The Calamitous 14th Century

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The Calamitous 14th Century

• A Distant Mirror of Our Own Times

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A Distant Mirror

• In A Distant Mirror, novelist Barbara Tuchman
  reveals in alarming detail a tortured century
  with parallels to our own time.

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• People in the 14th century were subjected to
  natural and man-made disasters, including
• Climate Change
• Soil Exhaustion
• Agricultural Decline
• Famine
• Black Death
• The Hundred Years' War
• Political Instability
• Peasant Uprisings
• The Babylonian Captivity
• The Great Schism

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• Was Western Europe's 14th century a mirror for
  our own time?
• The illustration above depicts the Battle of
  Dunkirk in 1383. It was part of the Hundred Years
  War.
• The one below represents a battle at the same
  location that took place in 1940. It was part of
  the Second World War.

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Crises
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Economic Decline

• The 14th century saw a series of catastrophes
  that caused the European economy to weaken.
• A declining population, shrinking markets, a
  decrease in arable land, and a general mood of
  pessimism were evidence of deteriorating economic
  conditions.

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Climatic Changes

• Starting about 1250, a Little Ice Age began
  weakening Europe's agricultural productivity.
• The Baltic Sea froze, Alpine glaciers advanced,
  and in some areas, grain cultivation ceased.
• In other areas, crops failed as a result of heavy
  rains.

• Soil exhaustion made the problem worse.
• The results were food shortages and famines.

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Famine

• During 1315-1322, famine devastated most of
  Europe.
• Agricultural productivity declined
• Grain prices soared.
• Diseases destroyed much of Europe's livestock,
  depriving people of meat and dairy products. 
• People starved to death or succumbed to disease.

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Disease

• In 1347, the Black Death struck Europe. Those
  bitten by infected fleas died horrible deaths
  within a week's time. Those who inhaled the virus
  died even sooner.
• The plague decimated the populations of the
  densely

populated cities of Northern Italy. The
population of Florence, for instance, fell from
90,000 to 50,000 people. Within a generation, the
plague wiped out 40 percent of the English
population and nearly 60 percent of the
population in northeastern France. 
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Warfare

• The governments of France and England added to
  these natural calamities by carrying out a series
  of long, deadly wars, which are known
  collectively as the Hundred Years' War
  (1337-1453).

• Warfare aggravated the problem of agricultural
  decline by disrupting trade throughout northwest
  Europe.
• In the east, war was also disrupting trade routes
  as the Ottoman Empire began to expand throughout
  the region.

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Crisis in the Towns

• The huge costs of warfare and the collapse of
  agricultural productionand trade took their toll
  on the urban economy too. 
• In the mid-1300s, France and England both refused
  to pay off loans made bythe banking houses of
  Italy.

• This led to financial crisis and collapsein
  Florence and Sienna. 
• Banking failures disrupted the flow of capital to
  other merchant enterprises, and worsened the
  depression that gripped most of Europe's cities
  in the 1300s

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Peasant Uprisings

• The strains of life in the countryside, of
  hunger, disease, war and death, were made worse
  by feudal lords' insistence that peasants
  continue paying high rents and other feudal dues
  and by the burden of royal taxation.  This led to
  mass uprisings in France and England.

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Urban Rebellions

• The rural population was not alone.  On several
  occasions, artisans and the urban poor
  spontaneously rose in protest against hunger and
  against the upper classes (especially the
  aristocrats), who lived in luxury and used their
  political power to keep wages low. 

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Popular Religious Responses

• One common response to the multiple disasters and
  hardships of the 1300s was to conclude that God
  was passing judgment on mankind's sins. Remedies
  for sinfulness included
• Engaging in pilgrimages to holy sites
• Punishing the flesh as part of a flagellant cult

• Imitating the life of Christ and seeking mystical
  union with the divine through the Eucharist
• Participating in the Lollard movement by obeying
  the teachings of Christ and rejecting the Church
  and its sacraments.

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Crises of Authority

• The Babylonian Captivity (when the papacy moved
  to Avignon, France) and the Great Schism (a
  period during the 14th century when three popes
  claimed the seat of Peter) brought a crisis of
  authority. The papacy lost prestige and church
  councils attempted to usurp authority.

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Consequences
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Economic Consequences

• By disrupting existing patterns of life, the
  various crises created opportunities for new
  development, such as the revival of classic
  culture that brought forth new forms of art.
• For survivors of the Black Death, there were new
  opportunities in the form of improved
  agriculture, more diversified economies, and
  greater prosperity, including better wages and
  living standards.
• The new prosperity helped fuel such developments
  as the founding of new universities and the
  amassing of wealth among urban elites. The
  Renaissance flourished in both environments.
• Universities became centers of humanist learning,
  and wealthy city dwellers, along with monarchs
  and popes, became patrons of Renaissance art,
  architecture, and music.

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Political Consequences

• Although frequent warfare proved destructive for
  its victims, it strengthened the political power
  of the victors, contributing to the growth of
  modern nation states.
• France benefited from its victory in the Hundred
  Years War, English kings consolidated their
  power following the Wars of the Roses, and the
  Spanish monarch emerged as one of the strongest
  in Europe following the unification of Castile
  and Aragon and the expulsion of the Muslims.
• Victory in warfare also benefited many rulers who
  became important patrons of the northern
  Renaissance. Similarly, contact between Venice
  and the Ottomans, who had defeated the
  Byzantines, stimulated the development of the
  Renaissance.

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Religious Consequences

• Upheaval in the church, combined with the horrors
  of the Black Death and the dislocation of the
  Hundred Years War, stimulated important changes
  in European religious life.
• The devastation caused by the plague prompted
  spiritual uncertainty.
• Competition among the rival popes during the
  Great Schism weakened the prestige of the papacy.
• The diminished authority of the church stimulated
  new religious movements important precursors of
  the Reformation.
• The Great Schism undermined the political unity
  of the Church and enhanced opportunities for
  kings to lay claim to the Church in their own
  countries.