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: 14551485) • 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 12651321, 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 13781391 • Had been expelled from France and England; find some refuge in Italy and Poland