欧洲文化入门Europe Culture3 The Middle Ages.pptVIP

Lecture 3: The Middle Ages In European history， the thousand-year period following the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century is called the Middle Ages. The middle ages is so called because it came between ancient times and modern times. To be specific，from the 5th century to 15th century. The transitional period is called the 17th century， between the middle ages and modern times. In 476 A.D. a Germanic (日耳曼) general killed the last Roman emperor and took control of the government. 西罗马476灭，东罗马1653年灭. During the Medieval times there was no central government to keep the order. The only organization that seemed to unite Europe was the Christian church. Manor and Church 1. Feudalism Feudalism in Europe was mainly a system of land holding---a system of holding land in exchange for military service. The word “feudalism” was derived from the Latin “feudum”, a grant of land. a)Growth of feudalism most of peasants became serfs (attacks from invaders and robbers---sought protection from powerful landowners---gave their land and freedom) very few peasants were freemen---workers (made ploughs, shod the horses, and made harnnesses) In 732 Charles Martel, a Frankish ruler gave his soldiers estates known as fiefs as reward for their service. b)Manor : The centre of medieval life under feudalism was the manor. Manors were founded on the fiefs of the lords (农场主)。 By the twelfth century manor houses were made of stone and designed as fortresses. They came to be called castles. c) Knighthood and code of chivalry: Almost all nobles were knights in the medieval days. But they had to experienced a long and hard training. As a knight，he were pledged to protect the weak，to fight for the church， to be loyal to his lord and to respect women of noble birth. These rules were known as code of chivalry， from which the western idea of good manners developed. After a knight was successful in his trained and tourname