THE LATE MIDDLE AGES & THE RENAISSANCE
Important Moments & People
- Hundred Years War (Joan of Arc too)
- The Black Death
- Renaissance in Italy
- Humanism
- Renaissance Art
- Machiavelli
HUNDRED YEARS WAR 1337 – 1453
- Kings of (Capetian) France & (Norman) England build strong traditional
relationships stressing loyalty with the lesser toward the higher
Causes
- English King Edward III is the grandson of the French King, Philip the
Fair
- Edward III claims the French throne when Charles IV (son of Philip) dies
without a male heir
- French Barons do not want Edward (15 years old at the time)
- Choose Philip VI of Valois (a first cousin of Charles IV)
- Edward is a vassal of Philip, who holds several French territories as fiefs
- Flanders is a French fief, but heavily influenced by English commerce and
trade
- Prejudice
The Battle for Flanders
Flanders had grown to be the industrial center of northern Europe and had
become extremely wealthy through its cloth manufacture. It could not produce
enough wool to satisfy its market and imported fine fleece from England.
England depended upon this trade for its foreign exchange. During the 1200's,
the upper class English had adopted Norman fashions and switched from beer
to wine.
(Note that beer and wine were very important elements in the medieval diet.
Both contain vitamin and yeast complexes that the medieval diet, especially
during the winter, did not provide. Besides, the preservation of food was
a difficult matter in that era, and the alcohol in beer and wine represented
a large number of calories stored in an inexpensive and effective fashion.
People did get drunk during the Middle Ages, but most could not afford to
do so. Beer and wine were valued as food sources and were priced accordingly
The problem was that England could not grow grapes to produce the wine that
many of the English now favored and had to import it. A triangular trade
arose in which English fleece was exchanged for Flemish cloth, which was
then taken to southern France and exchanged for wine, which was then shipped
into England and Ireland, primarily through the ports of Dublin, Bristol,
and London.
But the counts of Flanders had been vassals of the king of France, and the
French tried to regain control of the region in order to control its wealth.
The English could not permit this, since it would mean that the French monarch
would control their main source of foreign exchange. A civil war soon broke
out in Flanders, with the English supporting the manufacturing middle class
and the French supporting the land-owning nobility.
Details of the War
- France had 3 times the poplulation – more money & fought on its
own soil
- Unitl 1415 the English won most victories (see maps on 427)
- France troubled by internal struggles – still not quite centralized
in its rule
- France had incompetant leadership, English had superior leaders and discipline
- English long bow – 5 arrows a minute
3 Stages of the War
STAGE ONE
- English victories as a result of an embargo of wool – urban rebellions
(guilds & merchants), Flemmish cities sided with England, acknowledging
Edward as King of France
- Black Death caused truce in 1347 to 1356
- 1356 England won a great battle at Poitiers – French political
power collapsed
- French Barons & Noblemen took control of France and established a Magna
Carta like agreement, but remained divided among themselves – could
not gain control effectively
- French privileged classes forced peasants to pay taxes & repair, for
free, the damaged properties of the noblemen – rebellion ensued (called
Jack)
- 1360 – Edward renounced his claim to the thrown in return for sovereignty
over his lands in France
- After Edward’s death (1377), Richard II – England had its own
rebellions – under John Ball (secular priest) & Wat Tyler (journeyman)
-- it divided England for decades
