Western European Social & Cultural Life During the Middle Ages Presented By: Alan, Diana, Sarah, Jared, Dan, Jeremy, Charles

Status of Western Europe during the Middle Ages  Middle ages: C.E.  Western Europe was filled with violence and disorder during the beginning of the middle ages.  Political organization and economic growth brings W. Europe into world stage after Roman Empire collapse. Opens trade as far as China for luxury goods.  W. Europe became a center for Christianity. Military and political leaders expand Christendom to pre-dominantly Muslim areas. (Spain, Palestine through Jerusalem)

Agriculture and Economic Growth  Expansion of Land  Cause: population pressure  Effect: Yielded higher tax rates led to increased wealth led to increased wealth  Improved Agricultural Techniques  New Tools & Technologies  Use of watermills and plows  Invented items: horseshoe, collar

Agriculture and Economic Growth  New crops  Meat, dairy, fish, vegetables  Population growth  Cause: improved human diets  800 CE – 29 Million  1000 – 36 Million  1300 – 79 Million  Increased Population = increased trade

Revival of Towns and Trade  Urban opportunities  Manufacturing  Revival of Urban Society  Improvement in Business Techniques

Social Changes in the Middle Ages  The Three Estates  “Those who worked, those who prayed, and those who fought.”  Western European society was socially and economically unequal. Those who fought and prayed enjoyed rights and honors that were denied to workers.  Chivalry  Troubadours  Independent Cities  Guilds  Urban Women

Popular Religion in the Middle Ages  Europeans believed strongly in the Roman Catholic Church.  Christianity was a set of beliefs and rituals that gave meaning to lives of communities  Roman Catholics practiced the observance of the sacraments  recognized baptism, matrimony, penance, and the Eucharist  believed that a sacrament would protect them from sudden death and advance their worldly interests.

Popular Religion in the Middle Ages  They also practiced devotion to the saints recognized by their church.  Believed that saints could cure diseases, relieve toothaches, and guide sailors through storms through a port  Virgin Mary was the most popular saint who personified the Christian ideal of womanhood, love, and sympathy  The churches also made relics of clothes, locks of hair, teeth, and bones of famous saints

Education during the Middle Ages  Early Middle Ages  - Western European societies were poor and unstable  - Bible  High Middle Ages  wealth increased  educated people were needed  11th century  Cathedrals set up schools  Boys only

Education during the Middle Ages  12 century  strict curricula were founded  Latin grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music  Latin was important!  no women  no desks  had to use bones to take notes  Mid-12th century  cathedral schools were transformed into universities  students could obtain degrees in law, medicine, philosophy or theology  Universities were founded in Paris, Rome, Oxford, Cambridge

The Crusades  Holy war Latin word crux meaning "cross"  Pope Urban II  The First Crusade  Gave blessing to recapture Jerusalem or "Holy City"  Peter the Hermit  1099 Christians recapture Jerusalem from Muslims  The Second Crusade  Saladin  1187 Muslims recapture Jerusalem  Battle of Hattin  The Third Crusade  Pope Gregory VIII  Orders to regain the Holy City  Led by Richard the "Lionheart"

The Crusades  The Fourth Crusade  The Fifth Crusade  The Sixth Crusade  The Seventh Crusade  The Eighth Crusade 1270