The Middle Ages portal
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period (also spelt mediaeval or mediæval) lasted from approximately 500 to 1500 AD. It is the second of the three traditional divisions of Western history: antiquity, medieval, and modern. Major developments include the economic predominance of agriculture, exploitation of the peasantry, slow inter-regional communication, the importance of personal relationships in power structures, and the weakness of state administration. The period is sometimes subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages, and the early medieval period is alternatively referred to as the Dark Ages.
Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralised authority, the mass migration of tribes (mainly Germanic peoples), and Christianisation, which had begun in late antiquity, continued into the Early Middle Ages. The movement of peoples led to the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire and the rise of new kingdoms. In the post-Roman world, taxation declined, the army was financed through land grants, and the blending of Later Roman civilisation and the invaders' traditions is well documented. The Eastern Roman Empire (or Byzantine Empire) survived, but lost the Middle East and North Africa to Muslim conquerors in the 7th century. Although the Carolingian dynasty of the Franks reunited many of the Western Roman lands by the early 9th century, the Carolingian Empire quickly fell apart into competing kingdoms which later fragmented into autonomous duchies and lordships.
During the High Middle Ages, which began after 1000, the population of Europe increased greatly as the Medieval Warm Period allowed crop yields to increase, and technological and agricultural innovations introduced a "commercial revolution". Slavery nearly disappeared, and peasants could improve their status by colonising faraway regions in return for economic and legal concessions. New towns developed from local commercial centers, and urban artisans united into local guilds to protect their common interests. Western church leaders accepted papal supremacy to get rid of lay influence, which accelerated the separation of the western Catholic and eastern Orthodox Churches and triggered the Investiture Controversy between the papacy and secular powers. With the spread of heavy cavalry, a new aristocracy stabilised their position through strict inheritance customs. In the system of feudalism, noble knights owed military service to their lords in return for the lands they had received in fief. Stone castles were built in regions where central authority was weak, but state power was on the rise by the end of the period. The settlement of Western European peasants and aristocrats towards the eastern and southern peripheries of Europe, often spurred by crusades, led to the expansion of Latin Christendom. The spread of cathedral schools and universities stimulated a new method of intellectual discussion, with an emphasis on rational argumentation known as scholasticism. Mass pilgrimages prompted the construction of massive Romanesque churches, while structural innovations led to the development of the more delicate Gothic architecture.
Calamities which included a great famine and the Black Death, which reduced the population by 50 per cent, began the Late Middle Ages in the 14th century. Conflicts between ethnic and social groups intensified and local conflicts often escalated into full-scale warfare, such as the Hundred Years' War. By the end of the period, the Byzantine Empire and the Balkan states were conquered by a new Muslim power: the Ottoman Empire; in the Iberian Peninsula, Christian kingdoms won their centuries-old war against their Muslim neighbours. The prominence of personal faith is well documented, but the Western Schism and dissident movements condemned as heresies presented a significant challenge to traditional power structures in the Western Church. Humanist scholars began to emphasise human dignity, and Early Renaissance architects and artists revived several elements of classical culture in Italy. During the last medieval century, naval expeditions in search for new trade routes introduced the Age of Discovery. (Full article...)
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The church is cruciform in plan, and is able to seat 1200. An active place of worship, with hundreds of congregation members and hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, it is used for religious services, secular civic ceremonies, concerts and lectures. The choir performs in the abbey and elsewhere. There is a heritage museum in the vaults.
Selected biography
Stephen (c. 1092/6 – 25 October 1154), often referred to as Stephen of Blois (French: Étienne de Blois, Medieval French: Estienne de Blois), was a grandson of William the Conqueror. He was King of England from 1135 to his death, and also the Count of Boulogne in right of his wife. Stephen's reign was marked by the Anarchy, a civil war with his cousin and rival, the Empress Matilda. He was succeeded by Matilda's son, Henry II, the first of the Angevin kings.
Stephen was born in the County of Blois in middle France; his father, Count Stephen-Henry, died while Stephen was still young, and he was brought up by his mother, Adela. Placed into the court of his uncle, Henry I, Stephen rose in prominence and was granted extensive lands. Stephen married Matilda of Boulogne, inheriting additional estates in Kent and Boulogne that made the couple one of the wealthiest in England. Stephen narrowly escaped drowning with Henry I's son, William Adelin, in the sinking of the White Ship in 1120; William's death left the succession of the English throne open to challenge. When Henry I died in 1135, Stephen quickly crossed the English Channel and with the help of his brother Henry of Blois, a powerful ecclesiastic, took the throne, arguing that the preservation of order across the kingdom took priority over his earlier oaths to support the claim of Henry I's daughter, the Empress Matilda.
The early years of Stephen's reign were largely successful, despite a series of attacks on his possessions in England and Normandy from David I of Scotland, Welsh rebels and the Empress Matilda's husband, Geoffrey of Anjou. In 1138 the Empress's half-brother Robert of Gloucester rebelled against Stephen, threatening civil war. Together with his close advisor, Waleron de Beaumont, Stephen took firm steps to defend England, including arresting a powerful family of bishops. When the Empress and Robert invaded in 1139, however, Stephen was unable to rapidly crush the revolt, which took hold in the south-west of England. Captured at the battle of Lincoln in 1141, Stephen was abandoned by many of his followers and lost control of Normandy. Stephen was only freed after his wife and William of Ypres, one of his military commanders, captured Robert at the Rout of Winchester, but the war dragged on for many years with neither side able to win an advantage.
Stephen became increasingly concerned with ensuring that his son, Eustace, would inherit his throne after him. The king attempted to convince the church to agree to crown Eustace to reinforce his claim: Pope Eugene III refused and Stephen found himself in a sequence of increasingly bitter arguments with his senior clergy. In 1153 the Empress's son, Henry FitzEmpress, invaded England and built an alliance of powerful regional barons to support his claim for the throne. The two armies met at Wallingford but neither side's barons were keen to fight another pitched battle. Stephen began to examine a negotiated peace, a process hastened by the sudden death of Eustace. Stephen and Henry agreed the Treaty of Winchester later in the year, in which Stephen recognised Henry as his heir in exchange for peace, passing over William, Stephen's second son. Stephen died the following year. Modern historians have extensively debated the extent to which Stephen's personality, external events or the weaknesses in the Norman state contributed to this prolonged period of civil war. (Read more. . .)
Did you know...
- ...that a paillasse is a thin mattress filled with hay or sawdust and was commonly used in the middle ages?
- ...that a barbican is a tower or other fortification defending the drawbridge, usually the gateway?
- ...that a coif is a type of armored head-covering made out of chain-mail and worn under the helmet for extra protection?
- ...that a heriot is a payment owed to the lord of the manor by a serf’s family upon the serf’s death; usually the family’s best animal, such as a cow, horse or most commonly ox?
- ...that before 1066, it was noted in the Domesday Book, if one Welshman killed another, the dead man’s relatives could exact retribution on the killer and his family (even burning their houses) until burial of the victim the next day?
- ...that buboes are pus-filled egg-sized swellings of the lymph glands of the neck, armpits, and groin; typically found in cases of bubonic plague?
- ...that laws passed in the late 1300s aimed at maintaining class distinctions by prohibiting lower classes from dressing as if they belonged to higher classes?
- ...that Pier Gerlofs Donia, a 15th century Frisian freedom fighter of 7 feet tall was alleged to be so strong that he could lift a 1000 pound horse?
- ...that Edgar Ætheling was the last of the Anglo-Saxon Kings of England, but was only proclaimed, never crowned?
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A 13th century fresco of the Bulgarian Emperor Constantine Tikh and his wife Irina from the Boyana Church.
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