late medieval crisis and fracture

1. The Late Middle Ages Crisis and Disintegration in the Fourteenth Century

2. A Time of Troubles: Black Death and Social Crisis • Famine and Population • “Little Ice Age” • The Great Famine (1315 – 1317) • Population outstripping resources by 1300 • The Black Death: From Asia to Europe • Role of the Mongols • Eurasian landmass under single rule • Spread of plague along trade routes

3. The Black Death in Europe • Impact, Symptoms, and Spread of Plague • Most devastating natural disaster in European history • Bubonic • Rats and fleas • Pneumonic • Arrived in Europe in 1347 • Mortality reached 50 – 60 percent in some areas • Wiped out between 25 – 50 percent of European population (19 – 38 million dead in four years) • Plague returns in 1361 – 1362 and 1369

4. Life and Death: Reactions to the Plague • Attempts at Explanation • Plague as a punishment from God • The flagellants • Attacks against Jews • Violence and Preoccupation with Death • Art and the Black Death • Ars moriendi, the art of dying

5. Economic Dislocation and Social Upheaval • Noble Landlords and Peasants • Labor shortage + falling prices for agricultural products = drop in aristocratic incomes • Statute of Laborers (1351) : limit wages • Social mobility • Peasant Revolt in France • Jacquerie (1358) • An English Peasant Revolt (1381) • Revolts in the Cities • Ciompi revolt in Florence (1378)

6. War and Political Instability • Causes of the Hundred Years’ War • The English king as vassal to the French king • Disputed succession to the French crown • The claims of Edward III of England • Immediate cause: French attack on English Gascony (1337)

7. War and Political Instability continued • Conduct and Course of the War • Significance of the longbow • Early phases of the war • The Battles of Crécy (1346) and Poitiers (1356) • Intermittent war and truce • Renewal of the war • Henry V (1413 – 1422) • The Battle of Agincourt (1415)

8. War and Political Instability continued • Charles the dauphin (heir to the French throne) • Joan of Arc (1412 – 1431) • Siege of Orléans • Captured by allies of the English in 1430 • Burned at the stake (1431) • The end of the war: French victory (1453)

9. CHRONOLOGY The Hundred Years' War

10. Political Instability • TheBreakdown of Feudal Institutions rise of money economy • Scutage, also called shield money, French écuage, (scutage from Latin scutum, “shield”), in feudal law, payment made by a knight to commute the military service that he owed his lord. A lord might accept from his vassal a sum of money (or something else of value, often a horse) in lieu of service on some expedition. • New Royal Dynasties • Financial Problems • Parliaments gain power

11. Chrétien de Troyes & Sir Thomas Mallory 12th and 15th century Developers of the Arthurian Legend

12. Chrétien de Troyes (1165-80) Wrote five Arthurian romances: Erec and Enide; Cligés; Yvain, or the Knight with the Lion; Perceval/The Story of the Grail; and Lancelot, or the Knight of the Cart. Last two unfinished

13. Chrétien de Troyes • Very little known about him. • Associated with court of Marie de Champagne, daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine • May have visited England. Spent some years in 1180s at court of Marie’s cousin Philip of Alsace

14. Le Morted’Arthur By Sir Thomas Malory

15. Sir Thomas Malory • Ca. 1405-1471 • Arrested in 1451 for a variety of criminal acts including brawling, escaping from prison, plundering the Abbey of Combe, extorting money, and committing rape. • Strong evidence exists that the book from which Arthurian legends were passed to the world was written in prison by a man whose violent career was at odds with the chivalric ideals he professes.

16. Twice elected to Parliament • he also accrued an impressive list of criminal charges in the 1450s, including burglary, sheep stealing & ambushing the Duke of Buckingham • He escaped from jail on two occasions, once fighting his way out using a variety of weapons and swimming a moat.

17. He was never brought to trial • for the charges levelled against him. In the 1460s he was at least once pardoned by the king (Henry VI) • more often, he was specifically excluded from pardon by both Henry VI and his rival and successor, Edward IV.

18. Le Morte d’Arthur This epic story, culminating with the death of King Arthur, is based on Geoffrey of Monmouth’s much earlier one, Malory introduces elements already popularised in earlier Romances and brings in other Arthur-related stories from elsewhere on the continent.

19. Malory likely started work on it while he was in prison in the early 1450s • he completed it by 1470. Originally Malory intended Le Morte d’Arthur to be the title of only the final book of his cycle; • he titled the full work The hoolebooke of kyng Arthur & of his noble knyghtes of the rounde table.

20. Caxton, who first printed the book in 1485, may have misunderstood the author’s intentions wen naming the book. Caxton was also responsible for separating it into 21 books comprised of 507 chapters for easy reading.

21. Originally, Malory divided his work into 8 tales. 1. The birth and rise of King Arthur 2. King Arthur’s war against the Romans 3. The book of Lancelot 4. The book of Gareth (brother of Gawain) 5. Tristram and Isolde 6. The Quest of the Holy Grail 7. The affair between Lancelot and Guinevere 8. The breaking of the Knights of the RoundTable and the death of Arthur.

22. Code of Chivalry • The chivalric code stressed, among other things, loyalty to the king, courage, personal honor, and defending those who could not defend themselves. • The Code: • Honor Courage Generosity • Modesty Honesty Faith in God • Loyalty Civility Compassion

23. Symbols The Holy Grail- it is generally considered to be the and the one cup from which Christ drank at the Last Supper & used by Joseph of Arimathea to catch his blood as he hung on the cross. The term ‘grail’ comes from the Latin gradale, which meant a dish brought to the table during a meal. Such is the meaning in Chretien & other early writers. In medieval romance, the grail is brought to Glastonbury in Britain by Joseph of Arimathea. In the time of Arthur, the quest for the Grail was the highest spiritual pursuit. For Chretien, author of Perceval and his continuators, Perceval is the knight who must achieve the quest for the Grail. For other French authors, as for Malory, Galahad is the chief Grail knight, though others (Perceval and Bors in the Morted’Arthur) do achieve the quest.

24. Camelot In many medieval texts Arthur holds court at Carleon or another city. Camelot is first mentioned in line 34 of Chretien de Troyes’s Lancelot; and the name does not appear in all manuscripts of that poem. In the thirteenth- century Vulgate Cycle, Camelot becomes the principal city of Arthur’s kingdom and remains so in many later texts. For the English- speaking world Camelot is Arthur’s central city because of Malory, who identifies it with Winchester.

25. King Arthur Arthur is a near mythic figure in Celtic stories such as Culhwch and Olwen. In early Latin chronicles he is presented as a military leader, the dux bellorum. In later romance he is presented as a king and emperor. The debate about whether or not he was a historical figure has raged since the Renaissance when Arthur’s historicity was vigorously defended, partly because the Tudor monarchs traced their lineage to Arthur and used that connection as a justification for their reign. If there is a historical basis to the character, it is clear that he would have gained fame as a warrior battling the Germanic invaders of the late 5th and 6th centuries. Since there is no conclusive evidence for or against Arthur’s historicity, the debate will continue.

27. Questions • ​What impact did the Black Death have on the society and economy of Europe? • ​What major problems did European states face in the fourteenth century? • ​How did the Arthurian legend evolve from the 12th to the 14th centuries and what do we know about its developers?