Summary (920-1250)
By 920, the last of the Carolingian rulers had died;
Magyars still ranged in the east, Vikings had begun to settle down
in the West, and the Fatimids were occupying North Africa up to
and including Egypt. In France, feudal nobles chose Hugh Capet
as king in 987, since he was the weakest of nobles and not a threat
to them. He and his successors had to act within the feudal system,
using it to gradually attain more power, land, and prestige. By
the late 1000s this process was moving along well enough such that
Louis VI (1108-1137) was able to be supreme to other feudal lords
in strength as well as title. Louis VII (1137-1180) had to deal
with the Angevin Empire, an English-west French state based upon
Anjou, Normandy, and England that was ruled by the Plantagenets.
England had been conquered by William the Bastard in 1066, after
which the top of Anglosaxon society was replaced by Normans. Thus,
the Angevin Empire, based upon marriage alliances, was a real threat
to French kings, and only in the time of Philip II Augustus (1180- 1223)
was the French crown able to overcome their rivals, particularly
at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, when John of England and Otto
IV of Germany were defeated. John went home in disgrace to face
a baronial revolt forcing him to accept the Magna Carta (1215).
France, under St. Louis IX (1226-1270) was the feudal kingdom
par excellence. He used the feudal system to be a supreme, powerful,
well-organized ruler with a reputation for justice and piety.
Germany of the 930s-1050s was a comparatively strong monarchical
state. Feudalism was shunned by the rulers from Otto I (937-973)
onwards. After defeating the Magyars at Lechfeld in 955, he went
on to rule based on reliance on and cotrol of the Church to get around
nobles. He was drawn into Italy by rulership aspirations and Papal
conflicts, and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 962. Otto II
and Otto III were likewise crowned, appointing Popes, side-stepping
nobility, and supporting Church reform. The arrangement led to
Papal reform emerging from monasteries, which claimed that the
Pope should have strict control of internal church affairs and
that no secular ruler should meddle in church policy or appointments.
This new tension led to the Papal- German Investiture Controversy
during the period of Gregory VII ( 1073- 1084) and Henry IV (1056-
1106). Over the course of the controversy, the Emperor was deposed
and the Pope ended up dying a Norman hostage, but by the 1130s
it was gradually accepted by European sovereigns that only Popes
could nominate high prelates, though kings could approve these
appointments if they were strong enough. By 1100, the Papacy had
become strong enough, well-organized enough, and prestigious enough,
to call for a Crusade. Ever since the accomplishments of Byzantine
Emperors from the 960s-1025, the Empire had entered a period of
total internal decline. The Seljuk Turks' defeat of Byzantine
forces at Manzikert (1071) made this decline an external one as
well, and opened up Asia Minor to large-scale Turkic infiltration.
The Eastern Church, in Schism from the Catholic west since 1054,
seemed in danger, as did pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The First Crusade
(1096-99) captured Jerusalem, and Crusader States stretching from
Antioch to Ascalon were set up under western feudal nobles. By
the 1140s, Muslim leaders had made a comeback, and the Second Crusade
(1147) accomplished nothing. Jerusalem was lost to Salah al-Din
al-Ayyubi in 1187. The Third Crusade (1189-91) was likewise unsuccessful.
The Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) was diverted by its Venetian and
Frankish leaders, and, feuding over unpayed ransom, ended up sacking
Constantinople, and setting up Latin sates that lasted until the
Byzantine ruler could return in 1261.
The German monarchy had been weakened by its dispute with the
Papacy, and only in the rule of Frederick I Barbarossa (1152-1190)
was the crown able to make a comeback, under the Hohenstaufen dynasty.
Recognizing feudal reality, he was able to make the lords view
him as their feudal sovereign, usually exacting their loyalty.
He went into Italy to put down the communes and first to aid the
cause of the Popes, then to meddle in Papal succession controversies.
Italian towns and the Papacy felt hemmed in by him, and thus combined
to defeat his forces at Legnano (1176). He died during a successful
command of German forces in the Third Crusade (1190). His son
was Frederick II (1215- 1250), king of Germany and Sicily by marriage
into the Norman house. An extremely cultured man, he earned the
opposition of the Papacy and Italian towns for his policies of
aggrandizement in Italy, as well as his repeated postponement of
a Crusading venture. Eventually, he went east in 1229, but since
he was able to acquire Jerusalem by negotiation and not conquest,
he was excommunicated by the Pope Innocent IV. For the rest of
his reign, he had to fight Papal and Italian town scheming against
him. Jerusalem was finally regained for the last time by Muslim
Khwarazmshah troops fleeing Mongol invaders in 1244. Around the
same years the Spanish Reconquista under Castilian kings had gained
two-thirds of the Iberian peninsula, just as anti-clerical and
heretical movements were petering out in France.
