Hey and welcome back to Heimler's History. In the last few videos we've been flying around the world trying to figure out what's going on in the world between the years 1200 and 1450 and today we get to Europe. So let's get it. Now let's start by reaching backwards into European history just a bit.
So the western half of the Roman Empire fell in 476 but the empire itself continued for another thousand years under the auspices in the east. of the Byzantine Empire. And so between 476 and 1000 Europe was basically fractured and divided, culturally and politically, into little tribal kingdoms that were constantly at war with one another for dominance.
And if you want a word for how this continent was organized politically and socially during this time, I think we can come up with one, and I'll say Feudalism. Now feudalism is a system of mutual obligations that exists between the classes. What do you mean, Heimler? Well let me splain it up real nice for you. There were essentially four social layers in society.
On top there was a king and the king granted land to the next level down, which is to say the lords in exchange for their service and tribute. The lords contracted the folks in the next level down, the knights. To protect their land, and in some cases go to war. At the bottom of all this is the peasantry.
These folks worked the land of the lords in exchange for providing the lords with the produce of the land. The peasants were called serfs, and while they weren't slaves in the sense that we think of today, they were certainly not free. Their lives were tied to the land, and since they were under the authority of the Lord, they had to have the Lord's permission to marry and to travel.
And if a serf had a baby, well then they added a new serf to the family. Now this span of years used to be known as the Dark Ages because during this time in Europe, Trade declined, people's standard of living declined, intellectual life declined. But from about 1000 to 1450 the sun began to rise again and this is called the High Middle Ages.
And one of the major changes going on during the High Middle Ages is the rise of more powerful monarchs. So kings were able to consolidate more land and more power during this time and that means that power shifted away from the feudal lords to the kings. And you've got basically two ways in which kings were successful in consolidating power.
First they established huge bureaucracies that were able to carry out their will. And second they can conscripted metric buttloads of standing armies. And both of these entities were directly answerable to the king, therefore power.
But by the 13th century power began to shift back towards the noble classes yet again. And this transfer of power was facilitated by the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. So the Magna Carta, which was a document largely pushed through by the noble class, officially guaranteed rights to the nobles like the right to a jury trial and the right to all free citizens to own and inherit property. A few years later, in 1265, power further shifted into the hands of the nobles with the establishment of the English Parliament, which was a body that represented the interests of the noble class.
Now in the middle of all this European change, one of the continuities that ran through it all was the Roman Catholic Church. It was during this time that the Catholic Church established the first universities in Europe. And therefore most of the philosophers and the thinkers and the educators were religious men in those days.
And artists too were beholden to the church. Much of the art produced during this time was heavy with Christian themes and they did this to provide visual education to the illiterate peasantry who couldn't read about the good news of Jesus Christ for themselves. Now, as a result of the rise of these more powerful monarchs, there came something of a power struggle between church and state.
So while these regional kingdoms were still pretty much the norm, the Roman Catholic Church was pretty settled in its position of providing cultural and intellectual unity across Europe. But these more powerful kings began to threaten that hold. And one response to this is the Crusades. Starting in the 12th century, the Pope and the bishops urged Christians to take up their swords and reclaim Jerusalem from the infidel Muslims. And if they did...
getting into heaven was going to be pretty easy. So go stab a couple infidels in the face and you basically earned your forgiveness. And whatever other cultural effects this had, it surely had the effect of shifting the people's allegiance from the monarchs to the Roman Catholic Church. Okay, let's talk about economic and social change that happened during this time. In the late 13th century an Italian by the name of Marco Polo left his home to explore and found himself all the way in China at the court of Kublai Khan.
Polo wrote an account of his travels and it sold like crazy in Europe and it opened Europeans imagination to the exotic culture and wealth of the Far East, and this led to innovations in map making and cartography so that it would be easier to get back there. Back in normal life a new economic class started to rise during this time, the middle class, or if you want to sound more pompous in your life, the bourgeoisie. These were the people who were not as rich as the nobles, but not as poor as the peasants. And they included shopkeepers and merchants and small landowners. Also, not to be forgotten, there was a little ice age during this time.
For a few years temperatures gradually fell, leading to a sharp decrease in agricultural productivity. And decreased agricultural productivity leads to a declining population. And a declining population leads to less trade.
And less trade leads to sinking economic conditions. So that's rough, but don't worry, they got out of it. After the 1300s the Europeans experienced the bright optimism of the Renaissance. The word itself means re- birth. So something new wasn't coming into being, something old was being reborn.
And what was that? It was the rebirth of ancient Greek and Roman art and culture and literature. During this time some of our world's most magnificent pieces of art were created, like Dante's Divine Comedy and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and the sealing of the Sistine Chapel, and on and on and on. And that's not even close to everything that was going on in Europe from 1200 to 1450, but that's all you really need to know for the AP World History exam, and I'll see you in the next one. If you found this video helpful then subscribe and I will keep making them for you.
And if you liked this video then like it, that would mean that your emotional state is in congruence with your clicky finger, and the key to life is congruence. I'll see you next time.