EARLY MIDDLE AGES

The disintegrating Roman Empire began re-emerging even as it was falling apart. In what we think of as Western Europe--Britain, the Iberian Peninsula, France, Germany, Austria, Italy--the formerly Roman world was in the hands of barbarians, but they were barbarians who had real respect for Rome. Many were Christians, though not necessarily Roman Catholic Christians.

In the East--Greece, Asia Minor and the general Eastern Mediterranean world--the Roman Empire did not fall at all, and had long been transformed into a Greek speaking Roman Empire centered at Constantinople. We call it the Byzantine Empire; they simply called it the Roman Empire. We will discuss them further at a later time, but they preserved much of the literature, law, and ceremony of Ancient Greece and Rome. There was not a clear break between Eastern and Western Christianity until perhaps the 1200s--1n 1204 Catholic Crusaders would attack and sack Constantinople which did not make them any friendlier, but there were theological and political issues, not to mention issues of world view. In the West, the pope came to be a political power in his own right. He controlled land in central Italy, could depose emperors, princes and kings--but c ouldn't always make it stick--He had his own base of power separate from the political rulers of the age.

In the East, the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church tended to be a creature of the Emperor, lacked any independent power base, and supported imperial policy. The Patriarch of Constantinople was the Patriarch as long as the Byzantine Empire held the world together, but as their world began to fall apart, other patriarchates emerged identified with specific nationalities--Greece, and Russia became the most important, surpassing older patriarchates in Jerusalem and Antioch.

The other world was also identified by religion--the world of Islam which too emerged from the Roman-Greek world of religion and culture, of Aristotle and Jesus. It was also unique, for Arabia was a far away world to the west, and Mohammed's interpretation of God while it rested on a Judeo-Christian, Hellenistic base, was quite remarkable.

The West The cities were in decline, especially in the West. Cities depend on trade, on transportation and economic complexity to assert their importance. But in the 400s, they simply became magnets for invading armies to attack and sack. With the city populations declining, there was much less profitability in the large estates of the late Roman world. Owners of these large latifundia tended to settle their slaves on small family farms so they could pay rent--usually in kind, money was becoming less important in the economy than simply being able to eat.

The free farmers who had once made up the Roman Legions were much less important in their military roles. The success of mounted troops against foot soldiers meant that armies of the middle ages would be dominated by horse soldiers who could afford the expense of going to war. The small, independent farmers, able to exploit technological innovations in agriculture were no longer expected to take months off to fight. He was, however, increasingly expected to pay for his protection, again in the form of produce. There was a clear distinction between independent peasant farmers and serfs--people tied to the land--but one wonders if the distinction were not in the psyche and not in the actual work performed. It is not clear how many people were serfs and how many were free peasants--peasants seem to have outnumbered serfs.

When the empire as a political unit fell, nothing immediately emerged to take its place. The Kingdoms of Franks and other kingdoms were much more informal political units than we might imagine. A king was whoever could act like one and be recognized by his fellows as one, and Germanic tribes tended to elect their kings and to bind them to respect the ancient customs of the tribe. Thus the basic political and economic unit was the most local. For much of Northern Europe and England, it was the Manor, made up of 50 to 250 people, a thousand acres or only a few hundred.

Whereas ancient Europe had been a world of commerce and interdependence--producing grain in Sicily and Egypt, wine and olives in Italy and Greece, the world of the manor, beginning about 500 AD was a world of self-sufficiency. The manor would include forests and fields where the lord would hunt boar and deer, and where the peasants and serfs would range their livestock. It would have commons--open fields where cattle could be grazed--numbers regulated by custom and tradition to prevent overgrazing. In addition, each peasant or serf--and it is difficult to draw a line sometimes--would have several strips of land in various parts of the manor. These might be passed on to children, or they might be exchanged on occasion. The manor would have a mill and a wine press and craftspeople to weave and mend and do all the things a rural economy needs, which is not a great deal.

The Lord of the manor and his family would live perhaps in a rude building in the middle of a wood and earthen stockade called a donjon. He provided justice for the members of the community, hearing cases about stolen pigs and who got whom pregnant out of wedlock, punishing wrongdoers and, at least in the ideal, defending with his sword the peace of the community.

WEAPONS AND ARMOR

European warriors of the early Middle Ages used both indigenous forms of military equipment and arms and armor derived from late Roman types. One of the most widely used types of helmet was the Spangenhelm. Body armor was usually either a short-sleeved mail shirt (byrnie), made up of interlocking iron rings, or a garment of overlapping scales of iron, bronze, or horn. Shields were oval or round and made of light, tough wood covered with leather. Metallic mountings lined the rims. A hole in the center of each shield was bridged by a hand grip inside and a shield boss outside. Weapons were the spear, sword, ax, and the bow and arrow.

At the height of the Middle Ages, Saint Anselm (ca. 1033–1109) listed the equipment of a knight: his war horse (which by the thirteenth century was protected by mail and fabric), bridle, saddle, spurs, hauberk (a long-sleeved mail shirt, sometimes with a hood, or coif), helmet, shield, lance, and sword. Toward the end of the twelfth century, a new flat-topped type of helmet with side plates, which hid the face of a knight, became popular. To distinguish friend from foe, the knight's triangular shield was painted with identifying symbols. By 1200, mail for the legs, called chausses, was commonly worn by mounted warriors. Later, boiled leather or steel pieces protected the knees (kneecops), while small squares of the same hard materials covered the vulnerable shoulder joints (ailettes).

By the fourteenth century, the improved crossbow was able to pierce shields and mail armor. To counter this, knights first wore a poncho-like coat with small rectangular plates riveted to it, while articulated plate armor was developed for the legs, arms, and hands. The small, square, convex shield of the time (the targe) was eventually relegated to use in tournaments, since improved body armor made it unnecessary. A new form of helmet joined the all-encompassing great helm and the wide-brimmed chapel-de-fer (war hat). This was the more streamlined, close-fitting bascinet, with a curtain of mail (camail) from chin to shoulders, which frequently had a movable visor. By the late 1300s, solid breastplates first appeared to protect the chest as part of the short, tight-fitting coat of plates called a brigandine, while smaller plates covered the abdomen, hips, and back.

Within a few years, by about 1420, full head-to-toe plate armor was in use, completing the image of the knight in shining armor.

THE BARBARIC PERIOD- CLOTHING

The few roads that still existed were in a bad state, bridges were scarce, and brigands were common. For this reason during the Dark Ages, which lasted until about 1000 A.D., populations were tightly bound to the land surrounding the feudal lord's castle. People moved about only when there were festivals in other cities. These were the only occasions on which people could buy or look at different goods and have a chance to sell their own food or objects and fabrics made for sale. Fear controlled people’s lives and induced them to ask for protection from powerful warriors who had constructed well-defended castles, or from monasteries, which did not have soldiers but did have thick walls to hide behind. Life was hard, and , people thought little of clothing. Clothes were often made at home and were often rough and shapeless. Trousers, tunics and shawls were used to keep away the cold. The shawls were made of wool or fur and put over the shoulder. Most Europeans were dressed like today’s Benedictine monks, except for men’s trousers. Shoes were leather wrapped around the foot. Colors were plain; they were shades of gray, brown, dark blue and red. Conical hats were commonly worn.

This was a pyramidal society because the classes of people were in a shape of a pyramid.. with the kings and queens at the top of the pyramid (and were few in number) down to the peasants (who were many in number). In the middle were feudal lords, clerics, and others, such as vassals.