IES FRAY PEDRO DE URBINA. GEO.

AND HISTORY DEPARTMENT

FEUDALISM
1.The feudalism in Europe.
Feudalism is the political, economic and social system of the Middle Ages.
The feudal system was born in the ninth century, due to the lack of safety that
followed the death of Charlemagne (814). This insecurity was caused by fighting
between the successors of the emperor, Muslim attacks in the Mediterranean and a
new wave of invaders in central Europe.
Kings, unable to protect their territory, relied on the powerful nobles, who swore
them loyalty and military aid in exchange for concessions.
Farmers also sought the protection of the nobles, giving them their land or work in
return.

1.1. Social system: A stratified society.

Stratified society was divided into three estates or social groups to which they
belonged by birth, except the clergy. Each estate was on a role in society:
- The nobility defended the society. It was divided into the high nobility, who was
formed by the direct vassals of the king (dukes, counts, marquises and barons) and
lower nobility, consisting of lesser nobles who could keep a horse and weapons of
war.
- The clergy prayed for the salvation of men. It consisted of the secular clergy and
regular clergy. The secular clergy consisted of bishops and parish priests, who lived
with people. The higher clergy enjoyed numerous rents and had a way of life similar
to the nobles, while the lower clergy lived more poorly. The regular clergy consisted
of abbots and abbesses, who belonged to the high clergy, and monks and nuns. They

lived communally in a monastery and had to obey the rules of each order. The monks
followed vows of obedience, poverty and chastity. Their life was based on prayer and
manual work in infirmary, guesthouse, book illumination and agricultural tasks.
- The third estate commoners- were mostly peasants and worked to maintain the
other two groups, together with a few artisans and merchants. Farmers were divided
into villains - free people who could freely leave the manor- and the serfs -they
could not leave the manor and they conveyed their status to their children-.

1.2. Economic system: the fief.

The feudal economy was agrarian. The work was done in the fiefs or manors, which
were large territories belonging to the king, the nobility and clergy.
The fief was divided into the following parts: the castle where the feudal lord
resided, the plots -ceded lords lands to the peasants- and the demesne lords land
worked by serfs-. There were also commons -pasture lands and forests where people
got firewood and cattle feed- and the village, a town where peasants lived and in
which the church, the workshops, the furnace, the mill and the market were located.
Only a few peasants had the property of the land, those lands were called allodiums.
The fiefs were self-sufficient, ie. producing everything people needed to live. They
obtained food farming land with undeveloped techniques and few instruments like
the Roman plow, the sickle, the hoe and the scythe.
Some facilities, such as the mill, oven, or bridges, were owned by the lord and the
peasants had to pay taxes to use them.
Trade was very scarce, and performed by street merchants who plied the manors.

1.3. The political system: the feudal regime.

In feudal times, all the people were bound together by ties of personal dependence.
But these relationships were different, depending on the membership of one of the
groups.

- The feudal-vassal relations were established between the king and the nobles and
high churchmen, and between these and other lesser nobles. These pacts were a
military alliance in exchange for economic concessions and included two elements:
vassalage and the fief.
The vassalage of a knight was made by the homage and the investiture, a ceremony
that took place in the tower of the lords castle. The homage was the prostration of
the vassal, usually on knees, the osculum or ritual kiss, the inmixtio manum vassals
hands, united in prayer position, were caught between the lords ones- and a
sentence pronounced by the lord recognizing that vassalage. After the homage, it
took place the investiture, representing the granting of a fief by the lord through
the delivery of a symbol of the territory a handful of dirt, grass or grain- and the
accolade, in which the vassal received a sword and a knock on his shoulders with her.
The fief was a large extension of land, and included rights to govern, administer
justice and collect taxes from its inhabitants.
- The stately relations were established between the peasants and the lords. The
peasants received protection from the lords. In return, the lords took possession of
their lands and they had rights as issue orders, collect taxes and administer justice.

2. The Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula.

We called Reconquista to the military activity carried out by Christians over the
territory occupied by the Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula between 722 (Covadonga
battle) until 1492 (conquest of Granada). The conqueror progress was followed by a
process of land occupation, known as settlement.

2.1. Resistance cores birth

In the north of the peninsula there were people who had not been dominated by the
Visigoths and were not willing to be controlled by the Muslims: Asturians,
Cantabrians and Basques. On the other hand, in the Pyrenees people did not accept

the Arab domination and formed small counties, while in the east, Charlemagne
established the border of his empire, the Hispanic March. These territories formed
a core of resistance against the power of Islam.
The Asturian core, born in the mountains of Asturias, had his first act of resistance
at the Battle of Covadonga (722), where directed by Don Pelayo astures defeated a
little Arab army. From this first nucleus of resistance, the kingdom of Asturias
arose in the eighth century.
The Basque core was born in the Navarre Pyrenees and took advantage from its
position between the two great powers of Arabs and Franks to resist and remain
independent. The kingdom of Pamplona was formed there in the early ninth century.
In the central area of the Pyrenees were several pockets of resistance against the
Arabs and the most powerful of them managed to form a county and later
transformed it into a kingdom, the kingdom of Aragon.
The eastern part of the Pyrenees was occupied by the Franks, interested in
controlling a territory that separated them from the danger of Arab invasion: the
Hispanic March. The monarch gave fiefs to their vassals to defend the territory of
the invading danger. Eventually one of these counties, the county of Barcelona,
became the most powerful of the whole region and independent.
The first expansion and settlement of the Christians took place in these territories
near the Cantabrian Range and the Pyrenees between the ninth and tenth centuries,
through catching up: they occupied abandoned lands and gave them to farmers to
cultivate, they wanted to encourage landless poor people to risk living in unoccupied
territories near the Muslim frontier.

2.2. The beginning of the conquest and repopulation

The eleventh century saw the division of the Caliphate of Crdoba in multiple Taifa
kingdoms facing each other and the Christian kingdoms and counties take advantage
of this weakness to impose the payment of annual taxes (parias). Muslim rulers

become vassals of Christians and their territories, areas of future conquest. The
great Christian kingdoms consolidated. The Kingdom of Castile and Len, united by
Ferdinand I, enlarges its territory and this policy is continued by Alfonso VI,
occupying Toledo (1085). Finally, Castilians invaded the lands between the Douro and
Tagus rivers. Meanwhile, the kingdoms of Navarre, Aragon and the Catalan counties,
under the command of the Count of Barcelona, took advantage of the weakness of
the Taifa kingdoms moving forward the Ebro river.
Christian settlement in the eleventh century was based on big councils: it means the
creation of councils, communities of town and land, where people are encouraged to
go to live; for this they are granted with privileges, written in charters (charter of
Miranda, 1099).

2.3. Conquest and repopulation in the twelfth century

The twelfth century saw great political and territorial changes: the Castilian Leonese kingdom settled in the valley of the Tagus, the County of Portugal got its
independence as a kingdom and from the crown of Aragon, Alfonso I the Battler
conquered the valley of the Ebro, projecting the future invasion of the Balearic
Islands and Valencia Taifas.
After the death of Alfonso I, inherited the throne of Aragon his brother Ramiro II
the Monk, who arranged the marriage of his daughter Petronila with the count of
Barcelona, Ramon Berenguer IV (1137). The union of Aragon and the Catalan counties
allowed to add their military forces, starting a great territorial expansion that
completed the conquest of the present territories of Catalonia and Aragon remaining
still in the hands of Muslims.
In this period, repopulation was organized by the military orders, dedicating large
areas to pasture for sheep (it needs little labor, they could be taken in case of
attack).

2.4. Conquest and repopulation in the thirteenth century

In the early thirteenth century, a Christian army, composed of troops from the
kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, Navarre and Portugal, caused a great defeat to the
Almohads in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212).
After the Christian victory, both Castilla and Aragon quickly progressed to the
South, Castilians along the valleys of the Guadiana and Guadalquivir: first with
Alfonso IX, who conquered Cceres (1229) and Badajoz (1230), and later with
Ferdinand III, who unified Castile and Len definitely and reached to conquer almost
all Andalusia except the kingdom of Granada (conquest of Seville in 1248); and
James I the Conqueror, King of Aragon and Catalonia, will conquer the whole area of
Valencia (1238) and the Balearic islands.
The Castilian - Leonese kings continued their policy of territorial expansion
southward until the fourteenth century: Alfonso XI beat benimerines at the Battle
of Salado (1340) River and conquered Algeciras (1344), ending any possibility that
could produce a new North African invasion.
The repopulation of the lands conquered by the Crowns of Aragn and Castilla is
done by the distribution model, which was to divide the Muslim properties among the
conquerors of the city.
In the late thirteenth century, only lasted the Muslim kingdom of Granada, which
declared itself vassal of Castile and subjected to taxes.

3. The Romanesque art.

The Romanesque is the first international style of Europe, appearing in the mideleventh century and developed in the twelfth century, but in the second half of this
century will coexist with the Gothic.
In its dissemination they played an important role the Benedictine order, which
adopted this style in the monastery of Cluny (France) and from there it spread to
other monasteries Europe across; the crusades; the pilgrimages to holy sites and the

existence of gangs or teams of masons and sculptors, moving between various

European regions.

3.1. Romanesque architecture

The main characteristics of Romanesque architecture are the use of stone as the
main material, the supports with thick walls, columns and pillars; round (semicircular)
arches and naves covered with a barrel vault reinforced by arches or groin vault.
The vaults are heavy, so the buildings have thick walls reinforced with buttresses on
the outside, few windows and dark interiors.
The church was the main building of the Romanesque: the plant used to be cruciform,
a Latin cross composed of one, three or five naves separated by arches, and a
header consisting of several semicircular apses.
The pilgrimage churches had a gallery or second floor on the side naves to
accommodate more faithful and illuminate the central nave, and a semicircular
ambulatory surrounding the main altar which allowed pilgrims circle the church
without disrupting the Mass.

3.2. Romanesque sculpture and painting

Most Romanesque sculptures and paintings were made to adorn the churches, which
served the function of teaching doctrine to the Christian people, mostly illiterate,
through images. This feature explains that the figures are rigid and impassive, they
have an eternal and timeless character and do not seek beauty and realism, but
expressiveness.
The subjects represented are the life of Christ and scenes from the Bible. Also
shown are the lives of the saints, virtues and sins and, above all, the topics on the
end of the world: the Final Judgment, presided over by the Pantocrator.

3.2.1. Sculpture.
The sculpture applied to architecture stood at the front entrance and in the capitals
of churches and cloisters. They are naive and crude reliefs that fit the frame that
contains them, tending to occupy the entire space.
The free-standing sculpture was done in polychrome wood or ivory. It represents
normally crucified Christ or the Virgin. Christ appears on the cross with four nails,
long robe and no expression of feeling or pain. The Virgin is represented as the
throne of God, seated, holding the child on her knees.

3.2.2. Mural and table painting.

The painting was done on the interior walls of churches or covered with layers of
plaster boards. They are characterized by the use of a thick black drawing, flat and
uniform colors or the lack of interest to represent the volume of the figures or the
depth of space.

4. Glossary.

Apse: part of the church at the head usually semicircular and with a quarter
sphere vault.

Belt arch: each of the arches along the barrel vault used to hold it.

Vault: curved roof, which is supported by walls, pillars or columns.

Crusades: military expeditions undertaken by Christian armies to take control

of the Holy Land (Jerusalem).

Military Orders: organizations which combined military and religious life. They
had arisen in the East during the Crusades and were developed in the Spanish
kingdoms.