Article III

Sining

Political States

The High Middle Ages is a formative period in the history of the Western state. Kings in France, England and Spain consolidated their power, and set up lasting governing institutions. Also new kingdoms like Hungary and Poland, after their conversion to Christianity, became Central-European powers. Hungary owed its settlement to the Magyars, who settled there around 900 under King Árpád (d. around 907) after their invasions during the 9th centuries. The papacy, long attached to an ideology of independence from the secular kings, first asserted its claims to temporal authority over the entire Christian world. The Papal Monarchy reached its apogee in the early 13th century under the pontificate of Innocent III (pope 1198–1216). Northern Crusades and the advance of Christian kingdoms and military orders into previously pagan regions in the Baltic and Finnic northeast brought the forced assimilation of numerous native peoples into Europe.

During the early High Middle Ages, Germany was under the rule of the Saxon dynasty, which struggled to control the powerful dukes ruling over territorial duchies tracing back to the Migration period. In 1024, the ruling dynasty changed to the Salian dynasty, who famously clashed with the papacy under Emperor Henry IV (r. 1084–1105) over church appointments. His successors continued to struggle against the papacy as well as the German nobility. After the death of Emperor Henry V (r. 1111–1125) without heirs, a period of instability arose until Frederick IBarbarossa (r. 1155–1190) took the imperial throne in the late 12th century. Although Barbarossa managed to rule effectively, the basic problems remained, and his successors continued to struggle with them into the 13th century. One difficulty was the invasion of the Mongolsinto Europe in the mid 13th century. Mongols campaigns first shattered the Kievan Rus principalities and then invaded eastern Europe in 1241, 1259, and 1287.

France under the Capetian dynasty, began to slowly expand its power over the nobility, managing to expand out of the Ile de France to exert control over more of the country as the 11th and 12th centuries. They faced a powerful rival in the Dukes of Normandy, who in 1066 under William the Conqueror (duke 1135–1187), subjugated England and created a cross-channel empire that would last, in various forms, throughout the rest of the Middle Ages. Under the Angevin dynasty of King Henry II (r. 1154–1189) and his sons, the kings of England ruled over England and large sections of France. However King John (r. 1199–1216) lost Normandy and the rest of the northern French possessions in 1204. This led to dissension amongst the English nobility, while John's financial exactions to pay for his unsuccessful attempts to regain Normandy led in 1215 to Magna Carta, a charter that confirmed the rights and privileges of free men in England. Under Henry III (r. 1216–1272), John's son, further concessions were made to the nobility, and royal power was diminished. The French monarchy, however, continued to make gains against the nobility during the late 12th and 13th centuries, bringing more territories within the kingdom under their personal rule and centralizing the royal administration. Normans not only expanded into England, but also settled in Sicily and southern Italy, when Robert Guiscard (d. 1085) landed there in 1059 and established a duchy that later became a kingdom.