Context
The history of Europe from 950-1250 is one
of political, territorial, cultural, and economic expansion to
a degree hardly conceivably at the beginning of the tenth century.
Though broad ranging, this evolution is most easily visible in
military-territorial terms. While the Europe of 900 was under
siege by Magyars from the Southeast, Arab Muslims from the West
and South, and Vikings from seemingly all directions, by 1100 at
the latest it was the European polities that were on the move,
hemming in or taming their neighbors and opponents. That individual
European elites and monarchs could contemplate military campaigns
in the Middle East, and then make good on these contemplations,
is stark evidence of strides in manpower and motive forces. Of
course, this reinvigoration is closely related to political and
ideological evolutions distinguishing the post-1000 era from the
700-900s in such a manner that the later period appears to us as
a much more mature phenomenon.
In terms of political evolution, all the pre-850 states,
with the extremely notable exception of Byzantium, crumpled under
the foreign military onslaughts. Unitary sates--in the form of
the Carolingian Empire--were unable to maintain stability, and
a seemingly irreversible process of feudal localization of political,
economic, and judicial power set in. During the first half of
the High Middle Ages, though, the picture begins to change. In
Germany, Henry the Fowler came to power and was able to begin holding
back the Magyars. His descendents, in the form of the Saxon dynasty
of Germany, instituted the "Ottonian System," a system of reliance
on and control of the clergy, providing a monarchical administration
that sidestepped the various duchies' leaders and thereby neatly avoided
a full descent into localized feudalism. The nobles revolted throughout
the period, but were never, until 1100, as strong as or as wealthy
as the Church-reliant monarchy. In France, Hugh Capet and his
descendants were forced to take another route, since the feudal
localization of power was most advanced there, with counts and
dukes allowing the monarchy's continuation only because its occupants
were deemed quite weak. The Capetian dynasty gradually became
stronger by working within and through the feudal political
system. Eventually seen as the highest feudal lord, they used
ties of vassalage and notions of feudal legal propriety to build up
their power and wealth to the point that St. Louis IX could rule supreme
in a French domain much larger even than the domains belonging
to the Western Carolingians'. Spain in turn, while not renouncing
feudalism in its Christian parts, was also a variation in that
to attract settler-warriors for the Reconquista, Spanish sovereigns
in Castile, Aragon, and other areas were quite liberal in the exemptions
from feudal dues that they gave their subjects. In sections of
Italy, the feudal model breaks down further, as urban communes
wrested self- control from surrounding petty nobles, then forced
the nobles into the cities. The communes continued to resist control
from above, even when the opponent was the Pope or Holy Roman Emperor.
Ideologically, too, this period shows an expanding horizon.
Building on a foundation of monastic reform begun in the 900-1000s,
the Papacy itself began to spearhead a reform of the Church as
a whole, targeting clerical marriage and purchasing of prelate positions.
Ultimately, the reform logic proceeded to demand that the Pope
be the supremely recognized controller of the whole Church through
a powerful administration in Rome, and that the Church, in the person
of the Pope, have freedom untrammeled by elite laymen in all ecclesiastical
matters. The Church began to demand that there be no secular political
interference in the form of investiture of bishops or nomination
of popes. This policy, of course, brought the Church into continuing
conflict with secular kings, the German monarchy in particular.
For its part, the German monarchy (as well as other kings) still
aspired to that supposedly perfect union of Church and state exhibited
by Charlemagne, who controlled his church. On the one hand, this
desire exacerbated conflicts on the intellectual and political level,
but it would also inspire monarchs to support both Christianization
along the margins and campaigns against internal heretics. Whereas
on individual matters Church and state often found themselves at
odds, the entire intellectual structure of the time culminated
in making the Crusades a viable notion in the minds of Church,
kings, and feudal lords. This idea grew so powerful, it was able
to capture the efforts and attentions of these various groups for
centuries, even though the results, with the exception of Spai,n
were ultimately so much less than had been hope.
Less obvious, but instrumental to Europe's expansion,
was the economic development from the late 900s. This process
is visible primarily in town- development in central Europe, as
well as in the flowering of commercial city- states in the Italian
peninsula. Urban development in northern and Western Europe provided
the financial backing for monarchs as well as feudal lords in the
form of taxes and customs, and also provided new constituencies
in support of further commercial expansion. This development would
have great import past 1250, all the way into the seventeenth century.
In more immediate terms, this entire period saw the initially
plodding, then gradually faster development of Italian coastal
cities organized by traders, for trade. Venice was the most conspicuous
example of such a city-state, ruled as it was by a commercial oligarchy
headed by the Doge. Its foreign policy consisted almost entirely
of the effort to open up more areas for trade. To Venice must
be added Amalfi, and later Pisa and Genoa. Of course, the Crusades
aided in the economic expansion, as Latin warriors, and an impoverished Byzantine
state, needed the maritime city states to provide naval forces,
transportation, and much-needed commodities. The model that the
Italian merchant states set, of establishing trade enclaves throughout
the Aegean and Mediterranean that were politically tied to the
center, would later be emulated by the Portuguese and Spanish in
North and West Africa, hinting at the future Voyages of Discovery.
Also important in this period is the gradual eclipse of
Byzantium. From 900- 1261, the Empire rose to heights unknown since
the rule of Heraclius in 628 and then fell prey to internal decay
and external contraction, falling to its lowest point when it was
occupied by Latin knights in the most profound perversion of the
Crusades idea. In every respect though--in its bureaucracy, diplomatic
skill, theological accomplishments, philosophical speculation,
understanding of Islam, and wealth the Byzantine Empire remained
far ahead of the West. We must attribute its difficulties during
this period to yet another wave of nomadic migrations onto its
soil (the Turks) combined with the unwillingness of indigenous elites
to look out for anything but their own interests at a time when
they no longer had the luxury to do so.
In some ways, all this does not exhibit a protean change
from the Europe of the 7-800s, and neither was there a paradigm
shift. The relationships between king and feudal lord, church
and state, and distrust of the Muslims that animated the High Middle
Ages certainly existed in the Medieval era's early years. The
Carolingians of the 650s-800s had risen because of personal lord-vassal
relations, and saw them as totally legitimate. Similarly, Charles
Martel, Pepin, Charlemagne, and Louis the Pious had definite
ideas regarding the church-state link, and they all felt they knew
best how to protect and mentor Christianity, while taking advantage
of its worldly components. In turn, Popes of that era used secular
leaders to shore up their positions, and claimed the right to overlordship over
them, with just as little sustained success. Finally, part of
the era's Christian identity involved anti-Muslim animus, and the
military fight against them. Of course, in the High Middle Ages
as well as in the early Medieval period, hatred of the other in
one's midst--be it heretic, or more often Jew--was a rampant disease.
This points to the inexcusable darker side of medieval
life: intolerance was the rule, the policy. With a Christian frame
of mind seeing itself as the only correct way, anything else was
not simply wrong, but consigned to necessary extermination (as
was the case for heretics or excessively speculative philosophers)
or to subsistence in abject penury, ignominy, and social disability,
as was the case for Jews. With the exception of more tolerant
climes such as Muslim and early Christian Spain and Sicily, the
intolerant approach was ubiquitous, tempered only by practical
concerns such as the financial benefits of squeezing the out-group
dry. At times, especially among the almost universally illiterate,
uneducated, and superstitious masses, anti- Jewish animus exploded
into an orgy of plundering and murder, as in the Peasants' Crusade.
In this respect, medieval society from the 400s through the 1500s
progressed not at all.
