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Chapter 5 The Middle Ages and Germanic Culture In 476, the last Roman emperor was dethroned by the German mercenary troops, Europe entered the Middle Ages. It lasted a thousand years or so and was dominated by Germanic people who was called savage by the Romans.

西方文化导论

Features: the intellectual development of the European civilization was retarded or even regressed to some extent; also a period of some negative and repressive influence from the Roman Catholic Church; frequent economic and political crises; deep-seated social contradictions and conflicts The dawn of the modern age: the Renaissance in the 14th-15th centuries.

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I. The Setting of the Middle Age Because of the reduced number of slaves, a new class --- serfs, including past slaves, foreign migrants, and some yeomen, became the principal agricultural producers. But they suffered from cruel oppression and exploitation, and they rose up in revolt again the Roman Empire.

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1) The appearance of the barbarous North of the Empire: barbarous people: Celts, Germans, Slavs Germans were mainly scattered in the area from River Vistula in the east to the Rhine in the west, from the Danube in the south to the Baltic Sea in the north. When the Romans enjoyed the prime of their civilization, the Germans were still in a primitive society, who lived a subsistence way of life.

西方文化导论

西方文化导论

From the end of the 1st century to the 3rd century, German society united their tribes into alliances like the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Franks, Anglos and Saxons, and Jutes. From the 3rd century on, they often harassed the Roman borders. After more than a century’s infiltration, they began a national exodus. Due to the Hungarian intrusion headed by Attila, the Visigoths turned to the Roman emperor Valence for help and move into Roman territory.

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The Roman Empire had lost most of its former territory by the middle of the 5th century. By the end of the 5th century, all of Gaul had been conquered by the Franks. In 410 AD, Rome was sacked by the Visigoths and in 476, Odoacer, a Gothic general, deposed the last Roman emperor and in 493, the Ostrogothic king Diodoric seized Ravenna and killed Odoacer, establishing the Ostrogothic kingdom.

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This was the formal beginning of the Middle Ages. Thus the Western Roman Empire was overthrown through the combination of the rebellion of slaves and serfs, the intrusion of alien invaders and the disunity of the upper class Romans.

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A series of kingdoms were set up, among which the largest was the one founded in AD 481 by Clovis called Merovingian(墨洛维王朝) Dynasty. After that, the king’s status was very weak and the local aristocrats became the real rulers. From the middle of the 7th century onward, the local aristocrats elected their own mayor of the palace to manage their political and other public affairs.

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The situation existed for somewhat more than a century and was called the impotent monarchist era. Then in 752, a mayor of

palace named Pepin the Short usurped the throne with the help of the church. The Merovingian Dynasty was toppled and Carolingian(加洛林王朝) Dynasty was founded.

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Pepin the Short

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The sack of Rome by Alaric the Visigoth in AD 410 had enormous impact on the political structure and social climate of the Western world. Though the Germanic tribes were ultimately converted to Christianity, they retained many of their customs and ways of life. The different forms of social organization they introduced rendered centralized government and cultural unity impossible.

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Many of the improvements in the quality of life introduced during the Roman Empire deteriorated, as did artistic and scholarly endeavours. The decline persisted through The Dark Ages (Late Antiquity; the Early Middle Ages) to about the year 1000, with a brief hiatus during the flowering of the Carolingian court established by Charlemagne. Apart from that interlude, no large kingdom or other political structure arose in Europe to provide stability.

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The only force capable of providing a basis for social unity was the Roman Catholic Church. The Middle Ages, therefore, present the confusing and often contradictory picture of a society attempting to structure itself politically on a spiritual basis.

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2) The Charlemagne Empire Charlemagne: son of Pepin the Short, In Charlemagne’s time, the Frank Kingdom covered a vast territory from Ebro埃布罗河(位于西班牙北部) in the south to Elbe易北河(流经中欧) and Danube in the north. In 799, he helped Leo III to recover his Pope’s throne. During the Christmas of 800, Leo III endowed the crown with the title Holy Roman Emperor to Charlemagne at Saint Peter Cathedral in Rome. From then on, he was known to his subjects as “Charlemagne the Great”.

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Charlemagne the Great741年查尔斯大概出生在亚琛市的附近，该 市后来成了他的都城。他的父亲是矮子王 丕平，他的祖父是伟大的法兰克领袖查尔 斯·马特尔。马特尔在732年夺取了图尔战 斗的胜利，粉碎了穆斯林征服法兰西的行 动计划。751年丕平宣称自己为法兰克国王， 从而结束了昏庸无能的墨洛维王朝的统治， 建立起一个新王朝，今称加洛林王朝，是 根据查理曼的名字命名的。768年丕平驾崩， 法兰克王国被查尔斯和他的长兄卡洛曼两 人瓜分。771年卡洛曼猝然去世，这对查尔 斯和法 …… 此处隐藏：3069字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……