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In the twelfth century, Europe was coming into its own. Growing population and
the profitable organization of the countryside promoted cities, trade, and wealth.
Townspeople created new institutions of self-regulation and self-government. Kings
and popes found new ways to exert their authority and test its limits. Scholars
mastered the knowledge of the past and put it to use in classrooms, royal courts,
papal offices, and the homes of the sick. Monks who fled the world ended up in
positions of leadership; the great entrepreneurs of the twelfth century were the
Cistercians; Saint Bernard was the most effective preacher of the Second Crusade.
The power of communities was recognized in the twelfth century: the guilds and
communes depended on this recognition. So too did the new theology of the time. In
his theological treatise Why God Became Man, Saint Anselm put new emphasis on
Christ’s humanity: Christ’s sacrifice was that of one human being for another. The
Cistercians spoke of God’s mothering. Historians are in this sense right to speak of
the importance of “humanism”—with its emphasis on the dignity of human beings,
the splendor of the natural world, and the nobility of reason—in the twelfth century.
Yet the stress on the loving bonds that tied Christians together also led to the
persecution of others, like Jews and Muslims, who lived outside the Christian
community. In the next century European communities would become more ordered,
regulated, and incorporated. By the same token, they became even more exclusive.
Chapter Five Key Events
1049–1054 Papacy of Leo IX
1066 Norman Conquest of England by William of Normandy
1071 Battle of Manzikert
1073–1085 Papacy of Gregory VII
1075–1122 Investiture Conflict
1081–1118 Reign of Alexius I Comnenus
1085 Conquest of Toledo by Alfonso VI
1086 Domesday Book
1094 Al-Andalus under Almoravid (Berber) control
1096–1099 The First Crusade
1097 Establishment of a commune at Milan
