25.3 Europe: a.d. 1001 to 1100  (Page 6/11)

Barcelona in the northeast This remained as an independent area.

Aragon and Navarre in the middle north The Basques of Navarre expanded both at the expense of Christian Leon and the Omayyads, but late in the century when the Arab emirate of Seville broke the Berber hold on the south and pushed northward and the new Kingdom of Leon and Castile again expanded on the western border, Navarre was more or less forced to join Aragon for self defense (A.D. 1076) (Ref. 137 )

Portugal

Portugal began its separate existence as a fief under Count Henry of Burgundy, when the area was given to him by Alfonso VI after it had been retrieved from the Moors.

France

Paris, as a city of philosophers, had become the center of learning in Europe.

The University of Paris was an outgrowth of the cathedral school of Notre Dame. At the same time the Jews of the cities of France, as well as Germany, established academies which developed the Ashkenazic Culture. The missionary zeal of the Crusaders in 1096, however, was turned on the Jews and they were killed or banished to ghettos.

In typical feudal style France became divided into seven main principalities, each ruled by counts or dukes and Normandy was one of the greatest of these. The Vikings had become French in speech and laws and as a race of "hybrid vigor"

With initial support of Normandy, the original Capetian line continued with Henri I as official king of France from 1031 to 1060. He was an active ruler, although illiterate, and he married the well-educated, cultured Anna Yaroslavna, daughter of the Duke of Kiev

The netherlands and belgium

Upon the break-up of Charlemagne's empire the Netherlands had originally fallen to the Duchy of Lower Lorraine, but this again split into smaller feudal states.