Great Thinkers

Gerbert d'Aurillac/ Pope Sylvester II: He is the one to make use of Indian numbers, the numbers we use today. 1 2 3 4 5 6 those are examples of them.

Peter Abelard: He is a philosopher. As Christians gain more knowledge, they begin to doubt the religion. Back then it was ok because they know they’re dumb and uneducated. But now when they know stuff, they begin to doubt. Man A says, “I’ve been trying to turn water to wine like Jesus. Why isn’t this working? Was Christianity a hoax?” and Abelard would use logic to answer them and regain their faith. He explains to everyone that there’s a difference between the visible and spiritual world and you can’t always see the stuff in the spiritual world.

St. Bernard: he takes Abelard’s work a step further. He explains that it is God’s work and it is impossible to figure out what God is thinking.

Thomas Aquinas: wrote the book Summa Theologica explaining that faith and reason are two separate things. Just because you can prove through reason one thing doesn’t mean that contradicts faith. He debates to himself in the book but at the end, he states that you can be an intellectual and not understand God. And just because you can’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Education

Schools are largely modeled on medieval concepts, some examples are university system, and structure of education. The church is the one that organizes and preserves all the information.

The word liberal comes from liber (knowledge) and arb (free). Combined, it means knowledge freeing the man. It includes three main subjects: Latin grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic. This is called the Trivium.

The next level is called the Quadrivium in which the liberal arts are arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. And even beyond that, you branch out to learn languages.

You’ve got three different levels of degrees. This may sound familiar; bachelors, masters, and doctor. For the master’s degree, you literally create a masterpiece just like in the blacksmith story. The order to gain knighthood was also similar in a way. Apprentice is equivalent to Page, Journeyman to Squire, and Master to Knight.

The code of Order and Law for the monasteries was St. Benedict. Physical punishment was common and very effective. And thanks to trade, all the knowledge from the east can travel to the monasteries.

The Role of Religion

One of the biggest reasons why Europe wasn’t able to handle the situation was because of Christianity. The religion forbids the practice of anatomy, so the Europeans had no clue about the human body. Instead, they follow a concept that the body is composed of four fluids, one of which is blood, and sickness is caused by too much of one fluid. When the Black Death came, people thought they had too much blood and went to barbers to bleed themselves.

Now these barbers take a knife, cut a person, use the knife with the infected blood of another to cut another, and – oops – he cuts himself along the way. All customers and barber are now infected. People are trying to cut/pop the bubbles, spreading them even more.

In the panic, people thought God was punishing them because there are sinners among them. They go to the outcasts, the Jews, the witches, and execute them in belief they will rid them of the town’s sins and stop the plague. This is the first time people have a problem with Jews in Europe.

Despite all the miserable things, people have more faith in the church. People called Flagellants whip themselves out in the street as an apology to God for society’s sins. They get infected easily as their wounds open.

And to strengthen this belief even more, people in monasteries, religious education centers, survived. This led the people to believe that then sinless and the religious are skilled. Actually, it was the fact that monasteries are very isolated.

The effect of all this is a sense that death is all around them. Everyone is miserable and emo.

Black Death

All that awful city life set the stage up for this. The Black Death is actually not just a bubonic plague; it’s a series of unfortunate events and illnesses that hit Europe over a period of years. They just mashed them all together and call it dun dun dun… the Black Death.

40 years before the plague even hits, Europe is struck with long winters, bad weather, and tremendous flooding that seriously cut the food supply. With the food shortage, people become malnourished and their immune system weakens.

Factor #2 is trade. People and goods are flying all over the world by ships, caravans, from China, from Africa, who cares? By ancient standards, it take no time to travel from one place to another and if it takes so little time for gold to arrive in Italy, then why not diseases?

Pandemic: a disease that crosses continents. Most people believed that the bubonic plague that destroyed 1/3 (and in some areas 1/2) of the European population came from China. The first reporting was a town in Asia Minor where a Mongol siege arrived in the late 13^th century.

The way it is spread is fleas. The fleas bite the rats, animals, or humans. Back then, people bathed once a month or so, so everyone had fleas. The cites were practically a breeding ground for rats. So when an infected rat from China arrives, it’s everywhere. So when the flea sucks the infected blood from the rat, it clogs their stomach so they never get full. Eventually, the flea drinks the blood of a human, discovers the blood has nowhere to go so –

The flea vomits the infected blood into the human.

Have a great lunch guys.

The Black Death is called the Black Death because people who caught the plague turned black. The disease is nasty and fast. A person will fall dead within three days of getting the plague. The worst of it is that it is a violent death and happens in front of everyone’s faces. The moment a person walks out the door, he will find the bodies of the ones who died the night previous. Common symptoms include bubbles that ooze pus, fever, and vomiting.

The plague is already existent during Justinian’s reign, but spreads only so far because there was no contact with other people. But since the Second Agricultural Revolution, the plague is on the move once more. And it wasn’t like they can quarantine cities. We can’t even do that today.

The Process of a Sweater: Medieval Times

• Farmer: raises and breeds the sheep. He’s the one who shaves the sheep, and puts it in a bag. He sells the wool to the
• Spinner: spins the strands of wool into yarn. The spinner then sells the yarn to a
• Weaver: takes a loom (new invention!) and weave wool cloth. The weaver then takes the fabric and sells it to the
• Fuller: Ok, the wool came off a sheep, an animal. It’s abrasive, itchy, and nasty. So the fuller’s job is to relax the wool. They put the fabric in a bowl of urine and stomp on it. FYI, the urine is often taxed. Like a tax collector will come to your house and take not only your money but also your pee. The fuller will sell the clean fresh cloth to a
• Dyer: When the fuller takes the fabric out, it’s clean but looks icky. So the dyer’s job is to make it look nicer. After dying the fabric, the dyer sells the finished fabric to the
• Finisher: who sews and cuts it who then sells the finished sweater to a
• Merchant: who loads it on a ship and sells it to a
• Consumer: who wears the product?

The above is still simplified. This process actually takes a really long time, like months even today, to complete.

Guilds

Guilds are another result of trade. A guild is a medieval union; groups of people that are of the same profession and get together. This story will tell the pros and cons of guilds:

Senerio One: GOOD

There are three blacksmiths in APWorldville: A, B, and C. A and B charge horseshoes for $4, but C charges horseshoes for $3. People flock to C because of cheaper prices. But soon they realize that those horseshoes last for only four months while horseshoes from A and B lasts all year. People flock to blacksmiths A and B.

One day, A, B, and C realize if they get together and form the International Brotherhood of Horseshoes, they can control the price. If they all charge everyone $5 a horseshoe, then there won’t be competition from anyone because “anyone” is their friend! That way, we all make more money, there is nowhere else the villagers can get horseshoes. Of course, we won’t overcharge or produce bad quality because then villagers get desperate and head out to the next village.

Scenario Two BAD

Another thing they realize they can control is access to the profession. Blacksmith D comes into town and charges everyone $1. To protect their shops, A, B, and C play dirty. They can tell everyone “hey, A’s got 24 years experience, B’s got 30, and C’s got 264 years. This new guy, he’s only got 3. Every week, we get together and swap horseshoe knowledge so you know we’re smarter than D. Who do you trust? And by the way, he uses really bad material for his horseshoes.” And they wink at the end. That’s how Guilds work.

Scenario Three GOOD

So D is desperate to join the International Brotherhood of Horseshoes (IBH) so he can have a life. But the IBH gives their customers quality assurances. So how would they live up to that potential if D stinks at blacksmithing? This is where the Guild is good. The IBH has a system of qualifications, standards, for the profession. So when Mr. Jellinek walks into a blacksmith shop with membership to the IBH, Mr. Jellinek can be assured that he’s going to bet a good horseshoe because that blacksmith has been through a proper education. This prevents people from waking up one day going, “I’m a master blacksmith!” and ruins everyone’s life by giving farmers awful horseshoes. No. You’re certified a master blacksmith by other master blacksmiths.

Scenario Four GOOD

D decides to join the IBH. But first he must pass the tests. D starts out as an apprentice to A. First, D starts by just watching A work, working in A’s shop, and learn the skills that way. When the time comes, A will promote D to a Journeyman. Now is D’s chance to make horseshoes right alongside with A! As D work, A will always be by his side, inspecting and helping his skills as a blacksmith. Eventually, D feels confident in his skills and asks to become a master blacksmith. He creates a masterpiece that reflects his knowledge of blacksmithing, presents it to the next IBH meeting, and a) gets rejected or b) gets certified. D opens his own shop, has a successful life, and dies after becoming infected with the bubonic plague. But until that death, fear of competition and going out of business will never worry him. J

Overall GOOD

The Guilds have a LOT of good things and only a few bad things

Trade

With Manoralism, each manor is self sufficient and thus doesn’t need to go out, not that the serfs had permission anyway. But when the lords started to kick people out, people are now making contact and start trading. What do they trade? Food! With all those food surpluses, they can make money out of them. There’s even a new class now; merchants.

One of the things that come out of trade are Fair Days. Fair Days are days where groups of merchants from different cities cluster together and exchange goods. Bartering is currently still in use but people are transitioning to a money economy now because at first, bartering is easy in the manor. But once you get over 100 goods, it gets way complicated.

Trade by sea is thriving but comes with risks. If Merchant Merlin loads all his goods into a ship, then the ship sinks or gets robbed by pirates the goods are lost. Merchant Merlin has a bad rest of his life. The truth is that overland trade is safer due to the fact that the only real hazard is bandits.

Thanks to the risks involved, the first insurance company is born. A whole new profession is created. The process is: Merchant Merlin joins a group of nine merchants. The ten of them buys ten ships. Merchant Merlin and his nine friends put 10% of their cargo on each ship. That way, if one ship sinks, 90% of their cargo is still there. And the chance of all ten ships sinking in a freak storm is highly unlikely.

Overland trade is the same. Ten people traveling together are safer than one. But the larger the group, the slower they travel. The average group can travel for only 25 miles a day, that isn’t enough to make it from one city to the next. To solve this, inns and rest stops are built. There, merchants can stop, get dinner, have their horses fed, and some sleep before they head out again.

The Hanseatic League, an alliance of trading cities and guilds, was also a result of trade. The league established a trade monopoly in the North Sea.

Urbanization

All this leads to food surplus, and with more food, it leads to a population growth. Unfortunately, the manor can’t support that many people so what they do is kick them out. Once the people are kicked out, they move to the cities, causing a wave of urbanization.

Now these cities are filthy. They weren’t well planned; there are no streets laid out, no building codes, no sewer systems, and you’ve got houses built on top of each other. The rivers and water supply was so bad, no one can drink it, and so the population lived off of a supply of beer, wine, and milk. So sanitation was at an all time low. That causes the Black Death

Guys, I’m not just talking about a few leaves and rainwater running around in the streets. This is people’s filth, the trashcans for all contents of a chamber pot. Whatever’s in there gets dumped outside for merchants and animals to step on again. And finally, all that runs into the river where you wash your clothes drink water (and fall dangerously ill). IT’S FILTHY.

The centers of the towns are usually walled as a defense. The bigger the city gets, the more trade there is, thus more vulnerable attacks. They all had a town hall, in fact some of the European cites that survived WWII still have town halls dating back to the medieval ages.

They all had a church, a clock, and gallows where they punish criminals on display. That way, not only does he get whipped, but it gives you to throw trash, kick dirt, and curse at him for fun.

Jews also lived in medieval towns for money loaning reasons and even worked there, for they are the first bankers. But because it was against Christian law, they were quarried off.

Houses were usually two stories. The shop or restaurant was in the first floor, and the inhabitants slept in the second. And whatever profession people had, it was done in the street or near the windows so that it was on display.

Night walking was prohibited. Night watchers, medieval police, roam the streets in case of someone outside. Except for a board of wood, people back then didn’t have a lock on their doors. So if you were outside after sunset, you were probably up to no good because you can do anything in the complete darkness.

Agriculture

The Second Agricultural Revolution is caused by a natural global warming. To Europe, this is awesome for them. Because it’s warmer and warmer for a longer time, new crops can be harvested. This leads to a more diverse diet, and with more kinds of foods, people get a healthier and longer life, thus giving them more energy to work even more on farming.

More importantly, not only do they have a longer season, but they also have new improved plows. These plows can dig deeper and get to the really nutrient-rich soil. Farmers can also plow twice as fast as they replace oxen with horses.

There was a Two-Field System where the people found out if using the same piece of land to grow over and over, the soil loses its nutrients. So farmers have two fields; one is to grow, the other resting and regaining nutrients. But now there are more types of food! So farmers add another field so that:

• One field has fast growing crops that will harvest in the summer
• One field has regular crops that will harvest in the fall
• And one field that’s taking a breather. (A break, resting, reviving nutrients)

Islam in Africa and the Lays Incestiture Controversy

Islam spreads rapidly on the northern coast of Africa by caravan trade, with the converts being nobility rather than the peasants. Only in some cases had widespread conversion. The issue is that in the lower classes in Sub-Saharan and Central Africa, the women enjoy their high status and aren’t willing to give it up.

However, the nobility is a more patriarchal society already and more ready to accept the religion. Islam was a way for them to connect themselves to the rest of the world and hold power. You see, unlike in Europe where the Pope and Emperor squabble over power so much that a name with capitol letters is given to this issue (Lays Investiture Controversy), religion and political power in Africa is merged so there were no arguments.

If anyone needs a review, “Lays” means “not part of the church”. It only happens in Europe, like every kingdom of it.

You say, “I’m the king and I should get the right to name this bishop of the church in my country!”

Pope: No, no, no! The bishop works for me. Just because he’s in your country doesn’t mean you get a say. I will name the bishop -

You: No! This is my land, if you want your church here, you play by my rules!

Pope: No! You ain’t part of the church/clergy! What the @#$ do you know about church? I’m gonna name my bishop

That’s the gist. There was one situation involving Emperor Henry II names one of his bishops Thomas Beckett and Beckett turns on him and goes, “Since I’m a religious leader now, I work for the Pope, you ain't pushing me around, HA!”

The comment outraged Henry and 4 of his knights went (not on the king's orders) murders Beckette as he's praying on the altar. That's low man, LOW.

The Indian Ocean Trade

Any trade in the Indian Ocean must go through the Strait of Malacca, this narrow strait, thus causing a lot of traffic. To this day, it is the busiest waterway. Due to the slowness, these ships are sitting ducks for pirates; I mean all they have to do is wait for a ship to slowly ooze by. So what is also to this day, the Strait of Malacca has the most frequent pirate attacks.

Bananas are exported from the poor towns on the east coast of Africa and into Southeast Asia. Along with bananas are the culture and skills of the Bantu people. Their specialties, ironworking, farming techniques, and animal husbandry, spread throughout Africa and ended up in those poor towns. People get salt in the Sub-Saharan trade. In the west in Ghana, there’s gold. Wealthy empires like Ghana (who fell and get replaced by Mali) and, in the east, you get several trade empires such as Mogadishu and Mombasa all getting their wealth from the Indian Ocean trade routes.

India

Weather

The Himalayas: huge natural walls in India. During the rainy season, there is low pressure over the mountains and that creates a sort of vacuum. It sucks all the wind, packed with moisture, from the Indian Ocean and rams it up against the Himalayas and dumps. All that moisture pours down the mountains and floods India. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the Wet Monsoon.

Eventually, the opposite happens where all the moisture leaves the Indian subcontinent and empties out. That gives us the Dry Monsoon.

Delhi Sultanate

The Muslims conquer India in a violent fashion and were able to take over the northern part of India. If people didn’t convert, then there were taxed. The Buddhists and Hindu temples were destroyed and looted. Under the Delhi Sultanate, they built really good centers of learning that are equivalent to modern day colleges. And they also had large scale irrigation works that a.) relieved some of the effects of the monsoons and b.) made other parts of India more suitable for farming.

The Voyages of Zheng He

Why did the Yongle emperor send Zheng He on his voyages of exploration, what did they accomplish, and why were they ended?

The emperor did so to establish trade routes and get tributary states from Southeast Asia. Xenophobia, the fear of all things foreign, played a small role in ending it, but the main reason why was because Zheng He died. And to show how important he is, the emperor orders all the ships to be destroyed in his memory.

And how important was Zheng He? He sailed all over the place, and very likely reached the Americas. However, we have no proof because the emperor ordered all records, all ships, and all equipment to be destroyed.

How the Combination of Mongol Tech and Government = Success

Discuss Mongol military technology and governmental techniques. How did the combination of the two bring about the subjugation of most of Eurasia, the control of great masses of people, and the impoverishment of much of the countryside?

Although not the first ones to use it, the Mongols used psychotic warfare (Because they were so outnumbered, the Mongols used this to get even and have an edge). Psychological warfare helps motivate people to surrender. They actually favor and tolerate the cities that surrender quicker than others. To ease tension with the Islamic world, some converted to Islam. This upset the women because then they lost a lot of power. They also had some sort of pride in which they can’t stand retreating/giving up.

Nomadic Vs. Sedentary Lifestyles

Compare and Contrast the lifestyles of nomadic and sedentary peoples. How did each earn their livelihood, what was their daily life was like, and how did they relate to outside groups?

Similar: Both had a society and hierarchy, though the society of the sedentary peoples are way more complicated while the nomads usually just had the chief, men and women, then children.

Different: Their lives were more warlike and lived in areas that favored a pastoralist lifestyle. The settled people had specialization jobs. They also established trade and lived near sources of water or protection. Women had more power in the nomadic societies than the settled.

HINT: When comparing and contrasting or change over time, always look at women and technology.

The Legacy of the Mongols

Discuss the legacy of the Mongols in western and eastern Eurasia. How did they affect the political, economic, religious, and social systems of the people they conquered and the peoples they attempts to conquer?

The Mongols gave the west and east safety on the Silk Road, causing the spread of Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, and ideas. They were extremely tolerant of other religions, seeing that they don’t really have one of their own. However, they did cause a lot of destruction. As for the east, the threat of the Mongols united Japan in defense. And by conquering all of China, they unify China. Their stay at China created Mandarin Chinese, and changed their culture into a more “free” way of life. So that it favored the merchants rather than the scholars.

Mississippian Culture

This culture is centered on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. They are mainly agricultural. The shape of the mounds, used for burials and rituals, suggests contact with Mesoamericans.

The Incas

Located in the Andes Mountains, the Incas had a population of 11 million people along with their capitol in Cuzco. In contrast to the Aztecs, the Incas had a policy of assimilation, the absorption of the culture of the conquered into the main culture. They scattered the conquered across the empire, encouraging assimilation and reducing rebellions.

The Incas had a system called quipus for record keeping. They developed a system of roads that were as grand as the Roman’s, and accomplished all that without the help of animal domestication.

As all other societies in the area, the Incas were polytheistic. They mainly worshiped the Sun and Creator gods in addition to local ones as well. Mummification was practiced as a ritual.

The women had low status. Society limited them to domestic and childcare responsibilities. However, inheritance in society is passed on both sides, so if a women dies, her inheritance goes back to her family, not to her husband.

The economy mainly revolved around potatoes. Due to geography, long distance trade was difficult. There isn’t even a merchant class.

Aztecs

The Aztecs were nomadic people that rose after the Mayan and the Teotihuacan society collapsed in the mid 13^th century. The society, with its capitol located at Tenochtitlan, has a population of 12 million.

Tenochtitlan is a chinampa, a manmade floating island. If anyone as gone to Centennial Beach at downtown Naperville, it’s like one of those piers. They are anchored to the bottom of the lake so they don’t float off. The chinampas provide harvests yearlong due to resistance to frost, giving an ample supply of food.

The Aztecs did not have the aid of domesticated animals or wheels to build their cities. Through military conquest, they become a tributary empire, and that gets most of their supplies.

Human sacrifice is considered an honor, and is practice so intensely that some cities are conquered solely for the purpose of sacrificing. The Aztecs practice rituals on massive pyramids in which the priest digs the heart out and “feed” it to the gods. They also have an altar made up of skulls.

There are three main social classes: Nobility, peasants, and slaves. They are then further divided according to calpulli, clans. The Aztecs had a market economy with government regulation, and hieroglyphics are used to keep records. Women have a little power, they can will property and inherit. Death in childbirth is considered the most honorable way for women to die. Children are taught at an early age on basic skills needed for society.

Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica

Teotihuacan

Mayans

Toltecs: Capitol located at Tula, was the Central Mexican Empire, and had long distance trade with the Anasazi. Traded obsidian in exchange for turquoise.

Song Dynasty

• They had a failed appeasement with the Jin/Liao Empire, thus resulting losing the northern part of their lands.
• The social structure goes like this:

Empire

Imperial Household

Landlords (power is gained by inheritance)

Gentry

Scholars, Bureaucrats, Generals, and Government officials

Peasants, Laborers, and Soldiers (can move up one class by taking the examinations)

Merchants

Women (status falling)

• There was an attempt in meritocracy, rule of the worthy.
• Their art and architecture was heavily influenced by Daoism. Daoism is a philosophy that applies the habits of nature to society, and paintings in the Song dynasty usually involve lofting mountains and natural landscapes. Poets like Li Bo and Du Fu rose to fame.
• Due to champa rice, there is now twice as much food, leading to a population explosion. And due to the fact that a larger population gets work done faster, it leaves people sitting around idle, thus leading to creative ideas and inventions. Such accomplishments are porcelain, mechanical clocks, gun powdered cannons, paper money, and magnetic compasses.

Tang Dynasty

• After the Sui Dynasty broke down, another general unifies China. His son tells him to step down and kills his brothers to gain power. He is known as a political reformer, a successful general, and a patron for the arts.
• The Tang Dynasty emphasized on expansion. They used junk boats, protected Silk Road, and sailed the Indian Ocean. Because of the enormous expansions, there was also a lot of cultural diffusion with Islamic culture. They received tribute from Vietnam and Korea.
• Vietnam gave China champa rice. With this crop, there are now two harvests a year. The food supply doubled with the same amount of space given. Woo-hoo.
• There’s an expansion of bureaucracy. The dynasty tries to distribute some land and power to everybody. Created paper and Flying money. Flying money is an early form of a credit card.
• Officials are selected from examinations that require knowledge of Confucian ideas. Students are given three days in a jail cell to take a test that is given once a year. This gives people some social nobility. However, the education is expensive and time consuming, thus; only middle class people have the chance to pass the exam.
• There is constant conflict between Buddhism and Confucianism. At one point, Empress Wu set Buddhism as the official religion. However, as Buddhism grew, people saw is as a threat to Confucian ideas and attacked the religion. Confucianism won but Buddhism didn’t go away.
• Anyway, the Tang Dynasty imploded like the Sui Dynasty. They spent too much money on expansion. Islamic expansionists and Tibetan attacks weakened the empire. Also, the empire became too large to govern. The thing that really ended it was the murder of an infant emperor, and as an infant, there are no heirs. Thus, fighting breaks out, yadda yadda, and chaos reigns. Ha ha suckers.

Sui Dynasty

• The first Emperor, a general, united China back together. He brings back Confucian ideas and builds the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal connects the Yellow and Yangtze River. However, projects like the Grand Canal cost way too much money and took too much labor. This is nothing compared to what the Qin Dynasty took on, but the projects were pretty huge.

The Crusades

The Crusades were Christianity versus Islam। The first was the only one was successful. On the first Crusade, they conquered Jerusalem (which by the way is the center of the world to the Mediterranean). The third Crusade was the most famous because it had a lot of important people involved like Richard.

Ok, so in 80 years, the Muslims conquered Arabian Peninsula, all of North Africa, Spain, and going into Tours। Charles Martel beats them out but they stay in Spain and work their way east to Anatolia. So that puts them in front of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople. The Byzantine Emperor freaks out and looks for help to the Western Pope.

Let’s back up a bit। The Great Schism took place in 1054 in which the Pope crowned Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor, resulting in one Holy Roman Emperor in the west and one in Byzantine. The two quarrels, the Pope joins Charlemagne and the Byzantine Empire gets a new Pope. They excommunicate each other, forming what is today the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church. That was the Great Schism.

Anyway, the Byzantine Emperor asks to set aside their differences and come together to repel the invasion of the Muslims and rescue Jerusalem. So they get back together to fight Islam.
Famous quote from the Crusades: “GOD WILLS IT।”

So the Pope gets people to join by offering them protection to their family and lands। They also promise to give forgive people all sins, no matter how bad, and give them the sacraments. He does this top the Muslim’s deal with their soldiers. So the first people to join were the criminals and peasants. Following Peter the Hermit, they form the People’s Crusades. They show up and Constantinople and start looting stuff. The emperor quickly sends them to Asia Minor to give them something to do. They get slaughtered as soon as they meet the Muslims. But then the real knights show up, surround Jerusalem, and capture it.

Unfortunately, now that their job is done, the soldiers leave and the Muslims easily take it back। The Second Crusade is to prevent the Muslims from taking Jerusalem back but that bombed. Hence the need for…

The Third Crusade was partially successful because they did reclaim some of the land। But it’s only famous because famous people participated. There was Richard, Philip, Augustus, Fredrick Barbarossa, aka “Red Beard”. Fredrick was really old though, so he sorta slipped on his horse and drowns in a river that’s two feet deep. I’m sorry for your loss Fred. His heavy armor and temperature of the river may have given him a heart attack.

Fun Fact: Barbarossa’s sword, lost in the drowning, is symbolic. Whoever carries the sword is invincible. In the more modern time period, Hitler had an operation called “Operation Barbarossa” because he’s intent on finding the sword because if he has the sword, he’s invincible. Hitler wasn’t invincible though; as everyone knows he died.

The Church and All Its Greatness

The Church is involved in everything thanks to Clovis। It starts with Clovis and when Clovis decides, I want to be baptized, become Christian, along the rest of my kingdom, BAM! There it is, the church is now more than just a religious institution. They have their own laws, so every subject you were subjected to two different legal codes, the one imposed by the king and the civil authority, your lord. You break that law you get punished. Then you’ve got Canon Law the one brought by the Pope. The two worst punishment issued by the Pope were

1.) Kicked out of the church (aka Excommunication)
The church was there because for the mass majority in Europe, life was bad। It sucked. Old age was 30. Infant mortality was over 50 percent. So if you were a peasant, you are going to watch half of your children die. And for the kids, most of them would be orphans before they were 13 because your parents died young and half the kids die become they got to that age. Enter the church… who takes care of you when your parents are dead and you’re only seven? The church does. They maintain the orphanages; they’re the humanitarians in this whole picture. On top of that, your life as a peasant is miserable terrible and bad. What’s the point? Well, the church tells you, “Hey were know your life is bad. But, good news, when you die, there’s heaven. It’s paradise and lasts for all eternity. But the only way to get there is through us. You need us to get you there and we offer you sacraments.” You must receive the sacraments to get into heaven. If you break the Canon Law and turn out to be a bad person, they kick you out which means you can’t get the sacraments, which is their way of telling you to go to hell.

2.) Interdiction
Well, over time, some kings get smart. They think, “oh really you’re going to kick me out? So what my life is great already. And I don’t believe in your garbage anyway. I can just find and pay a road priest a ton of money and he’ll give me the sacraments anyway. Ha-ha.” So the Pope’s got to be drastic. Not only do they excommunicate the king, but they take the sacraments from the entire kingdom. That’s going to crush the peasants because that just gave them nothing to live for. By dawn, that king is so dead.

In conclusion the church isn’t just about religion, but it’s about politics too and it has power BIG TIME.

Manoralism

Feudalism is political. Manoralism is economical. Set up, it can be self sufficient. It didn’t need to go anywhere else or leave your manor for anything. You grow all the food you eat it, you have a mill, you have a blacksmith, you have everything you actually needed to physically survive, which good but also bad. The good part is, you don’t need anybody else. The bad part is, there’s no contact going on. Especially because the serfs were tied to the land, they’re not allowed to leave the land without permission from their lord. So it isn’t like, “Hey I’m going to take a vacation for the weekend, and head out to the beach. Or go out to the city and see what I can buy with this extra stuff.” So the interaction’s at a minimum across Europe. So that’s bad for business.