TEMA 55.

La sociedad, el arte y las ideas en la Edad Media en Europa y especialmente

en el Reino Unido.

1.- INTRODUCTION
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The Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme
for analyzing European history: classical civilization (or Antiquity), the Middle Ages,
and the modern period. It is "Middle" in the sense of being between the two other
periods in time, ancient times and modern times. Humanist historians argued that
Renaissance scholarship restored direct links to the classical period, thus bypassing the
Medieval period. The term first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas (middle
time). The term medium aevum (Middle Ages) is first recorded in 1604.
Medieval historians did not, of course, think of themselves as being in the
middle of history. Instead, they wrote history from a universal and theological
perspective. They divided history into periods such as the "Six Ages" or the "Four
Empires", with the present period being the last before the end of the world. They
considered the Roman period, especially the time of the Apostles, a historical peak,
followed by a long slide toward the Apocalypse.
In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as
antiqua (ancient) and to the Christian period as nova (new). While retaining the theme
of decline from the apogee of ancient Rome, Petrarch's division was not based on
theology, but on a perception of cultural and political decline, especially the idea that
Medieval Latin was inferior to Classical Latin. From Petrarch's Italian perspective, this
new period (which included his own time) was an age of national eclipse. Leonardo
Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodization in his History of the
Florentine People (1442). Bruni's first two periods were based on those of Petrarch, but
he added a third period because he believed that Italy was no longer in a state of decline.
Flavio Biondo used a similar framework in Decades of History from the Deterioration
of the Roman Empire (14391453). Tripartite periodization became standard after the
German historian Christoph Cellarius published Universal History Divided into an
Ancient, Medieval, and New Period (1683).
The most commonly given start date for the Middle Ages is 476,[5] a date first
given by Bruni. This was when Romulus Augustus, the last Roman emperor in the West,
abdicated. The western empire had already lost its military power by this time and
Romulus Augustus was only a puppet emperor, so many historians object that this
convention ascribes undue significance to an arbitrary year. In contrast, Biondo used the
sack of Rome in 410 by the Goths as the beginning of the period. In the history of
Scandinavia, the Middle Ages followed prehistory during the 11th century, when the
rulers converted to Christianity and substantial written records began to appear. A
similar shift from prehistory to the Middle Ages occurred in Estonia and Latvia during
the 13th century.
For Europe as a whole, the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 is
commonly used as the end date of the Middle Ages. Depending on the context, other
events, such as the invention of the moveable type printing press by Johann Gutenberg
c. 1455, the fall of Muslim Spain or Christopher Columbus's voyage to America (both
1492), can be used. For Italy, 1401, the year the contract was awarded to build the north
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doors of the Florence Baptistery, is often used. In contrast, English historians often use
the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485) to mark the end of the period. For Spain, the death
of King Ferdinand II (1516) is used.
Historians in the Romance languages tend to divide the Middle Ages into two
parts: an earlier "High" and later "Low" period. English-speaking historians, following
their German counterparts, generally subdivide the Middle Ages into three intervals:
"Early", "High" and "Late". Belgian historian Henri Pirenne and Dutch historian Johan
Huizinga popularized the following subdivisions in the early 20th century: the Early
Middle Ages (476-1000), the High Middle Ages (10001300), and the Late Middle
Ages (13001453).
2.- THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE

The Roman empire reached its greatest territorial extent during the 2nd century.
The following two centuries witnessed the slow decline of Roman control over its
outlying territories. The Emperor Diocletian split the empire into separately
administered eastern and western halves in 286 AD. The division between east and west
was encouraged by Constantine, who refounded the city of Byzantium as the new
capital, Constantinople, in 330.
Diocletian's reforms had created a strong governmental bureaucracy, reformed
taxation, and strengthened the army. These reforms bought the Empire time, but they
demanded money. Roman power had been maintained by its well-trained and equipped
armies. These armies, however, were a constant drain on the Empire's finances. As
warfare became more dependent on heavy cavalry, the infantry-based Roman military
started to lose its advantage against its rivals. The defeat in 378 at the Battle of
Adrianople, at the hands of mounted Gothic lancers, destroyed much of the Roman
army and left the western empire undefended. Without a strong army, the empire was
forced to accommodate the large numbers of Germanic tribes who sought refuge within
its frontiers.
Known in traditional historiography collectively as the "barbarian invasions", the
Migration Period, or the Vlkerwanderung ("wandering of the peoples"), this migration
was a complicated and gradual process. Some of these "barbarian" tribes rejected the
classical culture of Rome, while others admired and aspired to it. In return for land to
farm and, in some regions, the right to collect tax revenues for the state, federated tribes
provided military support to the empire. Other incursions were small-scale military
invasions of tribal groups assembled to gather plunder. The Huns, Bulgars, Avars, and
Magyars all raided the Empire's territories and terrorised its inhabitants. Later, Slavic
and Germanic peoples would settle the lands previously taken by these tribes. The most
famous invasion culminated in the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410, the first time
in almost 800 years that Rome had fallen to an enemy.
By the end of the 5th century, Roman institutions were crumbling. Some early
historians have given this period of societal collapse the epithet of "Dark Ages" because
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of the contrast to earlier times, (however, the term is avoided by current historians). The
last emperor of the west, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by the barbarian king
Odoacer in 476. The Eastern Roman Empire (conventionally referred to as the
"Byzantine Empire" after the fall of its western counterpart) had little ability to assert
control over the lost western territories. Even though Byzantine emperors maintained a
claim over the territory, and no "barbarian" king dared to elevate himself to the position
of Emperor of the west, Byzantine control of most of the West could not be sustained;
the renovatio imperii ("imperial restoration", entailing reconquest of the Italian
peninsula and Mediterranean periphery) by Justinian was the sole, and temporary,
exception.
As Roman authority disappeared in the west, cities, literacy, trading networks
and urban infrastructure declined. Where civic functions and infrastructure were
maintained, it was mainly by the Christian Church. Augustine of Hippo is an example of
one bishop who became a capable civic administrator.
3.- EARLY MIDDLE AGES.
3.1 The Breakdown of Roman society
The breakdown of Roman society was dramatic. The patchwork of petty rulers
was incapable of supporting the depth of civic infrastructure required to maintain
libraries, public baths, arenas, and major educational institutions. Any new building was
on a far smaller scale than before. The social effects of the fracture of the Roman state
were manifold. Cities and merchants lost the economic benefits of safe conditions for
trade and manufacture, and intellectual development suffered from the loss of a unified
cultural and educational milieu of far-ranging connections.
As it became unsafe to travel or carry goods over any distance, there was a
collapse in trade and manufacture for export. The major industries that depended on
long-distance trade, such as large-scale pottery manufacture, vanished almost overnight
in places like Britain. Whereas sites like Tintagel in Cornwall (the extreme southwest of
modern day England) had managed to obtain supplies of Mediterranean luxury goods
well into the 6th century, this connection was now lost.
Between the 5th and 8th centuries, new peoples and powerful individuals filled
the political void left by Roman centralized government. Germanic tribes established
regional hegemonies within the former boundaries of the Empire, creating divided,
decentralized kingdoms like those of the Ostrogoths in Italy, the Suevi in Gallaecia, the
Visigoths in Hispania, the Franks and Burgundians in Gaul and western Germany, the
Angles and the Saxons in Britain, and the Vandals in North Africa.
Roman landholders beyond the confines of city walls were also vulnerable to
extreme changes, and they could not simply pack up their land and move elsewhere.
Some were dispossessed and fled to Byzantine regions; others quickly pledged their
allegiances to their new rulers. In areas like Spain and Italy, this often meant little more
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than acknowledging a new overlord, while Roman forms of law and religion could be
maintained. In other areas, where there was a greater weight of population movement, it
might be necessary to adopt new modes of dress, language, and custom.
The Muslim conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries of the Persian Empire,
Roman Syria, Roman Egypt, Roman North Africa, Visigothic Spain, Sicily and southern
Italy eroded the area of the Roman Empire and controlled strategic areas of the
Mediterranean. By the end of the 8th century, the former Western Roman Empire was
decentralized and overwhelmingly rural.
3.2 Church and monasticism
The Catholic Church, which means "universal church", was the major unifying
cultural influence. Preserving its selection from Latin learning, maintaining the art of
writing, and a centralized administration through its network of bishops. Some regions
that were populated by Catholics were conquered by Arian rulers, which provoked
much tension between Arian kings and the Catholic hierarchy. Clovis I of the Franks is a
well-known example of a barbarian king who chose Catholic orthodoxy over Arianism.
His conversion marked a turning point for the Frankish tribes of Gaul.
Bishops were central to Middle Age society due to the literacy they possessed.
As a result, they often played a significant role in governance. However, beyond the
core areas of Western Europe, there remained many peoples with little or no contact
with Christianity or with classical Roman culture. Martial societies such as the Avars
and the Vikings were still capable of causing major disruption to the newly emerging
societies of Western Europe.
The Early Middle Ages witnessed the rise of monasticism within the west.
Although the impulse to withdraw from society to focus upon a spiritual life is
experienced by people of all cultures, the shape of European monasticism was
determined by traditions and ideas that originated in the deserts of Egypt and Syria. The
style of monasticism that focuses on community experience of the spiritual life, called
cenobitism, was pioneered by the saint Pachomius in the 4th century. Monastic ideals
spread from Egypt to western Europe in the 5th and 6th centuries through
hagiographical literature such as the Life of Saint Anthony.[9]
Saint Benedict wrote the definitive Rule for western monasticism during the 6th
century, detailing the administrative and spiritual responsibilities of a community of
monks led by an abbot. They were the main outposts of education and literacy.
3.3 Insular art
Insular art refers to the distinct style found in Ireland and Britain from about the
7th century, to about the 10th century, lasting later in Ireland. The style saw a fusion
between the traditions of Celtic art, the Germanic Migration period art of the AngloSaxons and the Christian forms of the book, high crosses and liturgical metalwork.
Extremely detailed geometric, interlace, and stylised animal decoration, with forms
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derived from secular metalwork like brooches, spread boldly across manuscripts,
usually gospel books like the Book of Kells, with whole carpet pages devoted to such
designs, and the development of the large decorated and historiated initial. There were
very few human figuresmost often these were Evangelist portraitsand these were
crude, even when closely following Late Antique models.
The insular manuscript style was transmitted to the continent by the HibernoScottish mission, and its anti-classical energy was extremely important in the formation
of later medieval styles. In most Late Antique manuscripts text and decoration were kept
clearly apart, though some initials began to be enlarged and elaborated, but major
insular manuscripts sometimes take a whole page for a single initial or the first few
words (see illustration) at beginnings of gospels or other sections in a book. Allowing
decoration a "right to roam" was to be very influential on Romanesque and Gothic art in
all media.
The buildings of the monasteries for which the insular gospel books were made
were then small and could fairly be called primitive, especially in Ireland. There
increasingly were other decorations to churches, where possible in precious metals, and
a handful of these survive, like the Ardagh Chalice, together with a larger number of
extremely ornate and finely made pieces of secular high-status jewellery, the Celtic
brooches probably worn mainly by men, of which the Tara Brooch is the most
spectacular.
4. HIGH MIDDLE AGES
The High Middle Ages were characterized by the urbanization of Europe,
military expansion, and intellectual revival that historians identify between the 11th
century and the end of the 13th century. This revival was aided by the conversion of the
raiding Scandinavians and Hungarians to Christianity, by the assertion of power by
Castellans to fill the power vacuum left by the Carolingian decline, and not least by the
increased contact with Islamic civilization, which had preserved and elaborated all the
classic Greek literature forgotten in Europe after the collapse of The Roman Empire.
This was now retranslated into Latin, along with newer works of important advances in
science and technology .
The High Middle Ages saw an explosion in population. This population flowed
into towns, sought conquests abroad, or cleared land for cultivation. The cities of
antiquity had been clustered around the Mediterranean. By 1200, the growing urban
centres were in the centre of the continent, connected by roads or rivers. By the end of
this period, Paris might have had as many as 200,000 inhabitants. In central and
northern Italy and in Flanders, the rise of towns that were self-governing to some degree
within their territories stimulated the economy and created an environment for new
types of religious and trade associations. Trading cities on the shores of the Baltic
entered into agreements known as the Hanseatic League, and Italian city-states such as
Venice, Genoa, and Pisa expanded their trade throughout the Mediterranean. This period
marks a formative one in the history of the western state as we know it, for kings in
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France, England, and Spain consolidated their power during this period, setting up
lasting institutions to help them govern. Also new kingdoms like Hungary and Poland,
after their sedentarization and conversion to Christianity, became Central-European
powers. Hungary, especially, became the "Gate to Europe" from Asia, and bastion of
Christianity against the invaders from the East until the 16th century and the onslaught
by the Ottoman Empire. The Papacy, which had long since created an ideology of
independence from the secular kings, first asserted its claims to temporal authority over
the entire Christian world. With the brief exception of the Kipchak and Mongol
invasions, major barbarian incursions ceased.
4.1 Villages
A typical middle ages village would consist of between 10 and 100 people.
There would be a priest (who was considered important), a blacksmith, an ale maker
and the most important man in the village, the lord of the manor. The rest of the people
would be peasants who would work in the fields.
4.2 The Three Field System
A medieval village would always own three fields. One of the three fields would
grow wheat, one would grow Barley and one would lie fallow (not used). The peasants
of the village would grow the crops in the fields so that they would pay their taxes.
4.3 Crusades
The Crusades were holy wars or armed pilgrimages intended to liberate
Jerusalem from Muslim control. Jerusalem was part of the Muslim possessions won
during a rapid military expansion in the 7th century through the Near East, Northern
Africa, and Anatolia (in modern Turkey). The first Crusade was preached by Pope
Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095 in response to a request from the Byzantine
emperor Alexios I Komnenos for aid against further advancement. By the end of the
Middle Ages, the Christian Crusaders had captured all the Islamic territories in modern
Spain, Portugal, and Southern Italy. Meanwhile, Islamic counter-attacks had retaken all
the Crusader possessions on the Asian mainland, leaving a de facto boundary between
Islam and western Christianity that continued until modern times.
Substantial areas of northern Europe also remained outside Christian influence
until the 11th century or later; these areas also became crusading venues during the
expansionist High Middle Ages. Throughout this period, the Byzantine Empire was in
decline, having peaked in influence during the High Middle Ages. Beginning with the
Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the empire underwent a cycle of decline and renewal,
including the sacking of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. After that,
Andrew II of Hungary assembled the biggest army in the history of the Crusades, and
moved his troops as a leading figure in the Fifth Crusade, reaching Cyprus and later
Lebanon, coming back home in 1218.

Despite another short upswing following the recapture of Constantinople in

1261, the empire continued to deteriorate.
4.4 Science and technology
During the early Middle Ages and the Islamic Golden Age, Islamic philosophy,
science, and technology were more advanced than in Western Europe. Islamic scholars
both preserved and built upon earlier Ancient Greek and Roman traditions and added
their own inventions and innovations. Islamic al-Andalus passed much of this on to
Europe (see Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe). The replacement of Roman
numerals with the decimal positional number system and the invention of algebra
allowed more advanced mathematics. Another consequence was that the Latin-speaking
world regained access to lost classical literature and philosophy. Latin translations of the
12th century fed a passion for Aristotelian philosophy and Islamic science that is
frequently referred to as the Renaissance of the 12th century. Meanwhile, trade grew
throughout Europe as the dangers of travel were reduced, and steady economic growth
resumed. Cathedral schools and monasteries ceased to be the sole sources of education
in the 11th century when universities were established in major European cities.
Literacy became available to a wider class of people, and there were major advances in
art, sculpture, music, and architecture. Large cathedrals were built across Europe, first
in the Romanesque, and later in the more decorative Gothic style.
During the 12th and 13th century in Europe, there was a radical change in the
rate of new inventions, innovations in the ways of managing traditional means of
production, and economic growth. The period saw major technological advances,
including the invention of cannon, spectacles, and artesian wells, and the cross-cultural
introduction of gunpowder, silk, the compass, and the astrolabe from the east. One
major agricultural innovation during this period was the development of a 3-field
rotation system for planting crops (as opposed the 2-field system that was being used).
Further, the development of the heavy plow allowed for a rise in communal agriculture
as most individuals could not afford to do it by themselves. As a result, medieval
villages had formed a type of collective ownership and communal agriculture where the
use of horses allowed villages to grow.
There were also great improvements to ships and the clock. The latter advances
made possible the dawn of the Age of Exploration. At the same time, huge numbers of
Greek and Arabic works on medicine and the sciences were translated and distributed
throughout Europe. Aristotle especially became very important, his rational and logical
approach to knowledge influencing the scholars at the newly forming universities which
were absorbing and disseminating the new knowledge during the 12th century
Renaissance.
4.5 Anglo-Norman Literature
The Norman language came over to England with William the Conqueror.
Following the Norman conquest, the Norman language became the language of
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England's nobility. During the whole of the 12th century Anglo-Norman (the variety of
Norman used in England) shared with Latin the distinction of being the literary
language of England, and it was in use at the court until the 14th century. It was not
until the reign of Henry VII that English became the native tongue of the kings of
England. The language had undergone certain changes which distinguished it from the
Old Norman spoken in Normandy, as can be seen from graphical characteristics, from
which certain rules of pronunciation are to be inferred. An Anglo-Norman variety of
French continued to exist into the early 15th century, though it was in decline at least
from the 1360s, when it was deemed insufficiently well-known to be used for pleading
in court. Great prestige continued to be enjoyed by the French language, however; in the
late 14th century.
The most flourishing period of Anglo-Norman literature was from the beginning
of the 12th century to the end of the first quarter of the 13th. The end of this period is
generally said to coincide with the loss of the French provinces to Philip Augustus, but
literary and political history do not correspond quite so precisely, and the end of the first
period would be more accurately denoted by the appearance of the history of William
the Marshal. It owes its brilliancy largely to the protection accorded by Henry II of
England to the men of letters of his day.
Wace and Benot de Sainte-More compiled their histories at his bidding, and it
was in his reign that Marie de France composed her poems. An event with which he was
closely connected, viz. the murder of Thomas Becket, gave rise to a whole series of
writings, some of which are purely Anglo-Norman. In his time appeared the works of
Broul and Thomas of Britain respectively, as well as some of the most celebrated of the
Anglo-Norman romans d'aventure. It is important to keep this fact in mind when
studying the different works which Anglo-Norman literature has left us. We will
examine these works briefly, grouping them into narrative, didactic, hagiographic, lyric,
satiric and dramatic literature.
The French epic came over to England at an early date. It is believed that the
Chanson de Roland was sung at the battle of Hastings, and some Anglo-Norman
manuscripts of chansons de geste have survived to this day. The Plrinage de
Charlemagne was, for instance, only preserved in an Anglo-Norman manuscript of the
British Museum (now lost), although the author was certainly a Parisian. The oldest
manuscript of the Chanson de Roland that we possess is also a manuscript written in
England, and amongst the others of less importance we may mention La Chanun de
Willame.
Although the diffusion of epic poetry in England did not actually inspire any
new chansons de geste, it developed the taste for this class of literature, and the epic
style in which the tales of the Romance of Horn, of Bovon de Hampton, of Guy of
Warwick (still unpublished), of Waldef (still unpublished), and of Fulk Fitz Warine are
treated, is certainly partly due to this circumstance. Although the last of these works has
come down to us only in a prose version, it contains unmistakable signs of a previous
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poetic form, and what we possess is really only a rendering into prose similar to the
transformations undergone by many of the chansons de geste.
The legends of Merlin and Arthur, collected in the Historia Regum Britanniae by
Geoffrey of Monmouth, passed into French literature, bearing the character which the
bishop of St Asaph had stamped upon them. Chrtien de Troyes's Perceval is doubtless
based on an Anglo-Norman poem. Robert de Boron (c. 1215) took the subject of his
Merlin rom Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Finally, the most celebrated love-legend of the Middle Ages, and one of the most
beautiful inventions of world-literature, the story of Tristan and Iseult, tempted two
authors, Broul and Thomas, the first of whom is probably, and the second certainly,
Anglo-Norman. One Folie Tristan was composed in England in the last years of the
12th century.
Less fascinating than the story of Tristan and Iseult, but nevertheless of
considerable interest, are the two romans d'aventure of Hugh of Rutland, Ipomedon and
Protesilaus written about 1185. The first relates the adventures of a knight who married
the young duchess of Calabria, niece of King Meleager of Sicily, but was loved by
Medea, the king's wife.
The second poem is the sequel to Ipomedon, and deals with the wars and
subsequent reconciliation between Ipomedon's sons, Daunus, the elder, lord of Apulia,
and Protesilaus, the younger, lord of Calabria.
To these two romances by an Anglo-Norman author, Amadas et Idoine, of which
we only possess a continental version, is to be added. Gaston Paris has proved indeed
that the original was composed in England in the 12th century.
The Anglo-Norman poem on the Life of Richard Coeur de Lion is lost, and an
English version only has been preserved. About 1250 Eustace of Kent introduced into
England the roman d'Alexandre in his Roman de toute chevalerie, many passages of
which have been imitated in one of the oldest English poems on Alexander, namely,
King Alisaunder .
4.6 Changes
Monastic reform became an important issue during the 11th century, when elites
began to worry that monks were not adhering to their Rules with the discipline that was
required for a good religious life. During this time, it was believed that monks were
performing a very practical task by sending their prayers to God and inducing Him to
make the world a better place for the virtuous. The time invested in this activity would
be wasted, however, if the monks were not virtuous. The monastery of Cluny, founded
in the Mcon in 909, was founded as part of a larger movement of monastic reform in
response to this fear. It was a reformed monastery that quickly established a reputation
for austerity and rigour. Cluny sought to maintain the high quality of spiritual life by
electing its own abbot from within the cloister, and maintained an economic and
10

political independence from local lords by placing itself under the protection of the
Pope. Cluny provided a popular solution to the problem of bad monastic codes, and in
the 11th century its abbots were frequently called to participate in imperial politics as
well as reform monasteries in France and Italy.
The Christianization of the Hungarians and the foundation of their Medieval
state by their first King Saint Stephen I of Hungary (10001038) meant a relevant
success in the beginning of the 11th century. He sedentarized his people, forced them to
adopt the Christian religion, mentality and traditions, founded the political and
ecclesiastic divisions using as model the Holy Roman Empire's. The routes for the
pilgrims were opened and many contemporary clerics remember the Hungarian King as
a very religious and generous monarch. The achievement of the King Saint Stephen is
considered as one of the most inspiring and hard to accomplish, due the nature of the
factors from where he started (a semi-nomad pagan society, with no central order, no
written rules, no central religious cult, etc.). After this, the Kingdom of Hungary became
one of the most important and powerful Christian states in the Middle Ages, always
keeping a close relationship with the Pope of Rome.
The monastic reform inspired change in the secular church, as well. The ideals
that it was based upon were brought to the papacy by Pope Leo IX on his election in
1049, providing the ideology of clerical independence that fuelled the Investiture
Controversy in the late 11th century. The Investiture Controversy involved Pope
Gregory VII and Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, who initially clashed over a specific
bishop's appointment and turned into a battle over the ideas of investiture, clerical
marriage, and simony. The Papacy, however, had begun insisting on its independence
from secular lords. The open warfare ended with Henry IV's occupation of Rome in
1085 and the death of the Pope several months later, but the issues themselves remained
unresolved even after the compromise of 1122 known as the Concordat of Worms. The
conflict represents a significant stage in the creation of a papal monarchy separate from
lay authorities. It also had the permanent consequence of empowering German princes
at the expense of the German emperors.
The High Middle Ages was a period of great religious movements. The
Crusades, which have already been mentioned, have an undeniable religious aspect.
Monastic reform was similarly a religious movement effected by monks and elites.
Other groups sought to participate in new forms of religious life. Landed elites financed
the construction of new parish churches in the European countryside, which increased
the Church's impact upon the daily lives of peasants. Cathedral canons adopted
monastic rules, groups of peasants and laypeople abandoned their possessions to live
like the Apostles, and people formulated ideas about their religion that were deemed
heretical. The new religious groups called the Waldensians and the Humiliati were
condemned for their refusal to accept a life of cloistered monasticism. In many aspects,
however, they were not very different from the Franciscans and the Dominicans, who
were approved by the papacy in the early 13th century (the Franciscan and the
Dominican friars developed the popular sermon).
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5. LATE MIDDLE AGES

The Late Middle Ages were a period initiated by calamities and upheavals.
During this time, agriculture was affected by a climate change that has been
documented by climate historians, and was felt by contemporaries in the form of
periodic famines, including the Great Famine of 1315-1317. Medieval Britain was
afflicted by 95 famines, and France suffered the effects of 75 or more in the same
period. The Black Death, a disease that spread among the populace like wildfire, killed
as much as a third of the population in the mid-14th century.[23] In some regions, the
toll was higher than one half of the population. Towns were especially hard-hit because
of the crowded conditions. Large areas of land were left sparsely inhabited, and in some
places fields were left unworked. Because of the sudden decline in available labourers,
the price of wages rose as landlords sought to entice workers to their fields. Workers
also felt that they had a right to greater earnings, and popular uprisings broke out across
Europe. Even the king Louis I of Hungary was forced to stop his long war against the
Kingdom of Naples in 1347, because of the deaths in the Italian region. The Black
Death soon took the life of Louis I's wife, Margaret, daughter of the German emperor
Charles IV, and as well few Hungarians, although the negative consequences of this
disease in the Kingdom of Hungary were relatively mild.
This period of stress, paradoxically, witnessed creative social, economic, and
technological responses that laid the groundwork for further great changes in the Early
Modern Period. It was also a period when the Catholic Church was increasingly divided
against itself. During the time of the Western Schism, the Church was led by as many as
three popes at one time. The divisiveness of the Church undermined papal authority, and
allowed the formation of national churches.
5.1 State resurgence
The Late Middle Ages also witnessed the rise of strong, royalty-based nationstates, particularly the Kingdom of England, the Kingdom of France, and the Christian
kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula (Aragon, Castile, Navarre, and Portugal).
The long conflicts of this time, such as the Hundred Years' War fought between
England and France, strengthened royal control over the kingdoms, even though they
were extremely hard on the peasantry. Kings profited from warfare by gaining land.
France shows clear signs of a growth in royal power during the 14th century,
from the active persecution of heretics and lepers, expulsion of the Jews, and the
dissolution of the Knights Templar. In all of these cases, undertaken by Philip IV, the
king confiscated land and wealth from these minority groups.[14] The conflict between
Philip and Pope Boniface VIII, a conflict which began over Philip's unauthorized
taxation of clergy, ended with the violent death of Boniface and the installation of Pope
Clement V, a weak, French-controlled pope, in Avignon. This action enhanced French
prestige, at the expense of the papacy.

12

England, too, began the 14th century with warfare and expansion. Edward I
waged war against the Principality of Wales and the Kingdom of Scotland, with mixed
success, to assert what he considered his right to the entire island of Great Britain.
5.2 Hundred Years' War
The Hundred Years' War was a conflict between France and England lasting 116
years, from 1337 to 1453. It was fought primarily over claims by the English kings to
the French throne and was punctuated by several brief and two extended periods of
peace before it finally ended in the expulsion of the English from France, except for the
Calais Pale. Though primarily a dynastic conflict, the war gave impetus to ideas of both
French and English nationality. Militarily, it saw the introduction of new weapons and
tactics, which eroded the older system of feudal armies dominated by heavy cavalry.
The first standing armies in Western Europe since the time of the Western Roman
Empire were introduced for the war, thus changing the role of the peasantry. For all this,
as well as for its long duration, it is often viewed as one of the most significant conflicts
in the history of medieval warfare.
The troubled 14th century saw both the Avignon Papacy of 13051378, also
called the Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy (a reference to the Babylonian Captivity
of the Jews), and the so-called Western Schism that lasted from 1378 to 1418. The
turmoil of the Church, and the perception that it was a corrupted institution, sapped the
legitimacy of the papacy within Europe and fostered greater loyalty to regional or
national churches. Martin Luther published objections to the Church. Although his
disenchantment had long been forming, the denunciation of the Church was precipitated
by the arrival of preachers raising money to rebuild the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome.
Luther might have been silenced by the Church, but the death of the Holy Roman
Emperor Maximilian I brought the imperial succession to the forefront of concern.
Lutherans' split with the Church in 1517, and the subsequent division of Catholicism
into Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anabaptism, put a definitive end to the unified
Church built during the Middle Ages.
5.3 European development
In the end of the 15th century the Ottoman Empire advanced all over West
Europe conquering eventually the Byzantine Empire and extending their control on the
slavish states of the Balkans. Hungary became eventually the last bastion of the Latin
Christian world, and fought for the keeping its rule on his territories during two
centuries. After the tragic death of the young King Vladislaus I of Hungary during the
Battle of Varna in 1444 against the Ottomans, the Kingdom without monarch was
placed in the hands of the count John Hunyadi, who became Hungary's regent-governor
(14461453). Hunyadi was considered by the pope as one of the most relevant military
figures of the 15th century (The Pope Pius II awarded him with the title of Athleta
Christi or Champion of Christ), because he was the only hope of keeping a resistance
against the Ottomans in Central and West Europe. Hunyadi succeeded during the Siege
of Belgrade in 1456 against the Ottomans, which meant the biggest victory against that
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empire in decades. This battle became a real Crusade against the Muslims, as the
Hungarian, Bohemian and slavish peasants were motivated by the Franciscan monk
Saint John of Capistrano, which came from Italy predicating the Holy War. The effect
that it created in that time was one of the few main factors that helped achieving the
victory. However the premature death of the Hungarian Lord left defenseless and in
chaos that area of Europe.
As an absolutely unusual event for the Middle Ages, Hunyadi's son, Matthias,
was elected as King for Hungary by the nobility. For the first time, a member of an
aristocratic family (and not from a royal family) was crowned. The King Matthias
Corvinus of Hungary (14581490) was one of the most prominent figures of this Age,
as he directed campaigns to the west conquering Bohemia answering to the Pope's claim
for help against the Hussite Protestants, and also for solving the political hostilities with
the German emperor Frederick III of Habsburg he invaded his west domains. At the
same time, Hungary became under his reign the most important country where the
Renaissance developed after the Italian states. Many sculptors, poets, musicians,
painters, scientists moved to Hungary from all corners of Europe, gathering all in the
court of the King. He established what was at the time of Europe's largest libraries, the
Bibliotheca Corviniana, with over 3000 codices.
Hungary resisted until 1526 when the Ottoman armies won the Battle of
Mohcs, and the Christian Kingdom lost his King Louis II of Hungary, falling in a
serious crisis. The Protestant reform, and The American Continent's discovery left
behind the matter of the Ottoman wars, and mutilated the medieval Europe leaving it
without one of its most important Kingdoms. This episode is considered to be one of the
final ones of the Medieval Times.
5.4 Religion
Actually, reason was generally held in high regard during the Middle Ages.The
caricature of the period is also reflected in a number of more specific notions. For
instance, a claim that was first propagated in the 19th century and is still very common
in popular culture is the supposition that all people in the Middle Ages believed that the
Earth was flat. This claim is mistaken. In fact, lecturers in the medieval universities
commonly advanced evidence in favor of the idea that the Earth was a sphere.
Other misconceptions such as: "the Church prohibited autopsies and dissections
during the Middle Ages", "the rise of Christianity killed off ancient science", and "the
medieval Christian church suppressed the growth of natural philosophy", are all cited by
Ronald Numbers as examples of widely popular myths that still pass as historical truth,
although they are not supported by current historical research.[36] They help maintain
the idea of a "Dark Age" spanning through the medieval period.
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