The Late Middle Ages (ch12) Flashcards
What preluded disaster in the first half of the 14th century?
A series of climate changes that led to lower levels of food production caused political and social problems.
What was the climate like from 1000-1300 and between 1300-1450?
The period between 1000-1300 saw warmer than usual climate. By about 1300, the climate became colder and wetter. Historical geographers refer to the period from 1300-1450 as a “little ice age.”
What caused many deaths after the climate became colder and wetter after 1300?
An unusual number of storms brought torrential rains which ruined the wheat, oat, and hay crops that many people and animals depended on. One in four harvests were poor which led to scarcity of food and starvation. Almost all of northern Europe suffered a “Great Famine” from 1315-1322; this caused a huge increase in the price of grain, livestock, and dairy products. Reduced caloric intake increased susceptibility to disease and caused lower productivity, lower output, and higher grain prices because workers had less energy. In Burgundy, France, as much as one-third of the population died.
What disaster occurred after the beginning of the Great Famine?
An epidemic of typhoid fever killed thousands. In 1316, 10 percent of the population of the city of Ypres my have died between May and October alone. In 1318 disease hit cattle and sheep. The international character of trade and commerce at the time meant that disaster in one country had serious implications elsewhere. For example, the infection that attacked English sheep in 1318 caused a sharp decline in wool exports in the following years; without wool, Flemish weavers could not work, and thousands were laid off. Without wool cloth, the businesses of Flemish, Hanseatic, and Italian merchants suffered; unemployment also encouraged people to turn to crime.
Who were used as scapegoats to the issues occurring after 1300?
Starving people focused their anger on the rich, speculators (people who only sold grain when people were desperate and prices were high), and the Jews, who were targeted as creditors fleecing the poor through pawnbroking. The Jews were expelled from France in 1306 and readmitted in 1315. Rumors spread of a plot by Jews and their agents, the lepers, to kill Christians by poisoning the wells; based on “evidence” collected by torture, many lepers and Jews were killed, beaten, or faced with heavy fines.
Were governments successful with solutions to the famines after 1300?
No, almost all reforms made by governments throughout Europe either had only a few positive effects or they completely failed.
Although royal attempts to provide food from abroad were unsuccessful, what did they indicate?
They indicated the improvements of long-distance shipping by the beginning of the 14th century. For example, after 1300, many ships began to sail with three sails rather than only one.
How and when did the Black Death first spread?
The Black Death first emerged in western Europe in 1347. It mostly spread through rats and flees on ships at first. These animals could survive for months on ships.
What was the mortality rate of the Black Death? What were the most common symptoms? How did it spread so fast?
In the 14th century outbreak in Europe, the Black Death (Yersinia pestis) was especially deadly compared to the 19th century outbreak in China and India. When the bubonic plague first spread to an area it killed as much as one-third of the population. The Black Death also killed about one-third of Europe’s population in its first wave of infection. The first stage of the bubonic plague consisted of a growth the size of a nut or an apple in the armpit, groin, or on the neck which caused agonizing pain; this was called the boil, or bubo (this is why the Black Death is called the bubonic plague). If the bubo was lanced and the pus thoroughly drained, the victim had a chance of recovery. The second stage was the appearance of black spots or blotches caused by bleeding under the skin (this did not give it the name Black Death, which came from the Latin phrase atra mors, meaning “dreadful death”). The final stage involved the victim beginning to cough violently and spit blood; this stage was followed by death in two or three days. The Black Death either spread from rats infected by blood sucking flees biting people or from person to person. The latter occurred through pneumonic transmission (coughing and sneezing).
Who wrote that the plague spread from person to person? What did he say about it?
The Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) described the course of the plague in Florence in the preface to his book of tales, The Decameron, which also identified that the disease spread even through touching something that had been used or touched already by an infected person.
How did people attempt to stop or slow the spread of the plague?
Wealthier people often fled cities for the countryside, but this sometimes spread the plague even faster. Some cities tried shutting their gates to prevent infected people and animals from coming in, which worked in a few cities. They also walled up houses in which there was plague, trying to isolate the healthy from the sick. When the disease struck the town of Salé in Morocco, Ibu Abu Madyan shut in the members of his household with sufficient food and water and allowed no one to enter or leave until the plague had passed; he was completely successful.
Who were the flagellants?
An extremist group who whipped and scourged themselves. They did this because they believed that the Black Death was God’s punishment to humanity; they believed they should punish themselves to slow down the Black Death.
Were people hostile and if so, why?
Yes, people were very hostile towards anyone suspected of carrying the plague; especially pilgrims, travelers, and the homeless.
How did the Black Death affect religion?
A reduction in priests paved the way towards schism in the Catholic Church even before the Reformation.
What countries were involved in the Hundred Years’ War and what were they engaged in before the war?
England and France had engaged in sporadic military hostilities from the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066, and in the middle of the 14th century these became more intense. From 1337-1453, they fought in what was the longest war in European history.
What caused the Hundred Years’ War?
In 1259 France and England signed the Treaty of Paris, in which the English king agreed to become–for himself and his successors–vassal of the French crown for the duchy of Aquitaine. The English claimed Aquitaine as an ancient inheritance. French policy, however, was strongly expansionist, and the French kings resolved to absorb the duchy into the kingdom of France.
In January 1327 Queen Isabella of England, her lover Mortimer, and a group of barons, having deposed and murdered Isabella’s incompetent husband, King Edward II, proclaimed his 15 year old son king as Edward III. Isabella and Mortimer, however, held real power until 1330, when Edward seized the reins of government. In 1328 Charles IV of France, the last surviving son of Philip the Fair, died childless. With him ended the Capetian dynasty. An assembly of French barons, meaning to exclude Isabella and her son Edward III from the French throne, proclaimed that “no woman nor her son could succeed to the French monarchy.” French lawyers defended the position with the claim that the exclusion of women from ruling or passing down the right to rule was part of Salic Law, a 6th century Germanic law code, and that Salic Law was part of French law. They used this argument to argue that Edward should be barred from the throne. This notion became part of French legal tradition until the end of the monarchy in 1789. The barons passed the passed the crown to Philip VI of Valois, a nephew of Philip the Fair.
In 1337 Philip VI of Valois, eager to exercise full French jurisdiction in Aquitaine, confiscated the duchy. Edward III interpreted this action as a gross violation of the treaty of 1259 and as a cause for war. Edward still argued that as Philip the Fair’s eldest directly surviving male descendant, he must assume the title of king of France in order to wield his rightful authority in Aquitaine. In short, Edward rejected the barons’ decision to exclude him from the throne. One reason the war lasted so long was that it became a French civil war, with some barons supporting English monarchs in order to thwart the centralizing goals of the French crown.
Economic factors involving the wool trade and the control of Flemish towns had served as justifications for war between France and England for centuries. The wool trade between England and Flanders served as the cornerstone of both countries’ economies; they were closely interdependent. The Flemish aristocracy was highly sympathetic to the French monarchy in Paris. But the wealth of Flemish merchants and cloth manufacturers depended on English wool, and Flemish burghers strongly supported the claims of
Edward III. The disruption of commerce with England threatened their prosperity.
What did the French and English governments do to the public during the war?
They manipulated public opinion to support their side of the war.
What were people promised during the Hundred Years’ War?
Poor and unemployed knights were promised regular wages. Criminals who enlisted were granted pardons. The great nobles expected to be rewarded with estates. Sometimes soldiers kept loot in a victory.
