Western Civilization

THE FRANKISH FAMILY AND MARRIAGE For the Franks,

like other Germanic peoples, the extended family was

at the center of social organization. The Frankish fam-

ily structure was simple. Males were dominant and

made all the important decisions. A woman obeyed her

father until she married and then fell under the legal

domination of her husband. A widow, however, could

hold property without a male guardian. In Frankish

law, the wergeld of a wife of childbearing age—of value

because she could produce children—was considerably

higher than that of a man. The law stated, “If any one

killed a free woman after she had begun bearing chil-

dren, he shall be sentenced to 24,000 denars.... After

she can have no more children, he who kills her shall

be sentenced to 8,000 denars.”^2

Because marriage affected the extended family group,

fathers or uncles could arrange marriages for the good

of the family without considering their children’s

wishes. Most important was the engagement ceremony

in which a prospective son-in-law made a payment sym-

bolizing the purchase of paternal authority over the

bride. The essential feature of the marriage itself was

the placing of the married couple in bed to achieve their

physical union. In first marriages, it was considered im-

portant that the wife be a virgin, which ensured that

any children would be the husband’s. A virgin symbol-

ized the ability of the bloodline to continue. Accordingly,

adultery was viewed as pollution of the woman and her

offspring, poisoning their future. Adulterous wives were

severely punished (an adulterous woman could be

strangled or even burned alive); adulterous husbands

were not. Divorce was relatively simple and was initiated

primarily by the husband. Divorced wives simply

returned to their original families.

For most women in the new Germanic kingdoms,

their legal status reflected the material conditions of

their lives. Archaeological evidence suggests that most

women had life expectancies of only thirty to forty

years, and 10 to 15 percent of women died in their

childbearing years, no doubt due to complications

associated with childbirth. For most women, life con-

sisted of domestic labor: providing food and clothing

for the household, caring for the children, and assist-

ing with numerous farming chores. This labor was

crucial to the family economy. In addition to clothing

and feeding their own families, women could sell or

barter clothes and food for additional goods. Of all

women’s duties, the most important was childbearing,

because it was crucial to the perpetuation of the fam-

ily and its possessions.

Development of the Christian

Church

Q FOCUSQUESTIONS:How and why did the

organization of the Christian church and its relations

with the state change during the fourth and fifth

centuries? What were the chief characteristics of

Benedictine monasticism, and what role did monks

play in both the conversion of Europe to Christianity

and the intellectual life of the Germanic kingdoms?

By the end of the fourth century, Christianity had

become the predominant religion of the Roman Empire.

As the official Roman state disintegrated, the Christian

church played an increasingly important role in the new

civilization built on the ruins of the old Roman Empire.

The Power of the Pope

One of the far-reaching developments in the history of

the Christian church was the emergence of one

bishop—that of Rome—as the recognized leader of the

western Christian church. According to church tradi-

tion, Jesus had given the keys to the kingdom of

heaven to Peter, who was considered the chief apostle

and the first bishop of Rome. Subsequent bishops of

Rome were considered Peter’s successors and came to

be known as popes (from the Latin wordpapa, meaning

“father”) of the Catholic Church.

Although western Christians came to accept the

bishop of Rome as the head of the church in the fourth

and fifth centuries, there was no unanimity on the

extent of the powers the pope possessed as a result of

this position. Nevertheless, the emergence of a strong

pope, Gregory I (590–604), known as Gregory the

Great, in the sixth century set the papacy and the

Roman Catholic Church on an energetic path that

enabled the church to play an increasingly prominent

role in civilizing the Germans and aiding the emergence

of a distinctly new European civilization in the seventh

and eighth centuries.

As pope, Gregory I took charge of Rome and its sur-

rounding area and made it into an administrative unit

that eventually came to be known as the Papal States.

Although historians disagree about Gregory’s motives

in establishing papal temporal power, no doubt Greg-

ory was probably only doing what he felt needed to be

done: provide for the defense of Rome against the

Lombards, establish a government for Rome, and feed

the people. Gregory also pursued a policy of extending

156 Chapter 7Late Antiquity and the Emergence of the Medieval World

Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

`ˆÌi`Ê܈̅Ê̅iÊ`i“œÊÛiÀȜ˜ÊœvÊ

˜vˆÝÊ*ÀœÊ*Ê

`ˆÌœÀÊ

/œÊÀi“œÛiÊ̅ˆÃʘœÌˆVi]ÊۈÈÌ\Ê