Feudalism in the middle ages knights5/8/2023 ![]() ![]() With their hard work, education, and artistic flair, these monks were keeping literacy alive for Western civilization while creating some of the finest art of the age. This holy book incorporates both Christian imagery and pagan motifs from the indigenous Celtic culture. They wrote on vellum - calfskin scraped with a knife. They went to great lengths - using powders from crushed bugs and precious stones - to get the most vivid colors. Ornamenting these pages was an opportunity for the monks to exercise their artistic creativity. Copying books by hand was painstaking work. In a mostly illiterate world, these monks preserved the knowledge of ancient times with beautifully illustrated books called "illuminated manuscripts." Their most important task was meticulously copying sacred texts. More educated than most, they kept alive or developed early technology like metal-working. Monks lived simple lives of work and prayer. Its finely fitted walls - stone without mortar - still keep out the rain. Twelve hundred years ago those Irish monks stacked stones to build this chapel. The earliest monastic communities were small - fortified hamlets of humble huts - built like stone igloos. In fact, Ireland was nicknamed the Isle of Saints and Scholars. Many of these educated elites lived in the remote western-most corner of Europe. In the darkest days of the early Middle Ages, when almost no one could read or write, it was monks who were the scribes and scholars of Europe. As Christianity spread across Europe, monasteries and convents - communities of men and women who dedicated their lives to the service of God - flourished. And rather than Caesar, it was Christ ruling from the all-powerful throne. Towering ancient monuments were now capped not by Roman emperors…but by Christian saints. Rome's language, Latin, lived on as the language of Europe's educated elite. The Roman emperor - called the "pontifex maximus" - became the Christian pope (also called the pontifex maximus). ![]() Roman senators became Christian bishops. It provided both stability and continuity. During those difficult times, one institution survived from ancient Rome - the Christian Church. With peasants on the bottom, nobles and bishops in the middle, and the king or queen on top, this feudal hierarchy would dominate the Middle Ages and produce some of medieval Europe's earliest treasures: jeweled crowns, scepters, and fancy swords - the ceremonial objects that reinforced the message that the feudal order was endorsed by God and all-powerful. This was part of a societal structure called "feudalism." The lord promised land and protection in exchange for loyalty and a tax on anything produced. Desperate for security, they bowed down to the local warlord, who was armed with a castle and knights, and backed by the Church. People were superstitious, living in fear of dark forces. ![]() For centuries, there was little travel, little trade, no building for the future…almost no progress. Tilling the fields, most lived their entire lives in a single place, poor and uneducated. Frightened people sought refuge inside crude fortresses…in towns surrounded by thick walls and moats…or atop remote hills. After Rome fell, Europe was plunged into what used to be called the "Dark Ages." The once-united empire shattered into small warring kingdoms. The city of Rome had been sacked and marauding tribes ravaged the countryside. The Roman Empire that had united Europe for centuries was crumbling - leaving a political vacuum. ![]()
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