The Magna Carta – the most well-known and most important document to come out of the Middle Ages

>An agreement between England's major landholders (barons) and King John, signed at Runnymede in 1215.

>Established idea that the King of England was not above the law – a principle that became the cornerstone of representative democracy.

> Not a statement of political philosophy, it was a list of complaints and rights that the feudal vassals extracted from their liege lord, King John.

Of the 63 clauses, only three are relevant today:

Trial by Jury of Peers

No taxation without representation

Punishments must fit the crime

The Late Middle Ages1300-1450

Crisis and Dissolution

An Age of Adversity

• Economic problems

• Famine & Plague

• Peasant Rebellions

• Decline of the Papacy (1309-1417)

• Hundred Years War (1337-1453)

Economic problems

• Early 1300's - “The Little Ice Age”

• Declining agricultural production

• Food shortages, malnutrition and famines

• Spiraling inflation - silver shortage

• Diminished revenues from peasants

• Knights turned to plunder and warfare

The Black Death

• “Divine punishment for human sin”

• 1347-1352• Sicily• Fleas on

black rats• 20,000,000

dead

Negative impact of the Plague included:

• Panic- family, friends & villages abandoned

• Food production plummeted

• Jewish communities massacred

• Church authority questioned

• New artistic forms focused on decay and death

• Economic and social tensions emerged into rebellions

Positive long-term impact of the Plague

• Higher wages for manual labor

• People questioned the authority of church leaders

• Re-emergence of rational science

• Re-discovery of the ancient past

• New, questioning spirit- paved the way for the Renaissance

Peasant Rebellions:

Le Jacquerie, France, 1358

The Ciompi, Florence, 1378

The Great Rising, England, 1381

Decline of the Papacy

French king Philip IVand Pope Boniface VIII

Clericos Laicos, 1296

“Churches and priests that paid taxes to the French king instead of the Pope would face excommunication.”

“… but the pope can be judged only by God, not by Man.” “ ...Therefore we declare, state, define and pronounce that it is altogether necessary for salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”

Unam Sanctam, 1302

• September, 1303 “The Terrible Day at Anagni.”

In 1309, Clement V -Avignon

The Babylonian Captivity, 1309-1377

• Along with Clement V, the next 6 popes (68 years) were French.

• Many saw the pope as a puppet of the French king

• Widespread criticism among devout Catholics of “the good life” led by the clergy at Avignon further reduced the prestige of the church and the pope in particular.

St. Thomas Aquinas, 1225-1274

Duns Scotus, 1265-1308

William of Ockham, 1285-1349

John Wycliffe (1320-1384)

• Followers called Lollards

• Stressed a personal relationship with God

• Sacraments are not necessary for salvation

• Denied that priests turned bread/wine to body/blood of Christ (transubstantiation)

• Denounced wealth and advocated material poverty

In 1377, Pope Gregory IX re-established the papacy in Rome

The Great Schism, 1378-1417

1378:Pope Urban VI

(Pope in Rome) and Pope Clement VII (Pope in Avignon)

In 1409, The Council of Pisa elected Alexander V – a third Pope!!!

Council of Constance, 1417 elected Martin V as new

Pope.

The Hundred Years War, 1337-1453

English kings – claimed to be kings of France

William of Normandy, aka

William the Conqueror, 1066

Crecy, 1346 Poitiers, 1356

Agincourt, 1415

The Long Bow of England

vs

The Crossbow &

the mounted knight of France

Joan of Arc (1412-1431)

• Jeanne D’Arc, 1428

• “The Maid of Orleans”• Captured by the Duke

of Burgundy [in 1430] and turned over to the English

Impact of the Hundred Years War

> Kings won the right to collect taxes

> French monarchy grew in power & prestige

> New weapons and strategy for warfare

> Code of Chivalry abandoned

> English held only the port city of Calais

> England experienced a civil war: War of the Roses

> Feudalism further began declined

Legacy of the Middle Ages…

• Notions of honor, duty, loyalty, and love• European cities / The middle class• The state system• English common law -concept of liberty • Equality and the sacred worth of the individual • Representative government• Universities• Corporations, Bookkeeping & Banking• Preserved Greco-Roman scholarship• Growth of secularism