Toward the Renaissance
In Western Europe growth was slow until about AD 1000. The Christian religion managed to convert the Scandinavians, Poles, and Magyars from around 950 to 1050. As some order emerged around the year 1000, trade began to pick up, towns began to grow, and artisans expanded their wares. In growing towns such as Paris, Salerno, Oxford, and Bologna, universities were established and started work on the theological, scientific, legal, and philosophic underpinnings of modern Western society. Great names in philosophy and modern thought emerge from this era such as ThomasAquinas, Roger Bacon, and Duns Scotus. Aquinas would accept the translations of Aristotle and develop a philosophy that brought science (Aristotle) religion and philosophy to the same conclusion; God did exist. Commercially and intellectually Europe was growing.
Europe was moving ahead politically as well. Monarchs began to call on members of the local town for advice. Then the towns assigned representatives to see the sovereign. Eventually, elections chose these town representatives. The monarchs clearly saw the power of the towns as they grew into powerful cities and dared not ignore them. These elected representative bodies slowly became parliaments, and their power grew as time moved on. The crowned heads trying to build power were able to call on the city and its rich merchants for additional taxes, and money was power (things never change). These funds enabled the national kings to establish their superiority over the local warlords partially through the purchase of powerful artillery to batter down castle walls. This new money helped the monarchs carve out national boundaries ultimately leading to nation states. Of course, all this brought so much power to the parliaments they could challenge the king for ultimate authority over the nation—and in some cases, they won. Overall, things were looking up for Europe in the early 1200s, but numerous new tribulations were approaching that would quell the happy times.
In 1347, an ultra deadly executioner called on Europe by way of ships from the east bringing a merciless assailant—the Black Death. This eastern marauder exterminated over 25 million lives possibly cutting the population of Europe by about one-third to one-half. It was total ruin. No one knew fleas that had bitten infected rats carried the disease. Rats were commonplace at the time, and fleas were everywhere just like all the other bugs. No one had invented bug killer, and bugs enjoyed eating on humans regularly. To the people of the age the disease just spread. Had God flung hell to earth punishing humanity for wrongs beyond comprehension? The Black Death of 1347 was the last of the great plagues to strike Europe in this era. The march of death by plague started as early as452 and continued to hit Europe in waves until the Black Death finally ended the disease cycle. The Byzantine Empire was on the rise under Justinian when the plague hit and destroyed about one-third to one-half of the people in the empire. It is thought that well over one hundred million (100,000,000) people died in the plagues that swept over Europe from 452 to 1347. These plagues helped destroy commerce and unity in Europe for a thousand years—just about the same amount of time assigned to the Dark Ages.
The Little Ice Age began in 1200, but hit in force by 1300 causing temperatures to drop precipitously and putting an end to high crop yields. The plague, the Little Ice Age, and the wars throttled any chance of recovery after 1200.
Chronic feudal wars, the Hundred Years War between England and France (fought in France), the War of the Roses in England, and other local wars too numerous to account continued while people died in throngs from the plague. The Hundred Years War between France and England coupled with the Black Death and the falling temperatures all but wiped out the population of France and central Europe. The bad times had returned in spades.
While all this was going on, the Catholic Church began arguing over who was the rightful pope. In the Great Schism (1378 to 1417) there were two popes, and each pope excommunicated the other as well as all his followers. They also mounted crusades against one another. This caused great problems for the Catholic Church. The Church decided to call a council to decide who the real pope would be. It couldn’t make things any worse, right? The council of Pisa in 1409 elected a third pope who promptly excommunicated the other two, who then excommunicated him. The Council of Constance (1417) eventually named the one and only rightful pope, and said he must reside in Rome. The concept of a council of Church leaders solving a crisis of such magnitude put some Catholics on edge. Was a council’s authority above that of the pope? The question still goes unanswered.
This was all very confusing for the common person. The mainstays of their world, the Catholic Church and the feudal system, were coming undone. The church bowed before the Black Death; there were popes aplenty; and the wars were destroying crops, towns, and livelihoods. The local feudal lords argued with the kings who wanted ever-increasing amounts of money and loyalty. The king and his army increased in power. Local towns were growing into cities with a lot of economic power, and they rejected feudal lords telling them what to do. They did not need the lords any longer. The townspeople were amassing power and wealth all their own, and it was enough to match any feudal lord. In Italy, the trading towns of Venice and Florence grew so powerful they were fielding large armies and navies.
Continuous wars diminished the feudal lords’ powers while destroying the feudal system. If a government cannot provide protection it is worthless, and the feudal lords could no longer raise the money and manpower to protect the people. As a result, the powerful new cities began to protect themselves, and rural folks began to turn to the king for protection. The nation state was being born in Europe.
Change was in the air by the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (the years 1301 to 1500), and today we call this sweeping period of change the Renaissance. It started in Italy, but quickly spread to Europe and then the world.
Let Us Learn
Can the Dark Ages tell us anything of worth for our daily lives? Recall that hard times do come into the best of worlds, and people can survive them. Governments come and go, but the foundations of life come from the individual’s struggle to carry on and overcome all obstacles. Understand how religion can hold people together in bad times. Remember that progress, no matter how slow, is still progress. One small step forward (the iron plow) leads to others. So keep going forward, no matter how slowly, and the Renaissance will arrive. The Dark Ages also teach us the importance of unity. Disunity made the age so much worse. Stay unified in your home, workplace, church, school, or whatever. Say and do things that add to unity, not disunity.
Books and Resources
Great Rivals in History, When Politics Gets Personal, Cummins, J., 2008, Metro Books. P 50 starts William the Conquer and Harold Godwineson—the conquest by the Normans of England.
The Middle Ages, Bishop, M., 2001, Mariner Books. Probably the most readable short history of the Middle Ages.
The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History, Revised Ed, McEvedy, C., 1992, Penguin Books. I love Penguin Atlases. Of course, The Penguin Atlas of World History Volume 1, From Prehistory to the Eve of the French Revolution, Kinder & Hilgemann, 1978, Penguin Books, contains chapters on the Middle Ages, and EVERYTHING in this book is wonderful. Kinder & Hilgemann’s Atlas starts the Medieval period on page 111, “Early Middle Ages, the Slavs,” and ends on page 211, “Late Middle Ages/China (1264-1368, India (999-1526). Super small print, great coverage.
Lost to the West, The Forgotten Byzantine Empire that Rescued Western Civilization, Brownworth, Lars, 2009, Crown Publishers. Wonderful book on the Eastern Roman Empire at Constantinople. Easy to read and full of good stories.