Disasters of the Fourteenth Century Day 3 4

Disasters of the Fourteenth Century Day 3 -4 Mc. Kay Chapter 12

Bring Out Your Dead

Late Medieval Europe 1 st Crusade Babylonian Captivity begins Hundred Years’ War Begins Church Power declines 1095 Era of Gothic Cathedrals 1200 1309 Great Famine Begins 1315 Great Schism Begins Secularism Grows 1337 1348 Black Death Begins 1378

How would you describe life in th Europe during the 14 Century? • It wasn’t 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

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

Causes According to Medieval People • alignment of the planets • foul air • Jewish conspiracy • God’s punishment

The Great Famine of 1315 -1317 N By 1300 Europeans were over farming NToo many people using too little land N Excessive rain for three years caused massive crop failures between 1315 -17 N 15% of the peasants in some English villages died N Led to starvation & poverty was susceptibility to disease "When God saw that the world was so over proud, He sent a dearth on earth, and made it full hard. A bushel of wheat was at four shillings or more, Of which men might have had a quarter before. . And then they turned pale who had laughed so loud, And they became all docile who before were so proud. A man's heart might bleed for to hear the cry Of poor men who called out, "Alas! For hunger I die. . . !" —Poem on the Evil Times of Edward II, c. 1321.

1347: Plague Reaches Constantinople!

Why did it spread so rapidly? • Sanitation/ hygiene • Overcrowded cities/houses/ hospitals • Malnourished population • New trade routes

• 2 Strains: Characteristics – Bubonic • Flea 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

From the Toggenburg Bible, 1411

Boccaccio in The Decameron The victims ate lunch with their friends and dinner with their ancestors.

Attempts to Stop the Plague A Doctor’s Robe “Leeching” Lancing the Bubal

Attempts to Stop the Plague Flagellanti: Self-inflicted “penance” for our sins!

Scapegoats Jews are burned alive during the Black Death.

The Flagellants and the Medieval Epistemology

Ring Around the Rosie A Pocket Full of Posies Ashes, Ashes We All Fall Down

Results of the Black Death • Economic • Huge labor shortage • Wages rise • Production falls • Prices rise • Political – Power vacuum as many lords perish – Greatly diminishes feudalism & power of the Church – Allows “New Monarchs” to begin to centralize power • Social – Feudal distinctions erode – 33% of population perish – Anti-Semitism rose – Secular thought begins – Theme of death permeates weltanschauung

Hundred Years’ War (1337 -1453) § § A series of wars between England France (116 years) Causes § Capetian line (Sons of Philip the Fair) died without direct male heir in 1320 s § English King Edward III (Philip the Fair’s grandson) claimed French crown § Denied on grounds that Sallic law forbade inheritance through female line

Significance • • • Coincides with outbreak of Black Death Took place in France & Low Countries Devastated and weakened the nobles of France Last hurrah for chivalry • Battle of Crécy (1346), the English disregarded the chivalric code and used new military tactics: the longbow and the cannon Joan of Arc • Lifted siege at Orleans (1429) – Tried and executed as a witch in 1431 – Ignites French patriotism England ousted from France

Social Tensions • Jacquerie (1358) – nickname for any peasant insurrection – 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 Tyler’s rebellion (1381) – English peasant rebellion against an oppressive poll tax – Led by Walter Tyler – Invaded London w/ 50 thousand – Watt murdered by King Richard II’s vassal on London Bridge Death of Watt Tyler at London Bridge • Significance – Peasant ultimately better off

The Great Schism • • • Babylonian Captivity (1309 -1377) – King Philip the Fair of France kidnapped the pope & forced in to live in the French city of Avignon – Papacy became a tool of French Papacy returned to Rome in 1377 Urban VI – A reformer who attempted to stop church corruption – Cardinals fired Urban & elected , Clement VII – Now two popes claimed Saint Peter’s Keys Great Schism (1378 -1417) – England/Germany recognize Urban VI – France recognize Clement VII Papal prestige sank even lower

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 • Jan Huss who had questioned the need for Church hierarchy executed – Cardinals elect Pope Martin V – Wanted to rule Church as a Constitutional Monarchy Martin dissolves Council – Refuses reform – Church ruled by Pope not council (Absolutism) – Church remains entrenched in medievalism

Results of the Disasters • Church lost power – Secularism rises • Population declines – 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!!! Before After