Post Classical Age: 1200-1450
Reorganization of the Post Classical World
Continuity and Change
European Interests turned outward
Organization,
Consolidation
and Migration of
Eurasian Steppe people
Reading Quiz
1. Identify two regions taken by the Mongol
conquests of the 13th C.
2. Identify one factor that contributed to the
decline of Pax Mongolica?
3. How did the development of commerce and
money challenge the feudal system of exchange?
4. Why is the formation of Parliaments and the
Magna Carta important in understanding the
development of the West?
5. What changes were taking place specifically in
Italy in the late Middle Age and why?
Western Europe
High Middle Ages
Moors Invade Europe, 711
Feudal Europe, c. 1200
Spanish Reconquista: 711-1492
Seljuk Turks (Seljuk Sultanate)
• Migrated into Near East 10th Century
• Established role of Sultan as protector of
Abbasid Caliph
• Origins of Ottoman Turks
Pope Urban II Calls the 1st Crusade: 1095
The Western Crusades
Eastern Mediterranean in 11c-12c
Impact of the Crusades
History’s most successful failure…
Trade
Increased Demand for goods- economic growth
Development of business opportunities
Agricultural & commercial revolution
Increased
contact
Exposure to goods & ideas
Reawakening of Classical Age
Scientific Knowledge - Universities
Changing Social & Political
Structure
Breakdown of Feudalism – rise of middle class
Political Consolidation – challenge to the church
Economy of the Medieval World
• After 1000…
Agricultural
Revolution:
iron plows, horse
collar and horse
shoes, cleared
lands, crop rotation,
new crops, warmer
climate
Population
Increases…
 Increased
production &
Specialization
 New Business
Practices
Partnerships,
Credit, Banking
trade & commercial opportunities
new urban areas
Mediterranean trade
North & Baltic sea trade
(Hanseatic League)
Greater urbanization
 River cities
 Italian cities
Hanseatic League: Merchant Guild
New Goods, New Ideas
Or in many cases… old ideas?
How was this new information
received by the educated?
Medieval
Universities
Major
Contributors
St Thomas Aquinas
Albertus Magnus
William of Ockham
Scholasticism
Created in the 13th century by the
introduction of Aristotle's
analytics, metaphysics and natural
philosophy.
 sophisticated logical
methods to resolve
apparent
contradictions
 Students argue from
reason, experience,
and authority (Church)
 Emphasis on dialectical reasoning to
extend knowledge by inference, and
to resolve contradictions.
 deductive reasoning
Medieval Masterpieces
In the vernacular
The Divine Comedy, 1321
Dante Alighieri
The Canterbury Tales end of
14th c , Geoffrey Chaucer
Architecture, Literature & Art
Gothic Cathedrals
Notre Dame
Chartres
Reims
Cologne
Santa Maria del Fiore
Forerunners of the
Renaissance
Emergence of the…
“The Artist”
Giotto
Artistic Development
High Middle Age
Creation of Modern
political Europe
Centralization of power
New Monarchies
Political Developments
England
France
Norman Dukes (descendants 987- death of last Carolingian
of Charlemagne)
Hugh Capet Elected
Battle of Hastings 1066 invasion
William the Conqueror
Domesday Book
1215: Magna Carta
Parliament
Lord with possessions around
Paris
Capetian Kings
Early 1300s centralized French
Territories
Hundred Years War: increased power for both monarchies
100 Years War
Succession crisis over French Throne
Valois (French) - cousin
Plantagenet (English)- nephew
Intermittent fighting in France
Long bow
Use of Canon- gunpowder
Joan of Arc
Outcome
Further Centralization of power – England & France (Tudors AND Valois)
Iberian Peninsula
Reconquista
Muslim States Southern
Christian StatesNorthern
Castile
Aragon
Portugal
FRAGMENTATION CONTINUES
GERMANY
(HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE)
ITALY
Political Developments
Holy Roman Empire
962 German Princes
ELECT Otto of Saxony
Holy Roman Emperor
Expansion & centralization
prevented by Papal
influence
Investiture Controversy
papal/monarch conflict
Italy
BALANCE OF POWER
City States
Venice, Florence, Milan,
Naples
Papal Influence
Mediterranean Trade
Prosperity -More Urban
Middle Ages (600-1450)
Germanic
Invasions &
Kingdoms
476:
Fall of
Rome
9th Century
Invasions,
Feudalism
800:
Charlemagne
crowned
Holy Roman
Emperor
High Middle
Ages
1095:
Pope Urban II
launches 1st
Crusade
CHANGES…
 Growth of Nation-States
and Monarchies
 Breakdown of political
Feudal System
 Growing Economic
complexity
 Changing Social
Structure
 Cultural Development
 Intellectual Curiosity
Characteristics of the High Middle Age
Increased economic opportunities (commercial
revolution), New Monarchs and the development
of nation-states supported breakdown of feudal
social structure by …
• Granting charters and encouraging a merchant
class (mercantilism)
• Staffing government-paid bureaucratic jobs with
new middle class to undercut power of nobles
• Providing protections and opportunities for
peasants no longer tied to land (end of serfdom)
What roadblocks will Western
Europe experience in their quest
towards recovery? What Impact
will these changes have on the
power and prestige of the Church?
Black Death
Environmental Conditions – the Great Famine
Catholic Church in the High Middle Ages
Environmental Factors
Little Ice Age &
The Great Famine
The Black Death- Bubonic
Plague
Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Breughel.
Hans Holbein: Dance of Death
The Plague: Black Death
1/3rd of European Population decimated
Outbreaks: 1348, 1361, 1368, 1371, 1375, 1390, 1405 ---18th Century
The victims ate lunch
with their friends and
dinner with their
ancestors
Boccaccio The Decameron
Economic and Social challenges:
Cities worst-off, villages abandoned
rise in Anti-Semitism
social unrest - rebellion
• Continued agricultural revolution:
forced diversification of
agriculture & development of new
technologies
• Continued trade with greater
demand for luxury goods
Positive
Consequences?
• Fewer laborers, more land:
Lessening power of numerous
noble aristocrats
• Greater need for centralized
power/Monarch and services
• Religious Fanaticism (mystics,
flagellants)- failure of Church
Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse
Albrecht Durer
1378 to 1417: The Great
Western Schism
Papal Complex at Avignon
Gallican Church
Late Medieval Church
• Corruption
– Worldliness,
– simony, pluralism
– sale of indulgences
• Calls for reform
– John Wycliff (Lollards)
– Jan Huss (Hussites)
– Conciliarism
How does the development of the
Western European Nation-state
compare to the prosperous empires
of the West African Sudanic
Empires?
By 1450, Western Europe was set
search out new opportunities to
grow and expand…
Monarchs directing purposeful growth of its nation-states(mercantilism)
Economic prosperity (agriculture, manufacturing, trade)
New Middle Class with excess capital for investment
Rise of the West