History Year 8 Yearly Exam

TOPICS: - Describe the daily life of people in Medieval Europe - Explain how and why castles changed in Medieval Europe - Describe the main features of the Feaudal System in Medieval Europe

Glossary: - Middle-Ages, A historical time period from around 400 CE to 1400 CE - Dark-Ages, Early Medieval period when Rome falls and collapses - Byzantine Empire, Eastern Roman Empire (parts of Europe and Western Asia) - Charlemagne, Charles The Great; King of Franks - Normans, Members of those Vikings, or Norsemen who settled in Northern France - Bayeux Tapestry, A masterpiece of the 11th-century Romanesque art - William the conqueror, The first Norman King of England reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087 - Feudal System, A social and political system in which landholders provide land to tenants in exchange for their loyalty and service - Monarch, Head of state, especially a king, queen, or emperor - Noble, A person of noble rank or birth - Manor, A large country house with lands - Knight, A man who served his lord as a mounted soldier in armour -  Peasant, A pre-industrial farmer with limited land ownership - Chivalry, The medieval knightly system with its religious, moral, and social code - Tournament, A sporting event in which two knights jousted on horseback with blunted weapons, each trying to knock the other off - Castle, A large building, typically of the medieval period, fortified against attack with thick walls and battlements - Motte & Bailey, A fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground accompanied by a walled courtyard - Keep/Donjon, A type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility - Crusades, A series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period - Vikings, Scandinavian seafaring pirates and traders in North-western Europe in the 8th ~ 11th centuries - Pope, The Bishop of Rome as head of the Roman Catholic Church - Heretic, A person believing in or practising religious heresy

1st Essay: Describe the daily life of people in Medieval Europe   In medieval Europe, there were different classes of people, and they all had their unique routine for the day. There were four social classes in the medieval period. Those were the monarch, tenants-in-chief (nobles), sub-tenants (knights), peasants (serf, freeman). The majority of medieval Europe people lived and worked as peasants, farmed to stay alive and be protected. Usually, there was a local lord who took care of the people who worked under him and gave them lands to farm and live. The peasants would work under him to have food and shelter. The serfs were the peasants that worked under the lord to survive. Freeman, they are classified as free, no one is in charge of them. They have their lands to grow plants and their hut to live. Next is the sub-tenants, who are also known as knights, their daily life was to eat and train their skills to fight. After breakfast, they would ordinarily go to weapon practice and practice their sword fighting skills. They would also discuss war strategies. There were higher class people who do more than just those tasks. For example, the tenants-in-chief, their lifestyle was very different from the knights and the peasants. They would wake very early to have a prayer lesson in the chapel then they were going to eat their breakfast and spend their day discussing marriages, people's complaints, crops and other things they were in charge. And they would eat dinner at around noon and have the whole afternoon to themselves. They could hunt, visit the field and see if everything is working correctly or they could do whatever they pleased. They would then have the evening prayer and eat supper. After supper, there would occasionally be jesters and acrobats performing to entertain them. After the day's festivities, the lord and the nobles would say their nighttime prayers and go to sleep. And, the highest-ranking of all, the monarch. The monarchs are only the queens and kings who rule the place, the kings and queens daily life routines were similar to the nobles. But instead of handling crops and people's complaints, they usually talk about how to expand their kingdom and strategies on how to win a war. As explained, different people from different social classes had a different daily lifestyle. The higher rank you're on the feudal system, the more power you have and the more things you can do. For example, the difference between a noble and knight is that the knight only has some land to raise the peasants, while the noble can control the military events and choose whether they want to fight for the kingdom or not. Not only that, peasants and monarchs also have a massive difference in their daily routine. The peasants work to get protection and food, but the kings and queens gain protection from the peasants, knights and the lords. In the medieval time of Europe, the daily lives of people are different due to their ranking in society. The ones who have the most things to do are the monarchs and the nobles. And the peasants have the least exciting life and things to do.  

2nd Essay: Explain how and why castles changed in Medieval Europe    

3rd Essay: Describe the main features of the Feudal System in Medieval Europe   There are lots of main features of the Feudal System in Medieval Europe. The Feudal System, also known as feudalism was a type of social and political system in which landholders provide lands to tenants in exchange for their loyalty and service. The Feudal System consisted of four categories of society. From the most powerful to the least are the monarchs, tenants-in-chief (lords/nobles), sub-tenants (knights) and peasants (serfs/freeman). The Feudal System was a way of organising people into different categories. Most of the people in Medieval Europe are the peasants. And they are the lowest ranking of all. There are two kinds of peasants, one of them is the serf, the other one is the freeman. There are differences between the serfs and the freeman. The serfs were the slaves that were owned by their lord. And freeman was considered free and no one is in charge of them. They have their part of the land to grow plants and farm animals with but the serfs don't. The serfs who farmed in the knights land had to pay taxes. The tax is normally a certain amount of food. The freeman doesn't need to pay any tax but they need to rent the land for themself to use it. Each of the tiers in the Feudal System has to pay some sort of tax to have lands to live in. The only one who doesn't need to pay is the monarch, nobles and the priest. They have the most power in the Feudal System back in Medieval Europe.

Black Death: The Black Death was a devastating global epidemic of bubonic plague that struck Europe and Asia in the mid-1300s. The plague arrived in Europe in October 1347, when 12 ships from the Black Sea docked at the Sicilian port of Messina. People gathered on the docks were met with a horrifying surprise: Most sailors aboard the ships were dead, and those still alive were gravely ill and covered in black boils that oozed blood and pus. Sicilian authorities hastily ordered the fleet of “death ships” out of the harbour, but it was too late: Over the next five years, the Black Death would kill more than 20 million people in Europe—almost one-third of the continent’s population.   Sources from: https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/black-death