Section+13-2+Feudalism+in+Europe

Key Words:

 * __Lord__: Landowner.
 * __Fief__: Granted land.
 * __Vassal__: Person receiving the fief.
 * __Knight__: Mounted horsemen who pledged to defend their lords' land in exchange for fiefs.
 * __Serf__: Could not leave the place where they were born, not slaves, but their work benefited the king.
 * __Manor__: Lord's estate. Covered a few square miles.
 * __Tithe__: A church tax which the serfs owned the priest. (1/10 of their income!)

Key People:

 * __Vikings__: From Scandinavia, Germanic people also called Northmen or Norsemen.
 * __Magyars__: From Hungary, nomadic horsemen. They did not capture land, they sold their captives as slaves.
 * __Muslims__: From south: North Africa, expert seafarers.

Key Terms:

 * Invaders Attack Western Europe:**
 * Invaders from 700-1000 destroyed Carolingian Empire, Muslims (south) attacked Sicily, Italy, and Rome (846), Magyar (east) Germany, Italy and Vikings (north).
 * The Viking Invade from the North:**
 * They worshipped war-like gods called Eric Bloodaxe and Thorfinn Skullsplitter.
 * Raids: quick, swords, shields, and their ships: held 300, 72 oars, prow had a carved head of a monster, weighed 20 tons and could be in water as shallow as 3 feet.
 * Vikings were warriors, traders, farmers, and explorers: traveled into Russia and across North Atlantic, Leif traveled to North America in 1000 and as they began to accept Christianity, they became less violent.
 * Magyars and Muslims Attack from the East and South:**
 * The Magyars went across the Danube River and invaded west-Europe in the 800s: isolated villages, monasteries, northern Italy, Rhineland and Burgundy.
 * Invaded Italy and Spain, 600-700s: plan to conquer Europe, 800-900s: plunder, attacked along the Atlantic, Mediterranean and far into Switzerland.
 * These three invaders kept the Europeans always at risk and terrified, kings could not defend their lands, and many did not look up to kings, instead they held their loyalty to local leaders.
 * A New Social Order: Feudalism:**
 * 911: Viking leader Rollo and Charles the Simple, little power, but king of France, gave Rollo a large territory of France which became Northmen's land/Normandy and Rollo swore his loyalty to Charles the Simple.
 * Feudalism Structures Society:**
 * Invaders worse was from 850-950 many rulers (including Charles and Rollo) had similar agreements, feudalism (system of governing and landholding).
 * A feudal system is an exchange for military protection and other services depending on rights and obligations and depended on the control of the land.
 * The Feudal Pyramid:**
 * Top: king, then powerful vassals (wealthy landowners-nobles and bishops), then knights, then at the bottom were the peasants.
 * Social Classes Are Well Defined:**
 * Social classes inherited into one of these three groups: knights and nobles: those who fought, men and women of the Church: those who prayed, and the peasants were those who worked.
 * Majority were peasants, or serfs.
 * Manors: The Economic Side of Feudalism:**
 * Manor system was the basic economic system: rights between lord and serfs. Serfs were given housing, farmland, and protection from the lords and the lords received workers for his lands, animals, and other tasks, women and men worked and serfs had to give a few days of work and a portion of their grain.
 * A Self-Contained World:**
 * Serfs never went farther then 25 miles away from the manor, could see everything from it, and it contained 15-30 families in the manor's village (fields, pastures, woodlands, churches, manor house, and workshops, streams, and a mill.)
 * A community, serfs made/grew crops, milk, cheese, fuel, cloth, leather goods, and lumber, although they did buy a few things from the outside world. Crops: wheat, rye, barley, oats, peas, beans, onions, beets.
 * The Harshness of Manor Life:**
 * Serfs had to pay a tax on grains, bread not made in mill was a crime, tax on marriage and needed a lords consent to marry.
 * Cottages were crowded and in close living arrangements, 2 rooms: one for sleeping the other for cooking and other activities.
 * "Life was work and more work." Work, work, work, children usually died from illness or malnutrition, average lifespan was 35.
 * Church teachings: Christianity and that God determined place in society.