The Medival World

• Medieval period: 600 A.D - 1500 A.D
• Roman empire destroyed by Barbarian invasions by 500 A.D
• Eastern Roman empire founded before 500 A.D continued for 1000 years more. 

Feudalism

• economic life predominantly rural. 
• main division of society
• Peasants: who worked on land.
• Feudal lords: got share of the peasants produce or had peasants to work on lands without any payment.
• produce consumed locally.
• very little role of towns and trade in the life of people. 
• land was main source of authority and power. 

Feudal hierarchy

• King > dukes & earls > barons > knights > peasants
• King bestowed fiefs or estates on number of dukes who in turn bestowed their fiefs to lesser lords and so on. 
• Every feudal lord was expected to pay homage to his overlord and could then be invested with some formal rights.
• Knights were lowest category of feudal lords. They performed military services.
• Relation from top to bottom was of allegiance. 
• There was little political unity and lack of central authority in feudal countries. 
• Each feudal lord was all powerful within his fief. He has his own soldiers; levied taxes in his fief; acted as judge and tried. Sometime lords grew so powerful that they even ignored the king and refused to obey him. This resulted in very little political unity and a strong central power was not allowed to develop. 

Types of Peasants

1. Freeholders
• received land from lords, used and managed it as their own. 
• did not work for their lord.
• paid taxes to lord.
2. Villens
• gave a part of produce of their land to lord.
• had to work on lord's fief for fixed number of days otherwise free to lool after their fields received from their overlords. 
3. Serfs
• tied to land, could change their masters only when land changed hands.
• many serfs had lands which they cultivated for themselves. 
• also work on lands entirely for their lords. 
• perform any service that their lord wanted them to perform e.g. building or repairing a house, road etc. - forced labour. 

Pros of Feudalism

1. Brought a measure of orderliness, safety and security to medieval life. 
2. allowed social and economic activity to run its normal course. 

Cons of Feudalism

1. rigid political system.
2. lack of political unity.
3. oppression by overlords.
4. King has no contact with the common man, who was left entirely to the mercy of his lord.
5. economic stagnation. 

Holy Wars

• desire for new lands and riches encouraged the lords and leaders of the Church to fight "holy wars" or crusades. 
• in 7th century, Arabs conquered Palestine, holy places of Christianity in this area. War to regain Holy Land. 

Impact of Holy wars

• drain on noble's resources.
• contact with Arabs led to demand for luxury goods.
• trade and commerce with east was extended. 
• drain on the resources of Church. Popes took recourse to questionable practices to augment their resources. 

Emergence of New Class

A new class began to develop during later years of middle ages. 

1. Artisans
2. Craftsman
3. Merchants

Reasons for development of new class

1. Contacts with Arabs 
• contact with Arabs led to increase of demand of luxury goods. 
• increase in trade and commerce with the east.
2. Improvement in Agricultural methods
• because of improvement of Agricultural methods many peasants were in position to exchange a part of their agricultural produce for nonagricultural goods.
• encouraged growth of craftsman and trade, led to emergence of towns. 
3. Rise of Towns
• Towns were center for crafts and trade.
• some peasants engaged in crafts and also practising agriculture become full-time artisans and settled in places where it was easy to exchange their goods for agricultural goods
• Merchants who traded in goods settled in such places. These towns were free from all feudal controls. 
• People in towns were free to move; marry their children; aquire and dispose of their property as they liked.
• Many cities obtained their freedom from Kings and elected their own officials to adminiter their affairs.