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The Crisis of the Late Middle Ages was a series of events in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that ended centuries of
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
an stability during the
Late Middle Ages The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Ren ...
. Three major crises led to radical changes in all areas of society: demographic collapse, political instability, and religious upheavals. The Great Famine of 1315–1317 and
Black Death The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...
of 1347–1351 reduced the population perhaps by half or more as the
Medieval Warm Period The Medieval Warm Period (MWP), also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum or the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that lasted from to . Climate proxy records show peak warmth occurred at differe ...
came to a close and the first century of the
Little Ice Age The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Ma ...
began. It took until 1500 for the European population to regain the levels of 1300. Popular revolts in late-medieval Europe and civil wars between nobles such as the
Wars of the Roses The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), known at the time and for more than a century after as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the throne of England, English throne in the mid-to-late fifteenth century. These w ...
were common—with France fighting internally nine times—and there were international conflicts between kingdoms such as France and England in the
Hundred Years' War The Hundred Years' War (; 1337–1453) was a series of armed conflicts between the kingdoms of England and France during the Late Middle Ages. It originated from disputed claims to the French throne between the English House of Plantagen ...
. The unity of the
Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
was shattered by the Western Schism. The
Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. From the accession of Otto I in 962 unt ...
was also in decline; in the aftermath of the Great Interregnum (1247–1273), the Empire lost cohesion and the separate dynasties of the various German states became more politically important than their union under the Emperor.


Historiography

The expression "Crisis of the Late Middle Ages" is commonly used in western historiography, especially in English and German, and somewhat less in other western European scholarship, to refer to the array of crises besetting Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. The expression often carries a modifier to specify it, such as the ''Urban'' Crisis of the Late Middle Ages, or the ''Cultural'', ''Monastic'', ''Religious'', ''Social'', ''Economic'', ''Intellectual'', or ''Agrarian'' crisis, or a regional modifier, such as the ''Catalan'' or ''French'' crisis. By 1929, the French historian
Marc Bloch Marc Léopold Benjamin Bloch (; ; 6 July 1886 – 16 June 1944) was a French historian. He was a founding member of the Annales School of French social history. Bloch specialised in medieval history and published widely on Medieval France ...
was already writing about the effects of the crisis, and by mid-century there were academic debates being held about it. In his 1981 article ''Late Middle Age Agrarian Crisis or Crisis of Feudalism?'', Peter Kriedte reprises some of the early works in the field from historians writing in the 1930s, including Marc Bloch,
Henri Pirenne Henri Pirenne (; 23 December 1862 – 24 October 1935) was a Belgian historian. A medievalist of Walloon descent, he wrote a multivolume history of Belgium in French and became a prominent public intellectual. Pirenne made a lasting contribut ...
, Wilhelm Abel, and
Michael Postan Sir Michael Moissey Postan FBA (24 September 189912 December 1981) was a British historian. He was also known as Munia Postan. Biography Postan was born to a Jewish family in Bendery, in the Bessarabia Governorate of the Russian Empire, and stud ...
. Kriedte references include: Referred to in Italian as the "Crisis of the 14th Century", Giovanni Cherubini alluded to the debate that already by 1974 had been going on "for several decades" in French, British, American, and German historiography. Arno Borst (1992) states that it "is a given that fourteenth century Latin Christianity was in a crisis", goes on to say that the intellectual aspects and how universities were affected by the crisis is underrepresented in the scholarship hitherto ("When we discuss the crisis of the Late Middle Ages, we consider intellectual movements beside religious, social, and economic ones"), and gives some examples. Some question whether "crisis" is the right expression for the period at the end of the Middle Ages and the transition to Modernity. In his 1981 article ''The End of the Middle Ages: Decline, Crisis or Transformation?'' Donald Sullivan addresses this question, claiming that scholarship has neglected the period and viewed it largely as a precursor to subsequent climactic events such as the Renaissance and Reformation. In his "Introduction to the History of the Middle Ages in Europe", Mitre Fernández wrote in 2004: "To talk about a general crisis of the Late Middle Ages is already a commonplace in the study of medieval history." Heribert Müller, in his 2012 book on the religious crisis of the late Middle Ages, discussed whether the term itself was in crisis:
No doubt the thesis of the crisis of the late Middle Ages has itself been in crisis for some time now, and hardly anyone considered an expert in the field would still profess it without some ifs and buts, and especially so in the case of German Medieval historians.
In his 2014 historiographical article about the crisis in the Middle Ages, Peter Schuster quotes the historian Léopold Genicot's 1971 article "Crisis: From the Middle Ages to Modern Times": "Crisis is the word which comes immediately to the historian's mind when he thinks of the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries." Note: Schuster is quoting a 1971 republication of Genicot in ''Cambridge Economic History of Europe'', Vol. 1, ''The Agrarian Life of the Middle Ages'', which appeared previously in
1966 version


Demography

Some scholars contend that at the beginning of the 14th century, Europe had become overpopulated. By the 14th century frontiers had ceased to expand and internal colonization was coming to an end, but population levels remained high. The
Medieval Warm Period The Medieval Warm Period (MWP), also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum or the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that lasted from to . Climate proxy records show peak warmth occurred at differe ...
ended sometime towards the end of the 13th century, bringing the "
Little Ice Age The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Ma ...
" and harsher winters with reduced harvests. In Northern Europe, new technological innovations such as the heavy
plough A plough or plow ( US; both ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses, but in modern farms are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden, iron or ...
and the
three-field system The three-field system is a regime of crop rotation in which a field is planted with one set of crops one year, a different set in the second year, and left fallow in the third year. A set of crops is ''rotated'' from one field to another. The tec ...
were not as effective in clearing new fields for harvest as they were in the
Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...
because the north had poor, clay-like soil.J. M. Bennett and C. W. Hollister, ''Medieval Europe: A Short History'' (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006), p. 326. Food shortages and rapidly inflating prices were a fact of life for as much as a century before the plague.
Wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
, oats, hay and consequently livestock, were all in short supply. Their scarcity resulted in
malnutrition Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is "a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients" which adversely affects the body's tissues ...
, which increases susceptibility to infections due to weakened immune systems. In the autumn of 1314, heavy rains began to fall, which were the start of several years of cold and wet winters. The already weak harvests of the north suffered and the seven-year famine ensued. In the years 1315 to 1317 a catastrophic
famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompan ...
, known as the Great Famine, struck much of
North West Europe Northwestern Europe, or Northwest Europe, is a loosely defined subregion of Europe, overlapping Northern and Western Europe. The region can be defined both geographically and ethnographically. Geographic definitions Geographically, North ...
. It was arguably the worst in European history, perhaps reducing the population by more than 10%. Most governments instituted measures that prohibited exports of foodstuffs, condemned
black market A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the ...
speculators, set
price controls Price controls are restrictions set in place and enforced by governments, on the prices that can be charged for goods and services in a market. The intent behind implementing such controls can stem from the desire to maintain affordability of good ...
on grain and outlawed large-scale fishing. At best, they proved mostly unenforceable and at worst they contributed to a continent-wide downward spiral. The hardest hit lands, like England, were unable to buy grain from France because of the prohibition, and from most of the rest of the grain producers because of crop failures from shortage of labor. Any grain that could be shipped was eventually taken by
pirates Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...
or
looter Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. ...
s to be sold on the black market. Meanwhile, many of the largest countries, most notably England and
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, had been at war, using up much of their
treasury A treasury is either *A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry. *A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be state or royal property, church treasure or i ...
and creating
inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reduct ...
. In 1337, on the eve of the first wave of the
Black Death The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...
, England and France went to war in what became known as the
Hundred Years' War The Hundred Years' War (; 1337–1453) was a series of armed conflicts between the kingdoms of England and France during the Late Middle Ages. It originated from disputed claims to the French throne between the English House of Plantagen ...
. This situation was worsened when landowners and monarchs such as
Edward III of England Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring ...
(r. 1327–1377) and
Philip VI of France Philip VI (french: Philippe; 1293 – 22 August 1350), called the Fortunate (french: le Fortuné, link=no) or the Catholic (french: le Catholique, link=no) and of Valois, was the first king of France from the House of Valois, reigning from 13 ...
(r. 1328–1350), raised the fines and rents of their tenants out of a fear that their comparatively high
standard of living Standard of living is the level of income, comforts and services available, generally applied to a society or location, rather than to an individual. Standard of living is relevant because it is considered to contribute to an individual's quality ...
would decline. The European economy entered a
vicious circle A vicious circle (or cycle) is a complex chain of events that reinforces itself through a feedback loop, with detrimental results. It is a system with no tendency toward equilibrium (social, economic, ecological, etc.), at least in the shor ...
in which hunger and chronic, low-level debilitating disease reduced the productivity of labourers, and so the grain output was reduced, causing grain prices to increase. Standards of living fell drastically, diets grew more limited, and Europeans as a whole experienced more health problems. When a
typhoid Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by ''Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several d ...
epidemic emerged, many thousands died in populated urban centres, most significantly
Ypres Ypres ( , ; nl, Ieper ; vls, Yper; german: Ypern ) is a Belgian city and municipality in the province of West Flanders. Though the Dutch name is the official one, the city's French name is most commonly used in English. The municipality ...
(now in Belgium). In 1318 a pestilence of unknown origin, sometimes identified as
anthrax Anthrax is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Bacillus anthracis''. It can occur in four forms: skin, lungs, intestinal, and injection. Symptom onset occurs between one day and more than two months after the infection is contracted. The s ...
, targeted the animals of Europe, notably sheep and cattle, further reducing the food supply and income of the peasantry.


Little Ice Age and the Great Famine

As Europe moved out of the Medieval Warm Period and into the Little Ice Age, a decrease in temperature and a great number of devastating floods disrupted harvests and caused mass famine. The cold and the rain proved to be particularly disastrous from 1315 to 1317 in which poor weather interrupted the maturation of many grains and beans, and flooding turned fields rocky and barren. Scarcity of grain caused price inflation, as described in one account of grain prices in Europe in which the price of wheat doubled from twenty shillings per quarter in 1315 to forty shillings per quarter by June of the following year. Grape harvests also suffered, which reduced
wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented grapes. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different ...
production throughout Europe. The wine production from the vineyards surrounding the
Abbey of Saint-Arnould The Abbey of Saint-Arnould, St. Arnold, Saint-Arnoult or Abbey of the Holy Apostles is a Benedictine abbey residing in Metz since the 6th century. The origins of the abbey are a mystery. According to legend, it was founded in the 2nd century by Bi ...
in France decreased as much as eighty percent by 1317. During this climatic change and subsequent famine, Europe's cattle were struck with Bovine Pestilence, a pathogen of unknown identity. The pathogen spread throughout Europe from Eastern Asia in 1315 and reached the British Isles by 1319. Manorial accounts of cattle populations in the year between 1319 and 1320, places a sixty-two percent loss in
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
and
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
alone. In these countries, some correlation can be found between the places where poor weather reduced crop harvests and places where the bovine population was particularly negatively affected. It is hypothesized that both low temperatures and lack of nutrition lowered the cattle populations' immune systems and made them vulnerable to disease. The mass death and illness of cattle drastically affected dairy production, and the output did not return to its pre-pestilence amount until 1331. Much of the medieval peasants' protein was obtained from dairy, and milk shortages likely caused nutritional deficiency in the European population. Famine and pestilence, exacerbated with the prevalence of war during this time, led to the death of an estimated ten to fifteen percent of Europe's population.


Climate change and plague pandemic correlation

The Black Death was a particularly devastating epidemic in Europe during this time, and is notable due to the number of people who succumbed to the disease within the few years the disease was active. It was fatal to an estimated thirty to sixty percent of the population where the disease was present. While there is some question of whether it was a particularly deadly strain of '' Yersinia pestis'' that caused the Black Death, research indicates no significant difference in bacterial phenotype. Thus environmental stressors are considered when hypothesizing the deadliness of the Black Plague, such as crop failures due to changes in weather, the subsequent famine, and an influx of host rats into Europe from China. The Black Death was so devastating that a comparable plague in terms of virulence had not been seen since the
Justinian plague The plague of Justinian or Justinianic plague (541–549 AD) was the first recorded major outbreak of the first plague pandemic, the first Old World pandemic of plague, the contagious disease caused by the bacterium '' Yersinia pestis''. The ...
, before the Medieval warm period. This gap in plague activity during the Medieval Warm Period contributes to the hypothesis that climate conditions would have affected Europe's susceptibility to disease when the climate began to cool during the arrival of the
Little Ice Age The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Ma ...
in the 13th century.


Popular revolt

Before the 14th century, popular uprisings were not unknown, for example, uprisings at a manor house against an unpleasant overlord, but they were local in scope. This changed in the 14th and 15th centuries when new downward pressures on the poor resulted in mass movements and popular uprisings across Europe. To indicate how common and widespread these movements became, in Germany between 1336 and 1525 there were no less than sixty phases of militant peasant unrest.Peter Blickle, ''Unruhen in der ständischen Gesellschaft 1300–1800'', 1988


Political and religious factors

The unity of the
Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
was shattered by the Western Schism. The
Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. From the accession of Otto I in 962 unt ...
was also in decline in the aftermath of the Great Interregnum (1247–1273); the Empire lost cohesion, and politically the separate dynasties of the various German states became more important than their common empire.


Civil wars

* Great Interregnum ** Count-kings *
Wars of the Roses The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), known at the time and for more than a century after as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the throne of England, English throne in the mid-to-late fifteenth century. These w ...
, a civil war over control of the English throne in 15th century


International wars

*
Hundred Years' War The Hundred Years' War (; 1337–1453) was a series of armed conflicts between the kingdoms of England and France during the Late Middle Ages. It originated from disputed claims to the French throne between the English House of Plantagen ...
* Polish–Teutonic Wars * 1383–1385 Portuguese interregnum * Mongol raids against Rus' *
Burgundian Wars The Burgundian Wars (1474–1477) were a conflict between the Burgundian State and the Old Swiss Confederacy and its allies. Open war broke out in 1474, and the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, was defeated three times on the battlefield in th ...
* Byzantine–Ottoman wars *
Ottoman wars in Europe A series of military conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and various European states took place from the Late Middle Ages up through the early 20th century. The earliest conflicts began during the Byzantine–Ottoman wars, waged in Anatolia in ...


Malthusian hypothesis

Scholars such as
David Herlihy David Herlihy (May 8, 1930 – February 15, 1991) was an American historian who wrote on medieval and renaissance life. He was married to historian Patricia Herlihy; one of their sons is the historian of bicycles, David V. Herlihy. Topics of hi ...
and
Michael Postan Sir Michael Moissey Postan FBA (24 September 189912 December 1981) was a British historian. He was also known as Munia Postan. Biography Postan was born to a Jewish family in Bendery, in the Bessarabia Governorate of the Russian Empire, and stud ...
use the term Malthusian limit to explain some calamities as results of overpopulation. In his 1798 ''Essay on the Principle of Population'',
Thomas Malthus Thomas Robert Malthus (; 13/14 February 1766 – 29 December 1834) was an English cleric, scholar and influential economist in the fields of political economy and demography. In his 1798 book ''An Essay on the Principle of Population'', Mal ...
asserted that exponential population growth will invariably exceed available resources, making mass death inevitable. In his book ''The Black Death and the Transformation of the West'', David Herlihy explores whether the plague was an inevitable crisis of population and resources. In ''The Black Death; A Turning Point in History?'' (ed. William M. Bowsky), he "implies that the
Black Death The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...
's pivotal role in
late medieval The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Renai ...
society ... was now being challenged. Arguing on the basis of a neo-Malthusian economics,
revisionist historians In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of a historical account. It usually involves challenging the orthodox (established, accepted or traditional) views held by professional scholars about a historical event or time ...
recast the Black Death as a necessary and long overdue corrective to an overpopulated Europe." Herlihy also examined the arguments against the Malthusian crisis, stating "if the Black Death was a response to excessive human numbers it should have arrived several decades earlier" in consequence of the population growth before the Black Death. Herlihy also brings up other, biological factors that argue against the plague as a "reckoning" by arguing "the role of famines in affecting population movements is also problematic. The many famines preceding the Black Death, even the 'great hunger' of 1315 to 1317, did not result in any appreciable reduction in population levels". Herlihy concludes the matter stating, "the medieval experience shows us not a Malthusian crisis but a stalemate, in the sense that the community was maintaining at stable levels very large numbers over a lengthy period" and states that the phenomenon should be referred to as more of a deadlock, rather than a crisis, to describe Europe before the epidemics.


See also

* '' The Autumn of the Middle Ages'' * Crisis of the Third Century * '' A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century'' * The General Crisis *
History of science in the Middle Ages The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Mesop ...
*
Late Middle Ages The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Ren ...
* Medieval demography *
Renaissance of the 12th century The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass idea ...
* Renaissance of the 15th century


Citations


General and cited sources

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Further reading

* * * * * * *


External links


The Waning of the Middle Ages': Crisis and Recovery, 1300–1450"
��Lecture 11, Western Civilization to 1650 (42.125), M. Hickey, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania {{Middle Ages Demography Late Middle Ages Medieval politics Medieval society