Today in Class.

Today in class we took notes on the Medival Period. These notes are also on his website, but I still tend to take tons of notes. Here are the notes that I took.......

- Medieval period
- 476 - 1453 AD
- From the end of the Roman Empire to the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks
- Invasions trigger changes in western Europe
○ Invasions and constant warfare spark new trends
§ Disruption of trade
□ Europe's cities are no linger economic centers
□ Money is scarce
§ Downfall of cities
□ Cities are no longer centers of administration
§ Population shifts
□ Nobles retreat to the rural areas
□ Cities don’t have strong leadership
○ Decline of learning
§ Germanic invaders are illiterate, but they communicate through oral tradition
§ Only priests and church officials could read and write
§ Knowledge of Greek (and literature, science, philosophy) is almost lost
○ Loss of a common language
§ Dialects develop in different regions
§ By the 800s, French, Spanish, other Roman-based languages are evolving from Latin
- Germanic kingdoms emerge
○ The concept of government changes
§ Roman society: loyal to public government
§ Germanic society: loyal to family
□ Germanic chief led warriors
□ During peace, he provided food, weapons, treasure, a place to live (the lord's hall)
□ During wartime, warriors fought for the lord
§ "the king? Who's that? You want to collect taxes from me ? Who the heck are you?"
§ Franks live in the Roman province of Gaul- their leader is Clovis
○ The Franks inder Clovis
§ Another battlefield conversion! (just like Constantine)
§ Clovis and 3000 of his warriors are baptized by the bishop
§ The church in Rome approves of this alliance
§ Clovis and the Church begin to work together
- Germanic peoples adopt Christianity
○ 511AD- Clovis unites Franks into one kingdom
○ 600AD- Church + Franks rulers convert many
○ Monasteries and convents
§ 520 AD- Benedict wrote the rules for monks and monasteries
□ Had a sister named Scholastica did the same for nuns in convents
§ 731AD- the Venerable Bede wrote a killer history of England
§ (Pope) Gregory I expands papal power
□ Papacy= pope's office
□ Secular power= worldly power
□ Papal Power (power of the pope) is political power, presented fron the pope's palace
□ The church used church money to:
® Raise armies
® Repair roads
® Help the poor
□ Gregory the Great began to act as mayor of Rome, and as head of an earthly kingdon (Christendom)