MEDIEVAL TIMES

CASTLES
 Feudal Castles

With the decline of Rome, there was no one to stop the advancement of the warring Germanic
tribes. These tribes travelled in search of food, wealth, and shelter, and often left devastation
behind them.

The result was that civilized life saw a long period of decline. The lives of the people were
harder, they had less food, poorer educations, and lower living conditions than earlier
generations.

Because there was no strong central government, feudal lords often went to war against one
another. In order to protect themselves, these lords began building large beautiful castles.
These castles consisted of a central building known as the ‘keep’ where the nobles lived, and
where prisoners were kept in dungeons. The keep was usually the most secure part of the
castle, and the hardest part to enter during battles. A keep usually had two or three floors, with
one big room on each floor. There was one big chimney running up the side, so each room
had one giant fireplace to heat it. To make it easier to defend these castles, they had only very
small slits for windows, and very thick walls.

Surrounding the keep was a large area known as the bailey. The bailey contained a number of
buildings including food stores, soldiers quarters, workshops, and even a chapel.

Finally, the castle was usually surrounded by a high outside wall, and a large deep moat
which made it difficult for outsiders to attack. You could only cross the moat by going over a
drawbridge.

The castles were beautiful from the outside, but they were damp, smelly, and cold on the
inside. They were built to protect the lords and ladies, and not to be comfortable.

Lords, ladies, and knights were called nobles. They had a higher status in feudal society than
that of the peasants. The peasants served the nobles, and were controlled by them.

A lord had complete authority over his lands, and the people who lived on his lands. A lady
had very few rights. She was expected to marry whoever her father chose, and could be
married at an age as young as twelve years old. Her responsibilities were to care for the
household, and to bare and raise children.

A knight served his lord during times of battle, which was frequent. He enjoyed more
freedoms and rights than peasants, but his life was always at risk.
 MEDIEVAL PEOPLE

The first relationships people had were with their own families. In medieval European
families, most kids lived with their father and mother and brothers and sisters. Because people
died young from diseases, a lot of kids also lived with other relatives, or just with an older
brother or sister, because their parents had died. Most kids never knew their grandparents,
who had died before they were born.

In the Middle Ages, hardly anyone went to school. Kids worked in the fields, or took care of
younger brothers and sisters. A few children, usually from richer families, were given to
monasteries or abbeys to be monks and nuns, and these children were sometimes taught to
read and write. The children of very rich men and women sometimes had tutors at home.

Teenagers, around the age of twelve or thirteen, often went out to work for somebody else.
Sometimes they worked for their neighbors, helping to plow the fields or take care of babies
or animals. Sometimes they worked for richer families, as servants, as Chaucer did, for
instance. Or they were apprenticed to learn a skill like weaving or blacksmithing. Many
teenagers lived with the people they worked for.

Most peasants rented land from a richer man or woman who owned a big estate. They owed
their landlord or landlady rent, and also a lot of other obligations. The peasants had to go to
war with their landlord if there was a war, and they had to work a certain number of days
every year for their landlady. Often peasants had to give their landlord or landlady a certain
number of chickens or a certain amount of honey or spun wool or firewood every year. Even
peasants who owned their own land often had some of these obligations to the nearest
powerful person. In exchange, the powerful person was supposed to protect the peasants from
invasions and from the king, and give them food when there was a drought, and enforce the
law (which was mainly whatever he or she said it was).

Each of these powerful people, in turn, owed obligations to a more powerful person - each
count or countess, for instance, owed obligations to a duke (or duchess) or an earl. If there
was a war, the count had to go to the war with his peasants, to fight for the duke. And the
count had to send valuable presents to the duke as well, every year. In exchange, again, the
duke was supposed to protect the count.
Over everybody was the king or queen. Even the dukes and earls were supposed to fight for
the king or queen and send him or her presents. But a lot depended on the king being strong
enough to make them! Sometimes if the duke was strong enough, he just refused to come.

Some peasants also rented land from the Catholic Church, which owned about a third of the
land in Europe during the Middle Ages. Their landlord would be a bishop instead of a count,
and over the bishop was the archbishop, and then the cardinal, and over all of those the Pope
in Rome. And some people became monks or nuns, in the service of the Church, instead of
being peasants.
 Becoming a Knight:

When a boy was eight years old, he was sent to the neighboring castle where he was trained as
a page. The boy was usually the son of a knight or of a member of the aristocracy. He spent
most of his time strengthening his body, wrestling and riding horses. He also learnt how to
fight with a spear and a sword. He practiced against a heavy sack in the form of a human. It
was hung on a wooden pole along with a shield. The young page had to hit the shield in its
center. When hit, the whole structure would spin around and around. The page had to
maneuver away quickly without getting hit. The young man was also taught more civilized
topics. He would be taught to read and write by a schoolmaster. He could also be taught some
Latin and French. The lady of the castle taught the page to sing and dance and how to behave
in the king’s court.

At the age of fifteen or sixteen, a boy became a squire in service to a knight. His duties
included dressing the knight in the morning, serving all of the knight’s meals, caring for the
knight’s horse, and cleaning the knight’s armor and weapons. He followed the knight to
tournaments and assisted his lord on the battlefield. A squire also prepared himself by
learning how to handle a sword and lance while wearing forty pounds of armor and riding a
horse. When he was about twenty, a squire could become a knight after proving himself
worthy. A lord would agree to knight him in a dubbing ceremony. The night before the
ceremony, the squire would dress in a white tunic and red robes. He would then fast and pray
all night for the purification of his soul. The chaplain would bless the future knight's sword
and then lay it on the chapel or church's altar. Before dawn, he took a bath to show that he
was pure, and he dressed in his best clothes. When dawn came, the priest would hear the
young man's confession. The squire would then eat breakfast. Soon the dubbing ceremony
began. The outdoor ceremony took place in front of family, friends, and nobility. The squire
knelt in front of the lord, who tapped the squire lightly on each shoulder with his sword and
proclaimed him a knight. After the dubbing, a great feast followed with music and dancing.

Knights believed in the code of chivalry. They promised to defend the weak, be courteous to
all women, be loyal to their king, and serve God at all times. Knights were expected to be
humble before others, especially their superiors. They were also expected not to "talk too
much". In other words, they shouldn't boast. The code of chivalry demanded that a knight give
mercy to an enemy. However, the very fact that knights were trained as men of war belied this
code. Even though they came from rich families, many knights were not their families'
firstborn. They did not receive an inheritance. Thus they were little more than mercenaries.
They plundered villages or cities that they captured, often destroying churches and other
property. Also the code of chivalry did not extend to the peasants. The "weak" was widely
interpreted as "noble women and children". They were often brutal to common folk.
 THE BLACK DEATH

In the 14th century (the 1300's), a horrible disease struck Asia, Africa, and Europe. The
people called this illness the Black Death. The disease started in Asia in the 1340's. It quickly
spread to Africa, and  throughout Europe. Infected people first broke out with red ring shaped
marks with dark center spots on their arms and necks. They had high fevers. They became
even more ill, and then they died.

In just two years, 25 million people died of the plague. In ten years, the plague had killed over
1/3 of Europe's population. Can you imagine the fear people must have felt? People were sick
everywhere. Whole families were wiped out. Whole villages were wiped out.  
At first, people locked their doors trying to protect themselves. They carried flowers to ward
off the smell of the dead and dying. The skies were filled with ashes as people burnt houses
filled with the dead. Villages filled with the dead were burnt down, to contain and kill the
disease. Nothing worked. 

Outbreaks of the disease seemed to come in cycles. Just as people thought it was over, a new
rash of illness hit the towns, and from the towns moved to the villages. 
People did not know that infected rats carried the disease. They thought it was a punishment
from God for being wicked. They believed if you were bad, you would get the plague and die.
The towns were hit the hardest. There was no sanitation in the towns. People threw their
garbage out on the street. To a rat, coming off a ship docked at port, the towns must have
seemed like heaven.

They had doctors, and doctors were highly respected, but medieval knowledge of health,
hygiene, and medical practices was very limited. Commoners and nobles took infrequent
baths. The peasants slept and worked in the same clothes for days and even weeks at a time
without washing themselves or their clothes. The nobles were not much better. Soap was
made of lye, which was very rough on the skin. There was no toothpaste or toothbrushes.
People used watered spices on their lips and teeth, but all that did was briefly hide the smell of
rotting teeth. 

Peasants died young from malnutrition and the simplest of diseases. Women died in childbirth
from ignorance. People handled cattle and then directly handled food. What's amazing really
is that anybody lived. The truth is, only the very strong survived. But the strong had no
defense against the Black Death. No one was safe. And millions of people died.
Outbreaks of the plague continued for two hundred years. The cause of the plague was not
discovered until the 20th century (1900's.) Today, this disease is called the bubonic plague.
We have a vaccine for the plague. We're lucky. The people in the Middle Ages did not have
vaccines to protect themselves from many diseases as we do today.
 THE BUBONIC PLAGUE
1. Fill in the blanks with an appropriate word.
The Bubonic ______________ was a great _____________ that killed ______________
people in Europe. The plague began in ___________ where 35 million Asians died of it. Rats
aboard European ___________ that traded in China carried the _______________ back to
Europe. Fleas that fed on the ____________ of the rats transferred the disease to the European
______________.
The plague spread in part because of poor __________________ in Europe. Europeans often
ate stale or diseased meat because ____________________ had not been invented yet.
Doctors often advised people not to _________________ because open skin pores were
thought to let in the plague. Death from the Bubonic Plague was generally quick but very
__________________. Victims first noticed that they limbs _____________ and they
________________ blood. The lymph nodes in the neck, armpits and groin ______________
until they burst.

2. Answer the questions in complete sentences.

a. Why was the Bubonic Plague also known as ’’the Black Death’’?
b. Describe the role of rats and fleas in the Bubonic Plague.
c. Write a short paragraph that explains how poor sanitary conditions in Europe helped the
plague to spread. Your paragraph must have a topic sentence, at least two supporting
sentences, and a conclusion that restates , but does not repeat the topic sentence.
d. The Italian writer Boccaccio said victims of the plague “ate lunch with their friends and
dinner with their ancestors.” What did he mean?

3. Fill in the blanks with an appropriate word. The first letter of the words are given.

THE MIDDLE AGES

The Middle A_________ is the period between a__________ and m____________ history.
The early period of the medieval times is known as the ’’D________ Ages’’ because the great
c_________________ of the Western Roman Empire had fallen. Life during this era was
d______________ and few people expected conditions to i_____________.
The medieval period ended about one t_________________ years after it began. Within the
next c________________ Europeans would learn of a ’’New W__________’’ across the
Atlantic O_________, l________________ would spread and scientists and
a______________ would advance European culture. Historians refer to this next period of
European history as the Renaissance or the r____________ of Europe. The Renaissance is
considered to be the b_______________ of modern history.

4. Answer the questions in complete sentences.

a. Why are the Early Middle Ages called the ’’Dark Ages’’?
b. Why do historians refer to the Dark Ages as a period when Europe ’’slept’’?
 Primogeniture
Primogeniture is a system of inheritance where all property is handed down to the first-born
son. In the Middle Ages, the oldest son would become the Lord of the Manor upon the death
of his father, much in the same way that the oldest son of a king would gain the crown. The
younger sons would have to find other careers.

The military was an option for many sons. A knight began his training as a young boy and
advanced to the rank of squire at about the age of fifteen. When the overlord considered the
young squire worthy, he was proclaimed a knight, and was entitled to the honorific title "Sir."
Knights were expected to be chivalrous. Chivalry was a set of rules for honorable behavior
followed by the knights. The term chivalry now refers to aristocratic display and public
ceremony rather than good manners.

A third option was to acquire a trade. There were no trade schools in the Middle Ages. A
father would pay a master to teach his son a trade. The boy would become an apprentice, and
often live with the family of the master tradesman. After a period of about seven years, the
boy became a journeyman. He could now work in his trade and be paid for his work. If he
were an expert in his trade, he might create a masterpiece and become a master himself, able
to employ apprentices of his own.

A girl might look toward marriage in her future. A dowry was a present of money, goods, or
sometimes land given by a bride’s father to her husband. The dowry, however, was for his
use, not hers. A dowry was thought to make a young girl more attractive to a potential
husband. A large dowry might make it possible for a young lady to attract a rich landholder.
Many girls entered the clergy as nuns, while others worked as servants at the manor house.

1. What was primogeniture?

2. Is primogeniture a fair system of inheritance? Defend your answer.
3. What do you think might have happened if land was equally divided among all children upon
the death of a parent?
4. Describe at least two chivalrous customs used in present day society.
5. Why do you think it was important for knights to follow a strict set of rules?
6. How would a boy learn a trade during the Middle Ages?
7. Why do you think it took so long to become a journeyman?
8. What is a dowry?
9. If you were the second child of a nobleman during the Middle Ages, and your father valued
your opinion, what option would you choose? Explain your reasons.