Site MapHelpFeedbackChapter Outline
Chapter Outline
(See related pages)



  1. Historical Overview
    1. The "calamitous" fourteenth century
    2. Breakup of the unique culture of the High Middle Ages

  2. Hard Times Come to Europe
    1. Ordeal by plague, famine, and war
      1. The plague
        • a) Its pattern and the death toll
          b) Nature of the illness
          c) Impact on culture
      2. Famine
        • a) Patterns
          b) Impact on society
      3. War
        • a) Patterns
          b) Impact on society and economics
    2. Depopulation and rebellion
      1. Depopulation
        • a) Reasons
          b) Impact on society and economics
      2. Rebellion and unrest: class tensions
        • a) Patterns
          b) Impact on society

  3. The Secular Monarchies
    1. France and England maintain European positions, but exhaust their economies with the Hundred Years' War
      1. Historical roots of the Hundred Years' War
      2. The character of the war
      3. Joan of Arc
    2. France:
      1. The Valois dynasty
      2. The rise of modern France
    3. England
      1. Trouble at home
      2. The emergence of a strong Parliament means a more powerful nobility
      3. The Tudor dynasty
    4. The spread of the French-English centralized style of rule
      1. Spain adapts well
      2. Central Europe does not
      3. Europe braces for the Turkish threat in the East

  4. The Papal Monarchy
    1. An age of decline
      1. Dislocation
        • a) The Avignon papacy
          b) Impact on the church
      2. Schism
        • a) The Great Schism
          b) Impact on the church
          c) How settled
      3. The conciliar movement
    2. Restoration of papal power in about 1450

  5. Technology
    1. Growth of urban life feeds industry
    2. The rise of industry
      1. New technology introduced and old inventions improved
      2. England's textile industry
        • a) Rise of cottage industry: the "putting-out system"
          b) New wool-processing, spinning, weaving, and fulling technologies and techniques
          c) Importation of workers causes local unrest
      3. Paper and salt industries
      4. The printing press
        • a) Johannes Gutenberg
          b) Rise of printing and publishing industries

  6. The Cultural Flowering of the Late Middle Ages
    1. Breakdown of the medieval synthesis
    2. Religion
      1. Absence of monastic reform
      2. Lay piety
        • a) The devotio moderna
          b) The flagellants
      3. Heresies
        • a) John Wycliffe
          b) Jan Hus
      4. The Inquisition
    3. Theology, philosophy, and science
      1. The via antiqua versus the via moderna
        • a) The attack on Thomism after the death of Thomas Aquinas
          b) The followers of Thomas Aquinas: the via antiqua
            (1) John Duns Scotus
            (2) Failure in the short run
          c) The opponents of Thomas Aquinas: the via moderna
            (1) William of Ockham
            (2) Victory in the short run
      2. Developments in science
        • a) High Gothic forerunners
            (1) Robert Grosseteste
            (2) Roger Bacon
          b) Nicholas Oresme
    4. Literature
      1. Forces transforming literature
        • a) Rising literacy and shift to vernacular
          b) The invention of movable type
      2. Northern Italian literature
        • a) Italian city-states in transition
          b) Francesco Petrarch
            (1) A dedicated Classicist
            (2) Secretum (or Secret Book)
          c) Giovanni Boccaccio
            (1) A representative of the new secular age
            (2) The Decameron
      3. English literature
        • a) Evolution of common language
          b) William Langland, The Vision of Piers Plowman
          c) Geoffrey Chaucer
            (1) Representative of the new secular age
            (2) The Canterbury Tales
      4. French literature: Christine de Pizan and the birth of "the woman question"
    5. Art and architecture
      1. Characteristics of the late Gothic style
      2. Late Gothic architecture
        • a) The Flamboyant style on the continent
          b) The Perpendicular style in England
          c) The Italian Gothic: Giotto
      3. Late Gothic sculpture
        • a) Italy
            (1) Foreshadowing of the Renaissance
            (2) Giovanni Pisano
          b) Burgundy
            (1) The Burgundian setting
            (2) Claus Sluter
      4. Late Gothic painting and the rise of new trends
        • a) Radical changes
          b) Illuminated manuscripts
            (1) Secular influences
            (2) The Limbourg brothers
          c) The print
            (1) Geographic setting
            (2) Varieties: woodcut print, engraving, drypoint
            (3) Housebook Master
          d) New trends in Italy
            (1) Giotto
            (2) The new style
          e) Flemish painting
            (1) The Burgundian setting
            (2) Characteristics
            (3) Jan van Eyck
            (4) Hans Memling
      5. Music
        • a) Rise of secular music
            (1) The chanson: ballade and rondeau
            (2) Polyphony still the dominant composing style, but with a difference: ars nova
          b) Machaut: secular and religious compositions

  7. The Legacy of the Late Middle Ages







Matthews: Western HumanitiesOnline Learning Center

Home > Chapter 10 > Chapter Outline