End of the Middle Ages

More food =

Population blew up from 38 to 74 million in only 300 years.

Wind mills.

Transition from two-field to three-field system.

Three-field system

Beginning of the end

Fleas on Rats

Black Death

Yersinia pertis bacterium.

This bacteria was moved around through fleas on rats.

These rats found theirway onto trade ships and entered through the ports of Italy.

Black Death

In the span of four years, about 40 million people were killed.

Society fell apart.

People turned to the single logical explanation.

Symptoms "The symptoms were not the same,…where

a gush of blood from the nose was the plain sign of inevitable death; but it began both in men and women with certain swellings in the groin or under the armpit. They grew to the size of a small apple or an egg, more or less, and were called tumours. In a short space of time these tumours moved to all over the body. Soon after this the symptoms changed and black or purple spots appeared on the arms or thighs or any other part of the body. These spots were a certain sign of death, just as the original tumour had been and still remained.

Breakdown of society "One citizen avoided another, hardly any

neighbour troubled about others, relatives never or hardly ever visited each other. Moreover, such terror was struck into the hearts of men and women by this calamity, that brother abandoned brother, and the uncle his nephew, and the sister her brother, and very often the wife her husband. What is even worse and nearly incredible is that fathers and mothers refused to see and tend their children, as if they had not been theirs.

Anti-Semitism

People began to blame the disease on the people’s sins and work of the devil.

The society built a hate for Jews (Anti- Semitism).

Jewish people were seen as the cause of all the suffering and must be removed from the Holy Land.

Decline of the church

The church is almighty , power, and influences everything.

There was issues between King Phillip IV and Pope Boniface VIII.

This was a period when there was two popes. One in Italy, another in France.

In 1378, there was a period which is referred to as the Great Schism.

Each new pope said the other one was an antichrist.

Eventually people lost trust in the church.

The Crusades

Black Death

Decline of the Church

The Hundred Years’ War

Decline of M.A.

Hundred Years’ War

England had a territory in France. One day King Philip VI of France

ordered that territory to be taken back.

King Edward III of England saw it as a declaration of war.

Important war because: Long bows were introduced. War was won by peasant foot soldiers,

not knights.

Joan of Arc

1412-1431 At the age of 14, she envisioned one

of God’s angels. She then persuaded the court of

Charles to allow her to lead an army. She gave the French army a boost of

confidence and the belief that God was on their side.

Joan of Arc was imprisoned, then captured by the English.

She was tried as a witch, and burnt at a stake.