The 14th Century Calamitous Age

Peasant Revolts
England
To recover losses, landholders instituted oppressive laws that forced peasants to
stay on their farms while freezing their wages at low levels.
ie. English Parliament passed a Statute of Laborers which set low prices
for farm laborers and limited their mobility
English Peasants Revolt in 1381
France
Increase over the taille rate (mandatory tax on peasants) led to the Jacquiere
The Little Ice Age
Climate Change
o Too much rain
o Summers with snow
o Crops fail
o Animals die
o People weakened from lack of food
o More susceptible to disease
The Black Death
Preconditions & Causes
o From 1000-1300,
Europes population
doubled
-Population growth
strained the food
supply
-Population growth led
to high unemployment
and low wages
-Crop failures between
1315 and 1317
exacerbated the food
shortage crisis

The Great Famine

o the first of a series of large scale crises that struck
North Europe
o caused millions of deaths
o marked the end to an earlier period of growth and
prosperity
o a period marked by extreme levels of crime, disease,

Types of Plague
o Bubonic
-Spread by fleas
-Black pus- filled lymph nodes
-Mortality rate:60%
-Death in 3-4 days
o Pneumonic
-Spread by people coughing
-Drown in their own blood
-Mortality rate: 95-100%
o Septicemic
-Also spread by fleas
-Extremities turn black and die
-Mortality rate: 100% within one

Consequences
o Farms decline
o Supply and demand (fewer
laborers, higher wages;
less demand for food,
lower prices for
agricultural products)
o many serfs demanded
money payments and some
pursued the more lucrative
skilled craft industries in
cities; the price of luxury
and manufactured goods
rose

The Great Schism

Also known as the East-West
Schism, it was the event that
divided "Chalcedonian" Christianity
into Western
(Roman) Catholicism and
Eastern Orthodoxy. Though
normally dated to 1054, when Pope
Leo IX and Patriarch Michael I
excommunicated each other, the
East-West Schism was actually the
result of an extended period of
estrangement between the two
bodies of churches. The primary
causes of the Schism were disputes
over papal authority -- the Roman
Pope claimed he held authority over
the four Eastern patriarchs, while
the four eastern patriarchs claimed
that the primacy of the Patriarch of
Rome was only honorary, and thus
he had authority only over Western
Christians -- and over the insertion
of the filioque clause into
the Nicene Creed. There were other,
less significant catalysts for the
The 100 Years War
This century was an intermittent
struggle between England
& France in the 14th15th century
over a series of disputes, including
the question of the legitimate
succession to the French crown.
The struggle involved several
generations of English and French
claimants to the crown and
actually occupied a period of more
than 100 years. By convention it is
said to have started in 1337 and
ended in 1453, but there had been
periodic fighting over the question