HISTORICAL PROFILE OF THE MIDDLE AGES: ANALYSIS, CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE MOST MYSTERIOUS AND CONTROVERSIAL PERIOD IN HISTORY. HISTORICAL PROFILE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
The Middle Ages were one of the darkest and, at the same time, fascinating periods in the history of humanity. Many interpretations have been given. And there is also a lot of fascination that it has aroused in cultural and literary circles throughout history. But the Middle Ages was also an extremely long and complex historical period. Inside it we can see evolutionary processes that did not go hand in hand in every corner of Europe. Some areas experienced economic, social and political development that “introduced” them to the Renaissance well before the 15th century. Others remained, in fact, in the Middle Ages even well beyond this last century (this is the case of central-eastern Europe, the Germanic area and Russia first and foremost). Still others did not know the Middle Ages (understood as feudalism, or as the political, social, economic and productive system that established itself in Western Europe after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire) at all. This is the case of the Byzantine Empire (i.e. the Eastern Roman Empire, which collapsed only a thousand years after the Western one) and southern Italy which was under the control of Byzantium from Justinian until the 10th century AD. Here, in fact, the Roman political model and the capitalist economy survived in an integral way. Preserving, de facto, the Roman political-administrative model based on an effective centralization of power and on a network of public officials paid by the state and therefore dependent on it. This is very important to understand the difference with the political, economic and social system known as feudalism (which was dominant throughout central-western Europe until the year 1000 and beyond). In fact, this system led to the weakening of the political summit (i.e. the King) to the benefit of his officials (vassals). That since they could not be paid by him they were no longer, at a certain point, subjugated. The King, due to the impoverishment of public finances following the collapse of economic and commercial activity following the barbarian invasions, found himself in a position to entrust the administration of the royal possessions to his vassals who, over time, they became real rulers in such fiefdoms. Sometimes powerful enough to challenge the King himself in battle and to plot against him. This was the cause of the political-administrative decentralization of the Middle Ages (often also defined as feudal anarchy). But she wasn’t the only one. Other important historical facts, such as Charles Martel’s military reform after Poitiers, were a necessary condition for the formation and consolidation of feudalism during the early Middle Ages.
HISTORICAL PROFILE OF THE MIDDLE AGES: ANALYSIS, CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE MOST MYSTERIOUS AND CONTROVERSIAL HISTORICAL PERIOD IN HISTORY. THE TRUE REASONS FOR THE ADVENT OF FEUDALISM AND ITS SPECIFICITIES
Before talking about Charles Martel’s military reform and the birth of chivalry, and therefore of the nobility as a social class and military caste, it is appropriate to consider the true causes that caused the advent of the feudal system (political, social and economic system) and all its implications (including the almost subsistence agricultural economy typical of this historical period, the almost complete cessation of monetary circulation and the general impoverishment of society and political power compared to the Roman period). It can be said that two historical circumstances were the true cause of the advent of the feudal system in the Middle Ages (a system which, by its very nature, has its sine qua non in real estate wealth). The first is represented by the barbarian invasions and their consequences on the European population as well as on the deurbanization that followed. The depopulation of the cities and the ruralization of the population led to profound changes in the economic structure existing before the advent of feudalism (substantially based on trade and on the cities understood as markets on which to sell the agricultural production of the countryside). This process could not be stemmed by exportation abroad (think of Byzantium and the Byzantine Empire, the largest existing market at the time) because another great invasion, that of Islam, occurred in a sudden and unexpected during the 7th century AD, it made the Mediterranean an unsafe sea infested by Saracen piracy. This deprived agricultural production in Western Europe of important outlet markets that could have made up for, at least in part, the very difficult situation of the internal market, no longer able to absorb its production. All this also had consequences for the monarchies of the time. The various Kings of Europe were no longer able to draw on taxes on commercial activities (which became almost non-existent in the early Middle Ages) and consequently became impoverished. To the point that they can no longer even pay their officials and all their subordinates. And therefore they were forced, to manage and administer their possessions, to delegate their vassals for this purpose. Who, not being paid by them, drew on the natural resources of the territory entrusted to them and, little by little, took possession of it. From this state of affairs comes what is generally defined as “feudal anarchy” and the insubordination of vassals to their sovereign. Who, in this particular historical context, was so weak, economically and militarily, that he could not impose himself by force on his vassals (some of whom, managing to assert themselves in battle over other vassals, became real Princes at the head of vast and powerful states). It should also be added that these vassals, based on the aforementioned military reform of Charles Martel, were mostly knights. Or nobles. The nobility (not to be confused with the class of landowners, the aristocracy) was born, precisely in the historical context of the early Middle Ages, as a warrior caste. The Arab expansion (which had its final blow precisely in Poitiers, in 732) imposed the constitution of a warrior caste (the nobility or chivalry, whatever you prefer) that could intervene quickly and effectively against the Saracen threat. To do this it was necessary to guarantee the nobles land possessions that would allow them the necessary support and the purchase of the necessary armor. The nobleman had to dedicate himself only to the military art (while his own subsistence was taken care of by his peasant subjects who worked the land for their own sustenance and that of their lord). Which, in Charles’s view, was to create a rapid intervention force against further raids by the Moors on the European continent. The fact is that this contributed in a fundamental way to the economic and social structure of the Middle Ages divided into three distinct social classes. Very different from each other in terms of prestige, power and economic condition (after the year 1000, a new social class, the bourgeoisie, would be born, which would be fundamental for dismantling the feudal system as it would reactivate commercial activity and monetary circulation inaugurating that process of social, political and economic modernization which will progressively undermine the feudal order). The first is represented by the clergy (which is also defined as the social class of the orators or first estate). The second from the nobility (also called the bellatores class or second estate). And then the largest class but essentially without legal rights: The class of laboratores (also defined as the third estate) to which the enormous mass of peasants who worked the land for their lords and for their own livelihood belonged. This type of social structure, substantially static and devoid of mobility, determined a conception of existence in which the role of the Church, of the transcendent and of universal judgment was preponderant and never truly questioned. This state of affairs was also determined by an extremely weak economy and very precarious conditions of existence. At least until the year 1000. That is, until the beginning of the late Middle Ages. In fact, only after this date did the social, economic and political structure of the Middle Ages begin to be modified, little by little, by the economic and commercial ferment animated by the economic activity of the bourgeoisie. This was also a consequence of the annihilation of Muslim piracy in the Mediterranean Sea and the resumption of trade with Byzantium. Such an “economic renaissance” determined the formation of the first great capitals of the modern world, the birth of the municipal reality and of urban expansion (and the cities once again became large outlet markets for the agricultural production of the countryside that consequently active in this sense) and a new conception of existence: Less inclined to bear the rigor of religious dogma. However, these changes did not occur uniformly throughout Europe. Some areas were more dynamic from this point of view. Others much less. But certainly, after the year 1000, the feudal structure of the economy and feudal society began to suffer a whole series of “nicks” which gradually undermined its rigid framework.
HISTORICAL PROFILE OF THE MIDDLE AGES: ANALYSIS, CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE MOST MYSTERIOUS AND CONTROVERSIAL PERIOD IN HISTORY. CONSEQUENCES AND LEGACYS OF THE MIDDLE AGES
The political, social and economic structure that took shape in the early Middle Ages (476-1000 AD) and which was preserved, more or less integrally, until the 14th century (and in central-eastern Europe well beyond) had therefore its raison d’être in the great invasions that shocked Europe from the 6th to the 7th century AD. (the Germanic ones and the Muslim one) and in their disastrous political consequences (weakening of the figure of the crown due to the impoverishment of state coffers), social (ruralization and deurbanization of the population with consequent advent of a subsistence economy) and economic-commercial ones (transition from a capitalist market economy to a subsistence agricultural one as a consequence of the loss of real outlet markets, at the time substantially represented by the cities and the Byzantine Empire). It cannot be explained otherwise. The end of this political, economic and social system must instead be sought in the removal of the causes that favored its advent. That is, in the process of new urbanization that materialized after the year 1000, from the resumption of commercial activity in grand style as a result of the defeat of Muslim piracy in the Mediterranean and in the political and social advent of the bourgeoisie in the new municipal reality that will come to strengthen itself in an increasingly vigorous and decisive way during the late Middle Ages. Events, these, which will not only allow the formation of large capitals (and therefore the creation of real movable wealth which in fact did not exist in the early Middle Ages) but which will also guarantee the collection of the various crowns from their vassals (which will allow to the King, or rather to the central power, to reacquire their prerogatives to the detriment of their vassals, since, thanks to the proceeds deriving from taxes on commercial activities, the Kings will reconstitute a class of their own officials, under their direct control, of bourgeois and non-noble social extraction). And which therefore, even if in a non-synchronic and non-uniform way, will lay the foundations for the birth of the modern state (based on the centralization of power) and the modern era. In which the hedonistic conception of life takes precedence over the ascetic self-denial and in which all the certainties, of a transcendent nature, omnipresent in the consciousness of medieval man, inevitably fail in the face of an open and problematic vision of human existence . L
