Late Middle Ages

The late Middle Ages or late medieval period was the period of European history that lasted from 1300 to 1500 AD. It came after the High Middle Ages and before Early modern Europe. In much of Europe, it came before the Renaissance.

Around 1350, the good times of growth in Europe slowed down. A series of famines and plagues, including the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the Black Death, caused many people to die. Life became harder, and there was unrest among the people. There was also endemic warfare. France and England had serious peasant uprisings, such as the Jacquerie and the Peasants' Revolt. There was also a long conflict, the Hundred Years' War, with fighting that started and stopped for more than a century. The unity of the Catholic Church was briefly broken by the Western Schism. Together, these troubles are sometimes called the crisis of the late Middle Ages.

Even with these troubles, the 14th century was also a time of great progress in the arts and sciences. People became interested again in ancient Greek and Roman writings. This interest had started in the High Middle Ages, and the Italian Renaissance began. Scholars had already been learning from Latin texts before the Renaissance of the 12th century, through contact with Arabs during the Crusades. Greek texts became much easier to find after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks. Many Byzantine scholars had to move to the West, especially Italy, to find safety. Printing was also invented and spread quickly. This helped ideas travel and made learning more widely shared. These two developments would later contribute to the Reformation.

Toward the end of the period, the Age of Discovery began. The growing Ottoman Empire blocked trade routes to the East, so Europeans had to look for new ones. This led to the Spanish voyage under Christopher Columbus to the Americas in 1492. It also led to Vasco da Gama's voyage to Africa and India in 1498. These discoveries helped strengthen the economy and power of European nations.

Many scholars saw this period as the end of the Middle Ages and the start of modern history and early modern Europe. However, this division was somewhat artificial, since ancient learning was never completely gone from European society. As a result, there was developmental continuity between the ancient age, through classical antiquity, and the modern age. Some historians, especially in Italy, prefer not to speak of the late Middle Ages at all. Instead, they see the high Middle Ages changing into the Renaissance and the modern era.

Historiography and periodization

The "late Middle Ages" is one of three periods of the Middle Ages. The other two are the early Middle Ages and the High Middle Ages. Leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use this three-part division, in his History of the Florentine People (1442). Flavio Biondo used a similar idea in Decades of History from the Deterioration of the Roman Empire (1439–1453). The three-part division became standard after the German historian Christoph Cellarius published Universal History Divided into an Ancient, Medieval, and New Period (1683).

For many 18th-century historians, the main theme of these centuries was the Renaissance. This was a time when people rediscovered ancient learning and began to develop a strong sense of the individual. This rediscovery was centered in Italy. As Jacob Burckhardt put it, "Man became a spiritual individual and recognized himself as such." Later, some historians challenged this idea. They argued that the 12th century was also a time of great cultural achievement.

As historians began using economic and population studies, they increasingly saw the late Middle Ages as a time of decline and trouble. Belgian historian Henri Pirenne kept using the division into Early, High, and late Middle Ages around World War I. However, his Dutch colleague, Johan Huizinga, did the most to make this gloomy view popular. He wrote the book The Autumn of the Middle Ages (1919). Huizinga studied France and the Low Countries rather than Italy, so for him, sadness and decline were the main themes, not rebirth.

Today, historians have found a balance between the views of new beginnings and crisis. They know that conditions were very different north and south of the Alps. The term "late Middle Ages" is often avoided in Italian history. The word "Renaissance" is still useful for describing certain ideas, culture, and art, but it is not seen as the defining feature of the whole period. Instead, the years from the early 14th century to the 16th century are described by other trends. These include a drop and then a recovery in population and the economy, the end of Western religious unity and the rise of the nation-state, and the spread of European influence across the rest of the world.

History

In the 14th and 15th centuries, the borders of Christian Europe were still being settled. The Grand Duchy of Moscow began to push back the Mongols. The Iberian kingdoms finished the Reconquista of their peninsula. The Balkans came under Ottoman control. Many parts of Europe were often at war, both with other countries and among themselves. This unrest, the decline of feudalism, stronger royal governments, and the printing press helped bring power together under central rulers. This led to the rise of the nation state. Wars cost a lot of money, so rulers raised taxes. This led to representative groups, most notably the English Parliament. The power of the Church also got weaker during the Western Schism and the Protestant Reformation, which helped kings and other rulers become stronger.

In the north, the Kalmar Union joined Sweden, Norway, and Denmark from 1397. Sweden left for good in 1523, after King Christian II of Denmark had many Swedish nobles put to death. In England, the Hundred Years' War with France was followed by the Wars of the Roses. Then the House of Tudor built a strong, central kingdom under Henry VII. In France, Joan of Arc changed the course of the war in France's favor. In eastern Europe, Moscow grew into a major power under Ivan the Great. In the south, the Byzantine Empire came to an end with the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. In 1492, Granada was taken from the Moors, which finished the Reconquista. That same year, the Americas were discovered after the Spanish rulers paid for the voyage of Christopher Columbus.

Late medieval European society

Around 1300 to 1350, the Medieval Warm Period gave way to the Little Ice Age. The colder weather made it hard to grow food. The first big crisis was the Great Famine of 1315–1317. The famine did not take as many lives as the plagues that came later, especially the Black Death, which killed a very large number of people. By about 1420, the population of Europe had fallen sharply. Wars made life harder too, especially in France during the Hundred Years' War. It took about 150 years for Europe's population to grow back to its 1300 level.

With fewer people alive, land was easier to get, and workers could ask for more pay. Landowners tried to keep wages low, as in England's 1351 Statute of Laborers. These efforts failed and made the peasants angry. This led to uprisings such as the French Jacquerie in 1358 and the English Peasants' Revolt in 1381. Over time, serfdom nearly ended in Western Europe. In Eastern Europe, though, landowners made peasants' lives even harder. Minority groups also suffered, especially the Jews, who were often blamed for the hard times. Attacks against Jewish communities, called pogroms, took place across Europe. In February 1349, many Jewish people were harmed in Strasbourg. Women gained some new chances in trade, learning, and religion. But they also faced false accusations as fear of witchcraft grew. Violence increased in most areas as the population grew, religious intolerance, famine, and disease came together. North-Eastern Europe was an exception because its trade was well organized. Urbanization had been growing steadily until the mid-14th century. Although cities were badly hit by the Black Death, they kept growing as centres of learning, trade, and government. By 1500, Constantinople and several other cities probably had over 100,000 people living in them.

Military history

Main article: Medieval warfare

Battles such as Courtrai (1302), Bannockburn (1314), and Morgarten (1315) showed the rulers of Europe that knights on horseback cavalry no longer had the upper hand. Well-equipped foot soldiers infantry could do better. During the Welsh Wars, the English learned to use the powerful longbow. It gave them a great advantage over the French in the Hundred Years' War once they knew how to use it well. The English used firearms as early as the Battle of Crécy in 1346, but at first they did not change much on the battlefield. A bigger change came when cannons were used as siege weapons. These methods would eventually change how fortifications were built. Gunpowder later changed how battles were fought and how armies were organised. It also helped form nation states.

Armies changed too. The national or feudal levy, where ordinary men were called up to fight, was slowly replaced by paid soldiers. These came from a lord's household retinues or from foreign mercenaries, which were soldiers hired from other lands. This practice was linked to Edward III of England and the condottieri of the Italian city-states. Swiss mercenaries were in high demand across Europe. The first permanent armies appeared. In Valois France, during the Hundred Years' War, the armed forces slowly became permanent. At the same time, chivalry became a stronger code of good behaviour for warriors, even as it moved away from its military roots. This spirit could be seen in new chivalric orders, such as the Order of St. George, founded by Charles I of Hungary in 1325, and the well-known English Order of the Garter, founded by Edward III in 1348.

Medieval warfare

Christian conflict and reform

Main article: Western Schism

Main articles: Reformation, Hussites, and Lollardy

In 1309, the French king gained great power over the Papacy, and the Holy See moved to Avignon. When the Pope returned to Rome in 1377, people in Avignon and Rome chose different popes. This led to the Western Schism, which lasted from 1378 to 1417. Europe was split along political lines. At the Council of Constance (1414–1418), the Papacy was united again in Rome, but the Church had been weakened. These struggles made people doubt the Church's power to rule, and some became more critical of the clergy. This helped open the way for reform movements. People also wanted changes within the Catholic Church. The first major voice came from John Wycliffe, a professor at Oxford in England. He said the Bible should be the only authority in religious questions. He spoke against transubstantiation, celibacy, and indulgences. His followers, the Lollards, were eventually stopped, even though some powerful English nobles, such as John of Gaunt, had supported the movement.

The Czech priest Jan Hus based his teachings on Wycliffe's ideas. His followers, the Hussites, had a much bigger effect on politics than the Lollards. When Hus was put to death as a heretic in 1415, many people rose up in protest. The later Hussite Wars fell apart. They did not bring religious or national independence to the Czechs, but they did weaken the Catholic Church and German influence in the country. In 1517, the German monk Martin Luther started the German Reformation. He posted his 95 theses on the castle church in Wittenberg. He was responding to Pope Leo X, who had renewed an indulgence to help pay for the new St. Peter's Basilica. In 1521, Luther refused to take back his beliefs at the Diet of Worms, and Charles V placed him under the ban of the Empire. Frederick the Wise protected him, and Luther was able to translate the Bible into German. Many rulers saw the Reformation as a chance to grow their wealth and power. The Catholic Church's response, called the Counter-Reformation, divided Europe into northern Protestant and southern Catholic parts. This led to conflicts known as the Religious Wars of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Trade and commerce

The Ottoman Empire grew strong in the eastern Mediterranean. This made it harder for Christian countries in the west to trade, so they looked for new routes. Portuguese and Spanish explorers found sea routes south around Africa to India, and west across the Atlantic Ocean to America. Ships from Genoa and Venice began sailing straight to Flanders, so the Champagne fairs became much less important. England also began selling finished cloth instead of raw wool, which hurt cloth makers in the Low Countries. In the Baltic and North Sea, the Hanseatic League was at its strongest in the 14th century. After that, it began to weaken in the 15th century.

In the late 13th and early 14th centuries, a "commercial revolution" happened, mostly in Italy and partly in the Empire. People came up with new ideas, such as new types of partnership and insurance, which made trade safer. The bill of exchange and other kinds of credit helped merchants get around canonical laws for gentiles against usury. They also made it unnecessary to carry bullion from place to place. New ways of accounting, especially double-entry bookkeeping, helped merchants keep better track of their money. As trade grew, rich merchants protected their trading rights more carefully. In towns, the power of guilds grew, and some special companies were given monopolies, such as the English wool Staple. Families like the Fuggers in Germany, the Medicis in Italy, and the de la Poles in England became very rich. So did Jacques Cœur in France. These families often helped kings pay for their wars. Hard times in the 14th century clearly led to less production and trade. Historians still argue about whether this drop was bigger than the drop in population. There is not enough evidence to give a clear answer.

Technology

Main articles: Glasses § Invention, Venetian glass, and Printing press § Circulation of information and ideas

The earliest known written comment about using glass to help people see better was made in 1268 by Roger Bacon. The first eyeglasses were made in central Italy, most likely in Pisa or Florence, by about 1290. Their making spread quickly across Europe. Venice became an important center for making them, and a guild of Venetian spectacle makers was formed in 1320. In the mid-1400s, Venetian glassmakers created a very clear, colourless glass called cristallo. It was used for special items like windows, mirrors, ships' lanterns, and lenses. The first telescope was invented later, during the Scientific Revolution. Its first written record was not in a science book but in a patent filed by a spectacle maker.

Around 1440, a single print shop in Mainz, Germany, began using movable type and the printing press. Printing spread to many cities across Central, Western and Eastern Europe. By the end of the 1400s, printers had made more than 20 million books. Printing made scholarly books easier to get. Researchers could read ancient texts and compare their ideas with other scholars. This changed the manuscript culture of the Middle Ages, when facts were hard to find. It led to a printing culture, where reliable, written facts could spread quickly and help build scientific knowledge. Other inventions, such as the compass, the cross-staff, the mariner's astrolabe, and better shipbuilding, helped sailors cross the World Oceans. This was the start of the early years of colonialism.

Arts and sciences

Main articles: European science in the Middle Ages and Science in the Renaissance

Main articles: Medieval art and Medieval architecture

Further information: Medieval literature

Main article: Medieval music

Main article: Medieval theatre

Main article: Early modern period

In the 1300s, the main school of learning, scholasticism, was challenged by the humanist movement. Humanism first tried to bring back the classical languages, but it also led to new ideas in science, art, and literature. Byzantine scholars who came to the West after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 helped this movement. In science, classical thinkers like Aristotle were questioned for the first time since ancient times. In art, humanism became the Renaissance. In the 1400s, this was mostly found in city-states in northern Italy, though artists were also working further north, especially in the Netherlands.

In literature, the biggest change was the rise of vernacular languages, which people used instead of Latin for everyday writing. Italian writers Dante Alighieri, Boccaccio, and Petrarch helped make the Tuscan dialect the standard for modern Italian. In England, Geoffrey Chaucer helped make Middle English a language used for writing books and poems. In music, the polyphonic style, with several separate voices singing or playing together, began in the 1330s.

Ottomans and Europe

Main article: Ottoman wars in Europe

By the end of the 1400s, the Ottoman Empire had spread across Southeast Europe. It conquered the Byzantine Empire and took control of the Balkan states. Hungary was the last strong Christian kingdom in the East. For about two hundred years, it fought to keep its land. The young king Vladislaus I of Hungary died in battle against the Ottomans at the Battle of Varna in 1444. Then Count John Hunyadi became Hungary's regent-governor (1446–1453). Many people saw Hunyadi as one of the most important military leaders of the 15th century. Pope Pius II gave him the title Athleta Christi, which means Champion of Christ. He seemed to be the only hope of stopping the Ottomans from moving into Central and Western Europe.

In 1456, Hunyadi won a great victory over the Ottomans at the siege of Belgrade. It was the biggest win against that empire in decades. The Franciscan friar Saint John of Capistrano came from Italy to encourage people to fight. His words helped the peasants join the battle, and they helped bring about the victory. After Hunyadi died, Pannonia was left without protection and in confusion. His son Matthias was then chosen as king of Hungary by the Hungarian nobility. This was unusual for the Middle Ages, because Matthias came from a noble family rather than a royal one. King Matthias Corvinus ruled from 1458 to 1490. He led campaigns to the west and stopped the Ottomans for a time with his strong Black Army, which was made up of paid soldiers. After his death, the Ottoman Empire grew stronger. At the Battle of Mohács, its forces defeated the Hungarian army. Louis II of Hungary died while trying to escape. This battle is considered one of the last major battles of the medieval period.