Prof. Martha Carlin

                                                                            Week 9: Tuesday
 

                              EUROPE SURVIVES THE SIEGE: THE 9TH AND 10TH CENTURIES
 

ENGLAND: A period of unification
 

by late 8th C.  4 major kingdoms: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Wessex

9th-11th C.    Wessex dominant

793           Viking attacks begin; Lindisfarne sacked

865-870        Viking army invades and conquers Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia

871-899        Alfred the Great of Wessex.  Achievements include:
                             fyrd
                             burhs
                            fleet
                            Danelaw
                           Anglo-Saxon Chronicle  
                            translations
                            Asser's Life of Alfred
                           (Click here to see the "Alfred Jewel" )

899-978        Alfred's successors reconquer and rule all of England

978-1016        Æthelred II  "Unraed" ("the Unready" or "the Redeless" =  "the Ill-Advised")
                           renewed Viking attacks (including Battle of Maldon, 991)
                           payment of Danegeld (beginning in 991)
  1002                 St. Brice's Day massacre
  1013-14            Æthelred expelled by Swegn of Denmark; flees to Normandy

1017-1035     Swegn's son Cnut (or Canute), king of Denmark, Norway, and England; marries
                         Emma of Normandy, widow of Ethelraed II
 
 

FRANCE: A period of fragmentation
 

9th C.            Viking raids

c. 890-955      Magyar raids

911                Rollo given Normandy

10th C.           Disintegration of monarchy; rise of vassalage or "feudalism;" castle-building

987                 Last Carolingian king dies; Hugh Capet, count of Paris, is elected king

late 10th C.     "Peace of God" proclaimed
 

Terms:

GERMANY: Fragmentation and unification

Early 900s        Germany (East Francia) dominated by 5 duchies: Saxony, Swabia, Bavaria,
                        Franconia, and Lorraine.  Last Carolingian king, Louis the Child, dies in 911,  and
                        Conrad I, Duke of Franconia is elected.  At his death in 919 the crown passes
                        to his brother, Henry the Fowler, Duke of Saxony (919-936), whose descendants
                        rule Germany (and, from 962, N. Italy) until 1002.

936-973          Otto I ("the Great") of Saxony (son of Henry the Fowler) has 3 main goals:
                            defend Italy against the Magyars (he annihilates their army at Lechfeld in 955)
                            crush rival dukes and recover royal lands and powers seized by them
                            extend German royal control into crumbled Lotharingia (Lorraine, or the "Middle Kingdom")

                            He also: 
                            Leads army into Italy and marries widow of Italian king, taking title of "King of Italy" (951)
                            Asserts own right to invest new bishops and abbots with ring and staff ("lay investiture")
                            Assists pope vs. Lombards and is crowned emperor by pope in Rome (962)
                            Opens important new silver mine (970s)
                            Marries his son Otto II to Theophano, a Byzantine princess, thereby securing S. Italy for his heirs
                             Initiates an "Ottonian Renaissance" of learning and culture, based in monasteries
                                such as Gandersheim, where the canoness Hrotswitha or Hrotsvit (c. 935-1003)
                                writes the first plays since Classical times

973-1002          Otto II (973-983) and Otto III (983-1002): both die young
 

ITALY: Rise of city-states

late 800s            Collapse of Carolingian control over N. Italy

early 900s          Counts and dukes control countryside, but bishops control cities

951                    Beginning of German rule, under Otto I (see above), but Ottonians never establish
                                administrative structure in Italy, relying instead on unstable loyalties of nobles and
                                bishops and popes