Crisis of the Late Middle Ages
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Around the start of the 14th century a series of events began that brought centuries of European prosperity and growth to a halt. Three major crises would lead to radical changes in all areas of society - they were demographic collapse, political instabilities and lastly religious upheavals.
A series of famines and plagues, beginning with the Great Famine of 1315-1317 and specially the Black Death of 1348, reduced the population perhaps by half or more. Along with depopulation came social unrest and endemic warfare. Popular revolts in late medieval Europe were common, civil wars between nobles within countries were common such as the War of the Roses, and there were international conflicts between kings such as France and England in the Hundred Years' War. The unity of the Catholic Church was shattered by the Great Schism. The Holy Roman Empire was also in decline, in the aftermath of the Interregnum (1247-1273), the Empire lost cohesion and politically the separate dynasties of the various German states became more important than their common empire.
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[edit] Demography
- Main article: Medieval demography
In the beginning of the 14th century, Europe had become, some say, overpopulated. Overall, the population of Europe is believed to have reached a peak of around 100 million. By comparison 15-member states-strong European Union in 2000 had a population of 377 million [1]. This compares to grain yields which in the 14th century were between 2:1 and 7:1 (2:1 means for every seed planted, 2 are harvested). Modern grain yields are 300:1 or more, but the population is only four times as much.
By the 14th century the frontiers had ceased to expand and internal colonization was coming to an end, but population levels remained high. Then during the 14th century a number of calamities struck. Starting with the Great Famine in 1315, then the Black Death of 1348-1350, the population of Europe plummeted.
The period between 1348 and 1420 witnessed the heaviest loss. In Germany, about 40% of the named inhabitants disappeared. The population of Provence was reduced by 50% and in some regions in Tuscany 70% were lost during this period..
[edit] Popular Revolt
Before the 14th century, popular uprisings were not unknown, for example uprisings at a manor house against an unpleasant overlord, however they were local in scope. This changed in the 14th and 15th centuries when new downward pressures on the poor resulted in mass movements of popular uprisings across Europe. To provide an example of how common and widespread these movements became, in Germany between 1336 and 1525 there were no less than sixty phases of militant peasant unrest.
Most of the revolts were an expression of those below who desired to share in the wealth, status and well being of those more fortunate. In the end they were almost always defeated and the nobles ruled the day. A new attitude emerged in Europe, that "peasant" was a pejorative concept, it was something separate, and seen in a negative light, from those who had wealth and status. This was an entirely new social stratification from earlier times when society had been based on the three orders, those who work, pray and fight.
[edit] Civil wars
[edit] International wars
[edit] References
[edit] See also
- Renaissance of the 12th century
- Renaissance of the 15th century
- Late Middle Ages
- History of science in the Middle Ages
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