The Re-Awakening of Europe
950-1250Agricultural Revolution
Revival of Trade
Rebirth of towns
The Crusades
The Rise of States
Viking Longboats
Lindisfarne Monastery, 793
The Lindisfarne Bible
• Eventually these marauding raiders ended their pillaging & settled down in many areas of Europe including Normandy, Sicily, Sardinia, southern Italy and Kiev (Russia) and assimilated with the indigenous people.
• As the dust settled on the chaos and disorder, Europe slowly began to emerge with a new spirit.
Feudalism and Manorialism
• Keywords: decentralized and fragmented
• Men who mattered: Lords and Vassals
• Land is called a Fief
• Ceremony is called investiture
• Promise of loyalty is The Oath of Fealty
The self-sufficient manor
An Agricultural Revolution
• Higher agricultural production reduced the number of deaths caused by starvation and dietary disease…
• Grain surplus meant that some livestock could survive the winter increasing fresh meat, milk and manure…
• Lords of the manors promoted expansion of cultivated land
• Population increased
Benefits for the common man
• Peasants drained swamps, cleared forests and established new settlements- most notably in eastern Germanic lands
• Expansion contributed to the decline of serfdom- lords promised freedom from personal services in return for rent
• Surplus food and increased population freed people to work at non-farming occupations, making the expansion of trade possible.
Revival of trade
• End of Viking attacks
• Expanding agricultural production
• Increasing population
• Greater political stability
• The Crusades
A commercial revolution begins…
• Cities like Venice, Genoa and Pisa grew prosperous during the Crusades and after as increasing trade with Byzantine and Islamic worlds -silks, spices, perfumes and dyes increased tremendously.
• A class of traders emerged- humble peddlers at first• Traveling International Fairs – Champagne• Large-scale enterprises -shared costs, reduced risks led
to more profit-making opportunities• Advances in business techniques- banking houses;
credit; accounting books
The Rebirth of Towns
• Towns were a revolutionary force-• Made possible by expanding food supply• The townsman was a new man-