chapter 15 notes.docx

8/13/2019 Chapter 15 Notes.docx

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CHAPTER 15

The Latin West, 12001500

I. Rural Growth and CrisisA. Peasants and Population1. In 1200 C.E. most Europeans were peasants, bound to the land in serfdom and

using inefficient agricultural practices.

Fifteen to thirty heavily taxed farming families supported each noblehousehold.

2. Womenlabored in the fields with men but were subordinate to them.

3. Europes population more than doubled between 1000 and 1445.

Growth came with new agricultural technologies in northern Europe,including the three-field systemand the cultivation of oats.

4. As population grew, people opened new land for cultivation, including land withpoor soil and poor growing conditions.

Resulted in a decline in average crop yields beginning around 1250.B. The Black Death and Social Change1. The population pressure was eased by the Black Death(combination of anthrax

and the bubonic plague), which was brought from Kaffa to Italy and southern

France in 1346.

Killed off 2/3 of the population2. Result of the plague: labor became more expensive in Western Europe.

Gave way to a series of peasant and worker uprisings, higher wages,and the end of serfdom.

o Serfdom grew extensively after the Black Death.3. Rural living standards improved, the period of apprenticeship for artisans was

reduced, and per capita income rose.

C. Mines and Mills1. Between 1200 and 1500 Europeans inventedand used a variety of mechanical

devices including water wheels and windmills.

Mills were expensive to build, but over time they brought greatprofits to their owners.

2. Industrial enterprises, including mining, ironworking, stone quarrying, andtanning, grew during these centuries.

Results: greater productivity and environmental damage includingwater pollution and deforestation.

II. Urban RevivalA. Trading Cities

1. Increases in trade and in manufacturingthe growth of cities after 1200.

The relationship between trade, manufacturing, and urbanization isdemonstrated in the growth of the cities of northern Italy and in theurban areas of Champagne and Flanders.

2. The Venetian capture of Constantinople (1204), the opening of the Central Asiancaravan trade under the Mongol Empire

Post-Mongol development of the Mediterranean galley trade withConstantinople, Beirut, and Alexandria brought profits and growth toVenice.


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The increase in sea trade brought profits to Genoa in theMediterranean and to the cities of the Hanseatic League in the Balticand the North Sea.

3. Flanders prospered from its woolen textile industries

Champagne benefited from their position on the major land routethrough France and the series of trade fairs sponsored by their

nobles.4. Textile industries began to develop in England and in Florence.

Europeans made extensive use of water wheels and windmills in thetextile, paper, and other industries.

B. Civic Life1. Some European cities enjoyed autonomy from local nobles: they were better able

to respond to changing market conditions than Chinese or Islamic cities.

European cities offered their citizens more freedom and socialmobility.

2. Most of Europes Jews lived in the cities.

Jews were subject to persecution everywhere but Romeo Blamed for disasters like the Black Death and expelled from

Spain.

3. Guildsregulated the practice of and access to trades.

Womenwere rarely allowed to join guilds,o Worked in unskilled non-guild jobs in the textile industry

and in the food and beverage trades.4. The growth in commerce gave rise to bankers like the Medicis of Florence and

the Fuggers of Augsburg who handled financial transactions for merchants, the

church, and the kings and princes of Europe.

Because the Church prohibited usury, many moneylenders were Jews Christian bankers got around the prohibition through such devices as

asking for gifts in lieu of interest.C. Gothic Cathedrals

1. Gothic cathedrals are the masterpieces of late medieval architecture andcraftsmanship.

Distinctive features: the pointed Gothic arch, flying buttresses, hightowers and spires, and large interiors lit by huge windows.

2. The men who designed and built the Gothic cathedrals had no formal training indesign and engineering; they learned through their mistakes.

III. Learning, Literature, and the RenaissanceA. Universities and Learning

1. After 1100 Western Europeans got access to Greek and Arabic works on science,philosophy, and medicine.

Manuscripts were translated and explicated by Jewish scholars andstudied at Christian monasteries, which remained the primary centersof learning.

2. After 1200, colleges and universities emerged as new centers of learning.

Some were established by students Most were teaching guilds established by professors in order to

oversee the training, control the membership, and fight for theinterests of the profession.

3. Universities generally specialized in a particular branch of learning


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Bologna was famous for its law faculty, others for medicine ortheology.

o Theology was the most prominent discipline of the period astheologians sought to synthesize the rational philosophy ofthe Greeks with the Christian faith of the Latin West in anintellectual movement known as scholasticism.

B. Humanists and Printers1. Dante Alighieri (12651321) and Geoffrey Chaucer (13401400) were among

the great writers of the later Middle Ages.

DantesDivine Comedy tells the story of the authors journeythrough the nine layers of Hell and his entry into Paradise

Chaucers Canterbury Tales is a rich portrayal of the lives ofeveryday people in late medieval England.

2. Dante influenced the intellectual movement of the humanistsmen such asPetrarch and Boccaccio, who were interested in the humanities and in the

classical literature of Greece and Rome.

The humanists had a tremendous influence on the reform ofsecondary education.

3. Some of the humanists wrote in the vernacular.

Many worked to restore the original texts of Latin and Greek authorsand of the Bible through exhaustive comparative analysis of themany various versions that had been produced over the centuries.

As a part of this enterprise, Pope Nicholas V established the VaticanLibrary and the Dutch humanist Erasmus produced a critical editionof the New Testament.

4. The influence of the humanist writers was increased by the development of theprinting press.

Johann Gutenberg perfected the art of printing in 1454;o Gutenbergs press and more than two hundred others had

produced at least 10 million printed works by 1500.C. Renaissance Artists

1. Fourteenth and fifteenth century artists built on the more natural paintings ofGiotto as they developed a style of painting that concentrated on the depiction of

Greek and Roman gods and of scenes from daily life.

The realistic style was influenced by Jan van Eycks development ofoil paints.

Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were two of the famous artistsof this period.

2. Wealthy merchant and clerical patrons like the Medicis of Florence and thechurch contributed to the development of Renaissance art.

The artistic and intellectual developments of the Renaissance did notstop in Europe; the university, printing, and oil painting were lateradopted all over the world.

IV. Political and Military Transformations

A. Monarchs, Nobles, and the Clergy1. Thirteenth century European states were ruled by weak monarchs whose power

was limited by their modest treasuries, the regional nobility, the independenttowns, and the church.

2. Two changes in weaponry began to undermine the utility and the economic

position of the noble knights.


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Armor-piercing crossbow and the development of firearms.3. King Philip the Fair of France reduced the power of the church when he arrested

the pope and had a new (French) one installed at Avignon

Monarchs still faced resistance, particularly from their strongervassals.

In England, the Norman conquest of 1066 had consolidated andcentralized royal power

o Power limited by the pope and by the English nobles, whoforce the king to recognize their hereditary rights as definedin the Magna Carta.

4. Monarchs and nobles often entered into marriage alliances.

To produce wars over the inheritance of far-flung territories. In the long term, these wars strengthened the authority of monarchs

and led to the establishment of territorial boundaries.

B. The Hundred Years War, 133714531. The Hundred Years War pitted France against England, whose King Edward III

claimed the French throne in 1337.

Fought with the new military technology: crossbows, longbows,pikes (for pulling knights off their horses) and firearms, including animproved cannon.

2. The French, whose superior cannon destroyed the castles of the English and theirallies, finally defeated the English.

Left the French monarchy in a stronger position than before.C. New Monarchies in France and England

1. The new monarchies that emerged after the Hundred Years War had strongercentral governments, more stable national boundaries, and stronger

representative institutions.

Both the English and the French monarchs consolidated their controlover their nobles.

2. The advent of new military technology (cannon and hand-held firearms) meant

that the castle and the knight were outdated.

The new monarchs depended on professional standing armies ofbowmen, pikemen, musketeers, and artillery units.

3. The new monarchs had to find new sources of revenue to pay for these standingarmies.

To raise money, they taxed land, merchants, and the church.4. By the end of the fifteenth century, there had been a shift in power away from

the nobility and the church and toward the monarchs.

Monarchs were still hemmed in by the nobles, the church, and bynew parliamentary institutions: the Parliament in England and the

Estates General in France.

D. Iberian Unification1. Spain and Portugal emerged as strong centralized states through a process of

marriage alliances, mergers, warfare, and the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsulafrom the Muslims.

Offered the nobility large landed estates upon which they could growrich without having to work.

2. The reconquest took place over a period of several centuries, but picked up after

the Christians put the Muslims on the defensive with a victory in 1212.3. Portugal became completely established in 1249.


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chapter 15 notes.docx

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