Joan of Arc

1. Joan of Arc

2. Sharing Epidemic Disease:the ‘great dying’ Historical Epidemiology • The ‘Little Ice Age’, c. 1300 CE • declining agricultural output • widespread famine --- ability to resist disease decreased Bubonic Plague spreads from south-west China • carried by traders • with Mongols • on animals Yersinia (syn. Pasteurella) pestis

3. What does this do in a society?between ¼ and 1/3 of western Europeans died Social and Economic effects • massive labor shortage • demand for higher wages • population movements • governments attempt to freeze wages, stop serf movements • strong resistance

4. Recovery • secular political power • taxes to rebuild • large armies to police and for ‘diplomacy’ • religious, philosophical traditions • plague as punishment against individuals against ‘outside’ groups like Mongols • Justification for right to rule: China’s ‘Mandate of Heaven’ India’s ‘Akbar is God’ divine right of kingship • humanist traditions: human kind’s place on earth

5. Recovery in Western Europe: State Building and Beyond • China: centralized Empire • Europe: regional states taelof silver • Europe develops new taxes – how and why? • Italian states: bonds • France: salt tax • England: hearth tax, head tax plow tax • large standing armies • French Louis XI (r.1461-1483) • standing army of 15,000

6. Why the need for large standing armies? Sipahi cavalry of the Ottoman ‘Moorish’ architecture in Cordoba, Spain forces (service for tîmâr)

7. Beyond brute force: A. The Renaissance – 14C-16C • a ‘re-discovery’ of classical culture • perspective; human anatomy and musculature Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) • architecture: domed cathedrals B. Humanists • literature, history, moral philosophy • deeply devoted to Christianity Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) critical Greek-Latin edition of NT • rediscovery of classical Latin texts, often ignored in monastic libraries • rejection of monastic lifestyle: morally virtuous life engaged in the world • reconciliation of Christianity with rapidly changing European society

8. European Exploration in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans Portuguese early leaders in Atlantic exploration motives:

9. Colonization of the Atlantic Islands • Ceuta, north Africa • Madeiras • Azores Islands • geopolitical value, and • investments in sugarcane plantations • further exploration of west African coast: geopolitical discover cheap labour; but class trumps race initially

11. Indian Ocean Trade – only the beginning 1488 Bartolomeu Dias around Cape of Good Hope 1497-1499 Vasco de Gama to India and back A naus – ship style of the Gabriel ‘May the Devil take thee! What brought you hither?’

12. Conclusion: In order to understand any event, period, development: Know the motives of the sides involved what at that time is shaping their choices? economic political beliefs push of restraints and pull of possibilities Be specific in terms of chronology Don’t tell a story, organize an argument [ie there should be a ‘because’]