Download the late middle ages

Michala Dovrtělová, MCR, RAMZ 1
THE LATE MIDDLE AGES
THE CENTURY OF WARS AND PLAGUES
OUTLINE
THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

Introduction
The 14th Century

The Hundred Years´ War

Joan of Arc and the end of the war

The Black Death

The Church and Religion

The Peasants´ Revolt
 Peasants´ Life
The 15th Century

The Wars of the Roses
2
THE LATE MIDDLE AGES
The Late Middle Ages is a term used by historians to describe European history in the
period of the 14th and 15th centuries (1300–1500). Around 1300, centuries of European
prosperity and growth came to a halt. A series of famines and plagues, such as the Great
Famine of 1315-1317 and the Black Death, reduced the population perhaps by half
Along with depopulation came social unrest and endemic warfare. England experienced
serious peasant risings and wars. The unity of the Catholic Church was shattered by the Great
Schism, when two different popes were elected in Avignon and Rome. On the other hand, the
14th century was also a time of great progress within the arts and sciences.
The 14th Century
The 14th century is the beginning of English nationalism. It started under Edward I.
He expelled the Jews and foreign favourites of his father and conquered Wales and made it a
principality. Harlech Castle was one of a series of fortresses built to control North Wales.
After he invaded Scotland and defeated the Scots, he carried off the Stone of Scone, on which
Scottish kings were crowned, and had it placed in the throne in Westminster Abbey. Edward
enacted numerous laws strengthening the powers of his Government, and summoned the first
officially sanctioned Parliaments (such as his Model Parliament).The upper classes began to
abandon French and learn English.
English nationalism aroused Scottish nationalism. The Scots sought an ally in France
and in the end remained independent. Edward I´s grandson, after the unsuccessful attempt to
subdue Scotland, turned to the rich but weak France. The Hundred Yeas War between
England and France began.
The Hundred Years´ War
The Hundred Years´ War lasted, with a few breaks, from 1336 to 1453. It began when
King Edward III. said that he had a right to be king of France.
Edward III and his son, the Black Prince, won some famous victories. Edward beat the
French at Crécy in 1346, and took the town of Calais the next year. In 1356, the Black Prince
beat the French king at Poitiers. But when he and Edward died, the French began to win
battles. By 1400, the English had only a few towns around the French coast.
Henry V began the war again in 1415. He took the town of Harfleur in Normandy,
then beat the French army at Agincourt (described in Shakespeare´s play Henry V). Henry
was a hero to his men and all the people of England.
He landed in France again and after a victory at Agincourt in 1415 was able to
abdicate the conditions of the peace and married the daughter of the King of France. Two
years later both Henry V and the French king died. They left the crown of both countries to
the infant Henry VI, who was only nine months old.
This fact inspired new French nationalism, led by Joan of Arc.
Joan of Arc and the end of the war
Charles VI of France had also a son. Men called him the Dauphin, which was always
the title of French kings´ eldest son. When Charles VI died, some Frenchmen fought on for
the Dauphin. They didn´t have much hope, for he was a weak and idle youth.
3
But Joan of Arc appeared. Joan was a peasant girl from Domremy in eastern France.
She had heard voices and seen visions of the saints. She reported that St. Michael, St.
Catherine, and St. Margaret told her to save Orleans from the English and bring the Dauphin
to Rheims for his coronation. She drove to Chinon and asked for permission to visit the royal
French court.
The courtiers at Chinon laughed at Joan, but the Dauphin gave her arms, and sent her
with 4000 men to relieve Orleans. Joan beat the English in battle, and drove back to the north.
The Dauphin was crowned King Charles VII in Rheims cathedral.
Then Joan was captured by the duke of Burgundy (England´s ally), and put on trial by
the English. They claimed her a witch, she was found guilty and burned to death in the
marketplace at Rouen in May 1431. She was only nineteen. Joan of Arc was canonized by
Pope Benedict XV in 1920.
Killing Joan of Arc didn´t save the English. As Henry VI grew up, it was clear that he
wasn´t a soldier. In any case, England couldn´t afford the long war and lost its chief ally, the
duke of Burgundy. In 1453, the French took Bordeaux, and the war was over. Calais was the
only part of France left in English hands (kept until 1558).
The Black Death
The Black Death – a king of plague – reached the ports of southern England in 1348. It
swept through the country in the next year. Most victims died within four to seven days after
infection, sometimes less. Between a third and a half of the people in England died. No-one
knew what caused the Black Death, or how to cure it.
We know now that the plague was carried by black rats. It was spread to humans by
the rats´ fleas. The dirt and rubbish which lay in the streets of towns were ideal for rats, so
when plague reached Europe, it first struck port cities and then followed the trade routes, both
by sea and land. London had special “plague pits” for burying the dead.
When townspeople fled to the country to escape the disease, they took it with them. So
many peasants died that there were not enough people left to till the fields. Whole villages
were deserted, and the houses began to fall down. At least a third of all the people in the
world died. Men called penitents flogged themselves with leather whips, spiked with iron.
They hoped that this might persuade God to stop the plague.
There were three forms a of plague. These three forms brought an array of signs and
symptoms to those infected. The bubonic plague was the most commonly seen form of the
Black Death, with symptoms including fever, headaches, aching joints, nausea and vomiting.
Victims underwent damage to the skin until they were covered in dark blotches. This
symptom led to the disease being called the "Black" plague..
The Church and religion
The Black Death led to cynicism toward religious officials who could not keep their
frequent promises of curing plague victims and banishing the disease. No one, the Church
included, was able to cure or even explain the plague. This increased doubting of the clergy.
Pope Clement VI reigned during the plague years in Europe during a time when the papacy
was based in Avignon, France. Extreme alienation with the church culminated in either
support for different religious groups.
4
The Black Death hit the monasteries very hard because of their close quarters and their
kindness in helping the sick. This resulted in a mass influx of new clergy members, most of
whom did not share the life-long convictions and experiences of the veterans they replaced.
This resulted in abuses by the clergy in years afterwards and a further deterioration of the
position of the Church in the eyes of the people.
The Catholic Church started to experience demands for reform from within. The first
of these came from the Oxford professor John Wyclif. Born in the 1300s, Wycliffe criticized
abuses and false teachings in the Church. He held that the Bible should be the only authority
in religious questions. He also made an English translation of the Bible.
The Lollards, itinerant preachers he sent throughout England, inspired a spiritual
revolution. But the Lollardy movement was short-lived. The Church expelled Wycliffe from
his teaching position at Oxford, and 44 years after he died, the Pope ordered his bones
exhumed and burned. John Wycliffe lived almost 200 years before the Reformation, but his
beliefs and teachings closely match those of Luther, Calvin and other Reformers.
The Peasants´ Revolt
The peasants who survived the Black Death asked for higher wages. The lords tried to
make the peasants work two or three days a week for them and then the parliament passed a
law which banned high wages for peasants. They didn´t like this. Nor did they like the poll tax
which was charged in 1380 to help pay for a war with France. Their complaints led to revolt.
They attacked manor houses and made a bonfires with the lords´ record books.
Rebels from Essex and Kent reached London in June 1381. They pulled down and
burned the houses of the great lords and rich merchants. They killed foreign tradesmen and
even cut off the head of the Archbishop of Canterbury, whom they blamed for the new tax.
King Richard II., who was only fourteen years old, met the rebels at Smithfield, on the
edge of London. A fight broke out between the mayor of London and the peasants leader Wat
Tyler, who was killed. The peasants might have killed the mayor and the king in revenge.
Richard faced the rebels, told them he would see to their complaints, and asked them to go
home, but then he broke the promise. As soon as the danger was over, his ministers sent
soldiers to deal with the rebels. They put the leaders to death and burned down their villages.
But it wasn´t all loss – the hated poll tax wasn´t charged again.
In 1382, the 15-years-old daughter of the King of Bohemia, Charles IV, landed at
Dover and four weeks later the wedding took place in London. She became known as Good
Queen Anne. The chronicles mention her piety, ability to read, and her good influence on the
weak and hot-tempered king. The leading English poet, Chaucer, celebrated her in his book
The Legend of Good Women. She died young. After her death, Richard became despotic, was
forced to abdicate, and died in prison.
Peasants´ Life
The Peasant´s Revolt was crushed in 1381. Life did get better, though, for the peasants
in the next hundred years. Those who did best were the freemen and the richest villeins, who
by now were called yeomen. They built new, bigger houses, sometimes in stone instead of
wood and clay. They could afford better clothes and furniture and kept servants. Some of
them even sent sons to school.
Times were better even for the poor peasants. They no longer had to do unpaid work
for their lords. They had some land of their own, and they earned wages by working for the
5
lords or the yeomen as well. But peasants´ lives were always hard. Not many peasants lived to
be more than fifty.
The 15th Century
The Wars of the Roses
Henry VI couldn´t win the war in France. He couldn´t keep the peace in England
either. The greatest nobles had private armies. When they fell out with each other in the
1450s, there was a civil war. One group led by Henry VI´s wife, Queen Margaret, fought to
keep Henry on the throne, and make sure that their son was the next king. Their enemies
thought that England would be better off with Richard, duke of York, in charge. The wars
between them are known as the Wars of the Roses, because of the symbols of the families –
the red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York.
The York family won the wars, but Duke Richard was killed in battle. His son,
Edward IV, became king. By 1471, when the wars ended, Henry VI and his son were dead
and so were many other lords. The Wars of the Roses ended when Henry Tudor (Lancaster)
defeated Richard III (York) at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, and became Henry VII
and married Elizabeth of York, thus uniting the two sides.
King Richard III (1483 – 85) is described in contemporary history as a cruel man, who
had two young princes, his nephews, murdered in the Tower, to keep throne for himself.
Shakespeare in his play Richard III describes several more crimes of the King. The best
known line is what the king shouts when his horse was killed on the Bosworth battlefield: “A
horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”
Sources:
Peprník, J.: Ilustrované reálie USA a Británie, Nakladatelství Olomouc, 2004.
Robson, W.: Medieval Britain, Oxford University Press, 97.
www.wikipedia.org
6