1. Chapter XIV The Latin West 1200-1500

2. Chapter 14 Quote “The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.” Dante Alighieri

3. Chapter 14 Thesis Analyze how economic opportunities contributed to continuities & changes in the political systems & culture of the Mediterranean region during the period circa 800 C.E. to 1500 C.E.

4. Dante’s Inferno
(Divine Comedy)

5. Chapter Objectives
Analyze the causes/effects of Europe’s 14th Century demographic disaster
Describe/explain the significance in world history of technological development and urbanization in the Latin West in the later Middle Ages.
Understand the ways in which intellectual developments of the later Middle Ages reflected Westerners’ views of themselves & of their relationship to the past.
Understand the ways in which the Hundred Years’ War and the emergence of “new monarchies” laid the foundations for the modern European state system.

6. Rural Growth & Crisis Peasants, Population, & Plague
Most Europeans were stuck in serfdom
15-30 heavily taxed families supported each noble
Women labored in fields with men but were subordinate to them
Population more than doubled between 1000 and 1445
Warmer weather plus three-field system of crops
New lands meant poor soil & poor growing conditions
Decline in average crop yields began around 1250
Population pressure eased by the Black Death (bubonic plague)
1346: plague ravaged Europe for two years, returned periodically in late 1300s & 1400s, caused substantial decreases in population (1/3 die)

7. Spread of the Plague

8. Social Rebellion
Labor became more expensive in Western Europe - gave rise to series of peasant & worker uprisings, higher wages, & the end of serfdom
Rural living standards improved, period of apprenticeship for artisans was reduced, & per capita income rose
Mines and Mills
Between 1200 & 1500, Europeans invented and used a variety of mechanical devices including water wheels and windmills. Mills were expensive to build, but over time they brought great profits to their owners
Industrial enterprises, including mining, ironworking, stone quarrying, & tanning, grew during these centuries. Results included both greater productivity and environmental damage, including water pollution and deforestation – They will run out of trees!!!! Where will they get more?

9. Section Review
Population growth stimulated improved farming methods & agricultural expansion, but peasant life did not significantly improve
Famine & the Black Death reversed population growth, resulted in social change throughout western Europe
Improved mill designs & other technology stimulated further industrial growth, which, in turn, changed the landscape

10. Urban Revival Trading Cities
Increase in trade & manufacturing led to growth of cities after 1200
Venetian capture of Constantinople opened the Mediterranean
Marco Polo spent 24 years abroad, opened Asian markets
Increase in sea trade brought profits to Genoa (Mediterranean) & the cities of the Hanseatic League (Baltic and North Sea)
Flanders prospered from woolen textile industries, while the towns of Champagne benefited from their position on the major land route through France & a series of trade fairs sponsored by their nobles
Textile industries also began to develop in England & Florence
Europeans made extensive use of water wheels and windmills in the textile, paper, & other industries

11. Trade Routes!

12. Civic Life
Autonomy of European city-states meant better ability to respond to changing market conditions than Chinese or Islamic cities
European cities offered citizens more freedom & social mobility
Most of Europe’s Jews lived in cities and were subject to persecution everywhere but Rome; they were blamed for disasters like the Black Death & expelled from Spain
Guilds regulated practice of & access to trades. Women rarely allowed to join guilds, but did work in unskilled non-guild jobs in the textile industry & in the food & beverage trades
Growth in commerce gave rise to bankers like the Medici of Florence and the Fugger of Augsburg, who handled financial transactions for merchants, the church, kings & princes of Europe
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

13. Gothic Cathedrals
Gothic cathedrals were masterpieces of late medieval architecture & craftsmanship
Distinctive features include the pointed Gothic arch, flying buttresses, high towers and spires, gargoyles & large interiors lit by huge stained glass windows
The men who designed & built the Gothic cathedrals had no formal training in design and engineering; they learned through their mistakes

16. Section Review
After 1200 most cities grew through manufacture & trade particularly: northern Italy, Flanders, & Baltic coast
Expanding trade & technological innovation ultimately reduced Europe’s dependence on eastern goods
Cities fostered social mobility, but civic life was dominated by guilds, wealthy merchants, & bankers
Most urban residents lived in squalor without the amenities of Islamic Middle Eastern cities
Gothic cathedrals became signs of special civic pride & prestige in European cities

17. Learning, Literature, and the Renaissance
After 1100 Western Europeans got access to Greek and Arabic works on science, philosophy, & medicine!
Manuscripts were translated & explained by Jewish scholars & studied at Christian monasteries, the primary centers of learning
After 1200, Universities emerged as new centers of learning. Some were established by students; most were teaching guilds established by professors to oversee the training, control the membership, & fight for the interests of the profession
Universities generally specialized in a particular branch of learning; Bologna, famous for its law faculty, others for medicine or theology
Theology was the most prominent discipline of the period because theologians sought to synthesize the rational philosophy of the Greeks with the Christian faith of the Latin West in an intellectual movement known as Scholasticism

18. Humanists and Printers
Dante Alighieri & Geoffrey Chaucer were among the great writers of the later Middle Ages. Dante’s Divine Comedy tells the story of the author’s journey through the nine layers of Hell & his entry into Paradise, while Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is a rich portrayal of the lives of everyday people making fun of the Feudal System
Dante influenced the intellectual movement of the Humanists, men such as Petrarch and Boccaccio, who were interested in the Humanities & in the classical literature of Greece & Rome. Humanists had tremendous influence on the reform of secondary education
Some of the humanists wrote in the vernacular. Most wrote in Latin; many worked to restore original texts of Latin & Greek authors & of the Bible through exhaustive comparative analysis of the many various versions that had been produced over the centuries. As a part of this enterprise, Pope Nicholas V established the Vatican Library, & the Dutch humanist Erasmus produced a critical edition of the New Testament.
The influence of the humanist writers was increased by the development of the printing press. Johann Gutenberg perfected the art of printing in 1454; his press & more than two hundred others had produced 10 million printed works by 1500

19. Renaissance Artists
14th & 15th century artists built on the more natural paintings of Giotto 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 also influenced by Jan van Eyck’s development of oil paints. Leonardo da Vinci & Michelangelo were famous artists of this period
Wealthy merchant & clerical patrons like the Medici of Florence & the Church contributed to the development of Renaissance art. The artistic and intellectual developments of the Renaissance did not stop in Europe; the university, printing, & oil painting were later adopted all over the world

20. Section Review
Greco-Roman learning returned to the Latin West through a series of revivals that culminated with the Renaissance
An infusion of Greek & Islamic scholarship during the 11th century helped promote the revival of the 12th and 13th centuries
Colleges and Universities grew, with theology as the preeminent discipline
Foreshadowed by Dante, Humanism, with its focus on classical languages, literature, ethics, & education, emerged in Italy
The influence of the Humanists spread through new print technology
Renaissance artists enlarged the thematic & technical resources of painting, sculpture, & architecture

21. Political and Military Transformations
Monarchs, Nobles, & the Church
13th C. European states ruled by weak monarchs whose power was limited by their modest treasuries, the regional nobility, the independent towns, & the Church
Two changes in weaponry began to undermine the utility, & therefore the economic position of the knights: the armor-piercing crossbow & the development of firearms
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, but monarchs still faced resistance, particularly from their stronger vassals
In England, the Norman conquest of 1066 had consolidated & centralized royal power, but Kings continued to find power limited by the Pope & by the English nobles, who forced King John to recognize their hereditary rights as defined in the Magna Carta

22. The Hundred Years War
The Hundred Years War pitted France against England, whose King Edward III claimed the French throne in 1337 (Robin Hood, Joan of Arc)
The war was fought with new military technology: crossbows; longbows; pikes (for pulling knights off their horses); & firearms, including an improved cannon
The French, whose superior cannon destroyed the castles of the English and their allies, finally defeated the English. The war left the French monarchy in a stronger position than before

23. New Monarchies in France & England
New monarchies emerging after 100 Years War had stronger central governments, stable borders, & stronger representative institutions. The English & French monarchs consolidated their control over the nobles
The new military technology: cannon & hand-held firearms, meant that the castle & the knight were outdated. New monarchs depended on professional standing armies of bowmen, pike men, musketeers, & artillery units
Monarchs had to find new sources of revenue to pay standing armies. To raise money, the new monarchs taxed land, merchants, & the church
By the end of the 15th century, there was a shift in power away from the nobility & the church towards the Monarchs. This process was not complete, however, & monarchs were still hemmed in by the nobles, the Church, & by new government institutions: the Parliament in England & the Estates General in France

24. Iberian Unification
Spain & Portugal emerged as strong centralized states through a process of marriage alliances, mergers, warfare, & Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula from Islam, offering nobility large landed estates upon which they could grow rich without having to work
Reconquista took place over a period of several centuries, but picked up after Christians put Muslims on the defensive with victory in 1212
Portugal became completely established in In 1415, the Portuguese captured the Moroccan port of Ceuta, which gave them access to the Saharan trade
In Spain, Castile & Aragon were united (Ferdinand & Isabella) in 1469 & Muslims were driven out of their last stronghold (Granada) in Spain then expelled all Jews and Muslims from its territory; Portugal also expelled its Jewish population (3 choices)

26. Section Review
Between 1200 & 1500, monarchs, nobles, & the church struggled over political power
Tensions between the French monarchy and the papacy resulted in the Great Western Schism
In England, royal power was checked by the papacy and nobility, the latter imposing the Magna Charta on King John
The Hundred Years War between the French monarchy and its vassals introduced new military technologies
This was also stimulated by the rise of the new centralized monarchies of England and France
Spain & Portugal continued the Reconquista of Muslim Iberia, a process completed by Ferdinand and Isabella

27. Conclusion
Ecologically, Latin Europe harnessed the power of wind & water & mined & refined their mineral wealth at the cost of pollution & deforestation. A demographic crisis climaxed with the Black Death in the mid-fourteenth century
Politically, frequent wars caused kingdoms of moderate size to develop exceptional military strength
Culturally, autonomous universities & printing supported the advance of knowledge while new inventions brought new dynamism in commerce, warfare, industry, & navigation
Many of the tools that the Latin West used to challenge Eastern supremacy originated in the East. From the 11th century onward, population pressure, religious zeal, economic enterprise, and intellectual curiosity drove expansion of territory and resources