Chapter 9 The Late Middle-Ages: Social and Political Breakdown (1300-1527)

Jann Kim

Part I: Terms
Great Schism is the division that split the Church in Roman Empire into Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church. During this schism, there were two popes: Pope Urban VI and Pope Clement VII supported by different parts of Europe but they were both deposed later on. The Avignon Papacy is the time between 1309 and 1377 in which pope Clement V moved the papal court from Rome to Avignon because of disorders from the war between Boniface and King Philip from France. Seven popes in total, including pope Clement V, had to reside in Avignon before the papal court came back to Rome. Treaty of Troyes in 1420 disinherited the next heir, who is son of Charles VI, and gave the throne to Henry V. Joan of Arc is a female peasant who got permission by Charles VII by telling him that the King of Heaven sent her to get Orleans back from English. She gave the French army not only inspiration but also confidence, which no one has ever done before. John Ball was a secular priest who took the lead of the peasants and artisans revolt that occurred because of the unprivileged social class. Later on, Ball was found guilty of treason and died from being hanged on July 15, 1381. Council of Basel discussed about the church doctrine with heretics and highest points of council were when Hussite war ended. Even though it collapsed in 1449, the council of Basel engraved in people the religious responsibility and also that the role of leader of institution is to provide well-being of the members, not the position. Jacquerie is the word for series of bloody rebellions in 1358 because of the French privileged class bullying the peasants by forcing them to pay money. Philip IV was the brutal king of France who forbade exportation of money from France to Rome when Pope Innocent III issued Clericis laicos, prohibiting taxing of clergy without prior papal approval. John Huss was not only a Czech priest but also the rector of University of Prague and along with other ecclesiastical Reformers he championed vernacular translation of the Bible. He then was accused of heresy and died on July 6, 1415. Unam Sanctam was the bull declaring that the temporal authority depends on the spiritual power of the church. It was in fact a desperate movement of a sieged papacy. Council of Constance was the new council summoned by Emperor Sigismund and the council elected Martin V as the new pope after the three popes resigned or got deposed. Even after Council of Constance brought the end of the Great Schism, many people thought it was an illegitimate council.

John Wycliffe was an Oxford theologian and a philosopher and he was the first one to begin translating the Bible into English. His followers are called Lollards and he was a religious reformer therefore influencing many people. However he was accused of heresy after his dead and his teachings were prohibited. Council of Pisa was the council that removed both popes (Urban VI and Clement VII) out of their positions and elected a new pope, Alexander V. However the two popes did not accept and there were three popes in the Church. Marsilius of Padua was one of the two greatest pamphleteers that wrote Defender of Peace, and he stressed independent origins and autonomy of secular government. John XXII declared his work heretical in 1327. Longbow is a useful weapon that English army used to shoot a knight that was two hundred yards away and it was strong enough to pierce the knight s armor from two hundred yards away. The Hundred Years War was the war caused by conflicts between England and France for the French throne and lands. England was mostly dominant in battles and had many positive effects such as the country being unified and getting economically and also politically stronger. The Estates General includes townspeople and nobles that French king assembled to levy the taxes to secure funds. However the Estates General used king s privileges to increase their regional rights. Pogroms are violent mob attack or organized massacre on a particular group. Taille was the direct tax on the French peasantry which led to the jacquerie. Lollards are the followers of John Wycliffe that believe in the authority of the Bible and that everyone should read and interpret it. Therefore they participated in religious reformation. Conciliar Theory of Church Government was the idea of council being able to regulate actions of pope since church is the faithful body and the pope is just one part of the body, the head. The pope s job was to keep unity and make sure of everyone s well-being, therefore making the council s authority bigger than the pope alone. Black Death was the bubonic plague that came to Europe from Asia through port cities which obliterated two fifths of the Europe s entire population in 1347. Europe could not fully recover until the late sixteenth century.

Part II: Questions

1. The three great calamities developed in the Chapter are the Black Death, the Hundred Years War, and the Great Schism. The deadly bubonic plague obliterated two fifths of the entire continent s population. The fight between France and England for the French throne and the land made up the Hundred Years War, sacrificing many people. Last but not least, conflicts in church kept causing revolts and riots because of the secular and temporal people in the position. Therefore these three are the calamities described in the Chapter. 2. The portion of population that is estimated to have been decimated by the Black Death is two fifths of the whole entire continent, Europe. After the crop failures, Europe had decades of overpopulation, economic depression, famine, and bad health which led to weakening of Europe. It was inevitable and no one knew what would happen to them during this time. 3. A book that is an excellent source for understanding the reaction of the people to the Black Death is The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. This book explains how the doctors could not do anything to help the patients with the plague. It also explains the symptoms of the people with the plague such as tumours in the groin or the armpits, some which grew as large as a common apple, others as an egg, some more, some less, which the common folk called gavoccioli. (p.5) 4. In peacetime, the favorite amusements of the nobility in the Middle Ages were feasts, hunting and tournaments. Back in the days, they did not have technology so they spent their playtime doing anything they can do with the nature or whatever they had back then. Hunting back in the old times was probably considered how video games are like today. 5. The process of attaining knighthood was hard. One had to make sure he was from a noble family since horses and swords were expensive. Then he had to be recognized by his parents. After that, he had to be a page which meant get sent to receive education at home or castle of a noble and act as servants to ladies of the castle and care for the Lord s clothes and assist them in dressing. After being the page, one had to be the squire, who learned about Chivalry, rules, horsemanship, and use of weapons, which were all required of a knight. Lastly the final step was to become the Knight. After all these five difficult and long steps, one was qualified to be a knight. 6. The purpose of tournaments was to train the knights but also to get entertainments. Through the fighting in tournaments, knights were probably able to learn what things they need to practice more and strengthen more on. It prepared the knights for the next war that was going to happen. The tournament possibly could have been used for entertaining the king since there weren t that much to do back in the Middle Ages. It could also have been to see which knight was the best at use of his sword and the horsemanship. 7. The clergy of the Middle Ages were divided into secular clergy and regular clergy. Secular clergy were like priests and deacons who did not belong to a religious order. In the other hand, regular clergy meant

you took vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity and were under monastic rule. Secular clergy were allowed to live in the world and had more privileges than regular clergy outside of the Church. 8. The duties of the secular clergy were to perform as ordained priests. They are also in charge of any conflicts or issues within the jurisdiction of the Church. From the authority of the bishop, the secular clergy followed the laws of the Church. They proclaimed the gospel and were in charge of people who lack protection such as widows, beggars, and orphans. They also performed duties in funerals and baptisms. Furthermore, they visited schools, prisons, and hospitals to help. 9. In the Late Middle Ages, the clergy were resented by the townspeople because the people hated the special privileges like exemption from trial and powers that the clergy got. Also the upper clergy were very rich and wealthy making townspeople resent them for their extravagance. The clergy also took control of paying taxes to Rome which the townspeople despised. 10. Work of Thomas Aquinas, Italian Dominican priest of the Roman Catholic Church, became the primary focus of the scholastic study. He was the model teacher for people studying for priesthood. Also, he was Church s greatest theologian and philosopher. The works well-known by him are the Summa Theologica and the Summa Contra Gentiles. 11. The purpose of Saint Aquinas Summa Theologica was to explain the cycle: the existence of God, Creation, Man, Man s purpose, Christ, the Sacraments, and back to God. It also contains the five arguments for the existence of God and is considered manual for beginners in theology and all of the main theological teachings of the Church. 12. Christian theologians of the period depict all women as physically, morally, and mentally weaker than the men. However, the theologians thought in spiritual sense, women were equal to men. 13. The effect of high infant and child mortality rate of the Middle Ages on parents were different according the social class. Peasants usually had to fight daily battle to feed many children they had plus child death was common so parents had no choice but to expect and accept it. They were hardened since there were too many other factors such as: money, other children, and enemies to worry about. However nobles would have greater stress than the peasants since heirs and thrones matter greatly to them.

Part III: Primary Source Documents

1. Boccaccio Describes the Ravages of the Black Death in Florence
In Florence, even with peoples intelligence, knowledge, efforts to clean the city, segregation of the sick ones, adoption of precaution to keep the health, and praying to God, in 1348, the bubonic plague started to spread, showing many symptoms on people. People had tumors grow in their groin or armpits, some of them being the size of an apple, or egg. They called those tumors and lumps gavoccioli. People also saw black spots grow more and more on arms or thighs or other places in the body. Even though there were physicians and doctors, they were not able to do anything to help the patients because they didn t know well about the medicines and remedies and nothing worked to heal the people. Usually after about 3 days of getting the spots and gavoccioli, people died with no fever.

Question: What did people do to escape the plague? Was any of it sound medical practice? What does the study of calamities like the Black Death tell us about the people of the past? People tried to move to other places where there were no plague spreading and they tried to use their own knowledge to get rid of the pestilence. They also tried to rely on God and keep their place as clean as possible to be invulnerable to the plague which did not work. None of them really sounds like medical practice and the study of calamities like Black Death tells me that people of the past didn t know much about how to react to a pestilence, resulting in killing of two fifths of the whole entire continent.

2. Marsilius of Padua Denies Coercive Power to the Clergy

Marsilius of Padua explains how in the Holy Bible it commands that pope or any other high positions of the Church is not allowed to put any rulership or judgment over individual of any condition. He talks about how Jesus Christ came into the world not to dominate but to be subject. Therefore he stated that the pope being coercive is not right because eternal kingdom is to be attained by the acts of faith and other virtues.

Question: Does Marsilius argument, if accepted, destroy the worldly authority of the church? Why was his teaching condemned as heretical? I think it does destroy the worldly authority of the church since it s like the church is not supposed to force the people but to help them with their faith and acting according to the virtues described in the Bible. His teaching was condemned as heretical because back in his time, the popes were secular and temporal therefore wanting to hold on to the worldly authority of the church. Also it was a heresy to be against the Pope since everyone believed that the God put him in the position.

3. The Chronicler Calls the Roll at the Council of Constance

This was basically a chronicle of people who took part in the Council of Constance. There were many politicians including the kings, dukes, lords, and more and the church clergy took a huge part of the council. Pope patriarchs, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and suffragan bishops were all part of it. There also were embassies and envoys from different areas.

Question: How representative of the church was this council? Why were foreign embassies in attendance? What does their presence suggest about the power of councils in the late Middle Ages? The Church took a huge part of representing the council simply because popes and other clergy members were all involved in it. The foreign embassies were in attendance because this council basically ended the Great Schism and also this was a better of the Church of Roman Empire which took control of many other foreign country s Christians. The council s presence suggests that the power of councils in the late Middle Ages were strong and powerful. The fact that this council ended the Great Schism, which previously many other council and governments tried to do but failed.

Part IV: Art & The West

In medieval art, images of death were religiously and realistically shown. The images often had beautiful and young person with hideous skeleton or inside parts. The Prince of the World illustrates the importance people in the Middle Ages gave to the art of dying by making people think even if you try to avoid death, it is inevitable therefore you will die at the end. People back in Middle Ages were also taught that life is death and death is life which meant in life you will die eventually but when you die, you will have your afterlife along with the judgment on how you lived your life in Earth. Therefore, the Prince of the World is saying that the beautiful and young outside part is how you want to live the world but because of the sins you commit you will die (the serpent around his left leg represents this) and have an afterlife that is like your inside, filled with dirty sins.