the latin west 1200-1500

The Latin West1200-1500Chapter 16

Rural Growth and Crisis

• In 1200 most western Europeans were serfs living in poverty• Inefficiency of farming practices• Obligations to land owners• Rapid growth of population

• Population growth led to more productive ways of farming.• 3-field system• Used horses (instead of oxen) to pull plows• Developed new farmland


• Black Death struck Europe in 1347• Started in Asia and carried by Mongols• Brought to Italy and France by Genoese merchants and quickly spread• May have killed 1/3 of western Europeans

• Symptoms of the plague• Egg-sized boils in groins and armpits• Black blotches on skin• Foul body odors and severe pain• Death came within a few days of first symptoms

• Now known to be bubonic plague• Spread by bites of fleas that infested fur of certain rats• Spread person to person

• Caused psychological damage as well as physical

Illustration of the Black Death from the Toggenburg Bible (1411)

Inspired by the Black Death, The Dance of Death, an allegory on the universality of death, is a common painting motif in the late medieval period.

Buboes in a victim of plague


• Black Death set off social changes in western Europe• Surviving skilled workers demanded higher pay• Authorities tried to freeze wages leading to revolts

• Serfdom practically disappeared• Peasants bought their freedom or ran away• Some free persons saved and bought their own land• Landowners grew less labor-intensive crops or relied on

animals• More meat/leather was available and welfare of masses

improved• Overall economy shrank but per capita production actually

rose

Urban Revival

• Trade of Italian cities with eastern Mediterranean was strengthened• Fourth Crusade

• Venetian-inspired assault against Constantinople• Latin Christians against Greek Christians• Crippled Byzantine power allowing Venice to expand trading

colonies around the Black Sea• Westward expansion of Mongol Empire

• Opened trade routes from the Mediterranean to China• Led to Marco Polo’s 24 year adventures and subsequent book

Urban Revival

• Northern cities of Flanders became important trading and manufacturing cities• Flanders was in parts of present day Belgium, France, and the

Netherlands• Skilled artisans turned raw wool from English sheep into a fine

cloth• Important trading cities rose on the trade route connecting

northern Italy and Flanders (Champagne)• English monarch raised taxes on the export of wool and much

of the textile manufacturing business moved to England

Flemish weavers, 14th cThe spread of textile weaving gave employment to many people in the Netherlands. The city of Ypres in Flanders (now northern Belgium) was an important textile center in the thirteenth century. This drawing, from a fourteenth-century manuscript, shows a man and a woman weaving cloth on a horizontal loom, while a child makes thread on a spinning wheel. (Stedelijke Openbare Bibliotheek, Ypres)

Urban Revival

• Trading cities in Europe offered people more social freedom than rural places• Most cities were autonomous • Became a refuge for ambitious individuals

• Cities were home to most of Europe’s Jews• Welcomed in cities for manufacturing and business skills• Subject to violent religious persecutions or expulsions in times

of crisis (such as the Black Death)• In 1492 the Spanish monarchs expelled all Jews in the name of

religious and ethnic purity• Only papal city of Rome left its Jews undisturbed throughout

the centuries before 1500

Urban Revival

• Guilds dominated civic life in most towns/cities• Associations of craft specialists (e.g. silversmiths) who worked in a

particular trade• Regulated prices and practices of members, trained apprentices, and

promoted members’ interests• The growth of commerce gave rise to a new class of wealthy

merchant-bankers• Specialized in money changing, loans, and investments• Merchants as well as ecclesiastical and secular officials used their

services• Medici family of Florence operated banks in Italy, Flanders, and London• Most money lenders were Jews – Christian bankers had to find ways

around the Church’s condemnation of usury• Most residents of European cities lived in poverty and squalor, and

cities lacked public amenities (even for the wealthy)

Urban Revival

• The finest and most expensive buildings erected in this era were Gothic cathedrals.• Replaced Roman (round) arch with Gothic (pointed) arch• Flying Buttresses stabilized columns allowing for higher, thinner walls

and• Stained glass windows• Vaulted ceilings• Spires

Gothic cathedral: Notre Dame ParisThis view from the south of Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, offers a fine example of the twin towers (left), the spire, the great rose window over the south portal, and the flying buttresses that support the walls and the vaults. Like hundreds of other churches in medieval Europe, it was dedicated to the Virgin. With a nave rising 226 feet, this Gothic cathedral was the tallest building in Europe. (David R. Frazier/Photo Researchers)

Learning, Literature, & the Renaissance

• Before 1100 Byzantine and Islamic scholarship generally surpassed that of Latin Europe

• Gradually, Greek and Arabic manuscripts came into Western hands and were translated into Latin

• The first modern universities were established in Paris and Oxford, and by 1500 there were about 80 universities in Europe

• Universities were similar to guilds – they set standards for membership, trained apprentices, and defended their professional interests.• Apprentices passed exams to obtain a “license” to teach• More advanced students became “masters” and “doctors”


• All university courses were taught in Latin, so students could seek out the university that offered the courses they wanted

• Universities offered a variety of programs of study but generally were identified with a particular specialty• Bologna – law• Montpellier and Salerno – medicine• Paris and Oxford – theology (“queen of the sciences”)

• Scholasticism – attempt to reconcile reason and faith• Thomas Aquinas – Dominican priest/professor at Univ. of Paris• Summa Theologica organized Christian beliefs on Aristotelian

principles

©2008, TESCCC World History, Unit 5, Lesson 2 18

Dante Alighieri• The Divine Comedy• Story written in the

vernacular (Italian) which tells the story of a man’s journey through heaven and hell.

• Made use of Greco-Roman themes and mythology

©2008, TESCCC World History, Unit 5, Lesson 2

Geoffrey Chaucer• English poet influenced by Dante• Most famous for the Canterbury Tales• Tells the story of fictional pilgrims on their way to the

shrine of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury• Helps us understand the attitudes of various types of

medieval people

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There was a Knight, a most distinguished man, Who from the day on which he first beganTo ride abroad had followed chivalry,Truth, honor, generousness, and courtesy.He had done nobly in his sovereign’s warAnd ridden into battle, no man more,As well in Christian as heathen places,And ever honored for his noble graces….


• Humanists admired the classical Greco-Roman tradition and felt they were living in a “dark age.”

• Restored original texts of Greco-Roman writers and the Bible and eliminated errors introduced by generations of copyists

• The humanists’ greatest influence was in the area of secondary education. • Curriculum centered on the languages and literature of the Greco-

Roman world• This curriculum (called “the humanities”) dominated Western

education well into the twentieth century

ErasmusDutch humanist and Catholic theologian

• In Praise of Folly • Book in which Erasmus

criticizes the areas of society that were in most need of reform, such as monasteries and church corruption. 21

Produced a critical edition of the New Testament in Greek. Erasmus was able to correct many errors and mistranslations in the Latin text that had been in general use throughout the Middle Ages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Holbein-erasmus.jpg


The Printing Revolution• In 1456, Johann Gutenberg printed the Bible

using movable metal type on a machine called a printing press.

• Printed books became less expensive and easier to produce than hand copies.

• Readers gained access to broad range of knowledge. (Medicine to Religion)

• Literacy increased as books became more widely available.

• The printing press would greatly contribute to the Protestant Reformation.


Medieval ArtArtists depicted subjects in an unrealistic two-dimensional style to indicate the importance of the soul over the body (religious theme).

Some of the great artwork was in the stained glass windows, but again, it was two-dimensional

Characteristics of Renaissance Art

• Three Dimensional (3-D)• Realistic & Lifelike• Linear Perspective: Vanishing point• Influenced by Greco-Roman culture; its forms and

its themes (i.e. beauty of the human body)• New media: Oil on canvas• And old: Frescos • The importance of religion in art

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• The patronage of wealthy and educated merchants and church officials did much to foster and artistic blossoming in the cities of northern Italy and Flanders.

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Leonardo Da VinciItalian artist, scientist, engineer, etc.

a true “Renaissance Man”

• The Last Supper


Leonardo Da Vinci• Mona Lisa


Michelangelodiscovered by Lorenzo de’ Medici

Italian painter, sculptor, architect, poet, etc.

• The Pieta


Michelangelo• The Last Judgment


Michelangelo

• David


Donatello

• DavidPortrays David holding Goliath’s sword and standing over Goliath’s head

First major Renaissance sculpture – first free-standing nude sculpture since classical times

Italian sculptor


RaphaelItalian Painter

• Best known for his portrayals of the Madonna – the mother of Jesus


Raphael

• School of Athens


St. Peter’s Cathedral in the Vatican

• Michelangelo (with others)

•World’s largest church•The pope lives here.

• A candle is always lit in his window.•Contains Sistine Chapel•Contains Vatican museum

• Holds Pieta

©2008, TESCCC World History, Unit 5, Lesson 2

Sistine Chapel CeilingMichelangelo

Fall of Man

Creation of Adam

Over four years, Michelangelo painted 12,000 square feet of ceiling with Biblical stories.

My stomach is thrust toward my chinMy beard curls up toward the skyMy head leans right over onto my back…The brush endlessly dripping onto my face.

Michelangelo, Poems


Dome of the Cathedral of Florence

• Brunelleschi• Part of the cathedral was

built in the Middle Ages in the Gothic Style

• The dome was added by Brunelleschi in the 1400s.


Machiavelli Italy

*Machiavelli was a political philosopher.

*The Prince advised kings how to rule – do what is

necessary to stay in power and keep stability*In Machiavelli’s way of thinking, the end justifies the means.


The Renaissance Moves North

• Because of the plague, it was not until 1450 that northern Europe enjoyed the economic growth that helped support the Renaissance in Italy.

• Northern artists and writers imitated Italian styles while adding new methods and ideas of their own.


Albrecht DurerFlemish artist now called the “German Leonardo”

because of his wide-ranging interests

Adoration of the Magi

Engraving – The artist etches a designon a metal plate with acid,then uses the plate to makeprints.

Jan van EyckFlemish artist who helped develop oil paint

• Giovanni Arnolfini and Bride

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Political and Military Transformations

• In 1200 knights were still the backbone of western European fighting forces

• New weapons challenged this system and the system of feudalism that supported knights.• Crossbows with metal-tipped arrows• Firearm

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• As kings gained power, the church resisted royal control• Pope Boniface VIII asserted that divine law made the papacy

superior to “every human creature” including monarchs• King Philip of France sent an army to arrest the pope

• Hastened Pope Boniface’s death• Philip engineered the election of a French pope• Established a new papal residence in Avignon, France

• Great Western Schism• A period when rival papal claimants at Avignon and Rome vied for the

loyalties of Latin Christians• Eventually papacy returned to Rome, but the church never regained

medieval power

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• France and England developed centralized governments• France

• King Louis IX issued ordinances without first obtaining nobles consent

• England• Norman conquest of 1066 began consolidation of power• King John forced to sign Magna Carta in 1215– affirmed monarchs

were subject to established law and guaranteed rights of nobles• Monarchs and nobles entered into strategic marriages in order to

increase land, wealth, and power

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• Hundred Years War between England and France (1337-1453)• New Military Technology

• Longbow• Cannon

• Joan of Arc• French peasant girl who led French to victories• Captured by English army, tried by church, and burned as a

witch• England lost land in France and focused on gaining territory

within British Isles while France began consolidating control over powerful noble families

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• Reconquista• Reconquest of Iberian Peninsula from Muslim rule

• Portugal• Had gained control by 1212 and spread to North Africa by seizing the port city of Ceuta in

Morocco• Led to exploration

• Spain• Princess Isabella (Castile) and Prince Ferdinand (Aragon) married in 1469 leading

to a union of their kingdoms into Spain when they each inherited their thrones.• Conquered last Muslim stronghold of Granada in 1492

• Expulsion of Jews and Muslims• Spanish Jews were ordered from Spain in 1492• Muslims were forced to convert or leave Spain by 1501• Portugal expelled Jews in 1496 (including 100,000 who had fled Spain)

the latin west 1200-1500

Documents

crisisblack death

universality of death

dance of death

rural placesmost cities

textile manufacturing

textile weaving

victim of plaguerural

trading colonies