Chapter 11

The Late Middle Ages:Crisis and Disintegration in the Fourteenth Century

The Birth of Modern Europe

Feudalism sets stage for larger-scale government, protection of rights and duty to state

Agricultural advancements – population thrives!

Expansion and bureaucratization of the Church preserves aspects of Classical learning, provides order, and establishes universities/institutions of advanced learning

Crusades allow for contact and exchange with Byzantine and Arab worlds

The end result was an advanced civilization that fused Greco-Roman traditions with Christian, Germanic, Arabic and Byzantine elements to surpass other regions in the world at the time

Threats to the Medieval World

Mongol invasions of Russia in 1240

Ottoman Turks overtake Constantinople 1453

Papal scandal

Eventually, Church fragmented by Protestantism

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Plague, War, Famine, Death

In the end, the forces that challenged the medieval world were secular ones

The Black Death: A Recipe for Plague

“Little Ice Age”

The Great Famine (1315 – 1317)

Inability to sustain growing population with agricultural methods used at the time

Upheaval to urban areas

The Black Death

Most devastating natural disaster in European History

Bubonic Plague

Rats and Fleas

Yersinia pestis

Originated in Asia

Arrived in Europe in 1347

Mortality reached 50 – 60 percent in some areas

Wiped out between 25 – 50 percent of European population (19 – 38 million dead in four years)

Plague returns in 1361 – 1362 and 1369

Images of Plague Demons be GONE!

SexyBuboes

Spread of the Black Death http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0073106925/student_view0/animated_maps.html

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Life and Death: Reactions to the Plague

Plague as a punishment from God

The flagellants

Attacks against Jews

Violence

“Danse of Death”

Economic Dislocation and Social Upheaval

Labor Shortage + Falling prices for agricultural products = Drop in aristocratic incomes

Statute of Laborers (1351) : Limit Wages

Social Mobility

Peasant Revolts

Jacquerie in France (1358)

English Peasants’ Revolt (1381)

Revolts in the Cities

Ciompi Revolt in Florence (1378)

Jacquerie, 1358

War and Political Instability

The Hundred Years’ War

French Attack on English Gascony (1337)

Edward III of England claims French Crown

Differences in the armies

Battle of Crecy (1346)

Henry V (1413 – 1422)

Battle of Agincourt (1415)

Charles the Dauphin (heir to the French throne)

Joan of Arc (1412 – 1431)

Siege of Orleans

Captured by allies of the English in 1430

Burned at the Stake (1431)

Gunpowder

War Ends with French victory (1453)

The Hundred Years’ War©

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Political Instability

Breakdown of Feudal InstitutionsScutage

New Royal Dynasties

Financial ProblemsParliaments gain powerOngoing war creates need to tax

Western Europe: England and France

England

Edward III (1327 – 1377) and the development of parliament

House of Lords

House of Commons

Wars of the Roses (York vs. Lancaster)

France

Madness of Charles VI (1380 – 1422)

Civil War: Burgundy vs. Orleans

Germany & Italy

The German Monarchy

Breakup of the Holy Roman Empire post- Hohenstaufen

Hundreds of States

Elective Monarchy

The Golden Bull (1356)

Weak kings

The States of Italy

Lack of centralized authority

Republicanism to Tyranny

Development of regional states

Milan

Florence

Venice

The Ponte Vecchio – Venice

The Decline of the Church

Boniface VIII and the Conflict with the State

Boniface VIII (1294 – 1303)

Conflict with Philip the Fair of France

Unam Sanctam (1302)

Captured by French – is eventually released but then dies

Clement V, a French pope!

The Papacy at Avignon (1305 – 1378)

Stay at Avignon leads to a decline in papal prestige

Captives of the French monarchy

New Sources of revenue

Catherine of Siena (c. 1347 – 1380)

Bridge at Avignon – The City of the Popes

The Great Schism

Papacy returns to Rome in 1378

Rival Popes elected

Pope Urban VI

Pope Clement VII

The Great Schism divides Europe

Council of Pisa (1409)

Deposed both popes and elected a new pope

Popes refuse to step down

Results in three popes!

Council of Constance (1414 – 1418)

End of the Schism

Condemnation of heretics Jan Hus, John Wyclife

Pope Martin V (1417 – 1431) elected

Culture and Society in an Age of Adversity

The Developments of Vernacular Literature

Dante Alighieri (1265 – 1321)

The Divine Comedy (1313 – 1321)

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340 – 1400)

The Canterbury Tales

Christine de Pizan (c. 1364 – 1400)

The Book of the City of Ladies (1404)

Boccaccio

Decameron

Art and the Black Death

Giotto (1266 – 1337)

Ars Moriendi

Culture and Society in an Age of Adversity

Cimabue, Duccio, Giotto: from Byzantine to Renaissance style

Change & Invention

Changes in Urban Life

Greater Regulation – PROSTITUTION! (woohoo!)

Marriage

Gender Roles

Male: Active and Domineering

Women: Passive and Submissive

Medicine

Medical schools---Salerno, Montpellier, Bologna, Oxford, Padua, and Paris.

Midwives, barber-surgeons

Inventions and New Patterns

The Mechanical Clock (Di Dondi)

New Conception of Time

Gunpowder

Temperamental, but utilized (James II’s “Lion”)

Mechanical Clock in the Prague Town Hall

“One sound rose ceaselessly above the noises of busy life, and lifted all things unto a sphere of order and serenity: the sound of bells“

-John Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages

Discussion Questions

What impact did the Black Death have on medieval European society?

What were the causes of the Hundred Years’ War?

Who was Joan of Arc and what role did she play in the Hundred Years’ War?

How did the Hundred Years’ War impact the relations between the English King and his Parliament?

Why did the stay at Avignon lead to a decline in papal prestige?

How was the Great Schism finally ended?

How did Dante, Chaucer and Christine de Pisan reflect the values of their respective societies?

How did the Black Death affect urban and family life?

Web Links

ORB – Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies

The End of Europe’s Middle Ages

The Black Death, 1347 – 1350

Medieval Dance of Death

De Re Militari – Society for Medieval Military History

The Age of King Charles V

The World of Dante

Geoffrey Chaucer