Middle Ages Dbq

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Rulers of the High Middle Ages overcame challenges to their power and began the process of recentralization by removing power from other nobles and the Church and by increasing their own power. These changes were not liked by the people that the rulers were taking power from, but that did not stop rulers from continuing to pilfer power from others. Rulers of the High Middle Ages did anything they could to increase their power and decrease that of their opposition, such as requiring their vassals to declare loyalty to the king and by declaring themselves a higher power than church officials and their nobles.
One way rulers took power from their nobles is illustrated in source 5, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle from 1086. In this document, the king …show more content…

In this declaration made in 1166, King Henry II stated that all justice in England would happen under his own royal justices rather than those of the vassals and that everybody, even the vassals, were subject to the law and could be arrested by the royal justices. This took power from the king’s nobles because they could no longer enforce the laws they wanted the way they wanted to enforce them. Instead, the laws were enforced by the sheriffs that the king had appointed to each county, which further increased the power of the king because he could have a more direct effect on the lives of all of the population. This was not the only way the Assize of Clarendon benefited the king, however. In section 5 of the document, the king described how any property or money seized by the court goes directly to the king. Because of this statement, the king was able to gain more power in the form of money to use to his own advantage. He also allowed sheriffs to stop people from leaving their county if they were accused of breaking the law, which even further increased the amount of control he had over the entire population of

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