1. What is going on in the World???
Middle Ages & The Renaissance in Europe

2. Feudalism
Feudalism is a political system in which a king allows nobles, or lords, to use lands that belong to him. In return, the lords owe the king military service and protection for the people living on the land.
2. Manor System – lords divided their lands into manors, or large estates, that were farmed mostly by serfs. 3. Serfs were landless peasants who weren’t allowed to leave the manor

3. The Crusades
War between the European Christians and Muslims in Southwest Asia.
The Turks had captured the Holy Land where Jesus had lived. Christians no longer felt safe to travel on pilgrimages. Went to War.
3. Crusades were a failure.
4. They changed Europe forever by the following:
Trade between Europe and Asia began to grow.
Europeans introduced to new products such as apricots, rice, cotton cloth, and Muslim thinkers.

4. Travel, Trade, and Towns
Towns were small but this all began to change.
New technology helped farmers produce larger harvest = increase in populartion
Travel became safer = increased protection by stronger rulers
Kingdoms became nation states
Silk road – safe trade route
Marco Polo brought back stories from China
Merchants brought goods from Asia and Africa to sell in European markets and they brought back…

5. Black Death Trading ships brought back rats infected with the plague.
The Black Death, spread across Europe, killing an estimated 25 million people
The European economy was hurt by the shortage of workers.
Peasants and serfs could now demand payment for their labor
They began to move to cities, which began to grow in size
Result – the growth of trade led to the decline of feudalism and the manor system.

6. Renaissance Main artist were the TMNT: Means rebirth.
Michelangelo – David & Sistine Chapel
Leonardo – Mona Lisa & The Last Supper
Donatello – St. Mark
Raphael –The School of Athens
Another major invention – Printing Pressing – for the first time in history 1000s of people could read the same books and share ideas about them
Means rebirth.
Key features of the renaissance included love of art and education
The Renaissance emphasized the importance of people rather than focusing on religion.

7. Changes in Trade
As trade grew, Italian merchants needed to improve the way they did business.
The Italians used military strength to control the trade on the Mediterranean.
Other Europeans began to want a share of the rich trade in Asian goods.
They had to find other routes to Asia from the ones controlled by the Italians and Muslims.