section_path: High Middle Ages/Society
section_name: Society
paragraph_text: Society
  
  Between c. 950 and 1060, severe droughts struck the Middle East and the Eurasian Steppe experienced anomalous cold. The ensuing famines led to riots and military coups in the Byzantine Empire, the Abbasid Caliphate, and Egypt, and forced masses of nomadic Turks to seek new pasture lands in Iraq, Anatolia, and the Balkans. Their influx caused much destruction, and culminated in the establishment of the Seljuk Empire in the Middle East. In contrast, a period of population expansion began in Europe and its estimated population grew from 35 to 80 million between c. 1000 and 1347. The exact causes remain unclear, and improved agricultural techniques, assarting (bringing new lands into production), a more clement climate, and the lack of invasions have been suggested.
  
  Feudalism regulated fundamental social relations in many parts of Europe. In this system, a lord granted property—typically land—to a vassal in return for services (primarily military) rendered. In other parts of Europe such as Germany, Poland, and Hungary, inalienable allods remained the dominant forms of landholding. Their owners owed homage to the king or a higher-ranking aristocrat, but their landholding was free of feudal obligations. In the Byzantine Empire and the Balkan states, the pronoia system—landholding with limited rights—benefited the military aristocracy.
  
  Most medieval Western thinkers divided society into three fundamental classes: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners. Commoners, about 98 per cent of the total population, were mainly rural peasants and artisans. The number of townspeople was growing, but never exceeded 10 per cent of the total population. Many peasants were no longer settled on isolated farms but had gathered into more-defensible small communities, usually known as manors or villages. In the system of manorialism, a manor was the basic unit of landholding; it consisted of smaller components, such as parcels held by peasant tenants and the lord's demesne. As churchmen prohibited the enslavement of coreligionists, a new form of dependency (serfdom) almost completely supplanted slavery by the late 11th century. Unlike slaves, serfs had legal capacity and their hereditary status was regulated by agreements with their lords. Restrictions on their activities varied, but their freedom of movement was customarily limited and they usually owed corvées (labour services). Peasants left their homelands in return for economic and legal privileges, typically lower taxes, and the right to administer justice in their communities. Cross-border peasant movement had radical demographic consequences, such as the eastward spread of German settlements.
  
  With the development of heavy cavalry, the uniform class of free warriors split into two groups. Those who could equip themselves as mounted knights were integrated into the traditional aristocracy, and the others were assimilated into the peasantry. The new elite's position was stabilised through the adoption of strict inheritance customs, such as primogeniture: the eldest son's right to inherit the family domains undivided. Nobles were stratified in the land and people over whom they had authority; the lowest-ranking nobles did not hold land, and had no vassals. The nobility was never a closed group; kings could raise commoners to the aristocracy, wealthy commoners could marry into noble families, and impoverished aristocrats could lose their privileged status. Western aristocrats often moved to the peripheries of Latin Christendom with the support of local rulers who appreciated their military skills or as conquerors. French-speaking noblemen mainly settled in the British Isles, southern Italy or Iberia, and German aristocrats preferred Central and Eastern Europe.
  
  The clergy was divided into two types. The secular clergy cared for believers' spiritual needs and mainly served in parish churches, and the regular clergy lived under a religious rule as monks, canons, or friars. The introduction of clerical celibacy —the ban on priestly marriage—distinguished Catholic clergy from the laity. Church courts had exclusive jurisdiction over marital affairs, and church authorities supported popular peace movements in the west. Laypeople were obliged to confess their sins to a priest at least once a year beginning in the early 13th century, which reinforced priestly control of their lives.
  
  Women were officially required to be subordinate to some male: their father, husband, or other kinsman. Women's work generally consisted of household or other domestic tasks, such as child care. Peasant women could supplement the household income by spinning or brewing at home, and they did field-work at harvest time. Townswomen could engage in trade, but often only by right of their husband; unlike their male competitors, they were not always allowed to train apprentices. Noblewomen could inherit land in the absence of a male heir, but their potential to give birth was considered their principal virtue. Since women were not ordained priests, the only roles open to them in the church were as nuns.