Early (c.400-c.900) Flashcards
What was the basis of medieval economy? Name two ‘ion’ changes however.
Farming. However, specialisation + monetisation were changes.
What was a primary foodstuff? What was found more in Italy? Middle East?
Cereal crops. Chestnuts in italy. Tea + coffee in the Middle East.
What economy did medieval society transition to slowly? Where else did surplus production go?
From a subsitence economy (where people grow for themselves), to a market economy (where they grow to sell for others).
Surplus production didn’t just go to local markets, but bigger inter-regional fairs.
What’s the ‘Brenner Debate’, and when was it?
1970s/80s - Robert Brenner argued that social change results from freeing workers from restrictions on their control of their surplus.
Michael Postan’s ‘neo-Malthusian approach’ - social change is a result of population change.
Name 3 issues for medieval government. Name 3 solutions.
Communication; mass movements; no state monopoly of force.
Solutions = religion to control (though does place limitations on rulers); documentation to say things must happen; law-courts to have the people to be judged by authorities.
What is the theory of the ‘Three Orders’?
Name 2 things that changed in Western Europe after the fall of Rome. Name 2 things that didn’t.
That there are 3 types of people in society - the fighters, producers and religious.
Simplification of economy, esp north of the Loire in the early 400s; empire broken up into barbarian kingdoms.
Barbarian armies ran things in a Roman manner; Guy Halsall - highland zones were less affected.
What did the laity get from the Church parish system? How did this change? What did the laity have to pay in return?
What became more dominant in the 13th century?
Involvement in church activity and pastoral care; parish system became more unified in West from the 11th-12th centuries (took longer in the East); laity had to pay tithes.
Priesthood…emergence of the Lateran Council in 1215 for example.
What expectations were the same for both genders? Where was there difference?
What rebellious + non-rebellious character emphasise society’s views of what was wrong/right with women?
While expectations of heaven + hell were the same, only men could take on clerical roles.
Rebellious Eve = what’s wrong; Virgin Mary = what’s right.
What became a sacrament in the 12th century? What could women do/not do?
Marriage; could do agricultural work, but not go to university.
What’s the traditional end date for the Empire in the West? What’s an alternative?
476 - an alternative is 480 (the death of the last Western emperor, emperor Julius Nepos).
Name 3 possible causes of the end of the Roman Empire
Loss of territory to ‘barbarian’ invaders…often set up as client armies, but then no tax within the zones they took.
Failure of cultural imperial ideas…arguably Christianity, or maybe failure of state to reach out to subordinates, resulted in Empire’s irrelevance.
Financial reasons - breakdown in trade and concession of tax in lost zones.
Name 2 things the barbarian wanted, as they wanted to occupy the Empire rather than destroy it.
What barbarian ruler was similar to a Roman?
What historian thinks that Christianity in the Western Empire was the reason for its collapse?
Offices + salaries. King Theodric of the Ostrogoths was very much a Roman governor.
Edward Gibbon.
What army was in Ostrogoth Italy? What was the tax/law situation?
What about Britain?
King Theodric’s army; only Roman law, not a clear tax system.
Made up of Scots, Britons, Saxons; no law or tax until c.600; armies essentially small warbands.
Which barbarian group occupied Spain? Northern Gaul? North Africa?
When did the Eastern Roman Empire finally fall?
Visigoths; the Franks; Vandals; 1453.
Who’s law codes were significant, and why?
Justinian I’s, Byzantine emperor - they were a big change + still form basis of modern law.