To say when the Middle Ages began and ended is impossible to say, but as a rough guide we can see Christianity placing light on the Dark Ages about 700AD, the period lasting until about 1500 and the Renaissance.
The period was topped by the High Middle Ages of the 12th and 13th centuries, where a single Christian system seemed to rule supreme. However, below this apparent unity was a cauldron of early nationalist aspiration as various royal families tried to increase their power to hold their lands.
ENGLAND AND FRANCE
This was particularly so with England and France. Indeed, for England the early period saw subjugation of Wales and Scotland, early attempts to define English power above Rome, and a number of baronial risings to whittle away the power of the king.
It was from one such rising that King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta in 1215, curbing the power of the king and being the first great move down the road to a fair constitution.
At the time England and France were intrinsically linked through the Normans, who had also taken much of the traditional French lands.
In 987 the Carolingians gave way to the Capetians under Hugh Capet. Ruling only a small area of land around Paris, by 1108 the French monarchy began to take back their lands.
The Norman royals now seeing themselves as English, by the 13th century they had lost most of their French territories, and following a succession dispute and French interference in Scotland, antagonism between England and France flared up to the Hundred Year’s War.
A TIME OF WAR
Beginning in 1338, the war initially went England’s way with naval victory at Sluys in 1340 and rout of the French army at the Battle of Crecy in 1346. However, by 1369 the French were back on the offensive, taking most of France except Bordeaux, Bayonne and Calais.
England eventually responded with their victory at Agincourt in 1415, the Treaty of Troyes of 1420 proclaiming Henry V heir to the French throne. However, his death led to further intrigue, the French Dauphin claiming the throne, the English invading again, driving the French to a last stand at Orleans.
Here, a young peasant girl called Joan of Arc rallied the French and drove the English back. By close of war in 1453, only Calais remained in English hands.
Further troubles were ahead for England in the Wars of the Roses, where the Houses of York and Lancaster, both descended from Edward III, vied for supremacy. Finally, Henry Tudor beat the Yorkists at the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, marrying a Yorkist to merge the two houses. As Henry VII, he began the Tudors, who would later make great advances to take England into the modern world.
HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE
Other than France and England the bulk of western Europe consisted of dozens of duchies and principalities drawn into a loose alliance with spiritual leadership from the pope and temporal leadership from the Holy Roman Emperor.
The initial empire had been Charlesmagne’s, centred on France, but in 939 Otto I of Saxony, Germany, consolidated this loose empire by force, thus gaining imperial supremacy over the pope and making the empire’s centre in Germany.
The duchies were never happy with the emperor’s authority, leading to many clashes. By the 12th century a status quo came into being with the agreement that the emperors would be chosen by the duchies, leading to the compromise in 1257 where seven Electors would choose the emperor.
These were the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Margrave of Brandenberg, the Duke of Saxony, the King of Bohemia, and the Archbishops of Mainz, Trier and Cologne. In the 17th century, three other electors appeared from Bavaria, Hanover and Hesse-Kassel.
THE HABSBURGS
Following Otto’s suppression of the papacy the empire’s politics also centred on the disputed role of emperor and pope, the pope forever attempting to increase his political power.
The emperor Frederick Barbarossa was particularly at odds with the pope, as well as from an alliance of cities in northern Italy, the Lombard League. He finally recognized the authority of the pope in 1177 and a compromise came with the Lombards in 1183. Barbarossa’s grandson, Frederick II, presided over the wane of German power, constantly fighting against the German duchies, pope and Lombards. When Innocent IV became pope he used his influence with the duchies, who threatened revolt.
The first Habsburg succeeded Frederick with Rudolph I in 1274, this Austrian house going on to rule the empire for centuries, using conquest and marriage to gain power bases in Austria, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Burgundy, Castile, Aragon, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, Hungary and Bohemia.
However, underneath this political thread of European history, the real power was in the hands of the Church, as we will see in the next post.
© Anthony North, August 2007
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