Feudalism and the Middle Ages: A Historical Analysis
The Middle Ages
The form of division of the Middle Ages into periods of teaching is not consensual. However, the most common is used by French medievalists, including Jacques Le Goff and Georges Duby. To these experts, the High Middle Ages is a period that goes from the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 to the year 1000 – after which starts the Classical Ages. The Middle Ages corresponds to the century and a half preceding the Renaissance, i.e., from 1300 to 1450.
Features of the High Middle Ages
Overall, the High Middle Ages was characterized in terms of political, movements of fragmentation and unity. The Germanic kingdoms dismantled the imperial, but at the same time were fragile and ephemeral existence. In the Iberian Peninsula, the fragility of the Visigothic kingdom is witnessed by the ease with which Muslims took over almost all of the peninsula in 711. In the British Isles is the general context of war between the Angles, Saxons, Britons, Picts, Scots, and later Normans. An outline of unification did not reach the end of the ninth century. The only people to be a really effective and lasting power was the French: they were the cause of the end of the Visigoth kingdom of Toulouse (507), and the second of the kingdoms (534). The Swabians are destroyed by the Visigoths, Vandals and Ostrogoths suffer under Belisarius, general agent of the Byzantine reconquest.
End of the High Middle Ages
If the starting point for Middle Ages is a date which events are quite “soft”, i.e. the fall of the Roman Empire, the end of the period is given in addition to purely didactic, for reasons of structural that term. These relate to changes in power – the slow emergence of a strong central power – the revitalization of trade and cities, it is linked to a social fact that is the emergence of the bourgeoisie, the urbanization of clerical power, especially with the orders mendicant, the appearance of a secular culture out of the monasteries, linked to the rise of universities.
The Middle Ages is the period of the Middle Ages that extends from the eleventh to the fifteenth century.
This period is characterized by the historical moment of crisis in the feudal mode of production and of economic, social and cultural rights related to it, that is, the collapse of the medieval world.
From the eleventh century, Europe is facing a period of relative peace, explained by the decrease or even by the end of the barbarian invasions. In this context the stability of Europe is seeing a real outbreak population by population growth. In this overview, we highlight two important events: the marginalization of servants ‘surplus’ and landless nobles (victims of the birthright), and on the relative peace of the moment lost the feuds, in part, the reason for its existence, as they (fiefs) were created to ensure security in the face of barbarian invasions during the dismemberment of the Roman Empire.
In 1095, Pope Urban II calls Christianity to a “holy war”, the regions sacred to Christians as the Holy Sepulcher (in Jerusalem) were under the rule of “infidel” Muslims. This fact together with other interests, such as greed dominate the European strategic cities of the east and oriental products (spices), sparked a bloody conflict between east and west which lasted 174 years, so-called Crusades. The Crusades fostered profound changes, among which we highlight the impetus of the Renaissance-urban commercial. Since this is accompanied by the strengthening of other cities, the birth of the bourgeoisie and empowering the real mix of Western cultural values and Oriental change in mentality (Cultural Renaissance and Reformation) and many others.
It is mounted under the crisis of feudalism, the process is ongoing, is what we call transition. Surge the nascent capitalism, is “new” time, plus a page of history.
The Formation of Feudalism
Introduction
The formation of feudalism in Western Europe involved a series of elements of structural, Roman and Germanic origin, related to cyclical factors, a long period, which includes the crisis of the Roman Empire from the third century, the formation of the Realms Barbarians and disruption of the Carolingian Empire in the ninth century.
The Barbarian Invasions
The Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire or Byzantine kingdom formerly known as the Eastern Roman Empire or Eastern Roman reign, succeeded the Roman Empire (about 395) as the dominant empire and the reign of the Mediterranean Sea. Under Justinian I, considered the last great Roman emperor, ruled areas in today’s Morocco, Carthage, Southern France and Italy and its islands, the Balkan Peninsula, Anatolia, Egypt, the Near East and the Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea. Under the Western perspective, it is not wrong to insert the Byzantine Empire in the study of the Middle Ages, but, strictly speaking, he lived an extension of the ancient world. Historians specializing in Byzantium in general agreement that its heyday it was with the great emperor of the Macedonian dynasty, Basil II Bulgaroctonos (Mata-Bulgarians) in the early ninth century. Its territorial gradual regression outlined the history of medieval Europe, and his fall in 1453, compared to the Ottoman Turks marked the end of the Middle Ages.
Consequences of the Fall of Constantinople
The fall of Constantinople resulted in the loss of a strategic position of Christianity, which provided access to European traders in the direction of trade routes to India and China, especially for the Venetians and Genoese merchants. With the Turkish domination, the route between the Mediterranean and Black Sea was, but blocked vessels Christians, at least difficult. This prompted a naval race in search of another route towards India across the Atlantic Ocean, around Africa. Spain and Portugal quickly took advantage of geographical position to dominate the new routes, causing the decline of the maritime republics of Venice and Genoa. At the end of the fifteenth century, financed by the Spanish monarchs, Columbus left for a daring attempt to reach Asia in a new route across the ocean to the west, discovering a new continent, America, revealing a new world for Europeans. This same process of closing the trade in the Mediterranean Sea, where the Ottoman Turks impeded progress European made throughout the Balkans to become more dependent on own production, together with the Italian peninsula. The various economic and political changes that followed the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire led historians to agree a year in 1453 to mark the end of the Middle Ages and the end of feudalism in Europe, making the Byzantine Empire a great milestone for discoveries of new lands, and for the development of capitalism in the world.
The Five Pillars of Islam
The five pillars of Islam are five basic duties of every Muslim:
- The recitation and acceptance of the creed
- Pray five times throughout the day
- Paying alms
- Observe fasting in Ramadan (Saum or Siyam)
- Making the pilgrimage to Mecca (Haj) if the physical and financial.
Shia Muslims also consider three practices as essential to the Islamic religion, besides the jihad, it is also important to Sunnis, there is Amr-Bil-Ma’ruf, “call on the Well,” calls upon all Muslims to live a life virtuous and encourage others to do the same, and Nahi-Anil-Munkar, “Probe Evil”, which guides Muslims to abstain from vice and evil deeds, and also encourage others to do the same.
Some groups Kharijites existing in the Middle Ages saw jihad as the “sixth pillar of Islam.” Currently some groups of Shia Ismaili understand the “loyalty to the Imam” as the sixth pillar of Islam.