The European Situation 1000 AD - 1450


Social conditions

1000 - 1100

Serfdom starts to end

increase in social mobility

rise of the urban bourgeoisie (burgers, burgesses)

1100 - 1200

Waldensian heresy

more stone castles built

towns gained more liberties

Christian bankers began to rival Jewish ones

Guilds were preeminent within towns

1200 - 1300

Towns began to challenge nobles' power

some nobles take positions in government or become entrepreneurs

clergy loses some status

townsmen gain status and soem administrative offices

mobility increases for peasants

1300 - 1400

gap in living standards between nobles and peasants widens

introduction of firearms allows armies to hire peasants as mercenaries

 

Economic Conditions

1000 - 1100

Towns increase in number and importance

Agricultural production increases

1200 - 1300

Italian city-states are preeminent

1300 - 1400

corporations formed

Hanseatic League dominates northern Europe

 

Political Conditions

1000 - 1100

Battle of Hastings (1066)

William of Normandy

centralization of feudalism under the king

Incident at Canossa (1077)

Pope Gregory VII vs Henry IV

Investiture controversy

First Crusade (1096-99)

1100 - 1200

Concordat of Worms (1122)

Rise of the Hohenstauffens in the Empire

Frederick I (Barbarossa)

Henry VI

Frederick II

France

Louis VII lost territory to England

Philip II (Augustus) won back territory from England

England

Henry I

established a royal treasury (Exchequer)

Henry II

allowed monetary payments to replace feudal obligations

created a jury system

common law stressed

asserted royal power over the Church (Constitutions of Clarendon)

1200-1300

Church

Innocent III (strongest of the Medieval Popes)

secularized Church administration

4th Lateran Council

started a crusade against the Albigensians

Inquisition began

called for the Fourth Crusade

St Francis of Assisi started the Franciscans

St. Dominic started the Dominicans

The Empire

open hostility between Frederick II and the Church

1268 - Hohenstauffen line died out

decentralization became the rule

France

Philip Augustus

centralized monarchical control

created baliffs

Louis IX (St. Louis)

parlements created

England

John I

forced to sign Magna Carta

1300 - 1400

Church

Babylonian Captivity

Boniface VIII issues Unam Sanctum

the Empire

Hapsburgs come to power

Golden Bull creates 7 electors

France

Philip II and Philip IV continue to gain territory

Estates General comes into being

Hundred Years War - France and England (1337-1453)

England

Parliament become established

 

Culture

1000 AD - 1100

Romanesque architecture

1100 - 1200

rise of universities (Bologna, Paris, Oxford)

scholasticism developed

Canon law codified

Peter Abelard

publicized contradictions found in theology

wrote Sic et Non

Epic Stories written

Nibelungenlied

Song of Roland

Gothic architecture emerged

1200 - 1300

Mysticism gains strength

Gothic architecture dominates Europe

1300 - 1400

new, individualistc styles of painting were developed

Giotto

Dante writes in the vernacular

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