The Emergence of Sibling Cultures (600-750) - The Making of Western Europe - Impoverishment and Its Variations
13 important questions on The Emergence of Sibling Cultures (600-750) - The Making of Western Europe - Impoverishment and Its Variations
Who were dominating the scene in Western Europe?
- Dominating the scene was Gaul, now taken over by the Franks; we may call it Francia.
- To the south were Spain (ruled first by the Visigoths, and then, after c.715, by the Muslims) and Italy (divided between the pope, the Byzantines, and the Lombards).
- To the north, joined to, rather than separated from, the Continent by the lick of water called the English Channel, the British Isles were home to a plethora of tiny kingdoms, about three quarters of which were native ("Celtic") and the last quarter Germanic (Angles, Saxons, and Jutes).
What is the story behind Yeavering (England)?
- In the early seventh century, Yeavering became a major royal estate center that included a great hall, a theater (a feature clearly drawing on Roman precedents), and a large enclosure probably used for keeping animals but also serviceable for defense.
- This estate belonged to the king of the northern kingdom of Bernicia, who probably stayed there once or twice a year, hunting in the nearby woods, feasting in the great hall, and calling his chief men together in the theater.
What did farmsteads consist of?
- Farmsteads consisted of a relatively large house, outbuildings, and perhaps a sunken structure, its floor below the level of the soil, its damp atmosphere suitable for weaving.
- Ordinarily constructed in clusters of four or five, such family farmsteads made up tiny hamlets.
- Higher grades + faster learning
- Never study anything twice
- 100% sure, 100% understanding
What were the two kinds of plows that were used?
- One was heavy: it had a coulter and moldboard, often tipped with iron, to cut through and turn over heavy soils.
- The other was a light "scratch plow," suitable for making narrow furrows in light soils.
- The lighter plow was more agile: it was used to cut the soil in one direction and then at right angles to that, producing a square field. But it worked only on light soils.
What kind of animals were there on these farms? How were they owned?
- There were many animals on these farms: cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, and dogs.
- In some cases, the peasants who worked the land and tended the animals were relatively independent, owing little to anyone outside their village. In other instances, regional lords - often kings - commanded a share of the peasants' produce and, occasionally, labor services.
What would travelers enter as they crossed the Channel?
What was Paris like in the seventh century?
- Paris was largely an agglomeration of churches: Montmartre, Saint-Laurent, Saint-Marin-des-Champs - perhaps thirty-fiuve churches were jammed into an otherwise nearly abandoned city.
- In the countryside around Paris, peasant families, each with their own plot, tended lands and vineyards that were generally owned by aristocrats.
What dominated the landscape near the Mediterranean?
What was the relationship between peasants and land in Italy?
- Peasants, settled in small hamlets scattered throughout the countryside, cultivated their own plots of land.
- In Italy, many of these peasants were real landowners; aristocratic landlords were less important there than in Francia.
- The soil of Italy was lighter than in the north, easily worked with scratch plows to produce the barley and rye (in northern Italy) and wheat (elsewhere) that were the staples - along with meat and fish - of the peasant diet.
What was left of the old long-distance Mediterranean commerce of the ancient Roman world by 750?
- By 750 little was left of the old long-distance Mediterranean commerce of the ancient Roman world.
- Nevertheless, although this was an impoverished society, it was not without wealth or lively patterns of exchange.
- Money was still minted - increasingly in silver rather than gold.
- The change of metal was due in part to a shortage of gold in Europe. It was also a nod to the importance of small-scale commercial transactions - sales of surplus wine from a vineyard, say, for which small coins were the most practical.
What started North Sea merchant-sailors doing?
What did brisk trade gave rise to?
What is a gift economy? How did it flourish?
- A gift economy is an economy of give and take.
- Booty was seized, tribute demanded, harvests hoarded, and coins struck, all to be redistributed to friends, followers, dependents, and the Church.
- Kings and other rich and powerful men and women amassed gold, silver, ornaments, and jewelry in their treasuries and grain in their storehouses to give out in ceremonies that marked their power and added to their prestige. Even the rents that peasants paid to their lords, mainly in kind, were often couched as "gifts".
The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:
- A unique study and practice tool
- Never study anything twice again
- Get the grades you hope for
- 100% sure, 100% understanding
