Chapter 10: Late Middle Ages: Crisis and Renewal

Pre-reading

A. Skim and scan the following passage and answer the following questions.

1. What are the features of the Late Middle Ages?

2. What is the significance of the Middle Ages in history?

Reading

The Late Middle Ages, which lasted from about 1300 to about 1450, had many severe crises. Europeans were subjected to famine, disease, and disastrous military conflicts. Yet it was also a period of enormous vitality and advancement in art, literature, and thought. In fact, the dates of the Late Middle Ages are about the same as those of the early Renaissance. Just as there was no precise moment when the Middle Ages began, there was also no clear break between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Starvation became a serious problem in Europe in the 14th century. Until that time, the clearing of forests and marshland for cultivation and new methods of agriculture had kept most people well fed. By about 1300, however, there was no more land to clear, and the existing land, no matter how well it was cultivated, could not support the growing number of people who lived on it. The soil itself had become exhausted after years of continuous cultivation. In 1309 heavy rains ruined crops in part of Germany , causing severe food shortages and starvation. In 1315 another rainy season hurt the people in northwestern Europe . In cities and rural areas alike, food supplies dwindled and people sickened and died.

Already weakened by continued food shortages, the people of Europe were hit especially hard by the arrival of the Black Death. The Black Death was an epidemic of bubonic plague that appeared in Italy in 1348 and spread to the rest of Europe by 1350. Because the plague was transmitted by fleas carried by rodents, it was worst in the cities, where many people lived close together and sanitation was poor. In some cities, the plague killed as many as two-thirds of the population. Every social group suffered, but the rural population and the wealthy, who had less contact with outsiders and who could afford to move to more secluded areas outside the cities, escaped the worst effects. Outbreaks of plague continued throughout the Middle Ages and into the 18th century.

The survivors of the plague had to adjust to new conditions. So many people died that a labor shortage developed. Those who remained tried to bargain for more land and better conditions. City workers also demanded higher pay. While these negotiations were successful in some areas, in others lords and kings were able to maintain the status quo.

In  England  peasants tried to take advantage of the favorable new conditions for workers after the plague, but landlords refused to lower rents or raise wages. In 1381 various groups of peasants joined together to protest taxes and to argue for more equal treatment. English king Richard II met with the rebels and agreed to their demands. As soon as they dispersed, however, he went back on his promise, and many of the peasants were executed ( see Tyler 's Rebellion). Nevertheless, the king was unable to prevent the changes started by the plague from continuing, and serfdom ended in England in the 15th century.

Because the plague destroyed people and not possessions, the drop in population was accompanied by a corresponding increase in per capita wealth. A new type of consumer, who preferred variety and luxury, began to appear in both the towns and the countryside. People who were unsure if they would be alive the next day wanted to spend their money on fine foods and luxuries. Many lords and wealthy merchants built churches and commissioned religious art, partly in thanks for being spared the horrors of the Black Death. Some of the artistic styles that developed in this period were very influential later during the Renaissance. Some historians suggest that the Renaissance was financed by people who invested in culture in hard times.

Times that were already bad in France and England were made worse by the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453). England had held territory for a long time in what is now France . However, the French kings had been constantly trying to extend their influence in the English territories, and the two sides had fought several small skirmishes over the issue. The situation became more complicated in 1327 with the accession of English king Edward III. Edward had a claim to the French throne through his mother's side of the family. When Philip VI of France confiscated the last bit of territory that Edward held on the continent, Edward declared himself the true French king and invaded France .

The Hundred Years' War was fought on French soil and marked the end of chivalry and knightly warfare. Many of the troops involved were mercenaries. When there was a lull in the fighting, they simply hired themselves out to nobles or looted the countryside on their own. Instead of armored knights, the most important troops were the English archers, whose arrows penetrated armor and reduced the effectiveness of knightly cavalry. By the end of the Hundred Years' War, both armies were using guns and cannons. Honorable knightly combat and chivalry were of little importance to the outcome of this war. For a long time it looked as though the English would win, but in the 1420s the tide began to turn. Here and there French peasants banded together to fight the English. In 1429 a peasant girl named Joan of Arc convinced Charles, the heir to the French throne, that she had been sent by God to save France . Joan led the French troops against the English and then escorted Charles to the city of Reims , where he was crowned king as Charles VII. Although Joan was captured and put to death by the English in 1431, her actions marked the turning point of the war. It ended with England 's defeat.

The war affected  France in many ways. During the fighting the French countryside was burned and the cities were plundered. Both peasants and townspeople revolted in protest. In 1358 the peasants rose up against the nobles in a revolt known as the Jacquerie. They blamed the nobles for losing the war and offering them little protection. The peasants burned manor houses and killed noble families. Their revolt was put down with equal savagery. Another effect of the war was that the idea of France as a nation was born. Joan of Arc helped inspire this idea. She saw the English as invaders, and she called upon the French king, as the symbol of all France , to oust them. Before the Hundred Years' War there had been very little national feeling. People identified with their local regions or towns instead. The Hundred Years' War helped change this idea in France . Because the war was fought on French soil, it had little effect on England . Much of it was financed by royal profits in the wool trade, and therefore it did not result in new taxes. Few English knights participated in the war, and when it was over, very little had changed for the average English person.

The Late Middle Ages saw religious conflicts as well. The papacy again became involved in a power struggle with kings. At the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th century, Pope Boniface VIII opposed the kings of France and England . He did not want them to impose taxes on clerics, nor did he want French king Philip IV to try a French bishop in a royal court. Boniface's opposition backfired, however. Kings had become so powerful by the Late Middle Ages that they could assert their rule over everyone within their borders. In 1302 Philip IV called a meeting of the three estates, or classes, of his kingdom: nobles, clerics, and commoners. This meeting supported the king and condemned the pope, showing how a representative institution could serve the interests of the king. The meeting was the beginning of the Estates-General, the first representative body in France . Faced with opposition from all classes of French society, Boniface backed down. Soon after, the papacy moved from Rome to Avignon , a city close to the French border. The next several popes were Frenchmen, and many people began to think that the papacy had become subordinate to France . Papal prestige plummeted as a result, and the papacy was never able to recover fully.

The popes remained in Avignon from 1309 until 1378. Some Europeans called it the Babylonian Captivity, recalling the biblical story of the Jews who were taken from Israel to work as slaves for the Babylonians. Many Christians longed for the pope to return to Rome . Instead, in 1378, they got two popes, one ruling from Avignon and the other from Rome . This scandal, called the Great Schism of rival popes, was made even worse when a third pope was chosen in 1409. The other two did not step down, and so three popes claimed to be head of the church. The schism finally ended in 1417 with the Council of Constance. The council deposed all three popes and elected Martin V, who made Rome his headquarters. See Schism, Great: Schism of Rival Popes.

Some people were discontented not just with the papacy but also with the church and its teachings as a whole. Englishman John Wycliffe, a professor at the University of Oxford , taught that popes and clerics did not make up the church. Instead, Wycliffe claimed that the church was the community of all believers. Wycliffe believed that salvation came through study of the Bible, not through the rituals of priests and bishops. According to him, the king, not the pope, should control church reform. Wycliffe's ideas were extremely popular in England . Some of the peasants in the revolt of 1381 were influenced by him. He had support among the nobles as well, and even many priests adopted his views. Although Wycliffe was not persecuted during his lifetime, his supporters, called Lollards, were condemned as heretics after his death. Many were killed, but others survived, and Lollardy continued into the 16th century.

Some of Wycliffe's ideas also became popular among Czechs in Bohemia . Bohemia was part of the Holy Roman Empire , and it grew rich during the 14th century. It too was hit by famine and plague, and many Czechs revolted under the pressures of hardship. Their protests were largely religious. Led by religious reformer Jan Hus (John Huss), they demanded changes in the church, focusing on the part of the Mass called communion, which involved the ritual consumption of the body and blood of Christ in the form of bread and wine. Over the years, priests had come to take communion in both forms, but ordinary believers were only allowed the bread. Huss's followers, called Hussites, insisted that everyone be allowed to take communion in both bread and wine. This was more than an argument over ritual—it was a demand for equality. Huss was burned at the stake in 1415 and a civil war broke out in Bohemia . Huss's followers were defeated in 1436, but their demand for communion in both forms was granted.

At the same time that Europe was enduring famine, plague, war, and religious dissent, it was also experiencing a new birth of Latin and vernacular literature. In the mid-1300s, the Italian poet Petrarch wrote vernacular love poems and also imitated the great ancient Latin authors. Although at that time all learned people read and most even spoke Latin, the Latin of the church, of Scholasticism, and of the law courts was not the Latin of the ancient Romans; it had changed and grown over the centuries as all languages do. Petrarch loved the language of the ancient Romans, and he spent a great deal of time searching for manuscripts of the old Roman writers and learning their style.

Petrarch was one of the first humanists. He emphasized the second of the liberal arts, rhetoric. He and other humanists absorbed the ideas of the ancient Romans and made them their own. When Florence and Milan went to war in the first half of the 15th century, many Florentines discovered that ancient Roman writers gave them a way to express their own feelings of patriotism. This civic humanism of the Florentines was not simply an exercise in ancient rhetoric, it was an effective way to describe their contemporary political ideas and interests.

Renaissance art also had its roots in the Late Middle Ages. Gothic sculpture had freed human figures to bend, turn, and interact with one another. In the early 1300s the Florentine painter Giotto painted scenes on church walls using figures with a three-dimensional, sculptural feel. Renaissance artists built on Giotto's naturalistic style, emphasizing human interaction and individual emotion.

The word  medieval  is often used today to mean barbaric, ignorant, and backward. It is true that some aspects of the Middle Ages horrify many people today—the ideas of heretics being burned at the stake, mercenary armies on the rampage, and plagues for which there are no cure are not pleasant ones. Yet it is also true that there are similar—and sometimes worse—horrors today. Although the period is often portrayed negatively, the Middle Ages was a time when the precursors of many important modern institutions were created. Medieval universities are the direct ancestors of modern ones. The liberal arts of the Middle Ages remain the core of the arts and sciences programs of today's colleges. The English Parliament that met in London yesterday can trace its origins to the days of Henry III.

Similarly, modern cities grew out of medieval ones. Although ancient cities had existed before the Middle Ages, they had been centers of political and religious life, not centers of commerce. Medieval cities, in contrast, were primarily commercial. They were supported by trade, exchange, production, consumption, and moneymaking. Many of the sorts of businesses that exist today, such as banks and corporations, can trace their ancestry to the Middle Ages. The modern state system of Europe is also at least partly a result of medieval evolution. Even nationalism began in the Middle Ages, as was demonstrated by the Hundred Years' War and Joan of Arc. The seeds of the idea of separation of church and state, so important for the founders of the United States , were planted in the medieval period. After the Gregorian Reform, kings and emperors could not claim power over the church, but they found value and dignity in the state alone. The Founding Fathers of the United States went further, seeing the state as the guarantor and protector for men and women to worship as they please.

It is important, however, to know not only what the Middle Ages produced but also the way in which these things were produced. The Middle Ages was a period in which different groups—Romans, Franks, and Visigoths, for example—mingled, fought, worked together, and changed. Today there are no Romans (other than citizens of the city of Rome ), no Franks, and no Visigoths. As Germans were absorbed into the Roman army and as Romans dealt with them day after day, their cultures changed and merged. Similarly, the history of medieval states shows how they rose, broke apart, and reappeared in new forms. There was no right or wrong form: The Merovingian kingdoms were as much an achievement in their own day as the republic of France is today. Medieval social, economic, and artistic transformations both reflected and provoked creative responses and accommodations. The Black Death provoked conflict that ultimately led to the end of serfdom in England ; Renaissance artists thought they were breaking away from medieval styles even as they drew upon the achievements of Gothic sculptors. The history of the Middle Ages is a story of ceaseless borrowing, adaptation, and change.

Test yourself

1. Multiple Choice

71.  From the 11th century through the 13th century, the West became__.

A.  an important world power

B.  stronger than the Islamic world

C.  more sophisticated than the Byzantine Empire

D.  more prosperous than the Islamic world

72.  The Europeans did all the following except__ from the 11th century on.

A.  reviving old cities to remade their world

B.  building new cities to remade their world

C.  launching defensive wars to remade their world

D.  creating universities to remade their world

73.  In the Central Middle Ages peasants were__.

A.  forced to make new lands

B.  encouraged to make new lands

C.  obliged to cut down forests

D.  forced to pay more dues to landlords

74.  The landlords then preferred __.

A. yearly dues of hens B. yearly dues of eggs

C. yearly dues of farm labor D. a fixed money of rent

75.  Towns then acted more as___.

A. trading centers B. political centers

C. religious spots D. tourist spots

76.  Cities then included anything but_.

A. marketplace B. cathedrals

C. factories D. monasteries

77.•  Guilds in the cities then were__.

A.  religious clubs only B. trade associations only

C. controlling everything D. communities of the craftsmen

78.  Fairs in towns then__.

A,  attracted foreign traders B. were markets only

C. were festivals only D. set up in the open air only

79.  Communes in the 13th century as political and economic bodies__.

A.  were set up in northern Italy only

B.  refer to independent countries

C.  reflect a strong sense of democracy

D.  were made up of the master craftsmen

80.  New schools in the 11th century__.

A.  were run by monasteries

B.  were located in city cathedrals

C.  were to produce monks

D.  were religious

81.  New schools then attracted__.

A.  local teachers only B. local students only

C. teachers all over Europe D. wealthy merchants only

82.  In the 13th century, many schools_.

A.  were organized into universities

B.  gave way to universities

C.  were state-run

D.  were government-funded

83.  In the Carolingian time popes__.

A.  were the heads of church

B.  were regarded as models of piety

C.  opened schools

D.  were the heads of state

84  The chief point of Gregorian reform was to ___.

A.  end the power of emperors

B.  make the church completely independent from the emperors

C.  force the priests to remain single throughout life

D.  allow the priests to marry

85.  The First Crusade was important because __.

A.  it conquered the land of the Muslims

B.  the Pope rescued the Byzantine Empire

C.  it was the first example of European expansionism

D.  the Byzantine Empire defeated the Muslims finally

86.  It was ____who unified England for the first time.

A.  King Edward and his successors

B.  King Arthur and his successors

C.  King William and his successors

D.  King Alfred and his successors

87  1066 marked the__.

A.  defeat of the Vikings

B.  Norman Conquer of England

C.  death of William I

D.  death of Alfred the Great

88.  Magna Carta in 1215 in England was a document that __.

A.  really weakened the power of the church

B.  really weakened the power of the king

C.  spoke for the common people

D.  spoke for the nobles

89  The Spanish monarchy was __.

A.  set up by the Christians B. overcome by the Muslims

C. set up by the Muslims D. overcome by the Jews

90  Romanesque style appeared_.

A.  earlier than Gothic style B. later than Gothic style

C. higher and lighter D. more mysterious

91.  Monasteries were made rich by__.

A.  the hardworking monks B. the powerful monks

C. the kings D. the kings and nobles

92.  Which of the following is Not true about monasteries?

A.  They were self-sufficient units

B.  Monks in the monastery slept in the same dormitory

C.  Monks did not have to work in the fields at all

D.  All monks lived according to a rule that governed their daily routine

93.  The Fourth Crusade in the 13th century was in fact__.

A.  an armed pilgrimage for Christian purpose

B.  turned into a siege of a Christian city

C.  a war that helped defend the regions in the Holy Land conquered by Europeans

D.  defeated by the Muslims

94.  Before the First Crusade, Jews__.

A.  lived in the monasteries B. lived in the cities

C. were forced into the cities D. were forced out of the cities

95.  Jews in the cities were good at__.

A. doing business B. borrowing money

C. craftsmanship D. farming

96.  Jews in the cities were__.

A.  converted to Christianity B. converted to Islam

C. admired by Christians D. persecuted by Christians

97.  ___ were regarded as heretics.

A.  Those who believed in God

B.  Those who did not believe in Christianity

C.  Jews only

D.  Muslims only

98.  The Late Middle Ages almost at the same time__.

A.  began with the Renaissance

B.  began with the fall of Byzantium

C.  ended with the Renaissance

D.  ended with the disappearance of the Roman Catholic Church

99.  Overgrowth of population in Europe in the Late Middle Ages caused __.

A.  the shortage of cultivated land

B.  the shortage of food supply

C.  the new methods of agriculture

D.  the disastrous change of climate

100.  Black Death caused __.

A.  more harm in the countryside B. no harm in the country

C. more harm in the cities D. no harm in the cities

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