th
1300-1450
Age of sorrow and temptation, of tears, jealousy and torment,
Time of exhaustion and damnation, declining to extinction,
Era filled with horror and deception, lying, pride and envy,
Time without honor and meaning, full of life-shortening sadness.
- Eustache Deschamps

1096 – ca. 1272
1. “Re-acquaintance” with Western past
2. Exposure to Eastern goods
3. Accentuated political and religious rivalries
4. Decline of the Byzantine Empire
5. “Jihad”

Hey, lil’ fella
Xenopsylla cheopis

I .
- bubonic, pneumonic, septicemic

1. Nearly all arable land taken
2. “Little” Ice Age ca. 1300 – 1700+

6, 14, 18th centuries
137M
(1/4 - 1/3 of Europe in 1300s - 34M)

2. The Great Leveler
Hans Holbein The Dance of Death the King the Queen the Pope

2. Europe subject to invasion
Mongols - 1400s
Ottoman Turks - 1500 & 1600s

3. Plagues of insurrection
- weakening of social bonds
- persecution
- peasant revolt
Jacquerie 1358
Wat Tyler’s Revolt 1381

Crises of moral authority paves the way for
Renaissance, Reformation.
The Triumph of Death 1562
- Bruegel

1337-1450

1. Angevin Empire
-
Henry & Eleanor 1152
Vassalage v. Nation-state
2. Edward III
1329

3. Manufacturing
- Flemish wool trade

1. English occupation
- soldiers fend for themselves
End of Chivalry

1. Yeomen archers
- Crécy 1346 / Agincourt 1415
2. Battle of Formingy
1450
- gunpowder
Men in armor losing significance

3. Joan of Arc
- Battle of Orleans 1429

Religious controversy and challenges for the Church

1. Urban social orders
- merchants, craftsmen
- “class,” not hereditary obligations
2. Alternative to feudal orders
- tweaking of theology

Aristotelianism
Scholasticism

1. Clement V & Philip IV
1305
- suppression of Knights Templar
- moved papacy to Avignon
“Whore of Babylon”

2. Gregory XI
1378
- Rome, most of Europe wants Italian Pope
- Charles (V) Valois
3. Great (Western) Schism
1378- 1417
- Popes a’plenty
- Council of Constance 1414-17 antiPope John XXIII

1. Worsened by contemporary problems
- papacy in the eyes of both clergy and lay people
2. Opened door for theological and literary challenges to Church hegemony

1. John Wycliffe
1320-1384
- quality of sacrament
- Church authority

2. Jan Hus
1369-1415
- religion and nationalism
- language č š ž

3. Increased threat of Heresy
- Waldensians no authority but the Bible
- Albigensians extreme ascetism
“Heretics” often preached austerity not found in Church, popular w/ peasants
The Inquisition “what a show”

4. William of Ockham
1285-1349
- Argued against Aristotelian theory
must argue from specific to general
Ockham’s razor scientific method

1. Reliance on Latin declines
- expression of cultural, national, religious independence
(Gutenberg press)

2. Dante Alighieri The Divine Comedy
1308-1321 allegory – historical figures, contemporary critique
Redemption of Man – in Italian!
“Abandon hope, all ye who enter here”

3. Geoffrey Chaucer The Canterbury Tales
1342-1400
- middle English
- ribald, low brow comedy, social satire
Wife of Bath

4. Christine de Pizan City of Ladies
1364-1430 a. status of aristocratic women improving b. all levels of patriarchy challenged

Giovanni Boccaccio The Decameron
Juan Ruiz The Book of Good Love
- “Mr. Melon of the Vegetable Garden”