Western Civilization

forever mired in endless petty conflicts, some

medieval kings began to exert a centralizing

authority and inaugurated the process of developing

new kinds of monarchical states. By the thirteenth

century, European monarchs were solidifying their

governmental institutions in pursuit of greater

power.

The recovery of the Catholic Church produced a

reform movement that led to exalted claims of

papal authority. This increase in church power,

coupled with the rise of monarchical states, made it

almost inevitable that there would be conflicts

between church and state. At the same time,

vigorous papal leadership combined with new

dimensions of religious life to make the Catholic

Church a forceful presence in every area of life. The

role of the church in the new European civilization

was quite evident in the career of a man named

Samson, who became abbot of the great English

abbeyofBurySaintEdmundsin1182.Accordingto

Jocelyn of Brakelond, a monk who assisted him,

Abbot Samson was a devout man who wore

“undergarments of horsehair and a horsehair shirt.”

He loved virtue and “abhorred liars, drunkards and

talkative folk.” His primary concern was the

spiritual well-being of his monastery, but he spent

much of his time working on problems in the world

beyondtheabbeywalls.Sincethemonasteryhad

fallen into debt under his predecessors, Abbot

Samson toiled tirelessly to recoup the abbey’s

fortunes by carefully supervising its manors. He

also rounded up murderers to stand trial in Saint

Edmunds and provided knights for the king’s army.

But his actions were not always tolerant or

beneficial. He was instrumental in driving the Jews

from the town of Saint Edmunds and was not above

improving the abbey’s possessions at the expense of

his neighbors: “He built up the bank of the fish-

pond at Babwell so high, for the service of a new

mill, that by the keeping back the water there is not

aman,richorpoor,buthaslosthisgardenandhis

orchards.” The abbot’s worldly cares weighed

heavily on him, but he had little choice if his abbey

were to flourish and fulfill its spiritual and secular

functions. But he did have regrets; as he remarked

to Jocelyn: “If he could have returned to the

circumstances he had enjoyed before he became a

monk, he would never have become a monk or an

abbot.”^1

The Emergence and Growth of

European Kingdoms, 1000–1300

Q FOCUSQUESTIONS:What steps did the rulers of

England and France take during the High Middle

Ages to reverse the decentralizing tendencies of

fief-holding? What were the major political and

religious developments in Spain, the Holy Roman

Empire, and northern and eastern Europe during

the High Middle Ages?

The domination of society by the nobility reached its

apex in the High Middle Ages. During the same period,

however, kings began the process of extending their

power in more effective ways. Out of this growth in

the monarchies would eventually come the European

states that dominated much of later European history.

Kings possessed some sources of power that other

lords did not. Usually, kings had greater opportunities

to increase their lands through war and marriage

alliances and then could use their new acquisitions

to reward their followers and bind powerful nobles to

them. In the High Middle Ages, kings found ways to

strengthen governmental institutions and consequently

to extend their powers. The growth of cities, the revival

of commerce, and the emergence of a money economy

enabled monarchs to hire soldiers and officials and to

rely less on their vassals.

England in the High Middle Ages

In 1066, an army of heavily armed knights under Wil-

liam of Normandy landed on the southeastern coast of

England and soundly defeated King Harold and his

Anglo-Saxon foot soldiers at the Battle of Hastings on

October 14. William (1066–1087) was crowned king of

England at Christmastime in London and began the

process of combining Anglo-Saxon and Norman institu-

tions. Many of the Norman knights were given parcels

of land that they held as fiefs from the new English

king. William made all nobles swear an oath of loyalty

to him and insisted that all people owed loyalty to the

king rather than to their lords.

Gradually, fusion between the victorious Normans

and the defeated Anglo-Saxons transformed England.

Although the Norman ruling class spoke French, inter-

marriage of the Norman-French and the Anglo-Saxon

nobility gradually blended the two cultures and vastly

enriched the English language. The Normans also took

over existing Anglo-Saxon institutions, such as the

222 Chapter 10 The Rise of Kingdoms and the Growth of Church Power

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