Church and the Rise of Cities

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Church and the Rise of Cities

• Coach Parrish
• OMS
• Chapter 14, Section 2

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Church in the Middle Ages

• Most gothic cathedrals were built between 1100
  1400 AD. Gothic is a style of architecture.
  Most people in western Europe were Roman
  Catholic.
• The Church was powerful for the reasons on the
  following slides.

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Reims Cathedral - France
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Reims Cathedral - Interior
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Religious and Economic Power

• People followed the Church. Why?
• Promise of Rewards
• Threat of Punishment
• The Church gained great wealth by charging taxes.
  The Church took fiefs in exchange for religious
  services performed by clergy persons authorized
  to perform religious services.

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Political Power of the Church

• The Church set up laws and put together courts to
  enforce them. People who did not obey were
  threatened with excommunication - expelled from
  membership in the Church.
• High Church officials were advisors to kings and
  lords. The Church used its power to limit
  warfare.

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Church Organization

• The Church was highly organized. Almost every
  village had a priest. A bishop supervised
  several priests. An archbishop supervised
  several bishops.
• The archbishops answered to the Pope. The
  papacy, or government of the Church, was based in
  Rome.

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Church in Everyday Life

• The Medieval Church touched nearly all aspects of
  life. During the Middle Ages, the clergy were
  almost always in attendance to offer a blessing
  or to perform a service.
• The clergy listened when people confessed their
  sins and forgave them.

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Monasteries and Convents

• Monasteries were communities where men who had
  dedicated their life to God lived together.
  Women who had dedicated their lives to God lived
  in convents.
• Men were called monks and women nuns. They were
  better educated than most and invented new ways
  of growing crops.

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Scholasticism

• Scholasticism used reason to support Christian
  beliefs. The Church asked that people believe
  things on faith even though some had taken up
  Greek reason.
• Scholasticism was a method to try and eliminate
  contradictions between the Church and philosophy.

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Early school practicing scholasticism
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Growth of Towns

• As trade increased, villages turned into larger
  trading towns. Traders gathered at convenient
  locations to help their sales.
• Manors were becoming overcrowded, and lords
  encouraged peasants to move to the growing towns.

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Trading Routes
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Rise of Middle Class

• Town life was far different than manor life.
  Towns existed because of the exchange of goods
  and services.
• A new class of people developed, made up of
  merchants, traders, and craft people. They
  became the middle class.

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Role of Guilds

• In many towns, the middle class formed guilds
  medieval organization of crafts, workers, and
  merchants. Example Shoemaker guild
• Guilds set prices and prevented people from
  outside the town to sell their goods. Guild
  members paid dues which went for needy members or
  loved ones who died.

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Role of Guilds, cont.

• Joining a guild took time. Between the ages of 8
  and 14, a boy who wanted to learn a certain job
  became an apprentice unpaid worker being
  trained.
• He lived with a training master for up to 7
  years. He then became a journeyman, or salaried
  worker. After time, he could join the guild.

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Guild Coat of Arms
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Overcrowding and Disease

• Medieval towns and cities were extremely
  overcrowded. The lack of sanitation caused
  diseases that spread very quickly. One disease,
  the bubonic plague, wiped out 1/3 of Europes
  population in just 4 years.
• Called the Black Death, it was spread by fleas
  living on rats.

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Medieval Culture

• Chivalry code of honorable conduct by which
  knights were supposed to live.
• Troubadours traveling poets and musicians.
  They went around singing about brave missions
  performed by knights.

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Troubadours