Unit 1: Chapter 1

Unit 1: Chapter 1 Times of Change

Introduction • Guiding Question: In what ways can changing social structures affect a society’s worldview? • Has there been an event in your life that changed your way of thinking. (e.g. move to a new location, meeting someone who had different ideas, etc • Read story about Black Death p.17 • If half the people in Canada suddenly died of a terrible disease, how do you think this would affect out society? • Put greater value on scientific and medical research • People may be cautious and suspicious • Spend more time with families and loved ones • Fewer wage earners, standard of living would go down

• How does Orcagna’s art capture the mood of the people affected by the Black Death? – The mood is bleak and dark – People think, fearful

• What change would you like to see in our society’s thinking today and what aspect of our way of thinking would you not want to see change? • Less emphasis on materialism • Greater concern for the environment • Wouldn’t want to lose our governmental system, technological advances

Section 1: A Changing Society • Guiding Question: In what ways can changing social structures affect a society’s worldview? • Feudalism – system of political organization during the middle ages. Lord owned the land and all other served him. • Hierarchy- social system where status is ranked. Power is concentrated in the higher ranks.

• Knights – pledged allegiance to the king, promised to fight for him in exchange for rights to pieces of land (manor or fief) • Commoners (freeholders and serfs) – freemen – peasants who rented land from lord or worked for pay • serfs – peasants who worked the land for the lord, not allowed to leave the manor without the lord’s permission.

Feudalism Game

• Do you think the serfs ever tried to revolt? Why or why not? (Reminder: serfs had very little power and no weapons.) • What would you do if you were a serf? • Have the students predict what might happen if the serfs refused to harvest the lord’s crops. • What motive (reason) did the serfs have for staying on the manor? • (protection from the lord) • How would the various positions in society influence a person’s worldview? • Imagine living in Europe during this era. • • • •

How would they spend their time? What would their hopes and dreams be? What would their world view be? Compare that life with life today.

Part II • Read: Medieval Country Life p.18-19 and Town Life p. 22-23 Country life:

Town life:

peasants assigned strips of land

centers for farm communities

peasants worked together plowing, haying

castles, monastery (buildings, lands in which monks lived, carried out religious duties.)

peasant gave noble portion of produce

local goods available

build roads, clear forest

crowded, dirty freedom, new opportunities

unskilled peasants could learn trades

• Identify positive and negative aspects of both ways of life. • Where would you have liked to live and why? • BRAVEHEART

Part III • Who’s interests where best served by feudalism? What kinds of pressures many have caused feudalism to break down? • Challenges to the Feudal System • Revolts • 1337, war between England and France • fighting devastated the countryside • peasants revolted because of high rents and taxes

• Black Death • millions died from a plague between 1346 – 1350

Do the Math Problem • Before the Black Death there were 200 serfs living and working on your manor. Freeman are sometimes hired but wages are low. You want to hire 80 additional workers for 300 days a year and you pay a wage of 1 penny/day. What are your total expenses for one year? • 24 000 pennies

• After the Black Death sixty serfs died in the plague or left to work for higher wages elsewhere. Freeman now demand higher wages as well. You need to hire an additional 80 workers for 300 days/year at 3 pennies/day. What are your total expenses for one year? • 72 000 pennies • Manors had to operate with fewer serfs. How might that have affected those still living on the manor? • labor shortages on manor, estates went bankrupt • nobles began to rent out land or sell it to the serfs.

Wealth in Society

• Marriage at Cana • Urban people now could move from one social level to another • Top • • • •

Church officials lords Lords of large manors Old noble families Wealthy merchants

• • • • •

merchants and business people craftspeople shopkeepers bankers priest and lower church officials

• • • • •

peasants rural laborers urban laborers servants unemployed

• Middle class

• Lower class

• New middle class emerged • Social position based on money, not on ownership of land • People became more focused on material possessions – clothing, furniture, etc • Sumptuary laws: laws that controlled the consumption or how people spent their money. Like the G.S.T • Men and women wore sumptuous clothes of silks, brocades, cut velvets and lace; precious stones and gold nets on their hair. Materials streamed with silver and gold were always vivid in color. Warm, flesh-tinted cosmetics were applied freely. Servents, pages, lackeys and ushers were clad gaudily, half red and half yellow, or half green and half white. • Read page 24-27

Section 2: A Religious Society • Guiding question- In what ways do religious beliefs shape a society’s worldview? • Consider various religions from around the world. Do you think the world views in some societies are influenced more by religion than in other societies? • Read pages 29-30 • Discuss: How did the power of the church influence the way people reacted to the Black Death?

The Church Community • Make a list of hierarchies you can identify in society today, what are some positive and negative affects these hierarchies have on people? • Read page 31 • Draw in your notebooks the Church Hierarchy Diagram on pg 31 • Read aloud “The Monastic Life on page 32 and “Learning and the Church” pg 33 • To what extent does the church still play some of the same roles as in the Middle Ages? • Read page 34, and then make a list of how attitudes toward religion were changing, and what caused these changes. • Reflect and Respond-Homework • Review the past section we read and create a symbol that represents the Power of religion during the middle ages.