The Fourteenth Century

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• The Fourteenth Century
• Death, Destruction, Decline
• (Spielvogel, chapter 11)

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Plague background for Canterbury Tales

• to Canterbury they wende,
• The holy blissful martir to seke,
• That them hath holpen, whan that they were
  seeke
• (From the General Prologue of the Canterbury
  Tales)

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The Fourteenth CenturyDeath, Destruction, Decline

• Famine Plague
• Poverty Revolt
• War
• Spiritual Decline

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Famine Plague

• 1315 rainy, frigid, famine (N. Europe)
• 1347-51 (Plague with repeated outbreaks map)
• Number dead 30? 60? (regional variations)
• Religious orders hit hard
• Entire villages wiped out

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Reactions to Consequences of Plague

• Penance
• Self-flagellation
• Indulge (cf. Boccaccio Decameron)
• Anti-Semitism
• Economic Consequences

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Flagellants (outline)

• These new groups of flagellants appeared first in
  Hungary and Germany and then spread throughout
  the rest of northern Europe. They held
  processions through towns that lasted for as long
  as 33 days, each day representing one year in the
  life of Jesus Christ. These processions varied in
  size from just a handful of people to perhaps
  thousands in the largest processions.
• Flagellants traveled as a group and were led by a
  cleric. They went from town to town and at each
  stop, after a short sermon by the leader, the
  penitents would whip or flog themselves before
  moving on to the next town. Town officials were
  suspicious of these religious enthusiasts towns
  in southern France and the Low Countries
  eventually closed their gates to these people,
  and the groups were forced to disband.

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Anti-semitism plague (outline)

• The town-council of Strasbourg which wanted to
  save the Jews was deposed on the 9th-10th of
  February, and the new council gave in to the mob,
  who then arrested the Jews on Friday, the 13th.
  On Saturday - that was St. Valentine's Day-they
  burnt the Jews on a wooden platform in their
  cemetery. There were about two thousand people of
  them. Those who wanted to baptize themselves were
  spared. Some say that about a thousand accepted
  baptism. Many small children were taken out of
  the fire and baptized against the will of their
  fathers and mothers
• Confession of Agimet This was done after public
  rumor had become current and a strong clamor had
  arisen because of the poison put by them into the
  wells, springs, and other things which the
  Christians use-demanding that they die, that they
  are able to be found guilty and, therefore, that
  they should be punished. Hence this their
  confession made in the presence of a great many
  trustworthy persons.

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Map of Black Death (outline)
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Economic Stress from Plague

• Labor shortage
• Less demand for goods
• Fewer rentors

EFFECTS OF HIGH MORTALITY

• Higher wages
• Lower prices
• Lower rents/profits

ECONOMIC EFFECTS
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Consequence Revolts

• Jacquerie (1358) violent reaction
• English Peasants Revolt (1381) from sense of
  empowerment

(general outline)
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Hundred Years War 1337-1453

• Edward III, Philip VI start
• 1337-1453 intermittent
• Gascony as pretext
• Soldiers or criminals?
• Henry V starts it again (1415)
• Joan of Arc (1429-31) competing French factions
  (Orleanists Burgundians)

Joan of Arc image
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Hundred Years War(outline)-Final Phase
1422-1453
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SPIRITUAL DECLINEstart with Boniface VIII
(1294-1303)

• Papal claims no longer fit reality
• Unam Sanctam some of loftiest claims
• Philip IV (the Fair) (Capetian dynasty)
  reprimanded on taxing clergy, excommunication
  imminent in turn captures pope, who soon dies -
  Outrage at Anagni
• - Avignon papacy soon begins after that (Clement
  V French pope to Avignon)
• Dante corruption of papacy shows of decline in
  power, prestige, sanctity

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Spiritual Decline Avignon Papacy The Great
Schism

• 1305 - Papacy moves to Avignon
• The Move Clement V listens to Philip IV? (1305)
  
• The Return Gregory XI listens to Catherine?
  (1378)
• The Schism Gregory XIs death begins Schism
  until 1417
• (73 years outside of Rome 39 years of schism)

Palace of the Popes at Avignon
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Popes of Great Schism (1378-1417)(source
wikipedia)http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Sc
hism
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1378 - The Great Schism

• 1378 - after Gregory XI dies
• 39 more years of schism
• over a century of decline?
• Living in luxury seemingly mostly political
• ends with Martin V in 1417

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• The Fourteenth Century
• Death, Destruction, Decline
• Plague
• Poverty Revolt
• War
• Papal Prestige