Download Europe to the Early 1500s

Lecture 15--Europe to the Early 1500s
Revival of Empire, Church, and Towns
Otto I (936-973 AD) and the Revival of the Empire: The eastern half of
Charlemagne's empire began to revive when Henry the Fowler became king of it
in 918. He was followed by his son Otto I, who conquered Italy in 951 and then
defeated the Magyars at Lechfeld in 955 AD, ending the eastern menace to the
empire. Otto enlisted the aid of the Church, using churchmen to run his lands, as
they could not marry and found lasting noble families. On February 2, 962, Pope
John XII crowned him as Emperor.
The Reviving Catholic Church: As the German empire became tangled in
Italian wars and fell apart at home, the Church pushed for more independence.
Cluny Reform Movements: In 910, a new monastery was founded at
Cluny, France by the count of Auverne, in the Benedictine style. The
Benedictine order was a keystone to the stability that European society
achieved in the 11th century, and partly owing to the stricter adherence to
a reformed Benedictine rule, Cluny became the acknowledged leader of
western monasticism from the later 10th century. A sequence of highly
competent abbots of Cluny were statesmen on an international stage. The
monastery of Cluny itself became the grandest, most prestigious and best
endowed monastic institution in Europe.
The monastery of Cluny differed in three ways from other Benedictine
houses and confederations: in its organizational structure, in the
prohibition on holding land by feudal service and in its execution of the
liturgy as its main form of work. While most Benedictine monasteries
remained autonomous and associated with each other only informally,
Cluny created a large, federated order in which the administrators of
subsidiary houses served as deputies of the abbot of Cluny and answered
to him. The Cluniac houses, being directly under the supervision of the
abbot of Cluny, the autocrat of the Order, were styled priories, not abbeys.
The priors, or chiefs of priories, met at Cluny once a year to deal with
administrative issues and to make reports. Other Benedictine houses, even
of earlier formation, came to regard Cluny as their guide.
The customs of Cluny also represented a shift from the earlier ideal of a
Benedictine monastery as an agriculturally self-sufficient unit similar to
the contemporary villa that survived in the more Romanized parts of
Europe and the manor of the more feudal parts, in which each member did
physical labor as well as offering prayer. St Benedict of Aniane, the
"second Benedict", had acknowledged that the Black Monks no longer
truly supported themselves simply with their physical labor, in the
monastic constitutions he had drawn up in 817 to govern all the
Carolingian monasteries, at the urging of Louis the Pious. Cluny's
agreement to offer perpetual prayer (laus perennis, literally "perpetual
praise") meant that specialization in roles went a step further at Cluny.
Cluny became perhaps the wealthiest monastic houses of the Western
World and this allowed the House to hire workers instead of the brothers
themselves doing any work. Such wealth allowed the Brothers to spend
their hours in almost constant prayer thus elevating their position into a
profession. Despite the vows of poverty; the Abbey in Cluny was able to
afford huge candlelabras of solid silver, gold goblets encrusted with
precious gems. Instead of broth and porridge which was the tradition
monastic fair; the brothers feasted on haute cuisine, roasted chickens (a
luxury in France then) and wines from their vineyards and cheeses that
their employees made. The brothers wore the finest linen habits and fine
silks were worn at Mass.
The Cluniac monasteries pushed for more independence for the Church,
their holiness winning them public support. They argued further that all
clergy should be under papal authority (as Cluny was). They denounced
the parish priests who were poorly educated and often had concubines,
mistresses, wives, etc. Cluny called for clerical celibacy.
Investiture Struggle: Gregory VII (1073-1085 AD) and Henry
IV(1056 (King)/84 (Holy Roman Emperor)-1105 AD): In 1075, Pope
Gregory VII condemned the practice of Kings appointing Bishops and
investing them with the symbols of their office. Emperor Henry IV
considered this a challenge to him; his major nobles, however, supported
the Pope, hoping to weaken him. In 1076, Henry assembled his vassals at
Worms and had them defy Gregory's authority; Gregory now
excommunicated Henry and declared his vassals free of their oaths to
Henry. Henry was forced to grovel and stand outside barefoot in the snow
for three days outside Gregory's stronghold at Canossa. The Pope seemed
to have won, but the struggle lasted until 1122 AD.
In 1122 AD, at the Concordat of Worms, Emperor Henry V (1106-1125
AD)) agreed not to invest bishops with the ring and the staff of spiritual
authority, while Pope Calixtus II (1119-24 AD) recognized the emperor's
right to invest bishops with their secular fiefs at the investiture. This
reduced the level of entanglement of church and state, though only
somewhat.
The Crusades: What the Cluniac reform was to the clergy, the First
Crusade was to the laity: an outlet for heightened religious zeal. In the
late 11th century, the Byzantines, after the 1071 Manzikert disaster, were
under heavier pressure from the Turks. They asked the Pope for help;
Pope Urban II (1088-1099 AD) responded by calling the First Crusade in a
pseech at the Council of Clermont in 1095.
"Let those who have been accustomed unjustly to wage private warfare
against the faithful now go against the infidels and end with victory this
war which should have been begun long ago. Let those who for a long
time, have been robbers, now become knights. Let those who have been
fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in a proper way
against the barbarians. Let those who have been serving as mercenaries
for small pay now obtain the eternal reward. Let those who have been
wearing themselves out in both body and soul now work for a double
honor." -- From Fulcher of Chartes' account of Urban II's speech
The Crusaders were motivated by a mix of piety and profit. Many of them
were younger sons of nobles who hoped to win lands in the east. Others
wanted to atone for past sins and make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Three major crusading forces set forth.
The People's Crusade: The first was mixture of peasants and
knights, led by a charismatic monk and powerful orator named
Peter the Hermit of Amiens, numbered some 100,000 or so. Badly
led and poor, they made a huge mess as they worked their way
across Europe to Constantinople. Most of them died at Turkish
hands.
The German Crusade: The main German crusading force spent a
lot of time killing Jews in Germany before heading for the Holy
Land, kicking off the organized persecution of European Jews for
the next nine hundred years.
The Baron's Crusade: The most organized force set out in 1096
under the leadership of Raymond IV of Toulouse (Southern
France), Bohemund of Taranto (Sicily and South Italy), Godfrey of
Bouillon (Northeastern France) and Count Robert II of Flanders
(Northwestern France). It numbered some 7,000 knights.
Constantinople and Beyond: The three armies came together between
November 1096 and May 1097 at Constantinople. The eastern Emperor,
Alexius I, was suspicous of the Crusaders, but sent an army with them.
The Crusaders, however, routed the Seljuks, captured Nicea for the
Byzantines, then headed south, repeatedly defeating the Turks and driving
them before them, leaving a trail of looted towns in their wake. In 1098,
the Crusaders took Antioch and struck out on their own, after appointing
Bohemond of Taranto as the first Prince of Antioch.
The Fall of Jerusalem: By the time they reached Jerusalem, only 1500
knights remained. After a five week siege, they took the city and
slaughtered almost everyone—Jews, Moslems and even eastern
Christians. It was a truly horrible event. According to Fulcher of Chartres:
"Indeed, if you had been there you would have seen our feet coloured to
our ankles with the blood of the slain. But what more shall I relate? None
of them were left alive; neither women nor children were spared".
Raymond of Toulouse was offered the kingship of Jerusalem but refused,
saying that he wouldn't wear "a crown of gold" where Christ had worn "a
crown of thorns". In the days following the massacre, Godfrey of Bouillon
was made Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri ("Protector of the Holy
Sepulchre"). In the last action of the crusade, he led an army which
defeated an invading Fatimid army at the Battle of Ascalon. Godfrey died
in July 1100, and was succeeded by his brother, Baldwin of Edessa, who
took the title King of Jerusalem.
Aftermath: Most crusaders went home, but now a string of states had
been founded under the leadership of the Kingdom of Jerusalem:
The first Crusader state, the County of Edessa, was founded in
1098 and lasted until 1144.
The Principality of Antioch, founded in 1098, lasted until 1268.
The County of Tripoli (the Lebanese city, not the Libyan capital),
founded in 1104, with Tripoli itself conquered in 1109, lasted until
1288.
The Kingdom of Jerusalem, founded in 1099, lasted until 1291,
when the city of Acre fell. There were also many vassals of the
Kingdom of Jerusalem, the four major lordships (seigneuries)
being:
The Principality of Galilee
The County of Jaffa and Ascalon
The Lordship of Oultrejordain
The Lordship of Sidon
The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia had its origins before the
Crusades, but was granted the status of a kingdom by Pope
Innocent III, and later became semi-westernized by the (French)
Lusignan dynasty.
Crusader Orders: Militant orders of Knight-Monks were founded to
help defend Outremer, the Christian kingdoms. The first of these were the
Order of the Hospital of Saint John (The Hospitallers), which began as a
medical order, but became a military order after the rise of the Crusader
Kingdoms. They were followed by the 'Poor Knights of Christ and the
Kingdom of Solomon' in 1118 AD, which worked to protect pilgrims.
These orders were crucial to the protection of the Crusader Kingdoms;
many of them eventually ended up protecting parts of the Mediterranean
against the Turks after the fall of the Crusader Kingdoms.
Order of the Hospital of St. John or The Hospitallers - Founded
c.1070. Papal Order 1113
Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon or Knights
Templar - Founded c.1118. Papal Order 1128 - the first purely
military order.
Knights of St Lazarus - Founded early 12th Century. Militarised
c.1123. Most likely an offshoot of the Hospitallars.
Order of Montjoie - Founded c.1180.
Teutonic Knights of the Hospital of St Mary of Jerusalem or
The Teutonic Knights - Founded 1190. Papal Order 1198.
Hospitallers of St Thomas of Canterbury at Acre or Knights of
St Thomas Acon - Founded 1191. Militarised c.1217.
The Second Crusade: The Second Crusade (1147-49) was a response to
the fall of Edessa into Moslem hands; it didn't accomplish much, except to
bring more knights to the Holy Lands, some of whom stayed to strengthen
the surviving states.
The Third Crusade (1189-92 AD): In 1187, Saladin (1138-93), Ayubid
King of Egypt and Syria, defeated the King of Jerusalem at the battle of
Hattin and then took Jerusalem. This triggered the third crusade, and
alliance between the Kings of France, Germany, and England. Emperor
Frederick Barbarossa died in an accident at a river and the Germans went
home. King Richard "the Lionhearted" of England and King Philip
Augustus of France arrived in the Holy Land, only to fall out with each
other over the spoils when they recaptured the city of Acre. (They'd
already argued over Richard breaking his engagement to one of Philip's
relatives.) Philip went home to attack Richard's lands in his absence.
Richard defeated Saladin in a series of battles, but lacked the manpower to
take Jerusalem. On September 2, 1192, Richard and Saladin finalized a
treaty by which Jerusalem would remain under Muslim control, but which
also allowed unarmed Christian pilgrims to visit the city. Richard departed
the Holy Land on October 9. On his way home, he was taken captive by a
disgruntled fellow crusader for 2 years.
The Italians: The Italian cities of Venis, Pisa, and Genoa had made large
amounts of money off the new trade opportunities offered by the Crusader
Kingdoms, but also fought each other and the Byzantines over this.
The Fourth Crusade: In 1202, 30,000 Crusaders gathered at Venice,
planning to sail to Egypt to attack it. Unable to pay for their passage, they
agreed to help Venice seize the Christian city of Zara as payment. A coup
in Byzantium had driven prince Alexius Angelus, the son of the recently
deposed Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelus. into exile. Alexius IV
offered 200,000 silver marks, 10,000 men to help the Crusaders, the
maintenance of 500 knights in the Holy Land, the service of the Byzantine
navy (20 galleys) to transport the Crusader Army to Egypt and the
placement of the Greek Orthodox Church under the Roman Catholic
Church if they would sail to Byzantium and topple the reigning emperor
Alexius III Angelus. The Crusaders took the city, but things spiralled out
of control as Alexius IV found himself hard-pressed to meet his promises.
Alexius was murdered and the new emperor (Alexius V) went to war with
the Crusaders, only to lose and die at their hands as they sacked the city
for three days (April 12-14, 1204 AD), then divided the Byzantine Empire
among themselves and the Venetians. The Latin Kingdom was shortlived; the Byzantines, Bulgarians, and Turks defeated them and a tiny
shrunken Byzantine empire arose to linger on like a ghost until 1453 AD,
when the Turks took it.
The Other Crusades: After the Fourth Crusade, more Crusades
happened, but all were basically futile.
The Fifth Crusade (1217–1221) was an attempt to take back
Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering the
powerful Ayyubid state in Egypt.
The Sixth Crusade (1228-9) in which Emperor Frederick II ended
up buying Jerusalem and briefly claiming lordship over it.
Ironically, he was under excommunication at the time.
The Seventh Crusade (1248-54) in which Saint Louis / King
Louis IX of France and his approximately 15-25,000-strong army
that included 1,500 knights, and 5,000 crossbowmen landed in
Egypt and attacked it. He ended up captured and had to be
ransomed. Ironically, his attack led to the ascendency of the
Mamluks in Egypt.
The Eighth Crusade (1270) in which Saint Louis / King Louis IX
of France set out to attack the Mamluks due to their attack on the
remaining Crusader Kingdoms. He ended up being convinced to
help seize Tunis as a preface to attacking Egypt. He died of
dysentery shortly after arriving; Prince Edward of England arrived
late and now launched the Ninth Crusade after a truce developed in
Tunis.
The Eighth Crusade (1271–1272 AD) in which Prince Edward of
England continued on his way to the Holy Land to assist
Bohemund VI, Prince of Antioch and Count of Tripoli, against the
Mamluk threat to Tripoli and the remnant of the Kingdom of
Jerusalem. After some fighting and manuevering, Edward had to
sign a peace treaty with Sultan Baibars and go home to become
King of England.
The End of the Crusades: In 1291, a group of pilgrims from Acre
came under attack and in retaliation killed nineteen Muslim
merchants in a Syrian caravan. Sultan Qalawun demanded they
pay an extraordinary amount in compensation. When no reply
came, the Sultan used it as a pretext to besiege Acre, and finish off
the last independent Crusader state occupying the Holy Land.
Qalawun died during the siege, leaving Khalil, the sole surviving
member of his family, as Mamluk Sultan. The Mamluks having
conquered the city, the Crusader States ceased to exist. The period
of the Crusades to the Holy Land was over, almost two hundred
years after Pope Urban II had called for the first of these holy wars.
Towns and Townspeople: In the 11th and 12th century, towns were small but
creative, holding about 5% of the population.
The Chartering of Towns: Lords granted towns charters that allowed
more independence in return for regular payments from the town and the
easy access towns provided to sources of skilled labor. As towns grew,
they attracted runaway serfs who could become free there and provided
more labor to the town. This forced lords to give serfs better terms to keep
them.
The Rise of Merchants: Cities also provided a home base for merchants
who shipped and traded the produce of the countryside and the towns.
Over time, they gained respect and power. As merchants grew in wealth,
they formed protective associations which challenged the power of the
lords. Commerce was not compatible with the defensive fortress
mentality of rural lords. Over time, the towns came to form alliances with
kings against the nobility. The other townsfolk identified more with the
the merchants than with lords and bishops. In the 12th-13th century, the
merchants successfully challenged the old noble urban lords for control of
the towns.
New Models of Government: A mix of old urban nobility and wealthy
merchants dominated the towns and the town councils. Artisans and
craftsmen formed guilds to defend themselves and to control entry to their
occupations. They instituted a three-tiered system of entry and
advancement: Apprenticeship, Journeymen, and Masters. You began as
an apprentice, a near-slave for seven years who worked for a master for
room and board while learning the trade. Journeymen worked as wage
labor after that, until they became good enough to achieve Master status
and set up their own workshop.
Towns and Kings: Towns provided Kings with money in return for
autonomy and helped to bring down the nobility. (This money was used
to fund independent royal armies.) They also produced educated men who
could staff Royal governments. In Italy, towns became totally
independent, evolving into City-States.
Jews of the City: Towns attracted Jews, who became businessmen and
financiers as well as craftsmen and peddlars. The wealth of the most
successful Jews sometimes bred resentment, along with Christian
prejudices against Jews, which sometimes erupted in violence. Jews
tended to live in their own neighborhood, a life centered around the
synagogue.
Schools and Universities: In the 12th century, contact with Moslems in
the Crusader Kingdoms and Spain led to the introduction of Greek and
Roman philosophical works back into Europe: Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolmey,
Greek medicine, Arab mathematics, and Roman law. The intellectual
ferment created by this led to the first modern universities: Bologna in
1158, which specialized in the study of Roman law and became the model
for the universities of Spain, Italy, and southern France, and Paris, a
theology focused school, which provided the model for northern European
universities.
Medieval folk focused on rediscovering past knowledge and preserving
present knowledge, instead of discovering new knowledge. Teachers
taught students to write commentaries on learned authoritative works and
how to both distill older works down to simpler forms or to interpret and
expand on older works through annotation. This method was known as
Scholasticism.
"Under this method of study, called Scholasticism, students summarized
the opinions of the recieved authorities in their field, debated their
arguments pro and con, and then drew logical conclusions." The arrival
of Aristotle provided tools and methods of logic which improved this
process. The emphasis on the use of logic to find truth tended to
discourage empirical study, to the detriment of fields like medicine.
Abelard and Heloise: Peter Abelard (1079-1142) and his lover Heloise
are most famous because of the survival of their love letters, which play
out the tragedy of their relationship. Abelard was one of the boldest and
most controversial advocates for the new Aristotelian learning. His
audacious logical critique of religious thought earned him many enemies,
such as St. Bernard. He emphasized subjectivity—the motives of an act's
agents determined its morality, not the act itself. The feeling of
repentance was more important than the sacrament of Penance.
For all his intellect, however, Abelard was unable to keep it in his pants.
University professors were required to be celibate, but instead he seduced
a woman, Heloise, who he was hired to tutor by her uncle, a Canon of the
Notre Dame cathedral. Then she got pregnant, so they secretly married.
When her uncle found out, he sent men to castrate Abelard. He and
Heloise ended up in a monastery and nunnery and exchanged letters in
which he tried unsuccessfully to convince her to accept his fate and their
doom. In 1121, his works were burned by the Church and in 1140, 19
propositions that he had taught were condemned as heresies. Heloise
outlived him by 26 years, working to improve conditions for cloistered
women.
Society
The Order of Life: Medieval people thought of three orders: Knights who fight,
Clerics who pray, and Peasants who work. But in the 11th-12th century, a fourth
class of long distance traders and urban artisans emerged.
Nobles: By 1200, classes of upper and lower nobility had emerged in
Europe. These ranged from knights through various tiers of nobility to the
King himself. In England, nobility above the level of knights were
exceptionally rare, numbering only a few hundred men who only passed
their title to their heir; all their other kids were merely of the knightly
class. In most of continental Europe, higher noble status passed to all
children of nobles, if not the full title of their parents.
The defining quality of knights was the right to bear arms and the job of
the Knight was war. Their honor was based on strength, courage, and
loyalty. From the 8th century, mounted knightly cavalry was the king of
the battlefield. Knights held land in return for military service.
In the early middle ages, Knighthood was fluid, then gradually became
harder to enter as the old tribal armies faded away; for a time, the
knighthood was relatively closed, though families moved up and down
within it. However, in the late middle ages, knights increasingly found
themselves in financial difficulty and began intermarrying with wealthy
merchant families from the cities. Purity of blood ceased to be as
important as having the wealth to keep up one's station. Further, changing
battle field tactics made knights less important and forces of pikemen,
cannoneers, and musketeers replaced them.
Clergy: This class was in theory open to anyone; in practice, noble
children tended to end up in the high posts and peasants in the low ones.
Regular clergy were priests who lived according to a monastic rule.
Secular clergy were priests, but not monks. Many of them ended up as
administrators for Kings and nobles (but also parish priests). Two kinds
of monastic orders existed: cloistered orders which withdrew for a life of
prayer and meditation, and friars, who operated in the world to conduct
Christian charity. Theology was seen as the Queen of the Sciences and
Clergy were honored as the first estate. The Church had a great deal of
respect and authority. It also struggled with corruption and the
temptations of secular power.
Peasants: The largest group was the agrarian peasantry. Most Peasants
lived for their entire life on the manor of a knight or higher noble. Some
peasants were free men who paid rent to the lord of the Manor. Most were
Serfs, bound to the land and required to pay tribute in labor and produce,
working the lord's land part of the week and their own lands the rest.
Their lord held judicial and police powers over them. A serf could not
leave the manor or marry without the lord's permission. However, serfs
were not slaves—customs and charters fixed the duties they owed and the
rest of their time was their own. They could market the goods they
produced on their own time for their own profit. They also could pass
their property to their children.
Two changes altered life: Some families built up private holdings which
began shifting the center of production from the manor to the family farm.
And secondly the rise of trade enabled the commutation of services into
fixed payments. By the thirteenth century, many peasants held land as
rent-paying tenants.
After the Black Plague, the lessened labor supply let peasants negotiate
better terms. In some cases, nobles cracked down, only to face vicious
peasant rebellions. They were crushed, but nonetheless, peasants gained
ground.
Medieval Women: The dominant social view of women, created by the clergy,
often did not match reality; the priests depicted women as the inferior of men, fit
only as either submissive wives or cloistered nuns. But many medieval women
broke out of these roles.
Image and Status: In the 12th-13th centuries, both the cult of the Virgin
Mary and the courtly love literature of the day elevated women as moral
exemplars for men, though in different ways. Peter Lombard (1100-1169)
taught that God had made Eve from Adam's rib so as to place her at his
side, not in submission (or in rulership over) him. German customary law
treated women better than Roman law, allowing them to hold and
administer and inherit property and allowed women to take men to court.
Nunneries: Nunneries were only open to wealthy women, as they
required paying a fee to enter. They appealed to women because the
cloister was run by women and despite the disciplined life, offered more
freedom to pursue one's interests (if one had a taste for scholarship or
charity work, anyway...)
Monogamy: Starting in the 9th century, the Carolignians began enforcing
monogamy, which gave women more dignity and security but also put
more burdens of household management and child bearing on them,
causing a decline in female lifespans.
Working Women: Most medieval women worked, usually as farmwives,
but also as craftswomen in the cities, working side by side with their
husbands and going through apprenticeships in the trades. Women were
especially prominent in food and clothing production. They belonged to
guilds and could become masters, but usually earned less than men.
Townswomen could get some education, but were excluded from
universities.
Growth of National Monarchies:
England and France: Hastings (1066 AD) to Bouvines (1214 AD)
William the Conqueror (c. 1028 – 9 September 1087): The death of the
childless Edward the Confessor (1042-66) led two men to claim England's
throne: William, Duke of Normandy, though his relationship to Edward's
mother, and the English nobleman, Harold Godwinsson, chosen by the
Witangemot (the English assembly). William invaded, pitting his feudal
army of knights and crossbowmen against an English army largely based
on peasant levies, the degenerate remnant of the old Saxon warrior force,
stiffened by a handful of professional warrior nobles. Nevertheless, they
held off William's army for a time at the battle of Hastings (October 14,
1066 AD), until their shield wall was broken, and then they were crushed
and then William's armies swept over the land. William imposed a
mixture of strong royal rule and the Anglo-Saxon practice of parleying
(consultation with the nobility and clergy in royal decision making). The
formal nobility was kept small and weak compared to the continent. The
result was that England became a formidable nation, but one where
decision making was shared peacefully more than on the continent as well.
This would eventually lead to England becoming more democratic than
the continent.
Popular Rebellion and Magna Carta: The power of the Dukes of
Normandy led to continuing conflict with the Kings of France and other
French nobles, especially after Henry II (1154-89) married Eleanor of
Aquataine and obtained control of most of southern France. His efforts to
exert royal power created resistance which came to a head after the
expenses of Richard (1189-1199 AD) the Lionhearted's crusade and the
expensive yet unsuccessful wars of King John (1199-1216), in which
England lost most of its land in France. The nobility now rose up and
forced King John to sign the Magna Carta in 1215 AD, a charter which
limited royal power and guaranteed the right of the nobility to
representation when matters of import, such as taxes, were considered.
The 'Great Charter' led England on a middle course where neither the
Monarchy nor the Nobility took over completely.
Philip II Augustus(1180-1223 AD): After the fall of the Carolignians,
France had been divided into many duchies, counties, etc, which owed
only a nominal fealty to their King, who controlled only the region around
Paris, which by Philip's reign, they tightly controlled. Paris had become
the center of French culture. However, Philip II now took these built up
resources and began forcing the French nobility into submission. He also
broke the power of the English in France; at Bouvines in 1214, he
smashed up the English and their German allies; he now had solid control
over France.
France in the 13th century: Saint / King Louis IX (1226-1279) was the
grandson of Philip Augustus; he benefited from his grandfather's consolidation of
power. He embodied the medieval ideal of the monarchy. Under him, the French
bureaucracy imposed a strong ideal of honest, efficient government. He ended
private noble wars and serfdom in the royal domain, sent out commissioners to
oversee government and fight corruption, allowed his subjects the right of appeal
to higher courts and made the tax system fairer. French national identity
strengthened and French society set a standard for monastic reform, chivalry, and
Gothic art and architecture. This was the golden age of Scholasticism and King
Louis conducted not just one but two crusades, though both flopped.
Saint Louis was a devout Catholic, and he built the Sainte Chapelle ("Holy
Chapel"), located within the royal palace complex (now the Paris Hall of Justice),
on the Île de la Cité in the centre of Paris. The Sainte Chapelle, a perfect example
of the Rayonnant style of Gothic architecture, was erected as a shrine for the
Crown of Thorns and a fragment of the True Cross, precious relics of the Passion
of Jesus. Louis purchased these in 1239–41 from Emperor Baldwin II of the Latin
Empire of Constantinople, for the exorbitant sum of 135,000 livres (the chapel, on
the other hand, cost only 60,000 livres to build). This purchase should be
understood in the context of the extreme religious fervor that existed in Europe in
the 13th century. The purchase contributed greatly to reinforcing the central
position of the king of France in western Christendom, as well as to increasing the
renown of Paris, then the largest city of western Europe. During a time when
cities and rulers vied for relics, trying to increase their reputation and fame, Louis
IX had succeeded in securing the most prized of all relics in his capital. The
purchase was thus not only an act of devotion, but also a political gesture: the
French monarchy was trying to establish the kingdom of France as the "new
Jerusalem."
The Hohenstaufen Empire (1152-1272 AD)
Frederick I Barbarossa (1152-1190 AD): Frederick strengthened royal
authority in the Holy Roman Empire, but also kicked off a struggle for
power with the Popes and became entangled in continual warfare in Italy.
The marriage of his heir, Henry VI (1190-7) to the heiress of the Kingdom
of Sicily threatened to encircle the Papacy, which now set out to bring
down the Hohenstaufen dynasty. When Henry VI died, civil war broke
out in Germany and Pope Innocent III (1198-1215) got control of the heir,
Frederick II, as his ward.
Frederick II (1212-1250): Frederick's upbringing as a pawn of the
Papacy left him rather cynical about religion and Papal authority. After
his crowning as Emperor in 1212, he fell out with the Papacy, while
simultaneously allowing the German princes to run wild; his real interest
was simply his title and his Italian lands. He was excommunicated four
times and ironically went on a crusade while still excommunicated. After
his death, the Germany monarchy essentially died, as in 1257, an electoral
college of major princes would select the Emperor, who would struggle to
have any power at all over his alleged 'subjects'.
Political and Social Breakdown of the Medieval Order
Hundred Years' War(1337 to 1453 AD):
The Causes of the War: The formal cause of the war was the decision of
King Edward III of England (1327-1377) to claim the throne of France
on the death of his uncle, Charles IV, last of the Capetian dynasty. He was
Charles' nephew through Charles' sister Isabella, who had married Edward
II of England (then later murdered him and overthrew him with the help of
her lover). However, Isabella's cousin, Philip VI (1328-50), founder of
the house of Valois, claimed the throne, asserting inheritance could not
pass through female lines in France under the Salic law. Actual violence
broke out in 1337 when the French attacked English holdings in Gascony
(southwestern France), while the English were fighting France's ally,
Scotland.
French Problems: Even though France had 17 million people and
England only 4 million, the English won most of the battles of the war due
to a combination of internal social conflict, poor military leadership, and
the superiority of English combat methods. English knights and foot were
more disciplined than French Knights and English archers were well
trained, able to fire six arrows a minute with enough force to penetrate an
inch of wood or metal armor at 200 yards. The French, on the other hand,
used mercenary crossbowmen, whose weapons could kill even more
effectively than the longbow, but were much slower. Further, the French
handled their crossbowmen poorly in the early years—at Crecy (26
August 1346), French knights actually charged through their own
crossbowmen, trampling them. Only at the time of Joan of Arc (1429-30
AD) did the French finally get their act together.
Phases: The war was in fact a series of conflicts and is commonly divided
into three or four phases: the Edwardian War (1337-1360), the Caroline
War (1369-1389), the Lancastrian War (1415-1429), and the slow decline
of English fortunes after the appearance of Joan of Arc (1412-1431).
Edwardian War (1337-1360): After years of desultory fighting,
Edward III (8-12,000 men) crushed the French (30-40,000 men) at
Crecy (1346) , then took the city of Calais, which became a major
English stronghold. A decade later, his son, the Black Prince (also
named Edward), defeated the French in southern France at Poitiers
(1356). The French countryside broke down into chaos. The
English came out of this phase of the war with half of Brittany,
Aquitaine (about a quarter of France), Calais, Ponthieu, and about
half of France's vassal states as their allies, representing the clear
advantage of a united England against a generally disunified
France.
Caroline War (1369-1389): The French pushed back, using
guerilla tactics and avoidance of open battle to recapture some
ground. Meanwhile, Edward III was too old to campaign and the
Black Prince was busy in Spain, then died. A child (Richard II)
took the English throne and the English made peace.
Lancastrian War (1415-1429): After years of peace, King Henry
V of England (1413 to 1422) now invaded France. He crushed the
French at Agincourt (25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day) ) with
5,900 men against 21,000. Many French nobles were captured and
the English now allied with Burgundy against France. Henry V
was crowned in Paris and by 1429, though Henry V was dead,
Anglo-Burgundian forces controlled all of northern France and
Henry VI, son of Henry V, was now the child-king of France and
England.
Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc) and English Decline (1429-1453):
By 1428, the English were ready to pursue the war again, laying
siege to Orléans. Their force was insufficient to fully invest the
city, but larger French forces remained passive. In 1429, Joan of
Arc convinced the Dauphin (heir to the Valois dynasty, but as of
yet uncrowned as King of France) to send her to the siege, saying
she had received visions from God telling her to drive out the
English. She raised the morale of the local troops and they attacked
the English Redoubts, forcing the English to lift the siege. Inspired
by Joan, the French took several English strong points on the
Loire. Shortly afterwards, a French army, some 8000 strong, broke
through English archers at Patay with heavy cavalry, defeating a
3000 strong army commanded by John Fastolf and John Talbot, 1st
Earl of Shrewsbury. The first major French land victory of the
wars, this opened the way for the Dauphin to march to Reims for
his coronation as Charles VII. Soon after, the Burgundians
captured Joan and she was burnt as a witch.
With England under a weak child king and English nobles
squabbling for control of England, things turned against the
English, and in 1453, the last English stronghold, Calais, fell.
Consequences: The Hundred Years' war ended English control of
portions of the French mainland and stimulated English and French
nationalism. It also greatly strengthened the French state, weakening the
nobility and forcing greater centralization and development of a
professional, non-feudal standing army. It also led to higher taxes in
France and England to pay for it. In England, the feudal system now
broke down into a civil war, the War of the Roses (1455–1487).
The Black Death:
Preconditions and Causes: Improvements in agriculture caused Europe's
population to double between 1000 and 1300 and then to begin
outstripping food production. This raised problems of both famine and
unemployment. Between 1315-7, the worst famine of the middle ages hit
due to crop failures. Decades of overpopulation, an overstretched food
supply, and generally poor hygiene, combined with growing international
trade routes (along which disease flowed) set the stage for the Black Death
in 1347-9.
The Black Death: It travelled the trade roads from eastern Asia into the
middle east and Europe. It hit Asia in the 1330s, and reached the Middle
East by 1346. The total number of deaths worldwide from the pandemic is
estimated at 75 million people; there were an estimated 20 million deaths
in Europe alone. In Europe, it began in the south and gradually spread
north, finishing off by 1350. It recurred several times; by 1400, Europe
had lost two-fifths of its population.
Popular Remedies: In the face of disaster, many futile home remedies
emerged, from killing Jews to self-flagellation to efforts at gorging or
fasting your way to health. All were useless.
Social and Economic Consequences: A shrunken labor force drove up
wages and allowed peasants to get better terms from lords. Luxury goods
rose in value due to shrinking supply. Lords responded by converting
farmland to pasture and trying to crack down on peasants, which triggered
peasant revolts, such as the Jacquerie in France.
Cities Rebound: In the face of death, people wanted the luxuries which
only cities could provide and after the initial wave of death, they
recovered and prospered. More people moved to the cities and became
skilled craftsmen to replace losses.
New Conflicts and Opportunities: The merchants and patricians now
lost ground to the artisan-dominated guilds. Inside guilds, masters and
journeymen struggled over the question of access to guild membership.
The landed nobility and the Church were now on the defensive and Kings
expanded their powers. The new infantry forces and gunpowder weapons
shrunk the importance of knightly cavalry. The Church now made some
serious blunders.
Ecclesiastical Breakdown and Revival (The Late Medieval Church)
Boniface VIII (r. 1294-1303 AD) and Philip the Fair (King of France, 12851314 AD): By the fourteenth century, Popes faced rulers much stronger than they
were. Thus, when Pope Boniface VIII issued a bull which forbade lay folk to tax
the clergy without papal consent, Philip the Fair counter-attacked with a vicious
anti-papal campaign. On November 18, 1302 AD, Benedict made the mistake of
trying to assert in the bull Unam Sanctum that temporal authority was 'subject' to
the authority of the Church. Philip the Fair responded by invading Italy and
capturing the Pope. The King and demanded that he resign, to which Boniface
VIII responded that he would 'sooner die'. Boniface was beaten badly and nearly
executed but was released from captivity after three days. He died a month later,
on October 11, 1303.
The Avigonese Captivity (1305-1377), the Great Schism(1378-1417), and the
Concillar Movement to 1449: After the death of Boniface, his successor,
Clement V (1305-1314) moved the Papacy to Avignon in France. A series of
popes followed (The Avignonese Captivity) who were puppets of France, chosen
by French cardinals. In 1377, howver, Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome and his
successor Pope Urban VI (1378-89) announced his plans to reform the Curia
(which choses the Pope and was dominated by French cardinals at this time),
King Charles VI of France (1364-80) promoted the election of a French Pope, the
King's cousin, Clement VII (1378-97). The result was the Great Schism, in
which rival Popes governed from Avignon and Rome. England and its allies (The
Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, Bohemia and Poland) backed Urban VI and his
successors, while France and its allies (Naples, Scotland, Castile and Aragon)
backed Clement VII and his successors. The Avignon popes would eventually be
declared 'Anti-Popes' by the Church and not seen as legitimate.
Three Popes: In 1409, the Council of Pisa deposed both popes and electd its own
Pope. But both rivals ignored them, so now there were three Popes. Emperor
Sigismund (1410-37) now stepped in and summoned a church council at
Constance in 1411. All three Popes were soon out of office and the council chose
Martin V (1417-31) as Pope in November 1417. Later Popes fought to avoid
losing ground to Church Councils, emerging victorious just in time for the
Reformation to erupt, permanently weakening them.
The Renaissance in Italy (1375-1527 AD): The Renaissance was the transition from
the Medieval to the Modern world. It began in Italy and spread west and north.
The Italian City-State: Social Conflict and Despotism: The Renaissance
began in the cities of Italy, which were flourishing off control of the
Mediterranean trade as the gateways between East and West. By the fifteenth
century, these cities controlled swathes of the Italian interior and were the great
banking centers of Europe. Five major states emerged: the Duchy of Milan, the
Republics of Florence and Venice, the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples
and Sicily. These states tended to be ruled by despots who could squelch their
major internal conflicts. Venice, ruled by a merchant oligarchy, was the
exception. Despots ruled with the aid of mercenary armies.
Humanism: Humanism was the scholarly study of the Latin and Greek classics
and the ancient Church fathers both for their own sake and to promote a rebirth of
ancient norms and values. Humanists promoted the studia humanitatis: a liberal
arts program consisting of rhetoric, poetry, history, politics, and moral
philosophy. The first humanists were orators and poets who wrote in both the
classical and vernacular (contemporary) languages. They acted as teachers,
administrators and diplomats. Unlike the Scholastics, the humanists were not
content to summarize and compare recognized authorities; they went back to the
sources and drew their own conclusions and tried to go beyond them.
Petrarch: Francesco Petrarch (1304-74), the Father of Humanism. He left the
legal profession to study ancient literature and poetry. Petrarch is credited with
perfecting the sonnet, making it one of the most popular art forms to date. In 1345
he personally discovered a collection of Cicero's letters not previously known to
have existed, the collection ad Atticum. He remarked: "Each famous author of
antiquity whom I recover places a new offence and another cause of dishonor to
the charge of earlier generations, who, not satisfied with their own disgraceful
barrenness, permitted the fruit of other minds, and the writings that their
ancestors had produced by toil and application, to perish through insufferable
neglect. Although they had nothing of their own to hand down to those who were
to come after, they robbed posterity of its ancestral heritage." Disdaining what he
believed to be the ignorance of the centuries preceding the era in which he lived,
Petrarch is credited with creating the concept of a historical "Dark Ages". Petrarch
is best known for his Italian poetry: notably the Canzoniere and the Trionfi
("Triumphs"). His Latin writings are quite varied and include scholarly works,
introspective essays, letters, and more poetry. Petrarch also published many
volumes of his letters, including a few written to his long-dead friends from
history like Cicero and Virgil. Cicero, Virgil, and Seneca were his literary models.
Petrarch is traditionally called the father of Humanism and considered by many to
be the "father of the Renaissance." He was the first to offer a combining of
abstract entities of classical culture and Christian philosophy. In his work
Secretum meum (My Secrets) he points out that secular achievements didn't
necessarily preclude an authentic relationship with God. Petrarch argued instead
that God had given humans their vast intellectual and creative potential to be used
to their fullest. He inspired humanist philosophy which led to the intellectual
flowering of the Renaissance. He believed in the immense moral and practical
value of the study of ancient history and literature - that is, the study of human
thought and action. While humanism later became associated with secularism,
Petrarch was a devout Catholic and did not see a conflict between realizing
humanity's potential and having religious faith.
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321): Born to a political family in Florence, Dante's
faction eventually lost out in the wars of the time and he spent his last years in
Exile, composing his most famous work, The Divine Comedy (Inferno,
Purgatorio and Paradisio), a poetic trip through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. The
Divine Comedy (Italian: Commedia, later christened "Divina" by Giovanni
Boccaccio), written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321, is
widely considered the central epic poem of Italian literature, and is seen as one of
the greatest works of world literature. A culmination of the medieval world-view
of the afterlife, it helped establish the Tuscan dialect in which it is written as the
Italian standard. Dante called the poem "Comedy" (the adjective "Divine" added
later in the 14th century) because poems in the ancient world were classified as
High ("Tragedy") or Low ("Comedy"). Low poems had happy endings and were
of everyday or vulgar subjects, while High poems were for more serious matters.
Dante was one of the first in the Middle Ages to write of a serious subject, the
Redemption of man, in the low and vulgar Italian language and not the Latin
language as one might expect for such a serious topic. Dante both summed up
and further expanded the medieval view of the afterlife; he also seized the chance
to put everyone who ever annoyed him in Hell if they were already dead, and to
put those he admired in purgatory and heaven. In the poem, Dante himself passes
through the circles of hell, purgatory, and heaven, depicting its geography and
inhabitants in powerful poetry. Virgil guides him through Hell and Purgatory.
Hell is a pit organized in ever descending concentric circles with worse and worse
sinners as you descend, with the Devil frozen in the ice with Judas, betrayer of
Jesus, and Brutus and Cassius (who both plotted against Caesar). Purgatory is a
mountain on the far side of the world, terraced to contain punishments for the
seven deadly sins. At the summit is the Garden of Eden; from there, Dante is
taken up into the nine concentric spheres of Heaven, accompanied by his
childhood love, Beatrice. It is defined by the purity of motives of those who did
good; the purer the motives, the closer one is to God. It ends with his vision of
God.
Educational Reforms and Goals: The classical ideal of the well-rounded man
led to changes in education. Classical models were invoked which combined
exercise with reading of classical texts.
Renaissance Art: The sculpture and art of the High Renaissance (late 15th-early
16th century) showed the emerging secular concerns of the laity as Renaissance art
peaked in skill. Art focused upon the realism of the classical artists. Renaissance
art reproduced nature and humans as part of nature. New methods of the 15th
century aided this: the use of slow drying oil paints, of constrast of light and
shade to enhance realism (chiaroscuro), and of linear prespective to give the
illusion of three-dimensional space. Renaissance art is full of life and energy.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519 AD): Leonardo da Vinci was the
Renaissance personified, a student of classical texts, an artist of high skill,
an inventor, and a scientist. As an engineer, Leonardo conceived ideas
vastly ahead of his own time, conceptualising a helicopter, a tank,
concentrated solar power, a calculator, and the double hull, and outlining a
rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. As a scientist, he greatly advanced
the state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics,
and hydrodynamics. As a painter, his greatest skill was the use of
complex facial features to show off internal emotions, as seen in his Mona
Lisa. His other most famous painting is the Last Supper, one of the most
copied and parodied images of all time.
Raphael (1483-1520 AD): He is most known for his tender depictions of
the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus. His fresco, the School of Athens,
which depicts Plato and Aristotle surrounded by philosophy and science,
is considered one of the best examples of Renaissance artistic theory and
technique. He was friendly with both Leonardo da Vinci and
Michelangelo. In his last years, he acted as head architect for Saint Peter's
in Rome.
Michelangelo (1475-1564 AD): He was an artist who was vastly skilled
in many crafts, from painting to sculpture. Four different popes
commissioned work by him; the best known of which are the frescoes for
the Sistine Chapel, which he painted for Pope Julius II (1503-15 AD). His
statue David shows how the Renaissance artists adapted the
methodologies of the Greeks to their own topics. Michelangelo, who was
often arrogant with others and constantly dissatisfied with himself, saw art
as originating from inner inspiration and from culture. In contradiction to
the ideas of his rival, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo saw nature as an
enemy that had to be overcome. The figures that he created are forceful
and dynamic; each in its own space apart from the outside world. For
Michelangelo, the job of the sculptor was to free the forms that were
already inside the stone. He believed that every stone had a sculpture
within it, and that the work of sculpting was simply a matter of chipping
away all that was not a part of the statue. One of the most copied images
of his work was his Pieta, a depiction of the Virgin Mary holding the dead
body of Jesus cradled in her arms. Like da Vinci's Last Supper, this has
been a frequently imitated image (ironically even including super-hero
comics).
Italy's Political Decline: The French Invasions (1494-1527 AD): In 1494, the
leader of Milan, about to be attacked by an alliance of Naples, Florence, and the
Pope, invited the French into Italy to save him. The end result was decades of
war with France which wrecked the independence of the Italian states. A series of
complex wars and alliances ensued between some of the most corrupt Popes of all
time, the Italian city states and a series of French Kings. In 1516, Francis I of
France (1515-1547) forced the Pope to sign the Concordat of Bologna, which
gave the French King control over the French clergy and the right to collect taxes
from them in return for France's recognition of the Pope's superiority to Church
Councils. This helped to keep France Catholic during the reformation. Niccolo
Machiavelli (1469-1527) was heavily influenced by these wars, pushing for the
rise of a strong leader to unite Italy against invaders; he hoped to see one rise
from the de Medici line of despots in Florence. Anything whatsoever could be
justified to achieve this goal of unity. Machievelli idealized the heroic virtues of
the Romans and found his own time wanting. Only an unscruplous strongman
could force them into unity as the despots had united the individual city states.
This lead him to write his famous work, Il Principe (The Prince), written in
1513, but only published in 1532, after his death. Instead of the de Medicis
saving Italy, instead, the second de Medici Pope, Clement VII (1523-34) was
unable to stop Emperor Charles V (1519-1556) sacking Rome; he spent his last
years as Charles V's pawn.
Italy in Decline: Italy now would spend the next several centuries as pawns of
larger power politics and victims of foreign invasion.
Revival of Monarchy: Nation Building in the 15th century:
End of Feudalism: Kings increasingly replaced decentralized feudal governance
with centralized royal power. Feudal monarchies had split the power of
government between king and vassals, who usually had a representative body
shared with the towns—English Parliament, French Estates General, Spanish
Cortes, etc. This prevented too much centralization. However, the Hundred
Years' war, the shcism in the church, and the war on Islam in Spain all undercut
the nobility and clergy's power and helped Kings consolidate permanent taxes
which allowed building up standing armies. The powers of taxation, law making,
and war making were consolidated in the Kings. (In England, where less
consolidation happened, the nation sank into two centuries of increasing
international impotence and internal discord.) The growing cost of warfare and
the need for trained infantry reduced the war role of the nobility, except for those
who could afford to maintain their own standing armies, which usually led to
conflict with the King. Royal revenues tended to grow at the expense of the
commoners, who couldn't resist it as well as the nobles did. Kings also sold
offices and titles in the fifteenth century and sold bonds and turned to bankers.
Medieval Russia: In 988 AD, prince Vladimir of Kiev (972-1015 AD) married
Anna, sister of Byzantine Emperor Basil "The Bulgar-Slayer" II, and converted to
Greek Orthodoxy; it became the religion of Russia. The Kievan princes had held
a loose hegemony over the Russian states, though it faded by the time the
Mongols showed up.
Mongol Domination (1243-1480 AD): Mongol forces invaded Russia in
1223 AD; by 1243 AD, Kiev had fallen to them, and Mongols pushed
west. Russia became part of the territory of the Golden Horde. It isolated
Russia from the West, but left the traditional government and church
largely intact and connected Russia to eastern trade.
Russian Liberation: The Princes of Moscow gradually expanded their
land and wealth by cooperation with the Mongols. In 1380, Grand Duke
Dimitri defeated the Mongols at Kolikov Meadow, which was the
beginning of the collapse of Mongol rule. By a century later, Ivan the
Great (1440-1505) had consolidated Northern Russia under Moscow and
then ceased tribute payments to the Horde in 1476 AD. Four years later
(1480 AD), his forces confronted the Horde in the Great Standoff on the
Ugra river. The Horde backed down and withdrew and soon began to
collapse.
The character of the government of Muscovy under Ivan III changed
essentially and took on a new autocratic form. This was due not merely to
the natural consequence of the hegemony of Moscow over the other
Russian lands but to new imperial pretensions. After the fall of
Constantinople, orthodox canonists were inclined to regard the Muscovite
grand dukes as the successors by the Byzantine emperors. Ivan himself
appeared to welcome the idea, and he began to style himself tsar in foreign
correspondence.
This movement coincided with a change in the family circumstances of
Ivan III. After the death of his first consort, Maria of Tver (1467), at the
suggestion of Pope Paul II (1469), who hoped thereby to bind Russia to
the holy see, Ivan III wedded Sophia Paleologue (also known under her
original Greek and Orthodox name of Zoe), daughter of Thomas
Palaeologus , despot of Morea, who claimed the throne of Constantinople
as the brother of Constantine XI, last Byzantine emperor. Frustrating the
Pope's hopes of re-uniting the two faiths, the princess endorsed
Orthodoxy. Due to her family traditions, she encouraged imperial ideas in
the mind of her consort. It was through her influence that the ceremonious
etiquette of Constantinople (along with the imperial double-headed eagle
and all that it implied) was adopted by the court of Moscow. And it was
her son Vasily, not Maria of Tver's son, Ivan, who was ultimately crowned
co-regent with his father (April 14, 1502).
France: The defeat of the English in the Hundred Years' War and the defeat of
Burgundy and the death of Charles the Bold (1467-77), its ruler, at the battle of
Nancy, eliminated the two main rivals to Royal authority in France. King Louis
XI (1461-83) now moved in and annexed Burgundy. Seizing the Burgundian
lands greatly enhanced the size of his kingdom. However, his successors frittered
away the nation's strength in pointless wars in Italy; by 1550, religious discord
brought France to the verge of civil war.
Spain: The marriage of Ferdinand of Argorn (1479-1516) to Isabella of Castille
(1474-1504) united both kingdoms for a final push on the Moslems, taking
Grenada in 1492. Castille was the stronger of the two and dominated their union;
it outnumbered Aragon five to one. It had a huge sheep-farming industry
dominated by the government-organized Mesta organization. Townspeople allied
with the crown, replacing nobles in government. They made the Church
subservient to the government and used the Inquisition to crush Jews and
Moslems. Their children married the heir of the Holy Roman Emperor and the
King of England's son. They set the stage for Spanish imperium by sending
Columbus to the New World.
England: The second half of the 15th century was harsh for England. King
Henry VI (1422-1461, 1470-1, crowned at age 9 months) was a child monarch
who never fully matured; he alternated between favoritism, petty spite and
amiable stupidity. He was unable to control the various descendents of Edward
III, who had divided into squabbling royal lines; his own grandfather, Henry IV
had usurped the throne from his cousin, Richard II in 1399. Their house was
Lancaster. But the House of York, descended from another of Edward III's many
sons, challenged the right of the Lancastrians to hold the throne at the same time
that English control of France was collapsing. As Henry VI began to have fits of
madness, outright violence broke out. In 1455, the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485)
began. In 1461, the Lancastrians were defeated at the Battle of Northampton, and
the Yorkists deposed Henry VI, putting Edward IV(1461-1483), now head of the
house of York, on the throne. In 1470, some of Edward's backers fell out with
him and assisted a brief Lancastrian comeback which reinstated Henry VI, only to
have Edward make a comeback with help from Burgundy, crushing the
Lancastrians at the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471. The Lancastrian heir, Edward
of Westminster, Prince of Wales, was killed either on the battlefield or shortly
afterwards, and a few days later, on the night that Edward re-entered London,
Henry VI, who was being held prisoner, was murdered in order to completely
remove the Lancastrian opposition. His son Edward V ruled briefly after Edward
IV's death, only to be usurped by Richard III (1483-85), who was in turn
overthrown by Henry Tudor in 1485. The Tudor Dynasty would rule England
until 1603.