Chapter 9The Late Middle Ages

DiseaseWar Religious

Schism

Preconditions

Cause

Remedies

Impact

Overpopulation;economic depression;

famine; unhealthy conditions

The Bubonic Plague

Preconditions

Cause

Remedies

Impact

Overpopulation;economic depression;

famine; unhealthy conditions

Bacterium in fleas carried by rats on

trade routes

The Bubonic Plague

• Read primary resource on page 295.

• Review questions at top of reading.

Preconditions

Cause

Remedies

Impact

Overpopulation;economic depression;

famine; unhealthy conditions

Bacterium in fleas carried by rats on

trade routes

amulets; flowers; prayer; repentance; flagellants; pleasure; seclusion; flight; Jews

The Bubonic Plague

Preconditions

Cause

Remedies

Impact

Overpopulation;economic depression;

famine; unhealthy conditions

Bacterium in fleas carried by rats on

trade routes

amulets; flowers; prayer; repentance; flagellants; pleasure; seclusion; flight; Jews

2/5 population dead; obsession with death

The Bubonic Plague

Impact – winners and losers

NobilityKing

Church

Commoners

The Bubonic Plague

The Black Death

• Preconditions– overpopulation, economic depression, famine and

bad health

• Causes– caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis carried by

fleas on rats following trade routes; eventually coughing

• Popular Remedies– a catastrophe with no apparent explanation led to

obsession with death• Decameron – contemporary observations of the plague

written by Giovanni Boccaccio

Social and Economic Consequences

• shortage of labor; noble estates decline

• attempt to reverse misfortune landowners create new repressive legislation – leads to peasant revolts

• cities rebound– want for goods leads to high

paying artisan jobs; migration from farms to towns to get jobs

– the Church lost landholdings and political strength but gained new revenue

– conflict in cities between the ruling patriciate and guilds widens to guilds and journeymen as well

• Read page 296.

• Review questions at end of reading.

The Hundred Years’ War and the Rise of National Sentiment

• Hundred Years War – a struggle for national identity and control for territory– may have been started

by the English king Edward III, the grandson of Philip the Fair of France, asserting a claim to the French throne after French king Charles IV died

• French Weaknesses– France was still struggling to make the transition from a

splintered feudal state to a centralized “modern state”– borrowed money from Italian bankers depreciating

currency– English military superiority – discipline and longbow– shrewd English kings

• Three Major Stages of the Hundred Years War

– Reign of Edward III• Major English victories

– capture French king John II the Good at the battle of Poittiers

– France governed by the Estates General led by Etienne Marcel

– Bloody peasant rebellions – the Jacquerie

• Peace of Bretigny-Calais – ended Edward’s vassalage to French thrown and gave English territorial rights in France; Edward renounced claim to French throne

• French Defeat and the Treaty of Troyes

– Richard the II brutally puts down peasant rebellion led by John Ball and Wat Tyler

– War with France resumes when Henry V invades Normandy and takes advantage of French disunity – duchy of Burgundy remains neutral and then sides with British

– Treaty of Troyes – Henry V becomes successor to the throne of France

• Joan of Arc and the War’s conclusion

– Joan of Arc convinces Charles VII that God told her to deliver besieged Orleans from the English• Joan gave France an

enraged sense of national identity and destiny; she was later captured, tortured and executed

– After the duchy of Burgundy made peace with France the English were defeated and left with one coastal enclave in France – Calais

• Impact of the War– France was devastated; French nationalism

awakened– Burgundy was a major political power

– England were forced to developed their clothing industry and found new markets for trade

• Ecclesiastical Breakdown and Revival: The Late Medieval Church– 13th century papacy

• Pope Innocent III created a centralized papal monarchy with a clear political mission; papal political power peaks but spiritual power weakens

– Expanded on the doctrine of papal plentitude of power and on that authority declared saints, disposed of benefices, and created a centralized papal monarchy

• Pope Urban establishes Rota Romana, expands clerical taxation, and expanded the practice of “reservation of benefices”

• the 13th century papacy became a powerful political institution governed by it’s own law and courts, serviced by an efficient bureaucracy and preoccupied with secular goals; this undermined diocesan authority and popular support

• Political fragmentation – French, German and Italian rulers sought to influence papal appointments

• Boniface VIII and Philip the Fair

– Boniface issued the bull, Clericis laicos, which forbade taxation of clergy without papal approval• Edward I of England

responded by denying clergy the right to be heard in a royal court

• Philip the Fair of France forbade the exportation of money from France to Rome – Boniface conceded

• Boniface’s papacy challenged by a rival noble family in Italy

• Boniface challenges the monarchs of Europe

– supporting Scottish resistance in England

– sending a bull, Ausculta fili, to King Philip informing him “God has set popes over kings and kingdoms” in response to Philip arresting Boniface’s Parisian legate, Bernard Saisset

• after a fierce antipapal campaign unleashed by Philip Boniface issues the bull, Unam Sanctam, stating temporal power was “subject” to spiritual power of the Church

• Philip’s chief minister Guillaume de Norgat’s army basically kills Boniface; Papal successors bend to the will of the Philip– The relationship between

church and state tilted in favor of the state; control of religion fell into the hands of the powerful monarchs

• The Avignon Papacy (1309-1377)

– Pope Clement V moves the Curia, papal court, to Avignon in France• Sold indulgences

to raise money; led to the Avignon papacy’s reputation for materialism and political scheming

– Pope John XXII tried to restore papal independence but came into conflict with Emperor Louis IV and the powerful Visconti family of Milan• William of Ockham and

Marsilius of Padua wrote Defender of Peace which argued the pope was a subordinate member of society over which the emperor had supreme authority and temporal peace was the greatest good

– Pope John XXII made the papacy a sophisticated international agency and adjusted it to the European money economy

– Under Benedict XII the papacy became entrenched in Avignon

– Under Clement VI papal policy was in lockstep with the French

– National Opposition to the Avignon Papacy

• Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges – recognized right of French church to elect its’ own clergy, prohibited the payments of annates to Rome, and limited the rights of appeals from French courts to the Curia in Rome

• John Wycliffe and John Huss– Lollards in England looked to the writings of John Wycliffe

to justify their demands; opposed by church and crown• supported the rights of royalty over secular pretensions of popes;

followed Franciscan ideals; believed in personal merit and rank was the true basis of religious authority; challenged papal infallibility, sale of indulgences, authority of scripture and the dogma of transubstantiation

• Accused of the heresy of Donatism – the teaching that the efficacy of the church’s sacraments did not only lie in their true performance, but also depended upon the moral character of the clergy that administered them

– Hussites in Bohemia looked to the writings of John Huss to justify their demands• Supported vernacular translations of the Bible and were

critical traditional ceremonies and superstitious practices

• After Huss’ imprisonment and execution a fierce revolt by militant Hussites (Taborites) erupted led by John Ziska

• The Great Schism (1378-1417) and the Conciliar Movement

– Pope Gregory XI moved the papacy back to Rome ending the “Babylonian Captivity”

– Pope Urban VI is elected pope after Gregory dies and wants to reform the Curia; French King Charles V fears losing influence over Rome and pushes French cardinals to elect a new pope – Clement VII – this begins the Great Schism

– Conciliar Theory of Church Government – fashion a church in which a representative council could effectively regulate the actions of the pope

– Council of Pisa (1409-1410) – deposed of both popes and elected Alexander V; three popes now lay claim to the throne

– Council of Constance (1414-1417) – famous declaration entitled Sacrosancta which the council asserted its supremacy and elected Pope Martin V

– Council of Basel – height of Conciliar government

• Directly negotiated church doctrine with the Hussites and accepted three of their four proposals from their written request Four Articles of Prague

• Pope Pius II issued papal bull Execrabilis condemning appeals to councils

• Consequences – movement towards greater responsibility for the laity and secular government; Papal States now opposed on religious as well as political grounds

• Medieval Russia– Prince Vladimir of Kiev

selects Greek Orthodox as Russian Religion

– Politics and Society• Yaraoslav the Wise – turned

Kiev into a political and cultural center

– After his death Russia divides into three cultural groups – the Great Russians, the White Russians, and the Little Russians

– Social breakdown: freemen (clergy, army officers, boyars or wealthy landowners, landowners and peasants) versus slaves (prisoners of war) and debtors

• Mongol Rule– Golden Horde – part of the vast Mongol Empire in

southern Russia• Religious division between Muslim Mongols and Christian

Russians• Left political and religious institutions in place; new trade

possibilities left Russians with greater prosperity• Grand Duke Dimitri of Moscow defeats Tatar forces at Kulikov

Meadow which marks the beginning of the end of Mongol hegemony

• Ivan III the Great unites Russia with Moscow as it’s capital