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Chapter 11
The Late Middle Ages:
Crisis and Disintegration in the
Fourteenth Century
Timeline
A Time of Troubles: Black Death
and Social Crisis
“Little Ice Age”
Small drop in average temperatures
Famine
Heavy rain (1315 – 1317) led to food shortages
Population growth up to 1300 put pressure
on food supply
The Black Death
Most devastating natural disaster in European
History
Bubonic Plague
Rats and Fleas
Yersinia Pestis
Spread of the Plague
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
The fourteenth century was a era of crisis.
A “little ice” age led to famine, but a greater
disaster followed: the Black Death. The
bubonic plague was spread by black rats’
fleas, carrying the bacterium Yersina pestis,
while the pneumonic variety was
transmitted through the air from person to
person. It reached Europe in 1347. In a few
years up to 50 percent of the population
died, with higher mortality rates in urban
areas. It returned every few years for
centuries.
Map 11.1: Spread of the Black Death
Life and Death: Reactions to the
Plague
Plague as a punishment from God
The flagellants
Attacks against Jews
Violence
Economic Dislocation and Social
Upheaval
Labor Shortage + Falling prices for agricultural
products = Drop in aristocratic incomes
Statute of Laborers (1351) sought to limit wages
Social Mobility
Peasant Revolts
Jacquerie in France (1358)
English Peasants’ Revolt (1381)
Revolts in the Cities
Ciompi Revolt in Florence (1378)
Reactions differed. Some escaped into
alcohol, sex, and crime. Others, believing the
Black Death to be a punishment from God,
attempted to atone for their sins through selfinflicted pain. The Jews became scapegoats.
People fled, carrying the plague with them.
The resulting labor shortage could benefit
peasants, although the demand for products
was also reduced. When the ruling classes
reduced wage rates there were peasant revolts.
The ruling classes quelled the revolts, but
social upheaval continued to plague the postplague world.
Chart 11.1: Background to the Hundred Years’ War:
Kings of France and England
The Hundred Years’ War
Causes
Entanglement of French and English royal families
King Edward III (1327 – 1377) claims French crown
French seize duchy of Gascony (1337) sparking war
Conduct and Course of the War
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)
Map 11.2: The Hundred Years’ War
Wars were also part of the crisis, notably the
Hundred Years War between England and France.
In 1328 the French Capetian line ended. England’s
Edward III (d.1377) claimed the French throne, but
a cousin to the Capets, Philip of Valois, became
king (d.1350). War soon began. Armored knights
on horseback were the backbone of medieval
armies, but English peasants using the longbow
had begun to change the face of war. When the
French king was captured, a treaty was signed in
1360: France agreed to pay ransom, the English
received land in France, and Edward renounced his
claim to the throne.
Using guerilla tactics, the French regained
their lands, but in 1415 England’s Henry V
(d.1422) invaded. The French cause was
saved by Joan of Arc (d.1431), a young
peasant woman, who claimed to have been
told by an angel and saints that she should
offer her support to the dauphin, the heir to
the throne. Her leadership inspired the
French, who also began to rely on cannon,
and by 1453 France had won.
Political Instability
Breakdown of Feudal Institutions
Scutage
New Royal Dynasties
Financial Problems
Parliaments gain power
The Growth of England’s
Political Institutions
Edward III (1327 – 1377)
Parliament
• House of Lords
• House of Commons
• During Edward III’s reign, the English Parliament
gained control over taxes, increasing its power.
Richard II (1377 – 1399)
Aristocratic factionalism
Henry IV (1399 – 1413)
Deposed Richard II
The Problems of the French Kings
Weakness of the French Monarchy
Estates-General
1357 meeting
Charles VI (1380 – 1422)
Competition between the dukes of Burgundy
and Orléans to control Charles
Germany & Italy
The German Monarchy
Breakup of the Holy Roman Empire
Hundreds of States
Elective Monarchy
• The Golden Bull (1356)
• Weak kings
In Germany, dukedoms and city-states went
their own way, independent of the Holy Roman
Emperor, itself an elective office. Italy was
divided into small kingdoms in the south, the
Papal States in central Italy, and several citystates in the north, notably Milan and the
oligarchic republics of Florence and Venice.
Warfare was endemic.
The States of Italy
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 at Anagni
Clement V (1305 – 1314)
The Papacy at Avignon (1305 – 1377)
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)
The papacy declined. Confrontation
between France’s Philip IV (d.1314) and
Pope Boniface VIII led to the removal of
the papacy to Avignon on France’s border
in 1305. From 1377 there were two
competing popes. Some argued that a
general council, not the pope, should rule
the church, and Conciliarism did end the
Great Schism. There was a preoccupation
with salvation. Some turned to good works,
others to mysticism and devotional
movements.
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
Calls for systematic reform
Marsiglio of Padua (c. 1270 – 1342), Defender of the Peace
Conciliarism
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
Pope Martin V (1417 – 1431)
Popular Religion
Trends
Mechanical paths to salvation
Mysticism and Lay Piety
Meister Eckhart (1260 – 1327)
Modern Devotion
• Gerard Groote (1340 – 1384) and the Brothers of the
Common Life
Unique Female Mystical Experiences
Changes in Theology
Challenges to Scholastic Thought
William of Occam (1285 – 1329)
Nominalism
Consequences of William’s ideas
The scholastics’ confidence in reason was
attacked: God’s existence could only be
“proved” by faith.
Vernacular literature was exemplified in
Italy by Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch,
Chaucer in England, and Christine de Pizan
in France. In art, Giotto explored threedimensional realism. After the Black Death,
artists frequently portrayed subjects of death
and decay.
The Development of Vernacular Literature and New
Directions in Art
Dante (1265 – 1321)
The Divine Comedy
Petrarch (1304 – 1374)
Sonnets
Boccaccio (1313 – 1375)
Decameron
Chaucer (c. 1340 – 1400)
The Canterbury Tales
Christine de Pizan (c. 1364 – 1430)
The Book of the City of Ladies
Art and the Black Death
Giotto (1266 – 1337)
Morbidity of late fourteenth-century art
Giotto, Lamentation
Change & Invention
Changes in Urban Life
Greater Regulation
Marriage
Gender Roles
• Male: active and domineering
• Women: passive and submissive
Medieval children
New Directions in Medicine
Hierarchy
Trends
Inventions and New Patterns
The mechanical clock
• New conception of time
Gunpowder and cannons
The impact of the plague led to urban public
health regulations, to younger marriages,
and to a greater division of gender roles
under the assumption that women were the
weaker gender. Technological
developments included the perfection of the
clock and eyeglasses, and paper began to
replace parchment. Finally, the
development of gunpowder blew the Middle
Ages into history.
A Medical Textbook
Mechanical Clock in the Prague Town Hall
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