The Nobility

Very large, loosely structured families who:

• held large tracts of land
• monopolized public offices
• tended to intermarry
• tended to have very close relationships to royal families

Changes in Families

• Primogeniture (primus genitus); "first born son"
• Lineages
• Families tended to try to create compact blocks of land for themselves

Levels of Nobility

• Kings and royal families
• Families that were largely local in their power and influence
• Knights

Chivalry (cheval: horse; chevalerie):

A code of conduct appropriate to men who ride and fight on horseback

Chivalric Qualities:

1. Prowess
2. Courage
3. Loyalty
4. Generosity

The Song of Roland (ca. 1100)

The Clergy

• Increasingly aristocratic
• The clergy shared in the governing of Europe
• Clerical society was hierarchical, e.g. popes, archbishops, bishops, priests.
• The clergy promoted hierarchical ideas in society.
• The clergy sought constantly to reform itself, and in reforming itself, to bring reform to the wider society
• Led the worship of the church
• Began to speak on great social issues
• Teachers in the schools
• Officiated at decisive moments in people's lives

Clerical Reforms:

• 910, in Burgundy, a monastery was founded by William of Aquitaine: free of all lay control.
• Cistercian Monks: (at Citeaux); St. Bernard of Clairvaux d. 1153
• Eremitic monks
• Regular Canons: Clergy who serve in a cathedral church; began to follow a rule, regula
• Military orders: Armed knights-Templars and Hospitallers
• Begging orders: "Mendicants"
• Miles Christi: "Soldiers of Christ"

900-1100; An increasing concentration of rural population near castles

Manors

A bipartite estate

• Demesne: Part of the estate worked for the lord

Major Changes:

1. Personal services were increasingly being commuted into cash payments.
2. More serfs became free in France and England than anywhere else.
3. Peasants began banding together to enforce their customs.