Europe and the world beyond. Medieval civilizations presentation for a history lesson (Grade 10) on the topic The world outside Europe

From the point of view of deep historical analysis, the essence of the evolutionary processes in Europe at the end of the 15th century was that it extends, intensifying, its expansion beyond its own territory. Although Michel Molla dedicated a wonderful book to medieval explorers, neither such an occupation nor a special word for him existed at that time. Rare forays of Roman Christians outside of Europe were

VI. AUTUMN OF THE MIDDLE AGES OR SPRING OF NEW AGES? 287

or missionary expeditions, such as the travels of the Franciscan Giovanni da Plano Carpini in the 13th century, who, in addition to his missionary tasks in the areas recently converted to Christianity - Scandinavia, Bohemia, Poland and Hungary - carried letters from Pope Innocent IV to the Russian princes and the Mongol khans Batu and Guyuk, unsuccessfully suggesting that they enter into an agreement with the Roman Church 1 , or they were merchants like the Venetian brothers Polo and their nephew Marco, who went on trading business to Ceylon, then were in the service of the Mongols and reached, perhaps all the way to China.

Except for the short-lived Latin states in Palestine, the only result of medieval European expansion was the creation of a trading empire—sometimes with territories of its own—within the Byzantine Empire and the Middle East. This was the result of the activity of the major Italian trading ports, especially Genoa and Venice. In the eastern Mediterranean, among the many different products, Europeans were primarily attracted to spices. According to the treatise of the Florentine Pegolotti "The Practice of Trade" ("La Pratica della mercatura"), by 1340, 286 types of spices were known - in fact, 193, since the text was not without repetition. These spices were used primarily in the medieval pharmacopoeia, in addition - in dyeing and perfumery and, finally, for cooking. Apparently, the people of the Middle Ages were very partial to spicy dishes. Spices in the Middle Ages included citrus fruits and cane sugar. More than a quarter of these products were brought from India, China and the Far East. They

1 Returning to Lyon in 1247, Giovanni da Plano Carpini related his journey and all that he had learned to Saint Louis, who, before going on a crusade, hoped to come to terms with the Mongols in order to attack the Muslims. from the rear. - Note. ed.

THE BIRTH OF EUROPE

were valued very dearly, the Arabs bought them from the Indians, and the Christian Europeans - already from the Arabs, coming for this to the region of trade contacts, which was the Middle East. The main ports where these spices were sold and loaded onto ships were Acre, Beirut and, in particular, Alexandria, which were at the same time the terminal points of the ancient Silk Road.

The Venetians were the most active spice traders in Europe at the end of the Middle Ages, who annually invested about 400,000 ducats in this trade and sent three to five galleys a year for spices - quite a lot, considering that at a very high price, spices take up quite a bit of space. The second most active after the Venetians were merchants from Genoa, Catalonia and Ancona - they brought one or two galleys a year.

Municipal Autonomous General Educational Institution

"Golyshmanovskaya secondary school No. 2"

Golyshmanovsky district of the Tyumen region

History Lesson Summary
in 10th grade

"The World of the Middle Ages"

prepared

teacher of history and social studies

Popov Artem Andreevich

Golyshmanovo

2014

Goals:

To form a student's understanding of the Middle Ages. To introduce students to medieval civilizations and the principle of periodization of the Middle Ages.

To promote the development of historical thinking, imagination, memory and speech.

Raise interest in the past, in history.

Equipment: textbook, task cards.

During the classes:

Org. moment.

Checking homework.

Setting goals and objectives of the lesson.

Today we will get acquainted with the world of the Middle Ages. Let us consider in detail the very concept of "Middle Ages", its periodization, and relations between states.

Explanation of the new material:

Principles of periodization of the Middle Ages

The concept of "Middle Ages" arose in the Renaissance. One of the first to use it was a Roman historian F. Bondo (1392-1463). He marked with them the time that separated the era of Antiquity from contemporary reality, when interest in the cultural and spiritual heritage of Ancient Rome and ancient Greece was revived. The onset of the Middle Ages was associated with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence on its territory of dozens of kingdoms founded by "barbarians" who did not know and did not understand the values ​​of the Roman-Hellenistic culture. Modern science has abandoned the view of the Middle Ages as a kind of "dark period" in the history of mankind. For about a thousand years of the Middle Ages, tools of labor were gradually improved in the countries of Europe, social relations and the political organization of social life changed. The changes gave an impetus to the formation of entrepreneurship, the development of manufactories and trade, which ensured the onset of the New Age - the era of European domination. Disputable in science is the question of how universal the concept of "feudalism", what are the features of the Middle Ages in the countries of the East. European historians XIX V. they still knew little about the past of the states of Asia and believed that feudal relations existed everywhere. A more fundamental study of world history in the 20th century. showed that in most countries of the East social structures, the organization of political life were very different from European ones. Each of the great civilizations of the East, where approximately 70% of the world's population lived during the European Middle Ages, had its own significant events associated with the unique features of their development. However, the events that were milestones for Europe - the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Renaissance, the discovery of the New World - had little effect on the lives of most peoples of Asia. For them, the new time came only with the beginning of the era of European colonial conquests, which disrupted the unhurried course of the historical time of the East. In recent decades, many historians, especially supporters of the theory of local civilizations, began to recognize that such concepts as the "Middle Ages", "feudalism" should be considered Eurocentric, i.e. applicable only to the history of Europe. With this in mind, modern historical piles are increasingly talking about the "European Middle Ages", "European feudalism".

The world through the eyes of a medieval European

Human XXI c., accustomed to rapid changes in life, able to reach any point of the earth’s container in less than a day or contact a subscriber on another continent by phone or even see him using the Internet in minutes, it is sometimes difficult to imagine how a medieval European perceived the world. The vast majority of the inhabitants of Europe in the early Middle Ages were peasants who lived in the same settlements from generation to generation, passing on their knowledge and skills by inheritance. It never occurred to them to doubt the correctness of the existing class orders, the right of landowners to demand the fulfillment of duties and trample crops during the hunt. There were few literate people (that is, those who could read and write in Latin), they were mostly clergy, monks and merchants. Even many feudal lords, who perfectly owned weapons, could neither read nor write. People, as a rule, had a poor idea of ​​what was happening outside their village, town, possessions - hence the huge influence of the church, which they perceived as an indestructible and omniscient higher power. Neither births nor funerals could do without priests and their blessings. If necessary, they could call to order the presumptuous seigneur, influence - what people believed - on the weather, harvest, health, posthumous fate. The Church held the secret of the Second Coming and the Last Judgment, which all Europeans feared. So, on the eve of the advent of the year 1000 from the Nativity of Christ, all the countries of Europe were seized by panic: people were convinced that this round date could not do without negative consequences. In addition, the clergy and more broadly - the church was the custodian of knowledge, including geographical knowledge, based on the works of scientists of antiquity, especially Aristotle, whose authority in the Middle Ages was indisputable. The world was presented to geographers of the Middle Ages as something like a flat disk (the guess that the Earth is round was not considered heresy, although it was doubtful) with a solid celestial sphere rotating around it, on which the Sun, Moon, stars and planets were located. European medieval maps quite accurately reflect the outlines of Europe itself and the countries of the Mediterranean, which were visited by European merchants. From ancient times, from the knowledge gained from Byzantium and the Arabs, it was known about the existence of a vast continent of Asia, such countries as India and China. However, Europeans did not have reliable information about them. There were only legends about people "with dog heads", with one leg and huge ears, about terrible barbarians who eat human flesh and live in Asia.

Pre-Columbian Civilizations of the Americas

The vast territories of North and South America during the European Middle Ages were inhabited by numerous tribal associations. Most of them lived in tribal conditions. They were hunters and gatherers. Farming and animal husbandry have become limited. At the same time, the first state formations of the Aztecs and Incas had already formed on the territory of modern Mexico and in the Andean Highlands (modern Peru). The level of their development approximately corresponded to that in ancient Egypt. During the Spanish conquest, most of the cultural monuments of the ancient American states were destroyed. One of the first civilizations about which there is reliable information is the civilization Mayan existed in V-XV centuries. on the Yucatan Peninsula. The Maya developed hieroglyphic writing, their own vigesimal counting system, created a very accurate calendar that included 365 days. The Maya did not have a single state, their civilization was made up of competing cities. The main occupations of the inhabitants of the yurods were agriculture, crafts and trade. The labor of slaves, who cultivated the fields of priests and tribal nobility, was widely used. However, communal land use prevailed, in which the slash-and-burn method of cultivating the land was used. The Mayan civilization of the Pope is a victim of wars between city-states and attacks by hostile tribes. The only Mayan city of Tah Itza that survived by the time of the Spanish conquest was destroyed by Europeans at the end of the 17th century. The most advanced civilization in North America at the time of the Spanish invasion was Aztec. Aztec union of tribes by the 15th century. conquered most of Central Mexico. The Aztecs waged constant wars with neighboring tribes in order to capture slaves. They knew how to build canals and dams, grew high yields. Their building skills, crafts (weaving, embroidery, stone carving, ceramics) were not inferior to European ones. At the same time, gold, too fragile a metal for the manufacture of weapons and tools, was valued by the Aztecs below copper and silver. Priests played a special role in Aztec society. supreme ruler, or tlacatlecuhtl , was both a high priest and a military leader. The Aztecs had polytheism, religions of salvation in America did not work out. Human sacrifices were practiced, they were considered necessary to appease the gods. According to the descriptions of the Spaniards (perhaps biased), the sacrifice of children and young girls was especially valued. In South America, the most developed state was inca, covering an area of ​​more than 1 million square meters. km with a population of more than 6 million people. The Inca civilization is one of the most mysterious. They had developed metallurgy, handicrafts, they used looms, on which they wove carpets and fabrics for clothes; the Incas built canals, dams; they grew corn and potatoes, unknown to Europeans before the discovery of America. At the same time, their trade was not developed. The Incas, like other American civilizations, did not know the wheel and did not use beasts of burden. However, they built a developed network of roads.

Arabian tribes at the beginning of a new era

Most of the Arabian Peninsula was (and is) a desert. Separate centers of agriculture and animal husbandry could exist only near a few oases. Here lived tribes of nomadic Bedouins, who VII V. many features of the tribal system were preserved. The tribe was led by the Majlis - a council consisting of the heads of families or tribal communities. Military leaders played a significant role. The tribes were often at war with each other. The struggle was for control of water sources. The aim of the wars was also the capture of slaves and livestock. At the same time, camels were especially highly valued. The first cities on the Arabian Peninsula arose in the 1st millennium BC. They were centers of crafts and trade and were on the caravan routes from North Africa to Asia, the Persian Gulf and India. By the beginning of the 7th century in Arabia, the problem of overpopulation became more and more acute. Control over trade routes passed mainly to Iran. The threat of famine, rising prices, the dominance of usurers caused massive discontent among the urban lower classes.

Rise of Islam

Founder of a new religion - Islam(word means submissive) - was Muhammad(this name means possessed by a spirit, or a prophet). He was born in 570 in Mecca, went with trade caravans, became a wealthy merchant. According to Muhammad, he often had visions of angels in white robes. In 610, the archangel Jabrail (Gabriel) appeared before him, who outlined to him the foundations of the new teaching and proclaimed Muhammad the prophet of the one God - Allah. The preaching of a new doctrine, Islam, caused indignation among the priests of Mecca. In 622, Muhammad was forced to move to the city of Yathrib (Medina). The date of his migration (hijra) is considered in Islamic countries as the starting point of the new chronology. The emerging Islamic community quickly expanded its influence. Soon, her supporters began a war with Mecca and the remaining pagan tribes. By the time of Muhammad's death in 632, all of Arabia was united by the supporters of Islam. Islamic teachings after the death of the prophet were expounded V holy book - Koran, written in poetic form. A number of sayings of Muhammad that were not included in the Qur'an were included in a special collection - Sunnah, Muslim sacred tradition, considered an addition to the Koran. Islam inherently belongs to the religions of salvation, Muslims recognize Noah, Moses and Christ as prophets. However, in prescribing to live according to the laws of righteousness, promising rewards after death, Islam differs significantly from Christianity. The external side of these differences is much more stringent requirements for the norms of a righteous life. The faithful must perform prayer (prayer or salam) five times a day, ablution, and strictly observe fasts. They are forbidden to drink wine, eat pork, and gamble. Like the Jews, they are prescribed the rite of circumcision. Women are supposed to wear a veil. Every Muslim must at least once in his life make a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, pay a special tax to help the poor.

The differences include the following: 1. Islam strictly regulated daily life. Every step of a faithful Muslim must be checked against the Koran. Sharia - a set of legal and religious norms of righteous behavior, the only source of law. Their violation is qualified not only as a moral sin before God (as in the case of disregard for Christian commandments), but also as a crime punishable by the authorities. For this reason, in the Islamic world, spiritual and secular power, church and secular courts were not distinguished. In some Muslim countries, for example, in Iran, they are still not completely demarcated. 2. Islam was a militant doctrine. When proclaiming jihad, i.e. a holy war with the infidels, participation in it was considered the duty of every Muslim; those who died in such a war, according to Islamic teachings, immediately gain eternal bliss. Philosophically and behaviorally, Islam discouraged doubt. It was originally based on fatalism (belief in predestination) and the belief that everything that happens in the world and in the life of an individual is decided by the will of the one God - Allah. 3. Islam consolidated the norms of patriarchy, assigning a subordinate role to a woman. This ensured the support of the new religion from the Arabian tribes, whose traditions of matriarchy by the time of the spread of Islam had already become obsolete.

Arab conquests

Muhammad's successors had the title caliphs(this word means viceroy, deputy) they possessed all the fullness of spiritual and secular power. Under their leadership, the Arab forces defeated the two major powers fighting for control of the Middle East - Byzantium and Iran. The Arabs conquered Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, conquered Iran, repeatedly (in 668, 673-678, 716-718) besieged Constantinople. Moving east, they reached the Amu Darya River, Northern India, Western China. In the west, they managed to conquer all of North Africa, capture most of the Iberian Peninsula, invade Gaul, but there at the Battle of Poitiers in 732. they were defeated by the Frankish knights.

The collapse of the Arab Caliphate

The huge Islamic state (at first Damascus was its capital, then Baghdad) did not remain united for long. In 750, Spain emerged as a separate caliphate. At first IX V. independent caliphates arose in Morocco, Egypt, Iran, and Central Asia.

In the possessions of the Baghdad Caliphate, as the conquerors mastered the economic structure of the conquered lands, internal contradictions began to aggravate.

Historical heritage of the Arab Caliphate

Despite the fact that the Caliphate, like other major powers of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages, was a short-lived state formation, the Arab conquests had a great influence on the development of the peoples of Eurasia.

Thanks to the spread of Islam and the Arabic language, the way of life of peoples in vast territories from West Africa to the borders of China came closer. This, in turn, contributed to the development of trade and crafts. Roads were laid on the conquered lands, irrigation facilities, water and windmills were built.

The advances in scientific and technical knowledge in the Islamic world were significant. During the conquest of Egypt, the Arabs destroyed the library in Alexandria, destroying most of the manuscripts stored in it. The conquerors considered that no other books except the Koran were needed. However, over time, the educated sections of the population turned to ancient philosophy and scientific thought. Interest in the works of Aristotle, Ptolemy and Euclid in Western Europe during the Renaissance was revived to a large extent under the influence of the Arabs. Arab scientists achieved great success in the study of history, geography, medicine, astronomy, and mathematics. The Arabs used firearms before the Europeans. At first XII V. they had the first cannons that fired stone cannonballs and explosive bombs. (Artillery appeared among Europeans only at the beginning of the 14th century.) Europe borrowed from the Arabs both the decimal system of calculation and the words associated with it - “number”, “algebra”, “alchemy”, “tariff”, etc. Arab poetry.

List of used literature

Europe is being built. There are high hopes for this. They can only be realized by taking into account historical experience: after all, Europe without history would be like a tree without roots. Today started yesterday, the future is always conditioned by the past. The past should not tie the hands of the present, but it can help it develop, staying true to tradition, and create something new, moving forward along the path of progress. Our Europe, the territory between the Atlantic, Asia and Africa, has existed for a long time: its boundaries are determined by geography, and its present shape has been shaped by history since the Greeks gave it a name that has remained unchanged to this day. The future must be based on this heritage, which has been accumulating since antiquity, if not from prehistoric times: it is thanks to it that Europe, in its unity and at the same time diversity, has incredible internal riches and amazing creative potential. .

The Rise of Europe series was founded by five publishers in different countries, publishing books in different languages: Beck (Munich), Basil Blackwell (Oxford), Critica (Barcelona), Laterza (Rome) and Shoi » (Paris). The purpose of the series is to tell about the formation of Europe and about the undeniable achievements on the path traveled, without hiding the problems inherited from the past. On the way to unification, our continent has experienced periods of disunity, conflicts and internal contradictions. We conceived this series because, in our common opinion, it is necessary for all those involved in the construction of Europe to know the past as fully as possible and to imagine the prospects for the future. Hence the name of the series. We believe that the time to write a consolidated history of Europe has not yet come. Today we offer readers the works of the best modern historians, some of them living in Europe, and some not, some have already achieved recognition, while others have not yet had time. The authors of our series address the main issues of European history, explore social life, politics, economics, religion and culture, relying, on the one hand, on the long historiographic tradition laid down by Herodotus, on the other hand, on new concepts developed in Europe in the 20th century, which profoundly transformed historical science, especially in recent decades. Thanks to the focus on clarity of presentation, these books will be available to the widest readership. .

We strive to get closer to answering the global questions that concern today's and future creators of Europe, as well as all people in the world who care about its fate: “Who are we? Where did they come from? Where we are going?"

Jacques Le Goff series compiler

Birth of Europe

Dedicated to Bronisław Geremek

Introduction

Any historical book, even if it deals with a very distant period of the past, is connected with today. This book is directly related to the current situation in Europe. I am writing it in 2002-2003, at the moment between the adoption of the single European currency and the entry into the European Union of several states of Central and Eastern Europe. It is also important that the book is published in the series "Formation of Europe": this is a joint initiative of five multilingual publishing houses, conceived as a contribution to the creation of a single cultural space. The very name of the series "Formation of Europe" reflects the desire of publishers and authors to impartially highlight the circumstances of the formation of a united Europe and thereby increase the prestige of historical truth.

This study does not claim to be comprehensive: I will not consistently consider the history of the Middle Ages and do not set myself the task of elucidating all the main issues related to the history of this period, even to some extent, and even more in detail.

Our book illustrates the thesis that the Middle Ages was the era of the birth and formation of Europe as a historical reality and concept. The Middle Ages became a decisive milestone in the history of Europe: they accounted for her birth, childhood and youth, although the people of that time did not have a desire to build a united Europe and this idea did not even occur to them. A clear idea of ​​Europe as a whole arose only with Pope Pius II (Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, who held the papal rank from 1458 to 1464). In 1458 he wrote a text entitled "Europe", followed in 1461 by "Asia". This roll call reminds us of the importance of dialogue between Europe and Asia. The idea of ​​the Middle Ages as the era of the birth of Europe was widely discussed on the eve of the Second World War and after it - during the period of intense reflection on the fate of Europe, as well as the development of economic, cultural and political projects, the implementation of which was supposed to be implemented on a European scale. The works in which the “European idea” is most clearly formulated are written by specialists in the 16th century: “Europe. The Emergence of an Idea (1957) by the Englishman Denis Hay (Hay) 1 and The History of the European Idea (1961) by the Italian Federico Chabod (Chabod) - a record of university courses 1943-1944 and 1947-1948. But the very concept of the emergence of Europe during the Middle Ages was proposed on the eve of World War II by two French historians who founded the journal Annales, from which the renewal of historiography began - Marc Bloch (Bloch) and Lucien Febvre (Febvre). M. Blok wrote: “Europe arose when the Roman Empire collapsed,” and L. Fevre picked up his thought, adding: “It is better to say that the emergence of Europe became possible when the empire came to a state of fragmentation.” In the chapter "First Lesson" of a course given at the Collège de France in 1944-1945 (L'Europe. Genèse d'une civilization. P. 44.), Lucien Fevre writes: "Throughout the Middle Ages (and the end of the Middle Ages must be attributed far advanced in modern times) the basic ideas of Christian culture, not tied to a specific soil, cruised, overcoming the conditional boundaries of patchwork kingdoms, and this powerful influence of Christianity played a role in creating a common way of thinking inherent in all Westerners, despite dividing their boundaries; this common worldview was gradually secularized, and on its basis a European consciousness was formed.

Mark Blok offers a European perspective on the Middle Ages. He first formulated these ideas at the International Congress of Historical Sciences in Oslo in 1928 in his report "A Comparative History of European Societies", which was published in the Revue de Synthesis Historique in December 1928. He then returns to this theme: "the project of teaching the comparative history of European societies" appears in his submission to the Collège de France (1934). In the same text, he writes: “The European world, just like the European one, is a product of the Middle Ages, when the integrity of the Mediterranean civilization was destroyed in one fell swoop, we note that it was very relative: at that moment, peoples who once fell under the power of Rome, and those that were not conquered by the Roman Empire. It was then that Europe was born in the usual sense of the word ... And the European world that arose then has been embraced by common trends since then” 2 .

These first contours of Europe and phenomena that anticipate the image of Europe that arose in the 18th century (the adjective européen - "European" in French appeared in 1721, and the expression à l'européenne - "European" - in 1816), nor in are in no way similar to a linear process and do not give grounds to assert that the idea of ​​a united Europe was implicitly embedded in its history or geography. To this day, Europe still needs to be built and even thought through. The past offers directions but does not dictate anything definite, so that the present, in its progressive development, is largely a matter of chance and the result of free human choice.

In this work we will try to outline those contours of Europe that took shape in the Middle Ages, as well as the events that to a greater or lesser extent changed these first outlines, although here the idea of ​​\u200b\u200ba successive process consisting of victories and retreats is not applicable.

But we will also try to prove that this time (4th-15th centuries) was the key to the development of Europe and that of all the components of the European heritage that matter today and will be no less important in the future, the medieval component is the most significant.

In the Middle Ages, in part, such real and problem-forming features of Europe were revealed, and in part formed, such as a combination of potential commonality and deep differences, a mixture of population, the separation of oppositions between West and East, North and South, the vagueness of the eastern border and the priority role of culture, which plays the role unifying beginning. In this book, we will address both what is commonly called historical facts and phenomena related to mentality. The formation of mental images, the sphere of human imagination, which developed very rapidly in the Middle Ages, is a fundamental component of the process of folding Europe both as a reality and as an idea. In reading this book, one must keep in mind from the outset that the notion of a boundary in the Middle Ages oscillates between reality and imagination. The clear boundary line drawn by the Roman frontier ramparts (limes), which stretched over vast distances, no longer existed, just as there was no clear boundary between "this world" and the other world. Jacob's ladder, along which people and angels go down and up, colliding with each other, was an ordinary sight for a medieval person. Borders in their current linear form, like many checkpoints and pillars, appeared quite late in the Middle Ages - at the time of the creation of states, and even then not everywhere. The appearance of customs during the period of economic awakening and the formation of more or less pronounced national economies will occur only at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries. The accession of Roussillon to the French Languedoc at the end of the 13th century, the conflicts between Catalan merchants, the king of Aragon and the king of Mallorca due to increased duties on Catalan goods in the port of Collioure (which became the most remote point of the French Mediterranean after the annexation of Roussillon) show how gradually, through such clashes , the formation of borders took place in the Middle Ages. Medievalists, not without reason, abandoned the American concept of the border developed by the historian Turner for the Far West, since it does not apply to European history: researchers emphasize that in the Middle Ages, until its late period, when the formation of states began, borders were a meeting place and confrontations, but, in addition, also a zone of exchange and mixing, on the basis of which Charlemagne at the beginning of the 9th century will introduce border districts (marks) - and it is difficult to overestimate their importance for the Middle Ages. The March, as Jean-Francois Lemarignier has shown, had a special significance for the institution of feudalism: there an influential vassal swore allegiance to his lord 3 , and it can even be said that these fuzzy and open pseudo-boundaries favored the mixing of European peoples. As for the rivers, which often played the role of borders, they were rather not “fluid walls”, but rather a meeting place on neutral territory for the powerful of this world (for example, the Holy Roman Emperor and the King of France). The kingdom of western Francia, and then France, was bordered on the eastern side by four rivers: the Scheldt, Meuse, Saone and Rhone. Daniel Nordman (Nordman) drew attention to the fact that the chronicler Froissart, who in his 14th century was the most “European” in spirit of all chroniclers, most often uses the word “mark” to denote what we call the border, and “border » (frontière) leaves to mark the front line in a war.

Before setting out to look for Europe in the Middle Ages, we note that both in those times and in later times it was also designated by other names. As we have seen and will see again and again, Europe was a concept opposed to Asia and, more broadly, to the East. Therefore, the term "West" can refer to an area that roughly coincides with Europe. And although this use of the term “West” was not very common in the Middle Ages, it was reinforced in the minds of people by the division of Christendom 4 into the Byzantine Empire and the Latin Christendom, which followed from the division of the Roman Empire into East and West. The grandiose caesura, the gap between Eastern and Western Europe, which had been felt since the time of the Roman Empire, received a new justification in the Middle Ages - it was a linguistic, religious and political gap. The "Western" character of Latin Christian Europe, which determined the foundations of Europe today, was emphasized by a theory proposed by several Christian intellectuals in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It was the idea of ​​moving the center of power and culture from east to west: translatio imperii, translatio studii, which corresponded to the transfer of power from the Byzantine Empire to the German Empire and the transfer of knowledge from Athens and Rome to Paris. This movement of culture to the West certainly played a role in shaping the view of the superiority of Western European culture, which was held by many Europeans of the following centuries.

Contrary to popular belief, these ideas did not originate in the first centuries of Christianity. Of course, in the era of Charlemagne, they spoke of the Christian empire, but the concept of "Christianity" would begin to be used to refer to the territory that would become the prototype of Europe only during the Christian conquests of the 11th century, after the introduction of reforms that would be called Gregorian, when the famous Cluniac Order 5 and the ideology of the Crusades will be born. The expression "Christendom" can lead to some confusion. No one denies the fundamental role of Christianity in the creation of Europe and in the formation of a unique European consciousness. Even after the spread of Enlightenment ideas and secular views in Europe, the Christian basis, overtly or covertly, continues to play a major role. Christianity, however, was only a very significant and long episode in a history that began before the advent of Christianity and continues in parallel with its decline. Let us also note, in order to show the relativity of all names, that in the era of the Crusades, Muslims called all Christians Franks, and Christians, in turn, used the word "Saracens" - the name of one of the Arab tribes, which the Byzantines, and after them people from the West applied to all Muslims. Still in use were such names as "dark-faced" (noirauds), or "Moors", from the word morisco, which the Spaniards called Muslims.

If, however, we want, as the title of the book says, to speak of Europe, then the history of the word "Europe" itself should be clarified, since historians, like medieval clerics, believe that a phenomenon is determined by its name. This is shown in Genesis; however, it is impossible not to notice that even the names that seemed to be the most unshakable, eventually fell into disuse - it follows that the persons and the realities that they denoted were also, in a sense, transient.

The medieval period is usually called the time interval between the New and Old eras. Chronologically, it fits into the framework from the end of the 5th-6th to the 16th (sometimes inclusive) centuries. In turn, the Middle Ages is divided into three periods. These are, in particular: early, high (middle) and late era (beginning of the Renaissance). Next, consider how the medieval

general characteristics

In terms of the volume of events that have one or another significance for cultural life, the XIV-XVI centuries are considered separate, independent periods. The degree of heritability of the characteristic features of the previous stages was different. Its medieval Central and Eastern parts, as well as some territories of Oceania, Asia and Indonesia, have retained elements characteristic of the Ancient period. Settlements of the territory of the Balkan Peninsula strove for a rather intense trend. Other European countries also adhered to the same trend: in the south of Spain and France. At the same time, they tend to turn to the past, preserving the rudiments of the achievements of previous generations in certain areas. If we talk about the south and southeast, then the development here was based on traditions formed back in Roman times.

"Cultural Colonization"

This process spread to some medieval ones. There were quite a few ethnic groups whose culture strictly adhered to the framework of antiquity, but they sought to attach them to the religion dominant in many other territories. So, for example, it was with the Saxons. The Franks tried to force them to join their - Christian - culture. The same applies to other tribes that retained polytheistic beliefs. But the Romans, when seizing lands, never tried to force the people to accept a new faith. Cultural colonization was accompanied from the 15th century by the aggressive policy of the Dutch, Portuguese, Spaniards, and later other states that seized territories.

nomadic tribes

The history of medieval Europe, at an early stage in particular, was filled with captivity, wars, destruction of settlements. At this time, the movement of nomadic tribes was actively taking place. Medieval Europe experienced the Great Migration of Nations. In the course of it, the distribution of ethnic groups took place, which settled in certain regions, displacing or uniting with the nationalities that already existed there. As a result, new symbioses and social contradictions were formed. So, for example, it was in Spain, which was captured by Muslim Arabs in the VIII century AD. In this regard, the history of Medieval Europe was not much different from Ancient.

State formation

Medieval developed quite rapidly. In the early period, many small and large states were formed. The largest was the Frankish. The Roman region of Italy also became an independent state. The rest of Medieval Europe broke up into many large and small principalities, which were only formally subordinate to the kings of larger entities. This, in particular, applies to the British Isles, Scandinavia and other lands that are not part of the big states. Similar processes also took place in the eastern part of the world. So, for example, on the territory of China at different times there were about 140 states. Together with the imperial power, there was also feudal power - the owners of the fiefs had, among other things, the administration, the army, and in some cases even their own money. As a result of this fragmentation, wars were frequent, self-will was clearly manifested, and the state was generally weakened.

culture

Medieval developed very heterogeneously. This was reflected in the culture of that period. There were several directions of development in this area. In particular, there are such subcultures as urban, peasant, knightly. The development of the latter was carried out by the feudal lords. Artisans and merchants should be attributed to urban (burgher) culture.

Activities

Medieval Europe lived mainly on subsistence farming. In certain regions, however, there is an unequal pace of development and involvement in certain types of activities. For example, nomadic peoples who settled on lands previously developed by other peoples began to engage in agriculture. However, the quality of their work and the subsequent results of their activities were much worse than those of the indigenous population.

In the early period, Medieval Europe experienced a process of deurbanization. During it, residents from the destroyed large settlements moved to the countryside. As a result, the townspeople were forced to move on to other activities. Everything necessary for life was produced by peasants, except for metal products. Plowing of the land was almost universally carried out either by the people themselves (they harnessed to the plow), or with the use of cattle - bulls or cows. From the IX-X centuries, the clamp began to be used. Thanks to this, they began to harness the horse. But these animals were in very small numbers. Until the 18th century, peasants used a plow and a wooden shovel. Quite rarely it was possible to meet and windmills began to appear in the XII century. Famine was a constant companion of that period.

Socio-political development

Land ownership of the initial periods was distributed among the communities of peasants, the church and the feudal lords. Gradually there was an enslavement of people. The lands of free peasants began to join, under one pretext or another, to the plots of church or secular feudal lords living with them on the same territory. As a result, by the 11th century, economic and personal dependence flourished to varying degrees almost everywhere. For the use of the plot, the peasant had to give 1/10 of everything produced, grind bread at the master's mill, work in workshops or on arable land, and take part in other works. In the event of a military danger, he was charged with protecting the land of the owner. The serfdom of Medieval Europe was abolished in different regions at different periods. The dependent peasants in France were the first to be freed in the 12th century - at the beginning of the Crusades. Since the 15th century, peasants in England have become free. This happened in connection with the fencing of the land. In Norway, for example, the peasants were not dependent.

Trade

Market relations were either exchange (commodity for commodity) or financial (commodity-money). For different cities there was a different weight of silver in coins, different purchasing power. Large feudal lords could mint money, those who took out a patent for minting. Due to the lack of systematic trade, fairs began to develop. As a rule, they were timed to coincide with certain religious holidays. Large markets were formed under the walls of the prince's castle. Merchants organized themselves into guilds and conducted foreign and domestic trade. Around that time, the Hanseatic League was formed. It became the largest organization uniting the merchants of a number of states. By 1300, it included more than 70 cities between Holland and Livonia. They were divided into 4 sections.

At the head of each region was a large city. They had connections with smaller settlements. In the cities there were warehouses, hotels (merchants stayed in them), and sales agents. Development in material and cultural terms was promoted to a certain extent

Technical progress

During the period under review, it had an exclusively quantitative character. This can also be attributed to China, which has stepped far ahead of Europe. However, any improvement met with two official obstacles: the guild charter and the church. The latter imposed bans in accordance with ideological considerations, the former because of the fear of competition. In the cities, artisans were united in workshops. Organizing outside of them was impossible for several reasons. Shops distributed material, quantity of products, places for sale. They also determined and strictly controlled the quality of the goods. The workshops monitored the equipment on which production was carried out. The charter regulated both free time and work time, clothing, holidays and much more. Technology was kept in the strictest confidence. If they were recorded, then only in cipher and passed exclusively to relatives by inheritance. Often, however, technology remained a mystery to future generations.

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MEDIEVAL CIVILIZATIONS OF EUROPE AND THE EAST D/W: notes in a notebook

Lesson plan: What is the Middle Ages? Transition to the Middle Ages. Senior system. Cities in Medieval Society. Estate society.

What is the Middle Ages? The terms "Middle Ages", "Middle Ages" first appeared in the vocabulary of the Italian Renaissance humanists. In the 17th century the term "Middle Ages" entered the periodization of world history and became one of the generally accepted in history, philosophy, sociology. In the era of the Middle Ages, periods are distinguished: 1. V -X centuries. - barbarism 2. XI - XIII centuries. - the heyday of the Middle Ages 3. XIV - XV centuries. - decline of the Middle Ages

Transition to the Middle Ages In the Middle Ages, Europe came to the forefront of the history of the West. Two worlds stood at the cradle of the Middle Ages: Greco-Roman (antique) civilization and the world of barbarian (Germanic, Celtic, Slavic) peoples. The processes of the formation of medieval society in Northern Gaul, where the Frankish state existed, are best studied.

Transition to the Middle Ages The Frankish state of the Merovingian era. Until the 7th century His life was dominated by the phenomena of regression: the population decreased; the old Roman cities fell into decay; many achievements of ancient culture and crafts were lost; The Roman system of government was practically destroyed. The state created by the king of the Franks Clovis belonged to the type of states that historians call barbarian kingdoms: the king looked at the state subject to him as a personal possession, which he had the right to divide, bequeath, donate; there was no state administration apparatus; the court was carried out in accordance with the norms of customary law.

Transition to the Middle Ages New phenomena in the life of the Franks: the agrarianization of economic and social life (the village became its center), the strengthening of the role of the peasant economy in agricultural production, the growth of large land ownership of the nobility, the strengthening of its power over the peasantry, the increase in the political role of the church, which very successfully solved the problem of Christianization barbarian peoples (the first to adopt Christianity in its orthodox form were the Franks in 496).

Transition to the Middle Ages In 800, Pope Leo III crowned the King of the Franks Charlemagne with the imperial crown, the Frankish state was proclaimed an empire. Having been crowned in Rome and having received the crown from the hands of the head of the church, Charlemagne, the king of the Franks, became a symbol of the unity of German traditions, the Roman imperial past and Christian principles. Charlemagne, as a result of long wars, created a huge power.

Transition to the Middle Ages The existence of the Carolingian state was the period of the formation of a number of institutions of the Middle Ages: with the system of dependence of peasants on the big nobility; beneficiaries are distributed; the practice of granting immunities, which turned the landowner into an independent ruler in their lands, is becoming increasingly widespread.

Transition to the Middle Ages In its main features, the cultural and historical type inherent in medieval civilization is taking shape: the efforts of the figures of the Carolingian Renaissance; ancient cultural heritage; Christian doctrine; traditions of the Germanic peoples MEDIEVAL CULTURE OF EUROPE

Senior system The agrarian system of medieval Europe in its main features took shape in the 11th - 13th centuries. Land was considered the main value. LAND HOLDING SENIORIA FEOD

Senior system Peasants did not own land, this was recognized as a privilege of the ruling class. They only used the land, performing certain duties in favor of its owner (monetary rent, dues in kind, corvée). But serfdom, according to a number of historians, the Western European Middle Ages did not know. Moreover, since the XIII century. (and in some places even from the 12th century) the process of liberation of the peasants began, who redeemed the most difficult duties and gained personal freedom. Dependency forms LAND PERSONAL

Seignioral system Relations between peasants and landowners were maintained within the framework of seigneuries. The lord, within the limits of his possessions, was a kind of sovereign, having administrative, police and judicial power in relation to the population of the lordship. In the XI - XII centuries. the landowner, as a rule, had his own farm (domain), the land of which was cultivated by the corvée labor of the peasants. From the 13th century the domain disappears, the land is rented out, the so-called pure seigneury arises. Along with the lordship, there was a peasant community.

The seigneurial system The land feud was one of the elements of vassal-feudal relations that determined the structure of the dominant military estate - chivalry.

Cities in Medieval Society In terms of size, wealth and population, the cities of medieval Europe were inferior to the urban centers of the East.

Cities in Medieval Society The political significance of the medieval city: to the communal movement (the struggle for liberation from all forms of seignioral dependence); self management; the formation of a special urban estate - the burghers (personal freedom, rights, jurisdiction of the city court, participation in self-government).

Cities in the Medieval Society The economic significance of the medieval city: the city is the center of the craft (guild organization); the city is a center of trade (in the XIII - XIV centuries Europe knew such phenomena as a bank, a bill of exchange, an exchange, a loan, property insurance)

Estate society The social structure of the Middle Ages was represented by a system of personal (hereditary) and estate (determined by a set of certain rights and privileges) statuses and conditions. It was not economic differences that were decisive, but legal, legal barriers.

Class society Society was conceived as an integral organism, the individual parts of which are interconnected and all together ensure the viability of the whole. The contradiction between the ideal ideas about the social harmony of estates and the real relations between them is obvious.

Class society “Men who are evil and rude sharpen their teeth at the nobility. Only beggars love me. I love to see the people starving, undressed, suffering, not warmed” - this is just one of the extreme expressions of the feelings of chivalry in relation to the peasants. “If I hadn’t sowed grain, I wouldn’t have dug a garden, your noble family would have died of hunger long ago,” the peasant says to the stunned knight in one of the German ballads.

Class society Hostility sometimes splashed out. XIV - XV centuries. presented a picture of an endless series of powerful peasant uprisings: the French Jacquerie (1358); Wat Tyler's rebellion in England (1381); the Dolcino uprising in Italy (1304-1307); Hussite wars in Bohemia (1419-1437); uprising of the Tuschens in France and Tukins in Italy; performances of the Remens in Spain; the banner of the "Shoe", raised in Germany.

Class society The corporate spirit triumphed in the class society. The individual existed only as part of a more or less broad social community built on the principles of corporate isolation and isolation: The peasant belonged to the community. The knighthood was a military corporation. The urban estate of the burghers was also formed on corporate principles. Corporate principles also determined the position of the clergy.