Kess Ross
Ap European History
Review of Ch. 13
1340-1492
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1453 Ottoman Turks waged war on Constantinople. This marked the end of the Byzantine
empire.
Sultan Mehmed II renamed the city Istanbul and constructed a new palace.
During the next two centuries the Ottomans took over Balkans and Anatolia by both
negotiations and arms.
They reduced the Byzantine Empire to the city of Constantinople and treated it as a vassal state.
The beginning of the Renaissance began in the middle of the 14th century and ended around the
late 15th century. French word for “rebirth”
Period of discovering new value in ancient, classical culture. New vocabulary was created as well
music and art.
Humanism was a linguistic and literary movement. It was a way to confront the crises and praise
the advances of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries.
Most humanists combined sincere Christian piety with a new appreciation of the pagan past.
The first humanist was Francis Petrarch. He moved around a lot as a boy ending up in the region
of Avignon where he received his earliest schooling. He gave up studying law and devoted
himself to poetry. For Petrarch humanism was a vocation and a calling.
Lauro Quirini wrote on topics of nature of the state and the character of true nobility.
Giovannu Pico della Mirandola wrote the Oration on the Dignity of Man which summed up the
view of humanity : the creative individual, armed only with his or her judgments could choose to
become a boor or an angel.
The Arts were imitations of the admired work in Rome and Athens. Artists and musicians used
both past and present to express the patriotism, religious piety, and prestige of their
benefactors.
Leon Alberti proposed that each building in a city be proportioned to fit harmoniously with all
the others and that city spaces allow for all necessary public activities.
The Birth of Venus was created by Sandro Botticelli.
Perspective by perfected. The illusion of three-dimensional space, to a degree that even classical
antiquity had not anticipated.
Leonardo da Vinci was not only an artist but a military engineer. And created such works as the
Annunciation and the Mona Lisa.
Crisis: Disease, War, and Schism
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1346-1353
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The black plague killed everything in its path but the people who survived benefited
from a better lifestyle. Farms were abandoned and birthrates rose as well as universities
were established.
Began in the region between the Black and Caspian Sea. Known as the “pestilential
disease” by Nicephorus Gregoras. Also known as the bubonic plague.
Symptoms included: early death. Timorous outgrowths at the roots of the thighs and
arms and bleeding ulcerations.
Thought today by historians to have been caused by the bacterium “Yersinia perstis”
Carried by fleas on rats that snuck onto ships holding spices, silk, and porcelain.
By 1347 people began to contract it in the northern edge of the Black Sea. By January
1348 it had arrived in Europe. As well as being spread to the Islamic world.
The plague reoccurred every 10 to 20 years and continued until the eighteenth century.
In Florence , Italy nearly half of the population died but Milan suffered very little and
was only two hundred miles north of Florence. Death toll in Europe is estimated to have
been between one half and two thirds of the entire population. Some historians put the
rate as high as 60 percent.
The plague was so devastating because it took out a population already weakened by
disease and famine. The Great Famine was also followed by smaller famines which were
then followed by outbreaks of disease.
Consequences of the Black Plague
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Quarantines were setup to prevent the intake of other diseases. The Italian city
Pistoia’s government decreed no citizen may go to the city of Pisa of Lucca and no
one from there may enter Pistoia.
“bad air” was thought to bring about the disease so to bring about more sanitation
it was required for “butchers and retailers of meat shall not stable horses or allow
any mud or dung in the shop or other place where they sell meat.”
The archbishop of York in England tried to prevent the disease by ordering that
“devout processions be held every Wednesday and Friday in our cathedral church…
and in every parish church in our city and diocese.”
Others took more extreme measures by taking off their shirts or blouses, lay down
one by one on the church floor, and were whipped. Some people believed they
brought on the plague through their sins so they tried to placate God by carrying
around whips in their hands.
This religious enthusiasm often culminated in violence against the Jews due to
rumors that the Jews had brought on the plague.
In Germany especially thousands of Jews were slaughtered. Many then fled to
Poland which was less affected by the plague but in central Europe however the
persecution continued and impoverished many Jews.
Dance of Death was a theme created that was performed as a subject of art, and
literature. It featured a procession of people of every age, sex, and rank making
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their way to the grave. The art is portrayed as skeletal figures of Death, whirling
about, laughed as they abducted their prey.
Before the plague wheat had been the favored crop before the plague but barley
turned out to be more profitable afterward. Animal products continued to fetch a
high price, and some landlords witched form farming to animal husbandry.
Changes in Agriculture meant better standard of living. Survivors of the plague were
able to negotiate better conditions or higher wages from their landlords or
employers.
Each attack of the plague brought with it a slight jump of birthrate. Due to the
better employment opportunities couples were able to marry at younger ages and
with greater frequency than they had previously.
As the plague ebbed, new local colleges and universities were built to both train a
new generation for priests and partly to satisfy local donors.
Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV chartered a university at Prague. The king of Poland
founded Cracow University, and a Habsburg duke created a university at Vienna.
The Hundred Years’ War, 1337-1453
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Joan of Arc
16 year old peasant girl. Presented herself at the court of the dauphin as the heaven
sent savior of France.
Was questioned extensively questioned and examined to determine if she was indeed a
virgin.
Convinced the French that she had been sent by God when she fought courageously in
the successful battle of Orleans.
A promise to take Paris proved empty and she was captured by the English who tried
her as a witch and burned her at the stake.
Pitted England against France. Since the Norman invasion of England in the eleventh century,
the king of continent. The French kings continually chipped away at it so by the beginning of the
fourteenth century England retained only the area around Bordeaux called Guyenne.
King Philip VI of France declared Guyenne to be his; King Edward III of England, declared himself
king of France in turn.
The war had four phrases: The first three saw the progressive weakening of French power, the
strengthening of England, and the creation of a new kingdom, Burgundy, which for a crucial time
allied itself with England. The fourth phrase, which began when King Henry V of England invaded
France and achieved a great victory at the battle of Agincourt in 1415, ended in a complete
reversal and the ousting of the English from the continent for good.
Both the English and French hired mercenaries from Germany, Switzerland, and the
Netherlands; the best crossbowmen came from Genoa. Since the economies of England and
Flanders were interdependent, with England exporting the wool that Flemish workers turned
into cloth, it was inevitable that Flanders would be drawn into the conflict. Once the war broke
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out Flemish townsmen allied with the England against their count, who supported the French
king.
The duchy of Burgundy became involved in the war as well when the marriage of the heiress to
Flanders and to the duke of Burgundy in 1369 created a new powerful state.
In 1474 Swiss soldiers defeated the Burgundians on the battlefield. This was the beginning of the
end of the Burgundian state.
During this war the code of war changed. Chivalry became the medieval code of refinement, fair
play, and piety followed by knights on horseback.
Jean Froissart wrote about the Hundred Years’ War to be a chivalric adventure. He described
the knights like the Englishman Walter de Manny who was so eager to show off his prowess that
he privately gathered a group of followers and attacked the French town of Mortagne to fulfill a
vow made “in the hearing of ladies and lords that,’ if a was breaks out,…I’ll be the first to arm
myself and capture a castle or town in the kingdom of France.”
The soldiers of the Hundred Years’ War were primarily mercenaries: men who fought for pay
and plunder, heedless of the king for whom they were supposed to be fighting.
The idealic chivalric knight fought on horseback with other armed horsemen. But in the Hundred
Years’ War, foot soldiers and archers were far more important than swordsmen. The French
tended to use crossbows, whose heavy, deadly arrows were released by a mechanism that even
a townsman could master. The English employed longbows, which could shoot five arrows for
every one launched on the crossbow.
Moreover, the army was becoming more professional and centralized. In the 1440s the French
king created a permanent army of mounted soldiers. He paid them a wage and subjected them
to regular inspection.
Tylers Rebellion
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Started as an uprising in much of southern and central England when royal agents tried
to collect poll taxes to finance the Hundred Years’ War. Refusing to pay and to be
arrested, the commons rose up in rebellion.
They then marched to London to see the king, whom they professed to support, they
began to make a more radical demand: an end to serfdom in England had been
sounded.
The rebellion was put down and its leaders executed.
The Great Schism 1378-1417
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The move of the papacy from Rome to Avignon in 1309 had caused an outcry,
especially among Italians, distraught by the election of French popes and
anxious to see the papacy return to Rome.
Marsilius of Padua, a physician and lawyer by training, argued in the Defender
Of the Peace that the source of all power lay with the people.
Christians themselves formed the church and that the pope should be elected
by a general council representing all Christians.
William of Ockham , one of the most eminent theologians of his age believed
that church power derived from the congregation of the faithful, both laity and
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clergy, not from the pope or church council. Rejecting the confident synthesis of
Christian doctrine and Aristotelian philosophy by Thomas Aquinas. He also
believed that universal concepts had no reality in nature but instead existed
only as mere representations, names in the mind- a philosophy that came to be
called nominalism.
Ockham was then imprisoned by Pope John XXII for heresy in 1328, which he
then escaped from that same year and found refuge with Emperor Louis of
Bavaria.
Pope Gregory XI left Avignon to return to Rome in 1377.
When he returned to Rome the Romans were determined to never lose the
papacy again. Once the time came to elect Gregory’s successor, the popolo ,
who controlled the city, demanded that a Roman be elected.
Urban VI was chosen but greatly reduced the power and riches of the cardinals
and was then called to resign. When he refused they elected a Frenchman as
pope; He took the name Clement VII and moved his court to Avignon
The king of France supported Clement but the king of England supported Urban.
All of Europe was drawn into the dispute over who was the true Pope.
The Council of Constance met to resolve the papal crisis as well as institute
church reforms. The delegates deposed John XXIII and accepted the resignation
of the pope at Rome. The council then elected Martin V, who was recognized as
pope by every important ruler of Europe. This ended the Great Schism
New Forms of Piety and Heresies
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The plenary indulgence – full of forgiveness of sins which had originally been
offered to crusaders who died while fighting for a cause- was now offered to
those who made a pilgrimage to Rome and other designated holy places
during declared the Holy Years.
In England the Lollards were inspired by the Oxford scholar John Wycliffe,
who came to believe that the true church was the community of believers
rather than the clerical hierarchy.
After Wycliffes death the Lollards were persecuted in England but groups of
them remained underground, to reemerge with the coming of the
Reformation there.
The Bohemian Hussites had greater success. Their central demand was that
the faithful receive not just the bread but also the wine at mass.
Their leader Hus was declared a heretic and burned at the stake.
 Consolidating Power
 The shape of Europe changed during the period 1340-1492. The
Holy Roman Empire moved to Prague and the duke of Lithuania
married the queen of Poland.
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In the eastern half of the Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia had gained
new status as the seat of Luxembourg imperial dynasty. This
development bred a religious and political crisis when the Hussites
clashed with Sigismund.
Most of Europe considered Bohemia a heretic state.
Farther north it was the cities rather than the landed nobility that
held power. The most successful alliance of this was the Hanseatic
League. A loose federation of mainly north German cities formed to
protect their mutual interests in defense and trade and art.
The League linked the British Isles, France, Russia, Norway, and even
the cities of Italy. When threatened by rival powers in Denmark and
Norway in 1367-1370, the league waged war and won the peace.
Four powerful states dominated western Europe.
Spain : Isabella and Ferdinand married in 1469 and restored law and
order in the decades that followed.
Burgundy: Expanded its power rapidly by acquiring land primarily in
the Netherlands.
France: Louis XI expanded its territory and consolidated its power.
England: The War of the Roses ended with Henry VII as the victor.
The economy continued to grow during the fifteenth century. The
cloth industry expanded considerably.
The republic of Venice built on a lagoon became one of the most
sought after trading spots. The Peace of Lodi confirmed its status as
a power on land as well as on sea.
Florence was ruled by the powerful Medici family who drew their
power from the banks.