Disasters of the Fourteenth Century

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Disasters of the Fourteenth Century

• Section 2.5 (Palmer)
• McKay Chapter 12

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Bring Out Your Dead
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Late Medieval Europe
1st Crusade
Hundred Years War Begins
Babylonian Captivity begins
Great Schism Begins
Secularism Grows
Church Power declines
1095 1200 1309 1315 1337 1348 1378
Black Death Begins
Great Famine Begins
Era of Gothic Cathedrals
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How would you describe life in Europe during the
14th Century?

• It wasnt swell!
• Little Ice Age
• Growing season shorter
• How do they know this

Annual growth bands in a stalactite with reduced
growth in the Little Ice Age
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The Black Death

• one of the deadliest pandemics in human history,
  peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350.

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Causes According to Medieval People

• alignment of the planets
• foul air
• Jewish conspiracy
• Gods punishment

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The Famine of 1315-1317

• By 1300 Europeans were farming almost all the
  land they could cultivate.
• A population crisis developed.
• Climate changes in Europe produced three years of
  crop failures between 1315-17 because of
  excessive rain.
• As many as 15 of the peasants in some English
  villages died.
• One consequence ofstarvation povertywas
  susceptibility todisease.

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1347 Plague Reaches Constantinople!
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Why did it spread so rapidly?

• Sanitation/ hygiene
• Overcrowded cities
• Malnourished population
• New trade routes

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Characteristics
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Characteristics

• 2 Strains
• Bubonic
• Flee to person
• Pneumonic
• Person to person
• Flu-like symptoms
• Egg-sized lumps from lymph nodes
• Infection of lungs
• Victims died in 1 to 6 days
• A disease of revulsion

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Lancing a Buboe
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From the Toggenburg Bible, 1411
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Boccaccio in The Decameron
The victims ate lunch with their friends and
dinner with their ancestors.
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Attempts to Stop the Plague
Leeching
A Doctors Robe
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Attempts to Stop the Plague
FlagellantiSelf-inflicted penance for our
sins!
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Death Triumphant !A Major Artistic Theme
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Results of the Black Death

• Economic
• Huge labor shortage
• Wages rise
• Political
• Power vacuum as many lords perish
• Greatly diminishes feudalism power of the
  Church
• Social
• Feudal distinctions erode
• 33 of population perish
• Anti-Semitism rose
• Cultural
• Mass neurosis
• Flagellants
• Theme of death permeates weltanschauung

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Ring Around the RosieA Pocket Full of
PosiesAshes, AshesWe All Fall Down
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Hundred Years War (1337-1453)

• A series of wars between England and France (116
  years)
• Causes
• Capetian line (Sons of Philip the Fair) died
  without direct male heir in 1320s
• English King Edward III (Philip the Fairs
  grandson) claimed French crown
• Denied on grounds that Sallic law forbade
  inheritance through female line

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Characteristics

• Took place in France Low Countries
• France is internally divided
• Some French barons, Flemish wool merchants
  support England
• Last hurrah for chivalry
• Battle of Crécy (1346), the English disregarded
  the chivalric code and used new military tactics
  the longbow and the cannon.
• England controlled large parts of France by 1419
• Coincides with outbreak of Black Death

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Results

• Joan of Arc
• Lifted siege at Orleans (1429)
• Turning point of war
• Tried and executed as a witch in 1431
• Ignites French patriotism
• England ousted from France
• Englands Parliamentary government grew
• Monarchs needed their money
• Estates Generals influence decreases
• French noble class diminished
• Standing armies adopted

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Social Tensions

• Jacquerie (1358)
• nickname for peasant in
• Nobility prestige had sunk after Poitiers
• Fled battlefield
• Nobles demanded more corvee
• Villages pillaged by marauders
• Thousands of peasants rose up
• Intense violence directed at lords
• Burned castles, murdered lords
• Watt Tylers rebellion (1381)
• English peasant rebellion against an oppressive
  poll tax
• Led by Walter Tyler
• Invaded London w/ 50 thousand
• Watt murdered by King Richard IIs vassal on
  London Bridge
• Peasant ultimately better off

Death of Watt Tyler at London Bridge
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Map of Hundred Years War

• French Yellow
• English-Gray
• Burgundian-Dark Gray

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Babylonian Captivity (1309-1377)

• Papacy a tool of French
• pope had lived at Avignon since the reign of King
  Philip the Fair of France and thus subject to
  French control
• Pope Gregory XI brought the papacy back to Rome
  in 1377
• His successor Urban VI alienated the church
  hierarchy in his zeal to reform the church
• A new pope, Clement VII, was elected, and the two
  popes both claimed to be legitimate
• Great Schism (1378-1417)
• England/Germany recognize Urban VI
• France recognize Clement VII
• Papal prestige sank even lower
• How do I save my soul?

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Results of Babylonian Captivity

• People begin to question the Church
• John Wycliff and the Lollards
• Said there is no need for a hierarchical church
• Man can save his own soul via the Bible
• Wycliff translated the Bible into English
• Jan Huss
• Utilized Wycliffs ideas for Bohemia

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Conciliar Movement

• Conciliarists
• believed that church authority rested in councils
  representing the people--not the authority of the
  pope.
• Council of Constance (1414)
• Ends schism
• Discourage heresy (Huss executed)
• Issue reforms
• Pope Martin V made pope
• Wanted to rule Church as a Constitutional
  Monarchy
• Martin dissolves Council
• Refuses reform
• Church ruled by Pope not council
  

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Results of the Disasters

• Mass Neurosis
• Church loses power
• Secularism rises
• Population decline
• Wages rise
• Revolts break out
• Favorable position for peasants
• Fixed rents
• Property owning class emerges
• Feudalism breaks down
• Kings begin to centralize power
• Trade reemerges
• Renaissance begins!!!