The past two weeks have been completely about the High Middle Ages, well excluding the fact that we were talking about Mesoamerica. The High Middle Ages, I suppose was a time period in which Europe started to turn itself into the “mosaic” that we are familiar with today. Society built on where it left off during the Middle Ages. The Holy Roman Empire was rather unsuccessful in bringing unity unto the whole continent. According to 18th century French writer, his perspective of the empire was that it was “neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.” It was not holy because rulers did not have honest observance of the Christian fait but put on a mere show to fall into favor of the Papacy. It was not Roman because the Roman Empire collapsed centuries prior to this time period. It was not very synonymous to an empire becuase of the political disorganization that was present. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, an empire is defined as “a major political unit having a territory of great extent or a number of territories or peoples under a single sovereign authority.” The Holy Roman Empire failed as an empire becuase it did not rule over a vast expanse of land. It did not bring unity under one soverign authority. The pope and the crowned emperor were constantly in conflict over who vested with power. Certain times the emperor lost the conflict and was excomunicated. Interaction between Christians and Muslims were intense during this time period. Christians were known to have launched 5 major crusades. The purpose was to ground Roman Catholic Christianity across eastern Europe.
Europeans were experiencing economic prosperity. Sites of urbanization was relevant and there was much specialization in labor, especially textile production; this was mostly due to agricultural advancements. People ventured far off for trade. Many went as far as China such as the account of Marco Polo.
Education in Europe at this time became important. Diffrent intelectuals from all arround came to teach at universities and monistary schools. Europe realized a need for academics. Medicine, law and theology were the main focuses for eduction.
Europe after a few centuries saw that it was behind in the game “Life” and started to incorporate all the benefits that other civilizations have had.
During this time, they seem to be the most advanced region on earth, well it’s most logical that they are. They pretty much took up all ideas from other regions of the world and turned it to benefit them. They even incorporated the Muslim JIHAD!! But they named their jihad “crusade”. Haha , well its only a comparison. Jihad was actually successful in an expansion of an empire where as the crusade all worked under the papacy to fight a common enemy and to establish a faith in Eastern Europe.
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