I. End of the Middle Ages--The Disastrous 14th Century

• The high point of the Middle Ages was the 12th to 13th centuries which saw the Gothic cathedrals and the crusades
• But this vibrant civilization fell apart in the mid-14th century, with the arrival of the Black Death and the outbreak of the Hundred Years War
• These disasters just before the Renaissance shook the medieval culture to its very foundations and set the stage for a new approach

• The Black Death or Bubonic Plague first reached Europe in 1347
• It was carried along the trade routes and so, where there was little trade, there was little outbreak of the disease
• The plague was carried by fleas, which were on rats, which were on the ships carrying grain from the Middle East
• This was the first outbreak of plague in Europe in 800 years and it struck repeatedly for the next 100 years
• Most cities were lucky if 10 years went by without another outbreak
• The disease began with a painful boil or buba (hence the name) in a lymph gland
• if the boil was lanced and drained, gave the patient some small hope of survival
• if the boil was not lanced, the victim began to bleed under the skin, cough blood and go delirious with a high fever
• The victim died within 48 hours
• The plague produced a severe population loss
• About 40% of Europeans alive in 1347 died, at least 25 million
• The continent's population had doubled between 1000 and 1300, so the outbreak of plague brought it back to a manageable number given the agricultural techniques of the day
• Why did it spread so fast and kill so many?
• First, there was no resistance among the people, since it had been 800 years since the last outbreak of the disease
• Second, some historians believe the plague metamorphosed into a pneumonic plague, spreading to the lungs and developing into pneumonia
• Had that been so, the disease could have spread from human to human without the flea as intermediary, and this would account for its incredibly rapid spread
• This pneumonic plague remained 100% fatal without antibiotics as was demonstrated when it broke out in the trenches of World War I
• Third, hunger had weakened the population as well--there were simply too many people to feed, given the agricultural resources of the day
• Finally, alack of sanitation hurt the population as did the existence of thatched roofed houses (rats lived in the thatch and could easily come into contact with humans.  When the thatch was ordered removed to retard city fires in the 16th century, the incidence of plague was dramatically reduced)
• The plague certainly solved Europe's overpopulation problem.  The number of people in Normandy fell by 30%, in Toulouse by 50%, and Florence lost two-thirds of its 1347 population in a few months
• As late as the 1940s, the plague was still 40% fatal if it did not change into the deadly pneumonic form
• immediate reaction to the plague
• The death rate among churchmen was especially high, because they stayed behind to tend the sick when everyone else fled
• Those churchmen more concerned with saving their skins who fled with everyone else were the ones who survived the outbreak; their scandalous shirking of their duties led to a general diminution of the clergy's prestige
• The search for someone/something to blame
• Some people turned to find scapegoats in the population, a fact that led to wholesale pogroms against the Jews who were frequently blamed for the outbreak
• Some people escaped into orgies, while others tried asceticism and frenzied religious fervor
• Long-term reaction to the plague
• In the long run, not all the effects were bad, however
• The survivors concentrated on the good farm land and could make a better living--much of the farmland had fallen fallow, thus the soil was regenerated
• With fewer people, there was greater demand for labor and hence more mobility for the peasants and working classes
• peasants unwilling to bear all the burdens of society
• English Peasants' Rebellion
• French Jacquerie
• fewer people meant more land, which meant earlier marriages and  new gender roles during regrowth after the plague
• Also, Europe began to search for labor saving devices to get more work out of those who still lived.  One example of this trend is better firearms, especially cannons and later muskets that allowed more people to be killed more efficiently

• While the Black Death haunted Europe for a century, so did the on again, off again Hundred Years War (1337-1453)
• Origins of the war
• Underlying causes of the war
• The English kings wanted to regain their large holdings in France which they had had in the days of Henry II but which they had lost under King John
• The French by contrast wanted to retain what they had acquired and drive the English out of France altogether
• There were also problems in the wool trade
• Wool from England was made into cloth in Flanders (modern day Belgium)
• When the French attempted to control Flanders, the wool trade was disrupted, causing a problem for the English king whose revenues came to a large degree from a tax on wool going to Flanders
• Both the English and French wanted glory on the battlefield as chivalry demanded
• neither England nor France had been able to solve its internal social, economic or political problems; wars would divert attention from difficulties at home
• Immediate causes of the war
• The immediate cause was a dispute over the French throne when the last Capetian king died without heirs
• The closest to the throne was in fact the king of England, Edward III, but the French quickly passed a law saying the throne of France could not descend through the female line, thus voiding the English king's claim and giving the throne to a Frenchman
• Feeling cheated, the English attacked
• Early years of the war
• The war was fought almost completely on French soil, a strategy that devastated French agriculture.
• The armies in this war were commanded by the princes of the blood themselves, such as Edward the Black Prince
• A huge number of people fought on both sides, some 10% or so of the English population
• Given these numbers, the wars strained the finances of both England and France to the breaking point
• The main battles of the war were won by the English
• At Crécy in 1346, English longbowmen scored a great victory over the French knights and crossbowmen
• A long bow was 6 feet long and fired a steel tipped arrow
• It was dangerous at 400 yards and deadly at 100
• Although not very accurate, it permitted a much faster reload than the crossbow, firing three arrows to the crossbow's one
• A blinding shower of arrows knocked the French off their horses and created confusion, which was heightened by the use of cannon for the first time in the west
• At Poitiers in 1356, the French king was taken prisoner and held for ransom
• At Agincourt in 1415, Henry V of England lost only 500 men to the French army's 7000 knights who were wearing bulky armor
• when the knights fell off their horses into heavy mud, they could not move and their throats were later slit by peasant archers
• although not very chivalric, the practice was very efficient
• Joan of Arc
• It was Joan of Arc who turned the tide of battle against England
• Joan had visions that convinced her the dauphin, the future Charles VII, should be crowned king
• She led the relief of Orleans which the English had been besieging, and the English, weakened by disease and lack of supplies, gave up
• Joan then fought her way to Reims to have Charles crowned king
• But the Burgundians captured her and sold her to the English who tried her for heresy and burned her at the stake in Rouen in 1431
• End of the Hundred Years War
• The relief of Orleans stimulated French pride and rallied French resources
• Moreover, the English people were demanding an end to the war as loss of life and money mounted
• The English Parliament refused to spend any more money helping the king retrieve his lands in France, and by the end of the war, only Calais on the Normandy coast remained of the once huge English possessions in France
• Impact of the war
• England
• England was not physically as hurt as France was, but she was devastated financially
• Killing off so many aristocratic men of child-gendering age resulted in an aristocracy unable to carry forth the noble name for more than a generation
• Very few nobles in England can thus trace their lineage back before 1450
• The birth rate was low because so many young men died, meaning the population would not recover quickly from these staggering loses
• The wool trade in Flanders was almost totally destroyed, leading the English to develop a domestic wool industry
• The war further stimulated the development of the English Parliament that met more frequently as the king required more money; the Commons finally won the right to introduce all tax legislation
• Following the war, England was convulsed in the War of the Roses, a civil war which Henry Tudor finally won after defeating Richard III
• Most important for later English history, England was freed from concern of fighting in France over English territory there and thus was free to begin overseas expansion
• France
• The results in France included a huge population loss and thousands of acres of farmland destroyed
• At first there was an almost total breakdown of law and order, at least until Joan's appearance
• Her miraculous saving of the monarchy resulted in enormous prestige and power attaching to the French king, who must clearly be favored by God whose servant and future saint, Joan, had intervened to save him
• Moreover, unlike the English king, the French king actually became more independent in finances
• Most rebellious nobles had been killed at Agincourt making France easier to govern
• Finally, whereas in England the role of Parliament was enhanced, in France, the Estates General met only rarely
• The growth in power of the French king was aided by technology, especially as cannons and longbows made mounted knights virtually worthless
• Artillery required training to use effectively, and the nobles of France would not condescend to learn, restricting themselves to the cavalry which had more glory
• Sons of the lowest nobility and the sons of the middle class entered military service as artillery officers, rising quickly through the ranks as they proved their expertise in battle, and eventually challenging the old nobles for leadership of the armies.
• The most famous of these upstarts many generations later would be Napoleon