The Re-Awakening of Europe

950-1250Agricultural Revolution

Revival of Trade

Rebirth of towns

The Crusades

The Rise of States

Viking Longboats

Lindisfarne Monastery, 793

The Lindisfarne Bible

• Eventually these marauding raiders ended their pillaging & settled down in many areas of Europe including Normandy, Sicily, Sardinia, southern Italy and Kiev (Russia) and assimilated with the indigenous people.

• As the dust settled on the chaos and disorder, Europe slowly began to emerge with a new spirit.

Feudalism and Manorialism

• Keywords: decentralized and fragmented

• Men who mattered: Lords and Vassals

• Land is called a Fief

• Ceremony is called investiture

• Promise of loyalty is The Oath of Fealty

The self-sufficient manor

An Agricultural Revolution

• Higher agricultural production reduced the number of deaths caused by starvation and dietary disease…

• Grain surplus meant that some livestock could survive the winter increasing fresh meat, milk and manure…

• Lords of the manors promoted expansion of cultivated land

• Population increased

Benefits for the common man

• Peasants drained swamps, cleared forests and established new settlements- most notably in eastern Germanic lands

• Expansion contributed to the decline of serfdom- lords promised freedom from personal services in return for rent

• Surplus food and increased population freed people to work at non-farming occupations, making the expansion of trade possible.

Revival of trade

• End of Viking attacks

• Expanding agricultural production

• Increasing population

• Greater political stability

• The Crusades

A commercial revolution begins…

• Cities like Venice, Genoa and Pisa grew prosperous during the Crusades and after as increasing trade with Byzantine and Islamic worlds -silks, spices, perfumes and dyes increased tremendously.

• A class of traders emerged- humble peddlers at first• Traveling International Fairs – Champagne• Large-scale enterprises -shared costs, reduced risks led

to more profit-making opportunities• Advances in business techniques- banking houses;

credit; accounting books

The Rebirth of Towns

• Towns were a revolutionary force-• Made possible by expanding food supply• The townsman was a new man-