Medieval West in Crisis

1300-1500

West in crisis

• 1. Famine and Death• 2. The Eastern Threat• 3. War • 4. Loss in Church and Society

West in crisis

• 1. Famine and Death– 1300: 74 million people in Europe (about 500 million

today)– 1340’s: 52 million– Two major causes: famines (1310-1347) and Black

Death (1348)– Black Death: bubonic plague (Yersinia pestis bacillus)?

Pneumonic plague? Ebola virus?– Travelled quickly; continued to recur in places off and

on through the 17th century

West in crisis

• 2. The Eastern Threat– Mongol invaders and Ottoman Turks

• 1206-1258; Mongols eventually conquer Hungary• Ottomans named for Sultan Osman I (1281-1326); lasted 600

years until 1924• Ottoman empire lasted as dynastic network of personal and

military loyalty (not national, linguistic, ethnic)• Ottoman mission: eliminate polytheism (including trinitarian

Christianity); Constantinople finally falls for the last time in May 1453

• Ottoman invasion and pressure from the Turk reshaped the eastern part of Western Europe

West in crisis

• 3. War – Monarchies strong in the 13th c. were weaker in the 14th.– Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453)

• Fought by English to claim territories in France• English king inherits title “duke of Aquitaine;” therefore vassal

of French king• French king Charles iv +1328; heir apparent is English king

Edward iii (1327-1377), who goes to war for the right to be king of France as well

• All takes place in France; local pitched battles throughout the more than a century (not 100 years of prolonged and extensive warfare)

West in crisis• 3. War

– Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453)• Early English victories• Agincourt 1415 (Henry v): 6000 and longbows versus 20000 and cavalry =

English victory and Henry’s claim to the throne is honored• 1422: Henry v dies; Henry vi (infant) and French king Charles vi’s son

Charles (Dauphin) are competing claims to the throne; a new phase of the War

• 1429 English occupy Paris and invade Orleans; Dauphin Charles is losing when Jeanne d’Arc (1412-1431) comes to the rescue following divine voices

• Charles vii eventually crowned (1429-1461); takes back Aquitaine; geography by 1453 looks much like it does today

• England falls into civil war following this (War of the Roses: 1455-1485)• Result: exhaustion of resources and people, continental warfare, national

split between France and England, makes England more English• Innovations: longbow, infantry, gunpowder = “military revolution”

West in crisis• 4. Loss in Church and Society

– Babylonian Captivity and Great Schism• Strong popes in 12th and 13th century; weak in the 14th • Riots in Rome lead popes to reside in Avignon (France) 1305-1378

(Babylonian Captivity)• The Avignon popes are politicized (vassals of French kings? Money

grubbers (kickbacks, bribes, indulgences)?• Urban vi resides back in Rome (1378); Avignon cardinals elect their

own Avignon popes (Great Schism: 1378-1417): 4 rival popes at one time!

• Splitting the church were political rivalries, not theological differences• Schism ends with the Conciliar movement (= councils); Council of

Constance (1414-1417) restores unity; councils superior to popes

West in crisis

• 4. Loss in Church and Society– Schism results in challenges to papacy• Criticism of sacramental rituals• Englishman John Wycliffe (1320-1384): absolute

authority of Bible (in English instead of Latin)• Bohemian (Czech) Jan Hus (1369-1415): offer chalice to

laity; preached against indulgences• Pave the way for Protestant Reformation in 16th century• Modern Devotion (imitation of Christ): Dutch Brothers

of the Common Life; Thomas à Kempis’ devotional book

West in crisis

• 4. Loss in Church and Society– “We go to sleep as if going to our death, because

we go to our death as if going to sleep.”• Dance of Death• Memento Mori• Last rites• Pilgrimage and purgatory• The pilgrimage in art and literature: the dream-vision

and the journey to the New Jerusalem (Dante 1265-1321, cf. Piers Plowman, Chaucer 1342-1400)

West in crisis

• 4. Loss in Church and Society– Cultural tension• Spain and the “reconquest”: 1248 Spain is essentially

free of Muslims• Surviving Muslims (Mudejars or Moors) and Jews

systematically discriminated against• 100000 Jews expelled and murdered in Spain 1378-

1391• Had been expelled from France and England; find some

refuge in Italy and Poland