ch14

26
The Latin West, 1200–1500 CHAPTER OUTLINE Rural Growth and Crisis Urban Revival Learning, Literature, and the Renaissance Political and Military Transformations DIVERSITY AND DOMINANCE: Persecution and Protection of Jews, 1272–1349 ENVIRONMENT AND TECHNOLOGY: The Clock 349 14 14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 349

Transcript of ch14

The Latin West,1200–1500

CHAPTER OUTLINERural Growth and Crisis

Urban Revival

Learning, Literature, and the Renaissance

Political and Military Transformations

DIVERSITY AND DOMINANCE: Persecution and Protection of Jews, 1272–1349

ENVIRONMENT AND TECHNOLOGY: The Clock

349

14

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 349

In the summer of 1454, a year after the OttomanTurks had captured the Greek Christian city of Con-

stantinople, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini˚ was tryingto stir up support for a crusade to halt the Muslim ad-vances that were engulfing southeastern Europe andthat showed no sign of stopping. The man who in fouryears would become pope doubted that anyone couldpersuade the rulers of Christian Europe to take uparms together against the Muslims: “Christendom hasno head whom all will obey;” he lamented, “neitherthe pope nor the emperor receives his due.”

Aeneas Sylvius had good reason to believe thatLatin Christians were more inclined to fight with eachother than to join a common front against the Turks.French and English armies had been at war for morethan a century. The German emperor presided overdozens of states that were virtually independent of hiscontrol. The numerous kingdoms and principalitiesof Mediterranean Europe had never achieved unity.With only slight exaggeration Aeneas Sylvius com-plained, “Every city has its own king, and there are asmany princes as there are households.”

He attributed this lack of unity to Europeans’ be-ing so preoccupied with personal welfare and mate-rial gain that they would never sacrifice themselves tostop the Turkish armies. During the century since adevastating plague had carried off a third of westernEurope’s population, people had become cynicalabout human nature and preoccupied with materialthings.

Yet despite all these divisions, disasters, and wars,historians now see the period from 1200 to 1500 (Eu-rope’s later Middle Ages) as a time of unusual progress.The avarice and greed Aeneas Sylvius lamented werethe dark side of the material prosperity that was mostevident in the splendid architecture, institutions ofhigher learning, and cultural achievements of thecities. Frequent wars caused havoc and destruction,but in the long run they promoted the development ofmore powerful weapons and more unified monarchies.

A European fifty years later would have knownthat the Turks did not overrun Europe, that a truce inthe Anglo-French conflict would hold, and that ex-plorers sent by Portugal and a newly united Spainwould extend Europe’s reach to other continents. In1454 Aeneas Sylvius knew only what had been, andthe conflicts and calamities of the past made himshudder.

Although their contemporary Muslim and Byzan-tine neighbors commonly called western Europeans“Franks,” western Europeans ordinarily referred tothemselves as “Latins.” That term underscored theirallegiance to the Latin rite of Christianity (and to itspatriarch, the pope) as well as the use of the Latin lan-guage by their literate members. The Latin West de-serves special attention because its achievementsduring this period had profound implications for thefuture of the world. The region was emerging from theeconomic and cultural shadow of its Islamic neigh-bors and, despite grave disruptions caused by plagueand warfare, boldly setting out to extend its domi-nance. Some common elements promoted the LatinWest’s remarkable resurgence: competition, the pur-suit of success, and the effective use of borrowedtechnology and learning.

As you read this chapter, ask yourself the follow-ing questions:

● How well did inhabitants of the Latin West deal withtheir natural environment?

● How did warfare help rulers in the Latin West ac-quire the skills, weapons, and determination thatenabled them to challenge other parts of the world?

● How did superior technology in the Latin West pro-mote excellence in business, learning, and architec-ture?

● How much did the region’s achievements dependon its own people, and how much on things bor-rowed from Muslim and Byzantine neighbors?

350

123456789

101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051

R 52L 53

1st Pass Pages

Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (uh-NEE-uhs SIL-vee-uhs pee-kuh-lo-MEE-nee)

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 350

RURAL GROWTH AND CRISIS

Between 1200 and 1500 the Latin West brought moreland under cultivation, adopted new farming tech-

niques, and made greater use of machinery and mechan-ical forms of energy. Yet for most rural Europeans—morethan nine out of ten people were rural—this period was a

time of calamity and struggle. Most rural men andwomen worked hard for meager returns and sufferedmightily from the effects of famine, epidemics, warfare,and social exploitation. After the devastation causedfrom 1347 to 1351 by the plague known as the BlackDeath, social changes speeded up by peasant revoltsreleased many persons from serfdom and brought someimprovements to rural life.

123456789

10111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546474849505152 R53 L

Rural Growth and Crisis 351

1st Pass Pages

C H R O N O L O G YTechnology and Environment Culture Politics and Society

1200s Use of crossbows andlongbows becomes widespread;windmills in increased use

1300 First mechanical clocks inthe West

1315–1317 Great Famine

1347–1351 Black Death

ca. 1350 Growing deforestation

1400s Large cannon in use inwarfare; hand-held firearmsbecome prominent

ca. 1450 First printing withmovable type in the West

1454 Gutenberg Bible printed

1210s Religious orders founded:Teutonic Knights, Franciscans,Dominicans

1225–1274 Thomas Aquinas, monkand philosopher

1265–1321 Dante Alighieri, poet

ca. 1267–1337 Giotto, painter

1300–1500 Rise of universities

1304–1374 Francesco Petrarch,humanist writer

1313–1375 Giovanni Boccaccio,humanist writer

ca. 1340–1400 Geoffrey Chaucer,poet

1389–1464 Cosimo de’ Medici,banker

ca. 1390–1441 Jan van Eyck,painter

1449–1492 Lorenzo de’ Medici, artpatron

1452–1519 Leonardo da Vinci, artist

ca. 1466–1536 Erasmus ofRotterdam, humanist

1472–1564 Michelangelo, artist

1492 Explusion of Jews from Spain

1200s Champagne fairs flourish

1204 Fourth Crusade launched

1215 Magna Carta issued

1337 Start of Hundred Years War

1381 Wat Tyler’s Rebellion

1415 Portuguese take Ceuta

1431 Joan of Arc burned as witch

1453 End of Hundred Years War;Turks take Constantinople

1469 Marriage of Ferdinand ofAragon and Isabella of Castile

1492 Fall of Muslim state ofGranada

1200

1300

1400

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 351

Society was divided by classand gender. In 1200 most west-ern Europeans were serfs,obliged to till the soil on large

estates owned by the nobility and the church (see Chap-ter 9). Each noble household typically rested on thelabors of from fifteen to thirty peasant families. The stan-dard of life in the lord’s stone castle or manor housestood in sharp contrast to that in the peasant’s one-roomthatched cottage containing little furniture and no luxu-ries. Despite numerous religious holidays, peasant culti-vators labored long hours, but more than half of thefruits of their labor went to the landowner. Because ofthese meager returns, serfs were not motivated to intro-duce extensive improvements in farming practices.

Peasants andPopulation

Scenes of rural life show both men and women atwork in the fields, although there is no reason to believethat equality of labor meant equality of decision makingat home. In the peasant’s hut, as elsewhere in medievalEurope, women were subordinate to men. The influen-tial theologian Thomas Aquinas˚ (1225–1274) spoke forhis age when he argued that, although both men andwomen were created in God’s image, there was a sense inwhich “the image of God is found in man, and not inwoman: for man is the beginning and end of woman; asGod is the beginning and end of every creature.”1

Rural poverty was not simply the product of ineffi-cient farming methods and social inequality. It also re-

352 Chapter 14 The Latin West, 1200–1500

123456789

101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051

R 52L 53

1st Pass Pages

Aquinas (uh-KWY-nuhs)

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 352

sulted from the rapid growth of Europe’s population. In1200 China’s population may have surpassed Europe’s bytwo to one; by 1300 the population of each was about 80million. China’s population fell because of the Mongolconquest (see Chapter 12). Why Europe’s more thandoubled between 1100 and 1345 is uncertain. Some his-torians believe that the reviving economy may havestimulated the increase. Others argue that warmer-than-usual temperatures reduced the number of deaths fromstarvation and exposure, while the absence of severe epi-demics lessened deaths from disease.

Whatever the causes, more people required moreproductive ways of farming and new agricultural set-tlements. One new technique gaining widespread ac-ceptance in northern Europe increased the amount offarmland available for producing crops. Instead of fol-lowing the custom of leaving half of their land fallow(uncultivated) every year to regain its fertility, somefarmers tried a new three-field system. They grewcrops on two-thirds of their land each year and plantedthe third field in oats. The oats stored nitrogen and re-juvenated the soil, and they could be used to feed plowhorses. In much of Europe, however, farmers contin-ued to let half of their land lie fallow and to use oxen(less efficient but cheaper than horses) to pull theirplows.

Population growth also led to the foundation of newagricultural settlements. In the twelfth and thirteenthcenturies large numbers of Germans migrated into thefertile lands east of the Elbe River and into the easternBaltic states. Knights belonging to Latin Christian reli-gious orders slaughtered or drove away native inhabi-tants who had not yet adopted Christianity. For example,during the thirteenth century, the Order of TeutonicKnights conquered, resettled, and administered a vastarea along the eastern Baltic that later became Prussia(see Map 14.3). Other Latin Christians founded new set-tlements on lands conquered from the Muslims andByzantines in southern Europe and on Celtic lands in theBritish Isles.

Draining swamps and clearing forests also broughtnew land under cultivation. But as population continuedto rise, some people had to farm lands that had poor soilsor were vulnerable to flooding, frost, or drought. As a resultaverage crop yields declined after 1250, and more peoplewere vulnerable to even slight changes in the food supplyresulting from bad weather or the disruptions of war. Ac-cording to one historian, “By 1300, almost every child bornin western Europe faced the probability of extreme hungerat least once or twice during his expected 30 to 35 years oflife.”2 One unusually cold spell led to the Great Famine of1315–1317, which affected much of Europe.

The Black Death cruelly re-solved the problem of over-population by killing off athird of western Europeans.This terrible plague spread

out of Asia and struck Mongol armies attacking the cityof Kaffa˚ on the Black Sea in 1346 (see Chapter 12). Ayear later Genoese˚ traders in Kaffa carried the diseaseback to Italy and southern France. During the next twoyears the Black Death spread across Europe, sparingsome places and carrying off two-thirds of the popu-lace in others.

The plague’s symptoms were ghastly to behold. Mostvictims developed boils the size of eggs in their groinsand armpits, black blotches on their skin, foul bodyodors, and severe pain. In most cases, death came withina few days. To prevent the plague from spreading, townofficials closed their gates to people from infected areasand burned victims’ possessions. Such measures helpedspare some communities but could not halt the advanceof the disease across Europe (see Map 14.1). It is now be-lieved that the Black Death was a combination of twodiseases. One was anthrax, a disease that can spread tohumans from cattle and sheep. The primary form of theBlack Death was bubonic plague, a disease spread bycontact with an infected person or from the bites of fleasthat infest the fur of certain rats. But even if medieval Eu-ropeans had been aware of that route of infection, theycould have done little to eliminate the rats, which thrivedon urban refuse.

The plague left its mark on the survivors, bringinghome how sudden and unexpected death could be.Some people became more religious, giving money tothe church or flogging themselves with iron-tippedwhips to atone for their sins. Others turned to recklessenjoyment, spending their money on fancy clothes,feasts, and drinking. Whatever their mood, most peoplesoon resumed their daily routines.

Periodic returns of plague made recovery from pop-ulation losses slow and uneven. By 1400 Europe’s popu-lation regained the size it had had in 1200. Not until after1500 did it rise above its preplague level.

In addition to its demographic and psychological ef-fects, the Black Death triggered social changes in west-ern Europe. Skilled and manual laborers who surviveddemanded higher pay for their services. At first authori-ties tried to freeze wages at the old levels. Seeing such re-pressive measures as a plot by the rich, peasants rose upagainst wealthy nobles and churchmen. During a wide-spread revolt in France in 1358 known as the Jacquerie,

The Black Deathand SocialChange

123456789

10111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546474849505152 R53 L

Rural Growth and Crisis 353

1st Pass Pages

Kaffa (KAH-fah) Genoese (JEN-oh-eez)

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 353

peasants looted castles and killed dozens of persons. Ur-ban unrest also took place. In a large revolt led by WatTyler in 1381, English peasants invaded London, callingfor an end to all forms of serfdom and to most kinds ofmanorial dues. Angry demonstrators murdered thearchbishop of Canterbury and many royal officials. Au-thorities put down these rebellions with even greaterbloodshed and cruelty, but they could not stave off thehigher wages and other social changes the rebels de-manded.

Serfdom practically disappeared in western Europeas peasants bought their freedom or ran away. Free agri-cultural laborers used their higher wages to purchaseland that they could farm for themselves. Some English

landowners who could no longer afford to hire enoughfieldworkers used their land to pasture sheep for theirwool. Others grew less-labor-intensive crops or madegreater use of draft animals and labor-saving tools. Be-cause the plague had not killed wild and domesticatedanimals, more meat was available for each survivor andmore leather for shoes. Thus the welfare of the ruralmasses generally improved after the Black Death, thoughthe gap between rich and poor remained wide.

In urban areas employers had to raise wages to at-tract enough workers to replace those killed by theplague. Guilds (see below) found it necessary to reducethe period of apprenticeship. Competition within craftsalso became more common. Although the overall econ-

354 Chapter 14 The Latin West, 1200–1500

123456789

101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051

R 52L 53

1st Pass Pages

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 354

omy shrank with the decline in population, per capitaproduction actually rose.

Mining, metalworking, and theuse of mechanical energy ex-panded so much in the cen-

turies before 1500 that some historians have spoken ofan “industrial revolution” in medieval Europe. That maybe too strong a term, but the landscape fairly bristledwith mechanical devices. Mills powered by water orwind were used to grind grain and flour, saw logs intolumber, crush olives, tan leather, make paper, and per-form other useful tasks.

England’s many rivers had some fifty-six hundredfunctioning watermills in 1086. After 1200 such millsspread rapidly across the western European mainland.By the early fourteenth century entrepreneurs hadcrammed sixty-eight watermills into a one-mile sectionof the Seine˚ River in Paris. The flow of the river belowturned the simplest water wheels. Greater efficiencycame from channeling water over the top of the wheel.Dams ensured these wheels a steady flow of waterthroughout the year. Some watermills in France andEngland even harnessed the power of ocean tides.

Windmills were common in comparatively dry landslike Spain and in northern Europe, where ice made waterwheels useless in winter. Water wheels and windmillshad long been common in the Islamic world, but people

Mines and Mills

in the Latin West used these devices on a much largerscale than did people elsewhere.

Wealthy individuals or monasteries built manymills, but because of the expenses involved groups of in-vestors undertook most of the construction. Since na-ture furnished the energy to run them for free, millscould be very profitable, a fact that often aroused thejealousy of their neighbors. In his Canterbury Tales theEnglish poet Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1340–1400) capturedmillers’ unsavory reputation (not necessarily deserved)by portraying a miller as “a master-hand at stealinggrain” by pushing down on the balance scale with histhumb.3

Waterpower also made possible such a great expan-sion of iron making that some historians say Europe’sreal Iron Age came in the later Middle Ages, not in antiq-uity. Water powered the stamping mills that broke up theiron, the trip hammers that pounded it, and the bellows(first documented in the West in 1323) that raised tem-peratures to the point where the iron was liquid enoughto pour into molds. Blast furnaces capable of producinghigh-quality iron are documented from 1380. The fin-ished products included everything from armor andnails to horseshoes and agricultural tools.

Iron mining expanded in many parts of Europe tomeet the demand. In addition, new silver, lead, and cop-per mines in Austria and Hungary supplied metal forcoins, church bells, cannon, and statues. Techniques ofdeep mining that developed in Central Europe spreadfarther west in the latter part of the fifteenth century. Tokeep up with a building boom France quarried more

123456789

10111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546474849505152 R53 L

Rural Growth and Crisis 355

1st Pass Pages

Seine (sen)

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 355

1st Pass Pages

stone during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth cen-turies than ancient Egypt had done during two millenniafor all of its monuments.

The rapid growth of industry changed the landscapesignificantly. Towns grew outward and new ones werefounded; dams and canals changed the flow of rivers;and the countryside was scarred by quarry pits andmines tunneled into hillsides. Pollution sometimes be-came a serious problem. Urban tanneries (factories thatcured and processed leather) dumped acidic wastewaterback into streams, where it mixed with human waste andthe runoff from slaughterhouses. The first recorded an-tipollution law was passed by the English Parliament in1388, although enforcing it was difficult.

One of the most dramatic environmental changeswas deforestation. Trees were cut to provide timber forbuildings and for ships. Tanneries stripped bark to makeacid for tanning leather. Many forests were cleared tomake room for farming. The glass and iron industriesconsumed great quantities of charcoal, made by con-trolled burning of oak or other hardwood. It is estimatedthat a single iron furnace could consume all the treeswithin five-eighths of a mile (1 kilometer) in just fortydays. Consequently, the later Middle Ages saw the deple-tion of many once-dense forests in western Europe.

URBAN REVIVAL

In the tenth century not a single town in the Latin Westcould compare in wealth and comfort—still less in size—

with the cities in the Byzantine Empire and the Islamiccaliphates. Yet by the later Middle Ages wealthy commer-cial centers stood all along the Mediterranean, Baltic, andAtlantic, as well as on major rivers draining into these bod-ies of water (see Map 14.2). The greatest cities in the Eastwere still larger, but those in the West were undergoinggreater commercial, cultural, and administrative changes.Their prosperity was visible in impressive new churches,guild halls, and residences. This urban revival is a measureof the Latin West’s recovery from the economic decline thathad followed the collapse of the Roman Empire (see Chap-ter 9) as well as an illustration of how the West’s rise wasaided by its ties to other parts of the world.

Most urban growth in the LatinWest after 1200 was a result ofthe continuing growth of trade

and manufacturing. Most of the trade was between citiesand their hinterlands, but long-distance trade also stim-

Trading Cities

ulated urban revival. Cities in northern Italy in particularbenefited from maritime trade with the bustling portcities of the eastern Mediterranean and, through them,with the great markets of the Indian Ocean and East Asia.In northern Europe commercial cities in the County ofFlanders (roughly today’s Belgium) and around theBaltic Sea profited from growing regional networks andfrom overland and sea routes to the Mediterranean.

Venice’s diversion of the Fourth Crusade into an as-sault in 1204 against the city of Constantinople tem-porarily removed an impediment to Italian commercialexpansion in the eastern Mediterranean. By cripplingthis Greek Christian stronghold, Venetians were able toseize the strategic island of Crete in the eastern Mediter-ranean and expand their trading colonies around theBlack Sea.

Another boon to Italian trade was the westward ex-pansion of the Mongol Empire, which opened traderoutes from the Mediterranean to China (see Chapter12). In 1271 the young Venetian merchant Marco Polo setout to reach the Mongol court by a long overland trekacross Central Asia. There he spent many years servingthe emperor Khubilai Khan as an ambassador and as thegovernor of a Chinese province. Some scholars questionthe truthfulness of Polo’s later account of these adven-tures and of his treacherous return voyage through theIndian Ocean that finally brought him back to Venice in1295, after an absence of twenty-four years. Few inVenice could believe Polo’s tales of Asian wealth.

Even after the Mongol Empire’s decline disruptedthe trans-Asian caravan trade in the fourteenth century,Venetian merchants continued to purchase the silks andspices that reached Constantinople, Beirut, and Alexan-dria. Three times a year galleys (ships powered by somesixty oarsmen each) sailed in convoys of two or threefrom Venice, bringing back some 2,000 tons of goods.Other merchants began to explore new overland or searoutes.

Venice was not the only Latin city whose trade ex-panded in the thirteenth century. The sea trade of Genoaon the west coast of northern Italy probably equaled thatof Venice. Genoese merchants established colonies onthe shores of the eastern Mediterranean and around theBlack Sea as well as in the western Mediterranean. Innorthern Europe an association of trading cities knownas the Hanseatic˚ League traded extensively in the Baltic,including the coasts of Prussia, newly conquered by Ger-man knights. Their merchants ranged eastward to Nov-gorod in Russia and westward across the North Sea toLondon.

356 Chapter 14 The Latin West, 1200–1500

123456789

101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051

R 52L 53

Hanseatic (han-see-AT-ik)

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 356

1st Pass Pages

123456789

10111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546474849505152 R53 L

Urban Revival 357

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 357

By the late thirteenth century Genoese galleys fromthe Mediterranean and Hanseatic ships from the Balticwere converging on a third area, the trading and manu-facturing cities in Flanders. In the Flemish towns ofBruges˚, Ghent˚, and Ypres˚ skilled artisans turned rawwool from English sheep into a fine cloth that was softerand smoother than the coarse “homespuns” from sim-ple village looms. Dyed in vivid hues, these Flemish tex-tiles appealed to wealthy Europeans who formerly hadimported their fine textiles from Asia.

Along the overland route connecting Flanders andnorthern Italy, important trading fairs developed in theChampagne˚ region of Burgundy. The Champagne fairsbegan as regional markets, meeting once or twice a year,where manufactured goods, livestock, and farm producewere exchanged. When Champagne came under the con-trol of the king of France at the end of the twelfth century,royal guarantees of safe conduct to all merchants turnedthe regional markets into international fairs. A centurylater fifteen Italian cities had permanent consulates inChampagne to represent the interests of their citizens.The fairs were also important for currency exchange andother financial transactions. During the fourteenth cen-tury the volume of trade grew so large that it becamecheaper to send Flemish woolens to Italy by sea than tosend them overland on pack animals. As a consequence,the fairs of Champagne lost some of their internationaltrade but remained important regional markets.

In the late thirteenth century higher English taxesmade it more profitable to turn wool into cloth in Eng-land than to export it to Flanders. Raw wool exports fromEngland fell from 35,000 sacks at the beginning of thefourteenth century to 8,000 in the mid-fifteenth. Withthe aid of Flemish textile specialists and the spinningwheels and other devices they introduced, English ex-ports of wool cloth rose from 4,000 pieces just before1350 to 54,000 a century later.

Local banking families also turned Florence into acenter for high-quality wool making. In 1338 Florencemanufactured 80,000 pieces of cloth, while importingonly 10,000 from Flanders. These changes in the textileindustry show how competition promoted the spread ofmanufacturing and encouraged new specialties.

The growing textile industries channeled the powerof wind and water through gears, pulleys, and belts todrive all sorts of machinery. Flanders, for example, usedwindmills to clean and thicken woven cloth by beating itin water, a process known as fulling. Another applicationof mill power was in papermaking. Although papermak-

ing had been common in China and the Muslim worldfor centuries before it spread to southern Europe in thethirteenth century, Westerners were the first to use ma-chines to do the heavy work in its manufacturing.

In the fifteenth century Venice surpassed its Euro-pean rivals in the volume of its trade in the Mediter-ranean as well as across the Alps into Central Europe. Itsskilled craftspeople also manufactured luxury goodsonce obtainable only from eastern sources, notably silkand cotton textiles, glassware and mirrors, jewelry, andpaper. At the same time, exports of Italian and northernEuropean woolens to the eastern Mediterranean werealso on the rise. In the space of a few centuries westernEuropean cities had used the eastern trade to increasetheir prosperity and then reduce their dependence oneastern goods.

Trading cities in Europe offeredpeople more social freedomthan did rural places. Most

northern Italian and German cities were independentstates, much like the port cities of the Indian Oceanbasin (see Chapter 13). Other European cities held spe-cial royal charters that exempted them from the author-ity of local nobles. Because of their autonomy, they wereable to adapt to changing market conditions morequickly than were cities in China and the Islamic worldthat were controlled by imperial authorities. Social mo-bility was also easier in the Latin West because anyonewho lived in a chartered city for over a year might claimfreedom. Thus cities became a refuge for all sorts of am-bitious individuals, whose labor and talent added totheir wealth.

Cities were also home to most of Europe’s Jews. Thelargest population of Jews was in Spain, where earlier Is-lamic rulers had made them welcome. Many commercialcities elsewhere welcomed Jews for their manufacturingand business skills. Despite the official protection theyreceived from Christian rulers and the church, Jews weresubject to violent religious persecutions or expulsions(see Diversity and Dominance: Persecution and Protec-tion of Jews, 1272–1349). Persecution peaked in times ofcrisis, such as during the Black Death. In the Spanishkingdom of Castile violent attacks on Jews were wide-spread in 1391 and brought the once vibrant Jewishcommunity in Seville to an end. Terrified Jews left or con-verted to Christianity, but Christian fanaticism continuedto rise over the next century, leading to new attacks onJews and Jewish converts. In the Latin West only the papalcity of Rome left its Jews undisturbed throughout thecenturies before 1500.

Civic Life

358 Chapter 14 The Latin West, 1200–1500

123456789

101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051

R 52L 53

1st Pass Pages

Bruges (broozh) Ghent (gent [hard g as in get])Ypres (EE-pruh) Champagne (sham-PAIN)

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 358

Opportunities for individual enterprise in Europeancities came with many restrictions. In most towns andcities powerful associations known as guilds dominatedcivic life. A guild was an association of craft specialists,such as silversmiths, or of merchants that regulated thebusiness practices of its members and the prices theycharged. Guilds also trained apprentices and promotedmembers’ interests with the city government. By deny-ing membership to outsiders and all Jews, guilds perpet-uated the interests of the families that already weremembers. Guilds also perpetuated male dominance ofmost skilled jobs.

Nevertheless, in a few places women were able tojoin guilds either on their own or as the wives, widows, ordaughters of male guild members. Large numbers ofpoor women also toiled in nonguild jobs in urban textileindustries and in the food and beverage trades, generallyreceiving lower wages than men. Some women ad-vanced socially through marriage. One of Chaucer’sCanterbury Tales concerns a woman from Bath, a city in

southern England, who became wealthy by marrying asuccession of old men for their money (and then twoother husbands for love), “aside from other company inyouth.” Chaucer says she was also a skilled weaver: “Inmaking cloth she showed so great a bent, / She betteredthose of Ypres and of Ghent.”

By the fifteenth century a new class of wealthymerchant-bankers operated on a vast scale and special-ized in money changing, loans, and investments. Themerchant-bankers handled the financial transactions ofa variety of merchants as well as of ecclesiastical and sec-ular officials. They arranged for the transmission to thepope of funds known as Peter’s pence, a collection takenup annually in every church in the Latin West. Theirloans supported rulers’ wars and lavish courts. Somemerchant-bankers even developed their own news ser-vices, gathering information on any topic that could af-fect business.

Florence became a center of new banking servicesfrom checking accounts and shareholding companies

123456789

10111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546474849505152 R53 L

Urban Revival 359

1st Pass Pages

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 359

1st Pass Pages

360

123456789

101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051

R 52L 53

Because they did not belong to the dominant Latin Chris-tian faith, Jews suffered from periodic discrimination

and persecution. For the most part, religious and secular au-thorities tried to curb such anti-Semitism. Jews, after all,were useful citizens who worshipped the same God as theirChristian neighbors. Still it was hard to know where to drawthe line between justifiable and unjustifiable discrimination.The famous reviser of Catholic theology, St. Thomas Aquinas,made one such distinction in his Summa Theologica with re-gard to attempts at forced conversion.

Now, the practice of the Church never held that the childrenof Jews should be baptized against the will of their par-ents. . . . Therefore, it seems dangerous to bring forward thisnew view, that contrary to the previously established customof the Church, the children of Jews should be baptizedagainst the will of their parents.

There are two reasons for this position. One stems fromdanger to faith. For, if children without the use of reasonwere to receive baptism, then after reaching maturity theycould easily be persuaded by their parents to relinquish whatthey had received in ignorance. This would tend to do harmto the faith.

The second reason is that it is opposed to natural justice . . .it [is] a matter of natural right that a son, before he has theuse of reason, is under the care of his father. Hence, it wouldbe against natural justice for the boy, before he has the use ofreason, to be removed from the care of his parents, or for any-thing to be arranged for him against the will of his parents.

T he “new view” Aquinas opposed was much in the air, forin 1272 Pope Gregory X issued a decree condemning

forced baptism. The pope’s decree reviews the history of pa-pal protection given to the Jews, starting with a quotationfrom Pope Gregory I dating from 598, and decrees two newprotections of Jews’ legal rights.

Even as it is not allowed to the Jews in their assemblies pre-sumptuously to undertake for themselves more than thatwhich is permitted them by law, even so they ought not tosuffer any disadvantage in those [privileges] which havebeen granted them.

Although they prefer to persist in their stubbornnessrather than to recognize the words of their prophets and themysteries of the Scriptures, and thus to arrive at a knowl-edge of Christian faith and salvation; nevertheless, inasmuchas they have made an appeal for our protection and help, wetherefore admit their petition and offer them the shield ofour protection through the clemency of Christian piety. In sodoing we follow in the footsteps of our predecessors ofhappy memory, the popes of Rome—Calixtus, Eugene, Alexan-der, Clement, Celestine, Innocent, and Honorius.

We decree moreover that no Christian shall compel themor any one of their group to come to baptism unwillingly.But if any one of them shall take refuge of his own accordwith Christians, because of conviction, then, after his inten-tion will have been made manifest, he shall be made a Chris-tian without any intrigue. For indeed that person who isknown to come to Christian baptism not freely, but unwill-ingly, is not believed to possess the Christian faith.

Moreover, no Christian shall presume to seize, imprison,wound, torture, mutilate, kill, or inflict violence on them;furthermore no one shall presume, except by judicial actionof the authorities of the country, to change the good cus-toms in the land where they live for the purpose of takingtheir money or goods from them or from others.

In addition, no one shall disturb them in any way duringthe celebration of their festivals, whether by day or by night,with clubs or stones or anything else. Also no one shall exactany compulsory service of them unless it be that which theyhave been accustomed to render in previous times.

Inasmuch as the Jews are not able to bear witness againstthe Christians, we decree furthermore that the testimony ofChristians against Jews shall not be valid unless there isamong these Christians some Jew who is there for the pur-pose of offering testimony.

Since it occasionally happens that some Christians losetheir Christian children, the Jews are accused by their ene-mies of secretly carrying off and killing these same Christianchildren, and of making sacrifices of the heart and blood ofthese very children. It happens, too, that the parents of thesechildren, or some other Christian enemies of these Jews, se-cretly hide these very children in order that they may be able

D I V E R S I T Y A N D D O M I N A N C E

PERSECUTION AND PROTECTION OF JEWS, 1272–1349

360

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 360

1st Pass Pages

123456789

10111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546474849505152 R53 L

361361

physicians could only say that it was the God’s will. And theplague was now here, so it was in other places, and lastedmore than a whole year. This epidemic also came to Stras-bourg in the summer of the above mentioned year, and it isestimated about sixteen thousand people died.

In the matter of this plague the Jews throughout theworld were reviled and accused in all lands of having causedit through the poison which they are said to have put intothe water and the wells—that is what they were accused of—and for this reason the Jews were burnt all the way from theMediterranean into Germany, but not in Avignon, for thepope protected them there.

Nevertheless they tortured a number of Jews in Berne andZofingen who admitted they had put poison into many wells,and they found the poison in the wells. Thereupon they burntthe Jews in many towns and wrote of this affair to Strasbourg,Freibourg, and Basel in order that they too should burn theirJews. . . . The deputies of the city of Strasbourg were askedwhat they were going to do with their Jews. They answeredand said that they knew no evil of them. Then . . . there was agreat indignation and clamor against the deputies from Stras-bourg. So finally the Bishop and the lords and the ImperialCities agreed to do away with the Jews. The result was thatthey were burnt in many cities, and wherever they were ex-pelled they were caught by the peasants and stabbed to deathor drowned. . . .

On Saturday—that was St. Valentine’s Day—they burnt theJews on a wooden platform in their cemetery. There were abouttwo thousand people of them. Those who wanted to baptizethemselves were spared. Many small children were taken out ofthe fire and baptized against the will of their fathers and moth-ers. And everything that was owed to the Jews was cancelled,and the Jews had to surrender all pledges and notes that theyhad taken for debts. The council, however, took the cash thatthe Jews possessed and divided it among the working-menproportionately. The money was indeed the thing that killedthe Jews. If they had been poor and if the feudal lords had notbeen in debt to them, they would not have been burnt.

QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS1. Why do Aquinas and Pope Gregory oppose prejudicial

actions against Jews? 2. Why did prejudice increase at the time of the Black

Death?3. What factors account for the differences between the

views of Christian leaders and the Christian masses?

Source: First selection reprinted with permission of Pocket Books, an imprint of Simon& Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from The Pocket Aquinas, edited with translationsby Vernon J. Bourke. Copyright © 1960 by Washington Square Press. Copyright renewed© 1988 by Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group. Second selection from Jacob R.Marcus, ed., The Jew in the Medieval World: A Source Book, 315–1791 (Cincinnati:Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1938), 152–154, 45–47. Reprinted withpermission of the Hebrew Union College Press, Cincinnati.

to injure these Jews, and in order that they may be able toextort from them a certain amount of money by redeemingthem from their straits.

And most falsely do these Christians claim that the Jewshave secretly and furtively carried away these children andkilled them, and that the Jews offer sacrifice from the heartand the blood of these children, since their law in this mat-ter precisely and expressly forbids Jews to sacrifice, eat, ordrink the blood, or eat the flesh of animals having claws. Thishas been demonstrated many times at our court by Jewsconverted to the Christian faith: nevertheless very manyJews are often seized and detained unjustly because of this.

We decree, therefore, that Christians need not be obeyedagainst Jews in such a case or situation of this type, and we or-der that Jews seized under such a silly pretext be freed fromimprisonment, and that they shall not be arrested henceforthon such a miserable pretext, unless—which we do not believe—they be caught in the commission of the crime. We decree thatno Christian shall stir up anything against them, but that theyshould be maintained in that status and position in which theywere from the time of our predecessors, from antiquity till now.

We decree, in order to stop the wickedness and avarice ofbad men, that no one shall dare to devastate or to destroy acemetery of the Jews or to dig up human bodies for the sakeof getting money [by holding them for ransom]. Moreover, ifanyone, after having known the content of this decree,should—which we hope will not happen—attempt auda-ciously to act contrary to it, then let him suffer punishmentin his rank and position, or let him be punished by thepenalty of excommunication, unless he makes amends for hisboldness by proper recompense. Moreover, we wish that onlythose Jews who have not attempted to contrive anythingtoward the destruction of the Christian faith be fortified bythe support of such protection. . . .

Despite such decrees violence against Jews might burstout when fears and emotions were running high. This

selection is from the official chronicles of the upper-Rhineland towns.

In the year 1349 there occurred the greatest epidemic thatever happened. Death went from one end of the earth to theother, on that side and this side of the [Mediterranean] sea,and it was greater among the Saracens [Muslims] thanamong the Christians. In some lands everyone died so that noone was left. Ships were also found on the sea laden withwares; the crew had all died and no one guided the ship. TheBishop of Marseilles and priests and monks and more thanhalf of all the people there died with them. In other king-doms and cities so many people perished that it would behorrible to describe. The pope at Avignon stopped all sessionsof court, locked himself in a room, allowed no one to ap-proach him and had a fire burning before him all the time.And from what this epidemic came, all wise teachers and

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 361

to improved bookkeeping. In the fifteenth century theMedici˚ family of Florence operated banks in Italy,Flanders, and London. Medicis also controlled the gov-ernment of Florence and were important patrons of thearts. By 1500 the greatest banking family in western Eu-rope was the Fuggers˚ of Augsburg, who had ten timesthe Medici bank’s lending capital. Starting out as clothmerchants under Jacob “the Rich” (1459–1525), thefamily branched into many other activities, includingthe trade in Hungarian copper, essential for castingcannon.

Christian bankers had to devise ways to profit indi-rectly from loans in order to get around the Latin Church’scondemnation of usury (charging interest). Some bor-rowers agreed to repay a loan in another currency at arate of exchange favorable to the lender. Others added a“gift” in thanks to the lender to the borrowed sum. Forexample, in 1501 papal officials agreed to repay a loan of6,000 gold ducats in five months to the Fuggers alongwith a “gift” of 400 ducats, amounting to an effective in-terest rate of 16 percent a year. In fact, the return wasmuch smaller since the church failed to repay the loanon time. Because they were not bound by church laws,Jews were important moneylenders.

Despite the money made by some, for most resi-dents of western European cities poverty and squalorwere the norm. Even for the wealthy, European citiesgenerally lacked civic amenities, such as public bathsand water supply systems, that had existed in the citiesof Western antiquity and still survived in cities of the Is-lamic Middle East.

Master builders were in greatdemand in the thriving cities oflate medieval Europe. Cities

vied to outdo one another in the magnificence of theirguild halls, town halls, and other structures (see Envi-ronment and Technology: The Clock). But the architec-tural wonders of their times were the new Gothiccathedrals, which made their appearance in about 1140in France.

The hallmark of the new cathedrals was the pointedGothic arch, which replaced the older round Romanarch. External (flying) buttresses stabilized the high, thinstone columns below the arches. This method of con-struction enabled master builders to push the Gothiccathedrals to great heights and fill the outside walls withgiant windows of brilliantly colored stained glass. Duringthe next four centuries, interior heights went ever higher,

Gothic Cathedrals

towers and spires pierced the heavens, and walls dazzledworshippers with religious scenes in stained glass.

The men who designed and built the cathedrals hadlittle or no formal education and limited understandingof the mathematical principles of modern civil engi-neering. Master masons sometimes miscalculated, andparts of some overly ambitious cathedrals collapsed.For instance, the record-high choir vault of BeauvaisCathedral—154 feet (47 meters) in height—came tum-bling down in 1284. But as builders gained experience,they devised new ways to push their steeples heaven-ward. The spire of the Strasbourg cathedral reached

362 Chapter 14 The Latin West, 1200–1500

123456789

101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051

R 52L 53

1st Pass Pages

Medici (MED-ih-chee) Fuggers (FOOG-uhrz)

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 362

123456789

10111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546474849505152 R53 L

The Clock

Clocks were a prominent feature of the Latin West in thelate medieval period. The Song-era Chinese had built

elaborate mechanical clocks centuries earlier (see Chapter10), but the West was the first part of the world where clocksbecame a regular part of urban life. Whether mounted in achurch steeple or placed on a bridge or tower, mechanicalclocks proclaimed Western people’s delight with mechanicalobjects, concern with precision, and display of civic wealth.

The word clock comes from a word for bell. The firstmechanical clocks that appeared around 1300 in westernEurope were simply bells with an automatic mechanicaldevice to strike the correct number of hours. The mostelaborate Chinese clock had been powered by falling wa-ter, but this was impractical in cold weather. The levers,pulleys, and gears of European clocks were powered by aweight hanging from a rope wound around a cylinder. An“escapement” lever regulated the slow, steady unwinding.

Enthusiasm for build-ing expensive clockscame from various partsof the community. Forsome time, monks hadbeen using devices tomark the times for prayer.

Employers welcomed chiming clocks to regulate the hours oftheir employees. Universities used them to mark the beginningand end of classes. Prosperous merchants readily donated moneyto build a splendid clock that would display their city’s wealth.The city of Strasbourg, for example, built a clock in the 1350sthat included statues of the Virgin, the Christ Child, and the threeMagi; a mechanical rooster; the signs of the zodiac; a perpetualcalendar; and an astrolabe—and it could play hymns, too!

By the 1370s and 1380s clocks were common enough fortheir measured hours to displace the older system that variedthe length of the hour in proportion to the length of the day.Previously, for example, the London hour had varied fromthirty-eight minutes in winter to eighty-two minutes insummer. By 1500 clocks had numbered faces with hour andminute hands. Small clocks for indoor use were also in vogue.Though not very accurate by today’s standards, these clockswere still a great step forward. Some historians consider the

clock the most importantof the many technologi-cal advances of the laterMiddle Ages because itfostered so many changesduring the following cen-turies.

1st Pass Pages

363

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 363

466 feet (142 meters) into the air—as high as a 40-storybuilding. Such heights were unsurpassed until thetwentieth century.

LEARNING, LITERATURE,AND THE RENAISSANCE

Throughout the Middle Ages people in the Latin Westlived amid reminders of the achievements of the Ro-

man Empire. They wrote and worshiped in a version ofits language, traveled its roads, and obeyed some of itslaws. Even the vestments and robes of medieval popes,kings, and emperors were modeled on the regalia of Ro-man officials. Yet early medieval Europeans lost touchwith much of the learning of Greco-Roman antiquity.More vivid was the biblical world they heard about in theHebrew and Christian scriptures.

A small revival of classical learning associated withthe court of Charlemagne in the ninth century was fol-lowed by a larger renaissance (rebirth) in the twelfthcentury. The growing cities were home to intellectuals,artists, and universities after 1200. In the mid-fourteenthcentury the pace of intellectual and artistic life quick-ened in what is often called the Renaissance, which beganin northern Italy and later spread to northern Europe.Some Italian authors saw the Italian Renaissance as asharp break with an age of darkness. A more balancedview might reveal this era as the high noon of a day thathad been dawning for several centuries.

Before 1100 Byzantine and Is-lamic scholarship generallysurpassed scholarship in LatinEurope. When southern Italy

was wrested from the Byzantines and Sicily and Toledofrom the Muslims in the eleventh century, many manu-scripts of Greek and Arabic works came into Westernhands and were translated into Latin for readers eager fornew ideas. These included philosophical works by Platoand Aristotle˚; newly discovered Greek treatises on medi-cine, mathematics, and geography; and scientific andphilosophical writings by medieval Muslims. Latin trans-lations of the Iranian philosopher Ibn Sina˚ (980–1037),known in the West as Avicenna˚, were particularly influen-tial. Jewish scholars contributed significantly to the trans-lation and explication of Arabic and other manuscripts.

Universities and Learning

Two new religious orders, the Dominicans and theFranciscans, contributed many talented professors to thegrowing number of new independent colleges after 1200.Some scholars believe that the colleges established inParis and Oxford in the late twelfth and thirteenth cen-turies may have been modeled after similar places ofstudy then spreading in the Islamic world—madrasas,which provided subsidized housing for poor studentsand paid the salaries of their teachers. The Latin West,however, was the first part of the world to establish mod-ern universities, degree-granting corporations specializ-ing in multidisciplinary research and advanced teaching.

Between 1300 and 1500 sixty new universities joinedthe twenty existing institutions of higher learning in theLatin West. Students banded together to found some ofthem; guilds of professors founded others. Teachingguilds, like the guilds overseeing manufacturing andcommerce, set the standards for membership in theirprofession, trained apprentices and masters, and de-fended their professional interests.

Universities set the curriculum of study for each dis-cipline and instituted comprehensive final examinationsfor degrees. Students who passed the exams at the end oftheir apprenticeship received a teaching diploma knownas a “license.” Students who completed longer trainingand successfully defended a scholarly treatise became“masters” or “doctors.” The colleges of Paris were gradu-ally absorbed into the city’s university, but the colleges ofOxford and Cambridge remained independent, self-governing organizations.

Universally recognized degrees, well-trained profes-sors, and exciting new texts promoted the rapid spreadof universities in late medieval Europe. Because all uni-versity courses were taught in Latin, students and mas-ters could move freely across political and linguisticlines, seeking out the university that offered the coursesthey wanted and that had the most interesting profes-sors. Universities offered a variety of programs of studybut generally were identified with a particular specialty.Bologna˚ was famous for the study of law; Montpellierand Salerno specialized in medicine; Paris and Oxfordexcelled in theology.

The prominence of theology partly reflected the factthat many students were destined for ecclesiastical ca-reers, but theology was also seen as “queen of the sci-ences”—the central discipline that encompassed allknowledge. For this reason thirteenth-century theolo-gians sought to synthesize the newly rediscovered philo-sophical works of Aristotle, as well as the commentariesof Avicenna, with the revealed truth of the Bible. Their

364 Chapter 14 The Latin West, 1200–1500

123456789

101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051

R 52L 53

1st Pass Pages

Bologna (buh-LOHN-yuh)Aristotle (AR-ih-stah-tahl) Ibn Sina (IB-uhn SEE-nah)Avicenna (av-uh-SEN-uh)

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 364

daring efforts to synthesize reason and faith were knownas scholasticism˚.

The most notable scholastic work was the SummaTheologica˚, issued between 1267 and 1273 by ThomasAquinas, a brilliant Dominican priest who was a profes-sor of theology at the University of Paris. AlthoughAquinas’s exposition of Christian belief organized onAristotelian principles was later accepted as a masterlydemonstration of the reasonableness of Christianity,scholasticism upset many traditional thinkers. Somechurch authorities even tried to ban Aristotle from thecurriculum. There also was much rivalry between theleading Dominican and Franciscan theological scholarsover the next two centuries. However, the considerablefreedom of medieval universities from both secular andreligious authorities eventually enabled the new ideas ofaccredited scholars to prevail over the fears of churchadministrators.

The intellectual achievementsof the later Middle Ages werenot confined to the universi-ties. Talented writers of this era

made important contributions to literature and literaryscholarship. A new technology in the fifteenth centuryhelped bring works of literature and scholarship to alarger audience.

Dante Alighieri˚ (1265–1321) completed a long, ele-gant poem, the Divine Comedy, shortly before his death.This supreme expression of medieval preoccupationstells the allegorical story of Dante’s journey through thenine circles of hell and the seven terraces of purgatory (aplace where the souls not deserving eternal punishmentwere purged of their sinfulness), followed by his entryinto Paradise. His guide through hell and purgatory isthe Roman poet Virgil. His guide through Paradise isBeatrice, a woman whom he had loved from afar sincechildhood and whose death inspired him to write thepoem.

The Divine Comedy foreshadows some of the literaryfashions of the later Italian Renaissance. Like Dante,later Italian writers made use of Greco-Roman classicalthemes and mythology and sometimes chose to writenot in Latin but in the vernacular languages spoken intheir regions, in order to reach broader audiences. (Danteused the vernacular spoken in Tuscany˚.)

Humanists and Printers

The English poet Geoffrey Chaucer was another ver-nacular writer of this era. Many of his works show theinfluence of Dante, but he is most famous for theCanterbury Tales, the lengthy poem written in the lastdozen years of his life. These often humorous and earthytales, told by fictional pilgrims on their way to the shrineof Thomas à Becket in Canterbury, are cited severaltimes in this chapter because they present a marvelouscross-section of medieval people and attitudes.

Dante also influenced the literary movement of thehumanists that began in his native Florence in the mid-fourteenth century. The term refers to their interest inthe humanities, the classical disciplines of grammar,rhetoric, poetry, history, and ethics. With the brash exag-geration characteristic of new intellectual fashions, hu-manist writers such as the poet Francesco Petrarch˚(1304–1374) and the poet and storyteller Giovanni Boc-caccio˚ (1313–1375) claimed that their new-found admi-ration for the classical values revived Greco-Romantraditions that for centuries had lain buried under therubble of the Middle Ages. This idea of a rebirth of learn-ing long dead overlooks the fact that scholars at themonasteries and universities had been recovering andpreserving all sorts of Greco-Roman learning for manycenturies. Dante (whom the humanists revered) had an-ticipated humanist interests by a generation.

Yet it is hard to exaggerate the beneficial influencesof the humanists as educators, advisers, and reformers.Their greatest influence was in reforming secondary ed-ucation. Humanists introduced a curriculum centeredon the languages and literature of Greco-Roman antiq-uity, which they felt provided intellectual discipline,moral lessons, and refined tastes. This curriculum domi-nated secondary education in Europe and the Americaswell into the twentieth century. Despite the humanists’influence, theology, law, medicine, and branches of phi-losophy other than ethics remained prominent in univer-sity education during this period. After 1500 humanistinfluence grew in university education.

Believing the pinnacle of learning, beauty, and wis-dom had been reached in antiquity, many humaniststried to duplicate the elegance of classical Latin or Greek.Others followed Dante in composing literary works invernacular languages. Boccaccio is most famous for hisvernacular writings, especially the Decameron, an earthywork that has much in common with Chaucer’s boister-ous tales. Under Petrarch’s influence, however, Boccac-cio turned to writing in classical Latin, including Demulieribus claris (Famous Women), a chronicle of 106

123456789

10111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546474849505152 R53 L

Learning, Literature, and the Renaissance 365

1st Pass Pages

scholasticism (skoh-LAS-tih-sizm)Summa Theologica (SOOM-uh thee-uh-LOH-jih-kuh)Dante Alighieri (DAHN-tay ah-lee-GYEH-ree)Tuscany (TUS-kuh-nee)

Franceso Petrarch (fran-CHES-koh PAY-trahrk)Giovanni Boccaccio (jo-VAH-nee boh-KAH-chee-oh)

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 365

famous women from Eve to his own day. It was the firstcollection of women’s lives in Western literature.

Once they had mastered classical Latin and Greek, anumber of humanist scholars of the fifteenth centuryworked to restore the original texts of Greco-Roman writ-ers and of the Bible. By comparing many different manu-scripts, they eliminated errors introduced by generationsof copyists. To aid in this task, Pope Nicholas V (r. 1447–1455) created the Vatican Library, buying scrolls of Greco-Roman writings and paying to have accurate copies andtranslations made. Working independently, the respectedDutch scholar Erasmus˚ of Rotterdam (ca. 1466–1536)produced a critical edition of the New Testament in Greek.

Erasmus was able to correct many errors and mistranslationsin the Latin text that had been in general use throughoutthe Middle Ages. In later years this humanist priest andtheologian also wrote—in classical Latin—influentialmoral guides including the Enchiridion militis christiani(The Manual of the Christian Knight, 1503) and The Edu-cation of a Christian Prince (1515).

The influence of the humanists was enhanced after1450 because new printing technology increased theavailability of their critical editions of ancient texts, liter-ary works, and moral guides. The Chinese were the firstto use carved wood blocks for printing (see Chapter 12),and block-printed playing cards from China were circu-lating in Europe before 1450. Then, around 1450, threetechnical improvements revolutionized printing: (1) mov-

366 Chapter 14 The Latin West, 1200–1500

123456789

101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051

R 52L 53

1st Pass Pages

Erasmus (uh-RAZ-muhs)

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 366

able pieces of type consisting of individual letters,(2) new ink suitable for printing on paper, and (3) theprinting press, a mechanical device that pressed inkedtype onto sheets of paper.

The man who did most to perfect printing was Jo-hann Gutenberg˚ (ca. 1394–1468) of Mainz. The Guten-berg Bible of 1454, the first book in the West printed frommovable type, was a beautiful and finely crafted workthat bore witness to the printer’s years of diligent experi-mentation. As printing spread to Italy and France, hu-manists worked closely with printers. Erasmus workedfor years as an editor and proofreader for the greatscholar-printer Aldo Manuzio (1449–1515), whose pressin Venice published critical editions of many classicalLatin and Greek texts.

By 1500 at least 10 million printed copies had issuedforth from presses in 238 towns in western Europe.Though mass-produced paperbacks were still in the fu-ture, the printers and humanists had launched a revolu-tion that was already having an effect on students,scholars, and a growing number of literate people whocould gain access to ancient texts as well as to unortho-dox political and religious tracts.

The fourteenth and fifteenthcenturies were as distin-guished for their masterpiecesof painting, sculpture, and ar-

chitecture as they were for their scholarship. Althoughartists continued to depict biblical subjects, the spreadof Greco-Roman learning led many artists, especially inItaly, to portray Greco-Roman deities and mythicaltales. Another popular trend was depicting the scenes ofdaily life.

However, neither daily life nor classical images wereentirely new subjects. Renaissance art, like Renaissancescholarship, owed a major debt to earlier generations.The Florentine painter Giotto˚ (ca. 1267–1337) had a for-midable influence on the major Italian painters of the fif-teenth century, who credited him with single-handedlyreviving the “lost art of painting.” In his religious scenesGiotto replaced the stiff, staring figures of the Byzantinestyle, which were intended to overawe viewers, withmore natural and human portraits with whose emotionsof grief and love viewers could identify. Rather thanfloating on backgrounds of gold leaf, his saints inhabitearthly landscapes.

RenaissanceArtists

123456789

10111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546474849505152 R53 L

Learning, Literature, and the Renaissance 367

1st Pass Pages

Johann Gutenberg (yoh-HAHN GOO-ten-burg) Giotto (JAW-toh)

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 367

1st Pass Pages

Another important contribution to the early ItalianRenaissance was a new painting technology from northof the Alps. The Flemish painter Jan van Eyck˚ (ca.1390–1441) mixed his pigments with linseed oil insteadof the diluted egg yolk of earlier centuries. Oil paintswere slower drying and more versatile, and they gavepictures a superior luster. Van Eyck’s use of the techniquefor his own masterfully realistic paintings on religiousand domestic themes was quickly copied by talentedpainters of the Italian Renaissance.

The great Italian Leonardo da Vinci˚ (1452–1519), forexample, used oil paints for his famous Mona Lisa. Renais-sance artists like Leonardo were masters of many media.His other works include the fresco (painting in wet plaster)The Last Supper, bronze sculptures, and imaginative de-signs for airplanes, submarines, and tanks. Leonardo’syounger contemporary Michelangelo˚ (1472–1564) paintedfrescoes of biblical scenes on the ceiling of the SistineChapel in the Vatican, sculpted statues of David and Moses,and designed the dome for a new Saint Peter’s Basilica.

The patronage of wealthy and educated merchantsand prelates did much to foster an artistic blossoming inthe cities of northern Italy and Flanders. The Florentinebanker Cosimo de’ Medici (1389–1464), for example,spent immense sums on paintings, sculpture, and publicbuildings. His grandson Lorenzo (1449–1492), known as“the Magnificent,” was even more lavish. The church wasalso an important source of artistic commissions. Seek-ing to restore Rome as the capital of the Latin Church,the papacy˚ launched a building program culminatingin the construction of the new Saint Peter’s Basilica and aresidence for the pope.

These scholarly and artistic achievements exemplifythe innovation and striving for excellence of the LateMiddle Ages. The new literary themes and artistic stylesof this period had lasting influence on Western culture.But the innovations in the organization of universities, inprinting, and in oil painting had wider implications, forthey were later adopted by cultures all over the world.

POLITICAL AND MILITARY

TRANSFORMATIONS

Stronger and more unified states and armies devel-oped in western Europe in parallel with the economic

and cultural revivals. In no case were transformations

smooth and steady, and the political changes unfoldedsomewhat differently in each state (see Map 14.3). Dur-ing and after the prolonged struggle of the HundredYears War, French and English monarchs forged closerties with the nobility, the church, and the merchants. Theconsolidation of Spain and Portugal was linked to cru-sades against Muslim states. In Italy and Germany, how-ever, political power remained in the hands of smallstates and loose alliances.

Thirteenth-century states stillshared many features of earlymedieval states (see Chapter9). Hereditary monarchs oc-

cupied the peak of the political pyramid, but their pow-ers were limited by modest treasuries and the rightspossessed by others. Below them came the powerful no-blemen who controlled vast estates and whose adviceand consent were often required on important mattersof state. The church, jealous of its traditional rights andindependence, was another powerful body within eachkingdom. Towns, too, had acquired many rights andprivileges. Indeed, the towns in Flanders, the HanseaticLeague, and Italy were nearly independent from royal in-terference.

In theory, nobles were vassals of the reigning mon-archs and were obliged to furnish them with armoredknights in time of war. In practice, vassals sought to limitthe monarch’s power and protect their own rights andprivileges. The nobles’ privileged economic and socialposition rested on the large estates that had beengranted to their ancestors in return for supporting andtraining knights in armor to serve in a royal army.

In the year 1200 knights were still the backbone ofwestern European fighting forces, but two changes inweaponry were bringing their central military role, andthus the system of estates that supported them, intoquestion. The first involved the humble arrow. Im-proved crossbows could shoot metal-tipped arrowswith such force that they could pierce helmets and lightbody armor. Professional crossbowmen, hired forwages, became increasingly common and much feared.Indeed, a church council in 1139 outlawed the crossbowas being too deadly for use against Christians. The banwas largely ignored. The second innovation in militarytechnology that weakened the feudal system was thefirearm. This Chinese invention, using gunpowder toshoot stone or metal projectiles, further transformedthe medieval army.

The church also resisted royal control. In 1302 theoutraged Pope Boniface VIII (r. 1294–1303) went so far asto assert that divine law made the papacy superior to

Monarchs, Nobles,and Clergy

368 Chapter 14 The Latin West, 1200–1500

123456789

101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051

R 52L 53

Jan van Eyck (yahn vahn-IKE)Leonardo da Vinci (lay-own-AHR-doh dah-VIN-chee)Michelangelo (my-kuhl-AN-juh-low) papacy (PAY-puh-see)

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 368

1st Pass Pages

123456789

10111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546474849505152 R53 L

Political and Military Transformations 369

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 369

1st Pass Pages

“every human creature,” including monarchs. This theo-retical claim of superiority was challenged by force. Issu-ing his own claim of superiority, King Philip “the Fair” ofFrance (r. 1285–1314) sent an army to arrest the pope. Af-ter this treatment hastened Pope Boniface’s death, Philipengineered the election of a French pope who estab-lished a new papal residence at Avignon˚ in southernFrance in 1309.

With the support of the French monarchy, a succes-sion of popes residing in Avignon improved church dis-cipline—but at the price of compromising the papacy’sneutrality in the eyes of other rulers. Papal authority wasfurther eroded by the Great Western Schism (1378–1415), a period when rival papal claimants at Avignonand Rome vied for the loyalties of Latin Christians. Theconflict was eventually resolved by returning the papalresidence to its traditional location, the city of Rome.The papacy regained its independence, but the long cri-sis broke the pope’s ability to challenge the rising powerof the larger monarchies.

King Philip gained an important advantage at thebeginning of his dispute with Pope Boniface when hepersuaded a large council of French nobles to grant himthe right to collect a new tax, which sustained themonarchy for some time. Earlier, by adroitly using thesupport of the towns, the saintly King Louis IX of France(r. 1226–1270) had been able to issue ordinances that ap-plied throughout his kingdom without first obtainingthe nobles’ consent. But later kings’ efforts to extendroyal authority sparked prolonged resistance by the mostpowerful vassals.

English monarchs wielded more centralized poweras a result of consolidation that had taken place after theNorman conquest of 1066. Anglo-Norman kings also ex-tended their realm by assaults on their Celtic neighbors.Between 1200 and 1400 they incorporated Wales and re-asserted control over most of Ireland. Nevertheless, Eng-lish royal power was far from absolute. In the span of justthree years the ambitions of King John (r. 1199–1216)were severely set back. First he was compelled to ac-knowledge the pope as his overlord (1213). Then he losthis bid to reassert claims to Aquitaine in southernFrance (1214). Finally he was forced to sign the MagnaCarta (“Great Charter,” 1215), which affirmed that mon-archs were subject to established law, confirmed the in-dependence of the church and the city of London, andguaranteed nobles’ hereditary rights.

Separate from the challenges to royal authority bythe church and the nobles were the alliances and con-flicts generated by the hereditary nature of monarchial

370 Chapter 14 The Latin West, 1200–1500

123456789

101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051

R 52L 53

Avignon (ah-vee-NYON)

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 370

rule. Monarchs and their vassals entered into strategicmarriages with a view to increasing their lands and theirwealth. Such marriages showed scant regard for theemotions of the wedded parties or for “national” inter-ests. Besides unhappiness for the parties involved, thesemarriages often led to conflicts over far-flung inheri-tances. Although these dynastic struggles and shiftingboundaries make European politics seem chaotic incomparison with the empires of Asia, some importantchanges were emerging from them. Aided by the chang-ing technology of war, monarchs were strengtheningtheir authority and creating more stable (but not entirelyfixed) state boundaries within which the nations of west-ern Europe would in time develop. Nobles lost auton-omy and dominance on the battlefield but retained theirsocial position and important political roles.

The long conflict between theking of France and his vassalsknown as the Hundred YearsWar (1337–1453) was a key ex-ample of the transformation in

politics and warfare. This long conflict set the power ofthe French monarchy against the ambitions of his vas-sals, who included the kings of England (for lands thatbelonged to their Norman ancestors) and the heads ofFlanders, Brittany, and Burgundy. In typical fashion, theconflict grew out of a marriage alliance.

Princess Isabella of France married King Edward IIof England (r. 1307–1327) to ensure that this powerfulvassal remained loyal to the French monarchy. However,when none of Isabella’s three brothers, who served inturn as kings of France, produced a male heir, Isabella’sson, King Edward III of England (r. 1327–1377), laidclaim to the French throne in 1337. Edward decided tofight for his rights after French courts awarded the throneto a more distant (and more French) cousin. Other vas-sals joined in a series of battles for the French throne thatstretched out over a century.

New military technology shaped the conflict. Earlyin the war, hired Italian crossbowmen reinforced theFrench cavalry, but arrows from another late medievalinnovation, the English longbow, nearly annihilated theFrench force. Adopted from the Welsh, the 6-foot (1.8-meter) longbow could shoot farther and more rapidlythan the crossbow. Although arrows from longbowscould not pierce armor, in concentrated volleys they of-ten found gaps in the knights’ defenses or struck theirless-well-protected horses. To defend against theseweapons, armor became heavier and more encompass-ing, making it harder for a knight to move. A knight who

The HundredYears War,1337–1453

was pulled off his steed by a foot soldier armed with apike (hooked pole) was usually unable to get up to de-fend himself.

Firearms became prominent in later stages of theHundred Years War. Early cannon were better at spook-ing the horses than at hitting rapidly moving targets. Ascannon grew larger, they proved quite effective in blast-ing holes through the heavy walls of medieval castlesand towns. The first use of such artillery, against theFrench in the Battle of Agincourt (1415), gave the Englishan important victory.

A young French peasant woman, Joan of Arc,brought the English gains to a halt. Believing she was act-ing on God’s instructions, she donned a knight’s armorand rallied the French troops, which defeated the Englishin 1429 just as they seemed close to conquering France.Shortly after this victory, Joan had the misfortune offalling into English hands. English churchmen tried herfor witchcraft and burned her at the stake in 1431.

In the final battles of the Hundred Years War, Frenchforces used large cannon to demolish the walls of once-secure castles held by the English and their allies. Thetruce that ended the struggle in 1453 left the Frenchmonarchy in firm control.

The war proved to be a water-shed in the political history ofFrance and England. The newmonarchies that emerged dif-fered from their medieval

predecessors in having greater centralization of power,more fixed “national” boundaries, and stronger repre-sentative institutions. English monarchs after 1453strove to consolidate control within the British Isles,though the Scots strongly defended their independence.French monarchs worked to tame the independence oftheir powerful noble vassals. Holdings headed by womenwere especially vulnerable. Mary of Burgundy (1457–1482)was forced to surrender much of her family’s vast hold-ings to the king. Anne of Brittany’s forced marriage to theking led to the eventual incorporation of her duchy˚ intoFrance.

Changes in military technology helped underminenobles’ resistance. Smaller, more mobile cannon devel-oped in the late fifteenth century blasted through theircastle walls. More powerful hand-held firearms thatcould pierce even the heaviest armor hastened the de-mise of the armored knights. New armies depended lesson knights from noble vassals and more on bowmen,

New Monarchiesin France and England

123456789

10111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546474849505152 R53 L

Political and Military Transformations 371

1st Pass Pages

duchy (DUTCH-ee)

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 371

pikemen, musketeers, and artillery units paid by theroyal treasury.

The new monarchies tried several strategies to pay fortheir standing armies. Monarchs encouraged noble vas-sals to make monetary payments in place of military ser-vice and levied additional taxes in time of war. Forexample, Charles VII of France (r. 1422–1461) won theright to impose a land tax on his vassals that enabled himto pay the costs of the last years of war with England. Thisnew tax sustained the royal treasury for the next 350 years.

Taxes on merchants were another important rev-enue source. The taxes on the English wool trade, be-gun by King Edward III, paid most of the costs of theHundred Years War. Some rulers taxed Jewish mer-chants and extorted large contributions from wealthytowns. Individual merchants sometimes curried royalfavor with loans, even though such debts could be diffi-cult or dangerous to collect. For example, the wealthyfifteenth-century French merchant Jacques Coeur˚gained many social and financial benefits for himselfand his family by lending money to important mem-bers of the French court, but he was ruined when hisjealous debtors accused him of murder and had his for-tune confiscated.

The church was a third source of revenue. The clergyoften made voluntary contributions to a war effort. Eng-lish and French monarchs gained further control ofchurch funds in the fifteenth century by gaining the rightto appoint important ecclesiastical officials in theirrealms. Although reformers complained that this subor-dinated the church’s spiritual mission to political andeconomic concerns, the monarchs often used state powerto enforce religious orthodoxy in their realms more vigor-ously than the popes had ever been able to do.

The shift in power to the monarchs and away fromthe nobility and the church did not deprive nobles ofsocial privileges and special access to high administra-tive and military offices. Moreover, towns, nobles, andclergy found new ways to check royal power in the rep-resentative institutions that came into existence in Eng-land and France. By 1500 Parliament had become apermanent part of English government: the House ofLords contained all the great nobles and English churchofficials; the House of Commons represented the townsand the leading citizens of the counties. In France asimilar but less effective representative body, the Es-tates General, represented the church, the nobles, andthe towns.

The growth of Spain and Portu-gal into strong, centralized stateswas also shaped by strugglesbetween kings and vassals, dy-

nastic marriages and mergers, and warfare. But Spainand Portugal’s reconquest of Iberia from Muslim rulewas also a religious crusade. Religious zeal did not ruleout personal gain. The Christian knights who graduallypushed the borders of their kingdoms southward ex-pected material rewards. The spoils of victory includedirrigated farmland, cities rich in Moorish architecture,and trading ports with access to the Mediterranean andthe Atlantic. Serving God, growing rich, and living offthe labor of others became a way of life for the Iberiannobility.

The reconquest advanced in waves over several cen-turies. Christian knights took Toledo in 1085. The At-lantic port of Lisbon fell in 1147 with the aid of Englishcrusaders on their way to capture the Holy Land. It be-came the new capital of Portugal and the kingdom’sleading city, displacing the older capital of Oporto,whose name (meaning “the port”) is the root of the wordPortugal. A Christian victory in 1212 broke the back ofMuslim power in Iberia. During the next few decadesPortuguese and Castilian forces captured the beautifuland prosperous cities of Cordova (1236) and Seville(1248) and in 1249 drove the Muslims from the south-western corner of Iberia, known as Algarve˚ (“the west”in Arabic). Only the small kingdom of Granada huggingthe Mediterranean coast remained in Muslim hands.

By incorporating Algarve in 1249, Portugal attainedits modern territorial limits. After a long pause to colo-nize, Christianize, and consolidate this land, Portugaltook the Christian crusade to North Africa. In 1415 Por-tuguese knights seized the port city of Ceuta˚ in Mo-rocco, where they learned more about the trans-Saharancaravan trade in gold and slaves (see Chapter 13). Duringthe next few decades, Portuguese mariners sailed downthe Atlantic coast of Africa seeking access to this richtrade and alliances with rumored African Christians (seeChapter 15).

Although it took the other Iberian kingdoms muchlonger to complete the reconquest, the struggle served tobring them together and to keep their Christian religiouszealotry at a high pitch. The marriage of Princess Isabellaof Castile and Prince Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469 led tothe permanent union of their kingdoms into Spain adecade later when they inherited their respective thrones.Their conquest of Granada in 1492 secured the final pieceof Muslim territory in Iberia for the new kingdom.

IberianUnification

372 Chapter 14 The Latin West, 1200–1500

123456789

101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051

R 52L 53

1st Pass Pages

Coeur (cur) Algarve (ahl-GAHRV) Ceuta (say-OO-tuh)

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 372

The year 1492 was also memorable because of Ferdi-nand and Isabella’s sponsorship of the voyage led byChristopher Columbus in search of the riches of the In-dian Ocean (see Chapter 15). A third event that year alsoreflected Spain’s crusading mentality. Less than threemonths after Granada’s fall, the monarchs ordered allJews to be expelled from their kingdoms. Efforts to forcethe remaining Muslims to convert or leave led to a Mus-lim revolt at the end of 1499 that was not put down until1501. Portugal also began expelling Jews in 1493, includ-ing many thousands who had fled from Spain.

CONCLUSION

From an ecological perspective, the later medievalhistory of the Latin West is a story of triumphs and

disasters. Westerners excelled in harnessing the inani-mate forces of nature with their windmills, water wheels,and sails. They mined and refined the mineral wealth ofthe earth, although localized pollution and deforestationwere among the results. But their inability to improvefood production and distribution as rapidly as their pop-ulation grew created a demographic crisis that becamea demographic calamity when the Black Death sweptthrough Europe in the mid-fourteenth century.

From a regional perspective, the period witnessedthe coming together of the basic features of the modernWest. States were of moderate size but had exceptionalmilitary capacity honed by frequent wars with one an-other. The ruling class, convinced that economic strengthand political strength were inseparable, promoted thewelfare of the urban populations that specialized intrade, manufacturing, and finance—and taxed their prof-its. Autonomous universities fostered intellectual excel-lence, and printing diffused the latest advances inknowledge. Art and architecture reached peaks of designand execution that set the standard for subsequent cen-turies. Perhaps most fundamentally, later medieval Eu-ropeans were fascinated by tools and techniques. Incommerce, warfare, and industry, new inventions andimproved versions of old ones underpinned the region’scontinuing dynamism.

From a global perspective, these centuries markedthe Latin West’s change from a region dependent on cul-tural and commercial flows from the East to a regionpoised to export its culture and impose its power on otherparts of the world. It is one of history’s great ironies thatmany of the tools that the Latin West used to challengeEastern supremacy had originally been borrowed fromthe East. Medieval Europe’s mills, printing, firearms, and

navigational devices owed much to Eastern designs, justas its agriculture, alphabet, and numerals had in earliertimes. Western European success depended as much onstrong motives for expansion as on adequate means.Long before the first voyages overseas, population pres-sure, religious zeal, economic motives, and intellectualcuriosity had expanded the territory and resources of theLatin West. From the late eleventh century onward suchexpansion of frontiers was notable in the English con-quest of Celtic lands, in the establishment of crusaderand commercial outposts in the eastern Mediterraneanand Black Seas, in the massive German settlement east ofthe Elbe River, and in the reconquest of southern Iberiafrom the Muslims. The early voyages into the Atlanticwere an extension of similar motives in a new direction.

■ Key TermsLatin West universities

three-field system scholasticism

Black Death humanists (Renaissance)

water wheel printing press

Hanseatic League Great Western Schism

guild Hundred Years War

Gothic cathedral new monarchies

Renaissance (European) reconquest

■ Suggested ReadingA fine guide to the Latin West (including its ties to eastern Eu-rope, Africa, and the Middle East) is Robert Fossier, ed., TheCambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages, vol. 3,1250–1520 (1986). George Holmes, Europe: Hierarchy and Re-volt, 1320–1450, 2d ed. (2000), and Denys Hay, Europe in theFourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, 2d ed. (1989), are compre-hensive overviews. For the West’s economic revival and growth,see Robert S. Lopez, The Commercial Revolution of the MiddleAges, 950–1350 (1976), and Harry A. Miskimin, The Economy ofEarly Renaissance Europe, 1300–1460 (1975). For greater detailsee The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 6, 1300–c.1415,ed. M. Jones (1998), and vol. 7, 1415–1500, ed. C. Allmand (1999).

For fascinating primary sources see James Bruce Ross and MaryMartin McLaughlin, eds., The Portable Medieval Reader (1977)and The Portable Renaissance Reader (1977). The Notebooks ofLeonardo da Vinci, ed. Pamela Taylor (1960), show this versatilegenius at work.

Technological change is surveyed by Arnold Pacey, The Maze ofIngenuity: Ideas and Idealism in the Development of Technology(1974); Jean Gimpel, The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Rev-olution of the Middle Ages (1977); and William H. McNeill, ThePursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society Since A.D.1000 (1982). For a key aspect of the environment see RolandBechmann, Trees and Man: The Forest in the Middle Ages (1990).

123456789

10111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546474849505152 R53 L

Conclusion 373

1st Pass Pages

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 373

Charles Homer Haskins, The Rise of the Universities (1923;reprint, 1957), is a brief, lighthearted introduction; more de-tailed and scholarly is Olef Pedersen, The First Universities:Studium Generale and the Origins of University Education inEurope (1998). Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages(1924), is the classic account of the “mind” of the fifteenth cen-tury. A multitude of works deal with the Renaissance, but few inany broad historical context. Lisa Jardine, Worldly Goods: A NewHistory of the Renaissance (1996), is well illustrated and bal-anced; see also John R. Hale, The Civilization of Europe in theRenaissance (1995).

For social history see Georges Duby, Rural Economy and Coun-try Life in the Medieval West (1990), for the earlier centuries.George Huppert, After the Black Death: A Social History of EarlyModern Europe (1986), takes the analysis past 1500. Brief lives ofindividuals are found in Eileen Power, Medieval People, new ed.(1997), and Frances Gies and Joseph Gies, Women in the MiddleAges (1978). More systematic are the essays in Mary Erler andMaryanne Kowaleski, eds., Women and Power in the Middle Ages(1988). Vita Sackville-West, Saint Joan of Arc (1926; reprint,1991), is a readable introduction to this extraordinary person.

Key events in the Anglo-French dynastic conflict are examinedby Christopher Alland, The Hundred Years War: England andFrance at War, ca. 1300–ca. 1450 (1988). Joseph F. O’Callaghan, AHistory of Medieval Spain (1975), provides the best one-volumecoverage; for more detail see Jocelyn N. Hillgarth, The SpanishKingdoms, 2 vols. (1976, 1978). Barbara W. Tuchman, A DistantMirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (1978), is a popular ac-

count of the crises of that era. Norman F. Cantor, In the Wake ofthe Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made (2001), sup-plies a thorough introduction.

The Latin West’s expansion is well treated by Robert Bartlett,The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization, and CulturalChange (1993); J. R. S. Phillips, The Medieval Expansion of Eu-rope, 2d ed. (1998); and P. E. Russell, Portugal, Spain and theAfrican Atlantic, 1343–1492 (1998).

Francis C. Oakley, The Western Church in the Later Middle Ages(1985), is a reliable summary of modern scholarship. KennethR. Stow, Alienated Minority: The Jews of Medieval Latin Europe(1992), provides a fine survey up through the fourteenth cen-tury. For pioneering essays on the Latin West’s external ties seeKhalil I. Semaan, ed., Islam and the Medieval West: Aspects of In-tercultural Relations (1980).

■ Notes1. Quoted in Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth

and Cult of the Virgin Mary (New York: Random House,1983), 179.

2. Harry Miskimin, The Economy of the Early Renaissance,1300–1460 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969),26–27.

3. Quotations here and later in the chapter are from GeoffreyChaucer, The Canterbury Tales, trans. Nevill Coghill (NewYork: Penguin Books, 1952), 25, 29, 32.

374 Chapter 14 The Latin West, 1200–1500

123456789

101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051

R 52L 53

1st Pass Pages

DOCUMENT 5The Medici Family (photo, p. 367)

DOCUMENT 6Map 14.3 Europe in 1453 (p. 369)

Which of the texts in Document 2 offers the mostrealistic view of the state of religious tolerance inlate medieval Europe? What additional types ofdocuments would help you understand howreligious belief shaped Western European societyin this period?

Document-Based QuestionReligion and Society in theLatin West, 1200–1500 Using the following documents, analyze the variousways that religious belief shaped Western Europeansociety from 1200 to 1500. Compare and contrast theeffects of religious beliefs on men and women.

DOCUMENT 1Excerpt from theologian Thomas Aquinas (p. 352)

DOCUMENT 2Persecution and Protection of Jews, 1272–1349(Diversity and Dominance, pp. 360–361)

DOCUMENT 3 Strasbourg Cathedral (photo, p. 362)

DOCUMENT 4Early Clock (Environment and Technology, p. 363)

14820_14_349-374_r2ek.qxd 4/2/04 3:41 PM Page 374