History Of Middle Ages - Knowledge World 24

The history of Europe

The history of Europe covers the people who lived in Europe from prehistoric times until the present time, and during the Neolithic period and the period of Indo-European migrations. Europe witnessed human flows from the East and Southeast and the subsequent important cultural and material exchanges, and the period known as The classical period of antiquity with the emergence of the cities of ancient Greece, and later the Roman Empire came to control the entire Mediterranean basin, and traditionally the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 AD marks the beginning of the Middle Ages, and during the article the Middle Ages will be learned more deeply.

Middle Ages

 The Middle Ages is the period of European history, which began from the fall of Roman civilization in the fifth century AD until the period of the Renaissance - the date of the end of the Middle Ages is determined differently depending on the region in Europe and other factors, it may be determined in the thirteenth, fourteenth or fifth century Ten-, the term and its traditional meaning were introduced by the Italian humanists, and the humanists were involved in classical education and culture, and the concept of a thousand years of darkness and ignorance that separated them from the Greek and Roman worlds. It seems that the humanists invented the Middle Ages in order to distinguish themselves, and back in the wheel of history to 410 AD, the plunder of Rome by the Visigothic king Alaric I had a tremendous impact on the political structure and social climate of the Western world. This is because the Roman Empire provided the basis for social cohesion for most of Europe. After the disintegration of the Roman Empire, the idea of ​​Europe as a church state - the Christian world - emerged, and the following paragraph will explain the situation of the religious community in that era.

Religious Society in the Middle Ages

 The Roman Catholic Church was the center of life throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, and the Church was the strongest institution in all of Europe and the only one that extended to separate kingdoms, and the Church was the guardian of knowledge and learning, as it preserved books and literacy at a time when most people were Unable to read, as it was a powerful economic institution that collected taxes from all citizens, and built churches, monasteries and huge cathedrals all over Europe, and all information about the Middle Ages was obtained from the sculptures and records of the Church, and the Church played a pivotal role in the Crusades, namely A campaign of religious wars that lasted from 1090 AD to 1300 AD, and in response to the Church's call, the kings sent their knights and soldiers on long trips to the Middle East in an attempt to restore the Holy Land from the Islamic state. The Crusaders crossed vast distances and learned a lot about foreign lands, including the Byzantine Empire that was At the height of its development, these crusaders brought to their countries new ideas, new trading partners and new styles. hand of clothes.

By moving to the Islamic state, Muslims were living a period of cultural, scientific and economic prosperity, which is the Islamic Golden Age, and the Islamic Golden Age began from the eighth century AD until the fourteenth century, and this golden period began during the reign of the Abbasid Caliph Harun al Rashid with the opening of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, where scholars from different parts of the world and from different cultural backgrounds were commissioned to collect and translate all kinds of classical knowledge in the world into the Arabic language, and the end of the Islamic golden age is usually linked to the fall of the Abbasid state; Because of the Mongol invasions and the siege of Baghdad in 1258 AD, some scholars suggest the date of the end of the golden age to about 1050 AD, while few contemporary scholars determine the date of the end of this Islamic period in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. It is worth noting that Muslims follow the Quran and hadith that put the values ​​of education, and they affirm the necessity of acquiring knowledge a pivotal role in influencing Muslims in this era, through their search for knowledge and the development of the structure of knowledge.

Children and baptism

 The concept of childhood and the importance of the child in medieval society should not be ignored from history, it is quite clear from the laws designed specifically for the care of children that childhood has been recognized as a distinct stage of development, and that, contrary to modern folklore, children were not treated well as they are not expected of them. That they act as adults, and the laws related to the rights of orphans are among the evidences that children have had value in society as well, so it is difficult to imagine that in a society that placed great value on children, and the great hope of spouses to have children, children suffer from a lack of interest or affection. Accusations were often directed against medieval families, and there were cases of abuse and neglect of children in Western society at that period, but taking individual incidents as an indication of a complete culture would be disregard for history, and the following lines will show how society in general viewed the treatment of children.

Because the main reason for marriage at any stage of medieval society is to have children, the birth of a child is usually a cause of joy, but it was also a cause for concern, and since the mortality rate of childbirth may not be as high as it is in folklore, there are possibilities of occurrence. Complications such as: birth defects or a breech birth, in addition to the death of the mother or the child, or both, and in the best circumstances was not at that time effective anesthetic to relieve pain, and in that period the rooms equipped for childbirth were almost exclusively for women, as the male doctor was not called Except in cases that require necessary surgery, and the birth process was through midwives, whether the mother was a peasant or a noble.

Often the midwives had more than a decade's experience, and the midwives were accompanied by assistants to receive training, and female relatives and friends were usually present in the room prepared for childbirth to provide assistance, while the father was left outside to pray for a safe birth, and some sources indicate that some Mothers gave birth in a sitting position to relieve pain and speed up the labor process, and while the delivery was delayed than usual, every member of the family was trying to help by opening cupboards or drawers, opening boxes, or by launching an arrow in the air, and all these actions were symbolic to speed up the process Childbirth: A female doctor from the twelfth century recommended washing the tongue with hot water to ensure that the baby speaks properly.

Shortly after the birth of the child comes the next stage, which is baptism, and the main purpose of baptism was to wash the baby to get rid of sin and banish all evil from the newborns, and this sacred sacrament was very important to the Catholic Church because the usual opposition to women performing holy duties was overcome in fear On the unbaptized child, while the mother died during childbirth, the midwife had to extract the child for baptism, and the official ceremonial ceremonies in the church built the relationship between the child and the godmother for life - the godfather in many Christian denominations A person who witnesses the baptism of the child and is willing to help with Christian education Be a man or a woman. so a child in the Middle Ages had a relationship with society.

The nature of teenage life

 Few children of the Middle Ages enjoyed formal education; Because it was rare at that time, and as a result, not all boys went to school, and teenagers from peasant families worked instead of going to school, and in household chores, teenagers who worked as productive workers in agriculture could be an integral part of farmers ’income, or they might work. The teenager as a paid servant in other families and often in another town, where the teenager can contribute to the total income of the family or simply stop consuming the family's resources and thus improve the economic situation of those he left behind, and in rural families children provided valuable assistance to their families at the age of five or six, This aid is represented in simple tasks that did not take much of their time, such as: fetching water, caring for geese or donkeys, or collecting fruits and firewood.

As for the older children, they were hired to take care of their younger siblings, and at home the girls would help their mothers in tending the garden and making or repairing clothes and helping with cooking, and in the field the boys aged 9 years and usually 12 or more helped their fathers by provoking the bull while dealing The father with the plow, and one of the most difficult tasks that faced children in their teens was dealing with the machete, and from the outside work that the children used after some training, making clothes, blacksmithing, news, etc., as there was a hierarchy and relationships in the service, as There were servants of noble origins, especially those who worked as a private servant, the girls who served as the ladies' servants, and when an older relative moved from the service he was replaced by his younger relative, and among the common misconceptions about the Middle Ages is that life was bleak and boring, and that whoever Enjoy recreational activities they are only nobles.

Certainly, life was difficult compared to the modern era, but it was not all filled with darkness and drudgery. People, including teenagers in the Middle Ages, knew how to spend a good time. Teenagers used to spend a lot of time every day working and studying, but in most cases they had little time. For evening recreation, however, they had ample leisure time on holidays such as Saints' Days, which were fairly frequent, and among the entertainment archaeologists discovered among the remnants of castles is a collection of intricately carved chess and tables, indicating some popularity of board games between The noble classes, and it is likely that the peasants did not acquire such expensive sculptures, as they may have enjoyed low-cost or home-made copies, but no support has been found for this theory.

Laws and Legislation in the Middle Ages

 In the early Middle Ages, there were a number of laws that were applied in Western Europe that dealt with a number of social rights, including inheritance, marriage and divorce. Church law, in addition to the laws of the Roman Empire, the regions that Rome did not fully control, such as: Ireland, the Scandinavian semi-states and Germany, had their own laws that offered women different legal rights before the rule of the church law system, for example: Women were allowed in early Ireland Christianity 400 CE - 700 CE by obtaining a divorce from their husbands, and men were also allowed to divorce their wives or even polygamy, and although men were more valuable than women, women of high status could be appreciated more than men of low status, especially if women were Of childbearing age.

In general, women were less valuable than men, but in return they were valued, and a respectable marriage was usually accompanied by an exchange of needs, and for clarification, it was a dowry from the wife's family to the husband, or a marriage gift from the husband to the wife, or the woman's share from the inheritance of her husband. It is from the husband to the wife's family, which may be a few household items or it may include money or land, and the woman's share of the inheritance is specific to the wife, but the husband was the one who usually controlled it during marriage, and the husband could not dispose of it except after his wife's approval And as soon as a woman gives birth to children from a valid marriage, she was entitled to support from her husband and his family, and in general, the law required that a widow be provided with a third of her husband’s property to support her during her life, while the remaining third would go to the children and remain under the mother’s guardianship until they reached adulthood, and the widow used to lose this Rights in the event of her marriage, and to some extent these rules were fixed throughout Europe, especially at the end of the Middle Ages.

Art and Architecture in the Middle Ages

 Cathedrals were the largest buildings in Europe in the Middle Ages and can be seen in the center of cities all over Europe. Between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, cathedrals were built in the Romanesque style, and Romanesque cathedrals were solid and sturdy. Examples of this art of architecture are: Porto Cathedral in Portugal and a cathedral. Speyer in Germany, and around the year 1200 AD, architects began to adopt a new architectural style known as Gothic architecture. Structures of Gothic architecture such as: Saint Denis Church or Saint Denis in France and Canterbury Cathedral in England were rebuilt on huge stained-glass windows, a prominent vault and technical arches. - They were developed in the Islamic world - with hanging pillars and carved tops, and the drawings drawn by the artists of the religious horoscope were devotional drawings of the Virgin Mary, Jesus and the saints, and before the invention of the printing machine, craftsmen created illuminated manuscripts in which gold and silver were used.

Medieval Literature and Music

 The most important development in the literature of the late Middle Ages was the dominance of the local language, and the local language was in use in England since the eighth century AD and in France since the eleventh century AD, and the most popular literary genre was the Chanson de Gest, a type of epic poem and emotional poetry Troubadour Romantic epics, Danny Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, written at the beginning of the fourteenth century, merged the medieval worldview with classical ideals.

 It is noteworthy that the three poets Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarch established the Tuscan dialect as a standard for the modern Italian language, and in England Geoffrey Chuster helped establish Middle English as a literary language in his work The Canterbury Tales, while music was an important part of both secular culture and spirituality, and in universities it was part of The teachings of the liberal arts, and in the early thirteenth century, the predominant sacred music form was death - a type of Western music - and the polyphonic musical system known as the polyphony emerged.

Society and Economy in the Middle Ages

 Society was disrupted across Europe by the terror of the Black Death in the late Middle Ages. Lands of little fertility and production were abandoned, survivors gained access to more fertile lands, and although serfdom declined in Western Europe, it became more common. In Eastern Europe, where the landowners imposed it on these tenants who were previously free, and most of the peasants in Western Europe succeeded in changing the work that they had previously owed to landowners in monetary rents, and the percentage of serfs among peasants decreased from 90% to 50%, Landlords also became more aware of common interests with other owners and united together to wrest concessions from their governments, and to some extent, at the urging of the landlords, governments attempted to enact laws to return to the economic condition that existed before the Black Death.

People of non-clergy became increasingly educated, and city-dwellers began to imitate the nobility's concerns about chivalry, and Jewish groups were expelled from England in 1290 AD and France in 1306 AD, and although some were allowed to return to France, most of them were not allowed Many Jews immigrated to the east and settled in Poland and Hungary, and in 1492 AD the Jews were expelled from Spain and spread to Turkey, France, Italy and the Netherlands, and in Italy the rise of banking services continued during the thirteenth century and continued throughout the fourteenth century, which was partly fueled by the growing conflict in That period and the papal needs to transfer money between kingdoms, and many banks lent money to the royal families, which caused bankruptcy of some of them due to the failure of the monarchs to pay their loans.

Scholars and Intellectuals in the Middle Ages

 During the late Middle Ages, theologians such as John Danes Scotch and William of Ockham led the reaction against scholasticism and intellectualism and objected to the application of reason to faith. The fourteenth and fifteenth universities spread throughout Europe, and literacy rates increased, but they were still low. According to estimates, the rate of literacy in the year 1500 AD was 10% for men, while the share of women in literacy was 1%, and the prevalence increased Literature with Dante, Petrarch, Giovanni and Boccaccio in Italy in the fourteenth century, and in England with with Chester and William Langland, and François Fillon and Christine de Pizan in France, and much literature has remained religious in character, and although much of this religious literature continues to be written in the language Latin however there are voices calling for his development of the local language.

Literary Models from the Middle Ages

 Medieval literature is a comprehensive subject, and mainly includes all written works available in Europe and elsewhere during the Middle Ages, from the fall of the Western Roman Empire until the Renaissance, and it is a complex and rich field of study from absolute holiness to profuse vulgarity, and literary works are often categorized by place The origin of the work, the language and the literary genre, and notable literary works during that period.

• Alexiad: It is a historical text written in 1148 AD by Princess Anna Komnene, describing the political and military history of the Byzantine Empire.
• Cantigas Santa Maria: Attributed to Alfonso X, this work is a sacred chant composed of 420 poems with musical notation, and is distinguished by the reference to the Virgin Mary in every song.
• Canterbury Tales: This book is a collection of 24 stories based on 17,000 lines written in Middle English, written by Chester between 1387 and 1400.
• Roland of Gana: An Epic Poem by an Anonymous French Author, based on the Battle of Ronswall Pass, 8778 AD, during Charleson's reign, considered to be the oldest legacy of French literature.