PRESENTATION 3 (Feudalism and the Black Death)

FEUDALISM

1. Describe clearly Feudalism and Feudal system in England.

Feudalism, as practiced in the Kingdom of England during the Middle Ages, was a state of
human society that organized political and military leadership and power around a formal
stratified structure based on land ownership. As a socio-economic and defensive military
paradigm that sought to channel land wealth to the king while he accumulated military troops
for his own purposes. The feudal system was a way of structuring society around
relationships derived from the possession of land in exchange for services or labor. These
assets are called fiefs, merchantmen, or fees. After the Norman conquest in 1066, feudalism
was introduced in England and its development was different from the rest of continental
Europe. Its development is limited by the influence and pressure of feudal invasion social
characteristics: commission, vassalage, immunity.

2. What are the fief and the manor?

A fief was the central element of feudalism. It consisted of hereditary property or rights
granted by an overlord to a vassal in exchange for a form of feudal loyalty and service,
usually given through personal ceremonies of respect and loyalty. These are often land or
income-generating properties that were owned in feudal times. These are usually called fiefs.
b A vassal could hold a fief as long as they continued to serve the lord or allowed the lord to
keep watch over the land. The manor, also known as the Roman villa, was an agricultural site.
During the Middle Ages, at least four-fifths of England's population had no direct connection
with the city. Most people didn’t live on individual farms as they do today but were
connected to manors, which were the social and economic engines of the Middle Ages. It
consisted of villages where the land was worked and manor houses where the lords owned or
controlled the estate in which they lived. Manors may also have had forests, orchards,
gardens, lakes, and ponds where fish were found. Manors, usually near villages, often housed
mills, bakeries, and blacksmiths. The mansion was largely self-sufficient.

3. Show the Feudal System Pyramid and describe it.

● KING : A king is the one who buys all the land in the country and makes laws. He
gives an area which is called fief to wealthy lords and nobles.
● NOBLES : Nobles gave some land to professional soldiers. In return, the lords and
nobles agreed to provide the king with soldiers and horses for military use.
● KNIGHTS : As we said before the knights are the soldiers that the nobles need well -
trained when the king calls them to protect the castles.
● PEASANTS : Peasants are ordinary people who cultivate the land for nobles and
knights who in turn offered them protection.

4. What was the Domesday Book?

Previous context

After the Norman invasion and conquest of England in 1066, William "The Conqueror"
created the Domesday book in 1085 because he was concerned that England could be under
threat from a Viking invasion, so in consequence he needed a large army to defend his land.
This would be expensive, so William needed to know who he could tax and how much people
could afford to pay, that’s why he created the Domesday book as a survey, which contained
information of the land and the people.

Interesting fact: The English people called it the Domesday Book, the day of judgment.

Content

The completed book is an extremely detailed record of life in England in medieval times. It
contains over 13,000 records of places across England, also a small amount of information
about Wales. The Domesday Book shows that:

● William directly controlled about 20% of the land

● Norman nobility controlled about 50% of the land (which was ultimately owned by
William).
● The Church controlled about 25% of the land
● English nobility controlled about 5% of the land

In conclusion a huge amount of the land was controlled by a small number of powerful
people. It also showed that the Normans had overpowered the Anglo-Saxons, as only 5% of
land was controlled by English noblemen.

How was the information gathered?

Basically, William sent his men called commissioners to find out detailed information about
the value of land and resources in England. They split the country up into different regions
based on existing county borders. Landowners had to send in details of their land and who
lived and worked on it.

5. Explain the decline of Feudalism:

For centuries, feudalism had been the dominant form of social organization, but with
population growth and economic development, the feudal system was eventually replaced by
capitalism. The decline of feudalism was a change in the social, economic, and political
structures that occurred due to various factors.

6. Reasons for the Decline of Feudalism

Several political changes in the 12th and 13th centuries helped to weaken feudalism:

Political development

This begins with King Henry II, who reigned from 1154 to 1189, made legal reforms due to
the need to restore royal authority and to return the realm to its condition in his grandfather's
reign in consequence of the civil war of King Stephen's reign.

These reforms strengthened the power of royal courts at the expense of feudal lords but these
efforts brought him into conflict with his own chosen archbishop, Thomas Becket.
In 1170, four knights, perhaps seeking the king’s favor, killed Becket in front of the main
altar of Canterbury Cathedral. The cathedral and Becket’s tomb soon became a popular
destination for pilgrimages. In 1173, the Catholic Church proclaimed him a saint. Still, most
of the Constitutions of Clarendon remained in force.

Magna Carta

In 1199, Henry’s youngest son, John, became king of England. John soon made powerful
enemies by losing most of the lands the English had controlled in France. He also taxed his
barons heavily and ignored their traditional rights, arresting opponents at will.

In June 1215, angry nobles forced a meeting with King John in a meadow called Runnymede,
beside the river Thames, outside of London. There, they insisted that John put his seal on a
document called Magna Carta.

● Magna Carta (Great Charter) was a written legal agreement that limited the king’s
power and strengthened the rights of nobles. As feudalism declined, Magna Carta took
on a much broader meaning and contributed to ideas about individual rights and
liberties in England.

The Hundred Year’s war

Between 1337 and 1453, England and France fought a series of battles for control over lands
in France, known as the Hundred Years’ War; this long conflict contributed to the erosion of
feudalism in England and in France. English monarchs had long claimed lands in France.

English monarchs had long claimed lands in France. This was because earlier English kings
had been feudal lords over these French fiefs. French kings now disputed these claims.

The Hundred Years’ War between France and England shifted power away from feudal lords
to both the monarchy and the common people. It also increased feelings of nationalism, as
people began to identify more with the king than with their local lord.

The Bubonic plague (Black death)

It is an infection spread mostly to humans by infected fleas that travel on rodents, which
affected all of Europe. The bubonic plague first struck Europe from 1346 to 1351. It returned
in waves that occurred about every decade into the 15th century, leaving major changes in its
wake.

Historians think the disease traveled from Central Asia to the Black Sea along the Silk Road
(the main trade route between Asia and the Mediterranean Sea). It probably was carried to
Italy on a ship. It then spread north and west, throughout the continent of Europe and to
England.

Even though, at the time, no one knew where the disease came from or how it spread.
Terrified people falsely blamed the plague on everything from the positions of the planets to
lepers and to Jews.

Consequences
During this time, the feudal system of agriculture and land ownership declined in this period.
The plague caused trade and commerce to slow. Due to the death of one third of the
population of Europe from the plague, labor shortages occurred. This created greater
economic opportunities for peasants, and they demanded increased wages.

In addition, the hierarchical social structure of feudalism was destabilized, which affected all
social classes equally. When the plague passed and feudal lords attempted to reestablish their
authority, peasant rebellions occurred as commoners refused to accept the old social order.
The common people also gained greater power because of the Hundred Years’ War.

THE BLACK DEATH

1. What was the Black Death? Where did it come from?

The Black Death was a plague pandemic which devastated medieval Europe from
1347 to 1352 CE, killing an estimated 25-30 million people. The disease originated in
central Asia and was taken to the Crimea by Mongol warriors and traders. The plague
then entered Europe via Italy, carried by rats on Genoese trading ships sailing from the
Black Sea.

Likewise, the disease was caused by a bacillus bacteria, Yersinia pestis, and carried by
fleas on rodents. It was known as the Black Death because it could turn the skin and sores
black while other symptoms included fever and joint pains. it is estimated that between
30% and 50% of the population of those places affected died from the Black Death. The
death toll was so high that it had significant consequences on European medieval society
as a whole, with a shortage of farmers resulting in demands for an end to serfdom, a
general questioning of authority and rebellions, and the entire abandonment of many
towns and villages.

On the other hand, the Black Death has also been called the Great Mortality, a term
derived from medieval chronicles’ use of magna mortalitas. This term, along with magna
pestilencia (“great pestilence”), was used in the Middle Ages to refer to what we know
today as the Black Death as well as to other outbreaks of disease.

2. Explain and tell stories about the Black Death in England.

Bubonic Plague was known as the Black Death and had been known in England for
centuries. The disease, carried in the bowels of trading ships from Europe had its first-
known case in England, was a seaman who arrived at Dorset, from Gascony in June
1348, it ripped through England with terrifying ferocity. By autumn, the plague had
reached London, and by the summer of 1349, it covered the entire country, before dying
down by December.

In 1361–62 the plague returned to England, this time causing the death of around 20
percent of the population. After this, the plague continued to return intermittently
throughout the 14th and 15th centuries, in local or national outbreaks.

Then, in two successive years of the 17th century London suffered two terrible
disasters. In the spring and summer of 1665 an outbreak of Bubonic Plague spread from
parish to parish until thousands had died and the huge pits dug to receive the bodies were
full. In 1666 the Great Fire of London destroyed much of the centre of London, but also
helped to kill off some of the black rats and fleas that carried the plague bacillus. From
 this point on its effect became less severe, and one of the last outbreaks of the plague in
England was the Great Plague of London in 1665–1666. It began in London in the poor,
overcrowded parish of St. Giles-in-the-Field. It started slowly at first but by May of 1665,
43 had died, but during the months of June, July and August there was a slight increase.
In all, 15% of the population perished during that terrible summer.

Stories about the Black Death :

Incubation took a mere four to six days and when the plague appeared in a household,
the house was sealed, thus condemning the whole family to death! These houses were
distinguished by a painted red cross on the door and the words, ‘Lord have mercy on us’.
At night the corpses were brought out in answer to the cry,’ Bring out your dead’, put in a
cart and taken away to the plague pits. One called the Great Pit was at Aldgate in London
and another at Finsbury Fields.

The King, Charles II and his Court left London and fled to Oxford. Those people
could send their families away from London during these months, but the poor had no
recourse but to stay.

In his diary, Samuel Pepys gives a vivid account of the empty streets in London, as all
who could have left in an attempt to flee the pestilence.

It was believed that holding a posy of flowers to the nose kept away the plague and to
this day judges are still given a nose-gay to carry on ceremonial occasions as a protection
against the plague!.

A song about the plague is still sung by children. ‘Ring-a-ring of roses‘ describes in
great detail the symptoms of the plague and ends with ‘All fall down’. The last word,
‘dead’, is omitted today.

3. Explain how it spread in the different continents and how it arrived on the Isle.

In Europe, the Black Death first appeared in the Mediterranean basin and spread to
most of the corners of the continent in just a few years. But the initial outbreak is thought
to have been in the Black Sea port of Caffa, now Feodosiya, on the Crimean Peninsula. In
1346 Caffa was an important commercial trading post run by Genoese merchants. In an
age of growing maritime trade, food and goods were carried for long distances from
country to country. The bacteria had to have arrived through the fleas carried by the rats
scurrying. The Genoese merchants could have taken the sickness to Italy when they fled
after the spread of the pest in the city was noticed.

The flow of sea, river, and road traffic between commercial centers spread the plague
across huge distances. Big commercial cities were infected first, and from there the plague
radiated to nearby towns and villages, from where it would spread into the countryside.
The plague was also carried down the well-trodden paths of medieval pilgrims; holy sites
became additional epicenters of regional, national, and international propagation.

The plague could move inland more than a mile a day in the right conditions. In very
cold and dry areas it slowed to a stop, explaining why Iceland and Finland were among
the few places to escape its ravages. Many people fled to the countryside, spreading the
disease to more secluded places.
 The first outbreak of plague swept across England between 1348 and 1349. It traveled
across the south during the summer months of 1348, before mutating into the pneumonic
form in winter. It hit London in September 1348 and spread into East Anglia all along the
coast early during the new year. By spring 1349, it was devastating Wales and the
Midlands, and by late summer, it had traveled across the Irish Sea and reached the north.
Scotland took advantage of the issue in England to raid Durham in 1349, and by 1350 the
pest was already in Scottish territory.

The Black Death entered southwestern England in the Summer of 1348 and struck
Bristol. The trading port of Bristol was the first major town in Britain to be affected, as it
had close connections with the continent. Bristol was the second largest city in Britain and
was the principal port of entry for the West Country.

The sanitary conditions there were, as in any other medieval town, foul. People tended
to empty their human waste out of their windows into the street. Many houses owned their
own pigs, which were supposed to be grazed outside the city walls, but were often
allowed to roam the streets in search of food. Most townsfolk drew their water from the
river, which was also used for industrial purposes by the local brewers, who were heavily
regulated to prevent their fouling the water. Under these conditions, the plague spread
extremely fast.

4. Explain what they did on the isle to treat it. Methods to keep the disease outside.

In order to fight and reduce the spread of the plague, people started taking different
measures. Their religious burials and rituals involved watching over the dead for days
after their deaths, which helped to spread the disease. To control this, the deceased were
buried in pits in which they were lined up and wrapped in linen clothes, pouring large
quantities of quicklime dissolved in water. This sealed the tomb and slowed the spread of
the disease. Also, the bedding, fabric garments and their personal belongings were
burned.

The houses where deaths occurred were marked and had to undergo a deep cleaning
before having new people. To do this, doors and windows were opened for a minimum
period of fifteen days. In addition, sulfur and gunpowder were burned inside. Sick rooms
were also washed with quicklime, and the floor was cleaned with vinegar. In the case of
public places, they used to burn rosemary, incense, and olive wood, among other herbs, to
clean the air.

As for personal hygiene, bathing was one of the recommended treatments for the
plague. However, instead of plain water, it was advised to use vinegar and rosewater.
Vinegar was a common medieval medical treatment and was considered a great tool for
stopping the plague.

In some parts of Europe, cities tried to ban ships from infected areas to protect their
population. In 1348, Venice became the first to enforce a 30-day isolation period for ships
and travelers to make sure they weren't infected. In later outbreaks of plague, the city
extended the isolation to 40 days, giving birth to the term quarantine from the Italian
"quaranta," meaning 40. This, however, failed to stop the spread of the disease. Tens of
thousands still perished in Venice.
 During the 17th century, plague doctors developed the plague doctor costume that has
become emblematic of the era. They used a bird-like mask and a full body covering when
treating victims of the plague. They believed foul smells spread disease, so the mask had
dried roses, herbs like mint to cleanse the air, or spices believed to protect against
infection.