The Collapse of the Carolingian Empire and the Rise of Feudal Society

THE POST-ROMAN WEST and THE CRUSADING MOVEMENT HIST 1301 | History The Collapse of the Carolingian Empire and the Rise of Feudal Society The empire of Charlemagne was short-lived. Louis the Pious, the emperor's son who carried on the academic revival and actively participated in church reform, succeeded him. Louis gave Benedict the power to reform all monasteries in the Frankish empire by promoting the strict observance of rules about what monks could eat, as well as when and how they should work and pray. Benedict was one of the church hierarchy's members, along with the monk Benedict of Aniane, who felt that both spiritual and administrative matters had declined. The Irish monks, who carried with them their elegantly reproduced volumes of classical literature and their austere type of religious observance, served as an inspiration to the carolingian reformers. Thus, the reform of the monasteries contributed to the preservation of classical education and Carolingian cultural advancements. Although Louis's academic and theological endeavours had an impact, the Carolingian state's shortcomings hindered him. Soldiers turned away from him in search of fame and treasure because he was not seen as the formidable warrior his father had been. During his lifetime, his sons revolted against him because they were anxious to reign. They ultimately compelled him to abdicate, and in 843 they signed the Treaty of Verdun, which divided the empire among them based on the idea of partible inheritance. The Frankish empire was divided into three kingdoms: the Kingdom of the West Franks, which was located west of the Rhine, the Kingdom of the East Franks, which was located east of the Rhine, and Lotharingia, a midway territory that contained Italy. The compromise was unacceptable to Louis's sons, and their desire for additional property to compensate their supporters guaranteed future fighting. Their own sons faced smaller possessions once they died, and the kingdoms' stability deteriorated due to an ever-growing necessity for war. Thus, the plans of Charlemagne and Louis to restore the Roman Empire under the leadership of Germanic kings as a Christian state failed. External issues, particularly those of new invaders emboldened by the fall of Carolingian might, exacerbated these internal ones. The Magyars, a non-Germanic race who moved from the steppes of central Asia, were nomadic raiders who arrived from the east. They arrived in what is now Hungary towards the close of the ninth century, and from there they proceeded to invade Germany, causing much destruction and looting. At the Battle of Lechfeld, only in 955, did the German monarch Otto the Great succeed in subduing the Magyars. Petty kings from the south raided the suddenly vulnerable ports of Christian Europe as a result of the political unity in Islam breaking apart. In the ninth century, North African dynasties such as the Aghlabids advanced into Sicily, and by 846, Islamic invaders had pillaged churches situated on the periphery of Rome. Vikings were a group of Norsemen that invaded northern Europe from Scandinavia. They are maybe more well-known today than the Magyars and Islamic invaders. Speaking Germanic languages, the Germanic peoples of Scandinavia shared a culture with the Germanic peoples who colonised the Roman Empire. Scandinavians, for instance, practiced polytheism and worshipped gods like Odin and Freyja, who were derived from older Germanic gods like Frigg and Wodan. Polygyny was practiced by the nobility, who had several spouses. The chieftains of the area gave presents and territories to their supporters. As the population grew in the ninth century, groups of Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes were forced to migrate in pursuit of loot due to Scandinavia's relative lack of fertile land. Some travelled eastward, making commercial ties along the Dnieper River with their shallow-draught ships (ships that could negotiate rivers), and settled at Kiev, which later became one of the earliest Russian republics. When they arrived in Constantinople, a few of them worked as the Byzantine emperor's personal guards. Known as Varangians, these Vikings made their home in eastern Europe. Despite their aggressive nature, they were also traders who aimed to establish new trade routes and contacts outside of western Europe. The Norse raiders' presence in the west was not so welcome. Small parties of them were able to go far upriver, surprise communities, destroy them, and disappear before organised opposition could be formed. Not only were churches and monasteries prime targets for their looting, but their lack of defences also made them vulnerable. The renowned centre of learning, the monastery of Lindisfarne, was destroyed by Vikings in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Although clergy writers may have exaggerated their reputation for cruelty, the people of western Europe was terrified by the unexpected and brutal character of their invasions and the incapacity of Frankish or Anglo-Saxon forces to overcome them. The Norse invaders eventually stopped only raiding areas and started to establish themselves there. With the exception of Wessex, the most of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were destroyed when a sizable Viking force attacked Britain in 865. They established the duchy of Normandy in 911 after migrating to northern France. Vikings had also settled farther west in Iceland and Greenland, further south in Ireland and Scotland, and even (albeit temporarily) in North America by the end of the eleventh century. They were more than simply raiders; they also developed trade links to the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate, expanding their reach over northern Europe. They gradually became Roman Christians, just like the previous Germanic peoples, and their monarchs started to establish more centralised kingdoms, which allowed them to put an end to the raiders' bloodshed. Their conversion did not entail a complete renunciation of their preexisting customs and culture. Images of Norse mythological heroes and villains adorned early Scandinavian churches. The continuity of cultural interchange between Germanic peoples and Greek and Roman civilizations, which laid the groundwork for mediaeval society, is shown in this overlap of tradition and invention. A social structure known as feudalism, which was characterised by unequal relationships and arose from the fundamental desire for security, was adopted by mediaeval Europe in the wake of the Carolingian realm. Lords started giving fighters land as their fiefs, whose product the warriors might enjoy as long as they served the lord, in an effort to defend their domains and their peasants. As for the combatants, they pledged to serve the lord in return for the land, and they became vassals of him. Although the primary duty of this service was military in character, it may also have involved giving advice to the lord and appearing at his court as needed. The same was true of bishoprics and monasteries; abbots and abbesses might be lords who owed duty to higher lords as well as to themselves. Feudalism was not a political system, but warriors had a duty to serve their lords, who in turn had a duty to serve the monarch, who was, in principle, the kingdom's greatest landowner and the protector of rights and privileges. For instance, the late Carolingian ruler Charles the Simple gave the Viking commander Rollo the Duchy of Normandy in exchange for Rollo defending northern France from other Vikings. But in order to appease their feudal lords, monarchs had to provide lands and privileges, which frequently made them weaker and motivated them to find methods to make the most of their resources. For example, they would think of favourable marriages where the women were supposed to provide dowries of property or money. In other instances, regaining necessary land included subduing dissident vassals. The warriors managed agricultural labourers on their fiefs. While some labourers in western Europe may be self-sufficient and landowners, the majority were enslaved to the land and considered serfs. Although they could not be purchased or sold and were not held as slaves, they were at the bottom of the social scale, subject to physical violence at the hands of their master, obliged to work and produce commodities for him, and seldom possessed any rights that a lord was required to recognise. Even though the serfs were at the time the greatest social class in European civilization, there were still all these restrictions. It was the lord's responsibility to oversee the serfs' labour, settle their conflicts, and provide protection. Serfs could not leave the land, get married, or perform other tasks without their lord's consent. They also owed their master a fixed number of days of duty each year, which were many. Serfs and other forms of servile, unfree labourers were gathered into villages under manorialism, also known as the manor system, so called because of the manor house that the master lived in. This allowed the labour of the workers to be cooperative. They shared draft animals and farming tools to grow and harvest crops while they managed both their own and their lord's property. Close to their dwellings, women cared for tiny cattle and vegetable plots. While coastal cities frequently kept in touch with one another through networking or commerce, western European culture was predominately rural, with most production occurring at the subsistence level. People produced just what they intended to eat, with any excess going to the church or the lord as a required tax known as the tithe, which is typically 10%. The Middle Ages' political and economic landscape was shaped by this web of social duties and relationships between lords and monarchs, as well as between serfs and their masters. By the ninth century, most people had forgotten about the ancient Roman Empire, but mediaeval monarchs and nobles had reshaped and reinterpreted the concept in order to justify and forward their own agendas. A brand-new civilization built on a synthesis of Germanic, Christian, and Roman customs started to take shape.