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Western Civilizations, 3rd Brief Edition: A W. W. Norton StudySpace
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In This Chapter
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Chapter 10
Crisis, Unrest, and Opportunity, 1300-1500
Chapter Study Outline
Introduction
Disintegration or crisis?
The Black Death
Changes on the Land
The limits of the medieval economy
Between 1000 and 1300 Europe's population tripled
Pressures to produce more brought changes to the land
Forests cleared, marshes drained, pastureland reduced
Europe was barely able to feed itself
Climatic changes
Twelfth and thirteenth centuries growing season lengthened
Fourteenth centuryEurope became progressively colder
Famine of 1315 (northern Europe)
Lasted seven years
Large-scale starvation
Transformations: The Black Death and its Consequences
Origins
Spread from Mongolia and reached Sicily in 1347
Struck European seaports and then moved inland
Reached Scandinavia by 1350
Continued appearances for three centuries
Mortality
1347-1350: killed one-third to one-half of Europe's population
By 1450, more than half of Europe's population had been lost
The European landscape
In Germany, forty thousand villages disappeared (1350-1500)
Reduced numbers of workers and created changes in agricultural practice
Reactions
The incomprehensibility of the Black Death
People sought isolation, others simply succumbed
"Let us eat, drink, and be merry"
The search for scapegoats
Attacks on Jewish communities
The Flagellants
Appeasing the wrath of God
Most of the clergy remained at their posts
What caused the Black Death?
Traditional explanation: Yersina pestis
Carried by the bite of fleas or infected rats
Attacks the lymphatic system (buboes)
Bubonic and pneumonic plague
The impact on the countryside
Harvests rotted, manufacturing ceased, trade was disrupted
Basic necessities became scarce
The price of grain fell and wages rose a better diet
Healthier ecological balance between arable, pasture, and woodland
Turned to sheep and cattle
Reduced labor costs and increased profitability
Larger landholdings
Great landowners
Slower to respond to changed circumstances
Demanded unpaid labor from their peasant tenants
Eastern Europe: peasants forced into serfdom
France: rents declined but the lords imposed other fees
England: serfdom declined and disappeared
The impact on towns
Already experiencing population decline by 1300
Overcrowding and poor sanitation
Situation made worse by plague, warfare, and local economic crises
After 1500
Twenty percent of Europe's population lived in urban areas
Increased specialization of late medieval economy
More specialized and efficient regional economies emerged
The Hanseatic League (Lübeck and Bremen)
Controlled long-distance trade in the Baltic and North seas
Luxury goods and wealth
Genoa and Venice
Manufactures flourished in Florence, Venice, and Milan
New business practices
Banking and accounting
New partnerships to minimize risks
Double-entry bookkeeping (credit and debit, profit and loss)
The Medici banking house of Florence
Social Change in the Later Middle Ages
Revolts and rebellions
The Jacquerie (1358)
French peasants rose up against their lords
"The Peasants' Revolt" (1381)
English peasants, artisans, and town dwellers march on London
Demanded an end to serfdom and fixed rents
The Ciompi (1378)
Florentine wool carders seized control of the city
Demanded tax relief, full employment, and political representation
General features
Revolts were not bread riots
Resistance to higher taxes
Governments weakened by factionalism or military defeat
Attacks on the corruption, arrogance, and violence of ruling elites
Fundamental cause was not poverty but growing confidence
Village communities
Urban workers
Aristocratic life in the later Middle Ages
The increasing wealth of the great noble families of Europe
The plague did not undermine their position
A more complex and uncertain world led to insecurities
Invested wealth in nonagricultural enterprises
Service to a king or great lord
"Legal" nobility
The "noble" style of life
Family honor
Chivalry, courtliness, political influence, deference
Living like nobles
Exclusivity
Lavish banquets
Extravagant clothing
Castles, tournaments, and pageants
Patronizing artists and poets
Kings and princes
Competed with each other in founding chivalric orders
Characterized the nobility as a whole
Princely service important to maintaining noble fortunes
Toward the ancient regime
War and the Development of the Late Medieval State
Fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as period of almost constant warfare
Armies became larger, military technology deadlier
England, France, and the Hundred Years' War, 1337-1453
Causes
English kings held the duchy of Gascony as vassals of the French king
English presence in France became intolerable
English woolen interests in Flanders
Succession dispute over the French crown
Edward III claims to be rightful king of France (1337)
Phases of the war
1337-1360: series of English victories
Crécy (1346), Calais (1247), and Poitiers (1356)
The English people were mobilized for war
Edward raises a professional army
Tactical superiority
"Free Companies"
Treaty of Bretigny (1360) brought sixteen years of peace
1360s-1370s: a proxy war
After 1376, the tide turned in France's favor
Charles V (France) imposes new national taxes
Rids the countryside of "Free Companies"
Created a professional army
Henry IV (r. 1399-1413) deposed Richard II
Henry V renews the war against the French (1413)
Brilliant diplomat
Invaded France in 1415
Agincourt
Treaty of Troyes (1420)
Believed himself to be the rightful king of France
Joan of Arc (1412-1431)
Convinced Charles to let her raise an army
Brought Charles to Rheims (1430)
Burned at the stake at Rouen
The end of the war: France
Revealed the fragility of the bonds between crown and nobility
Resulted in a stronger monarchy
New national taxes imposed
A standing army
The end of the war: England
Changing support for the monarchy
Aristocratic rebellion against Henry VI
The War of the Roses
York and Lancaster
Battle of Bosworth Field (1485)
Origins of the House of Tudor
The importance of Parliament
War strengthened the identity between national identity and the state
Germany
Continuing dissolution of central power
Princes divided their territories among heirs
East Germany: nobles subject peasantry to serfdom
Habsburgs and Hohenzollern rulers
Italy
Incessant conflict in northern and central Italy
The popes at Avignon (1309-1377)
Venice ruled by an oligarchy of merchants
Milan ruled by despots
Florence ruled as a republic dominated by wealthy families
1454: "balance of power diplomacy"
1494: French invasion of Italy
The emergence of Spain
Castile
Noble families take advantage of royal weakness
Greater control over the peasantry
Greater independence from the crown
Aragon
Crown preserved its authority
Alliance with merchants of Catalunya
Civil wars after 1458
Ferdinand and Isabella
Basis of a united Spanish kingdom
Embarked on united policies (after 1479)
Increases in royal revenue
Buildup of military forces
1492
Conquest of Granada
Christopher Columbus
Expulsion of Jewish communities from Spain
Why did Ferdinand and Isabella expel the Jews?
1391-1450: tens of thousands had converted (conversos)
Desire to create a new Christian identity?
The "Catholic Monarchs"?
The growth of national monarchies
Kings of Iberia, England, France, and Scotland were building a sense of national identity
Nationalism and kingship
More powerful, more intolerant and Exclusionary
Kievan Rus and the Rise of Muscovy
Russia in 1500: the largest multiethnic empire in the Eurasian world
The separation of Russia from Europe (c. 1200)
Conquest of eastern Slavic states by the Mongols
The khanate of the Golden Horde
The rise of Muscovy
Moscow rose to power as a tribute-collecting center for the khanate
Gradually became the dominant political power in northeastern Russia
Poor relations between Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Christianity
The rivalry with Poland
Poland a second-rate power
Polish queen, Jadwiga, marries Jagiello of Lithuania (1386)
Doubled the size of Poland
Battle of Tannenberg (1410)
Defeat of the Teutonic knights
Poland-Lithuania pushed its borders toward Russia
Moscow and Byzantium
Growing alienation between Moscow and western Europe
Russian church saw itself as an ally of Constantinople
1438: church authorities in Constantinople submit to papal authority and unite with the Latin church
Russia refused to submit to Rome
The fall of Constantinople (1453)
Muscovite ruler takes the name tsar
Moscow declared a "second Jerusalem" and "the third Rome"
The reign of Ivan the Great (1462-1505)
Transformed the grand duchy of Moscow into an imperial power
The White Tsar
Annexed all independent principalities between Moscow and Poland-Lithuania
Political autocracy and imperialism
Built the Kremlin
The "tsar of all the Russias"
Trials for the Church
The late medieval papacy and conciliarism
The papacy at Avignon (1309-1378)
Large and efficient bureaucracy
Avignon popes imposed new taxes and obligations of churches in France, England, Germany, and Spain
Claimed the right to appoint bishops and priests
Clergy and laity alienated by papal demands for money
Luxury and corruption
Pope Clement VI
The selling of offices and sexual transgressions
Pope Urban V tries to return to Rome
Blocked by Charles V of France
Pope Gregory XI returns the papacy to Rome
Early death led to Roman riots
Demanded that cardinals elect an Italian
Pope Urban VI
Quarrels with the cardinals
Cardinals fled Rome declaring Urban's election invalid
Clement VII
The Great Schism
Two competing popes
Religious differences fractured along the lines established by the Hundred Years' War
1409: cardinals met at Pisa and deposed both popes and named a new one
Three popes
Pope Martin V
Restored the ecclesiastical unity of Europe
Did not end the struggle over how the Church should be governed
Council of Constance
Declared that supreme authority within the Church rested not with the pope but "general councils"
Conciliar decrees challenged papal monarchy
Council of Basel (1449)
The growth of national churches
Concordats granted rulers extensive authority over churches in their territories
Kings now received revenues from local churches
New powers to appoint candidates within their kingdoms
Decline of papal spiritual prestige
The clergy looked for spiritual guidance from kings and princes
Kings and princes as champions of moral and religious reform
The Papal States
The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval Piety
Salvation was open to all Christians
Sacrament, ritual, and sermon
A network of local parish churches
Sacraments granted the grace and power of God to the believer
Without baptism, salvation was impossible
Transubstantiation: the body and blood of Christ
Confession of sins guaranteed forgiveness
Marriage
Ordination
Extreme unction ("last rites")
Penance
Pilgrimages as a form of penance
Crusading as "extreme pilgrimage"
Good works
Prayers to holy figures
Saints and the Virgin Mary
Relics
Religion and the social order
The Church stood at the center of daily life
Medieval piety
Mystical union with God through spiritual exercise
Master Eckhart (c. 1260-1327)
German Dominican
Taught and wrote in Latin and German
The divine "spark"
Divinity lay within
Thomas à Kempis
The Imitation of Christ (c. 1427)
Divine presence during the conduct of daily life
The importance of the Mass
Stressed inward rather than outward piety
Stressed leading simple, moral lives
Lollards and Hussites
John Wycliffe (c. 1330-1384)
Oxford theologian
Sacraments of a corrupt church save no one
Lollards presented themselves as the only true church
Dismissed the sacraments as fraudulent attempts to get money
English translation of the Bible
Jan Hus (c. 1373-1415)
Emphasized the centrality of the Eucharist
Utraquismthe laity to receive consecrated bread and wine at Mass
Popular support in Bohemia
Tried to defend his views at the Council of Constance
Burned at the stake as a heretic (1415)
Taboritesradical Hussites
Lollardy and Hussitism began in universities and spread to the countryside
Calls for the clergy to live simple lives in poverty
Nationalism
The importance of vernacular teaching
Thought, Literature, and Art
Theology and philosophy
William of Ockham (c.1285-1349)
Denied the existence of God could be demonstrated apart from scriptural revelation
Emphasized God's freedom and absolute power
Nominalism
Only individual things are real
Major influence in medieval universities
One thing cannot be understood by means of another
Aided the development of empiricismknowledge rests on experience alone
Vernacular literature
Trends
Major trait was naturalism
International tensions led people to identify themselves in national terms
Continuing spread of lay education
The emergence of a substantial reading public for vernacular literature
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375)
The Decameron (1348-1351)
Collection of one hundred stories
Less interested in elegance, more in being entertaining
Describes what is, not what should be
Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1340-1400)
The Canterbury Tales
Written in verse, not prose
Recounted by people of all social classes
Each character tells a story that illustrates his or her world outlook
Christine de Pisan (c.1364-1431)
A professional literati
The City of Ladies
A defense of the character, nature, and capacities of women against male detractors
Written as an allegory
Sculpture and painting
Naturalism as the dominant trait
Statues became more proportioned and realistic
Realism extended to illuminated manuscripts and painting
Frescoes
Oil painting introduced in northern Europe (1400)
Giotto (c.1267-1337)
Brought deep humanity to his images
A naturalist
The first to conceive of the painted space in three-dimensional terms
Northern Europe
Jan van Eyck (c.1380-1441)
Roger van der Weyden (c.1400-1464)
Hans Memling (c.1430-1494)
Advances in Technology
Gunpowder, cannon, and the musket
Eyeglasses, magnetic compass, navigational devices, and clocks
Printed books and movable type
Replacement of parchment by paper
Growing market for less expensive editions
Conclusion
An attempt to understand the natural world
The natural world operated according to its own laws, empirically verifiable
Nature can be subdued
An increasingly educated society