The expression Renaissance of the 11th centurySapere.it designates a historical phase of the Late Middle Ages characterized by renewed religiosity, but above all by economic development that brought about noticeable changes in social life.
Some historians have called this phase of cultural development, dated around the 11th century, the "Medieval Renaissance." and Lezioni di storia medievale. Dalle origini all'anno mille, Il Segno Gabrielli Editori, 2004 p. 35
This appellation has been disputed by others, such as historian Girolamo Arnaldi, who recognizes as "Medieval Renaissances" only " [...] those of law and philosophy, in the 12th century, because the law that was revived was Roman law, codified by the Emperor Justinian, and the philosophy that came back into vogue was Greek philosophy, in particular Aristotle," and therefore one can speak of a Renaissance insofar as that of the 15th century would be characterized precisely by the revival of interest in Greek and Roman classicism.
Konrad Burdach, a leading proponent of continuity between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, believes that there was no break between the two periods, which thus constitute one great epoch. Burdach asserts that there was no break, and if one really wants to speak of a renaissance, one must even go back to the 11th century; in fact, he notes that the themes of the Lutheran Reformation were already contained in the medieval heresies, and that the Middle Ages and the Renaissance have the same source in common: the classical world.Konrad Burdach, Riforma, Rinascimento, umanesimo, G.C. Sansoni, 1935.
The Ottonian Renaissance
One part of medieval historiography does not dispute the phenomenon of the renaissance of the 11th century, but it does question its abruptness and rather sees “a longer evolution which, beginning in the tenth century, confidently expands in the second half of the eleventh century. ". In this case Gianfranco Maglio refers to the so-called "Ottonian Revival,". also called "Renaissance" or "Ottonian Renaissance,"“ [...] some scholars are more inclined to speak of a post-Carolingian age.” (in Gloria Larini, Controversie. Dispute letterarie, storiche, religiose dall'antichità al Rinascimento, libreriauniversitaria.it ed., 2013, p. 79. linked to the name of Otto I of Saxony,Gloria Larini, Controversie. Dispute letterarie, storiche, religiose dall'antichità al Rinascimento, libreriauniversitaria.it ed., 2013, p. 79 a medieval period of cultural renewal of the Christian West, which is considered to have developed around the 10th century. It is an age characterized by undeniable cultural vitality, particularly through the activity of the schools, in Germany and to a lesser extent on the entire European continent.
Dominated by two major intellectual figures (Abbo of Fleury and Gerbert of Aurillac) it produced considerable artistic (illuminated manuscripts) and architectural activity. More limited than the Carolingian Renaissance that preceded it, and inseparable from it, the Ottonian Revival equally concluded the long development of teaching in the Middle Ages from the 6th to the 11th century, before the cultural flowering of the 12th century.During the years when there was the Ottonian Renaissance in the West, the East witnessed the Macedonian Renaissance from the artistic revival under the Macedonian dynasty.
The migratory drive
The Drang nach Osten The 11th century also marks the beginning of the expansion that pushed the Germanic peoples with their heavy plows in search of new lands to cultivate in the east (Drang nach Osten).
"Germanic expansion eastward took the most diverse forms: at times peaceful valuation of uncultivated lands, at times the settlement of merchants or settlers through peacefully obtained privileges, at times violent action of conquest, often disguised behind religious pretexts. Monastic orders played a prominent part in it.".
“The colonization of this northern plain was perhaps the main undertaking of the Germanic peoples during the Middle Ages [...] Nothing is more important in Germanic history than this immense and centuries-long migration, this mobile frontier of gallant country families steadily advancing eastward, cutting down forests, reclaiming land, draining swamps.”H.A.L. Fisher, Storia d'Europa, Bari 1971
The Slavic peoples retreated in the face of this massive wave of migration, abandoning the lands near the Elbe River and pushing as far as the Oder River. The monastic knightly orders of the Teutonic Knights and the Swordbrothers settled permanently in their territory in the 13th century.
The beginning of the Crusades and the settlement of Latin Christians in the Near East
It would be these new expansive forces that would bring in a strong and warlike people from the North, of skilled sailors who would move from the Scandinavian peninsula and Jutland to the East and West and then settle in the land that would be called by them Normandy and in the fertile lands of Apulia and Sicily, which would make the Crusaders (called Franks by the Muslims of the Near East) dream of the lands and riches, which the pope promised along with the salvation of souls.
The Crusades were a kind of armed pilgrimage directed to help the “brothers of the East” in exchange for the return of the Eastern Church to the bosom of the Holy Roman Church, but also an outlet for the Christianity of young Europe swollen with violent energies that it turned against itself. “On only one condition could Christian peace be imposed on such a Europe, that is, that it be offered in return another war, or rather its only war.”G. Falco, La polemica sul medioevo, Napoli 1977 in which the compressed energies of the Franks would find an outlet, who “ [...] accustomed to fighting iniquitously in private warfare against the faithful, [now] fight against the infidels.... Let those who have hitherto been brigands become soldiers."Foucher de Chartres, Storia di Gerusalemme
The Christian West would be the one to establish itself commercially in the center of the Mediterranean Sea, with the Swabian naval and economic power (heir to the Norman Mediterranean strategy) and then the Italic maritime republics, which would play a fruitful mediating role with the Islamic world at the very time when the Fatimid Caliphate, which dominated Egypt, would work with the utmost of its economic and military might in Syria in order to annex it and then wrest from the "usurping" Abbasid Caliphate the political and spiritual leadership of the Ummah (ending up, however, in a deadlock in Syria itself). This facilitated the Seljuk Turks in no small measure in their efforts to "protect" Sunnism and the Abbasid Caliphate, bringing Baghdad under their control in 1071 and the regions that gravitated around the Persian Gulf and part of the Indian Ocean.
A problem arose for historians to distinguish between cause and effect among the elements that made up the revival of the West, but what is important is to point out its main manifestations.
“There is hardly an aspect of the life of men in the 11th-13th centuries to which a revolutionary character has not been attributed. More or less distinguished medievalists have thus spoken of agrarian revolution, feudal revolution, commercial revolution, industrial revolution, urban revolution, intellectual revolution," so much so that from the motionless Middle Ages there was a shift to a revolutionary one, and indeed "no one can deny that profound and even deep-rooted changes took place in the economic, social, political and mental structures of European society in those centuries."G. G. Merlo, Basso Medioevo, in G. Tabacco, G. G. Merlo, Medioevo, Bologna 1989
The transformation of society in Europe
The demographic upswing
The most striking aspect of this expansion of the WestMarta Fischer, Walter Pedrotti, Le città italiane nel Medioevo, Giunti Editore, 1997, p. 29 is, according to historians, the increase in population, which, however, cannot be calculated with certainty due to the absence of registry records but which is evident from a number of indirect evidences such as the increase in the extent of land put under cultivation. Between the 11th and 12th centuries there are documents testifying to the extensive clearing of virgin lands: this is evidenced by the contractual charters by which feudal lords granted advantageous opportunities for those who settled and cultivated uncultivated lands. Checkered or herringbone plans of cultivated land are found in the land registries. Further evidence is the increase in tithes the Church collected from peasants: the provost of Mantua Cathedral at the end of the 12th century noted that in less than a century the lands owned by the Church were “truncatae et aratae et de nemoribus et paludibus tractae et ad usum panis reductae.” (cleared and plowed, restored from the woods and swamps and reused to make bread).J. Le Goff, Il basso medioevo, transl. by E. V. Spagnol, Milan 1967
Moreover, in recent years, historians have brought to light the importance of another factor that enabled this increase in population: the climatic factor. Between the 11th and 13th centuries there was a decrease in rainfall over the Old World, leading to a rise in temperatures. This change favored an increase in agricultural production and a decrease in the mortality rate as the population, better nourished, was more resistant to the diseases of the time.
As for the expansion of arable land, one usually thinks of the land taken from the forest, but the forest was a source of survival for the peasants, who found in it animals to hunt, wood for heating, acorns for their animals, often a stream where they could fish and supplement their poor diet: the forest is often as valuable as arable land. It is known from aerial photographs and pollen studies that the forest retreated in this period, but it was rather its edge that was eroded: the undergrowth, which offered less resistance to deforestation, often by fire or primitive means.
The less fertile lands, the cold lands, also came under cultivation. Genuine large-scale collective deforestations were carried out, the most notable of which was that carried out in the Netherlands by the "marsh farmers", the Flemish farmers who would make the "dike villages" rise from the sea. Around 1090, the Count of Flanders, Robert II, donated to the Abbey of Bourbourg the land wrested from the sea, and all that the monks were able to take from the sea (quicquid ibi accreverit per iactum maris).
This was the time when with gigantic efforts the Po Valley was reclaimed from the swamps and marshes and when the slopes of the Apennines were divided by the feudal lords into lots and assigned to those peasants who undertook to clear them of vegetation and cultivate them.
According to recent calculations this was the growth trend of a population marked by short life spans and high infant mortality but also by numerous births and formations of family groups characterized by young age: around 1050 the European population was estimated at 46 million, in 1100 it was 48 million, 50 around 1150 and 61 around 1200.
The agricultural revolution
Agricultural development that had already begun in the Carolingian age was the cause and effect of the demographic revolution. The increase in the production of agricultural products is demonstrated not only by the quantity of land put under cultivation but also by the quality of agricultural practices that took advantage of technical advances. The first of these technological innovations was the use of the heavy wheeled and mouldboard plow, which allowed the land to be carved deeper than the more primitive wooden nail plow, which barely scratched the soil.