Chapter 9: Central Middle Ages (Part II) 

Pre-reading

A. Skim and scan the following passage and answer the following questions.

1. What is the historical significance of Magna Carta ( 大宪章 ) in England?

2. What are the particular features of art and architecture in the Central Middle Ages?

3. What are the particular features of monasteries ( 修道院 ) in the Central Middle Ages?

Reading  

In the 12th and 13th centuries many European kings became more powerful by refining and centralizing existing institutions and by regularizing their role as lords over their vassals. This centralization made it easier to control the lands of the kingdom and to raise armies. European kings also tapped new sources of wealth by establishing more efficient means of taxation. However, not all monarchies grew during this time. German kings lost power, and Germany fragmented into regional principalities.

In the 9th and 10th centuries King Alfred and his successors had united the various principalities ( 侯国 ) of England under one king. In 1066, however, English king Edward the Confessor died without an heir. Three men competed for the throne: Harold, an English nobleman; Harald III, the king of Norway ; and William, duke of Normandy . When Harald III invaded England in 1066, Harold defeated him. Harold in turn was killed by William about a week later at the Battle of Hastings. William quickly took the crown of England and ruled as William I.

The new king kept about 20 percent of the land for himself and divided the remainder among his major vassals—barons and important churchmen—giving them the land as fiefs. The barons then gave some of their land as fiefs to their knights. In this way William introduced the Norman system of lords and vassals into England . He depended on the military service of his barons and their vassals, as well as on their aids (payments to him). The king also depended heavily on the English peasants. They grew the crops and tended the livestock that were essential to the kingdom, and the dues they paid were important sources of revenue for the king. In order to keep track of his resources, William ordered his officials to draw up detailed surveys of the land, people, livestock, and crops, as well as the dues that were owed the king. The summary of these reports, which was called Domesday Book, told him exactly what resources and revenues he could expect each year.

The English king's political roles were often quite complicated. For example, William did not give up being duke of Normandy when he became king of England . Instead, he merely incorporated England into his existing domain. His conquest drew England into close relations with the rest of Europe . These relations became even closer after the count of Anjou —a principality in what is now western France —married William's granddaughter. When their son Henry II became king of England in 1154, England became part of a vast territory that included more than half of what is now France . In England Henry was king. On the European continent, he was duke of Normandy and count of Anjou , and he held similar titles for his other continental possessions.

The English king held all these lands, except England , as a vassal of the French king. As long as the monarchs were on good terms, this posed little problem. However, as competition and tensions increased between the two, this relationship came to be a distinct disadvantage for the English king, who was bound by the customs of lords and vassals to serve the king of France .

Henry II strengthened the monarchy's control over England by establishing a new centralized system of justice. He declared that crimes such as murder and arson were crimes against the king, no matter where in the kingdom they were committed. He ordered local juries to meet in each district every year to name people suspected of such crimes and to bring them before the king's judges. (This is the origin of the American grand jury.) He also set up a system of traveling justices to hear property disputes and other civil cases.

By standardizing laws and punishments throughout his kingdom and by putting the law in the hands of royal officials instead of local barons, Henry II began to establish English common law—law that applied to all of England . These changes united England under one set of laws and under one system of justice. This system of justice gave the king not only power and prestige but also money: He collected fines from criminals and fees from civil cases. Twelfth-century English kings were rich. Money flowed to the royal treasury from courts, lands, taxes on cities, knightly aids, and other sources.

The strength of English kings provoked jealousy and competition. On the continent, French kings maneuvered ( 策划 ) to take English territory that they felt was theirs. In England, the monarchy demanded more and more money from the barons ( 贵族 ) to fight the French, and the barons banded together against the king to assert their rights. Both of these developments came to a head during the reign of Henry II's son John. He lost important continental territory to the French king in a series of wars. In England the barons forced John in 1215 to assent to their demands in a document called Magna Carta.

Magna Carta outlined the barons' customary rights and prohibited the king from changing anything without their consent. More importantly, however, it stated that all free men in England had certain rights that the king had to respect. As the definition of free man became broader—in 1215 it applied only to the barons, their vassals ( 臣属 ), and a few townspeople—Magna Carta came to be seen as a declaration of liberty for all Englishmen.

Magna Carta did not really weaken the power of the king, but it did change it. From that point on, the king had to work with his barons. Previous kings had met and consulted with their barons (in meetings that were the origins of the English Parliament), but they had not in any sense been obligated to do so. After Magna Carta, if the king refused to work with his barons he suffered hostility and occasionally even open rebellion.

In 1264, at the end of the reign of Henry III, the barons actually captured the king and began to rule on their own ( see Barons' War). To increase their base of support, the barons called a Parliament consisting not only of the barons but also of representatives of the towns, the so-called commons. Even though Henry's son Edward I soon regained control of the government, he and succeeding kings recognized that English royal power depended on the support of representatives of both the barons and the commons.

At the time that William conquered England , the king of France was one of the weaker rulers in his kingdom. In fact, it was his kingdom only in the sense that most of its counts and dukes were technically his vassals. The king effectively ruled only the region around Paris .

Nevertheless, a number of factors worked to enhance the power of the French monarchy. The Paris region was prosperous, and Paris itself was an important center for scholars, merchants, and craftspeople. French kings collected taxes, tolls, and dues there. Their very weakness insulated them from political challenges. For example, the king of France invested churchmen just as the emperor did, but the pope did not bother challenging him during the Investiture Controversy. Despite this perceived weakness, French kings were strong enough to overcome the castellans in the region around Paris . In their struggles with the castellans, the kings of France gained the moral support of major churchmen, including Suger, the abbot of Saint-Denis , one of the most important monasteries in France . Suger praised the early-12th-century king Louis VI as a Christian soldier who fought on behalf of God and the Christian church. In this way, Suger gave the monarch the honor of a hero and the glory of a Crusader. By the end of the 12th century, the French monarchy had gained both prestige and a solid territorial base.

French king Philip II built on this foundation in the late 12th century. To expand his territory, he used his position as lord in a clever way. King John of England was technically a vassal of Philip because of his French possessions. After John married the fiancée of another of Philip's vassals, Philip summoned John to his court for violating his oath of loyalty. John refused to appear, and Philip claimed all of John's continental fiefs. Then he established a strong mercenary army to repel John's attempts to retake the territories. By 1205 Philip was master of Normandy , Anjou , and other northern French territories formerly held by the English king. In 1214 Philip put an end to John's resistance in the Battle of Bouvines. Unhappiness with John's loss of territory in France and with his increasing taxation to pay for military campaigns helped provoke the barons in England to draw up Magna Carta.

Philip matched his battlefield victories with administrative reforms. He employed educated masters as his officials to collect taxes and administer royal estates. The king created a central archive to hold written copies of royal decrees. Like the kings of England , he had his justices travel from region to region to hear cases and appeals. Despite these reforms, however, royal administration and law were never as efficient and widespread in France as they were in England .

On the other hand, the French king's prestige was without equal. In the 13th century, Louis IX, grandson of Philip II, was revered for his generosity and piety. After his death, he was canonized ( 被封为 ) as Saint Louis. Saint Louis was well known for his evenhanded ( 公平无私的 ) justice, which he often gave out personally. Sitting in the shade of an oak tree near his castle, he listened to petitioners ( 请愿者 ) and disputants ( 争论者 ) of every sort. His decisions were praised for their fairness. Even a saint could not hear all the cases that had to come before the king, however. To deal with this, Louis created the Parlement ( 最高法院 ) of Paris as a royal law court with trained professional judges. (Despite the similarity in spelling, the French Parlement, a court, was very different from the English Parliament, a representative institution.)

There were no saint-kings in Germany . The Investiture Controversy badly weakened the power of the German king (or emperor; since the king of Germany was always the emperor as well, there was little distinction). During the wars unleashed by that controversy, the princes of Germany —the counts, dukes, and other nobles, including churchmen—carved out regions for themselves. In Italy , most of which had also been under imperial control, the communes (independent cities) did the same, subjecting the surrounding countryside to their rule.

Frederick  I became emperor in 1152, and he partially revived imperial power. Although he recognized the rule of the German princes over their territories, he insisted that they become his vassals. As their lord, he became their acknowledged head. Similarly, Frederick did not challenge the pope's leadership of the church, but he insisted that he alone ruled the empire, which was (in his view) as sacred and important as the church itself. Earlier emperors had accepted the view that the church was above the empire; Frederick said the two were equal. Finally, Frederick married the heiress of Burgundy and Provence , giving him a strong territorial base.

The great problem for Frederick I was that, as emperor, he also claimed jurisdiction over Italy . He could not just leave Italy alone, yet his attempts to exert influence there stirred up opposition from the papacy and the communes. Frederick 's armies were initially successful in northern Italy , but the cities joined together in the Lombard League and allied themselves with the pope to fight him. At the Battle of Legnano in 1176, they defeated Frederick decisively. Frederick 's defeat contributed to increasing political fragmentation in Italy . In the north were city-states, in the center were the papal ( 教皇的 ) states, and in the south were various principalities and kingdoms. Meanwhile, the princes of Germany ruled their territories with relatively little interference. When one of the princes, Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria, became so powerful that even the other princes feared him, Fredrick I was able to use his position as lord to claim ( 强占 ) Henry's principality. But the other princes forced Frederick to divide Henry's duchy among them rather than keep it for himself. Unlike the king of France , the king of Germany could not hold on to confiscated territory.

In fact, the more territory the German kings had, the more opposition rose against them. Frederick I's grandson, Frederick II, was heir not only to Germany but also to Sicily and southern Italy on his mother's side. Hoping to retain both, Frederick II and his heirs ended up with neither.

The popes feared that Frederick would conquer the papal states. When he renewed his grandfather's attempts to take control of northern Italy , Frederick found himself fighting the pope as well as the Lombard League. The popes excommunicated Frederick repeatedly, although by this time such punishments had lost some of their punch. Finally, in 1248, Pope Innocent IV deposed Frederick and called a crusade against him and his entire dynasty. Frederick died two years later.

After  Frederick  died, the pope invited a Frenchman, Charles, the count of Anjou , to take Sicily from Frederick 's son. Soon another family, the house of Aragón, was competing for the same kingdom. The long wars that these two powers fought left southern Italy and Sicily impoverished.

The conflict between Frederick II and the papacy also profoundly affected Germany . To gain the support of the German princes and their recognition of his sovereignty, Frederick gave them even more rights. He allowed them to inherit their principalities, mint coins, and control all the cities in their territories.

After  Frederick 's death, the princes could not agree on a king. Between 1254 and 1273—a period known as the Great Interregnum—two kings disputed the throne, both foreigners and neither one effective. When in 1273 the princes finally did elect a German king, Rudolf I of Habsburg, he based his power on his wife's inheritance in Austria . He and his successors made no attempt to exert imperial rule over either Germany or Italy , although they held the title of emperor and ruled over what they henceforth called the Holy Roman Empire . Germany remained a country of principalities until the 19th century.

In the 11th century,  Spain was a multicultural society. Most of it consisted of separate Islamic principalities called taifas . There, although the rulers and most of the population were Muslim, Jews and Christians were tolerated and allowed to worship in their own ways. To the north, Christian kings ruled a narrow fringe of land. They took advantage of the disunity of the taifas to demand yearly tribute ( 贡赋 ) payments from them. As a result, the northern Christian kingdoms were extremely wealthy.

Rather than invest in manufacturing or commerce, the Christian kings invested their money in monasteries, churches, and war. In the second half of the 11th century they began what came to be known as the Reconquista, the slow reconquest of all of Spain from the Muslims. Meanwhile, crowds of people from the rest of Europe—especially from France—flocked to Spain to visit the relics of the apostle Saint James at Santiago de Compostela, to settle as merchants or peasants, or to fight in the wars. Popes proclaimed many of these wars Crusades. The Spanish Crusaders absorbed the learning of the Islamic world. Important Arabic works of philosophy, science, and medicine poured into Europe by way of Spain .

By the middle of the 12th century, Christian Spain consisted of three important kingdoms: Portugal (which continues as a separate country today), Castile , and Aragón. All three were united in their goal of the total reconquest of Spain from the Muslims. By 1248 only a small strip of territory along the southern coast of Spain , remained under Muslim rule.

After conquering Muslim territory, the Spanish kings allowed the peasants to remain on the land and work, but they let their Christian followers take over as landlords. Kings, however, like their soldiers, preferred plunder to commerce. Teeming cities were emptied of their Muslim artisans and merchants. The conquerors settled on great estates, but as Muslim peasants fled their harsh conditions, the landlords turned to cattle ranching rather than farming. Much of southern Spain remains ranch country to this day.

As rulers grew wealthy and successful, their courts became busy places. In addition to the lord's family and servants, knights, clerics, and other officials all gathered at the court of their lord. To amuse and impress their courts and their guests, rulers and their families were eager to host ( 招待 ) entertainers and musicians. These court entertainers sang songs and told stories that provided the beginnings of a new kind of literature, one that used the vernacular , the language of everyday life, rather than Latin.

Vernacular writing had existed for some time in England , as Anglo-Saxon was an official language of government and of the church. But on the continent the first vernacular works were poems sung by 11th-century troubadours ( 民谣歌手 ) in southern France. Originally, many troubadours were nobles who composed poems and songs and performed them for their assembled courts; later troubadours traveled from one princely court to another, performing their works for payment and then moving on.

Troubadour poetry used clever rhyme schemes and ingenious ( 有独创性的 ) meters—similar to the beat of modern popular songs—to entertain audiences and hold their attention. The poems were about love, longing, the joys and sorrows of youth, and the beauties of nature. They were sung, often with the accompaniment of musical instruments such as flutes, bells, and harps and other stringed instruments. Most households could not afford to have such entertainers every day, and troubadours were most often present for large festivals and tournaments ( 马上比武 ).

Tournaments were great gatherings at court. There, amid much noise and excitement, knights could show off their courage and their skill in the use of weapons. Knights fought against one another in groups, in what was called a melee, or one–on-one, with each riding on horseback in a joust. The knights who were victorious in tournaments gained horses, money, and fame for their skill and bravery. Those who lost were lucky if they gave up only their horses: Early tournaments differed little from actual combat, and knights were often severely injured or killed. In the 13th century, however, rulers and others began to impose rules to make tournaments safer.

The skill and bravery of knights in both tournaments and war were often celebrated in poems and stories. Long epic poems were written in the vernacular to celebrate the prowess of knights in battle. Knights did not want to be known only for their physical strength, however. Poems called romances celebrated the virtues of knights: their loyalty, generosity, piety, and polite behavior. Romances generally took place in a fantasy world, such as the court of King Arthur. They told of great knights, such as Lancelot, who were witty at court, gentle with ladies, devoted to God, and brave in battle—and who often got into trouble trying to be all these things at the same time. When Lancelot's lady, Guinevere, told him to do his worst in battle to prove his love for her, the poor knight had to make a fool of himself in a tournament until she reversed her command.

These ideals of love and bravery were expressed primarily in literature, but real knights both inspired these poems and tried to live up to them. Chivalry, which comes from the French word for horse, cheval, was the knight's way of combining bravery, honor, generosity, piety, and courtesy.

It is unclear how much knightly behavior in the Middle Ages was truly chivalrous, but there is little doubt that this is how knights thought of themselves. The biographer of William the Marshal considered William a model of chivalry. After years of brave battling in tournaments, William was noticed by Eleanor of Aquitaine, the wife of Henry II of England . William served Eleanor by coaching one of her young sons in the skills of a warrior. William was pious as well, going to the Holy Land on a Crusade and gaining fame for his fighting there. Later in life he was richly rewarded. He married well, and although he was from fairly lowly origins, he became King John's most important adviser.

Medieval courts were crowded places and castles were generally small and cramped. Although they were marvels of engineering, especially the great stone castles built high on hills, they were built for defense, not for comfort or family life. One characteristic castle type was the so-called motte-and-bailey. It consisted of a tower built high on a mound, or motte, surrounded by a ditch and a wooden or stone stockade. Sometimes peasant families huddled just outside the castle, in an enclosure surrounded by yet another wall. Castles were prestigious in addition to being practical, and in the 12th century lords liked to build castles that were very high and impressive. To make them more difficult targets, castles were sometimes built in round or wedge shapes. This helped deflect enemy artillery stones. Water moats helped prevent enemies from digging under the walls and undermining the castle from below. Much of medieval warfare consisted of trying to capture castles. This was called a siege. Two principal weapons were used. One of these was the battering ram, a very thick beam of wood tipped with iron that was suspended from a frame. The battering ram was moved right next to the enemy's castle and the beam was swung back and forth to break through the wall. The other major weapon was the catapult, a mechanical device that hurled stones with great force against the castle walls from a distance. In addition to these weapons, attacking armies had other techniques. Armies would often try to dig underneath the walls to either gain access to the castle or to cause the walls to collapse. Sometimes armies tried to weaken the castle's defenders by hurling dead horses or dead men over the walls to frighten or sicken those inside. Once the defenders were weakened, the attackers would lower themselves onto the walls from large wheeled towers that were moved next to the castle.

Very often none of these tactics worked, and the castle had to be starved into submission. This could take a long time. The occupying army had to support itself on the countryside, which it plundered for food and fodder. If the defenders of the castle had enough supplies on hand, they could sometimes hold out until the invading army gave up and went home. See also Fortification and Siege Warfare.

The most extraordinary buildings of the Middle Ages were the churches. Toward the end of the 11th century, a style of church building called Romanesque was prevalent. Beginning in the mid-12th century and becoming more and more popular in the next few centuries was the style called Gothic.

Romanesque architecture was the style of the churches of the great Benedictine monasteries. Their most characteristic feature is the round arch. These arches are used for the doors and windows of the church, as well as for the church's vault, the structure that supports the ceiling. Because the round arches give the vault a tunnel-like appearance, they are often called tunnel or barrel vaults. Romanesque churches are very large and were built with thick stone walls to hold the weight of the heavy arched vaults. Inside the church, the walls were decorated with paintings of important religious scenes or events in the lives of the saints. Massive columns leading from floor to vault were decorated with sculptures depicting scenes from the Bible or from other religious texts. Because there were no rugs or tapestries, the sounds of the monks' prayers echoed from one end of these churches to the other.

Outside, at the west end, many Romanesque churches had three portals, or doorways. The central one was the main entrance to the church and was much taller and wider than the other two. Along the sides of the portals were columns with sculpted biblical scenes. Above each portal was a tympanum, a half circle filled with figures that usually depicted a major event in the life of Christ or a scene of the Second Coming. See Romanesque Art and Architecture.

During the 12th and 13th centuries people began to want lighter, more soaring church buildings. These ideas led to the style called Gothic. Churches built in the Gothic style are higher and more compact than Romanesque churches, and they appear lighter even though they are not. Gothic churches use pointed arches rather than round ones, making their vaults seem to soar. Their windows, also pointed, open up to give more light. Stained glass gives the light a jewel-like glow. Unlike Romanesque churches, Gothic churches do not have walls that bear the weight of the vault. This job is done by the flying buttresses, arches outside the church that evenly distribute the vault's weight and carry it to the ground. Thus the inside of a Gothic church looks delicate, with light shining through huge windows and without the imposing walls of Romanesque churches, but the outside of a Gothic church looks like a porcupine bristling with flying buttresses. Even the stained glass looks gray and massive from the outside.

In this way Gothic churches express a mystery. On the outside they give no hint of what they will look like within. The churchmen and architects who designed and built these churches intended these buildings to express still another mystery—the wonder of God. Suger, the abbot ( 修道院长 )of the monastery of Saint-Denis, got the idea for such a church from the writings of a Christian mystic who went by the name of Dionysius and who wrote at the beginning of the 6th century. Dionysius taught that God was the "Divine light," the source of all things seen. Suger built his church so that the light streaming through the sacred stories depicted in his stained glass windows would act like this divine light. He wanted the light's glow to illuminate the mind of the worshiper and lead him or her to God. The Gothic church building itself was meant to be part of the religious experience.

The Gothic style became popular for city churches, especially large cathedrals. It was first adopted by the cities in the region around Paris , and later cities in the rest of France , England , The Netherlands, Spain , Italy , Germany , and even central Europe began building cathedrals in the Gothic style. Since Gothic churches were enormously expensive and took years—sometimes centuries—to build, they were always community enterprises. City guilds raised money to help build them. Some guilds even paid for their own stained glass windows. In turn, church construction created new jobs for city carpenters, stone masons, glass cutters, and many other workers. See Gothic Art and Architecture.

During the period in which Romanesque and Gothic architecture were important, other related arts flourished as well. Sculpture played an important role in both Romanesque and Gothic churches; in fact, much of the sculpture of this period was done for churches and cathedrals. However, Romanesque and Gothic sculpture is substantially different from each another. For example, the scenes on Romanesque tympana and columns are often carved in relief—that is, they are not fully three-dimensional or carved in the round. Gothic sculpture, in contrast, is usually freestanding and fully three-dimensional. In addition, Gothic sculpture is much more animated and lifelike in comparison with the often stylized, linear feeling of Romanesque sculpture. Gothic figures turn, bend, sway, and sometimes even smile. Manuscript illuminations continued to be important in this period as well. With the rise of universities and a better-educated public, city dwellers were able to buy manuscripts, which were prestigious items to have. Many students considered it fashionable to have an illuminated manuscript of the latest edition of the Bible. Kings and nobles usually had a good basic education, and they too valued beautiful books. By the 13th century, books were produced in city workshops as well as at courts and monasteries. A great range of books were illustrated. These included not only religious texts such as the Bible, but also works such as Aristotle's philosophy, law books, and vernacular romances.

Since Late Antiquity monks had played an important role in medieval society. In fact, monks were considered essential to the salvation of everyone. Monks were thought to be models of virtue and piety, and consequently their prayers were considered more effective than the prayers of other people. Therefore the monks had the job of beseeching God to forgive the sins of others and to give them eternal life. Monks' prayers were even considered essential for the well-being of kingdoms. Because of this, many kings and nobles contributed large amounts of land or money to monasteries, and as a result many monastic orders grew very wealthy and powerful.

All monks lived according to a rule, or code, that governed their daily routine. There were many of these rules, but the most important was the one written by 6th-century abbot Saint Benedict. The Benedictine Rule imagined monasteries as self-sufficient units in which the monks lived and worked together. Monasteries were designed rather like villages, with groups of buildings surrounded by gardens and fields. The monks slept together in a dormitory, rose together for the morning prayer, read together, ate meals together, and shared the chores. Benedict expected that peasants would do most of the work in the fields, although the monks might occasionally have to help. For the most part, however, the monks' days were filled with tasks, such as kitchen work, that were separated by periods of prayer. Seven times a day and once at night the monks went to the monastery church to pray. Their prayers were always chanted. The music that is today known as Gregorian chant is one version of the chanting prayer style of Benedictine monks. See Benedictines.

In the Merovingian period, the Benedictine Rule was only one of many monastic rules in use, and an enormous variety of monastic practices existed throughout the Merovingian kingdoms. These practices ranged from the monasteries where the monks were divided into groups with different schedules to ensure that some monks would be praying at every moment, to the monasteries that emphasized penance and confession. Carolingian kings tried to end this diversity. As part of their drive to unify their empire politically and spiritually, they reformed the monasteries and forced them to follow a slightly modified version of the Benedictine Rule. The Carolingians called in leaders of church choirs from Rome to teach all the monks to chant the same prayers to the same tune. The lasting legacy of these efforts was to make the Benedictine Rule the monastic standard. When the Carolingian Empire fell apart, monasteries became absorbed into the social and political life of each region. During the foreign invasions, those with rich storehouses and precious ornaments were frequently attacked. Some were destroyed and some monks were killed or forced to move.

After the invasions ended in the 10th century, kings and princes, anxious to show their generosity and piety and to ensure the salvation of their souls, began founding and restoring monasteries. The most famous and successful of these new monasteries was Cluny , in modern France , founded in 910 by William, duke of Aquitaine . In order to ensure that the monastery remained free from the control of his family and of regional political powers, William donated it to Saint Peter. This meant that it was under papal protection. However, it was not subject to papal domination. During the 11th century many people across Europe considered Cluny a model monastery. Donations of land and money poured in as the monks carried out their careful, solemn, and lengthy prayers. The monks did very little work besides this "work of God," as they called it. In their view, to do it properly they needed the richest ornaments, the finest robes, and the most magnificent church. Cluny 's church was the largest in Europe until the new Saint Peter's of Rome was built during the Renaissance. Pope Urban II blessed ( 为 ... 祝福 ) its main altar ( 祭坛 ) on his way to preach the First Crusade. Pope Urban described the Cluniac monks as the "light of world," and in fact Cluny 's 10th- and 11th-century abbots were considered saints. They were asked to help reform other monasteries according the Cluniac model. Still other monasteries informally adopted Cluny 's lifestyle of splendor and prayer. Eventually, Cluniac monasteries were established across France and in Spain , Germany , England , and Italy .

Just as Urban was praising Cluny , a reaction was setting in. The Cistercian monastic order was founded in 1098 as a rebellion against the rich and elaborate life at monasteries such as Cluny . The Cistercians thought that the Benedictine Rule should be followed without any modifications. They refused to add any prayers or to use precious objects in the church service. They rejected even minor frills such as dying their robes black, and so they wore white robes, the color of raw wool. Because of this, they were called the white monks. Cistercian churches were built of stone, without decoration—they had no paintings and no sculpture. The Cistercians did not follow the Benedictine Rule entirely, however. There were two kinds of Cistercian monks: those of the choir, who chanted the prayers, and the conversi (converts), who worked in the fields. The two types of monks did not live together. Instead, Cistercian monasteries were divided into two parts, each with a dormitory, a dining room, and a kitchen. Even the church was divided down the middle by a screen. The choir monks had the eastern half and the conversi got the western portion. None of this was in the Benedictine Rule. The Cistercians embraced a lifestyle of simplicity, but as a group they became very rich. Many Cistercian monasteries were involved in raising sheep as well as in producing cereal crops. They sold their goods in the towns for large profits and also sought special privileges for themselves such as exemptions from tolls. They bought up town properties and became part of the commercial world. The Cistercians were only one of many new monastic orders that appeared in the 12th century. Many of these orders were responding to the money economy of cities, and like the Cistercians, they rejected riches. Unlike the Cistercians, many of them abandoned commerce altogether. The Carthusians, for example, established monasteries on mountaintops, far away from other people. They lived in separate cells and came together only for prayer.

Other orders ( 宗教团体 ) responded to the needs of women who wanted to lead a religious life under a formal rule. Women had lived in convents ( 女修道院 ) before the 11th century, and there had even been mixed monasteries, where monks lived in one area and nuns in another. In the 11th and 12th centuries, bishops, laymen, laywomen, and religious reformers founded an extraordinary number of new convents. One founded in western France that had been donated by a local noblewoman. The convent housed mainly women, although there were some men, and was ruled by an abbess.

The most radically new religious order ( 宗教团体 ) of the Middle Ages, the Franciscans, was created at the beginning of the 13th century. Saint Francis of Assisi , the son of a successful Italian cloth merchant, did not set out to found an order. He simply wanted to adopt a life of poverty and itinerant preaching. Francis traveled from town to town to preach to city dwellers. He accepted no money for his work, and when he gained followers, he did not let them accept any money either. The Franciscans spent their days preaching, serving the sick, and working at crafts. Calling themselves friars ( 行乞修道士 ), or little brothers, the Franciscans soon became numerous and in need of organization. In 1217 they were divided into provinces according to the country they worked in: Italy , France , Germany , Spain , and the Holy Land . Women joined the Franciscans as well, but they were not allowed to travel and preach. Lay people joined as the so-called Third Order. They remained married and continued doing their normal work, but they promised to live devoutly, pray regularly, and observe the church's fast days.

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