[Edited Spring 2008]
The Late Middle Ages (1300-1500)

During the High Middle Ages, Western Europe developed one of the most impressive and successful civilizations the world had yet seen.  One might have thought it was a civilization destined to continue essentially unchanged for centuries.  But that's not what happened.  In the 14th century, a series of disasters shook Western European civilization to its foundations, eventually forcing major changes in Europe.

The first disaster to hit Europe was famine.  Some of the agricultural success of the High Middle Ages had been due to improved whether conditions, what's called the Medieval Warm Period (800-1300).  Around 1300, Europe begins to cool off, and there is the beginning of what is called the Little Ice Age.  Bad weather condiditons meant bad harvests, particularly in 1315, 1316, and 1317.   Harvests were so bad farmers ended up eating their  seed corn, and, with no seed to plant, future harvests weren't going to be much good either.  Food shortages led to widespread malnutrition, increased vulnerability to disease, and shorter life expectancy.

Another disaster to hit the Europe at this time: out of control diseases.  The worst of these diseases was the Black Death, a disease that hit around 1348 and, within a couple of years, wiped out 1/3 of Europe's people.

In addition to killing lots of people, the Black Death had a lasting very negative effect on medicince.  The Black Death was really three different diseases: Bubonic, Pneumonic, and Septacemic Plague.  Each form was spread in a different way: the first via rats and fleas, the second through the air, and the third through exchange of bodily fluids.  No wonder the doctors were mistified!  And, unfortunately, the disease tended to kill the best of the doctors, the ones who cared most about their patients. This opened the door to the medical charlatans, the miracle-cure pushers.  And once that door opens up, it's might hard to close again.

Similar was the affect of the Black Death on religion.  The disease tended to kill off the best of those in religious life, those who cared most for others. The  best priests were killed during black death because they visited the sick, giving the victims the last rights or other spiritual solace.  Their high-level exposure rates meant a great chance that they too would catch the disease and die.  The death of such individuals opened up the door to religious quackery.  Groups like the flagelents travelled from place to place whipping one another, trying to punish themselves so God wouldn't punish them with the Black Death.  And a small love offering from you would help you share in the work--and, hopefully, help you avoid God's wrath as well.

The Black Death also tended to aggravate social tension.  Jews and Christians had, for the most part, gotten along well before the Black Death.  But the Jewish community was not affected as greatly by the Black Death.  A kosher lifestyle is a cleaner lifestyle.  More cleanliness meant fewer rats, fewer fleas, and not as much likelihood of the disease spreading.  Christians didn't understand this.  They thought the Jews were poisoning the wells, and,  to get even they attacked Jews.  This helped lead to lasting antisemitism in Europe.
    
Likewise, people on the margins of society (widows, poor people) became suspect during the Black Death. Thinking that the disease might be brought on by the curse of "witches,"  Europeans began hunting down an exterminating those who they though were trafficking with the devil.  And fear of witches just doesn't go away: it's still around centuries later.
 
In addition, the Black Death had a negative mpact on morality.  The good, helpful people tended to die.  Why bother being good if you were going to die tomorrow anyway?

A third disaster hitting the High Middle Ages was war.  As an example,  the Hundred Years'  War (1337-1453).  This war was fought over who would be king of France.  The English king had a good claim to the throne, but the French nobles preferred a candidate of their own.  This led to a war that couldn't be ended.  The English had the advantage in direct battle do the long bow, but not enough troops to effectively control the country as a whole.  The French knights avoided the direct battles that were disastrous to them, so the English tried to force them to fight be devastating the countryside.  Horrible for the peasants!  In 1415, the battle of Agincourt resulted in another English victory, and, finally, it seemed that France and Engliand would end up ruled by the same king.

But shortly after the death fo Henry V, France Joan or Arc rallies the French, and helps her candidate for King (Charles VII) regain control of a substantal part of France.  Joan is eventually betrayed into the hands of the English who burn her as a witch, but her work survives, and the English never regain the upper hand in France.  The war drifts on until 1453, and it's really hard to find anything good to come out of the 100 plus years of fighting.

[To get a clearer picture of the Hundred Years' War, see Froissart's Chronicles]

Closely associated with the Hundred Years' War, another disaster hitting Europe, peasant revolt.

There were peasant revolts in many places during this period.  A good example: the Jacquerie, a 1358 peasant revolt in France.  Frustrated with the French knight's failure to protect them and tired of nothing but exploitation at the hands of the more privileged, French peasants rose up to exterminate the knights--only to end up slaughtered themselves.

[Here is Froissart's Description of the Jacquerie, a more complete version than I read in class]

There is a certain amount of class tension in all societies, but it's usually manageble.  It's a sick, sick society where class hatreds get as out of control as they do in the Jacquerie.

Making it hard for Europeans to deal with disasters like the above is the fact that Europe at this time did not have the kind of strong leadership it had had earlier. After the death of Philip IV, France has a string of weak, sometimes mentally incompetent, kings.  England has able kings, but they are busy trying to add France to their dominions and don't govern as effectively as they might have.  The power of the Holy Roman Emperors had been broken as a result of disputes with the papacy.  The pope had gone so far as to declare a crusade against one of the last strong emperors, Frederick II (d. 1250), and Frederick had ended up giving up too much of his authority to his nobles. By the 14th century, the emperors were weak--sometimes little more than figureheads.

Even more of a problem for Europe, though, the fact that the popes were in no position to provide spiritual leadership.  The popes made the mistake of moving their center of operations to Avignon in France, and, from 1309-1376, the popes resided in France rather than Italy.  During this period (the Babylonian Capivity of the Papacy or, perhaps better, the period of the Avignon Papacy), the pope seemed a tool of the French king.  Further, while one can make a good case that the bishop of Rome has special authority as the "vicar of Peter,"  there is nothing special about the bishop of Avignon.  By moving out of Rome, the papacy lost considerable claim to authority.

In 1376, the college of cardinals went to Rome to elect a new pope.  They chose an Italian pope, popular with the people of Rome.  But, once in office, the guy turned out to be a reformer--and he started his reform at the top, with the cardinals themselves.  Resenting this, the cardinals claimed they had made a mistake.  They select a different pople, a man more to their liking.  But the first guy won't step down, and so, from 1378 to 1409, there were two popes.  This is the beginnng of the Great Papal Schism, another episode the weakened papal authority.  In 1409, church officials at the Council of Pisa tried to solve the problem by deposing both popes and setting up a third "compromise" pope.  But neither of the other popes would give up their claims, and so for a time there were three popes.  Finally, the council of Constance ended the dispute (1415), but the damage had been done: the popes prestige and influence was permanently weakened.  A real shame for Europe in a period where spiritual leadership was desparately needed.

[Here's one good account of the  Schism.]

[Some of you might find interesting the life of Catherine of Sienna, a key figure in ending the "Captivity," and in trying to end the "Schism."]