![]() The people turn to religous fanaticism looking for a way out, perfect timing for the rise of Christianity but this does bring more good than bad in the high middle age. It would have seemed like it was the end of the world. The Justinian Plague of 541 wiped out 25 percent of the population, (before the even worse Black Death in 1347) and piles on even higher death tolls to the madness and destruction. The food shortages produced a migration of tribes into the Empire, which were hunting bands of clans descended from a common ancestor who felt that they were related by blood. There was a period of rapid cooling, and with the loss of the Roman slave plantation system, farming yields declined to subsistance levels. Warlords desimated safe trading and manufacturing in Europe. In the early anarchy of the dark age you see the Roman cities like London abandoned, Rome seiged and sacked for it's riches. By the first 300 years carpentry technology and engineering advances were lost, education collapsed great libraries like at Alexandria burned and a rise of illiteracy among the leadership. What began as an attempt to restore social, political, military and economic order, ended up producing nothing less than anarchy. ![]() In return the development of serfdom and feudalism promised security and protection, however, feudalism contained the seeds of its own destruction. The majority of towns were often founded near the fortifications the carpenters built for feudal lords, monasteries or the ruins of antique cities where they could have found existing building materials. These people needed security and protection from the roving hordes. As the urban life of Rome gave way to the countryside, people became more closely attached to the land, their very survival depended upon it. The lack of security on the roads prevented most commerce so each town had to be almost self-sufficient, producing the necessary iron, wood, wool and wheat, and without commerce there can be no large cities. In the wake of the demise of the Roman Empire, peasants, nobles and clergyman had to literally remake their lives. Perhaps a golden age for carpenters with the intensive training in the guilds and master carpenters being retained by king, nobles and church as craftsmen producing master pieces of timberwork and the finest of trim jointery on their castles churches and estates.Ĭarpenters in Europe had to rebuild from the choas, produce sanctuaries for the populace and retain the carpentry trade as much as possible for the time. The bridge we call the middle ages was full of romantic tales of knights and castles, brutal torture, chaos and epidemics like the Black Death, the beginning of higher education for all people. The Late Middle from 1300 to 1500 with the fall of Byzantine Eastern Roman Empire to the Turks in 1453 again sees famine, plague and war. ![]() ![]() The High Middle Age from 1000 to 1300 produced the The Magna Carta in 1215 which is considered as the document that provided the foundations for English liberties, which were then extended to America and used as part of their own declaration of civil rights. The time this covers is the Early Middle age that began with the extinguishing of the light of Rome around 500 and lasts to 1000, often called the "Dark Age" since people were just trying to stay alive so very little information survived, leaving History in the dark. The 1000 year Medieval period had three basic ages Early, High and Late. Medieval or medium aevum in Latin for "Middle Ages" was between the decline of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance. Medieval - Carpenters build from the chaos
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