High Middle Ages Essay
Society
Around 1300–1350 the Medieval Warm Period gave way to the Little Ice Age. The colder climate resulted in agricultural crises, the first of which is known as the Great Famine of 1315-1317.The demographic consequences of this famine, however, were not as severe as those of the plagues of the later century, the Black Death. Estimates of the death rate caused from one third to as much as sixty percent. By around 1420, the accumulated effect of recurring plagues and famines had reduced the population of Europe to perhaps no more than a third of what it was a century earlier. The effects of natural disasters were exacerbated by armed conflicts; this was particularly the case in France during the Hundred Years' War.
As the European population …show more content…
The use of the national or feudal levy was gradually replaced by paid troops of foreign mercenaries. The practice was associated with Edward III of England and the condottieri of the Italian city-states. All over Europe, Swiss soldiers were in particularly high demand. At the same time, the period also saw the emergence of the first permanent armies. It was in Valois France, under the heavy demands of the Hundred Years' War, that the armed forces gradually assumed a permanent nature.
Reform movements
Though the Catholic Church had long fought against heretic movements, in the Late Middle Ages, it started to experience demands for reform from within. The first of these came from the Oxford professor John Wyclif in England. Wycliffe held that the Bible should be the only authority in religious questions, and spoke out against transubstantiation, celibacy and indulgences. In spite of influential supporters among the English aristocracy, such as John of Gaunt, the movement was not allowed to survive.
Trade and commerce
Portuguese and Spanish explorers found new trade routes – south of Africa to India, and across the Atlantic Ocean to America. As Genoese and Venetian merchants opened up direct sea routes with Flanders, the Champagne fairs lost much of their
Around 1300–1350 the Medieval Warm Period gave way to the Little Ice Age. The colder climate resulted in agricultural crises, the first of which is known as the Great Famine of 1315-1317.The demographic consequences of this famine, however, were not as severe as those of the plagues of the later century, the Black Death. Estimates of the death rate caused from one third to as much as sixty percent. By around 1420, the accumulated effect of recurring plagues and famines had reduced the population of Europe to perhaps no more than a third of what it was a century earlier. The effects of natural disasters were exacerbated by armed conflicts; this was particularly the case in France during the Hundred Years' War.
As the European population …show more content…
The use of the national or feudal levy was gradually replaced by paid troops of foreign mercenaries. The practice was associated with Edward III of England and the condottieri of the Italian city-states. All over Europe, Swiss soldiers were in particularly high demand. At the same time, the period also saw the emergence of the first permanent armies. It was in Valois France, under the heavy demands of the Hundred Years' War, that the armed forces gradually assumed a permanent nature.
Reform movements
Though the Catholic Church had long fought against heretic movements, in the Late Middle Ages, it started to experience demands for reform from within. The first of these came from the Oxford professor John Wyclif in England. Wycliffe held that the Bible should be the only authority in religious questions, and spoke out against transubstantiation, celibacy and indulgences. In spite of influential supporters among the English aristocracy, such as John of Gaunt, the movement was not allowed to survive.
Trade and commerce
Portuguese and Spanish explorers found new trade routes – south of Africa to India, and across the Atlantic Ocean to America. As Genoese and Venetian merchants opened up direct sea routes with Flanders, the Champagne fairs lost much of their