The Crisis

of the Late Middle AgesPieter Bruegel, The Triumph of Death (c.1562)

Europe’s Population

Year Population1000 38 million1100 48 million1200 59 million1300 70 million1347 75 million1352 50 million

Source: www.byu.edu/ipt/projects/middleages/LifeTimes/Plague.html

During the Late Middle Ages

http://www.davidmiles.net

The Four

Horsemen

Revelation 6

The 14th CenturyAll of the following were

occurring during the fourteenth century:

• Famine• Black Death• Hundred Years’ War• Peasant Revolts

Great Famine(1315-1322)

• “Little Ice Age”

• Food Shortage–Speculators• Excommunicaton

–Price Controls• Unsuccessful

Bubonic/Pneumonic Plague (a.k.a. “Black Death”)

• c. 1340s• 40% of population dead?

A “Beak Doctor”AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo

Bubonic Plague The Aftermath

• A “golden age” for workers?

– Supply and Demand– Labor Shortage

Hundred Years’ War• 1337-1453 (on and off)• England vs. France• New Weapons– Pike– English Longbow– Battle of Crecy

• The “End of Chivalry”– Battle of Agincourt

• The “Two Finger Salute”• Decline of Feudalism

“War is Hell.”-- William T. Sherman,

1879

ChivalryThe Warrior Code of the Middle Ages

Rich man’s war… Rich man’s fight!

Sir Bors’ Dilemma

Battle of Crécy(1346)

The “End of Chivalry”

Edward IIIKing of England

Outnumbered 3-1?PRIMARY SOURCE: Froissart’s

Chronicles [Excerpt]

Battle of Agincourt(1415)

Henry VKing of England

Outnumbered 3-1?

Battle of Agincourt(1415)

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;Or close the wall up with our English dead.In peace there's nothing so becomes a manAs modest stillness and humility:But when the blast of war blows in our ears,Then imitate the action of the tiger;Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage”-- Shakespeare, Henry V (Act III, Scene I) Henry V

King of England

Outnumbered 3-1?

KEY:EnglishFrenchEnglish Allies

Joan of Arc• 1412-1431• French Peasant /

Mystic• National Hero• TURNING POINT–Of Hundred Years’

War• Heretic and Saint

Change Over Time…

Joan interrogated in her prison cell by Cardinal Winchester. By Hippolyte Delaroche, 1824, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, France.

Joan of Arc became a popular figure in art in the 19th century – for more paintings, see Joan’s Wikipedia page.

Nationalism

English Peasants’ Revolt

(1381)

PRIMARY SOURCE: Froissart’s Chronicles [Excerpt]

English Peasants’ Revolt

(1381)

• Wat Tyler– Leader–Murdered by

London Mayor• Unsuccessful, BUT–Decline of serfdom

in EnglandWat Tyler or St. Paul?