![]() Anglo-Saxon England also established a sophisticated system of regional and local administrative units and judicial tribunals. Members of the Witan provided the king with advice and counsel and also had the right to consent to new laws and any changes to ancient custom. Early in the Middle Ages, Anglo-Saxon kings convened assemblies of noblemen (often called barons in England) and high officers of the church, in an institution called the Witenaġemot or Witan. The basis of modern representative governments also progressed in medieval England. Thus our courts have the independent ability to interpret law texts and set precedents that become the basis of future court decisions. The English common law system came to North America with British colonists, and it forms the basis of the judicial system of the United States. In common law courts, judicial decisions themselves become “law,” with the same authority as statutes. ![]() ![]() Courts in a civil law system have no authority other than what is provided for by specific laws. ![]() In a common law system, precedent-previous decisions by courts on various matters-is as important as official law statutes. This body of law was reworked and codified as the Napoleonic Code in the early nineteenth century, and it remains the basis of the legal codes of many European countries today.Įngland’s legal history took a different course, with the evolution of “common law,” or case law. Roman law, which came to be called civil law (from civis, the Latin word for city) seemed especially well suited to regulating the vibrant commercial trade and property transactions that flourished during the central Middle Ages. From about the eleventh century (centuries before the Renaissance), judicial courts in continental Europe drew upon the law codes of ancient Rome as models for the development of complex legal systems. The foundations of modern nation-states and legal codes were established during the Middle Ages. How do medieval manuscripts help us to understand the “long view” of the development of many modern institutions?.Why might Renaissance and later historians want to envision an abrupt difference between their own times and the medieval past?.Writings and book illustrations from the Middle Ages demonstrate the vitality of the period. Medieval Europe bequeathed a legacy to the Renaissance and beyond that continues to influence our thought, art, institutions, and culture. But many areas of life experienced more continuity with the Middle Ages than change. The Renaissance certainly encompasses a distinctive culture, with indisputably new ideas. Medieval inventions include staples we take for granted in our everyday lives, from buttons, mechanical clocks, and eyeglasses to systems of banking, credit, bookkeeping, and insurance. Medieval thinkers grappled with the writings of the ancient Classical philosophers, incorporating Aristotelian logic into new methods of working through theological debates. Medieval artists and craftspeople created exquisite works, from tiny, detailed miniature illuminations adorned with gold leaf, to radiant fresco paintings, to soaring cathedrals glowing with intricate stained glass pictures. The era saw the development of many institutions we take for granted in the world today, in law, government, and education. In fact, the European Middle Ages were a time of tremendous creativity and innovation. However, that view has been eclipsed by more recent historians who emphasize the accomplishments of the medieval period. Some historians of the nineteenth century saw the Renaissance as a sharp break with the medieval “dark ages,” a sudden burst of intellectual light after the supposed gloom and stagnation of the Middle Ages. It involved a flowering of art and scholarly and philosophical pursuits, often inspired by a renewed interest in the Classical cultures of ancient Greece and Rome. ![]() The cultural phenomenon called the Renaissance began in Italy during the fourteenth century and spread throughout much of Europe by the end of the sixteenth century. But of course people who lived at that time did not think of themselves as being in the middle of anything-they, like we, referred to their own time as “modern.” A seventeenth-century German historian, Christoph Keller, first came up with the idea of dividing history into ancient, medieval, and “new period.” Today, the period in Europe from about the year 500 through approximately 1500 CE is called the Middle Ages, or the medieval era (the word medieval comes from the Latin medium aevum, literally middle age). ![]()
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