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Medieval Society
The History of Western Civilization to 1500 Prof. Dr. George S. Vascik
Outline • Feudalism
• Manorialism
• Peasant Life
• Noble Life
• Religious Life
Feudalism • A set of interlocking social, economic and
political relations that grew up in Western Europe with the disintegration of the Roman world.
• When did it start? – Paucity of sources
• Remember who is literate – Some historians date its beginning to the period after
Charlemagne, other to before – Vascik sees it as an outgrowth of Roman patron-client
relations
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Chedworth: from villa to stronghold
Feudalism • Need for protection
– Give up everything – Homage
• Lords & vassals – Fiefs – Hierarchical – “every man has a lord”
• Decentralized power – Important relation-
ships are local
Manorialism Manor house
Serfs
Free peasants
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Manorialism Church
Market
Water pond and mill
Manorialism
A A B C
Commons Garden plots
Manorialism • Agricultural methods
– Open field system – Two rotations – Ploughing – Crop yields of 3:1 or 5:1
• Degrees of obligation – Free peasants
• Rent – Serfs
• Tied to land • Service, dues
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Peasants
Peasant Life
• Life expectancy of 25 years • Household
– Size depended on place and time • Before 1200, not extended families • Early marriages • All worked
– One room, windowless huts, earthen floors • No chimney • Little furniture • Garden plots
Peasant Life • Diet
– Black bread, three times per day – Vegetables from garden plot – Meat - usually pork - only on holidays
• No milk, cows were too expensive to feed • Pigs allowed to feed in lord’s woods
– Beer • Brewed weekly
• Entertainment – Drink – Market day – Church festivals – pilgrimages
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Nobles
The nobility
• Who was noble – Warriors – Held land in fief – Special legal privileges (libertas)
• Noble lives – Men need fief to marry – Many noble men could never marry
• Career in church or as mercenary
– Unmarried noble women would enter a convent – Older husbands (30s), younger wife (17-20)
Chivalry • Tension within noble
households – What if wife falls for her
brother-in-law? • Code of chivalry
– Men were allowed to profess their love for a married woman
– A married woman could profess her love for a married man
– They just couldn’t consummate their love
• Stories of courtly love explain the dangers of transgressing social code
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Monasticism
Benedict of Nursia • 480-543 • Desired to become a
philosopher, but was repelled by Rome
• Lived as a hermit – What he learned – Becoming popular
• Created place for communal religious experience – Wrote a Rule to regulate
communal religious experience
Benedictine rule • Prologue and 73 chapters detailing every aspect
of daily life • Octaves
– Communal prayer (3 1/2 hrs) – Reading and meditation (4 hrs) – Labor (7 hrs) – Eating (1 hr) – Sleep (8 1/2 hrs)
• Learning • Problems
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Monastic reform movement • Monks from monastery at Cluny (founded in 909)
set out to bring other monks back to the Rule • Cluniac monks set out to reform other abuses
– Illiterate parish priests – Simony – Moral laxity
• Monastic reformers and the papacy – Investiture - papal independence – Papal elections - College of Cardinals
