101 Lecture 18 April 9 Flashcards
My favorite century! Lots of stuff.
Commonly referred to as the Calamitous 14th century
Begin with Famine and Political Scandal and revolts
Then we get the start of the Hundred Years War, the Black Death, the Great Schism in the Church
Close the century with Peasant Revolts
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- Slide
The Little Ice Age
A time of global cooling begins in 1200s, effecting Artic region first
Temperate and tropic regions begin to cool in the 1300s
Northern regions become noticeably cooler
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- Rainfall decreases globally
Crops decline everywhere
poor harvests and shrinking pasturelands contribute to Mongol decline
famine conditions emerge in many places
urban centers in North America abandoned or relocated
Norse colony in Greenland declines; will disappear in 1400s
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- From 800 to 1300, the total production of Europe had increased steadily. Although there had been local food shortages in which many people died of starvation, the standard of living in Western Europe as a whole had risen even while the population had steadily increased.
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- By the beginning of the 14th century, however, the population had grown to such an extent that the land could provide enough resources to support it only under the best of conditions. There was no longer any margin for crop failures or even harvest shortfalls. At the same time, however, the Western European climate was undergoing a slight change, with cooler and wetter summers and earlier autumn storms. Conditions were no longer optimum for agriculture.
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- there had been famines before, but none with such a large population to feed, and none that persisted for so long.
Slide
A wet Spring in the year 1315 made it impossible to plow all of the fields that were ready for cultivation, and heavy rains rotted some of the seed grain before it could germinate.
The harvest was far smaller than usual, and the food reserves of many families were quickly depleted.
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- People gathered what food they could from the forests: edible roots, plants, grasses, nuts, and bark.
Although many people were badly weakened by malnutrition, the historical evidence suggests that relatively few died.
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- The Spring and Summer of 1316 were cold and wet again, however. Peasant families now had less energy with which to till the land needed for a harvest to make up for the previous shortfall and possessed a much smaller food supply in reserve to sustain them until the next harvest.
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Slide
- By the spring of 1317, all classes of society were suffering, although, as might be expected, the lower classes suffered the most.
Draft animals were slaughtered,
seed grain was eaten,
infants and the younger children were abandoned.
Many of the elderly voluntarily starved themselves to death
Numerous reports of cannibalism
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- Weather normalized summer 1317
about ten to fifteen percent of the population had died from pneumonia, bronchitis, tuberculosis, and other sicknesses that the starving sufferers’ weakness had made fatal, and there were consequently fewer mouths to feed. So Europe was able to recover, although only slowly.
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- It was not until about 1325 that the food supply had returned to a relatively normal state, and population began to increase again.
Europeans were badly shaken however. The death rate had been high, and even nobles and clergy had perished from hunger.
The world now seemed a less stable and “gentle” place than it had before the Great Famine
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- New more violent attitude within the populace.
Seen through the following folk tale: The Mouse Tower of Bingen
Slide
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- The land of the prince-bishop of Bingen, a district on the Rhine river above Cologne, had suffered a severe short-fall in its harvest, and food was in very short supply. Nevertheless, the bishop demanded that everyone pay him their full rents and taxes in money and in kind. He then used the money to buy up what food remained in the market, and stored all of it in the fortress tower in which he lived. He dismissed all of his dependents and servants, and then shut and locked all of the gates and doors to the tower in order to be sure that people would not try to enter and steal the food he had hoarded there. But he need not have worried about that – the people were all gone. They had eaten every blade of grass and every kernel of grain in the land. Some had died, while others had fled and left the bishop as the only living person in Bingen. Just as he was congratulating himself on having been clever enough to have survived the great hunger in comfort, he heard noises outside and at the doors. He rushed to the top of the tower and saw a terrible sight. All of the starving rats and mice from the entire region had smelled the food and were hurrying toward his tower.
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- Just as Europe is recovering from the Famine, a pestilence from the east on its way toward western Europe and, in 1337, the Hundred Years War will erupt (Thursday)
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Slide
- The Great Plagues
Most of Eurasia and North Africa hit with plagues starting in 1320s
Cold, famine, and increased traffic under Mongol rule probably contributed to spread of disease
Bubonic/pneumonic plague seems to have been the main culprit, but other diseases may have been involved
The plague spreads
seems to have started in China in 1320s
spreads across central Asia in 1330s
reaches Middle East in 1340s
hits Europe in 1347-48; here it is known as the “Black Death”
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Slide
- By the 14th century, however, the revival of commerce and trade and the growth of population had altered that situation. There was much more movement of people from place to place within Europe, and European merchants travelled far afield into many more regions from which they could bring home both profitable wares and contagious diseases.
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- Moreover, the diet, housing, and clothing of the average men and women of Western Europe were relatively poor, and a shortage of wood for fuel had made hot water a luxury and personal hygiene substandard.
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- Contrary to popular belief, medieval people actually liked to wash.
They particularly enjoyed soaking in hot tubs and, as late as the mid- thirteenth century, most towns and even villages had public bath houses.
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- The conversion of forest into arable land had reduced the supply of wood, however, and the bath houses began to shut down because of the expense of heating the water.
They tried using coal, but decided that burning coal gave off unhealthy fumes (They were right, by the way) and abandoned the use of the stuff.
By the mid-fourteenth century, only the rich could afford to bathe during the cold Winter months, and most of the population was dirty most of the time, even if they did not enjoy being so
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