Description
Pulitzer Prize winning author Barbara Tuchman wrote a book in 1978 entitled “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”. In it she recounts how the 14th and the first half of the 15th centuries give us back two contradictory images. An “Indian summer” of the Middle Ages–a still glittering time of castles, cathedrals and chivalry, and a dark time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world plunged into a chaos of war, fear, famine, and the Plague. The title is referencing how the catastrophes of that transitional time and the contemporary world of the 20th century (or in our case the 21st century) shows disturbing similarities.
Here are several revealing excerpts from her work: “When the gap between ideal and real becomes too wide, the system breaks down.” “Human beings of any age need to approve of themselves; the bad times in history come when they cannot.” “An event of great agony is bearable only in the belief that it will bring about a better world. When it does not, as in the aftermath of another vast calamity, disillusion is deep and moves on to self-doubt and self-disgust.” “Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place. Besides, persistence of the normal is usually greater than the effect of the disturbance, as we know from our own times. After absorbing the news of today, one expects to face a world consisting entirely of strikes, crimes, power failures, broken water mains, stalled trains, school shutdowns, muggers, drug addicts, neo-nazis, and rapists. [today we could add economic woes, political divisions, prevalence of poverty in much of the world, fears of terrorism, cyberattacks].
The fact is that one can come home in the evening–on a lucky day–without having encountered more than one or two of these phenomena. This has led me to formulate Tuchman’s Law, as follows: The fact of being reported multiplies the apparent extent of any deplorable development by five- to tenfold (or any figure the reader would care to supply).”
While using the above statements as a launching point for your essay engage in a discussion of the crisis thesis of the late Middle Ages. Write an essay explaining the significance of the various crisis—political, social, economic, and religious–facing Western Civilization in the 14th and 15th centuries. Be sure to cite details the textbook while giving arguments to support your answer. The essay should be 1,200-2,000 word essay.
In the body of your work, try to answer at least THREE of the following questions with references from the textbook while demonstrating historical analysis. This list is meant to serve as a sort of outline and guide for the essay.
1. Describe the benefits and costs of the Mongol Empire.
2. How does living in and experiencing the Age of COVID inform our understanding of the 14th century Black Death–socially, economically, biologically, etc.
3. Revolts in Europe (Jacquerie, English Peasants, Ciompi Rebellion).
4. Why is it correct to consider this time an era of exploration and globalization?
5. What caused the rise of national monarchies in England and France in terms of the Hundred Years War? or discuss the emergence of Russia?
6. What was the condition and role of religion and the Church during the period under consideration (think about Avignon papacy, the rise of piety, heresies, spiritual crisis, etc.)?
7. What are the implications of the emergence of vernacular literature and culture in the Late Middle Ages? Think Chaucer and Dante, among others.
https://www.ted.com/talks/sheila_marie_orfano_why_…
REMINDER: A WELL WRITTEN ESSAY IS NEEDED ON THIS, AND A 90 OR ABOVE IS NEEDED AS WELL. PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS.
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Norton Media Library
WESTERN
CIVILIZATIONS
Chapter 10
I. Introduction
zTimes of feasts, times of famine
zThe Black Death
II. Economic Depression and the
Emergence of the New Equilibrium
zLimits of agricultural expansion
zClimatic change and agricultural failure
{Natural checks to expansion
zThe land had been overworked
zThe weather deteriorated (colder and wetter)
zFloods
z“Great Famine”—10 to 15 percent of Europe’s
population perished
II. Economic Depression and the
Emergence of the New Equilibrium
(Contd.)
zThe Black Death, 1347–1350
{Bubonic and pneumonic plague
{Originated in Gobi Desert (Mongolia)
z1346: plague reached the Black Sea
z1347: plague lands in Sicily
{The plague
zSpread by flea bites or by inhalation
zDeath came quickly
II. Economic Depression and the
Emergence of the New Equilibrium
(Contd.)
{Population decline
zEngland: total population decreased40 percent
between 1347 and 1381
zEurope’s population declined 50 percent between
1300 and 1450
{Effects
zPeople sought isolation
zTown dwellers flee to the countryside
II. Economic Depression and the
Emergence of the New Equilibrium
(Contd.)
zCountry dwellers flee from one another
zHarvests ignored
zTrade collapsed
zEconomic changes by 1400
• Prices of basic foodstuffs began to fall
• Specialized regional economies
zThe impact on towns
{Plague made existing situation worse
zOvercrowding
zSanitary conditions
II. Economic Depression and the
Emergence of the New Equilibrium
(Contd.)
{Hanseatic League (Lübeck and Bremen)
zControlled long-distance trade in Baltic and North
seas
{Luxury goods and new wealth
zGenoa and Venice
zManufactures flourished in Florence, Venice, and
Milan
{New business practices
zBanking and accounting
zNew partnerships to limit risks
II. Economic Depression and the
Emergence of the New Equilibrium
(Contd.)
zInsurance contracts
zDouble-entry bookkeeping
{The Medici banking house (Florence)
zThe new equilibrium
III. Social and Emotional Dislocation
zPopular rebellions
zThe Jacquerie (1358)
{Black Death wrecked the economy
{Hundred Years’ War flared up—burned castles,
murdered lords
{Causes
zIntense economic resentments
zPolitical factors
{
4. A failed rebellion
III. Social and Emotional Dislocation
(Contd.)
zEnglish Peasants’ Revolt of 1381
{Rising economic expectations and political
grievances
{Peasant standard of living increased due to
decline in population
{Aristocrats sought to preserve their incomes
{Passed legislation to keep wages at pre-plague
levels
{The head tax
{Peasants burned manor rolls and marched to
London
III. Social and Emotional Dislocation
(Contd.)
{Richard II made promises to help—kept none of
them
{The murder of Wat Tyler
{Effects
zThe rebellion was a failure
zFrightened the English nobility
zEnforcement of wage controls on peasants came to an
end
zUrban rebellions
{Combination of social, political, and economic
grievances
{Varied from city to city
III. Social and Emotional Dislocation
(Contd.)
{Brunswick (1374)
zOne political alliance replaces another
{Lübeck (1408)
zA taxpayers’ revolt
{The Ciompi Rebellion (1378)
zWool-combers of Florence
• Unemployment and low wages
zMotivated by economic hardship and personal
hatreds
III. Social and Emotional Dislocation
(Contd.)
zRadical reforms
• Tax relief and fuller representation
• Political representation
zFailed after six weeks
{General observations
zMain catalyst was economic crisis
zNot specifically class revolts
zPolitical grievances
zDirect challenges to urban society
III. Social and Emotional Dislocation
(Contd.)
zAristocratic insecurities
{Rebellions posed a threat to their social status
and privilege
{Gained most of their income from land
{Threatened also by rapid rise of merchants and
financiers
{Set up cultural barriers to separate themselves
from others
zEstablished sumptuary laws
zNew chivalric orders
• Knights of the Garter or the Golden Fleece
III. Social and Emotional Dislocation
(Contd.)
zEmotional extremes
{Sorrow
zShedding tears in abundance
{Obsession with mortality
{A “culture of death”
zThe reality of death
zPutrefaction
z“Grinning Death”
IV. Trials for the Church and Hunger
for the Divine
zThe late medieval papacy
{Institutional crisis
{The Babylonian Captivity (1305–1378)
zPapacy located at Avignon
zSubservient to interests of French crown
{The Great Schism, 1378–1417
zBackground
• All popes elected at Avignon were from southern France
• Popes imposed new taxes on churches of France,
England, Spain, and Germany
IV. Trials for the Church and Hunger
for the Divine (Contd.)
• Avignon popes strengthened administrative control
• Clergy and laity felt alienated by papal desires for wealth
• Clement VI (1342–1352)—notoriously corrupt and
immoral
zGregory returned to Rome in 1377, died the following
year
zRoman people rioted, demanded the cardinals elect
a Roman as pope
• Urban VI elected; quarrelledwith the cardinals
• Cardinals declared Urban’s election void
IV. Trials for the Church and Hunger
for the Divine (Contd.)
zClement VII retreated back to Avignon (1378)
• Recognized by France, Scotland, Castile, and Aragon
• Rejected by the rest of Europe, who rallied behind Urban
zSome cardinals met at Pisa and deposed both popes
(1409)
• Italian and French pope would not accept the council’s
decision
• Now there were three popes
zSchism ends with the Council of Constance (1417)
IV. Trials for the Church and Hunger
for the Divine (Contd.)
• European ecclesiastical unity restored
• Calls for a balanced, “conciliar” government
zEventual papal victory over the conciliarists
zPopular piety
{Growing dissatisfaction with the clergy:
explanations
zClergy demanded more from laity
zIncrease in lay literacy
• Proliferation of schools and decline in cost of books
• Religious primers
zLocal priests were not living according to standards
set by Jesus and his apostles
IV. Trials for the Church and Hunger
for the Divine (Contd.)
{Alternative routes to piety
zRepeated acts of external devotion
zPilgrimages
zObsession with reciting prayers
zSelf-flagellation
{Mysticism
zSeeking union with God by “detachment,”
contemplation, or spiritual exercises
zMaster Eckhart (c. 1260–1327)
• The inner spark
• Renounced selfhood
IV. Trials for the Church and Hunger
for the Divine (Contd.)
• Finding divinity within
• Gave the laity the idea that the church was not necessary
zHeretics of the “Free Spirit”
z“Practical” mysticism
• Did not aim at full ecstatic union with God
zThomas à Kempis (1379–1471)
• The Imitation of Christ (c. 1427)
• Attractive to lay readers—widely translated
• Urged readers to participate in one religious ceremony:
the Eucharist
• Emphasis on inward piety
IV. Trials for the Church and Hunger
for the Divine (Contd.)
{Lollards and Hussites
zJohn Wyclif (c. 1330–1384)
• Augustinian influences
• Predestination
• Most church officials were damned
• Replace corrupt bishops and priests with men living
according to apostolic standards
• Attacked the sacraments, including the Eucharist
• The Lollards
IV. Trials for the Church and Hunger
for the Divine (Contd.)
• Pious Christians should not trust the sacraments of a
corrupt church
• Instead, study the Bible (translated into the vernacular)
zJan Hus (c. 1373–1415)
• Similar to the Lollards
• Emphasized the Eucharist as central to Christian piety
• Ultraquism—laity to receive the consecrated bread and
wine at mass
• Gained a mass following in Bohemia (aristocrats,
artisans, and peasants)
IV. Trials for the Church and Hunger
for the Divine (Contd.)
• Concerns for social justice
• Attended the Council of Constance (1415)
• Tried for heresy and burned at the stake
• Radical Hussites—the Taborites
V. Political Crisis and Recovery
zMajor changes
{Incessant warfare
{Kings developed new powers to tax and control
their subjects
{Armies became larger and military technology
improved
{National monarchies became more aggressively
expansionist
zItaly
{Time of troubles for papal states
{After 1417, popes ruled most of central Italy
V. Political Crisis and Recovery
(Contd.)
{Venice—merchant oligarchy
{Milan—dynastic despotism
{Florence—a republic in name only, actually
ruled by the Medici
{After 1400, Venice, Milan, and Florence
expanded territorially
zConquered almost all northern cities and towns
except Genoa
{Kingdom of Naples
{Treaty of 1454 brought forty years of peace
V. Political Crisis and Recovery
(Contd.)
zGermany
{Independent princes warred with weakened
emperors or each other
{Fragmentation of political authority
{After 1450, some stronger princes began to rule
more firmly
zModeled on national monarchies of England and
France
zBavaria, Austria, and Brandenburg
V. Political Crisis and Recovery
(Contd.)
zFrance
{The Hundred Years’ War, 1337–1453
zCauses
• Problem of French territory held by English kings
(Gascony and Aquitaine)
• English woolen interests in Flanders
• Succession dispute over the French crown
• Valois dynasty replaced the Capets
zThe war
• France the richest country in Europe with the largest
population
V. Political Crisis and Recovery
(Contd.)
• English victories at Crécy (1346), Poitiers (1356), and
Agincourt (1415)
• The English longbow
• The French were badly divided among themselves
zJoan of Arc (c. 1412–1431)
• Convinced Charles to let her raise an army
• Brought Charles to Rheims
• Captured in 1430, tried by the English for heresy
• Burned at the stake in Burgundy (1431)
V. Political Crisis and Recovery
(Contd.)
zWar ends with capture of Bordeaux (1453)
zResults
• Powers of French crown strengthened
• Valois kings collected nationaltaxes and maintained a
standing army
• Monarchy strengthened under Louis XI and Louis XII
V. Political Crisis and Recovery
(Contd.)
zEngland
{Hundred Years’ War produced political
instability
zIn defeat, taxpayers held their kings (Edward III and
Henry V) responsible
zDefeat undermined king’s political and fiscal support
at home
zDangerous and incompetent kings
{Henry VI (1422–1461)
zInsanity
zProvoked an aristocratic rebellion
V. Political Crisis and Recovery
(Contd.)
zThe Wars of the Roses
• York and Lancaster
• Battle of Bosworth Field (1485)—Richard III killed
• Origins of the Tudor dynasty
zHenry VIII (1509–1547)
{Stability
zLocal institutions continued to function
zIncreasing importance of Parliament
zNo challenges to the power of the English state
V. Political Crisis and Recovery
(Contd.)
zSpain
{Ferdinand and Isabella
zSubdued their aristocracies
zAragon and Castile retained their separate
institutions
zAnnexed Granada
zExpelled Spain’s Jews
{Influx of gold and silver from the New World
{Spain as Europe’s most powerful state in the
sixteenth century
V. Political Crisis and Recovery
(Contd.)
zThe triumph of national monarchies
{Germany and Italy still politically divided
{England and France
{Spain
{National monarchies as a sign of future
developments
VI. Kievan Rus and the Rise of
Muscovy
zObservations
{By 1500, Europe’s leading Eastern empire
{Swedish Vikings (the Rus), centered around
Kiev
{Maintained diplomatic and trading relations with
western Europe and Byzantium
zThe Mongol invasions
{Mongol conquest of eastern Slavic states
{Overran Kiev
{The Khanate of the Golden Horde (the “Tartar
Yoke”)
VI. Kievan Rus and the Rise of
Muscovy (Contd.)
zThe rise of Muscovy
{Moscow rose to power as a tribute-collecting
center for the Khanate
{Gradually became the dominant political power
in northeastern Russia
{Poor relations between Eastern Orthodoxy and
Western Catholicism
zThe rivalry with Poland
{Poland a second-rate power
{Polish queen, Jadwiga, marries Jagiello
(Lithuania) (1386)
VI. Kievan Rus and the Rise of
Muscovy (Contd.)
{Doubled the size of Poland
{Lithuanian expansion increased after the union
with Poland
{Battle of Tannenberg (1410)
zMoscow and Byzantium
{Growing alienation between Moscow and
western Europe
{Fall of Constantinople (1453)
VI. Kievan Rus and the Rise of
Muscovy (Contd.)
{Tense religious relations between Moscow and
Byzantium since 1054
zSplit over wording of the Nicene Creed
zMoscow the center of anti-Roman ideology
{Russian ruler took title of tsar (caesar)
zThe reign of Ivan the Great (1462–1505)
{Transformed grand duchy of Moscow into an
imperial power
{The “White Tsar”
VI. Kievan Rus and the Rise of Muscovy
(Contd.)
{Annexed all independent principalities between
Moscow and Poland-Lithuania
{Political autocracy and imperialism
zBuilt the Kremlin
zThe “tsar of all the Russians”
VII. Thought, Literature, and Art
zTheology and philosophy
{A crisis of doubt
{Could man comprehend the supernatural?
zHow to explain the plague?
{William of Ockham (c. 1285–1349)
zDenied that the existence of God could be
demonstrated apart from scriptural revelation
zEmphasized God’s freedom and absolute power
VII. Thought, Literature, and Art
(Contd.)
zNominalism
• Only individual things are real
• One thing cannot be understood by means of another
zAided the development of empiricism—knowledge
rests on experience alone
zVernacular literature
{Trends
zMajor trait was naturalism
VII. Thought, Literature, and Art
(Contd.)
zInternational tensions led people to identify
themselves in national terms
zContinuing spread of lay education
zThe emergence of a substantial reading public for
vernacular literature
{Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375)
zDecameron (1348–1351)
• Collection of one hundred stories
• Less interested in elegance, more in being entertaining
• Describes what is, not what should be
VII. Thought, Literature, and Art
(Contd.)
{Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340–1400)
zThe Canterbury Tales
• Written in verse, not prose
• Recounted by people of all social classes
• Each character tells a story that illustrates his or her
world outlook
{Christine de Pisan (c. 1364–1431)
zA professional literati
zThe City of Ladies
• A defense of the character, nature and capacities of
women against male detractors
• Written as an allegory
VII. Thought, Literature, and Art
(Contd.)
zSculpture and painting
{Naturalism as the dominant trait
{Statues became more proportioned and
realistic
{Realism extended to illuminated manuscripts
and painting
{Frescoes
{Oil painting introduced in northern Europe
(1400)
{Giotto (c. 1267–1337)
zBrought deep humanity to his images
VII. Thought, Literature, and Art
(Contd.)
zThe first to conceive of the painted space in threedimensional terms
{Northern Europe
zJan van Eyck (c. 1380–1441)
zRoger van der Weyden (c. 1400–1464)
zHans Memling (c. 1430–1494)
VIII. Advances in Technology
zGunpowder, the cannon, and the musket
zEyeglasses, magnetic compass,
navigational devices, and clocks
zPrinted books and movable type
{Replacement of parchment by paper
{Growing market for less expensive editions
IX. Conclusion
zAn attempt to understand the natural world
zThe natural world operated according to its
own laws, empirically verifiable
zNature can be subdued
zAn increasingly educated society
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This concludes the Norton Media Library
Slide Set for Chapter 10
Western Civilizations
by
Judith G. Coffin
Robert C. Stacey
Robert E. Lerner
Standish Meacham
Lecture Notes 10
The Calamitous Fourteenth Century: Plague, War, and Uncertainty
Lecture Objectives
1. To discuss how medieval European men and women coped with the
destruction wrought by the Black Death, peasant rebellions, and war
2. To investigate the nature of medieval piety in the fourteenth century; to
discuss the primary characteristics of the Age of Faith
3. To outline the effect that the intellectual revival of the twelfth century had
on the thought and culture of the fourteenth century
The Black Death, 1347–1350
In September of 1348, Pope Clement VI issued an edict that referred to “this pestilence with which God is
affecting the Christian people.” By this date, the Black Death had ravaged large parts of the continent,
including Italy, Spain, England, Switzerland, and Hungary. Florence would be one of the hardest hit of all
European cities and, at Avignon, where Clement resided, it was recorded that four hundred souls lost their
lives each day for a period of three months. Discoveries in the late nineteenth century (more than five
hundred years after the fact) proved that the plague was caused by the bacillus, Yersina pestis, which was
transferred to humans by flea or rat bites. But no one knew that in 1347; after all, medieval men and
women had been sharing their lives with fleas and rats for centuries. They found another explanation:
mankind had sinned, so God sent a plague to scourge mankind. People responded to the plague in a
number of ways:
• Many people left the towns for the countryside, and those in the countryside fled from each other.
• People sought isolation, doctors refused patients, lawyers refused to hear wills, and the clergy refused to
give the last rites.
• Some people simply ate, drank, and had a good time.
• Other people followed or participated in the processions of flagellants who tried to beat the devil out of
their bodies, fighting anxiety with pain.
There was no way to escape the Black Death; it would just have to run its course, which it did by 1351,
only to reappear in later centuries. Of course, if you survived the plague—always a possibility—you
probably would have suffered a sense of collective guilt, asking yourself: “Why am I here? Why am I, a
healthy twenty-year-old male, still alive?” or “Why am I, an unhealthy sixty-one-year-old woman, still
alive?” And if the bubonic plague was God’s punishment, then the committed sins must have been
tremendous, which partially explains yet another resurgence of popular piety.
People also needed scapegoats, since damning God was not an alternative. So, despite the horror and
futility of the Black Death, Europeans made the Jews the objects of their scorn. Christians blamed Jews
for everything from poisoning the water supply to killing Christ. They were believed to be agents of the
devil who ritually sacrificed Christian children. Not heretics but infidels, Jews were outsiders, the
excluded. Perhaps 12,000 Jews were slaughtered as a result of the psychological terror of the Black
Death. Whole Jewish populations disappeared or moved to new locations.
In the Wake of the Black Death
Europe may have lost 35 percent of its population in four years, but, in the wake of the Black Death and
the “dementia of despair” it produced, came economic change. Some of the effects were beneficial.
Merchants accepted new business practices, such as double-entry bookkeeping, insurance, and “book
transfers” (the medieval equivalent of the modern check). This was the period in which the Medici
bankers of Florence rose to prominence.
On the other hand, the Black Death also created the conditions for rebellions among urban workers and
peasants in the countryside. In the Jacquerie of 1358, French peasants responded to heavy taxation by
burning castles and murdering their lords. Florentine wool-combers (the “Ciompi”) rebelled against their
masters in 1378 as a result of unemployment and low wages. And in England, in 1381, peasants revolted
against aristocratic efforts to revert back to paying preplague wages and government attempts to collect a
head tax to pay for the war with France. The peasants burned local records, sacked the homes of their
exploiters, then marched into London and killed the lord chancellor and treasurer of England. The
fifteen-year-old Richard II promised them support but kept none of his promises.
The main catalyst for these rebellions was economic. Each of them also had the same result: in no case
were the workers’ grievances resolved. Their aristocratic betters clung to older patterns of status and
privilege, setting up cultural barriers against the other classes. Meanwhile, no one could escape the
“culture of death” that had intruded upon their lives, nor could they escape the uncertainty of life.
The Late Medieval Church
The medieval obsession with death—not surprising, given the state of fourteenth-century
affairs—intensified religious enthusiasm. People looked to the church for answers. At the same time, the
church was confronted with yet another series of challenges. During the Babylonian Captivity, the papacy
was located at Avignon, where it served the interests of French diplomacy. There, by working out an
efficient system of papal finance and by appointing more candidates to vacant church positions, the popes
were more successful than ever in centralizing their power. They also became more corrupt and, as news
of their lavish living got around, public pressure forced the popes to promise to return to Rome. Before
they could do so, though, the Great Schism divided Europe over the issue of who was the true pope. The
following are important points to know about the Great Schism:
• France, Scotland, Castile, and Aragon recognized the French Pope Clement VII as the true pope; the rest
of Europe rallied behind the Italian pope Urban VI.
• After three decades of squabbling, the Council of Constance, in 1417, ended the schism and named
Martin V as pope.
• The question of conciliar church government immediately followed.
• The Council of Constance decreed that a general council of prelates had more authority than the pope.
• In 1449, the Council of Basel dissolved and conciliarism was overturned by the papacy, who gained the
support of European monarchs.
It is no surprise that the local clergy were losing prestige during this time. The greater financial demands
of the pope meant that the clergy demanded more from the lay population. With the increase in general
literacy, the laity could begin reading the Bible and popular religious texts. It became obvious to this
literate population that the clergy were not living according to the standards set by Jesus Christ and the
apostles. Two possible responses from lay people were to turn to anticlericalism or to demand reform of
the church.
Popular Piety
It seemed to more and more people that church rituals and clerical authority were not enough to satisfy
the deep religiosity of the fourteenth century. People began to go on pilgrimages or join barefoot
processions. Flagellation became the most dramatic form of religious ritual. If people found that the
outward channels of expression were not enough to express their piety, then perhaps there was in inward
road to godliness. Across Europe people began to turn to mysticism. The German Dominican Master
Eckhart (c. 1260–1327) perhaps best represented this tendency. Features of Eckhart’s mysticism included:
• the renunciation of selfhood or ego
• the idea that divinity is found within each individual
• the teaching that outward rituals were comparatively less important in reaching God than were the
practices of detachment, contemplation, or other spiritual exercises
Eckhart provided an example to others. His message was taken up by Thomas à Kempis (1379–1471),
whose Imitation of Christ enjoyed an immense lay readership because of its emphasis on inward piety
while still going about one’s daily affairs. The message of Eckhart and à Kempis fell on ready ears. The
Christian people’s adoption of biblical meditation and leading a simple, moral life served as an indictment
of the church itself.
Wyclif and Hus
With the appearance of Wyclif and Hus we see tendencies that anticipate the Protestant Reformation of
the sixteenth century. John Wyclif (c. 1330–1384) was an Augustinian to the core and believed that a
certain number of humans were predestined for heaven. He thought that the predestined would naturally
live moral lives, but he found that most members of the church did not. He and his followers, the Lollards,
concluded that most church officials were damned. Wyclif and, after his death, his followers proposed
these solutions:
• Secular rulers should take over ecclesiastical wealth and reform the church.
• Secular rulers would replace corrupt clergymen with men who would live an apostolic life.
• He attacked the sacrament of the Eucharist and other basic church institutions.
• The Lollards warned Christians not to trust their salvation to the sacraments of a corrupt church and,
instead, to study the Bible in the vernacular.
Jan Hus (c. 1373–1415) studied at Oxford and was familiar with Wyclif’s ideas. He too called for an end
to ecclesiastical corruption but, unlike the Lollards, he emphasized the centrality of the Eucharist and
insisted that the laity should also receive the consecrated bread and wine of the Mass. In 1415, Hus
attended the Council of Constance to defend his views and, instead, was tried for heresy and burned at the
stake. The Lollards and Hussites offered a direct assault on church hierarchy. The church did respond, but
the damage had already been done. Wyclif and Hus—with their suggestions of predestination and reading
the Bible in the vernacular, and their criticism of the clergy and questioning of the sacraments—had set
the stage for Luther and Protestantism in the following century.
National Monarchies and the Hundred Years’ War
If the Black Death brought anxiety to the common person, the century following the plague was equally
devastating for royal governments. Italy, for instance, contained a number of decentralized states, each
with its own form of government: Venice embraced a merchant oligarchy, Milan was ruled by a dynastic
despotism, Florence was supposedly a republic that was actually controlled by the wealthy. Fragmentation
seems to characterize the fifteenth century, as feudal institutions could no longer provide any sort of
stability. Despite this time of troubles, the national monarchies became stronger.
The major conflict of the age was clearly the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453) between France and
England. The origins of this protracted conflict stretch back into the late thirteenth century, but we can
identify a number of causes:
• The problem of French territory still held by English kings and the fact that the French wanted to expel
the English made war inevitable.
• English economic interests in the Flanders woolen trade supported the frequent Flemish attempts to
rebel against French rule.
• The dispute over the succession of the French crown involved the Valois dynasty and Edward III of
England.
As the richest country in Europe, France should have had no problem defeating England. However, until
the 1430s, the English had won most of the battles. At Crécy (1346), Poitiers (1356), and Agincourt
(1415), the outnumbered English used a professional army and the longbow to defeat the French. In 1429,
Joan of Arc captured the French imagination by announcing that she had been commissioned by God to
drive the English out of France. The country rallied behind Joan, and her forces defeated the English in
central France and brought Charles VII to Rheims, where he became king. Joan was eventually captured
by the Burgundians and handed over to the English, who tried her for heresy and publicly burned her at
the stake in 1431. By 1453, the English had been pushed off of the continent, with the exception of Calais,
which they lost in 1558. Such a protracted struggle resulted in major changes in the French and English
governments as well as long-term consequences for Europe in general:
• The war strengthened the powers of the French crown.
• French kings obtained the rights to collect national taxes and maintain a standing army.
• The war produced political instability in England.
• English taxpayers held Richard II and Henry VI responsible for military failure.
• The War of the Roses was provoked by an aristocratic rebellion against Henry VI.
• With the ascent of the Tudor dynasty in 1509, English royal power was restored.
• Parliament became increasingly important as a mediator between various political communities.
In general, the conflicts of the later Middle Ages put the existence of national monarchies to the test, but
after 1450 they appeared to be stronger than ever. At the same time, Russia was also consolidating its
power. But Russia was not like any Western nation-state; it was becoming an Eastern-style empire. There
are four major reasons why Russia’s history is quite different from that of either France or England:
• The conquest of eastern Slavic states by the Mongols in the thirteenth century had lasting effects on the
whole of Russia for 150 years.
• The defeat of the Mongols by the duchy of Moscow unified much of Russia, but Moscow’s hostility
toward the Latin Christian tradition separated it from western Europe.
• As Poland grew in power, Moscow called upon national and religious sentiments to engage in war with
its rival. Since Poland subscribed to Roman Catholicism, the already-existing religious animosity was
exacerbated.
• Moscow saw itself as the divinely appointed successor to Byzantium after the fall of Constantinople to
the Turks in 1453. This ideology further increased its alienation of western Europe.
Relations between Eastern and Western churches had been tense since 1054, when the two churches split
the over the wording of the Nicene Creed. Eastern Orthodox Russians sympathized with the Byzantines
after the Romans sacked Constantinople in 1204. After the Byzantines submitted to papal authority in
1438, hoping in vain to win military support against the Turkish onslaught, Moscow began to see itself as
both a “second Jerusalem” and the “third Rome.” It was at this time that the Russian ruler took the title of
tsar, which means “caesar.” Under a tsar like Ivan III (1462–1505), Russia moved toward political
autocracy and imperialism, policies it would continue to embrace into the twentieth century.
Philosophy and Literature
We would be inclined to think that the famines, plagues, and wars of the later Middle Ages would have
led to a decline of intellectual thought and cultural experience. However, developments in theology,
philosophy, literature, and the arts reveal quite a different story. In theology and philosophy, the major
problem was a crisis of doubt about man’s ability to comprehend the supernatural. Was it possible for
mankind to know everything? Aquinas argued in the affirmative, that what reason could not explain, faith
would. William of Ockham (c. 1285–1349), an English Franciscan, denied that the existence of God could
be explained apart from scriptural revelation, and he argued God’s freedom to do anything. He wanted
truth, and he found it in a position known as nominalism. The formal logic he employed is evident in his
argument that only individual things, not collectives, are real; therefore, one thing cannot be understood
by means of another. Ockham’s methodology became the most influential philosophical system of the late
Middle Ages:
• It gained widespread adherence in medieval universities.
• Although questions such as, “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” seem absurd now, the
underlying method of his reasoning had significant effects on Western thought.
• Nominalism helped create the foundations for the modern scientific method.
• It encouraged empiricism, the belief that knowledge is derived from experience rather than abstract
reason.
Ockham and the nominalists had clearly opened the door for the appearance of a natural science and
natural philosophy we will encounter during the Scientific Revolution. Similarly, naturalism shows up in
vernacular literature as the attempt to describe things as they really are. The reading public was growing
in numbers. Impatient with philosophical and theological dispute, they instead sought entertainment.
The Italian Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) was a master of vernacular prose fiction. His Decameron,
set against the backdrop of the plague as it entered Florence in 1348, relates one hundred stories about
love, sex, and adventure as told by ten aristocratic young ladies and men. Boccaccio wrote in a colloquial
style and meant to be entertaining; again, the message was to portray men and women as they really are.
Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340–1400) wrote his own collection of stories, The Canterbury Tales. While
Chaucer was also interested in portraying things as they really were, his tales are told from a variety of
points of view—a knight, a miller, a university student (people of all social classes). Both Boccaccio and
Chaucer were masters of literature for their wit, frankness, and profundity.
Christine de Pisan (c. 1364–c. 1430) was a professional writer who actually made her living through
writing, mostly for her patron, King Charles VI of France. Her book, The City of Ladies, written for a
larger audience, is an allegorical defense of the character and nature of women.
Sculpture and Painting
In the sculpture and painting of the later Middle Ages we can also identify the dominant trait of
naturalism, or realism, that we have seen in thought and literature. Artists cont
