Page 194 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

THE FRANKISH FAMILY AND MARRIAGE For the Franks, like other Germanic peoples, the extended family was at the center of social organization. The Frankish fam- ily structure was simple. Males were dominant and made all the important decisions. A woman obeyed her father until she married and then fell under the legal domination of her husband. A widow, however, could hold property without a male guardian. In Frankish law, the wergeld of a wife of childbearing age—of value because she could produce children—was considerably higher than that of a man. The law stated, “If any one killed a free woman after she had begun bearing chil- dren, he shall be sentenced to 24,000 denars. . . . After she can have no more children, he who kills her shall be sentenced to 8,000 denars.”2
Because marriage affected the extended family group, fathers or uncles could arrange marriages for the good of the family without considering their children’s wishes. Most important was the engagement ceremony in which a prospective son-in-law made a payment sym- bolizing the purchase of paternal authority over the bride. The essential feature of the marriage itself was the placing of the married couple in bed to achieve their physical union. In first marriages, it was considered im- portant that the wife be a virgin, which ensured that any children would be the husband’s. A virgin symbol- ized the ability of the bloodline to continue. Accordingly, adultery was viewed as pollution of the woman and her offspring, poisoning their future. Adulterous wives were severely punished (an adulterous woman could be strangled or even burned alive); adulterous husbands were not. Divorce was relatively simple and was initiated primarily by the husband. Divorced wives simply returned to their original families.
For most women in the new Germanic kingdoms, their legal status reflected the material conditions of their lives. Archaeological evidence suggests that most women had life expectancies of only thirty to forty years, and 10 to 15 percent of women died in their childbearing years, no doubt due to complications associated with childbirth. For most women, life con- sisted of domestic labor: providing food and clothing for the household, caring for the children, and assist- ing with numerous farming chores. This labor was crucial to the family economy. In addition to clothing and feeding their own families, women could sell or barter clothes and food for additional goods. Of all women’s duties, the most important was childbearing, because it was crucial to the perpetuation of the fam- ily and its possessions.
Development of the Christian Church
Q FOCUS QUESTIONS: How and why did the organization of the Christian church and its relations with the state change during the fourth and fifth centuries? What were the chief characteristics of Benedictine monasticism, and what role did monks play in both the conversion of Europe to Christianity and the intellectual life of the Germanic kingdoms?
By the end of the fourth century, Christianity had become the predominant religion of the Roman Empire. As the official Roman state disintegrated, the Christian church played an increasingly important role in the new civilization built on the ruins of the old Roman Empire.
The Power of the Pope
One of the far-reaching developments in the history of the Christian church was the emergence of one bishop—that of Rome—as the recognized leader of the western Christian church. According to church tradi- tion, Jesus had given the keys to the kingdom of heaven to Peter, who was considered the chief apostle and the first bishop of Rome. Subsequent bishops of Rome were considered Peter’s successors and came to be known as popes (from the Latin word papa, meaning “father”) of the Catholic Church.
Although western Christians came to accept the bishop of Rome as the head of the church in the fourth and fifth centuries, there was no unanimity on the extent of the powers the pope possessed as a result of this position. Nevertheless, the emergence of a strong pope, Gregory I (590–604), known as Gregory the Great, in the sixth century set the papacy and the Roman Catholic Church on an energetic path that enabled the church to play an increasingly prominent role in civilizing the Germans and aiding the emergence of a distinctly new European civilization in the seventh and eighth centuries.
As pope, Gregory I took charge of Rome and its sur- rounding area and made it into an administrative unit that eventually came to be known as the Papal States. Although historians disagree about Gregory’s motives in establishing papal temporal power, no doubt Greg- ory was probably only doing what he felt needed to be done: provide for the defense of Rome against the Lombards, establish a government for Rome, and feed the people. Gregory also pursued a policy of extending
156 Chapter 7 Late Antiquity and the Emergence of the Medieval World
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