Chapter 12 Shannon Kehoe

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Political
• England, Edward II
• Many Baronial conflicts and wars
• Feared food riots/violence
• Condemned speculators, easier than enforcing price controls
• Tried to buy grain abroad, but Baltic had low yields
• French had forbidden grain exports
• Grain in south England was stolen and sold on black market
• Efforts for famine relief FAILED
• 1291, Genoese sailors defeated Morracans, allowed Italy to used Gibralter strait
• Hundred years war (1337-1453)
• England
• 1327
• Queen Isabella + lover Mortimer, and barons overthrew/killed
Edward II
• E II thought to be incompetent
• 15 year old Edward III named king
• Isabella + Mortimer were the real power up to 1330
• France
• 1328
• Last son of Phillip the Friar (Charles the IV) died, had no children
• Isabella (England) was Charles’s sister
• French barons stated that no woman (Isabella) nor her son (Edward
III) would inherit French throne.
• Based argument on Salic Law: Germanic code: says
females or those descended from her can’t inherit offices
• French crown went to Phillip VI of Valois (r. 1328-1350), nephew
of Phillip the Friar
• 1259 treaty of Paris
• France and England signed,
• English king agreed to be vassal of French crown in return for the duchy
of Aquitaine.
• English thought that aquataine was “ancient inheritance”
• 1329 Edward III (eng) paid homage to Phillip VI for Aquitaine
• 1337 Phillip VI confiscated Aquitaine
• Edward III considered it violation of treaty + cause for war
• Ed also thought that as oldest male directly related to Phillip the
friar he should rule France in order rule Aquitaine.
• French vassals began to swear allegiance to Ed III
• Lasted so long because became French civil war
• Flemish (weavers)
• Flanders was fiefdom of France
• Flemish aristocracy sympathized w/ France
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• BUT: Flemish depended on Eng for wool
• Flemish middle class supported Eng
• War threatened business
• Public response/influence
• E and Fr biased public to make more support for war
• England:
• public thought they fought to give Ed III rule of france that had
been taken
• Ed III sent letters to sheriffs describing evilness of French + list of
needed supplies
• Both:
• Had clergy give sermons on patriotism
• Emphasized profit to be made from war
• Emph on how evil other side was
• France:
• Sent peeps to warn towns of invasion/stress need for higher taxes
• All successfully rallied public
• Presented unique opportunities
• poor/unemployed knight were promised wages
• Enlisted criminals given pardons
• Nobles rewarded w/ estates
• If victorious, men could loot
• Effects on gov
• England
• One national assembly
• “stimulated development of English parliament”
• 1250-1450, representative assemblies “flourished”
• Most Rep assemblies declined after 15th century, not England
• Parliament met many times during Ed III reign
• 1341, all non-fuedal levies neede parliament approval
• Prevented king from taxing without Parliament
approval
• France
• Several regional/local assemblies
• No national assembly; threatened king’s power
• Charles VII threatened to punish peeps who proposed a national
assembly
• Very localized
• Peeps thought themselves “Norman” or “Burgundian”, not
“French”
• Promoted nationalistic feelings
• Was fought in the low countries and France mostly
• Random sieges/cavalry raids
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• 1335 French supported Scottish raids into northern England
• Crecy (northern France) 1346
• English used longbows,
• Allowed rapid fire
• Longbow sent 3 arrows for every 1 crossbow bolt
• Used cannon
• Agincourt 1415
• Henry V won even though he was outnumbered
• Joan of Arc
• Major force behind French success
• Was a French peasant girl
• Saved the French monarchy
• Born in1412, Domremy
• Started hearing voices during teens: St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St.
Margaret
• 1428, told her that dauphin (uncrowned King charles VII) had to be
crowned + English had to be forced out of France
• Persuaded king that he was not an illigitamate kid
• Was illiterate
• Cut hair short and dressed like a man
• Orleans
• Arrived April 28, 1429
• May 8, English withdrew (turning point)
• May 18, Charles VII crowned king in Reims (turning point)
• charged w/ witchcraft, condemned as heretic 1431
• Burned at stake in Rouen marketplace
• New trial 1456 “rehabilitated her name”
• 1920, anonized, named a holy maiden
• Second patron saint of France
• War ended 1453, Calais only French city still in English possession
• War was thought to be a means of prosperity, and was therefore looked upon with
favor in the fourteenth and fifteenth century
• Nobility After the Hundred Years War
• Was hurt by inflation
• Turned to “fur collar” crime
• Only nobility allowed to wear miniver fur on collar
• Usually not involve felonies (murder, rape, etc)
• Would extort the weak, corrupt judicial process
• Bands of knights would demand “protection money”, fail to pay=homes
destroyed
• Kidnappings
• Essentially, fur collar crime=terrorism
• To get out of punishment
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• Would intimidate witnesses
• Threatened jurors
• Bribed judges
• Most villains in Robin Hood stories are fur collar criminals
• Peasant revolts, 100 years war
• 1358, heavy taxes in France for War
• France
• Caused uprising: Jaquerie
• Named after fictional farmer Jaques Bonhomme
• Nobles and king had been captured, peasants against having to pay
for the release of peeps that oppressed them
• Peasants joined by artisans, small merchants, parish priests
• 1363-1484 major revolts covered Auvergne
• 1380 revolt in Midi
• 1420 revolt in Lyonnais
• England
• 1381 ≈100,000 peeps , largest revolt in Middle Ages
• Peasants wanted higher wages and fewer obligations to Manor
• 1350 to 1450 believed to be best time for peasants
• Southern coast
• Damaged by War
• Not well protected
• Peeps grew scared/insecure
• “straw that broke camal’s back”-reinstating head tax on adult males
• Caused discontent in 1380
• Caused revolt in 1381
• Rural serfdom gone by 1550
• Revolts not just in England and France, all over Europe
• Spain, Italy
•

Economic
• Huge inflation 1400-1410 in northern Europe
• Grain, livestock, dairy prices rose sharply
• Severe weather made this even worse (known as “the little ice age”)
• Wheat, oat, and hay crops ruined: critical dependence on these by
people/animals
• Urban areas not transport food more than one day away
• Was too costly/difficult
• ¼ harvests likely to be poor
• Great Famine 1315 to 1322
• Reduced caloric intake= weakened immune system so peeps sick more often
(especially among infants, children, and elderly)
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• Working people had less energy= lower productivity and output, but higher grain
prices
• Demographic disaster in France
• Demographics: the statistical characteristics of human populations (as age
or income) used especially to identify markets
• Burgundy ≈ 1/3 of the population died
• Typhoid fever killed thousands shortly after great famine
• 1316- 10% of pop of Ypers city died between May and October
• 1318- disease hit livestock
• 1321- another bad harvest= more famine and death
• Languedoc France
• Enjoyed continual land reclamation, steady agricultural expansion, and
enourmous pop growth for 150 years
• 1310 torrential rains= ruined harvest+ bad famine
• 1322 and 1329 more bad harvests
• 1332, peasants survived winter on raw herbs
• 1302-1348, twenty poor harvests occurred
• 1348- black death arrived
• Homes abandoned
• Low countries
• Entire villages would be abandoned
• Increase in homeless peeps
• Poor harvests may have caused later marriages
• Catastrophe in one country could seriously effect trade and other countires, ie:
• English sheep infected (1318), decline in wool exports. Flemish weavers unable
to weave without wool, many laid off. No cloth, so Flemish, Hanseatic, and
Italian merchants suffered.
• Unemployment encouraged crime.
• No effective gov solutions,
• 1314-1328, Phillip the Friar’s Three sons
• Condemned speculators
• Speculators held grain back until peeps desperate and prices high
• Forbid grain to be sold abroad
• Made fishing with traps that caught large amounts of fish illegal
• Very few positive results from the new laws
• Crisis worsened, peeps began to become anxious and paranoid
• Peeps became angry at the rich, speculators, and Jews (who were creditors)
• Jews expelled from France in 1306, but readmitted in 1315, were then allowed to
lend and charge high interest rates.
• England, Edward II (r. 1307-1327)
• Set price controls
• Livestock when disease drove prices up
• Ale (made from barley) because harvests were bad
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• Scandanavia/Baltic countries
• Low cereal harvests, less meat/dairy produced, economic recessions, and lack of
salt created food shortages.
• By 1375, most landlords received revenues close to what they had prior the plague
• Parts of Europe/England were overpopulated before plague, plague restored proper
balance,
• Plague , high mortality rates
• Lowered production
• Goods shortages
• Rise in prices
• Labor shortage plus worker demands for higher wages caused guilds to retaliate
• English Statute for Laborers (1351): tried to freeze salaries/wages at
pre-1347 rates
• Couldn’t be enforced, was unsuccessful
• Wheat, sausage, meat, cheese prices increased
• Inflation continued till end of 14th century
• Wages rose faster than inflation, peeps had higher standard of living
• Increased productivity
• Labor shortages, Slave prices rose sharply
• Hundred years war
• Wool trade and control of Flemish towns prolonged war
• Flemish were weavers
• Wool trade was critical to E and Fr’s economies, all interdependent
• France
• Huge pop loss because of HY war and Plague
• Eng destroyed much of farmland
• “rural economy in shambles”
• England
• Damage concentrated in southern ports
• Black death restored land to labor balance
• Spent more than 5 million pounds on the war
• Tried to raise taxes on wool crop for more $
• Flemish/Italian merchants not afford English wool
• Wool exports dropped during 1350-1450
• Lost more $ than gained
• Local government leaders (knights, sheriffs, etc.) fighting, loss of order
• Babylonian Captivity
• Rome economy based on tourist trade papal court brought + papal court itself
• Very poor when Pope left
•

Religious
• Book of Revelation
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• deals with
• Visions of the end of the world
• Disease
• War
• Famine
• Death
• Was popular part of the bible
• Flanders France lost monks, nuns, and priests due to the Great Famine
• Rumors of Jewish plots
• Thought Jews wanted to poison Christians by getting lepers to poison wells
• Many jews/lepers killed, tortured, beaten, given heavy fines
• Bubonic Plague
• Nuns, priests, monks, etc. would stay to care for sick or bury dead, even after docs
left
• Had HUGE mortality rate
• German clergy after 1350 suffered major loss of personnel
• Such a shortage of priests, 1349 bishop of Bath advised peeps to confess to each
other if they couldn’t confess to a priest
• Travel
• Pilgrimages
• Sometimes used to justify fleeing a city
• Travelers, pilgrims, and homeless distrusted. Treated w/ hostility
• Ragusa (south Croatia, along Dalmatian coast)
• Quarantined ships, crews, passengers, cargoes to make sure not infected
by plague
• Set example, other cities started doing same
• Quarentine: Venetian word; originally meant 40 day isolation
• th
14 century
• Church Offered little support during tough times
• Sometimes added to misery
• 1309-1376, Popes lived in Avignon (southern france),
• Called “The Babylonian Captivity”
• Refers to 70 years when Hebrews held in Mesopotamian Babylon
• Phillip the Friar pushed Pope Clement V for this, wanted more control in church
• Clement mortally ill with cancer, no will to resist
• Damaged Pope’s “prestige”
• Popes concentrated on “bureaucratic matters” instead of spiritual ones
• Italy
• lost stability and good gov, papacy had always been force of gov
• Pope Gregory XI returned papal court to Rome 1377, died shortly after
• Italy DEMAND Italian pope who would stay in Rome
• 2 conclaves, Bartolomeo of Bari unanimously elected
• Took name “Urban VI”
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• Fight for Papal throne
• Urban VI, 1378-1389
• Abolished “simony” (holding more than one church office at a time)
• Good intentions, bad way of achieving them, disastrous reign
• Cardinal’s reactions
• Met in Anagni
• Declared Urban’s election invalid, was made under threats from
Roman mob
• Excommunicated Urban
• Elected cardinal Robert from Geneva
• Took name Clement VII
• Clement VII (r. 1378-1349)
• Was cousin of French King Charles V
• Had two popes at one, Urban VI and Clement VII
• Clement in Avignon
• Urban in Rome
• Was the beginning of the Great Schism, would divide western Christiandom till
1417
• The Great Schism
• With Urban
• England
• With Clement
• Scotland
• France
• Aragon
• Castile
• Portugal
• Italy
• At first, Urban. Urban alienated them, then they sided w/ Clement
• The Conciliar Movement
• Conciliarists
• believed that periodic assemblies or general councils that
represented al of Christians, the church could be reformed
• Believed that, though pope was in charge, power was derived from
Christian peeps and he was supposed to protect them
• Favored balanced form of gov
• Papal authority shared w/ general council
• 1409, cardinals called a council in Pisa
• Both Clement and Urban were thrown out of office
• New pope chosen, but neither Clements nor Urban resigned
• Created a THREE-fold schism
• German emperor Sigismund called council at Constance (1414-1418)
• 3 goals
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• End schism
• Reform church
• Wipe out heresy
• Condemned Czech reformer Jan Hus, was burned at stake
• Deposed all three popes (Urban, Clement, and the new pope chosen in Pisa)
• Elected roman cardinal Colonna
• Took name Martin V
• Martin V (1417-1431)
• Dissolved council
• Nothing done about reform
• Conciliar movement failed
•

Social
• All members of aristocratic family slept in one room
• 6-8 peeps in middle class/poor family slept in one bed, if they had one
• The closeness provided warmth
• Plague
• Florence census 1427-1430
• Had many epidemics since 1347
• Total pop over 260,000
• Over 15% were 60 years or older (high percentage)
• Suggests that plague took the young instead of the old
• Children/youth (up to 19y.o.) 44% of pop
• Adults (25-59) rep 41% of pop
• High mortality rate among craftsmen
• Guilds recruited more members
• Silk merchants
• 1328-1347, accepted 730 members
• 1408-1427 accepted 784
• Marriage
• Premarital conception sometimes deliberate,
• couple wanted to be sure woman could have children before they got
married, children were VERY important
• Mostly arranged marriages
• If parents dead, inheriting son was in charge of deciding
• Had to pay fine to Lord when a woman married
• Lord was losing a worker, wanted compensation
• Banns published on 3 Sundays in a row; if peeps wanted to object to the marriage,
they had time
• Marriage age
• Girls: usually shortly after 16th birthday in 1372; shortly after 21st
birthday in 1470
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• Men: Italy, 1354 not before age 30; 1371, Prato (Italy) average was 24
• Prostitution
• Since men married late, prostitution legal in some places
• Women could make a large amount of money
• Very widespread
• Shows that officials thought prostitution could benefit city, but not that
prostitutes themselves were respected
• Frontiers
• Peeps migrated to escape plague
• English to Scotland and Ireland
• Germans, French, and Flemings to Poland, Bohemia, Hungary
• French to Spain
• Marks of an ethnic group
• Language: could be learned
• Customs: ie, diet, dance, marriage, death rituals; could be adopted
• Laws: could be changed/modified
• Laws in frontiers
• Old inhabitants: lived/subject to old laws
• New inhabitants: lived/subject to laws from their country
• English: disliked Irish
• Very discriminatory against Irish
• Three groups: free, unfree, and the Irish
• 1210- king john set to establish English law/custom in Ireland
• Courts set to model england’s courts, but irish had no access to the courts
• English defendant could ignore and irish plaintiff
• Irish couldn’t make a will
• Irish widow could not claim her “dower rights” (being able to stay
on part of the estate for the rest of her life)
• Murder of an Irishman was not a felony
• Racism
• Was based on blood descent
• Germans migrated into Polish areas
• Met Jakub Swinka (archbishop of Gniezo): he hated Germans
• Called them “dog heads”
• Bishop John of Cracow: jated Polish, wanted to expel all polish, would not
appoint polish to any church office
• 1217: England stated that irsh could not be elected to offices
• Pope disliked
• Not able to be completely enforced
• Intermarriage forbidden in some places
• Recession in mid 13th century, racial tensions expanded
• Language
• England
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• Lower classes used English dialects
• Upper classes spoke French
• Literature/official documents written in French/latin
• Beginning of 14th century vernacular (widespred/national) languages began to be
used both verbally and in literature
• Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
• From aristocratic family in Florence
• His book: Divine Comedy
• Called his “divine comedy” comedic because it was in Italian
instead of Latin, and it’s style was different from tragic Latin
• Later called “divine” because of subject and “Dante’s artistry”
• Allegorical trilogy
• 100 verses, three equal parts (1+33+33+33)
• Each part describes either purgatory, hell, or paradise
• Virgil (roman poet, represents reason) leads Dante through
hell, shows how souls are purified in purgatory. Beatrice,
whom Dante used to love, leads Dante from Purgatory to
paradise. Beatrice is symbol of divine revelation.
• “embodies the psychological tensions of the age”
• Contains some criticism of Church authorities
• Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)
• Son of London wine merchant
• Was an official in Kings Edward III and Richard II administrations
• Wrote poetry for fun
• Wrote Canterbury Tales
• Collection of short, rhymed, stories
• 30 tales form 30 peeps, each on pilgramige to St. Thomas of
Becket shrine in Cantebury.
• Reflects cultural tensions of time
• François Villon (1431-1463)
• Greatest poet of Late medieval France
• Had poor parents
• Got master’s degree in Arts from Paris University, sent by guardian
• “rowdy, and free spirited student”
• “disliked stuffiness of student life”
• 1455, killed man in street fight
• Banished from Paris
• Became part of a band of thieves, formed after 100 years war
• Created poetry in “thieves jargon” for his group
• Lais
• Pun on word “legs” for “legacy”
• Stories of “farcical bequests” (unreasonable requests?) both friends
and enemies
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• “Ballade des Pendus” (ballad of the hanged)
• Was written while in prison
• Greatest work was Grand Testament
• More bequests: legacy to prostitute
• Describes his iron faith in earth’s beauty
• “Definitely modern” because he celebrated humanity
• Christine de Pisan (1363?-1434?)
• Daughter of astrology professor at Bologna
• Large knowledge of greek, latin, French, and Italian literature
• Father and husband died, left w/ 3 small kids and her mother: had to
support all of them
• Earned living by writing
• Livre de la mutacion de fortune
• Biography of king Charles V
• MAJOR historical work
• Ditie
• Celebrates Joan of Arc’s victories
• City of Ladies
• Lists great women of history and how they helped society
• The Book of Three Virtues
• Advice on how to manage household for women of any class
• Avison-Christine
• Autobiography
• Said that a many once told her that educated women were
unattractive because there are very few
• She responded that ignorant men are even less attractive
because there are so many
• Translations
• increased, especially from German to Czech and religious works
• Number of schools in York quadrupled between 1350 and 1500

Intellectual
• Representative assemblies and national literatures emerged between 1300 and 1450
• Italian ships improve
• Early 1300s
• Square rig added to mainmast
• Ships got 3 masts instead of one
• More sails improved speed by using more wind power
• The new design allowed for year round shipping for the FIRST TIME
• Ships always at moving, rats always getting more victims to spread disease.
• Plague (the Black Death)
• Origin: disputed
• Myth 1: plague broke out in Tartar army that was besieging Caffa
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(southern Russia, Crimea). General ordered heads of infected thrown over
city walls to infect Caffa.
• Myth 2: plague broke out in China/central Asia around 1331,
trades/soldiers carried it over caravan routes ‘till 1346 when it reached
Crimea.
• Myth3: plague was endemic in southern russia
• October 1347, Genoese ships brought plague to Messina, spread to sicily.
• Venice and genoa hit in1348
• From port of Pisa, spread to Rome & east Florence and all of Tuscany.
• Late spring, southern Germany infected
• French chased out ship w/ disease from Marseilles, but city already infected.
Spread to Languedoc and Spain.
• June 1348, 2 ships infected England
• 2 bacteriologists, 1 french, 1 japenese
• 1894 identified bacillus that cause the plague (Pasteurella pestis)
• Would live in bloodstream of animal, or stomach of flea.
• Flea lived in rodent hair (sometimes squirrel, usually rat),
sometimes rested in saddlebags
• 2 forms of Black Plauge
• Bubonic
• Flea was the vector (transmitter)
• Pneumonic
• Plague communicated directly from person to person
• th
14 century, urban authorities trying to get cities more sanitary, but not good
enough. Conditions still good for spreading disease.
• Excrement, dead animals, beggars, and extreme overcrowding
• Low personal hygene standards
• Most large cities had bathhouses, no way to know how often normal peeps
used them.
• Lack of hygene plus common, temporary sickness weakened immune
system.
• Fleas/body lice common, from peasant to archbishops
• Symptoms
• Growth the size ofnut or apple in armpit, groin, or neck, called boil or
buba, origin of disease’s name, caused lots of pain. Boil had to be lanced
and THOUROGUHLY drained, then victim might recover.
• Second stage: black spots caused by bleeding beneath skin. This NOT
origin of disease. Latin phrase meaing dreadful death translated to black
death
• Last: victim would cough and spit blood. Signaled the end, death came in
2-3 days
• No compassion, peeps felt horror and disgust
• Doctors could sometimes ease pain, but had no cure
• Most peeps thought plague caused by something bad in the air
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• Peeps eventually thought jew had poisoned chritstian wells.
• Caused thousands of jews to be murdered
• 16,000 in Strasbourg (a city) killed in 1349; thought number might be
slight exaggeration.
• Some Muslims recognized how infectious the plague was in high pop. Density
areas.
• Ibu Abu Madyan of Sale, Morocco isolated himself and his family with
proper provisions till the plague was gone. The entire family remained
unaffected.
• Houses started being constructed w/ brick, but many were wood, clay, and mud:
easy for rat to enter.
• Hospitals
• 30 in Florence, provided 1,000 beds in 1339
• 60 in Paris, 1328; probably not enough (pop was 200,000)
• Rural hospices had 12-15 beds
• Urban hospitals had 25-30 beds
• Very few records, hard to determine how many peeps each hospital served
• Census not exist before plague, can’t determine mortality rates
• Educated guesses at best:
• England: start: 4.2 mil, lost:1.2 mil
• Florence (1347): start:85,000, lost: ½ to 2/3 of pop
• 1349: Vienna, 500-600 dead every day
• Poland was least effected
• Type O blood predominant; historians believe that type O
blood may be immune to bubonic plague
• Last appeared in Marseilles in 1721
• Education
• Number of donations to schools increased
• Many new schools created
• Charles University, Prague (1348)
• Florence University (1350)
• Vienna University (1364)
• Cracow University (1364)
• Heidelberg University (1385)
• Universities before plague had many international students
• Universities during plague, mostly local/national students
• Western Europe during plague
• Improved navigation techniques
• Increased long distance trade
• Allowed grain to be imported from Baltic region (low pop)
• Enforced quarantines
• Worked on developing vaccine
• 1947 american microbiologist discovered vaccine “streptomycin”
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• Marsiglio of Padua
• 1324 published Defensor Pacis (the defender of the peace)
• One of most controversial works of Middle ages
• Argued that church was under state authority
• Thought that church shouldn’t own property
• Believed authority should be with a council made of laymen and church
officials, council should be superior to pope
• Book was condemned by pope
• Was excommunicated
• Was rector of University of Paris
• John Wyclif (ca (1330-1384)
• Said papal claims of temporal power had not basis in Scriptures
• Said scriptures should be only standard of Christian beliefs/practices
• Fought to eliminate worshipping of saints, pilgrimages, pluralism, absenteeism
(continual absence from work)
• Thought that “sincere Christians” should read bible themselves
• Because of Wyclif, first English translation of the bible was made and
spread around
• Thought that every Christian free of sin had lordship
• Idea was grabbed by peasants, used to justify goals in 1381 revolt
• Frowned on by authority, but loved by clerics and lower classes
• Followers called “Lollards”
• means “mumblers of prayers and songs”
• “refers to what they criticized”
• Lollard teachings let women preach
• Women played a big role in Lollard movement
•

Artistic
•