Medieval Power Struggles

1. The authority of the King Vs.The rights of those he ruled.

2. The authority of the Kings and Nobles over their land they ruled.

Vs. The authority of Church

Leaders over the people“God” gave them to watch over.

Feudalism had many imperfections.

• There was no written law that defined what rights the people had or any law to limit what the king could do.

• The King had total power. He was : The law makerThe JudgeThe JuryHe taxed the people whenever he wanted.

Having total power CAN be an efficient way to run things IF the king

considers his subject’s needs.

• But what happens when a King is selfish or has no idea of what his subjects need?

There is one example of a rebellion against a king that has had a long

lasting effect on the rest of the world.

King John of England 1215 King John did many things that we would consider unjust.He taxed the nobles

excessively to pay for wars they didn’t want to fight.

He sentenced nobles to prison without a trial.

By 1215, the English lords had had enough of this guy, and they got together an army of their knights

and marched on London.

Medieval London

John was forced to sign the contract they put in front of him, which is

known as the Magna Carta. (Magna Carta means "Great Letter" in Latin).

• Primary source image of the Magna Carta

This “contract” wrote down three ideas that were unheard of in Feudal Europe:

• The king had to obey the law, like other people.

• If the king broke the law, the lords had the right to remove that king and choose a new one.

• That a noble had the right to a trial before a jury of people that were from the same social class before he was put in prison.

• (Does any of this sound familiar??)

It was the first document from Europe that protected the rights of the

people.

• It lost some of it’s influence after King John died but England came back to these ideas when it made its constitution later on.• The U.S then copied these ideas when they

wrote theirs 5oo years later.• Magna Carta

The Role of the Catholic Church: The King

The Nobles The Church Leaders

The Protectors(Knights)

The Laborers(Serfs)

How Powerful were the church leaders in their society?

The Catholic Church had tremendous power during the middle ages.

• First of all, it was given great gifts of land from Kings and nobles. It ended up controlling 1/3 of the land.(It had wealth.)

• This wealth can be seen in the great cathedrals that still are standing.

There were no other dominant religions once you crossed over the Alps and Pyrenees Mts. (The opposite of a multi-cultural society.)

• Who remembers whereThe Pyrenees and Alps are?

Those who gave their lives to the priesthood or to a monastery were

the only literate people around. (Lack of reading=lack of independent

thinking.)

• The church kept the Latin language alive. All Church documents were written in Latin.

Everyone grew up going to mass everyday.

Everyone believed:• That God, Heaven and Hell and the Devil

existed.• People were taught that the only way they

could get to Heaven was if the Roman Catholic Church let them in.

•

Everybody was told of the horrors awaiting for them in Hell in the

services they attended.

• Medieval images of the beasts of hell.

All of their holidays were centered around the saints.

(You can always find a saint in their art by finding the halo around his head.)

Kings and Nobles also believed in the power of the church to send them to

hell.

• Medieval image of the beasts and flames of hell.

There was often a struggle over who would have their way.

• The Church leaders or The Kings and nobles.

• The Pope could punish a disobedient king by kicking them out of the church forever (Excommunication).

Once you were excommunicated, no Christian could ever communicate

with you again.

• That may not be a big deal in our society but EVERYONE belonged to the Church in their society. (We call that being ostracized.)

The Church also controlled ideas about what was “true”.

• They were the ones that built the Universities where scholars would study.

Ideas about medicine and science had to be agreed upon by the church too.

Dentistry- taking the demon out of a man through his tooth.

The Church taught that sickness was a work of the devil or a punishment for

sin.

• Medieval image of angels vs. demons.

For this reason, Europe was way behind the rest of the medieval world when it came to science and

medicine.It doesn’t change until it goes over those Alps to come in contact with the Islamic world during the

Crusades.

The Church had its own organizational system which crossed the borders of

Kingdoms.It formed a line of “Religious orders” all over

Europe. (Monasteries and Convents)

A medieval community of monks=Monestary.

(This is LAUSD’s idea-not mine.)

• A religious order is an organization of people who live set apart from society in accordance with their specific religious devotion.

(Monks, Priests and Nuns)

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