Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Middle Ages
Middle Ages
MIDDLE
AGES
What happened to Europe after the fall of
the Roman Empire?
Greco-Roman
culture was mostly
forgotten in
Western Europe
Europe lost its common language; Latin mixed with
German dialects and evolved into new languages,
such as Spanish, French, and Italian
Germanic Tribes in the Middle Ages
Without the
unity of the
Roman Empire,
Europe became
divided into a
series of
Germanic
kingdoms
Germanic people lived in
small communities led by
chiefs and his loyal warriors
Charlemagne expanded
the Frankish Empire
Throughout
the Frankish
Empire,
Charlemagne
spread
Christianity
He valued learning and built He created schools to
schools in his empire train future priests
After Charlemagne’s
death in 814, his
Frankish Empire lost
power and was divided
This was the last
opportunity to provide
unity in Medieval
Europe; that opportunity
died with Charlemagne
From 800 to 1000, a second major wave of invasions
struck Europe; the first wave of attacks was by
Germanic barbarians that took over Western Rome
This second wave of invasions was led by the Vikings,
the Muslims, and the Magyars
In exchange,
peasants repaid
the lord by
working his land
and providing a
portion of the
food they
produced
Manors were self-sufficient communities; everything
that was needed was produced on the manor
However, peasant
life was hard: the
days were filled by
tough physical labor,
they paid taxes to
use the lord’s mill
(to make bread for
themselves), and
had to get the lord’s
permission for most
things, including
getting married
Peasant life was
also short: the
average life
expectancy of
common folk in the
Middle Ages was
only 35 years old
Lords built castles to protect their territory
from outside invasions
Both the
attackers and
the defenders
of a castle
would use the
most modern
weaponry of
the time to
fight each other
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Originally created by
Brooks Baggett
Revamped by
Christopher Jaskowiak