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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. 1 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. 2 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. 3 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. 4 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). 5 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. 6 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 7