The Later Middle Ages 1300-1500: Chapter 12


I. The Disastrous 14th Century:

A. Causes: Natural and man-made, i.e. plague war, climatic change, and revolt.
B. Causes of peasant uprisings.

II. Trouble Between church and French kings.

A. The "Babylonian captivity": 1305-1378-Philip the Fair, French King, Kidnaps Papacy, establishes it in Avignon (S. France), and keeps it under French Control: (Also called the French or Avignon Papacy.)

B. Great Schism: 1378-1417 Two Pope`, one in Rome, another in Avignon, and European Kingdoms are divided between them. Great Schism ends with council of constance (lake Constance in Switzerland)

C. The rise of Mysticism: a reaction to sexual, financial, and general moral corruption of the church. Discussion about the German Dominican monk master, Eckhart, 1300. What is Mysticism?

D. Other Religious Reactions to Church's moral squalor:
1. John Wyclif in England (1350)
2. John Hus in Bohemia (1400); (Prague, capital; modern Czechoslovakia) Which of the two got burned? Why?

III. The Great Wars of 14th and 15th Century (1337-1453)

A. Hundred years War: France vs. England: Reason for War?
1. The Battles: Crecy (1346), Poitiers (1356), and Agincourt (1415)
2. The English Long bow.
3. Joan of Arc turns the tide against the English and their Long bows: the inspiring Power of an illiterate virgin.

B. The English war of Roses: 1455-1485 House of York vs. Lancaster. The Tudorsemerged victorious in the long war over the English monarchy.

C. After the period of warfare, a strong monarchy is re-established in France under Louis X1, and in England under Henry VII, by 1485.

IV. Rise of Russia

A. First Russia state in Kiev (Ukraine)

B. What were the consequences of the Mongolian Invasion of Russia?

C. Shanate of the Golden Horde: (Isolation from West)

D. Rise of Grand Duchy of Moscow: Expansion westward and eastward.

E. Ivan III the Great 1462-1505: What were his accomplishments?

V. Thought, Literature, and Art

A. William of Ockham: His philosophy of nominalism. Now, is nominalism the opposite of Plato's philosophy? Refer to pages 123 and 408. Significance of Ockham's nominalism?

B. Boccacchio and Chaucer

VI. Technological Achievements

A. Gunpowder, a Chinese invention, revolutionizes warfare.
1. (Ottoman Turkish Muslim conquest of Constantinople in 1453) the ending of the Bzantium empire.
2. French take Bordeaux in 1453 ending Hundred Years War.

B. Mechanical clocks, machines, eyeglasses (allowing literature but half-blind people to continue learning: Petrarch)

C. The Compass and Long distance navigation.
1. Cape of Good Hope (where is it?)
2. West Indies
3. India is reached by sea by going around Africa. a) Why do ships, leaving today and from the West, not have to go around Africa? b) What route would a ship take from England to India?

D. Printing, a Chinese invention. What effect did printing have on Western society? Why did the technological discovery of a way to produce cheap paper add to the impetus to invent printing?

E. What effect did clocks and complex mechanical time keeping devices have on the style of Western life?



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