Johnston R.A. All Things Medieval: An Encyclopedia of the Medieval World

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All Things

Medieval

All Things

Medieval

An Encyclopedia of the

Medieval World

Volume 1

A–I

Ruth A. Johnston

retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,

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a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Johnston, Ruth A.

All things medieval : an encyclopedia of the medieval world / Ruth A. Johnston

v. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-313-36462-4 (hard copy : acid-free paper) — ISBN 978-0-313-36463-1

(ebook) 1. Civilization, Medieval—Encyclopedias. I. Title.

CB351.J675 2011

909.07—dc22 2011004678

ISBN: 978-0-313-36462-4

EISBN: 978-0-313-36463-1

15 14 13 12 11 1 2 3 4 5

This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook.

Visit www.abc-clio.com for details.

Greenwood

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ABC-CLIO, LLC

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Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911

This book is printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

Introduction vii

List of Entries xi

Guide to Related Topics xv

All Things Medieval 1

Bibliography 753

Index 769

About the Author 791

Introduction

This book is about the material culture, the things, of Europe in the Mid-

dle Ages. These things include nearly everything that could be seen, heard,

touched, tasted, met, or experienced. The material culture’s center is in

the home and the workplace. All things in the home and at work are con-

tained in the scope of this book. The church and the monastery had their

things, as did the warriors. There are things in entertainment and the arts.

Some people are counted as things, particularly if they were notable types

throughout Europe who were deﬁ ned by having a unique set of things.

Two key events, the Crusades and the Black Death plague, are included be-

cause they shaped the material culture in dramatic ways and also had their

own identifying things. The raw materials of the things are also included so

that their nature and technology can be understood.

Europe is deﬁ ned as broadly as can be useful. It includes Scandinavia,

Spain, Europe’s heartland of England, France, Germany, and Italy, and the

Byzantine Empire that overlapped Europe and Asia. Information is not al-

ways available for all of these regions at all times, but where available, it has

been included to give as broad a picture as possible.

Europe’s Middle Ages span about 1,000 years, a time that transitions

between antiquity and the modern world. Historians and authors have no

exact dates for when the Middle Ages began and ended. It is the period be-

tween certain key events that clustered in the opening and closing centuries

and seemed to mark a transition of culture and technology. This book uses

roughly the years 550 and 1450 to deﬁ ne the Middle Ages.

viii

Introduction

The heartland of the Roman Empire, Italy, came under domination by

the invading Goths at the end of the ﬁ fth century, and Roman rule shifted

entirely to Constantine’s eastern capital, Constantinople. Around the same

time, the ﬁ rst Merovingian kings ruled the Franks; King Clovis I died in

511. Benedict of Nursia founded monasteries and wrote his Rule of Saint

Benedict not long after 500. Around 550, the last Roman outposts in Brit-

ain fell to invading Anglo-Saxons. The Plague of Justinian carried off about

one-third of Constantinople’s (and Egypt’s) population around 550. In

Mecca, Mohammed saw visions and founded a new religion around 600.

These events deﬁ ne the effective beginning of Europe’s Middle Ages,

although the early years are often called, informally, the Dark Ages. Rome

no longer towered over Europe with superior technology and culture and a

strong government and army. The Goths in Italy, the Anglo-Saxons in En-

gland, the Franks in France and Germany, and the Visigoths in Spain were

all relatively primitive and uncivilized compared to Rome and Constanti-

nople. Europe’s Middle Ages are the time when these Germanic tribes grew

up, developing government, culture, and technology to match and surpass

Rome’s.

At the same time, the birth and growth of Islam also deﬁ ned medieval

Europe. Muslims were an aggressive force always pushing at Europe’s bor-

ders. Defensive and aggressive action against Muslim armies was the heart

of medieval warfare. The Muslim Caliphate, which spanned the southern

shore of the Mediterranean Sea, was also a conduit for technology and

products from far away. Gems, silk, spices, and ideas came from India and

Persia through the Muslim Empire that united the Far East with Egypt

and Spain. European culture imported products from Muslim traders while

pushing back Muslim armies.

The most famous events in the Middle Ages were the Crusades, waves of

defensive/aggressive war to take back territory from Islam. It was the age

of the knight and his castle. Crusaders learned new construction methods

and began building the classic castles of medieval Europe. Minstrels learned

musical instruments from the East and sang “The Song of Roland” at tour-

nament feasts. Spices from the East dressed meat, ﬁ sh, and fruit in castle

kitchens. The Byzantine story of Saint George and the dragon and trav-

elers’ stories populated Europe’s imagination with knights, dragons, uni-

corns, lions, and sea monsters.

The medieval period in Europe was also the time when Latin dominated

government, education, and literature. It was still the native language of

Rome in 500, but Greek was already the native tongue in Constantinople.

Latin was soon nobody’s native language but everybody’s common chan-

nel of communication. The Middle Ages were the time of Latin book pro-

duction, Latin schooling, and Latin liturgy in the church. Lectures at the

new universities of Bologna, Paris, and Oxford were taught in Latin.

Introduction

It was the age of monasteries and the high-water mark of the Roman

Catholic Church’s inﬂ uence. The Rule of Saint Benedict spread all over Eu-

rope. Both monasteries and convents dotted all regions thickly; they owned

much of the land. Monks hand copied books and painted fanciful scenes

and animals in the margins. Pilgrims venerated relics and donated to saints’

shrines, and enormous cathedrals rose at these sites. Monastic choirs sang

Latin plainchant under stone vaults and stained glass windows.

The governing system of medieval Europe was the Franks’ feudalism.

Designed as a way to create mini-kingdoms to support armed knights, feu-

dalism assigned all land to men loyal to the king. Everyone who lived on

the land was assigned to support these nobles with their labor, keeping

only enough of their produce to live on. Towns began to grow, and peas-

ants moved to the towns, but they needed to buy their freedom ﬁ rst, and

towns had to be chartered by the king or count as free of feudal obligations.

International commerce and technology grew within these free towns, but

the countryside remained chained to feudalism.

The end of the Middle Ages was when, within a century, all these trends

came to an end. By 1350, the Black Death plague had wiped out at least

one-third of Europe’s population, and feudalism stopped making sense not

long after. By 1381, England’s peasants staged a revolt. Gunpowder was

coming into use around the same time, during the Hundred Years’ War,

and, by 1400, cannons were the key siege weapon. Armor and castles were

quickly obsolete, and the arts of the knight became simply a rich man’s sport.

Restlessness and disillusionment from plague, famine, and war brought out

dissent within the church, and the early Reformation came in the form of

Lollards and Hussites. Latin was no longer anyone’s native tongue, and re-

formers wanted the Bible to be in the vulgar languages, as secular books now

were. Pilgrimages, monasteries, and relics lost inﬂ uence, and many were de-

stroyed in the 16th century. The modern world was being born.

The key date for the end of the Middle Ages is 1453—the fall of Con-

stantinople to an army of Muslim Turks. The early Middle Ages had seen the

fall of Rome and the birth of Islam; the period closed with a Muslim army

triumphant in the remaining Roman capital. Gunpowder had breached the

invincible walls. Scholars, artisans, and priests ﬂ ed Constantinople as Roman

scholars, artisans, and priests had ﬂ ed Rome. They brought the learning of

Greece back to Europe, and Europe’s culture transitioned into the period we

call the Renaissance.