Middle Ages

D

2

Consequences of Invasion

In the course of fighting these invaders, Europe itself changed in varying ways. Two contrasting examples are England and France. England became unified, while France fragmented into small, nearly independent principalities (regions ruled by princes).

D2

a

England

The Vikings first attacked, then conquered and settled, the eastern half of England. By the end of the 9th century, it looked as if the rest of the country, which was divided into small kingdoms, would soon be overtaken. In Wessex, the southernmost kingdom, King Alfred the Great was determined to oppose the threat. He reorganized his army, built ships, and set up a system of fortifications. His victories over the Vikings gave him such prestige that he was recognized as king of all England not under Viking rule. Alfred's successors pushed out most of the Vikings and absorbed the rest of England into one kingdom.

D2

b

France

France had a very different experience. The king was unable to mobilize his forces quickly enough to fight the Viking raids. Powerful local men—often dukes or counts—organized their own regional defenses. Carolingian prestige suffered, and by the end of the 10th century a new dynasty, the Capetian, came to the throne. Although the Capetians were successful in the long run, at this point they ruled only the region right around Paris. The rest of France was ruled by local men.

The political fragmentation of France became more extreme in the 10th and 11th centuries. Many counts and dukes lost power to castellans, local strongmen with a retinue of soldiers who controlled a castle and its immediate surroundings. Protected by their fortifications and armed followers, castellans dominated the surrounding countryside, even though they had no particular right to rule.

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D

3

Social Change

Local strongmen such as castellans, counts, and dukes depended on the loyal service of warriors and the dues of peasants. As the Carolingian Empire broke apart, peasants and warriors became distinctly different groups. Carolingian peasants had also served in the army, but by the 11th century, peasants were supposed to till the soil, not pick up arms. There were no longer free and unfree peasants, nor were there many peasants who owned their own land. Most peasants became serfs, who were half free (see Serfdom). They owed dues and services to the local strong man (as well as to the lord of their manor, if they lived on one), and they called him their lord. This system is known as seignorialism.

Warriors, however, became an elite class of knights. They rode horses and wielded weapons that required great skill, such as the heavy lance. The majority of knights were free men. They had lords, but their lords (kings, counts, dukes, and castellans) were also knights, and in that sense were their equals. As a lord's vassal, a knight pledged fealty to him and served him in war.

Some vassals lived with their lords, sleeping in the great hall of the castle and rising in the morning to eat together with the lord, his wife, and the other vassals. Luckier vassals had fiefs—grants of land owned by their lord that the vassals used and lived on. Fiefs had been given out in earlier times. For example, Charlemagne gave fiefs to his counts, but he could also take them away if he wanted to. Gradually, however, fiefs became hereditary. By the 11th century, a man who had a fief knew he could pass it on to his son. The son then pledged fealty to his father's lord.

Some historians use the term feudalism to refer to the social system of lords, vassals, and fiefs. Others use this word to refer to the political fragmentation that took place in France, where the power of local strong men, supported by their men and castles, became more important than the authority of kings. For still others, feudalism means the orderly political hierarchy of lords and vassals established in certain principalities and later in kingdoms. Normandy is a good example of one such principality. The duke of Normandy gave fiefs to his barons (his most important vassals), who owed him not only their own military service but also that of their own knights, to whom they in turn gave fiefs. When the Normans conquered England in 1066, they set up this system across their new kingdom. Given the many definitions of feudalism, some of which conflict, and given the fact that the word itself was never used in the Middle Ages, a number of recent historians have stopped using the term altogether.

D

4

Changes in the Church

As society changed, so too did the Christian church. In France churches were absorbed into the new organization of small kingdoms and local rulers. Local bishops often came from local ruling families, and parish priests received their posts from the local lord. Monasteries, founded on family lands, became family institutions. In the Empire (comprising roughly what is today Germany and Italy), churches were drawn into the governmental system set up by Otto I and his successors. In this area, bishops appointed by the emperor acted as governors as well as spiritual leaders.

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