Case Study: The Calamitous 14th Century
During the Late Middle Ages, roughly the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, medieval civilization declined. In contrast to the vigor of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the fourteenth century was burdened by crop failures, famine, plagues, and reduced population. The church also came under attack from reformers who challenged clerical authority and questioned church teachings; from powerful kings who resisted papal interference in the political life of their kingdoms; and from political theorists who asserted that the pope had no authority to intervene in matters of state.
The century witnessed flights into mysticism, outbreaks of mass hysteria, and massacres of Jews; it was an age of pessimism and general insecurity. The papacy declined in power, heresy proliferated, and the synthesis of faith and reason, erected by Christian thinkers during the High Middle Ages, began to disintegrate. These developments were signs that the stable and coherent civilization of the thirteenth century was drawing to a close.
The century witnessed flights into mysticism, outbreaks of mass hysteria, and massacres of Jews; it was an age of pessimism and general insecurity. The papacy declined in power, heresy proliferated, and the synthesis of faith and reason, erected by Christian thinkers during the High Middle Ages, began to disintegrate. These developments were signs that the stable and coherent civilization of the thirteenth century was drawing to a close.
Guiding Question:
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Topics for Discussion:
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Reading:
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For this case study you are to analyze Chapter 11 The Later Middle Ages and review the sources provided below. You are expected to be able to answer the guiding question in full depth with specific historical evidence and supporting details.
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Sources:
Source 1: Jean de Venette, The Black Death (c. 1368)
The progress of the plague as it made its way through Europe and speculation on its causes, the terrible toll of victims, and various moral responses to the crisis are described in the following reading from the chronicle of Jean de Venette, a French friar who lived through the events. |
In A.D. 1348, the people of France and of almost the whole world were struck by a blow other than war. For in addition to the famine which I described in the beginning and to the wars which I described in the course of this narrative, pestilence and its attendant tribulations appeared again in various parts of the world... All this year and the next, the mortality of men and women, of the young even more than of the old, in Paris and in the kingdom of France, and also, it is said, in other parts of the world, was so great that it was almost impossible to bury the dead. People lay ill little more than two or three days and died suddenly, as it were in full health. He who was well on day was dead the next and being carried to his grave. Swellings appeared suddenly in the armpit or in the groin - in many cases both - and they were infallible signs of death. This sickness or pestilence was called an epidemic by the doctors. Nothing like the great numbers who died in the years 1348 and 1349 has been heard of or seen or read of in times past. This plague and disease came from ymaginatione or association and contagion, for if a well man visited the sick he only rarely evaded the risk of death. Wherefore in many towns timid priests withdrew, leaving the exercise of their ministry to such of the religious as were more daring. In many places not two out of twenty remained alive. So high was the mortality at the Hotel-Dieu [an early hospital] in Paris that for a long time, more than five hundred dead were carried daily with great devotion in carts to the cemetery of the Holy Innocents in Paris for burial.
Some said that this pestilence was caused by infection of the air and waters, since there was at this time no famine nor lack of food supplies, but on the contrary great abundance. As a result of this theory of infected water and air as the source of the plague the Jews were suddenly and violently charged with infecting wells and water and corrupting the air. The whole world rose up against them cruelly on this account. In Germany and other parts of the world where Jews lived, they were massacred and slaughtered by Christians, and many thousands were burned everywhere, indiscriminately. The unshaken, if fatuous, constancy of the [Jewish] men and their wives was remarkable. For mothers hurled their children first into the fire that they might not be baptized and then leaped in after them to burn with their husbands and children. It is said that many bad Christians were found who in a like manner put poison into wells. But in truth, such poisonings, granted that they actually were perpetrated, could not have caused so great a plague nor have infected so many people. There were other causes for example, the will of God and the corrupt humors and evil inherent in air and earth. |
Source 2: Visual Sources
Top Left: Patients suffering from the plague, their bodies covered in buboes. Top Right: Flagellants attempting to placate God by enduring pain of the flesh Bottom Left: A Danse Macabre, or Dance of Death, showing the dead mocking the living Bottom Right: A woodcut showing Jews being burned accused of causing the plague |
Source 4: John Wycliffe, Concerning the Pope's Power
In the following selection from a pamphlet concerning the pope, Wycliffe contrasts the pope unfavorably with Jesus. |
Christ was a very poor man from His birth to His death and forswore worldly riches and begging, in accord with the state of primal innocence, but Antichrist, in contrast to this, from the time that he is made pope to the time of his death, covets worldly wealth and tries in many shrewd ways to gain riches. Christ was a most meek man and urged that we learn from Him, but people say that the pope is the proudest man. People say that this pope is not like Christ in this way, for whereas Christ went on foot to cities and little towns alike, they say this pope desires to live in a castle in a grand manner. Whereas Christ came to John the Baptist to be baptized by him, the pope summons people to come to him wherever he might be, yea, as though Christ Himself, and not the pope, had summoned them to Him. Christ embraced young and poor in token of his humility; people say that the pope desires to embrace worldly prestige and not good people for the sake of God, lest he dishonor himself. Christ was busy preaching the Gospel, and not for worldly prestige or for profit; people say that the pope allows this, but he would gladly make laws to which he gives more prestige and sanction than Christ's law. Christ so loved His flock that He laid down his life for them and suffered sharp pain and death in order to bring them to bliss. People say that the pope so loves the prestige of this world that he grants people absolution that guarantees a straight path to Heaven so that they might perform acts that redound to his honor. And so this foolishiness could be the cause of the death, in body and soul, of many thousands of people. And how does he follow Christ in this way?
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Questions for Analysis:
- In the absence of any scientific knowledge about the nature and causes of the bubonic plague, how did the populace react to the mysterious spread of the disease?
- What were some of the long-term moral, social, and economic consequences of the plague?
- What specific grievances motivated uprisings in England in the late fourteenth century?
- What political and social principles did the peasants invoke in their rebellion of 1381?
- Why was John Wycliffe critical of the church?
- Why would the church regard his teachings as a serious threat to its mission?
- In what ways was the 14th century calamitous? (cite 2 specific events)
- In what ways was the 14th century not calamitous? (cite 2 specific events)
- Would you agree with the characterization of the 14th century as calamitous? Why or why not?