The Fourteenth Century: Twilight of the Middle Ages

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The Fourteenth Century Twilight of the Middle
Ages

• -Key Concepts-

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Signs of Change

• Catholic Church losing its authority
• New military weapons, tactics and strategies
• Growing nationalism
• Loosening of social hierarchy

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I. The Black Death (1347-1351)

• Preconditions leading to the Plague
• Dietary and hygienic problems
• Government and Church preconditions
• Origins of the Bubonic Plague
• Contemporary explanations

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I. The Black Death (cont)

• The physiological progression of the disease
• Mortality rates varied
• Contemporary, popular remedies
• Flagellants
• Various forms of escape and relief pursued

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I. The Black Death (cont)

• Deep pessimism and doubt spread all over Europe
• New urban ordinances
• Steep population decline along with increased
  wages for laborers
• Economic and political power of local artisans
  rose

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I. The Black Death (cont)

• Value of noble estates declined
• Aristocratic incomes dropped
• Increase in royal power
• Towns prospered
• Depiction of death in art
• -- The Dance of Death

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I. The Black Death (cont)

• Cheapening of human life
• Persecution of Jews
• Marriage no longer delayed
• Limited employment opportunities for women
• Departure from the Middle Ages?

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II. The Hundred Years War (1337-1453)

• Combatants, length and location of the War
• Causes of the War
• Course of the War
• Differences between the English and French forces
• Battle of Crecy (1346)

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II. The Hundred Years War (cont)

• The Battle of Poitiers (1356)
• Henry V gains the field at Agincourt (1415)
• Background of Joan of Arc
• Joans meeting with the French dauphin

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II. The Hundred Years War (cont)

• Joan is victorious at Orleans (1429)
• Joan provided inspiration and national unity
• Capture, trial and execution of Joan of Arc
• The masculinity of Joans dress and bearing

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II. The Hundred Years War (cont)

• Gunpowder warfare is introduced into Europe
• Development of the English Parliament
• Peasants and non-nobles constituted a new
  infantry
• Departure from the Middle Ages?

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II. The Hundred Years War (cont)

• Superiority of mounted knight undermined by new
  weapons
• Increased nationalism
• Centralization of French monarchy
• Destruction of peasant farmland
• English clothing industry emerges

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III. Appearance of Vernacular Literature

• Dantes Divine Comedy (1321)
• Chaucers Canterbury Tales (1387-1400)
• Vernacular Translations of the Bible
• --John Wycliffe (mid-14th century)

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III. Vernacular Literature (cont)

• --Later John Hus and William Tyndale
• Christine de Pizan (1364-1430)
• --Book of the City of Ladies (1404)
• Departure from the Middle Ages?

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IV. Fur Collar Crime and Peasant Revolts

• Fur Collar Crime
• Factions of nobles develop and the instability of
  European thrones
• -- War of the Roses in England (early 1400s)
• Peasant Revolts flared up in this environment

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IV. Peasant Revolts (cont)

• The Jacquerie (1358--France)
• Wat Tylers Rebellion (1381--England)
• The preaching of John Ball
• Urban Rebellion
• --Ciompi Revolt (1378Florence)
• Departure from Middle Ages?

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V. The Decline of Papal Prestige (cont)

• Increasing resistance against the power of Rome
• Humiliation of Pope Boniface VIII (early 14th
  Century)
• Papal Bull Unam Sanctam (1302)
• The Babylonian Captivity in Avignon (1309-1377)

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V. The Decline of Papal Prestige (cont)

• Indulgences and Purgatory
• Wealth and politics of the Avignon Popes
• The Great Schism (1378-1417)
• The Conciliar Movement
• --Council of Pisa (1409)

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V. The Decline of Papal Prestige (cont)

• Council of Constance (1414)
• Pope Pius II condemns appeals to Councils in 1460
• Results of the Conciliar Movement
• Critique of Papal Power

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V. The Decline of Papal Prestige (cont)

• John of Paris, On Kingly and Papal Power (1302)
• Marsiglios The Defender of the Peace (1324)
• Growing separation of faith and politics
• Departure from the Middle Ages?

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VI. New Inventions and Artistic Patterns

• The mechanical clock (14th Century)
• Time was no longer the province of God or the
  church. It was now controlled by man for his
  profit.
• New kind of realism in art
• --Giotto (1266-1337)

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VII. 14th Century Heresies

• Earlier Heresies
• --Waldensians
• --Albigensians (Cathars)
• Criticisms of the Church
• John Wycliffe (d. 1384England)

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VII. 14th Century Heresies (cont)

• Lollards
• John Hus (d. 1415Bohemia)
• Wycliffe influenced Hus
• Condemned by the Council of Constance
• Departure from the Middle Ages?

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VIII. Rejection of Scholasticism

• Reason and faith are not complementary
• Rejection of scholasticism liberates both reason
  and faith
• William of Ockham (1285-c. 1349England)
• --Empiricist

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VIII. Rejection of Scholasticism (cont)

• Ockhams Razor
• Proclaims unknowability of the divine
• Supports Spiritual Franciscans
• Argues for the autonomy of the secular state
• Departure from the Middle Ages?