humanities+assesment+castles

=This is a page that I was asked to make separate for assessment in the MYP2 Humanities Class= = = =What does chepstow castle tell us about medieval minds?=

location map here.






This is Chepstow castle. It was built in the year 1067, not very long after the normans invaded and william became king. It is located in a town called Chepstow overlooking the river Wye in south Whales. It was the first stone castle ever to be built in GrEaT Britain.

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How free were medieval townspeople? The story of medieval towns is the story of English people becoming free. After 1100 many towns bought charters to give them their freedom. Villeins who stayed in a town for a year and a day became free from their lord. These were very important developments. However, there are different kinds of freedom. Some groups enjoyed freedom more than others. One of the large developments in the new towns was the guilds. The guilds were an organized group of people who all practiced the same craft. By law anybody who wanted to sell a product that they had made had to be part of a guild and have an official sign marking that they could legally sell their products. To become part of a guild you had to study for seven years, during the seven years you were an apprentice. If you were really good then you could work at it for another seven years and become a journeyman. The final and highest rank in the guilds was the guild master, he was the one who controlled the guild and made the rules. To become a master you had to make a flawless piece of work called a “masterpiece”. The guilds also made strict rules about who could join them and who was allowed to practice the craft. Many of the guilds made rules to make it harder or to exclude women from their guilds. One law in Lincoln says “If any married woman follows a craft within the city, which her husband has nothing to do with; she shall be counted as sole in matters to do with her craft. And if a complaint is made she shall answer it alone”. The second large change in medieval towns is that many of the towns bought a charter for themselves and started town council. This meant that they could make their own rules and decide on their own punishments. A charter was a way for them to make their own rules and break away from their lord. This meant that villeins could become freemen and no longer have to work for no pay. A charter also allowed for the town to have their own council board of the most important men in the town that could create rules to make the town safer and fair. An example of these rules are rules like “the bell is rung if there is a terrible fire; if there is a serious riot; if an enemy army is approaching or if the city is being besieged. Every man living in the city must come with weapons when the bell is rung.” This one came from a city called Hereford. The last major change that we have looked at is that many of the towns kept people out of their towns because of their traditions and birthplace although the cities were a place for travelers and trade in medieval times. In many of the towns there were many vendors and merchants from far away with goods that they could sell in the town. This brought more people and more taxes into the town making the councils and people invite travelers and people moving to the towns to start a new life. Although they did encourage the travelers to come into the towns many people did not like people and their foreign ways. In fact in york in 1501 a law was passed to put a separate knocker on doors for scots so that people could know when it was a scot coming into the city allowing them to ignore them and keep them out. This is all leading to the fact that towns made people much more free than their lives were as freemen or villeins in villages where they were controlled by their lord. They did this by creating order and logic in the people of the middle ages by setting up councils, laws and guilds. But not all people were free and this is easily shown by looking at the last paragraph, which mainly refers to the British’ dislike of the scots.