The Crisis
of the Late Middle AgesPieter Bruegel, The Triumph of Death (c.1562)
Europe’s Population
Year Population1000 38 million1100 48 million1200 59 million1300 70 million1347 75 million1352 50 million
Source: www.byu.edu/ipt/projects/middleages/LifeTimes/Plague.html
During the Late Middle Ages
http://www.davidmiles.net
The Four
Horsemen
Revelation 6
The 14th CenturyAll of the following were
occurring during the fourteenth century:
• Famine• Black Death• Hundred Years’ War• Peasant Revolts
Great Famine(1315-1322)
• “Little Ice Age”
• Food Shortage–Speculators• Excommunicaton
–Price Controls• Unsuccessful
Bubonic/Pneumonic Plague (a.k.a. “Black Death”)
• c. 1340s• 40% of population dead?
A “Beak Doctor”AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo
Bubonic Plague The Aftermath
• A “golden age” for workers?
– Supply and Demand– Labor Shortage
Hundred Years’ War• 1337-1453 (on and off)• England vs. France• New Weapons– Pike– English Longbow– Battle of Crecy
• The “End of Chivalry”– Battle of Agincourt
• The “Two Finger Salute”• Decline of Feudalism
“War is Hell.”-- William T. Sherman,
1879
ChivalryThe Warrior Code of the Middle Ages
Rich man’s war… Rich man’s fight!
Battle of Crécy(1346)
The “End of Chivalry”
Edward IIIKing of England
Outnumbered 3-1?PRIMARY SOURCE: Froissart’s
Chronicles [Excerpt]
Battle of Agincourt(1415)
Henry VKing of England
Outnumbered 3-1?
Battle of Agincourt(1415)
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;Or close the wall up with our English dead.In peace there's nothing so becomes a manAs modest stillness and humility:But when the blast of war blows in our ears,Then imitate the action of the tiger;Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage”-- Shakespeare, Henry V (Act III, Scene I) Henry V
King of England
Outnumbered 3-1?
KEY:EnglishFrenchEnglish Allies
Joan of Arc• 1412-1431• French Peasant /
Mystic• National Hero• TURNING POINT–Of Hundred Years’
War• Heretic and Saint
Change Over Time…
Joan interrogated in her prison cell by Cardinal Winchester. By Hippolyte Delaroche, 1824, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, France.
Joan of Arc became a popular figure in art in the 19th century – for more paintings, see Joan’s Wikipedia page.
English Peasants’ Revolt
(1381)
PRIMARY SOURCE: Froissart’s Chronicles [Excerpt]
English Peasants’ Revolt
(1381)
• Wat Tyler– Leader–Murdered by
London Mayor• Unsuccessful, BUT–Decline of serfdom
in EnglandWat Tyler or St. Paul?