Jessica Cotta AP European History Mr.

Scott 3 August 2011 The Crisis of the Later Middle Ages y Prelude to Disaster o In the beginning of the fourteenth century, the cost of grain, livestock, and dairy products rose greatly o One in four harvests was likely to be poor  Led to scarcity and starvation o Great Famine (1315-1322) Recurrence of the Seven Lean Years  Increased susceptibility to disease (infants/children & elderly)  Less energy = lower productivity/output, higher grain prices o Many people and animals were killed by diseases during this time o 1348 The Black Death o These catastrophes had grave social consequences.  Marriages postponed and death from famine and disease caused a decrease in population o Governments could not think of effective solutions  The sale of grain abroad was forbidden  Fishing with traps that took large catches was forbidden  Edward II set price controls on livestock and ale y He tried to buy grain abroad, but his efforts failed o Anger from starving people focused on the rich, speculators, and Jews; Many lepers and Jews were killed, beaten, or given heavy fines o Economic and social problems were aggravated y The Black Death o 1291- Strait of Gibraltar opened to Italian shipping, which promoted monumental advances in the design of Italian merchant ships  As a result, products were able to be shipped abroad all throughout the year, even during the dangerous winter months y This caused rat-transmitted diseases to spread easily, since shipboard rats were continuously moving  Scholars often disagree about the genesis of the bubonic plague (Black Death), but all theories state that from the Crimea, the plague had easy access to Mediterranean lands and western Europe o Pathology and Care  The bacillus that caused the plague, Pasteurella pestis, lived in the bloodstream of an animal or the stomach of a flee, which would live on a rat, which would travel by ship into Europe  The two forms of the plague were bubonic (spread by fleas) and pneumonic (spread by other people)  Urban conditions were ideal for the spread of disease, since overcrowding was commonplace  Fleas bit everybody, but if the bite came from an infected flea, everyone around the person was doomed.

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Symptoms and stages: y A growth the size of an apple or nut in the armpit, groin, or neck, which caused much pain, would need to be meticulously drained for a chance of recovery y Second Stage: Black spots caused by bleeding under the skin y Last Stage: Violent cough and spitting blood (no curing)  Ignorance and fear immerged to create the assumption that the Jews had poisoned the wells of Christian communities, which they believed, caused the plague. y This caused thousands of Jews to be murdered throughout Europe  Most cities had hospitals, but all they could offer was shelter, compassion, and care for the dying.  Those that could afford it moved east to Poland, where the disease didn t exist in such a fierce manner  The Black Death reoccurred sporadically between the years of 1260 and 1400, but continued appearing with less virulence each time until the year 1721  A vaccine wasn t developed until 1947, though, too late to help the victims of the Black Death o Social, Economic, and Cultural Consequences  Priests, monks, and nuns cared for the sick and buried the dead. y Because of this, their death rate was unbelievably high o The lack of priests was so immense that laymen and even laywomen were allowed to administer confession to a person on his or her deathbed  The agrarian economy in England showed great resilience y In 1375, landlords earned near the same amount of money as the years before the plague  Population losses led to increased productivity by restoring a more efficient balance between labor, land, and capital.  The high mortality of craftsmen led Florentine guilds to recruit many new members  As wages increased, many people enjoyed a higher standard of living  The price of slaves rose sharply  The Black Death provoked pessimism in many people  Flagellants were those who punished themselves to make up for the sins of themselves and of the rest of society, as they believed that the plague was God s punishment  The size of funerals dwindled, as fear of infection rose  People often used pilgrimages to holy places as justification for their escape from cities, but these travelers brought about much hostility  Arriving ships, crews, passengers, and cargoes had to be quarantined  Popular endowments of educational institutions multiplied, but the international character of medieval culture was weakened The Hundred Years War (ca 1337-1453) o Causes  In the Treaty of Paris, the English king agreed to become vassal of the French crown for the duchy of Aquitaine. 

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Edward III rejected the decision of the French barons excluding him from the throne y This argument upset the feudal order in France  The war lasted so long, in part, because a French civil war had erupted  Wool trade served as the cornerstone of the economies of both England and Flanders  The disruption of commerce with England threatened the prosperity of France The Popular Response  Edward III gained widespread support in the 1340s and 1350s  Pride in England s military proficiency increased  The war was popular because it presented unusual opportunities for wealth and advancement The Course of the War to 1419  The war was fought mostly in France and the Low Countries, and consisted of many random sieges and cavalry raids  At Crcy in northern France in 1346, English longbowmen scored a great victory over French knights and crossbowmen  At Agincourt near Arras in 1415, the English soldier-king Henry V gained the field over vastly superior numbers Joan of Arc and France s Victory  Joan of Arc was born in 1412 to a religious household  She persuaded the king to reject the rumor that he was illegitimate, thus securing his support for her relief of the besieged city of Orlans  Turning Point y On May 8, the English withdrew from Orlans y Ten days later, Charles VII was crowned king as Reims  In 1431, the court condemned Joan as a heretic and burned her at the stake in the marketplace at Rouen  In 1920, she was declared a holy maiden, and she is today known as the second patron saint of France and the symbol of the vitality and strength of the French peasant classes  The French reconquered Normandy and ejected the English from Aquitaine Costs and Consequences  In both France and England, the consequences of the war were a drop in population and the economy  The English government tried to pay for the war effort by raising taxes on the wool crop, but as a result, buyers could not afford English wool and raw wool exports slumped  Returning soldiers were described as beggars and vagabonds, and England suffered a serious net loss  The war stimulated the development of the English Parliament y The king of England could not tax without Parliament s consent  France held many regional or provincial assemblies, rather than one assembly for the entire country  The war promoted the growth of nationalism, or the feeling of unity and identity that binds together a people, in both countries 

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The Decline of the Church s Prestige o The Babylonian Captivity  The Babylonian Captivity damaged papal prestige  The Avignon papacy reformed its financial administration and centralized its government  In the absence of the papacy, the Papal States in Italy lacked stability and good government  The Babylonian Captivity left Rome poverty-stricken  Urban VI had excellent intentions for church reform y He wanted to abolish simony, pluralism, absenteeism, and clerical extravagance  Clement VII was elected as a second (aka anti ) pope, against Urban o The Great Schism  The powers of Europe were divided between Urban and Clement  The European countries picked sides (this was called a schism)  Weakened Christianity and brought Church leadership into question o The Conciliar Movement  Conciliarists believed that reform of the church could be best achieved through periodic assemblies, or general councils, representing all the Christian pope  Conciliarists favored a balanced or constitutional form of church government, with papal authority shared with a general council, in contrast to the monarchical one that prevailed  Marsiglio of Padua thought that the church had no inherent jurisdiction and should own no property  John Wyclif s ideas led to the first English translation of the Bible being produced and circulated  Wyclif s followers were called Lollards y Lollard teaching allowed women to preach y Women played a significant role in the movement  An attempt was made to get rid of both popes and elect a new one, but that formed a threefold schism  The Council at Constance reformed the church, ended the schism, and wiped out heresy The Life of the People o Economic and political difficulties, disease, and war profoundly affected the lives of European peoples o Marriage  The general pattern in late medieval Europe was marriage between men in their middle or late twenties and women under 20  Legal prostitution houses were established away from respectable neighborhoods, were many women prospered  Once a couple married, the union ended only with the death of one partner (no such thing as divorce)  Some made the promise and spoke the words of marriage to each other without witnesses, but this practice led to disputes when one of the two parties would later deny having made a marriage agreement

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o Life in the Parish  The land and the parish remained the focus of life for the European peasantry  The fundamental objective of the craft guild was now to maintain a monopoly on its product  Popular and educated culture held women to be biologically and intellectually inferior  Strikes and riots occurred violence was common  Beer or ale provided solace to the poor  The laity took responsibility for the management of parish lands Fur-Collar Crime  Many nobles turned to crime as a way of raising money, using their social status to rob and extort from the weak and then to corrupt the judicial process  Attacks on the rich often took the form of kidnapping and extortion  Robin Hood was a popular figure because he symbolized the deep resentment of aristocratic corruption and abuse y He represented the struggle against tyranny and oppression Peasant Revolts  Nobles, clergy, and city dwellers lived on the produce of peasant labor  Low- and middle-class workers deeply resented the widening social gap separating then from mercantile elites and the aristocracy  Peasants erupted in anger and frustration, blaming the government for all of their problems and demanding higher wages and fewer manorial obligations y Any attempt to freeze wages and social mobility could not be enforced  The straw that broke the camel s back in England was the reimposition of a head tax on all adult males  Violence took different forms in different places  Richard II med the leaders of the revolt, tricked them with false promises, and then crushed the uprising with terrible ferocity  Rebellions and uprisings everywhere reveal deep peasant and working-class frustration and the general socioeconomic crisis of the time Race and Ethnicity on the Frontiers  Large numbers of people in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries migrated from one part of Europe to another  Racial categories rest on socially constructed beliefs and customs, not on any biological or anthropological classification  Color racism played an insignificant part in the eleventh and twelfthcentury ideas about race and ethnicity  Native peoples remained subject to their laws, and newcomers remained under their original judicial system y The exception was Ireland, whose people were considered unfree o The Irish had no access to the common-law court

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In the later middle ages, competition for ecclesiastical offices and the cultural divisions between town and country people became arenas for ethnic tension and racial conflict  The arrival of Cistercians and mendicants provoked racial and national hostilities  When economic recession hit during the fourteenth century, ethnic tensions multiplied  Racism, now based on blood descent, characterized the attitudes of colonists toward native peoples  Intermarriage was forbidden in many places, and eligibility for public office depended on racial purity  All these laws had and economic basis: to protect the financial interests of the privileged minorities Vernacular Literature o Across Europe people spoke the language and dialect of their particular locality and class o Beginning in the fourteenth century, national languages came into widespread use not only in verbal communication but in literature as well o Dante Alighieri wrote the Divine Comedy, which describes the three parts of the next world (Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise) and embodies the psychological tensions of the age o Geoffrey Chaucer s Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories depicting the interests and behavior of all types of people  It presents a rich panorama of English social life in the fourteenth century o Franois Villon s works celebrate the human condition and the beauty of life on earth o Christine de Pisan wrote major historical works, including Livre de la mutacion de fortune, Diti, and The City of Ladies.  Her works celebrated many victories of women and provided advice to women of all social classes o The fourteenth century showed an increasing literacy of laypeople  Children were sent to schools and received the fundamentals of reading, writing, and arithmetic o The spread of literacy represents a response to the needs of an increasingly complex society o Trade, commerce, and expanding governmental bureaucracies required more and more literate people o By the mid fifteenth century, the evolution toward a literary culture was already perceptable