CRISTO RAUL.ORG ' |
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MEDIEVAL HISTORY LIBRARY DOOR |
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CHAPTER II.WESTERN EUROPE ON THE EVE OF THE CRUSADES
The crusades had their origin in eleventh-century
western Europe and to understand them one must know something of the
environment in which they emerged. No mere static description of the land and
its people can serve this purpose. The picture must be a moving one that
shows the basic forces that were slowly molding medieval civilization, for
the crusades were a natural product of these forces. The eleventh was the
first of the three great creative centuries of the Middle Ages — an era of
pioneers, soldiers, and statesmen. During its span, the political and
economic institutions that had been gradually taking shape since the sixth
century were firmly cemented together to form the foundations of medieval
civilization. While many of those who were to make the twelfth century an age
of saints, scholars, artists, and creative literary men were born before the
first crusaders set out for Palestine, their day lay in the future. The great
lay figures of the eleventh century, William the Conqueror, the emperors
Henry III and Henry IV, Roger I of Sicily, and Alfonso VI of Castile, were
soldier-statesmen, and their ecclesiastical counterparts, pope Gregory VII,
the early abbots of Cluny, and archbishop Lanfranc, were priestly statesmen.
They sought essentially power, order, and efficiency. Even the chief monastic
order of the period, that of Cluny, represented administrative rather more
than spiritual reform. The hardy peasants who cleared forests and drained
marshes to bring new land under cultivation and the Genoese and Pisan seamen
who swept the Moslems from the coasts of Europe must have been moved by the
same vigorous spirit as their conquering lords. In short, both expansion and
organization marked the eleventh century. The crusades were a part of the
former and were made possible by the latter.
Medieval western Europe had two basic patterns of
settlement — the hamlet and the village. In general the hamlet was found in
the least productive regions such as Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Brittany, and
the mountainous districts of France. While it is possible that the hamlet was
essentially a Celtic institution, it seems just as likely that it was simply
the natural form of settlement in the barren lands into which the Celts had been
driven by their Germanic foes. The rest of western Europe was a land of
villages. There would be a cluster of houses, or rather huts, each with a
small fenced garden and perhaps a fruit tree, a church, and usually a manor
house or castle. Around the village lay its arable land and meadow — beyond
lay the pasture, waste, and woodland. The men who lived in these villages and
hamlets used three fundamentally different ways of cultivating their arable
land. The crudest of these is commonly called the infield and outfield
system. Although it was not completely confined to the regions of hamlets, it
was most common there. Under this system the farmer had a small garden or
infield near his house that he kept in continuous cultivation by using the
manure from his animals. Then he would go out and plow a piece of land some
distance away, grow crops on it until it lost its fertility, and then abandon
it and plow another piece. This method of exploitation was suited to a region
with a large amount of available land, none of which was very fertile.
Another system was to divide the arable land of a
village into rectangular plots assigned to the various houses. This was the
standard practice in southern France and in Italy. But over the major portion
of western Europe the dominant method of cultivation was what we call the
two- or three-field system. The arable land of the village was divided into
two or three large fields. When there were two fields, one was cultivated and
one allowed to lie fallow each year. When there were three fields, two were
cultivated and one lay fallow. It seems likely that originally all villages
used the two-field system and that the third field was adopted as an
improvement in the more fertile regions. These large fields were divided into
long, narrow strips and each house in the village had an equal number of
strips in each field. The region of the two- and three-field systems
comprised the richest and most populous part of western Europe, extending
from the border of Wales through England, northern France, and the major part
of Germany.
The agricultural methods of the eleventh century
were not very efficient. As the plows were heavy and clumsy and the harness
poorly designed, from four to eight oxen were required for a plow team.
Moreover, the slowness of the oxen made the area that a team could care for
rather small. The sole crop in the arable fields was grain. It was sown
broadcast to the delight of the birds. The seed was simply a part of the
previous year's crop. The land as a rule received no fertilizer beyond the
manure deposited by the cattle that grazed upon it while it lay fallow. Hence
the production per acre, per bushel of seed, and per man was extremely low.
This meant that if the people of the village were to have enough to eat, all land
that could be plowed had to be utilized. As good meadow should be as fertile
as arable land, there was nearly always an acute shortage of meadow and
therefore of hay. Most villages could only hope to gather enough hay to keep
their plow teams and a few breeding cattle alive through the winter. The
pasture land was usually poor and often simply waste. In summer the cattle
found a meager living in the pastures and in the fall most of them were
slaughtered.
In some regions such as England and parts of Germany
the grain grown on the arable supplied both food and drink. It is estimated
that in England about half the grain was used for bread and the other half
for ale. The wine-growing districts were more fortunate, as land too steep to
plow would grow vines, From the gardens behind their houses the villagers
obtained a few common vegetables. The cattle were valued for their hides,
milk, and meat. The milk was made into cheese. Every village had a few sheep
to supply wool for clothing and chickens for meat and eggs. But the chief
source of meat was the pig. Pigs could find their own food in the woods in
both summer and winter. In Domesday Book the size of a village's
woodland is commonly measured by the number of pigs it could feed.
Each house or tenement in the village had its strips
in the fields and a share of the meadow. The other resources of the village
territory were used in common. The villager pastured his cattle in the common
pasture and waste, fed his pigs and gathered his fire-wood in the common woodlands,
and fished in the village stream. All the agricultural activities of the
village were conducted by the community as a whole. The villagers decided
when to plow, when to plant, and when to harvest, and all worked together.
Certain men were assigned special tasks such as herding.
The villager lived in a rude but with a thatched
roof. A hole in the roof let out some part of the smoke from the fire, His
clothes were crudely fashioned from the hides of his cattle and the wool from
his sheep. He was never far removed from the threat of starvation. In
general, throughout the village region thirty acres of arable land seems to
have been considered a normal tenement and experts have calculated that this
would support a family in ordinary years. But many tenements were smaller
than thirty acres and there were bound to be bad years. And the high cost of
transportation by ox-cart over bad roads meant that even a local crop failure
would result in a famine.
For the mass of the population of western Europe the
village was the political, economic, social, and religious unit. The villager
found his amusement in. the village fetes. The village priest performed the
sacraments and gave his flock what little knowledge they had of the world of
ideas. As he was likely to be barely lit-crate, this knowledge was bound to
be slight. The villagers were both devout and superstitious. The countryside
abounded in miracle-working springs and trees and its people venerated a
multitude of local saints never officially recognized by the church.
The legal status of the villagers and the proportion
of their pro-duce that they could keep for their own use differed sharply
from region to region and even from village to village. By the end of the
third quarter of the eleventh century the seignorial system was
firmly established in England, France, and western Germany. In these broad
regions almost every man who worked the land owed some form of rent or
service to a lord. In Saxony and parts of eastern Germany the villagers still
depended directly on the king, but the seigniorial system was spreading
rapidly, aided by the political anarchy of the last quarter of the century.
But even where the seigniorial system reigned there were striking differences
in. conditions. In southern England, most of France, and Alsace and Lorraine,
the vast majority of the villagers were unfree, bound to the soil and with no
property rights against their lords. In eastern and northeastern England, the
ancient Danelaw and East Anglia, a fair proportion, probably over half,
of the villagers were freemen who paid rents and certain carefully defined
services to their lords. Some parts of France such as the region about
Bordeaux contained many freemen. In eastern Germany the free villagers were
gradually being reduced to serfdom but the process was by no means complete.
The seigniorial system was a set of institutions
through which the feudal class, soldiers and prelates, drew their support
from those who tilled the land. In most of the vast region occupied by
villages using the two- and three-field systems it was based on what we call
manorial organization. The lord of the village had his demesne, strips in the
fields that his tenants cultivated for him. The villagers plowed the demesne,
sowed it, harvested the crops, and stored them in the lord's barns. The
demesne might occupy as much as a third of the arable land, but was usually
rather less. Then the villagers paid the lord a percentage of the crops grown
on their own strips. The lord considered that he owned the common resources
of the village and charged his tenants for their use. Thus the villager paid
a rent in pigs for feeding his swine in the woodlands and in cheese for
having his cattle in the common pasture. When the villager fished, the lord
got a share of the catch. In short, the tenants owed a rent in kind for the
use of every resource of the village. In addition, they worked for the lord
at cultivating his demesne, harvesting his hay, or any other task he might
set. Sometimes these labor services occupied as much as three days a week.
The lord and his household obtained their food from the rents and the produce
of the demesne. The lord's clothes were made from the wool of his sheep spun
and woven by the village women under his wife's direction. His dwelling was built
by his tenants' labor services.
The rents and services mentioned in the last
paragraph were due to the lord as the owner of the land. In addition, the
lord usually had extensive and profitable rights that were essentially
political. As the feudal system developed, the functions and powers of
government had been parceled out among the members of the feudal hierarchy.
Although in strict theory they exercised these rights as representatives of
the king, the fact that the powers were hereditary made them regard them as
their own property. The extent of these seigniorial powers differed according
to the custom of the land and the status of the lord. In England the king
kept a firm grip on the higher criminal jurisdiction and the lords of
villages could have little more than what we would call police-court justice.
In Normandy the duke was equally jealous of his rights. But in most of France
and western Germany a man of importance in the feudal hierarchy would have
complete jurisdiction over the people of his villages. A lesser lord would
have more limited rights. These rights of jurisdiction were important to a
lord from several points of view. For one thing they contributed to his
prestige — lords with powers of life and death considered their gallows one
of their prized possessions. Then they gave a firm control over tenants and
complete freedom to discipline them at will. Finally they were extremely
profitable. When a man was hanged, the lord could seize all his possessions,
and the penalty for many offenses was a fine. The possession of seigniorial
authority gave a lord many opportunities for profit. He could hold a market
in his village and collect a toll or sales tax on all goods sold. He could
establish fees for crossing a bridge or sailing down a stream. He could also
establish monopolies. Thus many a lord compelled his tenants to have their
grain ground at his mill and to bake their bread in his ovens, paying
generous fees in grain and flour. He forbade his tenants to keep doves while
his waxed fat on their crops.
The unfree villager was almost completely subject to
his lord, especially when the latter had rights of jurisdiction. In theory
criminal justice was a function of the state and the unfree as well as the
free were subject to it. In England this theory was a reality. Except in minor
offenses the lord had no criminal jurisdiction over his unfree tenants and if
he committed a crime against one, he could be haled into
a royal court. But in France and western Germany the governmental powers were
so distributed that if the lord of a village could not hang his serfs, the
lord next above him could, and would be delighted to do so at his request.
Nowhere did unfree tenants have any civil rights against their lord. He could
demand any rents and services he desired and take any of their property that
struck his fancy. The arbitrary authority of the lord was, however,
restrained by several circumstances. The men of the Middle Ages were
basically conservative — their tendency was to do what their ancestors had
done and distrust innovations. Hence a lord hesitated to increase the
customary dues of his villagers. Then it was obviously to his interest to
keep his labor supply alive and this in itself limited the rents and services
he could demand. Finally the church insisted that serfs had souls and urged
the lords to treat them as fellow Christians. Rather grudgingly the lords
admitted that serfs could marry, but they insisted on calling their
families sequelae or broods.
Throughout history progress in agricultural methods
has been slow and gradual. As our information concerning the eleventh century
is extremely scanty, it is almost impossible to say to what extent and in
what ways agricultural techniques were improved. There is some evidence that
villages were changing from the two-to the three-field system and thus
increasing their utilization of their arable land. It seems likely that
improvement in the design of plows and the harnessing of oxen was allowing a
reduction in the size of the plow teams and by this means lessening the
demands on the meadows. Perhaps the chief problem connected with
eleventh-century agriculture is the extent to which the available arable land
was increased by reclamation. We have clear evidence that in the early
twelfth century there was extensive clearing of wood and brush land and that
some inroads were made on the edges of the great forests. There was also some
draining of marshes, especially when it could be done by a system of dikes.
In the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries colonists from all over Europe
settled the lands to the east of the Elbe in Germany. There is evidence that
this great reclamation movement started early in the eleventh century, at
least to the extent of returning to cultivation the lands that had been
deserted since the Viking invasions, but it is impossible to estimate how
much was accomplished. It seems clear that the initiative in this movement
was taken by lords who wanted to utilize as much of their lands as possible.
They made attractive offers to peasants who would reclaim land and settle it
— greater personal freedom and lower rents and services. The result was an
increase in the lord's resources both material and human. His total rents
were larger and more people lived on his lands. In short, during the eleventh
and twelfth centuries the productive capacity of western Europe and its
population were greatly increased by colonization and reclamation, but it is
impossible to say how far this process had gone when the crusades began.
Although western Europe in the eleventh century was
overwhelmingly rural and agricultural, the revival of industry, commerce, and
urban life was well under way. This development was particularly marked in
Italy. There urban life had never disappeared to the extent that it had in
the north. Even though they might have little industry and trade, the Italian
towns had remained populated. And a number of Italian towns had maintained a
flourishing trade with Constantinople. Under the protection of the Byzantine
fleet, ships plied steadily between the capital of the empire and such
Italian ports as Amalfi and Venice. By the second half of the
eleventh century Venice had a powerful fleet of her own. At about this same
time Genoa and Pisa began to trade along the Mediterranean coast to
Marseilles, Narbonne, and Barcelona. These two cities also took the offensive
against the Moslem fleets that had been raiding their harbors and seizing
their vessels. Naval expeditions were made against Corsica, Sardinia, and
even Tunis. In the inland towns of Tuscany and Loin hardy, industry,
particularly the manufacture of textiles, began to flourish. The last years
of the century saw the beginnings of the communal movement that was to break
the power of the bishops and transform the towns of north Italy into
independent if rather turbulent republics. In short, the towns were an
important element in the civilization of eleventh-century Italy. Two of them
at least, Genoa and Pisa, were to play a vital part in the First Crusade,
Outside the Mediterranean region, the revival of
urban life had made far less progress. Unfortunately, lack of evidence makes
it extremely difficult to be very specific. It seems clear that great lay and
ecclesiastical lords were encouraging their tenants who lived in their chief
seats to acquire specialized skills. Thus there were craftsmen living around
castles, cathedrals, and monasteries who made articles for the use of their
lords. In Flanders the spinners and weavers were already manufacturing more
woolen cloth than they could use and were selling it to others. There were
also merchants engaged in inter-regional commerce. Men of Rouen carried wine
to England to satisfy the thirst of the Norman favorites of king Edward the
Confessor. When William of Normandy conquered England, Norman merchants
swarmed over to settle in the English boroughs. By the end of the century,
certainly, London was a great town with several rich and powerful merchant
families, But all these phenomena were merely the beginnings of the movement
of urban revival that was to mark the twelfth century. Although western
Europe had industry, Commerce, and urban life, these were still insignificant
elements in its civilization.
One of the most important features of the eleventh
century was the crystallization and extension of the feudal system. Feudal
institutions had been developing since the eighth century. Charles Martel had
given benefices to men who swore loyalty to him and were ready to serve him
as soldiers. By the time of Charles the Bald benefices were becoming
hereditary in practice if not in theory and the same tendency was affecting
the courtships and other royal offices. In eleventh-century France the
benefice had become the hereditary fief. Although the office of count was not
absolutely hereditary, a competent heir was practically certain of the
inheritance. When an office changed hands, this was less likely to be the
result of royal action than of the successful aggression of a powerful rival.
Moreover, during the ninth and tenth centuries when civil war combined with
Viking raids to keep France in a state of anarchy, the landholders had but
two practical alternatives. One could obtain military support and protection
by becoming the vassal of a powerful neighbor or one could sink into the
category of an unfree villager. Almost every landholder whose resources
permitted him to equip himself as a soldier chose the former course. Only the
most powerful and most stubborn could stay outside the feudal system.
Although eleventh-century France contained lands held from no lord, they were
quite rare and most of them disappeared in the twelfth century. In short,
eleventh-century France, especially in the north, was almost completely
feudalized and the principle so dear to feudal lawyers of "no land
without a lord" was nearly true of it.
As the feudal system spread over France its members
became arranged in a hierarchy. At the head stood the Capetian king, who was
suzerain of the great lords of the land. Below him came a group of feudal
potentates who may best be described as feudal princes —the men whom a later
age called the "peers of France". According to the theory developed
in the twelfth century, there were six lay peers —the count of Flanders, the
duke of Normandy, the count of Champagne, the duke of Aquitaine, the count of
Toulouse, and the duke of Burgundy. The powerful counts of Anjou were not
called peers because they were considered vassals of the Capetian king in his
capacity of duke of France, the title held by the family before its elevation
to the throne, but they were far more important than the vassals of the royal
demesne in the Ile de France such as the lords of Coucy and
Montmorency. Each of these great lords who held directly of the king had his
own vassals many of whom were counts or had usurped that title. It was by no
means uncommon for a vigorous lord to wake up some bright morning and decide
he was a count, and usually no one bothered to dispute the claim. These
secondary vassals in turn had their own vassals and rear-vassals, and the
hierarchy continued down to the simple knight who had just enough land and
peasant labor to support him. This minimum unit of the feudal system, the
resources that would enable a man to be a knight, was called the knight's
fief or fee. To make this hierarchy clear let us cite a concrete example. In
the lands along the Bay of Biscay known as Bas-Poitou the simple knights held
their fiefs of two barons, the lords of La Garnache and Montaigu. They in turn were vassals of the viscount
of Thouars, who held his fief from the count
of Poitou, who was in turn a vassal of the duke of Aquitaine, a peer of
France. Actually the same man was count of Poitou and duke of Aquitaine, but
the offices were distinct.
Each member of the feudal hierarchy had obligations
to his lord and his vassals. These obligations were defined by feudal custom.
Whenever a dispute arose between lord and vassal, it was settled in the
lord's curia or court. There the lord acted as presiding officer and the
vassals rendered the decision. In every fief the feudal custom for that fief
was created by these decisions in the lord's court. Thus feudal custom varied
from fief to fief. Moreover, in the eleventh century the formation of this
custom was far from complete, for questions were decided only when they arose
and many came up but rarely. Take for instance the customs governing
inheritance. It was generally accepted that if a man had sons, one of them
was his heir, but in the eleventh century the idea of primogeniture was by no
means absolutely accepted. If the eldest son looked unpromising as a warrior,
the vassals felt free to choose one of his younger brothers. If the two
eldest sons were twins, the fief might be evenly divided between them. When a
man died leaving a son under age, who cared for the fief and performed the
service due from it ? Sometimes it was the nearest male relative on the
mother's side, sometimes on the father's side. In other fiefs the custody of
minors belonged to the lord. But despite the variations from fief to fief it
is possible to make certain general statements about feudal obligations that
are reasonably valid.
The fundamental purpose of the feudal system was
cooperation in war. Every lord was bound to protect his vassal from enemies
outside the fief and every vassal owed military service to his lord. In some
cases the vassal owed only his own personal service; in others he was bound
to lead a certain number of knights to his lord's army. By the thirteenth
century the military service owed by vassals was carefully defined and
limited, but this process was not complete in the eleventh century. In most
fiefs a distinction was made between offensive and defensive campaigns and
the length of time a vassal had to serve in the former was limited — forty
days was usual in the thirteenth century. When the fief was in danger,
obviously the vassals were bound to stay in service as long as they were
needed. Then the feudal system was political as well as military. When there
was a question of feudal custom to be decided, the vassals were bound to obey
the lord's summons to his court, Moreover, as the vassals had a strong
interest in the welfare of their lord and his fief, they expected him to
consult them before making an important decision. When their lord was about
to marry, he was expected to summon his vassals to aid him in deciding what
lady had the most useful marriage portion and the most potent relatives. If a
lord wanted his vassals to serve him with enthusiasm in a war against a
neighbor, he sought their counsel before embarking on it. In short, the
important business of the lord's fief was conducted in his court. Finally a
man's prestige in the feudal world depended very largely on the number and
importance of his vassals. When he wanted to display his power and dignity,
he summoned his vassals to "do him honor". Thus attendance at the
lord's court was second in importance only to military service as a feudal
obligation.
In addition to service in his lord's court and army
the vassal had certain obligations that were essentially economic. One of
these was known as relief. By the twelfth century, relief was a money payment
due to the lord when an heir succeeded to a fief, but there is evidence to
indicate that in some fiefs at least in the eleventh century it was also
demanded when a new lord came into his inheritance. Moreover, in the eleventh
century it was often, perhaps usually, paid in horses and armor rather than
in money. When a lord had a need for additional resources for some purpose
that he considered important for his fief as a whole, he asked his vassals
for an aid. By the twelfth century feudal custom defined very strictly the
occasions on which a lord could demand an aid — for other purposes he could
simply request one. The accepted occasions were the knighting of the lord's
eldest son, the wedding of his eldest daughter for the first time, and the
paying of ransom for the lord if he were captured. In all probability this
clear definition had not been achieved by the eleventh century. When a lord
wanted an aid, he asked his vassals for it and unless the request seemed too
unreasonable, he received it. This form of income probably played a large
part in financing the crusades. Vassals could hardly refuse to assist their
lord in so worthy an enterprise. Finally, in some fiefs in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, the vassals were obliged to entertain the lord and his
household when he visited them, and there is reason for believing that this
obligation had been more general and more important in the eleventh century.
Beyond the actual services owed by the vassal the
lord had certain rights over the vassal and his fief. As the marriage of a
vassal's daughter gave a male from outside the family an interest in her
father's fief, the bridegroom had to be approved by the lord. If a vassal
died leaving an unmarried daughter as an heir, it was the lord's right and
duty to choose a husband for her. This was a valuable prerogative as it
allowed the lord to reward a faithful knight at no cost to himself, When a
vassal died leaving children under age, the lord could insist that someone be
found to perform the service due from the fief unless custom gave him the
custody of the heirs and their lands. If a vassal died without heirs that
were recognized by the custom of the fief — second cousins were rarely
accepted and more distant relatives practically never the fief escheated,
that is, returned to the lord, In case a vassal violated the feudal bond by
some offense against his lord and was condemned by his fellow vassals in the
lord's court, he could forfeit his fief. Forfeiture was rather rare. The
assembled vassals hesitated to declare a fief forfeited because each of them
felt that he might be in the same position some day.
When a man became a vassal, he did homage and swore
fidelity to his lord. There has been a great deal of essentially fruitless
discussion about the distinction between homage and fidelity. The fact that
prelates often were willing to swear fidelity but refused to do homage would
seem to indicate that fidelity was personal loyalty while homage represented
a promise to perform the services due from a fief. But household knights who
held no fief often swore fidelity and did homage. Actually it seems doubtful
that there was any clear, generally accepted distinction. Ordinarily the two
were part of a single ceremony. The vassal knelt before his lord, put his
hands between his lord's hands, and swore to be faithful to him.
"against all men living or dead". Often the lord then gave the
vassal a clod of earth to symbolize the granting of the fief. The
personal relationship between lord and vassal was an important element in
feudalism — each was expected to be loyal to the other. It was a horrible
crime for a vassal to slay or wound his lord or seduce his wife or daughter,
but a lord was also bound not to injure his vassal in person or honor, The
vassal was expected to aid his lord in every way possible.
As a form of government feudalism had both
advantages and disadvantages. It supplied a military force of heavy cavalry
at every stage in the hierarchy. Thus each barony, each county, and each
kingdom had its army. It also furnished vigorous and interested local
government. The extensive reclamation of land and the founding of towns were
largely the result of the desire of feudal lords to increase their resources.
It is highly doubtful that mere agents working for the benefit of a central
government could have accomplished so much. But as a means of keeping peace
and order the feudal system was no great Success, for it was based on the
assumption that there would be continual warfare. In theory, quarrels between
lords and vassals and between vassals of the same lord were settled in the
feudal courts. Actually when two vassals of a lord quarreled, they went to
war and the lord did not intervene unless he thought one might be so
seriously weakened that he could not perform his service. And no spirited
vassal accepted an unfavorable decision by his lord's court until he was
coerced with armed force. Between vassals of different lords there was no
hindrance to war. In short, in eleventh-century France, feudal warfare was
endemic and it was a fortunate region that saw peace throughout an entire
summer. The church tried to limit this warfare by declaring the Peace and
Truce of God. The Peace of God forbade attacks on noncombatants, merchants,
women, and peasants while the Truce prohibited fighting on weekends and on
religious days. Unfortunately, neither Peace nor Truce was taken very
seriously by the feudal lords.
Fighting was the chief function of the feudal male.
From early youth he was conditioned to bear the weight of knightly armor and
drilled rigorously in the use of arms. He had to learn the extremely
difficult feat of hitting a target with his spear while riding at full gallop
with his shield on his left arm. When he was considered adequately mature and
trained he was made a knight. This was a simple ceremony in the eleventh
century. An experienced knight gave him his arms and then struck him a
terrific blow with his hand or the flat of his sword. Throughout his life the
knight spent most of his time in practicing with his arms or actually
fighting. Dull periods of peace were largely devoted to hunting on horseback
such savage animals as the wild boar. The knight ate enormous meals of pastry
and game washed down with vast quantities of wine or ale, He kept his wife
continuously pregnant and saw that his house was well supplied with
concubines to while away his leisure hours. In short, the ordinary knight was
savage, brutal, and lustful. At the same time he was, in his own way, devout.
He accepted without question the teachings of the church and was deeply
interested in the welfare of his soul. He had a private chaplain, commonly
chosen for the speed with which he could say mass, who performed the
sacraments in his chapel and heard his confessions. Most knights scrupulously
observed the rites of religion. They were, however, little troubled by
Christian ethics. The giving of generous gifts to a family monastic
establishment or even the founding of a new one was the usual way of atoning
for one's sins. The crusades with their plenary indulgences were particularly
useful for this purpose,
The women of the feudal class held a rather
ambiguous position. A woman was never her own mistress. Before marriage she
was in the care of her father; then she passed into the custody of her
husband; if he died, she was the ward of her lord or her eldest son. A woman
could not do homage or hold a fief in her own hands though she could carry
one to her husband. Her testimony was unacceptable in court except in respect
to a rape committed on her or the murder of her husband in her presence. She
had no rights against her husband. He could dispose of her property and beat
her whenever she annoyed him. The chansons de geste show clearly that feudal husbands beat
their wives savagely with no qualms of conscience. Moreover, the marriage
bond was far from firm. Although the church consistently preached the
permanence of marriage, by the eleventh century it had still failed to
convince the feudal class that unwanted wives could not be calmly laid aside.
Yet there is a brighter side to the picture. Although a wife had no rights
against her husband, she enjoyed his status as against all others. When her
lord was away, the lady was the mistress of the fief. She also ruled her side
of the household — the women and girls who spun and wove. Here it seems she
was little gentler than her husband. Church councils continually decreed that
it was mortal sin for a lady to beat her maids to death. Moreover there is evidence
that the feudal lady used the bottle as gaily as her spouse. The chansons
abound in tales of drunken ladies and their misadventures.
A simple knight and his lady usually lived in a
crude wooden house surrounded by a moat and palisade. A baron would possess
at least one castle. In the eleventh century most castles were of what is
termed the matte-and-bailey type. The lord's peasants would dig a circular
ditch some nine or ten feet deep and perhaps thirty feet wide, piling the
excavated earth into a mound encircled by the ditch. On the inner edge of the
ditch or moat and around the top of the mound they would erect palisades.
Then on the summit of the mound inside the palisade would be built a wooden
tower of two or three stories. The lowest floor would be used for storing
supplies and prisoners. On the second floor would be the hall where the lord
transacted business, entertained guests, and feasted with his retainers, In
it the retainers and servants slept at night. On the third floor the lord and
lady would have their chamber where they reposed in a great bed, while their
personal servants slept on the door. A few great lords had some stone work in
their castles — perhaps a stone gate with towers. Others built great stone
tours or towers like the White Tower in the Tower of London built by William
the Conqueror. These had massive walls ten to twenty feet thick. The door was
on the second floor and was reached by a wooden stairway easily cut away in
time of danger. If an enemy appeared, the door would be closed and the
inhabitants of the tower would sit quietly inside. The enemy could not get at
them, but neither could they get at him unless he came so close to the walls
that stones or boiling oil could be dropped on him from the roof.
The castle was an extremely vital factor in feudal
politics. If adequately supplied and garrisoned a castle could hold out
almost indefinitely against the siege methods of the day. Rarely could a
feudal army be held together long enough to take a resolutely defended
castle. Hence its lord was practically independent. If a baron was so
unfortunate as to be condemned by his lord's court, he could simply retire to
his castle until his discouraged suzerain was ready to make peace. Not until
the advent of mercenary troops who would stay in service as long as they were
paid and the invention of improved siege engines was it possible for a lord
to exert any effective authority over a vassal who possessed a strong castle.
And the castle was an integral part of feudalism. When feudal institutions
spread to a new land, castles soon appeared. Within a century of the Norman
conquest there were some twelve hundred castles in England.
At the beginning of the eleventh century France was
the only feudal state in Europe. The Capetian king was essentially a feudal
suzerain supporting his court on the produce of his demesne manors and
raising his army from his vassals in the duchy of France and the tiny
contingents that the great lords were willing to send him. The peers of
France readily acknowledged that they were the Icing's vassals, but rarely
bothered to render him any services. Actually France was not a single state
but an alliance of feudal principalities bound together by the feeble
suzerainty of the king, In real power the king was weaker than most of his
great vassals. His demesne was small and he could not control the barons of
the Ile de France. The monarchy survived largely because of the support of
the church, which was inclined to prefer one master to many, and the
resources that could be drawn from church fiefs. While some of the great
lords such as the count of Flanders and the dukes of Normandy and Aquitaine
had obtained control of the bishops within their lands, the prelates of
Burgundy and Champagne depended on the king. The bishops had large, rich
fiefs with many knightly vassals. Hence the man who appointed the bishops had
the use of extensive resources. Nevertheless, the Capetian monarchy of the
early eleventh century could do little more than survive. In the Ile de
France it had little authority and outside none whatever.
Along the borders of France feudal institutions had
spread into other regions. The county of Barcelona, once Charlemagne's
Spanish March, was a thoroughly feudal state and there were strong feudal
elements in the kingdoms of Aragon and Navarre. In Germany, Lorraine and
Franconia were essentially feudal. The kingdom of Germany and the Holy Roman
Empire ruled by the emperors of the Saxon dynasty did not constitute a feudal
state. The base of the royal power lay in the duchy of Saxony, which was
almost untouched by feudalism. It was a land of free farmers, noble and
non-noble, who were always ready to follow their duke to war. Outside Saxony
the imperial authority depended almost entirely on the prelates. The bishops
and abbots of Germany, Lombardy, and Tuscany were imperial appointees with
wide, delegated authority. Their great fiefs and their resources were at the
emperor's disposal. Although the counts of Germany were non-hereditary royal
agents, they were essentially judicial officers, and the military control
rested in the hands of the dukes. The emperors, dukes, counts, and other
landholders occasionally granted fiefs, but the offices of duke and count
were not fiefs. The power of a duke depended on the extent of his estates and
his ability to inspire the loyalty of the people of his duchy. Thus the dukes
of Franconia, Swabia, and Bavaria were usually powerful figures while the
duke of Lorraine was likely to be a mere figurehead. In this same period
England was still a Teutonic monarchy. Small men commended themselves to
great men, swore oaths of fidelity to them, and occasionally held land in
return for military service, but there were neither vassals nor fiefs in the
continental sense.
During the course of the eleventh century feudalism
expanded rapidly. The conquest of England by duke William of Normandy created
a new feudal state. King William retained the powers that had been enjoyed by
his Anglo-Saxon predecessors. In. every shire there was a sheriff appointed
by the king and removable at his pleasure who presided over the popular
courts, supervised the king's demesne manors, and collected his dues. William
also collected the land tax called Danegeld and was the only
monarch of western Europe to have a source of revenue of this type. Moreover,
when king William established a complete and formal feudal hierarchy in
England, he made certain innovations in feudal custom. In France a vassal's
primary obligation was to his lord, and if the lord waged war against the
king, it was the vassal's duty to follow him. William insisted that every
freeman owed basic allegiance to the crown. In the famous Salisbury Oath the
freemen of England swore fidelity to him as against all others. If an English
baron rose in revolt, his vassals were expected to desert him. Then William
absolutely forbade private warfare. The vassals of an English baron owed him
military service only when the baron himself was engaged in the king's
service. Finally the Conqueror was extremely niggardly in granting rights of
jurisdiction. All lords of any importance were given "sac and soc"
or police court authority over their own tenants. A few great lords had the
right to have their agents preside over local popular courts. But the higher
ranges of justice were kept firmly in the hands of the crown. In short,
William created a feudal state, but it was one in which the monarch had
extensive non-feudal powers and resources and in which feudal custom was
modified to favor royal authority.
At about the same time that William of Normandy
established a feudal state in England a group of Norman adventurers were
doing the same thing in southern Italy and Sicily. In the third decade of the
eleventh century William, Drogo, and Humphrey, sons of a petty Norman
lord named Tancred of Hauteville, entered the
continuous quarrels between rival factions in southern Italy. First they
served as mercenary captains, but soon they established themselves in lands
and fortresses. They then sent for their younger brothers, Robert Guiscard
and Roger. When Humphrey, the last of the elder brothers, died in 1057
the Hautevilles were masters of Apulia.
Robert Guiscard took the title duke of Apulia and set his brother Roger to
work conquering Calabria. In 1061 both brothers joined forces to attack
Sicily, which was held by the Moslems.' After some thirty years of continuous
war the conquest was completed and Roger became count of Sicily as his
brother's vassal. Robert, duke of Apulia and overlord of Sicily, did homage
to the pope for his lands and was a firm ally of the papacy against the
German emperors. But the possession of southern Italy failed to satisfy his
ambition. He and his turbulent son Bohemond viewed with greedy eyes the
Byzantine lands across the Adriatic and contemplated the conquest of Greece
if not that of the whole Byzantine empire. Robert and Bohemond invaded Greece
and might well have conquered it if their communications had not been cut by
the Venetian fleet, which aided the emperor in return for extensive
commercial rights in the empire. Robert Guiscard and Roger of Sicily built a
strong feudal state on much the same lines followed by William of Normandy.
There was a feudal hierarchy strictly controlled by a strong and effective
central government.
In Germany the two great emperors of the Salian
house, Henry III and Henry IV, attempted to build a strong, centralized
monarchy on the foundations laid by the Saxon emperors. Already master of
Franconia and with extensive estates in Swabia, Henry III planned to add
Thuringia and south Saxony to the family domains and thus gain a firm basis
of power in the heart of Germany. He built a strong castle at Goslar, the
chief town of south Saxony and the site of valuable silver mines, and strewed
the neighborhood with fortresses garrisoned by troops from his Swabian lands.
His son Henry IV continued his policy. But the nobles and freemen of Saxony
fiercely resented the king's intrusion into the duchy and led by the Billung family, which claimed the ducal dignity, they
rose in revolt against Henry IV. At the same time the great pope Gregory VII
chose to attack the very cornerstone of the imperial government—the,
emperor's control over the prelates. The German lords, who had no desire to
see a strong monarchy, combined with the pope and the Saxon rebels against
Henry. The emperor held his own and died victor over his foes in the year
1106. But the long struggle had ruined the hopes of the Salian kings for
establishing a strong monarchy. The first half of the twelfth century was to
be a period of anarchy in Germany in which feudal institutions were to spread
rapidly until the Hohenstaufen emperors created a feudal state. On the eve of
the crusades the so-called Roman empire of the Saxon and Salian emperors was
crumbling.
What had earlier been border lands of western Europe
also evinced marked activity in the eleventh century. In Spain, for example,
the Christian kingdoms of the north were taking the offensive against the
Moslem masters of the rest of the peninsula. This will be treated at length
in a later chapter. It will suffice here to observe that, as all the energies
and resources of the Spanish states were needed for their internecine wars
and the struggle against the Moslems, they took part neither in the affairs
of Europe as a whole nor in the early crusades to the Holy Land.
The eleventh century was a high point in the history
of the Scandinavian states, but, except for the conquest of England by
king Swein of Denmark and Canute his son,
they had little to do with the rest of western Europe. During the century
Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were evangelized and their kings built reasonably
firm national governments. Under the vague over-lordship of these kings the
Viking chieftains ruled their vast island domain — the Orkneys, the Shetlands,
the Faroes, Iceland, Greenland, and the Isle of Man. It was also the age
of the Viking settlements on the North American coast, while princes of Kiev,
descendants of Swedish adventurers, ruled a large state on the Russian
plains. A great proportion of the vigor of the eleventh century was centered
in the Scandinavian blood. The Normans, who were only a century removed from
their Viking ancestors, ruled the strongest feudal principality in France,
the kingdom of England, and southern Italy and Sicily. It is interesting in
this connection to notice that of the eight chief lay leaders of the First
Crusade four were Normans and a fifth had a Norman wife who supplied most of
his ardor. Robert, duke of Normandy, and Bohemond, son of Robert Guiscard,
are easily recognizable as Normans, but in addition Godfrey of Bouillon, duke
of Lower Lorraine, and his brother Baldwin were sons of the Norman count of
Boulogne.
To the east of the German empire lay the vast Slavic
lands cleft in twain by a wedge of Magyars who occupied the Hungarian plain
and Pechenegs in the steppes north of the Black Sea. To the north of this
wedge were three important Slavic states — Bohemia, Poland, and Russia.
The Premyslid dukes of Bohemia and
Moravia had a status that is hard to define. They were masters of their own
lands and dealt as they pleased with their eastern neighbors, but they
acknowledged themselves vassals of the kings of Germany and supported their
policy in the west, Duke Vratislav II (1061-1092)
was a loyal follower of the emperor Henry IV. Poland was an independent state
ruled by its own kings. To the east of Poland lay the Russian
principalities. Yaroslav the Wise, the
last powerful prince of Kiev, died in 1054. Under his descendants the state
was divided into a number of principalities under the vague suzerainty of the
prince of Kiev.
In religion and culture Bohemia and Poland were part
of the Latin west. Their bishops acknowledged the pope at Rome and their
political organizations were essentially borrowed from the German state.
Russia on the other hand was thoroughly Byzantine. The princely descendants
of the Viking Rurik had been converted to Christianity by Byzantine missionaries
and their commercial and diplomatic relations were largely with
Constantinople. Kiev was a Byzantine city. Its churches were Byzantine in
style and its scholars pursued Byzantine learning. By the latter part of the
eleventh century the conquest of the steppes north of the Black Sea by the
Pechenegs made actual communication with Constantinople difficult, but this
did not affect the basic tone of Russian culture.
The Asiatic wedge that divided the Slavic peoples
consisted of two distinct elements. The Pecheneg masters of the
Black Sea steppes held the northern bank of the Danube as far as the
Carpathian mountains. The Hungarian plain was occupied by the Magyars. After
their crushing defeat by the emperor Otto I the Magyars had gradually settled
down in Hungary. Toward the end of the tenth century prince Géza united
the Magyar clans and brought in missionaries — chiefly from Bohemia. His son
Stephen organized Hungary as a Latin Christian state. The land was divided
into counties and dioceses, and in the year 1000 Stephen was crowned king
with the approval of the pope. On the eve of the crusades Hungary enjoyed a
period of prosperity and comparative peace under the strong hand of
king Ladislas I (1077-1095). His successor, Coloman, was to face the problem of handling the
crusading armies marching down the Danube.
This period saw the southern Slavs largely dependent
on other peoples. In 1018 the Byzantine emperor Basil II, called
"the Bulgar-slayer", finally crushed the Bulgarian state and
incorporated it into his empire. Despite fierce revolts in 1040 and 1073 the
Bulgars remained Byzantine subjects for over a century. The Serbs were
divided into many tribes under local princes. Sometimes one of these princes
would be recognized as a paramount chief, but such authority was usually
short-lived. All the Serbian princes acknowledged the overlordship of the
Byzantine emperor, but only under extremely strong rulers did this relationship
have any meaning. As a rule the Serbs were independent and divided. To the
north of Serbia lay Croatia. In the last years of the eleventh century
Croatia was a separate state ruled by the Hungarian kings. In culture and
religion the Bulgars and Serbs were Byzantine while the Croats were Latin.
While the peasants were improving their agricultural
methods and reclaiming forest, marsh, and waste, and the knights were
developing and extending feudal institutions, the churchmen were making
similar progress. The local administration of the church was clarified and
strengthened and an effective central government was created. At the same
time missionaries converted the Scandinavian lands and labored among the
Slays. Christian Europe was both strengthened and extended. One of the most
interesting developments in local church organization was the development of
cathedral chapters. The bishops had always had officers and clergy who aided
them in serving their cathedrals. In the eleventh century the more important
members of the cathedral clergy began to form corporations. Of great
assistance to this movement was the inclination of lay lords to endow seats
or canonries in the cathedral that could be used as refuges for unwarlike
sons. The chapter was composed of the episcopal officials such as the
chancellor, treasurer, sacristan, and archdeacon and a number of priests or
canons. The chapter had an elected head called a dean. The chapter soon
became the body that formally elected the nominee of the lord when an
episcopal vacancy was to be filled. In the eleventh century also the
itinerant agents of the bishop called archpriests settled down as parish
priests with supervisory powers over their fellows.
During the ninth and tenth centuries the church had
become deeply involved in secular affairs. The extensive lands of the bishops
and abbots were held of lay lords by feudal services, and the prelates had to
perform the functions of vassals either personally or by deputy. Some doughty
bishops led their troops in battle wielding a mace, which they insisted did
not violate canon law as it drew no blood, but most had secular agents called
advocates to head their levies. But the prelates were appointed by the
secular lords and invested by them with the insignia of their holy office.
They served the lords as counselors and administrators. As we have seen, the
Capetian monarchy owed what little power it had to the prelates it controlled
and the German empire was based on an episcopacy devoted to the emperor. This
situation was harmful to the spiritual functions of the church. A bishop
should be primarily devoted to his episcopal duties rather than to the
service of a lay prince, and an abbot who was essentially a baron was
unlikely to be an effective father to his monks.
As early as the tenth century this situation had
alarmed many devout men. In the hope of improving the monastic system duke
William of Aquitaine had in 911 founded the abbey of Cluny. Cluny was
forbidden to hold lands by feudal service. A donor to this foundation had to
make his gift in free alms — that is the only service owed was prayers for
his soul. Cluny adopted a modified form of the Benedictine rule. St. Benedict
had directed his monks to spend long hours at manual labor, but once a
monastery grew rich in land and peasant labor, it was impossible to get the
monks to work in the fields. The Cluniac rule greatly extended the hours to
be devoted to performing the services of the church in the hope of keeping
the monks occupied in that way. By the eleventh century Cluny had many
daughter houses. Some were new foundations while others were old monasteries
that were more or less willingly reformed by Cluniac monks. The order also
developed a highly centralized administration. There was only one abbot —the
abbot of Cluny. Each daughter house was headed by a prior who was subject to
the abbot of Cluny, who was supposed to visit regularly and inspect every
house of the order. In the eleventh century Cluny had enormous influence.
With the support of the emperor Henry III Cluniac monks reformed many German
monasteries and men inspired by Cluny revived English monasticism. All
enthusiastic and devout churchmen tended to gravitate toward Cluny.
These enthusiasts were not willing to limit their
reforms to the monasteries. They were anxious to remedy the abuses that were
common among the secular clergy. The most serious of these was lay
appointment of ecclesiastics. The great lords appointed bishops and abbots,
and the lords of villages appointed the parish priests. Closely related to
this was the sin of simony, the payment of money to obtain church offices.
The lay lords were extremely inclined to bestow offices on the highest
bidder. Another abuse that seriously troubled conscientious churchmen was the
marriage of priests. To some extent this was a moral question — canon law
required priests to be celibate. But it also vitally concerned the material
interests of the church. A married priest was inclined to think of his family
before his priestly duty and was most likely to use church property to endow
his children even if he did not succeed in making his office hereditary.
There were, of course, other abuses that interested the reformers, but these
were the ones on which they concentrated their attention.
The reformers realized that there was but one way to
achieve their ends. Even if the bishops of Europe could be made enthusiastic
supporters of reform, they were as individuals helpless before the power of
the lay princes. Only a strongly organized church with an effective central
government could hope to make much progress. Hence their eyes turned toward
the papacy. The pope was elected by the clergy and people of Rome, which
meant in practice by the dominant faction of the Roman nobility. But when a
strong monarch occupied the imperial throne, his influence could be decisive,
Neither of these methods of choice pleased the reformers. If the papacy was
to lead in the reform of the church, it had to be removed from lay control.
The emperor Henry III was a pious as well as an efficient ruler, and he
gladly supported the reformers by appointing popes favorable to their aims,
The first important step was the creation of the college of cardinals. The
six bishops who were suffragans of the pope as bishop of Rome, the pastors of
the more important Roman churches, and some of the deacons of the Roman
church were formed into a corporation. When a pope died, these men were to
meet and elect his successor. If outside pressure was put upon them, the
election was to be void.
The next problem was to increase the pope's
authority over the church as a whole. Several devices were used for this
purpose. It had long been customary for the pope to summon peculiarly worthy
archbishops to Rome to receive the pallium from his hands. If the prelate to
be honored was unwilling to go to Rome, the pope sent him the pallium. The
reformers advanced the theory that as soon as an archbishop was elected, he
must go to Rome to seek the pallium and could not perform the functions of
his office until he did so. This gave the pope an effective veto on
archiepiscopal elections and a chance to instruct the new prelate. In theory
it had always been possible to appeal a decision rendered by an archbishop's
court to the papacy, but the journey to Rome was long and costly and only the
rich could make such an appeal. The reformers established a system by which
cases could be heard by local prelates appointed by the pope. If anyone
wanted to appeal a case to the papal court, he wrote to the pope asking him
to appoint delegates to hear the appeal. The pope then directed a group of
ecclesiastics in the region where the appellant lived to hear and determine
the case. This device greatly increased the business of the papal courts, and
enormously expanded the pope's influence. But the most important official was
the papal legate. The legate was an agent of the pope sent to carry out his
master's will in some part of Christendom. Sometimes a legate was sent to
deal with a particular problem, but more often he was given a broad commission
to carry out papal policy in a region. Armed with the full spiritual
authority of the papacy he was an effective agent. Through his legates the
pope could take an active part in the affairs of the church as a whole.
One of the ablest and most energetic members of the
papal curia under the first reforming popes was an ecclesiastic named
Hildebrand. Deeply imbued with the ideas of the Cluniac group, he was
convinced that the church must be independent of all secular control and that
the pope must be the absolute master of the church. In 1073 he was elected
pope and took office under the name of Gregory VII. During the pontificates
of Gregory's five predecessors much progress had been made. The college of
cardinals had been established, papal legates and judges-delegate introduced,
and stern decrees issued against simony and married clerks. The emperor Henry
III was in favor of these reforms and supported them. But when reformers
remarked that bishops should be chosen without lay interference, Henry turned
a deaf ear. Control of the prelates was the very foundation of his power and
he had no intention of abandoning it. Gregory found the imperial throne
occupied by Henry IV, who had but recently come of age. The pope informed the
emperor that bishops should be elected according to canon law that is, by the
clergy and people of the diocese. Henry ignored the warning and went on his
way. Gregory wrote a stern letter of rebuke. The emperor replied by calling
the German prelates together at Worms and having them declare Gregory a false
pope improperly elected. Gregory then excommunicated Henry. This gave the
emperor's enemies in Germany, the Saxons and the great lords who feared he
would become too strong, a perfect excuse for revolt. They rose in rebellion
and informed the emperor that unless he obtained absolution from the pope,
they would choose a new ruler. To make his search for absolution impossible
of success, they carefully guarded the Alpine passes. But Henry slipped
through his kingdom of Burgundy into Lombardy where the bishops and their
levies promptly rallied around him. The emperor met the pope at the castle of
Canossa in northern Tuscany, went through a humiliating form of penance, and
was absolved. All this was dramatic and picturesque but it accomplished
little. Henry would not abandon his claim to the right to appoint and invest
bishops and Gregory was determined to win his point. The pope continued to
support the German rebels against the emperor and used his Norman vassals to
check the imperial power in Italy. Gregory died in 1085 in exile with his
Norman allies while imperial troops occupied Rome. After the short
pontificate of Victor III, pope Urban II continued with enthusiasm the
quarrel with the emperor. This quarrel was the chief reason for the
meagerness of the German participation in the First Crusade preached by Urban
in 1095.
Although the investiture question was the chief
cause of the bitter controversy between Gregory VII and Henry IV, it was not
the only point at issue. Gregory was advancing a novel concept of the proper
relation between secular and ecclesiastical authority. During the ninth and
tenth centuries the church had bent every effort to support the authority of
the kings against their powerful subjects. It had preached that the royal
office was a sacred one instituted by God and that an anointed king had
priestly characteristics. Gregory maintained that the pope was God's viceroy
on earth and all men were subject to him. Kings were merely high grade police
chiefs to protect the church and suppress criminals. If an emperor or king
refused to obey the pope, the pope could depose him.
The fact that Gregory was kept well occupied by his
struggle with the emperor was a great boon to the other princes of Europe.
Philip I of France was a cheerful sinner who was in continual difficulties
with the church. Gregory's legates attempted to stop lay investiture in
France, but they made little progress. Philip did not openly defy the pope;
he simply ignored his commands. On the very eve of the First Crusade, pope
Urban II excommunicated Philip for stealing the wife of the count of Anjou
and making her his queen, but this did not trouble the king very gravely.
Most interesting of all were Gregory's relations with William the Conqueror.
As duke of Normandy William had appointed bishops as he saw fit and he
continued the practice in England. Moreover, he forbade any papal legate to
enter his realm without his express permission. But William, as a rule, made
respectable episcopal appointments, and Gregory felt that he could not afford
to be at odds with all the monarchs of Europe. When the English king
complained that a papal legate was making a nuisance of himself in Normandy,
Gregory hastily ordered his agent to stay out of the duchy. Incidentally, the
Norman conquest of England had been a major victory for the papacy. The
Anglo-Saxon church had been firmly under the control of the kings and largely
independent of Rome. The conquest brought it into the orbit of the
centralized government being developed by the papacy.
Although the eleventh century cannot be called a
great era in the history of European culture, it was by no means unimportant
even in this respect. Perhaps its most significant contribution was in a
field closely related to the work of the reforming popes —canon law. The
fundamental bases of ecclesiastical law were the Bible and the patristic
writings — especially those of Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. To this mass
of material were added the decrees of popes and councils. From the sixth
century to the eleventh the churches of the various European states had been
developing their own canon law in their own local councils, Obviously if the
church was to have an effective centralized administration, it needed a
common, generally accepted canon law that might be applied throughout
Christendom. Fortunately, the eleventh century was marked by great interest
in legal studies. Roman law as expounded in the works of Justinian's jurists
and practical handbooks based on them had been continuously studied and
applied in Italy, but one of the most valuable parts of Justinian's monument,
the Digest, had apparently been forgotten. It was rediscovered in the
eleventh century and spurred what was probably already an active interest in
law. Bologna became particularly noted as a center of legal studies.
Lanfranc, abbot of Bee and later archbishop of Canterbury, had studied Roman
law in. Italy. Equipped with their legal training many ecclesiastics set to
work to produce codes of canon law for the church. Gregory VII had a group of
canonists at work on codes that would emphasize the papal authority. The
complete reconciliation of the divergent versions of ecclesiastical law had
to await Gratian in the twelfth century, but the process was well begun in
the eleventh.
In theology and philosophy the eleventh century was
completely overshadowed by the twelfth. Anselm, abbot of Bee and archbishop
of Canterbury, was a powerful and rather original thinker whose proof of the
existence of God was greatly admired throughout the later Middle Ages.
Lanfranc and Anselm made the monastic school at Bee the chief center of
scholarship in northern Europe. The great cathedral schools of Laon,
Chartres, and Paris had their beginnings in the eleventh century. This period
also saw the first literature in French. The Chanson de Roland clearly
existed in some form before the end of the century, and the first troubadours
were at work in the south of France at the same time. The best known of the
early troubadours, duke William IX of Aquitaine, took part in the abortive
crusade. In the north the eleventh century was the great age of the Norse
sagas. In architecture this era saw the rapid development of the Romanesque
style with its massive barrel vaults, ingeniously carved capitals, and extensive
exterior sculpture. Appropriately enough the queen of all Romanesque churches
graced the abbey of Cluny.
In all the varied phases of civilization the eleventh century was a period of vital growth and energetic development. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were to see the flowering of medieval civilization, but the plant matured and the buds were formed in the eleventh. The men of western Europe had faith in God and in their own strong arms. They also had a willingness to adventure, to innovate, and to organize. The two great complexes of institutions, the church and the feudal system, had achieved the strength of maturity without losing their capacity for further development and expansion. And it was the church and the feudal system that made the crusades possible.
CHAPTER III.CONFLICT IN THE MEDITERRANEAN BEFORE THE FIRST CRUSADE
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