THE low middle age is the final period of Middle Ages that stretched from the 11th to the 15th century. The Low Middle Ages were a time of many changes in Europe due to advances in agriculture and urban and population growth. It was the height of feudalism, but also when this system fell into decay..
Understanding the Middle Ages split
The Middle Ages is a period that extended from 476 to 1453, according to the temporal division made by historians. This division was carried out using modern criteria and has didactic purposes.
With regard to the Middle Ages, historians established that the period was divided into two phases, which are:
High Middle Ages: from the 5th to the 10th century;
low middle age: from the 11th to the 15th century.
Accessalso: Economy in the Middle Ages: commercial renaissance and functioning
Features
The Europe of the Late Middle Ages is a continent in continual transformation, although changes happened slowly. Still, it is important to establish some characteristics regarding the period, and the most important concept, in this sense, without a doubt, is the feudalism.
Historians have established that the classical period of feudalism extended from the 11th to 13th century. After that, this system that structured medieval society began to weaken, and Europe began to take on new characteristics.
It is important that we establish that feudalism is not exclusively an economic system, but a key concept that encompasses issues involving social division, political organization, current ideology, popular culture, etc.
Accessalso:The importance of the figure of the merchant in the Middle Ages
In this concept, the fief it is one of the places of importance, but there is not only it. It is also necessary to remember the villages and churches, for example. Focusing on the economic aspect, feudalism established the way that society produced wealth and how labor relations worked.
The manors were the lands of nobles, obtained by family wealth or by donation from the king. It was from this land that a nobleman took his wealth, and this happened through the exploitation of peasant labor. The nobles allowed the peasants to settle in their fief, offering them land to work and protection. In return, the peasants paid various taxes to the feudal lord.
This working relationship between peasant and noble was known as bondage, and one of the most important marks of this relationship is that the peasant was earthbound. He had a series of obligations to be fulfilled, which included paying taxes by giving up part of their production and working for free for their feudal lord.
This relationship of exploitation that existed between the feudal lord and the noble was justified within feudalism by the ideology produced by the Catholic church. Among the ways in which the Church delimited society and justified its inequalities, the best known was carried out by Adalberon of Laon, when he claimed that servants got nothing without suffering and that it was part of the house of God.|1|
Until a certain point in the late Middle Ages, European society was seen within a tripartite scheme. There were three classes: the nobles, O clergy and the servants (peasants). One of the great marks of this social division was the difficulty in ascending socially, since the child of a peasant would also be a peasant.
As Europe underwent transformations, this form of social identification was replaced by a much more complex one that saw society divided into various social classes.
technical innovations
The Low Middle Ages were marked by a period of technical advances, which happened in the agriculture the most outstanding. In the Low Middle Ages, a series of practices was popularized that were probably already used in the High Middle Ages, but on a small scale. The main ones were the use of the plow and of the moldboard iron, improving the plow and soil preparation for planting, and a three-year rotation system of soil much more efficient than the biennial.
These improvements may seem simple these days, but at the time they were crucial and enabled a significant increase in productivity agricultural. It is estimated that the average yield has gone from 1 or 2 grains per planted seed to 3 or 4 grains.
This guaranteed an important food surplus and allowed the European population to take a considerable leap during the Late Middle Ages. Population increase is also related to improvement in the climate European during much of that period and the little spread of epidemics.
Accessalso:Catharism: one of the greatest existing heresies in medieval Europe
Growth of commerce and cities
Population growth directly reflected in the growth of cities, from the eleventh century, throughout Western Europe. Since that century, the number of people who have risked moving to cities in order to prosper financially has increased considerably. Serfs fleeing serfdom and some nobles interested in investing in commerce are important groups that have driven this growth. If you are curious about this topic, read our text: evolution of the medieval city.
The growth of cities was directly related to an economic activity that was at a low throughout the High Middle Ages: commerce. O commercial renaissance is the result, in part, of the opening of the Orient by the Crusades, which enabled the entry of luxury goods into Europe. With the improvement in agricultural production, it was also possible to sell what was left of it.
The growth of trade gave rise to two major trade routes, one led by the Italians in the Mediterranean and the other by the Germans and known as the Hanseatic League. The development of commerce spread fairs across Europe, many of which were fixed on the outskirts of cities. Want to know more about this topic? Read our text: Commercial and urban renaissance.
Remarkable events
The Low Middle Ages were marked by several important events. One of them was the consolidation of the national state and of the monarchies European countries. The feudal system fell into decay, as the kings began to invest in the centralization of power and established a bureaucracy to assist them in their reign.
Before the process of centralization of power and the emergence of national states, the Crusades — military campaigns carried out by the Christian nations of Europe against the Muslims who dominated Palestine. There were a number of interests behind them:
Unification of Catholicism under the command of the Church of Rome;
Economic opening from the East to Europe;
Concentration of the growing violence of the European nobility towards a common enemy.
With regard to the Church, the following can still be highlighted: o Great Schism of 1054, which marked the definitive break between the Church of Rome and Constantinople, and the establishment of the Court of the Holy Inquisition, which aimed to combat heresies in Western Europe. The Inquisition was instituted in 1232 by the Pope Gregory IX.
Accessalso: War of the Roses: The Major Conflict that Divided England in the 15th Century
14th century crisis
The end of the Middle Ages (and, consequently, of the Low Middle Ages) had as a precursor event the big crisis that affected Europe in the 14th century. This century was marked by cropsbad, that caused mass hunger, and also by wars - a Hundred Years War is the most symbolic — and peasant revoltsit's from urban workers.
The great catastrophic event of the period was the Black Plague, an outbreak of bubonic plague that hit Europe in 1348 and spread rapidly across the continent. There were cycles of bubonic plague in several years in the 14th century, as in 1360-62, 1366-69 and 1374-75. The result of the Black Death was the death of 1/3 of Europe.
Grades
|1| JUNIOR, Hilário Franco. the Middle Ages: birth of the West. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 2006, p. 89.
Image credits
piotrbb and Shutterstock
