MIDDLE AGES (500-1500)

• Late Middle Ages: • (Chaos to Modern Day)

1300-1500

Late Middle Ages (1300-1500)

• Little knowledge of conservation; used up topsoil

• Heavy rains and frost limited production

• 1301-1314: Shortage of food in Europe• 1315-1317: Famine (widespread

starvation and malnourishment)

Late Middle Ages (1300-1500)

• Reached Sicily in 1347 and lasted until 1351

• Other outbreaks occurred in later decades

• Over 20,000,000 people died, mostly in towns

• Some towns wiped out completely

Late Middle Ages (1300-1500)

• Period of growth and economic welfare came to end–Took almost 300 years for

Europe to reach pre-plague population levels

Late Middle Ages (1300-1500)

• By 1400’s feeling of happy to be alive spread

• People wealthier from inheriting wealth from dead– Began to spend on everything to erase the

memories of the past

• Workers began to demand higher wages

Late Middle Ages (1300-1500)

• Took monks about 1 year to copy a book

• Once copied books not organized and finding specific ones was difficult

• Pressure for literacy came from church schools, kings, and princes– Led to the availability of paper

Late Middle Ages (1300-1500)

• Development of eye glasses intensified the pressure for literacy and more books

• 1450 Johannes Gutenberg developed printing press – Used in China and Korea

earlier but did not catch on due to the amount of letters in their alphabets

• First 50 years = 8 million books printed

Late Middle Ages (1300-1500)

• View still medieval with Earth center of universe• Magic popular with witches consulted for

medical treatment• People believed in demons and fairies• When Gutenberg’s banker went to Paris to sell

12 copies of the bible, he was driven out of town because people said so many identical books can only be made with help from the devil

Late Middle Ages (1300-1500)

• Problem: diffusion of inaccuracies now on widespread scale– Magical practices– Superstitions– Prophecies

• Also caused loss of memory

Late Middle Ages (1300-1500)

• Good– More efficient system of filing books created

so specific ones could be found quicker– More books on topics to compare to find and

eliminate errors– Changed view from respect for past to one

that looked forward to progress and improvement

Modern Day

• Economic/Political institutions were strong enough to survive the late Middle Ages

• This late Middle Ages period set up the possibilities for another stage in the

development of Western Europe….. The Renaissance and the introduction to

the Modern Age.