World History 1 question 4questions i dont understand Please help ?
Question by so0puhfresh: World History 1 question 4questions i dont understand Please help ?
1. describe the manor system and how it benefits the landlord. what the obligation of the serf and the craftsmen were to the landlord.
2.In what whys did the occurrence of the black plaque affect the manor feudalism (manor system)? explain please
3.What were the primary obligation and characteristics of the Benedictine monkes
4.what is the class of Renaissance? please give me example
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#2 (and some aspects of #1). Sorry, I don’t know anything about the Benedictines in particular, and I’ve never heard of a “class of Renaissance.”
Serfs were bound to the land. That means that they were not allowed to just up and move away somewhere else, or even to travel without their lord’s permission. It also means that if control of the land transferred from one landlord to another, control of the serfs went with it.
Under the manor system, kings owned all the land in the kingdom, but they were busy running their kingdoms and couldn’t micromanage every aspect of agriculture and crafts, so they granted the income from certain lands to lords who would manage them. This means that the lords owned the rights to all the resources on the lands given them: serfs, crops, minerals, pasturage, forests and forestry products, bee-trees, hunting rights, herb-gathering rights, firewood, everything, even the wild grasses used to make roof thatching. In return the lords were obliged to use that income to support the king: to pay taxes and tribute to support the king’s court; to keep standing armies which the king could call upon to defend his claim to the throne, to defend the kingdom, or to invade other kingdoms; and to enforce the king’s laws on their own lands.
Lords who succeeded in those duties garnered wealth, social prestige, political influence, and military power, all of which their children could inherit. Those who failed in those duties — as well as some that gained TOO much influence and power, enough to themselves endanger the king’s position — could find themselves replaced.
Serfs grew crops and raised livestock as well as engaging in such cottage industries as weaving rough cloth, cheese and butter-making, bee-keeping, carving wooden tools and kitchen utensils, etc. ALL of the income belonged to the lord, but the serfs were allowed sufficient recompense for their labor to allow them to survive and do it again next year: the rent of a cottage, enough food for their households, enough seed for next year’s crops, and the right to spend their free time raising kitchen gardens and a few poultry for their own use.
Without access to the land, the serfs had no livelihood. Hungry, landless serfs became desperate, and, having few or no other options, tended either to riot or to turn to banditry, which threatened the lords’ positions and thereby the king’s ability to retain his throne.
Without the serfs, the lords had no income and could not fulfill their obligations to the kings, who would then become unable to control their kingdoms: thrones and whole kingdoms could destabilize and fall to others better able to seize and maintain that control.
The Black Plague (not plaque) killed SO many people — 30-50% of the population in many parts of Europe, nearly 100% in a few locations — that there weren’t enough serfs to work the land to produce food and wealth. So desperate kings leaned on their lords, and desperate lords went about stealing other lords’ serfs. By which I mean that they bribed the serfs to leave the lands to which they were legally bound and go elsewhere by offering them better deals: the rights to keep more of the crops and livestock products, maybe to hunt or trap game, maybe more holidays, etc. The serfs were suddenly very highly valued, and they knew it, and they took advantage of the situation to grab all the benefits they could, of course they did!
So, although they certainly did not become anything like equals, the kings and their landlords did lose power, and the serfs gained power and both fiscal and geographical mobility. Some of them became peasants, which means they owned their own small landholdings, which means that they could buy a farm, sell it, mortgage it, lose it through poor management or just by gambling it away, or will it to their children. Which means that individual peasant families could begin (in a small way) to accumulate wealth, which means they could afford more food; better medical care; maybe even educate one of the kids to a trade, sponsor him in a church career, set him up in some sort of small business, or give a daughter a big enough dowry to marry her into another up-and-coming family, thereby accruing more family wealth as well as gaining social status and political influence within their local communities.
There have been very many stumbles and fallbacks along the way, but these social and economic changes are among the early beginnings of today’s Middle Class. And it would not have happened without the Black Plague or something like it.
#7
August 13, 2013 at 10:55 am