The Age of Adversity, 1240-1417

I.Physical well-being of Europe destroyed
     A.Famines after 1315
          1.Climatic change makes for short, cool summers
          2.Miniature Ice Age
          3.Marginal lands unable to produce crops
          4.Farm animals hit by plagues
     B.Black Plague, 1347 onwards
          1.Bubonic Plague
          2.Pneumonic Plague
          3.1/3 to 1/2 of population killed
          4.Exacerbated by unsanitary conditions
          5.Provokes pogroms against Jews
II.War and Dismemberment
     A.Dead People Were Frequent: Death Pestilence War Famine
     B.Mongols invade Russian and Central Europe, 1237 to 1281
          1.Central & Southern Russia, 1237-1241
          2.Poland, Hungary & Central Europe, 1241
     C.Ottoman Turks invade Europe, 1354 onwards
          1.1396, Crusade of Nicopolis defeated Muslim Turks
          2.1444, Crusade of Varna defeated by Muslim Turks
          3.1453, Constantinople falls to the Muslim Turks
          4.1459, most of Serbia taken by Muslim Turks
          5.1521, Belgrade taken by Muslim Turks
          6.1526, Budapest taken by Muslim Turks
          7.1529, Vienna besieged by Muslim Turks
          8.1543, most of Hungary taken by Muslim Turks
          9.1571, Turkish fleet defeated at Lepanto
         10.1682, Muslim Turks begin long wars against Poland and Austria
         11.1683, Vienna besieged by Muslim Turks
     D.100 Years War, 1337 onwards
     E.Jacquerie land pirates in France, 1358 onwards
     F.Peasant Rebellion in England, 1381
          1.Jack Straw & John Ball
     G.Breakdown of Feudalism
          1.Bastard Feudalism in England
          2.Emergence of Valois Burgundy
          3.Increased reliance on mercenaries
          4.Gunpowder restores the prominence of Infantry
     H.Incompetent Kings
          1.John the Good of France (captured by English)
          2.1398, Charles VI (France) meets Wenceslas (Bohemia)
          3.Richard II of England (deposed by Henry IV)
III.Decline of the Medieval Church
     A.1303, Boniface deposed & arrested by Philip IV of France
     B.1305-1378, Babylonian Captivity
     C.1378-1417, Papal Scism
     D.Failure of the Clergy during the Plague
IV.Cultural Renaissance
     A.Golden Age of vernacular literature
          1.Chaucer, Langland, Dante
     B.Learning no longer a Church monopoly
     C.Mysticism in Western Christianity
          1.Rejection of church rituals/priesthood as the only
          approach to God
          2.Julian of Norwich, Richard Rolle, Meister Eckhardt
          3.Return to Gallilean Christianity
          4.Prophesy and Reform versus Authority and Order
     D.Humanism
          1.Arts & Letters for the Aristocracy of Blood
          2.Arts & Letters for the Aristocracy of Money
          3.Leonardo da Vinci as an engineer