low middle age was a specific period of Middle Ages which extended from eleventh to fifteenth century. In it, Western Europe witnessed the peak of the feudalism but also its decay and the emergence of a new order. The Late Middle Ages are known as a century of crisis that marked the end of medieval Europe—although many medieval features persisted in the centuries that followed.
Periodization
It is important to mention that the definition of a Low Middle Age is a creation of modern historians, who agreed to divide it into two major periods, which are:
High Middle Ages: 5th to 10th century;
low middle age: 11th to 15th century.
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Features
The Low Middle Ages are considered the period of peak of feudalism in the medieval. This apex took place between the 11th and 13th centuries, being the period before that of formation, and the later, of decay and shaping of a new political, economic and social organization in Western Europe.
O feudalism is, therefore, the basic concept to understand the functioning of European society in the Low Middle Ages. This concept doesn't just refer to your economic sense of land exploitation by peasants/servants, bound to it by the relationship between them and the feudal lord. Feudalism involves aspects far beyond the economic, which are: political, social and ideological.
Within this structure, the manorsare the most important place. In a ruralized world, in which land exploitation was the main form of survival, population concentration it happened in them. The fiefs were lands of nobles deriving from family wealth or loyalty to the king.
Thus, the main sites of the Low Middle Ages were: the manor, which included the castle, lands and facilities, and the Forest, from which firewood was taken and animals were hunted, for example. In this period, two common places, in addition to those mentioned, were: the villages (formed during the High Middle Ages) and the church.
The peasant established in the manor had a relation ofbondage with the feudal lord and could not leave the land. The position of the feudal lord was hereditary, therefore, passed on to his children, and the peasant had to reimburse him for the right to use the land and facilities on it. The feudal lord's right to own and exploit the land and to collect taxes from the peasants installed there came from the vassal relationship that he had with the king.
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The king's vassal relationship with his nobles arose in the eighth century, in the Carolingian Empire. In it, the king ceded part of his territory to the nobles and, in return, received their loyalty, who guaranteed to help him in the administration of the empire. In times of war, these nobles made their troops available to defend the kingdom.
In the social sphere, this period was not very different from the High Middle Ages, as the three major social groups were the nobility, formed by kings and nobles; O clergy, formed by representatives of the Church; and the peasants, for the most part, serfs who worked in the lands that belonged to the nobility. It was a societystatus, that is, marked by little social ascension.
The Low Middle Ages, in turn, began to witness significant social changes, especially from the 12th century onwards, when the urban population started to grow. Gradually, cities turned against the feudalization process and generated the possibility of the emergence of new social groups, such as the bourgeoisie.
This was a period of great change, and these transformations were responsible for paving the way for the end of the medieval period. The Low Middle Ages were a time of urban and commercial growth, consolidation of the power of kings, formation of National States, emergence of national languages, etc.
big transformations
The Low Middle Ages had great transformations. Let's understand some of them.
Population growth
It is true that, since the eighth century, Europe was undergoing a demographic recovery, but this population growth was accentuated from the Low Middle Ages onwards.
The historian Hilário Franco Júnior considers four factors to explain the population increase in the period. First, the little action of disease epidemics; second, the concentrated character of wars; third, the fact that the climate, during the Low Middle Ages, was milder compared to the High Middle Ages; and room, the technical innovations that ensured an increase in productivity|1|.
The result of this was that, by the end of the 13th century, the population in Western Europe was over 50 million people, while at the end of the century (or the High Middle Ages), it was more than 22 million people. This increase also kicked off a series of changes on the continent|2|.
agricultural improvements
The population increase is also explained by the aforementioned increase in agricultural productivity. Using better techniques for agricultural production helps us understand why this happened. Highlights go to the use of the metal plow it's from draft animals, who made a better soil preparation, and the implementation of the three-year rotation system, that guaranteed long-term soil fertility.
Another important point is that the climate changes they allowed the use of soil that was previously impossible to cultivate, such as marshy regions. Many of them dried up as the average temperature in Europe increased. The improvement in production ensured the population increase, which, in turn, allowed more labor to be devoted to agriculture.
Rebirth of commerce and urban
![The growth of commerce has caused trade fairs to take place on the outskirts of major European cities. [1]](/f/f643fdd14cd8cd972bee0c4567576ec4.jpg)
The increase in productivity guaranteed the existence of a surplus that could be commercialized, and this allowed the renaissance of commerce in Europe. Little by little, this activity was consolidated through the formation of fairs, and as it progressed, trade routes were created in northern Europe and the Mediterranean regions.
The commercial renaissance was directly related to the Rebirthurban. This happened because many peasants began to move to the cities to escape the bonds of serfdom that existed in the manors. As commerce developed, merchants settled in the outskirts of cities, initially with temporary fairs, which later became fixed and became an annex to the cities — youboroughs.
Commerce in Europe gained the definitive boost with the beginning of Crusades at the end of the 11th century. The sending of soldiers to the East and the migration of thousands of people desirous of settling in the "Holy Land" opened up the entire eastern market, whose goods were considered luxurious by Europe Western.
It is also important to consider that urban growth guaranteed the emergence of a new social class: the bourgeois, inhabitant of the village — annex of the city consolidated as part of it by the settlement of merchants. Newcrafts emerged and consolidated into corporations of trade, organizations that brought together people who practiced the same activity.
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political centralization
One of the most significant changes in the period was the centralization of power, and this we understand as the strengthening of the king's position and the formation of the national states, ruled by monarchies. The strengthening of the king's position came as feudal and vassal relations weakened.
In this process, kings fought and punished lords who disobeyed their orders or who did not fulfill their obligations as vassals. This strengthening guaranteed the existence of royal dynasties and resulted in the consolidation of the territories of these dynasties, giving rise to what we know as the National State.
In the case of the consolidation of the king's power, we can use as examples the cases of England and France. In the French case, at the end of the tenth century, the power was consolidated. Capetian dynasty, who, little by little, fought the feudal lords, taking their land for themselves and carrying out the legal unification of France. This turned the king's power into the force of law throughout the territory.
In the case of England, the starting point was the conquest of the region by the Normans, in 1066. Through an administrative structure formed by bureaucrats, the English king managed to expand his control over all territories in the country. A political crisis in the thirteenth century, however, created some barriers to the complete centralization of royal power.
Know more:Norman invasions - carried out by the Vikings in the region of the kingdom of the Franks
As the kings strengthened their position and their monarchies were consolidated, the national territory was being established. With that, bureaucratic structures emerged to govern these kingdoms, and thus specialists were appointed to handle matters relating to finances, tax collection, troop training national etc. Thus, the structure of a modern state.
14th century crisis
All these transformations brought the Middle Ages to its height, but they also called for its end. O 14th century it is marked by numerous crises that reinforced the decay of feudalism and enabled the emergence of new structures for European society, economy and politics.
First, the increase in temperature (present in much of the Low Middle Ages) gave rise to a cooling that affected productivity as a whole. This resulted in cycles of cropsbad that generated high food prices and thousands of people dying from hunger.
Hunger, combined with social inequality, motivated rebellions of workers poor everywhere. Both in the countryside and in the cities, the poor rebelled. The most significant cases took place in cities because of their stagnation caused by the large number of unemployed and high prices.
This led to riots in big cities in different parts of Europe. Paris, London and Florence, three of Europe's biggest cities, witnessed major popular uprisings. Small and medium-sized cities also had rebellions, and places like Belgium, France, Italy and Germany suffered from them.
The 14th century crisis was still hit by the catastrophe that was the Black Plague. In that century, an outbreak of bubonic plague brought in from Central Asia hit Europe pandemicly. The outbreak in this last continent began in 1348 and returned, from years to years, acting in a fulminant manner. It is estimated that the population fall in Europe was 1/3, and historian Jacques Le Goff estimated that in England 70% of the population died from this disease|3|.
The 14th century was also known for wars that contributed to the worsening of the situation on the continent. These wars brought an increase in the death toll, which further reduced agricultural production and contributed to the spread of the plague. They were both external, like the Hundred Years War, as internal, mainly because of the dispute for the power of the kingdoms.
Grades
|1| JUNIOR, Hilário Franco. the Middle Ages: birth of the West. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 2006, p. 26-27.
|2| Idem, p. 24.
|3| LE GOFF, Jacques. The Medieval Roots of Europe. Petrópolis: Voices, 2011, p. 228.
Image credits
[1]gregg jaskiewicz and Shutterstock
By Daniel Neves
History teacher
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historiag/baixa-idade-media.htm