Download File - Lorraine A. Rollo, Ph.D.

L.A. Rollo, Ph.D.
Europe and the World, 1300-1500
Chapter Outline & Study Guide
Chapter 10: Crisis, Unrest & Opportunity, 1300-1500
Overview
1. The Later Middle Ages (1300-1500) was an age of adversity that included
famine, plague, economic hardship, social dislocation, religious crisis &
war.
2. Europeans adapted creatively to changed circumstances and new
opportunities. The land recovered; diet improved, trade resumed; cities
repopulated; labor became more valuable; national monarchies emerged as
powerful entities; people pursued spirituality, and many artistic and
scientific innovations appeared.
I. The Black Death & Its Consequences
1. The European economy had reached its limits by 1300.
2. The Great Famine 1315-1322 weakened Europe before the plague.
3. Black Death is the name given to the deadly plague that spread from
Mongolia to Europe, 1330-1350.
4. The Black Death decreased the European population by at least 1/3 from
1347-1350.
5. Consequences of the Black Death included lower population,
disappearance of villages, labor shortages, food scarcity, trade disruptions,
increasing grain and commodity prices, attacks on Jews and self-mutilation
as repentance for sin (Flagellant Movement).
6. The cause of the Black Death was the microbe Yersinia pestis. Disease
spread through fleas, rats and air-born contagion. The 3 forms are Bubonic,
Pneumonic and Septicemic.
7. By 1400 there was a new equilibrium of less people, declining food
prices, relative abundance, more opportunities for work, improved diet,
specialization, trade revival and a larger percentage of Europeans living in
towns.
8. Cities favored by the economic revival following the Black Death were in
northern Germany (Hanseatic League), and northern Italy.
9. The economic turn-around led to more efficient business and accounting
practices like new forms of partnership, insurance contracts, double-entry
bookkeeping, branch-banking, and money exchanges through written orders.
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II. Social Mobility and Social Inequality
1. In the aftermath of the Black Death, survivors benefited, but adjustment
was not easy.
2. The Later Middle Ages experienced many popular rebellions, including
the Jacquerie Rebellion in France (1358), the English Peasants’ Revolt
(1381), and the Wool Combers Revolt (Ciompi) in Florence (1378).
3. Participants in popular rebellions were empowered by the new economic
conditions and wanted more opportunities and reform; rebellions were
crushed and elites triumphed.
4. Aristocrats were vulnerable economically & challenged by revolts, but
they adapted, prospered, and continued to dominate society.
5. Aristocrats distinguished themselves during the Later Middle Ages by
flaunting their wealth and living a distinct lifestyle that included elaborate
households, fancy clothes, courtly manners, hereditary land ownership,
political influence, banquets, tournaments, patronage of the arts, and
membership in exclusive chivalric orders.
6. Kings and princes patronized aristocrats; this alliance was an important
feature of European society and politics as rulers centralized power,
aristocrats sought distinction and political clout, and rulers expanded
territories through war.
III. Warfare & Nation-Building
1. The partnership between kingship and aristocracy was partly to control
the lower classes.
2. To fight wars, governments claimed new powers to tax and control
subjects, and they build larger and deadlier armies.
3. England and France were the major combatants in the Hundred Years’
War (1337-1453).
4. The causes of the Hundred Years’ War include the ramifications of
English holdings in France, and English claims to the French throne.
5. Joan of Arc helped turn the tide of the Hundred Years’ War in France’s
favor. English allies captured Joan; the English burnt her at the stake as a
heretic.
6. The national monarchies in England and France grew stronger as a result
of the Hundred Years’ War.
7. Conflict among elites kept the Holy Roman Empire divided, but rulers in
Austria, Bavaria and Brandenburg-Prussia expanded & centralized their
power.
8. Italy remained divided.
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9. The 1469 marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile set the
stage for the growth of a strong national monarchy in Spain.
10. The term national monarchy is used to describe states characterized by
the growing power of kings, and the fusing of national identity with more
powerful kingship. National monarchies had greater resources of money and
troops than city-states. However, national monarchies were competitive, and
their conflicts kept Europe at war.
IV. The Rise of Muscovy, “The Third Rome”
1. Like the western national monarchs, rulers in Russia in the late 15th
century consolidated their power.
2. Russia developed differently than the western monarchies of Europe.
Russia had ties to Orthodox Christianity and Russia experienced Mongol
conquest.
3. The Viking people (Rus) founded a principality at Kiev in the 10 th
century; The Mongols conquered the area in the 13th century.
4. The Grand Dukes of Muscovy made Muscovy a formidable power.
Muscovy was a Mongol tribute center, and Mongol support helped it grow.
Since Muscovy was far from Mongol base of operations, the Grand Dukes
consolidated their strength. The Muscovite state became a center of antiRoman ideology, proclaimed itself the successor to Byzantium & Rome. The
Dukes of Muscovy took the title tsar or Caesar.
5. When a rebellious Mongol destroyed the Khanate at the end of the 14 th
century, Ivan III (grand duke of Muscovy) established Muscovy as a
dominant power. He rebuilt Moscow’s fortified palace, the Kremlin. Ivan III
made the tsar’s power more absolute than the power of any European
monarch.
V. Trials of the Church
1. After death of Boniface VIII in 1303, the Church entered a long period of
institutional crisis that included an economic crunch for the church as
landowners, the Babylonian Captivity (1305-1378), the Great Schism (13781417), and battle with reformers who wanted to reduce papal power.
2. The Babylonian Captivity refers to the time when the papacy resided at
Avignon in southern France. The papacy enjoyed French protection; French
kings and popes pursued mutually beneficial policies. Most cardinals &
popes were French.
3. To return to Rome, the papacy had to win back military control over the
Papal States in central Italy. Pope Gregory IX returned to Rome in 1377.
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4. The Great Schism (1378-1415) involved rival popes and colleges of
cardinals. France & its allies supported the French pope, Clement VII
(Scotland, Castile, Naples & Aragon); England, Germany, northern Italian
cities, Scandinavia, Poland, Hungary & Bohemia recognized the Italian
pope, Urban VI.
5. The Council of Constance ended the Great Schism in 1417 with the
election of Martin V; the Council’s election restored European institutional
unity.
6. Representatives at the Council of Constance attempted to establish the
practice of church government by representative, general council (conciliar
government). The popes stymied the conciliar movement. The papacy
gained theoretical supremacy in the Church, but lost much real power to
their supporters, secular rulers.
7. The popes negotiated treaties with secular rulers known as concordats,
which granted secular rulers extensive authority over churches in their
domains. As a result, people came to expect reform from secular rulers.
Rulers presented themselves as champions of moral & religious reform
while strengthening their power to rule over national churches.
9. Late 15th century popes ruled like Italian princes. The Papal States became
one of the wealthier and better governed principalities in Italy. Yet, popes
lost moral leadership over the Church, as well as power over churches
dominated by national monarchs.
VI. The Pursuit of Holiness
1. Lay religious devotion increased during the Later Middle Ages.
2. Parish priests, the parish community and the traditions of the church,
especially the sacramental system, played a central role in people’s daily
lives.
3. Non-conventional piety like that of Joan of Arc was considered dangerous
because it disturbed or questioned customary practice. Those who pursued
non-conventional modes of piety include Catherine of Siena, Juliana of
Norwich, and Margery of Kempe.
4. Some mystics pursued non-conventional modes of spirituality, and were
condemned because they withdrew from the Church. The German
Dominican preacher Master Eckhart (c. 1260-1327) was a mystical thinker
who taught that God dwelled in the soul. Many of his teachings were
condemned by the papacy.
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5. The most popular “orthodox” manual of practical mysticism was Imitation
of Christ c. 1427 by north German canon, Thomas à Kempis. He stressed
living a simple & moral lifestyle.
6. An initiator of heresy in late medieval England was Oxford theologian
John Wyclif (c. 1330-1384). He stressed living simply according to the
standards of the New Testament; criticized Church corruption, and called on
secular powers to reform the church. The Lollards propagated & developed
Wyclif’s ideas; some dismissed the sacramental system. Wyclif’s ideas
fueled the 1381 English Peasant Rebellion, and religious developments in
Bohemia.
7. Jan Hus (c. 1373-1415) adopted Wyclif’s ideas from 1408-1415 at
Charles University in Prague. He stressed the centrality of the Eucharist, but
supported Utraquism (receiving bread and wine during Eucharist). He called
for church reform and social justice, and was popular in Bohemia.
8. In 1415 Hus traveled to the Council of Constance to express his views &
call for reform. He was tried for heresy & burned at the stake. Open revolt
broke out in Bohemia, and Bohemia did not return fully to Roman Church
until the17th century.
9. Lollardy and Hussitism exposed problems that shaped debate during the
Reformation.
VII. Medieval Creativity and Innovation
1. The Later Middle Ages witnessed significant intellectual
accomplishments in spite of turmoil and change.
2. After 1300, thinkers began to reassess the human ability to understand the
supernatural. Subsequent disasters and wars undermined confidence in
human reason.
3. William Ockham (c. 1285-1349) developed Nominalism, a theory of
knowledge of the physical world that argues that humans may know only
experienced things. Determination to find certainty about the natural world
reinforced interest in non-supernatural explanation (science) via empiricism.
4. Naturalism, the attempt to see things as they appear, was a trend in
philosophy, literature and art.
5. Writers used vernacular languages to describe the world, and reached
wider audiences. Vernacular languages were popular because of their
identification with nationalism, and the spread of lay education and growing
literacy.
6. Major vernacular authors of the late middle ages were Boccaccio
(Decameron), Chaucer (Canterbury Tales) & Christine de Pisan (Book of the
City of Ladies).
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7. Christine de Pisan represents the emergence of professional authors.
Book of the City of Ladies is a defense of morality, and the character,
capacity and history of women.
8. Diversification of painting media (frescoes, wood, canvas, tempera, oils)
created new opportunities for artists.
9. Florentine painter Giotto (c. 1267-1337) portrayed humanity in
naturalistic religious images (The Meeting of Joachim and Anna).
10. The leading late medieval northern European painters were Flemish.
Roger van der Weyden (c. 1400-1465) was a noted painter; he painted St.
Luke Drawing the Virgin.
11. People during the late middle ages visualized reality through devotional
plays, popular songs, processions, plays honoring important visitors, and
plays that flouted convention and hierarchies.
12. Important technological advances were made during the Later Middle
Ages that included advances in artillery & firearms (canon, pistols,
muskets), eyeglasses, advances in navigational tools like the magnetic
compass, and mechanical clocks.
13. Mechanical clocks stimulated interest in complex machinery &
rationalized and regulated daily life.
14. Another important late medieval invention was printing with movable
type c. 1450 (famed Gutenberg Bible 1454).
15. Advances in printing were stimulated by the replacement of parchment
with paper. Reading and writing became easier and literacy increased. The
growing market for books led to experimentation with methods of book
production. Moveable type printing reduced the cost of books and generally
improved communication. Printing innovations facilitated the development
of book culture, the exchange of ideas and information, and the
standardization of national languages.
VIII. Conclusion
1. Despite economic depression & demographic collapse, the Later Middle
Ages was a period of opportunity, increasing literacy, and creativity.
2. Although the Black Death was devastating, labor shortages encouraged
experimentation and created opportunities. Europe’s economy diversified
and expanded. Between 1300-1500, new schools and universities emerged.
3. Artistic, philosophical, literary & technological advances reflect a drive to
understand and control the natural world. Increasing wealth and access to
education produced new inventions, ideas, and forms of art.
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4. Late medieval intellectuals broke with the traditional, Neo-Platonic view
that nature revealed God. They studied nature empirically and believed the
physical was knowable, an essentially scientific worldview.
5. Women were excluded from formal schooling, but were actively involved
in literate culture and religious life.
6. Men and women became more involved in shaping their spiritual life at a
time when the institutional church was in crisis.
7. Warfare helped governments grow more powerful; governments used
money from taxation to invest in ships, guns and armies.
8. Economic & political factors encouraged technological advances. Labor
shortages encouraged experimentation with labor-saving devices & new
agricultural techniques. Warfare encouraged military inventions that helped
monarchs increase their power. Governments used taxes to make
investments that encouraged growth, communication, expansion,
inventiveness & cultural development.
9. The generation that survived famine, plague & other disasters seized the
opportunities their world presented.
10. By 1500 most Europeans’ lives were more secure than their ancestors’
lives in 1300.
11. After1500 European civilization expanded around the globe.
17th edition
Fall 2012
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