Breakup of the unique culture of the High Middle Ages
Hard Times Come to Europe
Ordeal by plague, famine, and war
The plague
a) Its pattern and the death toll
b) Nature of the illness
c) Impact on culture
Famine
a) Patterns
b) Impact on society
War
a) Patterns
b) Impact on society and economics
Depopulation and rebellion
Depopulation
a) Reasons
b) Impact on society and economics
Rebellion and unrest: class tensions
a) Patterns
b) Impact on society
The Secular Monarchies
France and England maintain European positions, but exhaust their economies with the Hundred Years' War
Historical roots of the Hundred Years' War
The character of the war
Joan of Arc
France:
The Valois dynasty
The rise of modern France
England
Trouble at home
The emergence of a strong Parliament means a more powerful nobility
The Tudor dynasty
The spread of the French-English centralized style of rule
Spain adapts well
Central Europe does not
Europe braces for the Turkish threat in the East
The Papal Monarchy
An age of decline
Dislocation
a) The Avignon papacy
b) Impact on the church
Schism
a) The Great Schism
b) Impact on the church
c) How settled
The conciliar movement
Restoration of papal power in about 1450
Technology
Growth of urban life feeds industry
The rise of industry
New technology introduced and old inventions improved
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
Paper and salt industries
The printing press
a) Johannes Gutenberg
b) Rise of printing and publishing industries
The Cultural Flowering of the Late Middle Ages
Breakdown of the medieval synthesis
Religion
Absence of monastic reform
Lay piety
a) The devotio moderna
b) The flagellants
Heresies
a) John Wycliffe
b) Jan Hus
The Inquisition
Theology, philosophy, and science
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
Developments in science
a) High Gothic forerunners
(1) Robert Grosseteste
(2) Roger Bacon
b) Nicholas Oresme
Literature
Forces transforming literature
a) Rising literacy and shift to vernacular
b) The invention of movable type
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
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
French literature: Christine de Pizan and the birth of "the woman question"
Art and architecture
Characteristics of the late Gothic style
Late Gothic architecture
a) The Flamboyant style on the continent
b) The Perpendicular style in England
c) The Italian Gothic: Giotto
Late Gothic sculpture
a) Italy
(1) Foreshadowing of the Renaissance
(2) Giovanni Pisano