Background of the Middle Ages and the Black Plague

Early Middle Ages: 500 – 1000

High Middle Ages: 1000 – 1250

Late Middle Ages: 1250

Early Middle Ages: 500 – 1000

High Middle Ages: 1000 – 1250

Late Middle Ages: 1250

What’s going on here?

Charlemagne’s Empire

FeudalismFeudalismFeudalismFeudalismA political, economic, and social system based on loyalty and military service.

Feudalism

• A political, economic, and social system based on loyalty and military service.

The Medieval ManorThe Medieval ManorThe Medieval ManorThe Medieval Manor

Gothic Cathedrals

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Magna Carta--1215

• 1. King John was mean to his people. He raised taxes, but the nobles revolted.

• 2. Nobles got basic rights guaranteed. (Due process of the law: Right to a jury trial and protection under of the law)

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Spread of the Plague

Stages of the Plague

• Came to the continent from Sicily in 1347

• Europe may have been susceptible due to what events in the 14th c?

• Bubonic plague (aka Yersinia pestis) was spread by what?

• Pneumonic plague was spread by coughing (making it far more deadly).

• Europe didn’t begin recovering until the 16th century

Results of the Plague (Impact on Society and Economy)

• Between one-quarter and one-third of Europe’s entire population was killed (up to 38 million).

• In some areas, the death toll reached 50%.

• People reacted in varying ways: indulgent living, abandoning cities, extreme behavior.

• Pogroms were attacks against which group of people?

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Some wore amulets to protect themselves…

More Results• Labor shortage in the aftermath of

the plagues. Aristocracy lost money.

• Statute of Laborers (1351) : Limit Wages

• Social Mobility--Hastened the decline of serfdom (wage labor becomes more popular)

• Peasant Revolts– Jacquerie in France (1358)

Meux to the right. --------->– English Peasants’ Revolt

(1381)--Watt Tyler and John Ball against the poll tax and the nobility. Successful?

• Revolts in the Cities – Ciompi Revolt in Florence

(1378)--short-lived success