Our journey to the Middle Ages




The Middle Ages are also known as medieval times. It is hard to make many general statements about this time period because it lasted so long--for about 1,000 years from the fall of Ro me in 476 to the beginning of the Renaissance in the late 1400s. The first 500 years of the Middle Ages are also know as the Dark Ages because so much of the classical learning of the ancient Greeks and Romans was lost.

Christianity, the faith based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, was the religion of the people in Europe during the Middle Ages. It was united under the authority of the Cath olic Church and represented in the lives of the people by the local priest.

Feudalism was the political system of the Middle Ages. Under this system, the King granted large feudal estates, or manors to those he favored. Each of these rich men was known as a lo rd and lived on this large manor . There he built his stronghold, usually a castle surrounded by a moat, or deep ditch filled with water.

The lord granted some of his land to a noble who became his vassal, a person who received land in exchange for his service in ti me of war. This agreement was entered into a solemn ceremony called homage. The land grant was called a fief.

Each manor had to be self-supporting. The production of food was taken care of by the serfs, the common people who were bound to the land and under the complete control of the lord of the manor. The serfs lived very hard lives.

Sometimes a young nobleman was chosen to be trained as an elite-fighting horseman known as a knight. While in training, he was called a page and assisted other knights. A knight was expected to live by the ideals of chivalry., a complicated code of behavior that told him how to act. A knight wore armor to pro tect him in battle and in a contest-like battle called a tournament, in which knights tried to outdo each other and prove how brave they were.

During the last part of the Middle Ages, many of the knights of Europe decided to set out on a holy war called a Crusade. , They wanted to free the city of Jerusalem ,from the followers of Islam, a religion based on the teaching of Mohammed. This was tried a number of times without lasting success. However, the knowledge of the world gained by the Crusaders helped to bring an end of the Middle Ages.




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