CHAPTER 16
The Latin West
1200 - 1500
I. Rural Growth and Crisis
A. Peasants, population, and Plague• Most people of the Latin West were peasants bound
by serfdom that used inefficient agricultural practices.
• Women labored in fields and were subordinate to men.
• Europe’s population doubled between 1000 and 1445.
• Population growth was spurred by new agricultural technologies in northern Europe, including the three-field system and the cultivation of oats for horses.
• As new land was opened up for cultivation much of it had poor soil and poor growing conditions.
FEUDALISM
Peasant cultivators
labored long hours and
more than half of the
fruits of their labor went
to the landowners, which
led to a lack of
motivation to improve
farming techniques.
B. Social Rebellion• The Black Death was brought from Kaffa to Italy and
southern France in 1346.• Ravaged Europe for two years and returned
periodically in the late 1300s and 1400s.• As a result of plague, labor became more expensive
in Western Europe and led to peasant uprisings and the end of serfdom.
• After the plague, rural living standards improved, the period of apprenticeship for artisans was reduced, and per capita income rose.
The Black Death
resolved the problem of
overpopulation
by killing off a third of
western Europeans
Black Death victims
developed boils the size
of eggs
in their groins and
armpits, black blotches
on their skin,
foul body odors, and
severe pain.
C. Mills and Mines• Between 1200 - 1500 Europeans invented and used a
variety of mechanical devices including water wheels and windmills.
• Industrial enterprises, including mining, ironworking, stone quarrying, and tanning, grew during this time.
• The results included both greater productivity and environmental damage including water pollution and
deforestation.
Wind mills were
powered by water or
wind and were used to
grind grain into flour,
saw logs into lumber,
crush olives, tan leather,
make paper, mold iron
into tools, horseshoes,
etc.
II. Urban Revival
A. Trading Cities• Cities grew due to the increase in trade and
manufacturing.
• The rise of Venice was the result of the capture of Constantinople, the opening of the Central Asian caravan trade under the Mongol Empire, and the post Mongol development of the Mediterranean galley trade with Constantinople, Beirut, and Alexandria.
• This increase in sea trade also brought profits to Genoa and to the cities of the Hanseatic League in the Baltic and the North Sea.
• Flanders prospered from its woolen textile industries, while the towns of Champagne benefited from their position on the major land route through France.
• Trade industries also began to develop in England and Florence and the use of windmills and water wheels helped develop the textile, paper, and other industries
Routes and systems of
trade in medieval
Europe.
Illustrates the major
overland and port
trading cities.
VENICE
Venice was the major
trading power in the
Mediterranean.
It was the first European
city to open up trading
relationships with the
Islamic world.
FLANDERS
Flanders specialized in
the European cloth and
wool trade which was
smoother than the
coarse
homemade textiles from
village looms.
B. Civic Life• European cities that were city-states were better able to
respond to the changing market conditions than Chinese or Islamic cities and European cities offered their citizens more freedom and social mobility.
• Europe's Jews lived in the cities and they were the subject of persecution and they were blamed for disasters like the Black Death and were expelled from Spain due to the Inquisition.
• Guilds regulated the practice of and access to trades, but women were rarely allowed to join.
• The growth of commerce gave rise to bankers like the Medicis of Florence and the Fuggers of Augsburg who handled financial transactions for merchants, the church, and the kings and princes of Europe.
• Many bankers were Jews because the Church prohibited usury.
Cosimo the Elder was
the head of the Medici
family
in Florence. They were
largest banking family in
Italy
and were important
patrons of the arts.
Jacob “the Rich” Fugger
started out as a cloth
merchant but turned his
family’s wealth into the
largest banking family in
Europe.
C. Gothic Cathedrals• Gothic Cathedrals are the masterpieces of late
medieval architecture and craftsmanship.
• Features include the pointed Gothic arch, flying buttresses, high towers and spires, and large interiors lit by huge windows.
• The men who designed and built the Gothic cathedrals had no formal training in design and engineering; they learned through their mistakes.
The hallmark of Gothic
architecture is the
Gothic arch which
replaced the older round
Roman arch.
III. Learning, Literature, and the Renaissance
A. Universities and Scholarship• After 1100, Western Europeans got access to Greek and Arabic
works on science, philosophy, and medicine.• These manuscripts were translated and explicated by Jewish
scholars and studied at Christian monasteries, which remained the primary centers of learning.
• After 1200 colleges and universities emerged as new centers of learning.
• Universities generally specialized in a particular branch of learning.
• Theology was the most prominent discipline at the time because theologians sought to synthesize the rational philosophy of the time with the Christian faith of the Latin West in an intellectual movement known as scholasticism
University of Bologna (1088) is
the oldest continually
operating university in the
world. The word “universitas”
was first used by this
institution. It is historically
notable
for its teaching of canon and
civil law.
A medieval Italian
classroom.
B. Humanists and Printers
• Humanists refers to their interests in grammar, rhetoric,
poetry, history, and moral philosophy (ethics). These
subjects are collectively known as the humanities.
• Humanists wrote in the vernacular and Latin and
worked to restore the original texts and Bible through
exhaustive comparative analysis of the many various
versions that had been produced over the centuries.
Dante Alighieri’s Divine
Comedy was the first to
combine Christian and
Greco-Roman themes
together, which
foreshadowed the
literary fashions of the
later Italian
Renaissance.
Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is a
rich portrayal of the actions and
attitudes of everyday people
in late medieval England.
Johannes Gutenberg invented
mechanical movable type
printing and started the printing
revolution that played a key role
in the development of the
Renaissance. It laid the material
basis for the modern knowledge-
based
economy and the spread of
learning to the masses.
C. Renaissance Artists• Style of art built on the more natural paintings
which concentrated on the depiction of Greek and Roman gods and of scenes from daily life.
• Jan van Eyck developed oil paints.• Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were two of the
famous artists.• Wealthy merchant and clerical patrons liked the
Medici's of Florence and the church contributed to the development of Renaissance art.
Jan van Eyck was the
first painter to use oil to
create very life-like
scenes.
The Mona Lisa.
Michalangelo’s Sistine
Chapel ceiling is
considered his crowing
achievement completed
in 1512
IV. Political and Military Transformations
A. Monarchs, Nobles, and the Church• 13th century European states were ruled by weak
monarchs whose power was limited.• The armor piercing crossbow and firearms led to the
demise of knights.• Philip the Fair of France reduced the power of the
church when he arrested the pope and had a new French one installed in Avignon.
• The Magna Carta limited the power of the English King.
• Monarchs and nobles often entered into marriage alliances and these led to wars and the establishment of territorial boundaries
CROSSBOW
With an iron tipped
arrow, the crossbow
could pierce armor.
In 1139 it was outlawed
because it was
considered too deadly to
be used against
Christians.
MAGNA CARTA
Magna Carta (Great
Charter) affirmed that
monarchs were subject
to established law. It is
one of the foundations of
modern-day democracy.
Depiction of King John
signing the Magna Carta
under duress.
B. The Hundred Years War• Pitted England against France when Edward III
claimed the French throne in 1337.• War was fought with new military technology. (pikes,
cannon, crossbows, longbows, and firearms)• The French superior cannon destroyed the castles of
the English and their allies and left the French monarchy in a stronger position than before.
King Henry V at the
battle of Agincourt. The
longbow allowed the
outnumbered English to
crush the French
knights.
Joan of Arc, the heroine
of France, rallied the
French to defeat the
English to end the
Hundred Years War in
1429. Burned at the
stake in 1431 for being a
“witch”.
C. Iberian Unification• The reconquest of Spain by Christians over Muslims
took several centuries.• Portugal was established in 1249, but by 1415 they
had captured the Moroccan port of Ceuta, which gave them access to the trans-Saharan trade.
• Castile and Aragon were united in 1469 and by 1492 they drove the Muslims out of their last Iberian stronghold (Granada).
• Spain and Portugal then expelled all Jews and Muslims from their territory.
Reconquest of the
Iberian peninsula from
the Moors.
King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella
completed the conquest
of Spain in 1492. They
also sponsored the
voyages of Columbus.
Muslim palace in
Granada which was the
last Muslim stronghold
to fall into Spanish
hands during the
reconquest.