Chapter 13 Crisis and Rebirth: Europe in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

1. Chapter 13Crisis and Rebirth: Europe in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

2. Spread of the Black Death 1. The origin of the Black Death was apparently in central Asia. It consisted of three elements: bubonic, pneumonic, and septicaemic plague. The bubonic plague migrated west with the invading Mongols and rodents affected by ecological change. The most active carriers of the plague were the Asian black rats that played host to the fleas that carried the bacillus. Pneumonic plague was a bacterial infection spread to the lungs. It was more deadly than bubonic plague but occurred less frequently. Insects carried rare septicaemic plague that was extremely deadly. The plague apparently arrived in Europe by Genoese merchant ships either from the Middle East or the Crimea, especially Caffa, which disembarked at Messina in Sicily in October 1347. From here it spread across Sicily and then moved northward following the routes of trade. Within a year it had reached England and by the end of 1550 the plague was in the Baltic. 2. Areas that lay outside the major trade routes, such as Bohemia, appear to have been virtually unaffected. 3. The losses from the Plague were astonishing. Florence, Genoa, and Pisa with populations before the plague of nearly 100,000 suffered losses of 50 to 60 percent. In England and northern France perhaps a third of the population died. Farming villages in northern France suffered mortality rates of 30 percent and cities such of Rouen experienced loses of 30 to 40 percent. In Germany and England entire village disappeared. Overall, assessments of those who died range from a quarter to half the population of Europe. This would place the loss at between 19 and 38 million (the total population of Europe at this time is estimated at 75 million). 4. Among those shouldering the blame for the catastrophe were the Jews who were the object of pogroms, especially in Germany. One of the worst was at Strasbourg in 1349. 5. The plague did not end in 1351. There were major outbreaks again in 1361-1362 and 1369 and then recurrences every five or six to ten or twelve years depending upon climatic and ecological conditions for the remainder of the fourteenth and all of the fifteenth centuries. Questions: 1. What was the source of the Black Plague? 2. How was the plague transmitted so rapidly throughout Europe? 3. Why were some areas spared from the ravages of the plague? Spread of the Black Death

3. Black Death and Social Crisis • Famine and Black Death • Famine, 1315-1317 • Bubonic plague • Pneumonic plague • Economic Dislocation and Social Upheaval • Wages • Jacquerie, 1358 • English Peasant’s Revolt, 1381 • Revolt of the ciompi in Florence, 1378 • Family life • Economic recovery

4. Black Death

5. Political Instability and Political Renewal • Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453) • Battle of Crécy, 1346 • Battle of Agincourt, 1415 • Joan of Arc, 1429-1431 • Political conflict and instability • The “New Monarchies” • France • England • Spain • Holy Roman Empire • Eastern Europe

6. The Italian States in the Fifteenth Century 1. Due to the transfer of the papacy to Avignon (1309-1377), control over the PapalStates was nominal. Used to their advantage, several territories and cities achieved independence from papal authority. 2. Italian cities, especially Genoa, Venice and Pisa, enjoyed considerable economic success after the Crusades. The trade of Venice extended to England and the Netherlands where it competed with the Hanseatic League of northern Germany. Venice lost its advantage in northern Europe when all of Italy was hard hit by the plague. 3. After the plague, shortages of workers led the Italians to introduce slavery on a large scale. Florence and Venice became major slave importers, but Venice controlled the trade. By the end of the fifteenth century, however, slavery was in decline. 4. Florence was governed by a merchant oligarchy that maintained the appearance of a republic. In 1434 the oligarchy was taken over by Cosimo de' Medici who continued the facade of a republic. Likewise, Venice was a republic in name but run by an oligarchy of merchant-aristocrats. The Republic of Milan was ruled by the Sforza family. 5. Florence was a center of wool production. The Medici family expanded from cloth production into commerce and banking. Soon the family became the greatest banking house in Europe with numerous branches throughout the continent. 6. Humanism was best received in Florence where it came to be tied to Florentine civic spirit and pride. Spreading beyond Florence, it reflected the values of an urban society, especially concern over government. A humanist school focusing on the liberal arts was established at Mantua, in the Duchy of Modena, in 1423. 7. The expansion of Venice at the end of the fourteenth century was an effort to protect its food supply and overland trade routes. This scared Milan and Florence who feared Venetian growth was a sign of the future. Such fears ultimately led the Italian states to agree to the Peace of Lodi in 1454 that sought to maintain a balance of power. 8. The beginning of the end for the Italian Renaissance came in 1494 when Milan invited France to intervene in the problems it was having with Naples (under Spanish control). When Naples was occupied the other city-states turned to Spain for help. For the next three decades Italy was a battleground for the two powers. Eventually Spain emerged victorious. Question: 1. Why was the Renaissance centered in Italy? What caused its decay? The Italian States in the Fifteenth Century

7. The Ottoman Turks and end of the Byzantine Empire • Italian states • Milan, Venice, Florence, and Urbino • Role of women • Machiavelli, The Prince • The Decline of the Christian Church • Boniface VIII (1294-1303), Unam Sanctam, 1302 • King Philip IV of France (1285-1314), Avignon, 1305-1378 • Great Schism • Pope Urban VI (1378-1389) • Pope Clement VII (1378-1409) • Council of Pisa, 1409 • Council of Constance, 1414-1418 • Pope Martin V (1417-1431)

8. Europe, the Near East, and North Africa in the Renaissance 1. By 1438 the position of Holy Roman Emperor was held by the Habsburg family that possessed lands along the Danube, collectively called Austria. Maximilien I (1493-1519) of the Habsburgs married Mary of Burgundy in 1477 thereby bringing to Austria parts of Bohemia and Hungary, lands in east central France (Franche-Comte and Luxembourg), and a large part of the Low Countries. 2. A monarchical union was created in Spain when Ferdinand of Aragon (1479-1516) and Isabella of Castile (1479-1505) were married in 1469. Their aggressiveness was responsible for the expulsion of the Muslims from Granada and the conquest of Navarre. Moreover, the marriage of their daughter Joanna to Philip of Burgundy made it possible for their son Charles to inherit a unified Spain, its New World possessions, the Italian possessions of Sicily, Sardinia, and Kingdom of Naples. In addition, Charles would gain from his grandfather, Maximilien I of Austria, southern Germany and Austria and from his grandmother, Mary of Burgundy, the Low Countries and Franche-Comte. 3. Louis XI of France (1461-83) was consumed by a feud with the dukes of Burgundy who had established the wealthiest principality of Europe. When Duke Charles II was killed in the battle of Nancy in 1477, he left no heirs. In 1482 Louis successfully pressed his claim to Burgundy, Picardy, and the Boulonnais. These gains in addition to the acquisition of Anjou and the French segment of Bar in 1480, Maine, the kingdom of Provence, and Brittany gave France borders similar to those of today. 4. In eastern Europe, consolidation of territory was complicated by the struggles between monarchs and the nobility. In Russia (Principality of Moscow) , however, a new state was born by 1480 as a result of Ivan III (1462-1505) taking advantage of the dissension among the Mongols. This was followed by annexation of the lands of Lithuania-Poland and the territories around Kiev and Smolensk. 5. In 1453 the Byzantine Empire disappeared as Constantinople fell to the Ottomans. Questions: 1. Why was the Renaissance centered in Italy? 2. What caused the decay of the Renaissance? Europe, the Near East, and North Africa in the Renaissance

9. Heresy and Reform • John Hus (1374-1415) • Council of Constance, 1414-1418 • Renaissance papacy • Italian Renaissance • Characteristics • Social change • Nobility • Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier • Peasants and townspeople • Family and Marriage

10. Renaissance Centers 1. As part of the Carolingian Renaissance, several cathedral schools and libraries were established throughout the Charlemagne’s Empire. There were only twenty such schools in 900 but by 1100 there were at least two hundred. The primary purpose of these was the education of priests. 2. The first European university was at Bologna that became a center for the study of law. The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa recognized it with a charter in 1158. The university was governed by a guild of students. Other law schools developed at Montpelier and Orleans in France and Oxford in England. 3. In southern Italy at Salerno the first school of medicine was established. The scholars here were able to draw from the medical heritage of both Islam and Byzantium. 4. In northern Europe the University of Paris became the first recognized university. In 1200 Philip Augustus accorded formal recognition. The first teachers at the university received their licenses to teach from the cathedral school at Notre Dame. By the thirteenth century there were about 7,000 students at the university. 5. A number of students and masters left Paris and started their own university at Oxford, England, in 1208. Likewise, CambridgeUniversity was formed in 1209 when students and masters left Oxford. 6. The first university on German soil was established in 1385 at Heidelberg. 7. Medieval philosophers drew nourishment from the translations coming from Spain and Sicily where the Islamic world was already acquainted with the Greek and Roman writers. Toledo was a center for the translation of works from Arabic to Latin. Questions: 1. What role did Charlemagne play in the preservation and the transmission of knowledge? 2. How were new universities formed? Map 13.4 Renaissance Centers (have map that has legend minus “Date founded” legend entry)

11. Intellectual Renaissance in Italy • Humanism • Petrarch (1304-1374) • Leonardo Bruni (1370-1444) • Humanism and Philosophy • Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), Neoplatonism • Renaissance Hermeticism • Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) • Education • Vittorino da Feltre (1378-1446) • Pietro Paolo Vergerio (1370-1444)

12. Vernacular Literature • Dante (1265-1321) • Divine Comedy • Geoffrey Chaucer • The Canterbury Tales • Printing • Johannes Gutenberg, 1455 • The Arts • Masaccio (1401-1428) • Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) • Raphael (1483-1520) • Michelangelo (1475-1564) • Northern Artistic Renaissance