Chapter 28
In This Chapter
● Examining the empire builders
● Questioning the big thinkers
● Meeting the people behind big changes
This book features an awful lot of important people; many of them did great things and were responsible for huge changes in history, including the creation of new kingdoms and whole new countries. Within this large group, however, are people who went a step further, people without whom the world wouldn’t be as it is today. In this chapter I discuss some key characters from medieval history who really did change the world.
You’ll quickly notice that all the people featured here are men. This isn’t because medieval women made no important contributions - far from it. Women like Hildegard of Bingen and Eleanor of Aquitaine were very important in medieval history, but because of the way that society worked at the time and the tendency of medieval historians not to write about them, few women were able to make an impact like the people I do include in this chapter.
The individuals in this chapter are all subjects of (or at least major players in) recently published biographies, histories and historical fiction. If you enjoy the Middle Ages and want to find out more about the period, look for books about any of these people.
Charlemagne (742-814)
The first superstar of the Medieval World - Charles the Great, known as Charlemagne - was the man who united the old Roman provinces of Gaul and Germania and created the Holy Roman Empire. He spent his life in nearconstant military campaigning and was responsible for creating the Frankish Empire that continued in one form or another for the next 1,000 years.
In addition to his military might, Charlemagne brought a sense of unification and homogeneity to a very disparate group of peoples who happened to be living near each other. He was also responsible for the ‘Carolingian Renaissance’, ushering in a new era of learning and vastly increasing the number of literate people in that part of Europe. He became the model for European rulers before the millennium - involving himself in every aspect of the running of his empire and personally making war in order to both defend and expand it. Many later rulers, including most Holy Roman Emperors, tried to copy him but nobody really succeeded. Read all about him in Chapter 5.
Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)
You can’t move for the bounty of ecclesiastics in the Medieval World. But some stand out more than others, and Anselm is one of them. He was an Italian who became a Benedictine monk and then a philosopher. While holding the post of Archbishop of Canterbury between 1093-1109, he found himself involved in some of the biggest theological issues of the day, such as the controversy over investiture (see Chapter 13).
Anselm is most famous for establishing the idea of scholasticism, a method of blending Ancient Greek philosophy with Christian theology to achieve greater understanding of both subjects. Anselm encouraged others to analyse and debate the key arguments within important texts. This made Anselm pretty unique at the time, especially for such a high-ranking cleric, and his views and activities weren’t universally popular within the church. Other people did follow him though, and more than 300 years before the Renaissance, they and Anselm began the process of rediscovering the Ancient Greek World.
William of Normandy (c. 1027-1087)
Where to start with William the Conqueror? He was the first man to combine the rule of England and territories in France (the Duchy of Normandy); he also ended Anglo-Saxon rule in Britain after more than 400 years. He built the Tower of London, initiated the Domesday Book (which surveyed who owned what pieces of land throughout England) and established a new system for governing the country by building castles and creating a dynasty that lasted for nearly 100 years through to 1154 (check out Chapter 10 for more on William’s achievements).
William wasn’t the first person to do many of these things, but he was the first ruler who did them all together. In many ways he became the model for a medieval king due to the swiftness with which he was able to enforce his will on the territories under his control. Tough, uncompromising and brutal - with an eye for the main chance and a keen head for figures - he wasn’t a man to mess with!
Pope Urban II (c. 1035-1099)
Medieval history includes a preponderance of popes, but a few stand out, principally Urban II. He was responsible for founding the Roman Curia, a kind of civil service for the Vatican, which helped to run the Catholic Church throughout the Western World. He was also a powerful opponent of the traditional Church problems of lay investiture, simony and clerical marriage (pop to Chapter 13 for more details on these issues).
All his positions and proclamations, however, pale in comparison to his one undeniable contribution to history. Urban was the first pope to preach Crusade, calling on the monarchs and rulers of Western Europe to take up arms against the Muslim World and reclaim Jerusalem for Christianity. He was responsible for kick-starting a brutal and yet incredible period of history, which lasted for more than 200 years and is still felt in the uneasy relationship between the Western World and the Islamic World today. Venture to Part III to begin your own journey through the Crusades.
Kublai Khan (1215-1294)
The fifth of the Mongol emperors and the grandson of Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan was always destined for greatness. His reign was an amazing globe-trotting adventure involving invasions of Japan and Vietnam, campaigns in southeast Asia and the creation of an empire that spanned a fifth of the surface of the globe. Yes, that’s right, 20 per cent of the Earth!
Kublai Khan became a legendary figure in Europe, where his campaigns and achievements must have made even the greatest European monarchs feel pretty small in comparison. In 1275 he received a visit from the European explorer Marco Polo, who recorded his experiences in his II Milione, or Description of the World (travel to Chapter 18 to find out more).
Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274)
A great theologian and thinker, Thomas Aquinas is held by many historians to be the greatest of all medieval ecclesiastics. He was an Italian-Dominican priest and a leading academic of his time, holding the chair of the University of Paris twice and travelling to many of the great cities of Europe, teaching and debating.
Aquinas is most famous for championing the idea of natural theology - religious belief based on reason and ordinary experience rather than on faith and supernatural experiences. His views were controversial at the time, particularly because he believed that no absolutes existed and that religious ideas and beliefs could be debated and discussed in the way that philosophy allowed.
Aquinas was unpopular in his own lifetime and condemned by many people. After his death, however, he was canonised by the Church; he was someone who spent his whole life searching for truth.
John Wycliffe (1320-1384)
An English academic and theologian, John Wycliffe was the reformer who kick-started the Lollard movement in England and was expelled from Oxford University for his beliefs. Wycliffe believed that religion was for all and shouldn’t be controlled by one central Church. In particular, he was against the hierarchy and politicisation of the Catholic Church and how it had become an institution. He personally translated sections of the Bible into English and distributed copies to the lower classes in England.
He argued strongly that the Church should be poor and not concerned with property and material wealth. These beliefs brought him into conflict with the Church authorities and the monasteries, but his arguments struck a chord with the people. The English Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 (which I describe in Chapter 22) was partly inspired by his words, and although it failed, the rebellion set a template for radical politics that lasts until today. In standing up to the Catholic Church and arguing for secular power over it, he foreshadowed the Reformation that was to come.
Johannes Gutenberg (1398-1468)
Johannes Gutenberg may have had the greatest impact of all the people in this chapter. A German goldsmith and printer, he is credited as being the first person to develop moveable type printing from which he developed the Gutenberg printing press.
One of the most significant inventions in history, the Gutenberg press helped develop a system that allowed books to be created, produced and distributed to many more people. Previously scripts had to be laboriously copied out by hand, an expensive and time-consuming process. The Gutenberg press was an amazing change; even in the advent of blogs and digital publishing, written communication still follows the basics of Gutenberg’s publication model.
Gutenberg’s first printed book was the Bible, produced in 1455, and 48 copies still exist. Overestimating the importance of Gutenberg is impossible: without him, you wouldn’t be reading these words now!
Lorenzo d'Medici (1449-1492)
Lorenzo d’Medici was an Italian banker and politician, and effectively the ruler of the Italian city state of Florence for a large part of the fifteenth century. He was responsible for a great deal of social change and for turning Florence into an economic power. But his greatest achievement was being the man who arguably began the Italian Renaissance, a new stage of world history (turn to Chapter 24 for all about this cultural revolution).
Through his patronage of the arts (and that of his descendants) and immense building programmes, d’Medici brought a whole generation of artists, artisans, architects and academics to Florence. He started the careers of men such as Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli as well as countless more.
His efforts inspired other Italian cities to compete with one another for talent and cultural works, which resulted in a surge of creativity and the beginning of a whole new era. Quite an achievement.
Christopher Columbus (c. 1451-1506)
The man who first made contact with the American continent clearly changed the world. Originally from Genoa in Italy, Christopher Columbus’s greatest achievement was actually something of an accident. He sailed westwards hoping to reach India and found America in the way! Having said that, he established contact between two parts of the world that didn’t know each other existed. In these days of the Internet and instant communication with anywhere on the planet, isolation of the Americas from the other continents is almost impossible to imagine.
Columbus had to fight to get his great voyages going, touting himself around the royal courts of Portugal and Spain (flip to Chapter 24 for more details). When he returned he became enmeshed in political struggles, but by then he’d moved history on to the next stage.