High Culture and the New Religious Fervor

I. The Growth of a Vernacular High Culture

A. The Troubadours: Poets of Love and Play

1. Lyric Poetry in Occitan — By the beginning of the twelfth century, influenced by Arab and Hebrew love poetry, troubadours began performing dazzling and original songs and verse in Occitan, the language of southern France. The meters were borrowed from Latin religious poetry, but troubadour songs were usually about love. Whatever the theme, the songs celebrated the power and influence of women and were particularly patronized by aristocratic women.

2. Troubadours — Troubadour poetry spread from southern France throughout Europe via Italy, northern France, England, and Germany, with other vernacular languages imitating the style.

B. The Birth of Epic and Romance Literature

1. The Changing Role of the Warrior — Narrative epic poems about war appeared around the same time in Europe. As knights lost their military importance to mercenary soldiers and lost influence relative to merchants and increasingly powerful lords, they increasingly desired a code of conduct that would set them apart and provide solidarity and a knightly ethos.

2. The Epic as Vernacular War Poetry — Epic war poems explored themes of contradictory values, including friendship, vassalage, and competing loyalties. Some epic poems emphasized romantic themes as well, with many focusing on the court of King Arthur.

3. The Chivalric Ethic — Lancelot of King Arthur’s court embodied the principles of chivalry that the poems focused on. Chivalry constrained warriors through its code of refinement, fair play, piety, and idealistic devotion.

II. Religious Fervor and Crusade

A. New Religious Orders in the Cities

1. Francis and the Franciscans — New urban-based religious orders thrived as a new religious enthusiasm set in. The most famous of the orthodox movements was founded by St. Francis of Assisi (c. 1182–1226). Born into a wealthy family, religious introspection led Francis to renounce his wealth in favor of a simple life of preaching. His model was to embrace poverty and bring the faith to people, and he attracted many followers and had his friars recognized as a religious order that spread across Europe, particularly in urban areas. Clare, a noblewoman and a follower, established the Sisters of St. Francis in 1212, who were eventually confined to cloisters under the Benedictine rule.

2. The Beguines — Many women were part of the revival of religion, and the Beguines were societies of laywomen who lived together in informal communities that accepted celibacy and served the poor. They encouraged emotional and ecstatic religious experiences.

3. Heresies — In addition to orthodox religious movements, the explosion of religious ideas at the end of the twelfth century included some that contradicted church doctrine and authority and were consequently labeled heresies. Dualism was the most common heresy—the notion that the world  was torn between forces of good and evil. At Languedoc in southern France, another branch of dualism known as Albigensianism emerged. Also known as the Cathars, these dualists taught that the devil had created the material world, and so they renounced wealth, meat, and sex and denied the authority of the church hierarchy. Other groups, such as the Waldensians in the 1170s, preached extreme poverty and renounced the church’s authority.

B. Disastrous Crusades to the Holy Land

1. The Third Crusade, 1189–1192 — The Seljuk empire fell apart in the twelfth century, but Nur-al-Din and his successor Saladin (1138–1193) united Syria and Egypt and conquered the crusader state of Jerusalem in 1187. The Third Crusade (1189–1192) was led by the strongest European kings—Frederick I of Barbarossa, Phillip II of France, Richard I of England, and Leopold of Austria. Disunity led it to accomplish little, although it weakened the Byzantine Empire.

2. The Fourth Crusade, 1202–1204 — During the Fourth Crusade, prejudice and religious zeal combined to persuade many of the crusaders to change their plans and capture Constantinople instead of Jerusalem. The leaders of the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) were convinced by the Venetians charged with transporting them to the holy land to sack the Christian cities of Zara and Constantinople in order to defray expenses. While he opposed the sacking of Constantinople, once it had been accomplished the pope ordered the crusading army to occupy it for a year to consolidate the influence of western Christianity. The crusaders never made it to the Holy Land. Other crusades to the Holy Land were called up until the fifteenth century, but none attracted much support.

C. Victorious Crusades in Europe and on Its Frontiers

1. The War in Spain — During the 1140s, the kings of Portugal, Castile, and Aragon sent victorious armies against Muslim cities in Spain. The Spanish Muslims failed to unite against this threat. Berber invasions from the south had weakened al-Andalus, piecemeal conquests by Christians weakened them further, and then at Las Navas de Tolosa a decisive defeat at the hands of the kings of Aragon and Castile led to further Christian successes. The reconquista concluded in 1492 and resulted in an eastern kingdom of Aragon, a middle kingdom of Castile, and a western kingdom of Portugal.

2. The Northern Crusades — The Northern Crusades began in the twelfth century and lasted intermittently until the fifteenth. Initial attacks were uncoordinated and led by the Danish king Valdemar I (r.1157–1182) and the Saxon duke Henry the Lion. Some pagan Slavic princes accepted Christianity and retained their lands, while others were conquered and given to Christian rulers. Cistercian monks built monasteries in the conquered lands west of the Oder River, and German tradesmen and colonists followed and came to dominate Baltic shipping. There were long-lasting effects of the conquest on the Baltic area, as it adopted Medieval European institutions from then on (outside of Lithuania, which resisted conquest and conversion.)

3. The Albigensian Crusade — The Dominicans and other religious orders were charged by the pope with preaching against the Cathar heresy, particularly since they also practiced radical poverty. Frustrated with a lack of progress and the murder of a papal legate, the pope in 1208 demanded that northern princes invade Languedoc and populate the land with orthodox Christians. The Albigensian Crusade lasted from 1209–1229 and offered crusaders the same spiritual benefits of campaigning in the Holy Land. The Capetian kings of France took up the crusade, and by 1229 the Cathar princes had been defeated.