Late Middle Ages

Late Middle Ages
1300–1500
Francis Rich
LATE MIDDLE AGES
1300–1500
LATE MIDDLE AGES
1300–1500
Francis Rich
Late Middle Ages: 1300–1500
by Francis Rich
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Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction ....................................................................................... 1
Chapter 2 Western Schism ............................................................................... 27
Chapter 3 Hundred Years' War ......................................................................... 35
Chapter 4 Ottoman Turks ................................................................................ 69
Chapter 5 Fall of Constantinople ...................................................................... 73
Chapter 6 Middle Class .................................................................................. 106
Chapter 7 Black Death ................................................................................... 117
Chapter 8 England in the Middle Ages ............................................................ 142
Chapter 9 Scotland in the Late Middle Ages ................................................... 188

Chapter 1
Introduction
The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period
of European history lasting from AD 1250 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
Renaissance). Around 1300, centuries of prosperity and growth
in Europe came to a halt. A series of famines and plagues,
including the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the Black Death,
reduced the population to around half of what it had been
before the calamities. Along with depopulation came social
unrest and endemic warfare. France and England experienced
serious peasant uprisings, such as the Jacquerie and the
Peasants' Revolt, as well as over a century of intermittent
conflict, the Hundred Years' War. To add to the many problems
of the period, the unity of the Catholic Church was temporarily
shattered by the Western Schism. Collectively, those events are
sometimes called the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages.
Despite the crises, the 14th century was also a time of great
progress in the arts and sciences. Following a renewed interest
in ancient Greek and Roman texts that took root in the High
Middle Ages, the Italian Renaissance began. The absorption of
Latin texts had started before the Renaissance of the 12th
century through contact with Arabs during the Crusades, but
the availability of important Greek texts accelerated with the
Capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks, when many
Byzantine scholars had to seek refuge in the West, particularly
Italy.
Combined with this influx of classical ideas was the invention

of printing, which facilitated dissemination of the printed word
and democratized learning. Those two things would later lead
to the Protestant Reformation. Toward the end of the period,
the Age of Discovery began. The expansion of the Ottoman
Empire cut off trading possibilities with the East. Europeans
were forced to seek new trading routes, leading to the Spanish
expedition under Christopher Columbus to the Americas in
1492 and Vasco da Gama’s voyage to Africa and India in 1498.
Their discoveries strengthened the economy and power of
European nations.
The changes brought about by these developments have led

many scholars to view this period as the end of the Middle
Ages and the beginning of modern history and of early modern
Europe. However, the division is somewhat artificial, since
ancient learning was never entirely absent from European
society. As a result, there was developmental continuity
between the ancient age (via classical antiquity) and the
modern age. Some historians, particularly in Italy, prefer not
to speak of the Late Middle Ages at all but rather see the high
period of the Middle Ages transitioning to the Renaissance and
the modern era.
Historiography and periodization
The term "Late Middle Ages" refers to one of the three periods
of the Middle Ages, along with the Early Middle Ages and the
High Middle Ages. Leonardo Bruni was the first historian to
use tripartite periodization in his History of the Florentine
People (1442). Flavio Biondo used a similar framework in
Decades of History from the Deterioration of the Roman Empire
2
(1439–1453). Tripartite periodization became standard after

the German historian Christoph Cellarius published Universal
History Divided into an Ancient, Medieval, and New Period
(1683).
For 18th-century historians studying the 14th and 15th

centuries, the central theme was the Renaissance, with its
rediscovery of ancient learning and the emergence of an
individual spirit. The heart of this rediscovery lies in Italy,
where, in the words of Jacob Burckhardt: "Man became a
spiritual individual and recognized himself as such". This
proposition was later challenged, and it was argued that the
12th century was a period of greater cultural achievement.
As economic and demographic methods were applied to the

study of history, the trend was increasingly to see the late
Middle Ages as a period of recession and crisis. Belgian
historian Henri Pirenne continued the subdivision of Early,
High, and Late Middle Ages in the years around World War I.
Yet it was his Dutch colleague, Johan Huizinga, who was
primarily responsible for popularising the pessimistic view of
the Late Middle Ages, with his book The Autumn of the Middle
Ages (1919). To Huizinga, whose research focused on France
and the Low Countries rather than Italy, despair and decline
were the main themes, not rebirth.
Modern historiography on the period has reached a consensus

between the two extremes of innovation and crisis. It is now
generally acknowledged that conditions were vastly different
north and south of the Alps, and the term "Late Middle Ages" is
often avoided entirely within Italian historiography. The term
"Renaissance" is still considered useful for describing certain
3
intellectual, cultural, or artistic developments, but not as the

defining feature of an entire European historical epoch. The
period from the early 14th century up until – and sometimes
including – the 16th century, is rather seen as characterized
by other trends: demographic and economic decline followed by
recovery, the end of western religious unity and the
subsequent emergence of the nation state, and the expansion
of European influence onto the rest of the world.
History
The limits of Christian Europe were still being defined in the

14th and 15th centuries. While the Grand Duchy of Moscow
was beginning to repel the Mongols, and the Iberian kingdoms
completed the Reconquista of the peninsula and turned their
attention outwards, the Balkans fell under the dominance of
the Ottoman Empire. Meanwhile, the remaining nations of the
continent were locked in almost constant international or
internal conflict. The situation gradually led to the
consolidation of central authority and the emergence of the
nation state. The financial demands of war necessitated higher
levels of taxation, resulting in the emergence of representative
bodies – most notably the English Parliament. The growth of
secular authority was further aided by the decline of the
papacy with the Western Schism and the coming of the
Protestant Reformation.
Northern Europe
After the failed union of Sweden and Norway of 1319–1365, the

pan-Scandinavian Kalmar Union was instituted in 1397. The
4
Swedes were reluctant members of the Danish-dominated

union from the start. In an attempt to subdue the Swedes,
King Christian II of Denmark had large numbers of the
Swedish aristocracy killed in the Stockholm Bloodbath of 1520.
Yet this measure only led to further hostilities, and Sweden
broke away for good in 1523. Norway, on the other hand,
became an inferior party of the union and remained united
with Denmark until 1814.
Iceland benefited from its relative isolation and was the last
Scandinavian country to be struck by the Black Death.
Meanwhile, the Norse colony in Greenland died out, probably
under extreme weather conditions in the 15th century. These
conditions might have been the effect of the Little Ice Age.
Northwest Europe
The death of Alexander III of Scotland in 1286 threw the

country into a succession crisis, and the English king, Edward
I, was brought in to arbitrate. Edward claimed overlordship
over Scotland, leading to the Wars of Scottish Independence.
The English were eventually defeated, and the Scots were able
to develop a stronger state under the Stewarts.
From 1337, England's attention was largely directed towards

France in the Hundred Years' War. Henry V's victory at the
Battle of Agincourt in 1415 briefly paved the way for a
unification of the two kingdoms, but his son Henry VI soon
squandered all previous gains. The loss of France led to
discontent at home. Soon after the end of the war in 1453, the
dynastic struggles of the Wars of the Roses (c. 1455–1485)
began, involving the rival dynasties of the House of Lancaster
5
and House of York. The war ended in the accession of Henry

VII of the Tudor family, who continued the work started by the
Yorkist kings of building a strong, centralized monarchy. While
England's attention was thus directed elsewhere, the Hiberno-
Norman lords in Ireland were becoming gradually more
assimilated into Irish society, and the island was allowed to
develop virtual independence under English overlordship.
Western Europe
The French House of Valois, which followed the House of Capet

in 1328, was at its outset marginalized in its own country, first
by the English invading forces of the Hundred Years' War, and
later by the powerful Duchy of Burgundy. The emergence of
Joan of Arc as a military leader changed the course of war in
favour of the French, and the initiative was carried further by
King Louis XI. Meanwhile, Charles the Bold, Duke of
Burgundy, met resistance in his attempts to consolidate his
possessions, particularly from the Swiss Confederation formed
in 1291. When Charles was killed in the Burgundian Wars at
the Battle of Nancy in 1477, the Duchy of Burgundy was
reclaimed by France. At the same time, the County of
Burgundy and the wealthy Burgundian Netherlands came into
the Holy Roman Empire under Habsburg control, setting up
conflict for centuries to come.
Central Europe
Bohemia prospered in the 14th century, and the Golden Bull of

1356 made the king of Bohemia first among the imperial
electors, but the Hussite revolution threw the country into
crisis. The Holy Roman Empire passed to the Habsburgs in
6
1438, where it remained until its dissolution in 1806. Yet in

spite of the extensive territories held by the Habsburgs, the
Empire itself remained fragmented, and much real power and
influence lay with the individual principalities. In addition,
financial institutions, such as the Hanseatic League and the
Fugger family, held great power, on both economic and
political levels.
The kingdom of Hungary experienced a golden age during the

14th century. In particular the reigns of the Angevin kings
Charles Robert (1308–42) and his son Louis the Great (1342–
82) were marked by success. The country grew wealthy as the
main European supplier of gold and silver. Louis the Great led
successful campaigns from Lithuania to Southern Italy, and
from Poland to Northern Greece.
He had the greatest military potential of the 14th century with

his enormous armies (often over 100,000 men). Meanwhile,
Poland's attention was turned eastwards, as the
Commonwealth with Lithuania created an enormous entity in
the region. The union, and the conversion of Lithuania, also
marked the end of paganism in Europe.
Louis did not leave a son as heir after his death in 1382.
Instead, he named as his heir the young prince Sigismund of
Luxemburg. The Hungarian nobility did not accept his claim,
and the result was an internal war. Sigismund eventually
achieved total control of Hungary and established his court in
Buda and Visegrád. Both palaces were rebuilt and improved,
and were considered the richest of the time in Europe.
Inheriting the throne of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire,
Sigismund continued conducting his politics from Hungary,
7
but he was kept busy fighting the Hussites and the Ottoman
Empire, which was becoming a menace to Europe in the
beginning of the 15th century.
The King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary led the largest army of

mercenaries of the time, The Black Army of Hungary, which he
used to conquer Bohemia and Austria and to fight the Ottoman
Empire. After Italy, Hungary was the first European country
where the Renaissance appeared. However, the glory of the
Kingdom ended in the early 16th century, when the King Louis
II of Hungary was killed in the battle of Mohács in 1526
against the Ottoman Empire. Hungary then fell into a serious
crisis and was invaded, ending its significance in central
Europe during the medieval era.
Eastern Europe
The state of Kievan Rus' fell during the 13th century in the
Mongol invasion. The Grand Duchy of Moscow rose in power
thereafter, winning a great victory against the Golden Horde at
the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380. The victory did not end Tartar
rule in the region, however, and its immediate beneficiary was
the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which extended its influence
eastwards. Under the reign of Ivan the Great (1462–1505),
Moscow became a major regional power, and the annexation of
the vast Republic of Novgorod in 1478 laid the foundations for
a Russian national state. After the Fall of Constantinople in
1453 the Russian princes started to see themselves as the
heirs of the Byzantine Empire. They eventually took on the
imperial title of Tsar, and Moscow was described as the Third
Rome.
8
Southeast Europe
The Byzantine Empire had for a long time dominated the

eastern Mediterranean in politics and culture. By the 14th
century, however, it had almost entirely collapsed into a
tributary state of the Ottoman Empire, centered on the city of
Constantinople and a few enclaves in Greece. With the Fall of
Constantinople in 1453, the Byzantine Empire was
permanently extinguished.
The Bulgarian Empire was in decline by the 14th century, and

the ascendancy of Serbia was marked by the Serbian victory
over the Bulgarians in the Battle of Velbazhd in 1330. By
1346, the Serbian king Stefan Dušan had been proclaimed
emperor. Yet Serbian dominance was short-lived; the Serbian
army led by the Lazar Hrebljevanovic was defeated by the
Ottomans at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, where most of the
Serbian nobility was killed and the south of the country came
under Ottoman occupation, as much of southern Bulgaria had
become Ottoman territory in 1371. Northern remnants of
Bulgaria were finally conquered by 1396, Serbia fell in 1459,
Bosnia in 1463, and Albania was finally subordinated in 1479
only a few years after the death of Skanderbeg. Belgrade, an
Hungarian domain at the time, was the last large Balkan city
to fall under Ottoman rule, in 1521. By the end of the medieval
period, the entire Balkan peninsula was annexed by, or became
vassal to, the Ottomans.
Southwest Europe
Avignon was the seat of the papacy from 1309 to 1376. With
the return of the Pope to Rome in 1378, the Papal State
9
developed into a major secular power, culminating in the

morally corrupt papacy of Alexander VI. Florence grew to
prominence amongst the Italian city-states through financial
business, and the dominant Medici family became important
promoters of the Renaissance through their patronage of the
arts. Other city states in northern Italy also expanded their
territories and consolidated their power, primarily Milan,
Venice and Genoa. The War of the Sicilian Vespers had by the
early 14th century divided southern Italy into an Aragon
Kingdom of Sicily and an Anjou Kingdom of Naples. In 1442,
the two kingdoms were effectively united under Aragonese
control.
The 1469 marriage of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of

Aragon and the 1479 death of John II of Aragon led to the
creation of modern-day Spain. In 1492, Granada was captured
from the Moors, thereby completing the Reconquista. Portugal
had during the 15th century – particularly under Henry the
Navigator – gradually explored the coast of Africa, and in 1498,
Vasco da Gama found the sea route to India. The Spanish
monarchs met the Portuguese challenge by financing the
expedition of Christopher Columbus to find a western sea route
to India, leading to the discovery of the Americas in 1492.
Late Medieval European 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 the plagues that occurred later
in the century, particularly the Black Death. Estimates of the
10
death rate caused by this epidemic range 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. It took 150 years for the European
population to regain similar levels of 1300.
As the European population was severely reduced, land became

more plentiful for the survivors, and labour consequently more
expensive. Attempts by landowners to forcibly reduce wages,
such as the English 1351 Statute of Laborers, were doomed to
fail. These efforts resulted in nothing more than fostering
resentment among the peasantry, leading to rebellions such as
the French Jacquerie in 1358 and the English Peasants' Revolt
in 1381. The long-term effect was the virtual end of serfdom in
Western Europe. In Eastern Europe, on the other hand,
landowners were able to exploit the situation to force the
peasantry into even more repressive bondage.
The upheavals caused by the Black Death left certain minority

groups particularly vulnerable, especially the Jews, who were
often blamed for the calamities. Anti-Jewish pogroms were
carried out all over Europe; in February 1349, 2,000 Jews were
murdered in Strasbourg. States were also guilty of
discrimination against the Jews. Monarchs gave in to the
demands of the people, and the Jews were expelled from
England in 1290, from France in 1306, from Spain in 1492,
and from Portugal in 1497.
11
While the Jews were suffering persecution, one group that

probably experienced increased empowerment in the Late
Middle Ages was women. The great social changes of the period
opened up new possibilities for women in the fields of
commerce, learning and religion. Yet at the same time, women
were also vulnerable to incrimination and persecution, as
belief in witchcraft increased. Up until the mid-14th century,
Europe had experienced steadily increasing urbanisation.
Cities were also decimated by the Black Death, but the role of
urban areas as centres of learning, commerce and government
ensured continued growth. By 1500, Venice, Milan, Naples,
Paris and Constantinople each probably had more than
100,000 inhabitants. Twenty-two other cities were larger than
40,000; most of these were in Italy and the Iberian peninsula,
but there were also some in France, the Empire, the Low
Countries, plus London in England.
Military history
Through battles such as Courtrai (1302), Bannockburn (1314),

and Morgarten (1315), it became clear to the great territorial
princes of Europe that the military advantage of the feudal
cavalry was lost, and that a well equipped infantry was
preferable. Through the Welsh Wars the English became
acquainted with, and adopted, the highly efficient longbow.
Once properly managed, this weapon gave them a great
advantage over the French in the Hundred Years' War.
The introduction of gunpowder affected the conduct of war

significantly. Though employed by the English as early as the
Battle of Crécy in 1346, firearms initially had little effect in
the field of battle. It was through the use of cannons as siege
12
weapons that major change was brought about; the new

methods would eventually change the architectural structure
of fortifications.
Changes also took place within the recruitment and

composition of armies. The use of the national or feudal levy
was gradually replaced by paid troops of domestic retinues or
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.
Parallel to the military developments emerged also a constantly

more elaborate chivalric code of conduct for the warrior class.
This new-found ethos can be seen as a response to the
diminishing military role of the aristocracy, and gradually it
became almost entirely detached from its military origin. The
spirit of chivalry was given expression through the new
(secular) type of chivalric orders; the first of these was the
Order of St. George, founded by Charles I of Hungary in 1325,
while the best known was probably the English Order of the
Garter, founded by Edward III in 1348.
Christian conflict and reform
The Papal Schism
The French crown's increasing dominance over the Papacy

culminated in the transference of the Holy See to Avignon in
13
1309. When the Pope returned to Rome in 1377, this led to the
election of different popes in Avignon and Rome, resulting in
the Papal Schism (1378–1417). The Schism divided Europe
along political lines; while France, her ally Scotland and the
Spanish kingdoms supported the Avignon Papacy, France's
enemy England stood behind the Pope in Rome, together with
Portugal, Scandinavia and most of the German princes.
At the Council of Constance (1414–1418), the Papacy was once

more united in Rome. Even though the unity of the Western
Church was to last for another hundred years, and though the
Papacy was to experience greater material prosperity than ever
before, the Great Schism had done irreparable damage. The
internal struggles within the Church had impaired her claim to
universal rule, and promoted anti-clericalism among the people
and their rulers, paving the way for reform movements.
Protestant Reformation
Though many of the events were outside the traditional time

period of the Middle Ages, the end of the unity of the Western
Church (the Protestant Reformation), was one of the
distinguishing characteristics of the medieval period. The
Catholic Church had long fought against heretic movements,
but during the Late Middle Ages, it started to experience
demands for reform from within. The first of these came from
Oxford professor John Wycliffe in England. Wycliffe held that
the Bible should be the only authority in religious questions,
and he 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. Though Wycliffe himself was left
14
unmolested, his supporters, the Lollards, were eventually

suppressed in England.
The marriage of Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia

established contacts between the two nations and brought
Lollard ideas to her homeland. The teachings of the Czech
priest Jan Hus were based on those of John Wycliffe, yet his
followers, the Hussites, were to have a much greater political
impact than the Lollards. Hus gained a great following in
Bohemia, and in 1414, he was requested to appear at the
Council of Constance to defend his cause. When he was burned
as a heretic in 1415, it caused a popular uprising in the Czech
lands. The subsequent Hussite Wars fell apart due to internal
quarrels and did not result in religious or national
independence for the Czechs, but both the Catholic Church
and the German element within the country were weakened.
Martin Luther, a German monk, started the German

Reformation by posting 95 theses on the castle church of
Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. The immediate provocation
spurring this act was Pope Leo X’s renewal of the indulgence
for the building of the new St. Peter's Basilica in 1514. Luther
was challenged to recant his heresy at the Diet of Worms in
1521. When he refused, he was placed under the ban of the
Empire by Charles V. Receiving the protection of Frederick the
Wise, he was then able to translate the Bible into German.
To many secular rulers the Protestant reformation was a

welcome opportunity to expand their wealth and influence. The
Catholic Church met the challenges of the reforming
movements with what has been called the Catholic
Reformation, or Counter-Reformation. Europe became split into
15
northern Protestant and southern Catholic parts, resulting in

the Religious Wars of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Trade and commerce
The increasingly dominant position of the Ottoman Empire in

the eastern Mediterranean presented an impediment to trade
for the Christian nations of the west, who in turn started
looking for alternatives. 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 importance.
At the same time, English wool export shifted from raw wool to
processed cloth, resulting in losses for the cloth manufacturers
of the Low Countries. In the Baltic and North Sea, the
Hanseatic League reached the peak of their power in the 14th
century, but started going into decline in the fifteenth.
In the late 13th and early 14th centuries, a process took

place – primarily in Italy but partly also in the Empire – that
historians have termed a "commercial revolution". Among the
innovations of the period were new forms of partnership and
the issuing of insurance, both of which contributed to reducing
the risk of commercial ventures; the bill of exchange and other
forms of credit that circumvented the canonical laws for
gentiles against usury and eliminated the dangers of carrying
bullion; and new forms of accounting, in particular double-
entry bookkeeping, which allowed for better oversight and
accuracy.
16
With the financial expansion, trading rights became more

jealously guarded by the commercial elite. Towns saw the
growing power of guilds, while on a national level special
companies would be granted monopolies on particular trades,
like the English wool Staple. The beneficiaries of these
developments would accumulate immense wealth. Families like
the Fuggers in Germany, the Medicis in Italy, the de la Poles in
England, and individuals like Jacques Coeur in France would
help finance the wars of kings, and achieve great political
influence in the process.
Though there is no doubt that the demographic crisis of the

14th century caused a dramatic fall in production and
commerce in absolute terms, there has been a vigorous
historical debate over whether the decline was greater than the
fall in population. While the older orthodoxy held that the
artistic output of the Renaissance was a result of greater
opulence, more recent studies have suggested that there might
have been a so-called 'depression of the Renaissance'. In spite
of convincing arguments for the case, the statistical evidence
is simply too incomplete for a definite conclusion to be made.
Arts and sciences
In the 14th century, the predominant academic trend of

scholasticism was challenged by the humanist movement.
Though primarily an attempt to revitalise the classical
languages, the movement also led to innovations within the
fields of science, art and literature, helped on by impulses
from Byzantine scholars who had to seek refuge in the west
after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.
17
In science, classical authorities like Aristotle were challenged

for the first time since antiquity. Within the arts, humanism
took the form of the Renaissance. Though the 15th-century
Renaissance was a highly localised phenomenon – limited
mostly to the city states of northern Italy – artistic
developments were taking place also further north, particularly
in the Netherlands.
Philosophy, science and technology
The predominant school of thought in the 13th century was the

Thomistic reconciliation of the teachings of Aristotle with
Christian theology. The Condemnation of 1277, enacted at the
University of Paris, placed restrictions on ideas that could be
interpreted as heretical; restrictions that had implication for
Aristotelian thought. An alternative was presented by William
of Ockham, following the manner of the earlier Franciscan
John Duns Scotus, who insisted that the world of reason and
the world of faith had to be kept apart. Ockham introduced the
principle of parsimony – or Occam's razor – whereby a simple
theory is preferred to a more complex one, and speculation on
unobservable phenomena is avoided. This maxim is, however,
often misquoted. Occam was referring to his nominalism in
this quotation. Essentially saying the theory of absolutes, or
metaphysical realism, was unnecessary to make sense of the
world.
This new approach liberated scientific speculation from the

dogmatic restraints of Aristotelian science, and paved the way
for new approaches. Particularly within the field of theories of
motion great advances were made, when such scholars as Jean
Buridan, Nicole Oresme and the Oxford Calculators challenged
18
the work of Aristotle. Buridan developed the theory of impetus

as the cause of the motion of projectiles, which was an
important step towards the modern concept of inertia. The
works of these scholars anticipated the heliocentric worldview
of Nicolaus Copernicus.
Certain technological inventions of the period – whether of

Arab or Chinese origin, or unique European innovations – were
to have great influence on political and social developments, in
particular gunpowder, the printing press and the compass. The
introduction of gunpowder to the field of battle affected not
only military organisation, but helped advance the nation
state. Gutenberg's movable type printing press made possible
not only the Reformation, but also a dissemination of
knowledge that would lead to a gradually more egalitarian
society. The compass, along with other innovations such as the
cross-staff, the mariner's astrolabe, and advances in
shipbuilding, enabled the navigation of the World Oceans, and
the early phases of colonialism. Other inventions had a greater
impact on everyday life, such as eyeglasses and the weight-
driven clock.
Visual arts and architecture
A precursor to Renaissance art can be seen already in the early

14th-century works of Giotto. Giotto was the first painter since
antiquity to attempt the representation of a three-dimensional
reality, and to endow his characters with true human
emotions. The most important developments, however, came in
15th-century Florence. The affluence of the merchant class
allowed extensive patronage of the arts, and foremost among
the patrons were the Medici.
19
The period saw several important technical innovations, like

the principle of linear perspective found in the work of
Masaccio, and later described by Brunelleschi. Greater realism
was also achieved through the scientific study of anatomy,
championed by artists like Donatello. This can be seen
particularly well in his sculptures, inspired by the study of
classical models. As the centre of the movement shifted to
Rome, the period culminated in the High Renaissance masters
da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael.
The ideas of the Italian Renaissance were slow to cross the

Alps into northern Europe, but important artistic innovations
were made also in the Low Countries. Though not – as
previously believed – the inventor of oil painting, Jan van Eyck
was a champion of the new medium, and used it to create
works of great realism and minute detail. The two cultures
influenced each other and learned from each other, but
painting in the Netherlands remained more focused on textures
and surfaces than the idealized compositions of Italy.
In northern European countries Gothic architecture remained

the norm, and the gothic cathedral was further elaborated. In
Italy, on the other hand, architecture took a different
direction, also here inspired by classical ideals. The crowning
work of the period was the Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence,
with Giotto's clock tower, Ghiberti's baptistery gates, and
Brunelleschi's cathedral dome of unprecedented proportions.
Literature
The most important development of late medieval literature

was the ascendancy of the vernacular languages. The
20
vernacular had been in use in England since the 8th century

and France since the 11th century, where the most popular
genres had been the chanson de geste, troubadour lyrics and
romantic epics, or the romance. Though Italy was later in
evolving a native literature in the vernacular language, it was
here that the most important developments of the period were
to come.
Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, written in the early 14th

century, merged a medieval world view with classical ideals.
Another promoter of the Italian language was Boccaccio with
his Decameron. The application of the vernacular did not entail
a rejection of Latin, and both Dante and Boccaccio wrote
prolifically in Latin as well as Italian, as would Petrarch later
(whose Canzoniere also promoted the vernacular and whose
contents are considered the first modern lyric poems). Together
the three poets established the Tuscan dialect as the norm for
the modern Italian language.
The new literary style spread rapidly, and in France influenced

such writers as Eustache Deschamps and Guillaume de
Machaut. In England Geoffrey Chaucer helped establish Middle
English as a literary language with his Canterbury Tales, which
contained a wide variety of narrators and stories (including
some translated from Boccaccio). The spread of vernacular
literature eventually reached as far as Bohemia, and the
Baltic, Slavic and Byzantine worlds.
Music
Music was an important part of both secular and spiritual

culture, and in the universities it made up part of the
21
quadrivium of the liberal arts. From the early 13th century, the
dominant sacred musical form had been the motet; a
composition with text in several parts. From the 1330s and
onwards, emerged the polyphonic style, which was a more
complex fusion of independent voices. Polyphony had been
common in the secular music of the Provençal troubadours.
Many of these had fallen victim to the 13th-century
Albigensian Crusade, but their influence reached the papal
court at Avignon.
The main representatives of the new style, often referred to as

ars nova as opposed to the ars antiqua, were the composers
Philippe de Vitry and Guillaume de Machaut. In Italy, where
the Provençal troubadours had also found refuge, the
corresponding period goes under the name of trecento, and the
leading composers were Giovanni da Cascia, Jacopo da Bologna
and Francesco Landini. Prominent reformer of Orthodox
Church music from the first half of 14th century was John
Kukuzelis; he also introduced a system of notation widely used
in the Balkans in the following centuries.
Theatre
In the British Isles, plays were produced in some 127 different

towns during the Middle Ages. These vernacular Mystery plays
were written in cycles of a large number of plays: York (48
plays), Chester (24), Wakefield (32) and Unknown (42). A larger
number of plays survive from France and Germany in this
period and some type of religious dramas were performed in
nearly every European country in the Late Middle Ages. Many
of these plays contained comedy, devils, villains and clowns.
22
Morality plays emerged as a distinct dramatic form around

1400 and flourished until 1550, an example being The Castle of
Perseverance, which depicts mankind's progress from birth to
death. Another famous morality play is Everyman. Everyman
receives Death's summons, struggles to escape and finally
resigns himself to necessity. Along the way, he is deserted by
Kindred, Goods, and Fellowship – only Good Deeds goes with
him to the grave.
At the end of the Late Middle Ages, professional actors began

to appear in England and Europe. Richard III and Henry VII
both maintained small companies of professional actors. Their
plays were performed in the Great Hall of a nobleman's
residence, often with a raised platform at one end for the
audience and a "screen" at the other for the actors. Also
important were Mummers' plays, performed during the
Christmas season, and court masques. These masques were
especially popular during the reign of Henry VIII who had a
House of Revels built and an Office of Revels established in
1545.
The end of medieval drama came about due to a number of

factors, including the weakening power of the Catholic Church,
the Protestant Reformation and the banning of religious plays
in many countries. Elizabeth I forbid all religious plays in 1558
and the great cycle plays had been silenced by the 1580s.
Similarly, religious plays were banned in the Netherlands in
1539, the Papal States in 1547 and in Paris in 1548. The
abandonment of these plays destroyed the international theatre
that had thereto existed and forced each country to develop its
own form of drama. It also allowed dramatists to turn to
23
secular subjects and the reviving interest in Greek and Roman

theatre provided them with the perfect opportunity.
After the Middle Ages
After the end of the late Middle Ages period, the Renaissance
spread unevenly over continental Europe from the southern
European region. The intellectual transformation of the
Renaissance is viewed as a bridge between the Middle Ages and
the Modern era. Europeans would later begin an era of world
discovery. Combined with the influx of classical ideas was the
invention of printing which facilitated dissemination of the
printed word and democratized learning. These two things
would lead to the Protestant Reformation. Europeans also
discovered new trading routes, as was the case with Columbus’
travel to the Americas in 1492, and Vasco da Gama’s
circumnavigation of Africa and India in 1498. Their discoveries
strengthened the economy and power of European nations.
Ottomans and Europe
By the end of the 15th century the Ottoman Empire had

advanced all over Southeastern Europe, eventually conquering
the Byzantine Empire and extending control over the Balkan
states. Hungary was the last bastion of the Latin Christian
world in the East, and fought to keep its rule over a period of
two centuries. After the death of the young king Vladislaus I of
Hungary during the Battle of Varna in 1444 against the
Ottomans, the Kingdom was placed in the hands of count John
Hunyadi, who became Hungary's regent-governor (1446–1453).
Hunyadi was considered one of the most relevant military
24
figures of the 15th century: Pope Pius II awarded him the title
of Athleta Christi or Champion of Christ for being the only hope
of resisting the Ottomans from advancing to Central and
Western Europe.
Hunyadi succeeded during the Siege of Belgrade in 1456

against the Ottomans, the biggest victory against that empire
in decades. This battle became a real Crusade against the
Muslims, as the peasants were motivated by the Franciscan
friar Saint John of Capistrano, who came from Italy predicating
Holy War. The effect that it created in that time was one of the
main factors that helped in achieving the victory. However the
premature death of the Hungarian Lord left Pannonia
defenseless and in chaos. In an extremely unusual event for
the Middle Ages, Hunyadi's son, Matthias, was elected as King
of Hungary by the nobility. For the first time, a member of an
aristocratic family (and not from a royal family) was crowned.
King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (1458–1490) was one of the

most prominent figures of the period, directing campaigns to
the West, conquering Bohemia in answer to the Pope's call for
help against the Hussite Protestants. Also, in resolving
political hostilities with the German emperor Frederick III of
Habsburg, he invaded his western domains. Matthew organized
the Black Army of mercenary soldiers; it was considered as the
biggest army of its time. Using this powerful tool, the
Hungarian king led wars against the Turkish armies and
stopped the Ottomans during his reign. After the death of
Matthew, and with end of the Black Army, the Ottoman Empire
grew in strength and Central Europe was defenseless. At the
Battle of Mohács, the forces of the Ottoman Empire annihilated
the Hungarian army and Louis II of Hungary drowned in the
25
Csele Creek while trying to escape. The leader of the Hungarian

army, Pál Tomori, also died in the battle. This is considered to
be one of the final battles of Medieval times.
26
Chapter 2
Western Schism
The Western Schism, also called Papal Schism, The Vatican

Standoff, Great Occidental Schism and Schism of 1378
(Latin: Magnum schisma occidentale, Ecclesiae occidentalis
schisma), was a split within the Catholic Church lasting from
1378 to 1417 in which bishops residing in Rome and Avignon
both claimed to be the true pope, joined by a third line of Pisan
popes in 1409. The schism was driven by personalities and
political allegiances, with the Avignon papacy being closely
associated with the French monarchy. These rival claims to the
papal throne damaged the prestige of the office.
The papacy had resided in Avignon since 1309, but Pope

Gregory XI returned to Rome in 1377. However, the Catholic
Church split in 1378 when the College of Cardinals elected
both Urban VI and Clement VII pope within six months of
Gregory XI's death. After several attempts at reconciliation, the
Council of Pisa (1409) declared that both popes were
illegitimate and elected a third pope. The schism was finally
resolved when the Pisan pope John XXIII called the Council of
Constance (1414–1418). The Council arranged the abdication
of both the Roman pope Gregory XII and the Pisan pope John
XXIII, excommunicated the Avignon pope Benedict XIII, and
elected Martin V as the new pope reigning from Rome.
The affair is sometimes referred to as the Great Schism,

although this term is also used for the East–West Schism of
1054 between the Churches remaining in communion with the
See of Rome and the Eastern Orthodox Churches.
History
Origin
Since 1309, the papacy had resided in Avignon, a papal

enclave surrounded by France. The Avignon Papacy had
developed a reputation for corruption that estranged major
parts of Western Christendom.
This reputation can be attributed to perceptions of

predominant French influence, and to the papal curia's efforts
to extend its powers of patronage and increase its revenues.
The last undisputed Avignon pope, Gregory XI, decided to

return to Rome on 17 January 1377. However, Pope Gregory XI
announced his intention to return to Avignon just after the
Easter celebrations of 1378. This was at the entreaty of his
relatives, his friends, and nearly everyone in his retinue.
Before he could leave, Gregory XI died in the Vatican palace on

27 March 1378. The Romans put into operation a plan to use
intimidation and violence (impressio et metus) to ensure the
election of a Roman pope.
The pope and his Curia were back in Rome after seventy years
in Avignon, and the Romans were prepared to do everything in
their power to keep them there. On 8 April 1378, the cardinals
elected Bartolomeo Prignano, the archbishop of Bari, as Pope
Urban VI. Urban had been a respected administrator in the
papal chancery at Avignon, but as pope he proved suspicious,
reformist, and prone to violent outbursts of temper.
28
Two popes
Most of the cardinals who had elected Urban VI soon regretted

their decision and removed themselves to Anagni. Meeting at
Fondi, the College of Cardinals elected Robert of Geneva as
Pope Clement VII on 20 September 1378. The cardinals argued
that the election of Urban VI was invalid because it had been
done for fear of the rioting Roman crowds. Unable to maintain
himself in Italy, Clement VII reestablished a papal court in
Avignon. Clement had the immediate support of Queen Joanna
I of Naples and of several of the Italian barons. Charles V of
France, who seems to have been sounded out beforehand on
the choice of the Roman pontiff, soon became his warmest
protector. Clement eventually succeeded in winning to his
cause Castile, Aragon, Navarre, a great part of the Latin East,
Flanders, and Scotland.
The pair of elections threw the Church into turmoil. There had
been antipope claimants to the papacy before, but most of
them had been appointed by various rival factions. In this
case, the College of Cardinals had elected both the pope and
the antipope. The conflicts quickly escalated from a church
problem to a diplomatic crisis that divided Europe. Secular
leaders had to decide which claimant they would recognize.
In the Iberian Peninsula there were the Fernandine Wars

(Guerras fernandinas) and the 1383–1385 Crisis in Portugal,
during which dynastic opponents supported rival claimants to
the papal office. Owain Glyndŵr's rebellion in Wales recognized
the Avignon pope, while England recognized the Roman pope.
29
Consequences
Sustained by such national and factional rivalries throughout

Catholic Christianity, the schism continued after the deaths of
both Urban VI in 1389 and Clement VII in 1394. Boniface IX,
who was crowned at Rome in 1389, and Benedict XIII, who
reigned in Avignon from 1394, maintained their rival courts.
When Pope Boniface died in 1404, the eight cardinals of the
Roman conclave offered to refrain from electing a new pope if
Benedict would resign; but when Benedict's legates refused on
his behalf, the Roman party then proceeded to elect Pope
Innocent VII.
In the intense partisanship characteristic of the Middle Ages,

the schism engendered a fanatical hatred noted by Johan
Huizinga: when the town of Bruges went over to the
"obedience" of Avignon, a great number of people left to follow
their trade in a city of Urbanist allegiance; in the 1382 Battle
of Roosebeke, the oriflamme, which might only be unfurled in a
holy cause, was taken up against the Flemings, because they
were Urbanists and thus viewed by the French as schismatics.
Efforts were made to end the Schism through force or

diplomacy. The French crown even tried to coerce Benedict
XIII, whom it supported, into resigning. None of these remedies
worked. The suggestion that a church council should resolve
the Schism, first made in 1378, was not adopted at first,
because canon law required that a pope call a council.
Eventually theologians like Pierre d'Ailly and Jean Gerson, as
well as canon lawyers like Francesco Zabarella, adopted
arguments that equity permitted the Church to act for its own
welfare in defiance of the letter of the law.
30
Three popes
Eventually the cardinals of both factions secured an agreement

that the Roman pope Gregory XII and the Avignon pope
Benedict XIII would meet at Savona. They balked at the last
moment, and both groups of cardinals abandoned their
preferred leaders. The Council of Pisa met in 1409 under the
auspices of the cardinals to try solving the dispute. At the
fifteenth session, on 5 June 1409, the Council of Pisa
attempted to depose both the Roman and Avignon popes as
schismatical, heretical, perjured and scandalous, but it then
added to the problem by electing a third pope, Alexander V. He
reigned briefly in Pisa from 26 June 1409 until his death in
1410, when he was succeeded by John XXIII, who won some
but not universal support.
Resolution
Finally, the Council of Constance was convened by the Pisan

pope John XXIII in 1414 to resolve the issue. The council was
also endorsed by the Roman pope Gregory XII, giving it greater
legitimacy. The council, advised by the theologian Jean
Gerson, secured the resignations of both Gregory XII and John
XXIII, while excommunicating the Avignon pope Benedict XIII,
who refused to step down. After a prolonged sede vacante, the
Council elected Pope Martin V in 1417, essentially ending the
schism.
Nonetheless, the Crown of Aragon did not recognize Pope

Martin V and continued to recognize Benedict XIII.
Archbishops loyal to Benedict XIII subsequently elected
Antipope Benedict XIV (Bernard Garnier) and three followers
31
simultaneously elected Antipope Clement VIII, but the Western

Schism was by then practically over. Clement VIII resigned in
1429 and apparently recognized Martin V.
Gregory XII's abdication in 1415 was the last papal resignation

until Benedict XVI in 2013.
Aftermath
After its resolution, the Western Schism still affected the

Catholic Church for years to come. One of the most significant
of these involved the emergence of the theory called
conciliarism, founded on the success of the Council of
Constance, which effectively ended the conflict. This new
reform movement held that a general council is superior to the
pope on the strength of its capability to settle things even in
the early church such as the case in 681 when Pope Honorius
was condemned by a council called Constantinople III. There
are theorists such as John Gerson who explained that the
priests and the church itself are the sources of the papal power
and, thus, the church should be able to correct, punish, and,
if necessary, depose a pope. For years, the so-called
conciliarists have challenged the authority of the pope and
they became more relevant after a convened council also
known as the Council of Florence (1439–1445) became
instrumental in achieving ecclesial union between the Catholic
Church and the churches of the East.
Pope Pius II (r. 1458–1464) settled the issue by decreeing that

no appeal could be made from pope to council. Thus, a papal
election could not be overturned by anyone but the elected
pope himself. No such crisis has arisen since the 15th century,
32
and so there has been no need to revisit this decision. There

was also a marked decline in morality and discipline within the
church. Scholars note that although the Western Schism did
not directly cause such a phenomenon, it was a gradual
development rooted in the conflict, effectively eroding the
church authority and its capacity to proclaim the gospel. This
was further aggravated by the dissension caused by the
Protestant Reformation, which created a lot of unrest.
Official list of popes
For the next five centuries, the Catholic Church recognized the
Roman popes as the legitimate line from 1378 to 1409, followed
by the Pisan popes from 1409 to 1415. All Avignon popes after
1378 are considered to be antipopes. This recognition is
reflected in the numbering of popes Alexander VI, VII, and VIII,
who numbered themselves consecutively after their Pisan
namesake Alexander V.
The recognition of the Pisan popes made the continued

legitimacy of the Roman pope Gregory XII doubtful for 1409–
1415. The Annuario Pontificio for 1860 listed the Pisan popes
as true popes from 1409 to 1415, but it acknowledged that
Gregory XII's reign ended in either 1409 or 1415. The Annuario
Pontificio for 1864 eliminated the overlapping period by ending
Gregory XII's reign in 1409, listing the last three popes of the
schism as Gregory XII (1406–1409), Alexander V (1409–1410),
and John XXIII (1410–1415). This remained the official
chronology of popes through the mid-20th century.
The Western Schism was reinterpreted in 1958 when Pope John

XXIII chose to reuse the ordinal XXIII, citing "twenty-two [sic]
33
Johns of indisputable legitimacy." (There had actually been

nineteen undisputed Johns due to antipopes and numbering
errors.) The Pisan popes Alexander V and John XXIII are now
considered to be antipopes. This reinterpretation is reflected in
modern editions of the Annuario Pontificio, which extend
Gregory XII's reign to 1415. The line of Roman popes is now
retroactively recognized by the Catholic Church as the sole
legitimate line during the Western Schism. However, Popes
Alexander VI through VIII have not been renumbered, leaving a
gap in the numbering sequence.
According to Broderick (1987)
Doubt still shrouds the validity of the three rival lines of

pontiffs during the four decades subsequent to the still
disputed papal election of 1378. This makes suspect the
credentials of the cardinals created by the Roman, Avignon,
and Pisan claimants to the Apostolic See. Unity was finally
restored without a definitive solution to the question; for the
Council of Constance succeeded in terminating the Western
Schism, not by declaring which of the three claimants was the
rightful one, but by eliminating all of them by forcing their
abdication or deposition, and then setting up a novel
arrangement for choosing a new pope acceptable to all sides.
To this day the Church has never made any official,
authoritative pronouncement about the papal lines of
succession for this confusing period; nor has Martin V or any
of his successors. Modern scholars are not agreed in their
solutions, although they tend to favor the Roman line.
34
Chapter 3
Hundred Years' War
The Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) was a war involving a

series of conflicts between the Kingdom of England and
Kingdom of France, that took place during the Late Middle
Ages, and lasted for a total of 116 years. The war had been
based on disputed claims to the French crown by the English
Royal Dynasty House of Plantagenet and the French House of
Valois. Over time, the war encompassed a broad power
struggle, involving factions from across Western Europe, and
was fueled by emerging nationalist sentiment on both sides.
The Hundred Years' War was one of the most notable conflicts
of the Middle Ages. Five generations of kings from two rival
dynasties had been fighting for the throne to the largest
kingdom in Western Europe. The war had an enduring effect on
later Europe and European history. Both sides produced
innovations in military technology, strategy, and tactics, such
as professional standing armies and artillery, that permanently
changed warfare; chivalry, which had reached its height during
the conflict, subsequently declined. Stronger national
identities took root in both countries, which became more
centralised and gradually rose as global powers.
The term "Hundred Years' War" was adopted by later historians

as a historiographical periodisation to encompass these
conflicts, constructing the longest military conflict in
European history. The war is commonly divided into three
phases separated by truces: the Edwardian War (1337–1360),
the Caroline War (1369–1389), and the Lancastrian War (1415–
1453). Each side drew many allies into the conflict, with
English forces initially prevailing; the House of Valois
ultimately retained control over France, with the previously-
intertwined French and English monarchies thereafter
remaining separate.
Overview
Origins
The root causes of the conflict can be traced to the crisis of

14th-century Europe. The outbreak of war was motivated by a
gradual rise in tension between the kings of France and
England over territory; the official pretext was the question
that arose because of the interruption of the direct male line of
the Capetian dynasty.
Tensions between the French and English crowns had gone

back centuries to the origins of the English royal family, which
was French (Norman, and later, Angevin) in origin. English
monarchs had therefore historically held titles and lands
within France, which made them vassals to the kings of
France. The status of the English king's French fiefs was a
major source of conflict between the two monarchies
throughout the Middle Ages. French monarchs systematically
sought to check the growth of English power, stripping away
lands as the opportunity arose, particularly whenever England
was at war with Scotland, an ally of France. English holdings
in France had varied in size, at some points dwarfing even the
French royal domain; by 1337, however, only Gascony was
English.
36
In 1328, Charles IV of France died without sons or brothers

and a new principle disallowed female succession. Charles's
closest male relative was his nephew Edward III of England,
whose mother, Isabella, was Charles's sister. Isabella claimed
the throne of France for her son by the rule of Proximity of
blood, but the French nobility rejected this, maintaining that
Isabella could not transmit a right she did not possess. An
assembly of French barons decided that a native Frenchman
should receive the crown, rather than Edward.
So the throne passed instead to Charles's patrilineal cousin,

Philip, Count of Valois. Edward protested but ultimately
submitted and did homage for Gascony. Further French
disagreements with Edward induced Philip, during May 1337,
to meet with his Great Council in Paris. It was agreed that
Gascony should be taken back into Philip's hands, which
prompted Edward to renew his claim for the French throne,
this time by force of arms.
Edwardian Phase
In the early years of the war, the English, led by their king and
his son Edward, the Black Prince, saw resounding successes
(notably at Crécy in 1346 and at Poitiers in 1356 where King
John II of France was taken prisoner).
Caroline Phase and Black Death
By 1378, under King Charles V the Wise and the leadership of

Bertrand du Guesclin, the French had reconquered most of the
lands ceded to King Edward in the Treaty of Brétigny (signed in
1360), leaving the English with only a few cities on the
37
continent. In the following decades, the weakening of royal

authority, combined with the devastation caused by the Black
Death of 1347–1351 (with the loss of nearly half of the French
population and between 20% and 33% of the English one) and
the major economic crisis that followed, led to a period of civil
unrest in both countries, struggles from which England
emerged first.
Lancastrian Phase and after
The newly crowned Henry V of England seized the opportunity

presented by the mental illness of Charles VI of France and the
French civil war between Armagnacs and Burgundians to revive
the conflict. Overwhelming victories at Agincourt in 1415 and
Verneuil in 1424 as well as an alliance with the Burgundians
raised the prospects of an ultimate English triumph and
persuaded the English to continue the war over many decades.
However, a variety of factors such as the deaths of both Henry
and Charles in 1422, the emergence of Joan of Arc which
boosted French morale, and the loss of Burgundy as an ally,
marking the end of the civil war in France, prevented it.
The Siege of Orléans in 1429 announced the beginning of the

end for English hopes of conquest. Even with the eventual
capture of Joan by the Burgundians and her execution in
1431, a series of crushing French victories such as those at
Patay in 1429, Formigny in 1450 and Castillon in 1453
concluded the war in favour of the Valois dynasty. England
permanently lost most of its continental possessions, with only
38
the Pale of Calais remaining under its control on the continent,

until it too was lost in the Siege of Calais in 1558.
Related conflicts and aftereffects
Local conflicts in neighbouring areas, which were

contemporarily related to the war, including the War of the
Breton Succession (1341–1365), the Castilian Civil War (1366–
1369), the War of the Two Peters (1356–1369) in Aragon, and
the 1383–85 crisis in Portugal, were used by the parties to
advance their agendas.
By the war's end, feudal armies had been largely replaced by

professional troops, and aristocratic dominance had yielded to
a democratisation of the manpower and weapons of armies.
Although primarily a dynastic conflict, the war inspired French
and English nationalism.
The wider introduction of weapons and tactics supplanted the

feudal armies where heavy cavalry had dominated, and artillery
became important. The war precipitated the creation of the
first standing armies in Western Europe since the Western
Roman Empire, and helped change their role in warfare.
In France, civil wars, deadly epidemics, famines, and bandit

free-companies of mercenaries reduced the population
drastically. In England, political forces over time came to
oppose the costly venture. The dissatisfaction of English
nobles, resulting from the loss of their continental
landholdings, as well as the general shock at losing a war in
which investment had been so great, helped lead to the Wars of
the Roses (1455–1487).
39
Causes and prelude
Dynastic turmoil in France: 1316–1328
• The question of female succession to the French

throne was raised after the death of Louis X in 1316.
Louis X left only one daughter, and John I of France,
who only lived for five days. Furthermore, the
paternity of his daughter was in question, as her
mother, Margaret of Burgundy, had been exposed as
an adulterer in the Tour de Nesle affair. Philip,
Count of Poitiers, brother of Louis X, positioned
himself to take the crown, advancing the stance that
women should be ineligible to succeed to the French
throne. Through his political sagacity he won over
his adversaries and succeeded to the French throne
as Philip V. By the same law that he procured, his
daughters were denied the succession, which passed
to his younger brother, Charles IV, in 1322.
Charles IV died in 1328, leaving a daughter and a pregnant

wife. If the unborn child was male, he would become king; if
not, Charles left the choice of his successor to the nobles. A
girl, Blanche of France (later Duchess of Orleans) was born,
therefore rendering the main male line of the House of Capet
extinct.
By proximity of blood, the nearest male relative of Charles IV

was his nephew, Edward III of England. Edward was the son of
Isabella, the sister of the dead Charles IV, but the question
arose whether she should be able to transmit a right to inherit
40
that she did not herself possess. The French nobility,

moreover, baulked at the prospect of being ruled by Isabella
and her lover Roger Mortimer, who were widely suspected of
having murdered the previous English king, Edward II. The
assemblies of the French barons and prelates and the
University of Paris decided that males who derive their right to
inheritance through their mother should be excluded. Thus the
nearest heir through male ancestry was Charles IV's first
cousin, Philip, Count of Valois, and it was decided that he
should be crowned Philip VI. In 1340 the Avignon papacy
confirmed that under Salic law males should not be able to
inherit through their mothers.
Eventually, Edward III reluctantly recognised Philip VI and

paid him homage for his French fiefs in 1325. He made
concessions in Guyenne, but reserved the right to reclaim
territories arbitrarily confiscated. After that, he expected to be
left undisturbed while he made war on Scotland.
The dispute over Guyenne: a problem of sovereignty
Tensions between the French and English monarchies can be

traced back to the 1066 Norman conquest of England, in which
the English throne was seized by the Duke of Normandy, a
vassal of the King of France. As a result, the crown of England
was held by a succession of nobles who already owned lands in
France, which put them among the most powerful subjects of
the French King, as they could now draw upon the economic
power of England to enforce their interests in the mainland. To
the kings of France, this dangerously threatened their royal
authority, and so they would constantly try to undermine
English rule in France, while the English monarchs would
41
struggle to protect and expand their lands. This clash of

interests was the root cause of much of the conflict between
the French and English monarchies throughout the medieval
era.
The Anglo-Norman dynasty that had ruled England since the

Norman conquest of 1066 was brought to an end when Henry,
the son of Geoffrey of Anjou and Empress Matilda, and great-
grandson of William the Conqueror, became the first of the
Angevin kings of England in 1154 as Henry II. The Angevin
kings ruled over what was later known as the Angevin Empire,
which included more French territory than that under the
kings of France. The Angevins still owed homage for these
territories to the French king. From the 11th century, the
Angevins had autonomy within their French domains,
neutralising the issue.
King John of England inherited the Angevin domains from his

brother Richard I. However, Philip II of France acted decisively
to exploit the weaknesses of John, both legally and militarily,
and by 1204 had succeeded in taking control of much of the
Angevin continental possessions. Following John's reign, the
Battle of Bouvines (1214), the Saintonge War (1242), and
finally the War of Saint-Sardos (1324), the English king's
holdings on the continent, as Duke of Aquitaine, were limited
roughly to provinces in Gascony.
The dispute over Guyenne is even more important than the

dynastic question in explaining the outbreak of the war.
Guyenne posed a significant problem to the kings of France
and England: Edward III was a vassal of Philip VI of France
because of his French possessions and was required to
42
recognise the suzerainty of the King of France over them. In

practical terms, a judgment in Guyenne might be subject to an
appeal to the French royal court. The King of France had the
power to revoke all legal decisions made by the King of England
in Aquitaine, which was unacceptable to the English.
Therefore, sovereignty over Guyenne was a latent conflict
between the two monarchies for several generations.
During the War of Saint-Sardos, Charles of Valois, father of

Philip VI, invaded Aquitaine on behalf of Charles IV and
conquered the duchy after a local insurrection, which the
French believed had been incited by Edward II of England.
Charles IV grudgingly agreed to return this territory in 1325.
To recover his duchy, Edward II had to compromise: he sent
his son, the future Edward III, to pay homage.
The King of France agreed to restore Guyenne, minus Agen but

the French delayed the return of the lands, which helped Philip
VI. On 6 June 1329, Edward III finally paid homage to the King
of France. However, at the ceremony, Philip VI had it recorded
that the homage was not due to the fiefs detached from the
duchy of Guyenne by Charles IV (especially Agen). For Edward,
the homage did not imply the renunciation of his claim to the
extorted lands.
Gascony under the King of England
In the 11th century, Gascony in southwest France had been

incorporated into Aquitaine (also known as Guyenne or
Guienne) and formed with it the province of Guyenne and
Gascony (French: Guyenne-et-Gascogne). The Angevin kings of
England became Dukes of Aquitaine after Henry II married the
43
former Queen of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine, in 1152, from

which point the lands were held in vassalage to the French
Crown. By the 13th century the terms Aquitaine, Guyenne and
Gascony were virtually synonymous.
At the beginning of Edward III's reign on 1 February 1327, the

only part of Aquitaine that remained in his hands was the
Duchy of Gascony. The term Gascony came to be used for the
territory held by the Angevin (Plantagenet) Kings of England in
southwest France, although they still used the title Duke of
Aquitaine. For the first 10 years of Edward III's reign, Gascony
had been a major point of friction. The English argued that, as
Charles IV had not acted in a proper way towards his tenant,
Edward should be able to hold the duchy free of any French
suzerainty. This argument was rejected by the French, so in
1329, the 17-year-old Edward III paid homage to Philip VI.
Tradition demanded that vassals approach their liege unarmed,
with heads bare. Edward protested by attending the ceremony
wearing his crown and sword. Even after this pledge of
homage, the French continued to pressure the English
administration. Gascony was not the only sore point. One of
Edward's influential advisers was Robert III of Artois. Robert
was an exile from the French court, having fallen out with
Philip VI over an inheritance claim. He urged Edward to start a
war to reclaim France, and was able to provide extensive
intelligence on the French court.
Franco-Scot alliance
France was an ally of the Kingdom of Scotland as English kings

had for some time tried to subjugate the area. In 1295, a treaty
was signed between France and Scotland during the reign of
44
Philip the Fair known as the Auld Alliance. Charles IV formally

renewed the treaty in 1326, promising Scotland that France
would support the Scots if England invaded their country.
Similarly, France would have Scotland's support if its own
kingdom were attacked. Edward could not succeed in his plans
for Scotland if the Scots could count on French support.
Philip VI had assembled a large naval fleet off Marseilles as

part of an ambitious plan for a crusade to the Holy Land.
However, the plan was abandoned and the fleet, including
elements of the Scottish navy, moved to the English Channel
off Normandy in 1336, threatening England. To deal with this
crisis, Edward proposed that the English raise two armies, one
to deal with the Scots "at a suitable time", the other to proceed
at once to Gascony. At the same time, ambassadors were to be
sent to France with a proposed treaty for the French king.
Beginning of the war: 1337–1360
End of homage
At the end of April 1337, Philip of France was invited to meet

the delegation from England but refused. The arrière-ban,
literally a call to arms, was proclaimed throughout France
starting on 30 April 1337. Then, in May 1337, Philip met with
his Great Council in Paris. It was agreed that the Duchy of
Aquitaine, effectively Gascony, should be taken back into the
king's hands on the grounds that Edward III was in breach of
his obligations as vassal and had sheltered the king's 'mortal
enemy' Robert d'Artois. Edward responded to the confiscation
of Aquitaine by challenging Philip's right to the French throne.
45
When Charles IV died, Edward had made a claim for the

succession of the French throne, through the right of his
mother Isabella (Charles IV's sister), daughter of Philip IV. Any
claim was considered invalidated by Edward's homage to Philip
VI in 1329. Edward revived his claim and in 1340 formally
assumed the title 'King of France and the French Royal Arms'.
On 26 January 1340, Edward III formally received homage from

Guy, half-brother of the Count of Flanders. The civic
authorities of Ghent, Ypres and Bruges proclaimed Edward
King of France.
Edward's purpose was to strengthen his alliances with the Low

Countries. His supporters would be able to claim that they
were loyal to the "true" King of France and were not rebels
against Philip. In February 1340, Edward returned to England
to try to raise more funds and also deal with political
difficulties.
Relations with Flanders were also tied to the English wool

trade, since Flanders' principal cities relied heavily on textile
production and England supplied much of the raw material
they needed. Edward III had commanded that his chancellor sit
on the woolsack in council as a symbol of the pre-eminence of
the wool trade.
At the time there were about 110,000 sheep in Sussex alone.

The great medieval English monasteries produced large
surpluses of wool that were sold to mainland Europe.
Successive governments were able to make large amounts of
money by taxing it. France's sea power led to economic
disruptions for England, shrinking the wool trade to Flanders
and the wine trade from Gascony.
46
Outbreak, the English Channel and Brittany
On 22 June 1340, Edward and his fleet sailed from England

and the next day arrived off the Zwin estuary. The French fleet
assumed a defensive formation off the port of Sluis. The
English fleet deceived the French into believing they were
withdrawing. When the wind turned in the late afternoon, the
English attacked with the wind and sun behind them. The
French fleet was almost completely destroyed in what became
known as the Battle of Sluys.
England dominated the English Channel for the rest of the war,
preventing French invasions. At this point, Edward's funds ran
out and the war probably would have ended were it not for the
death of the Duke of Brittany in 1341 precipitating a
succession dispute between the duke's half-brother John of
Montfort and Charles of Blois, nephew of Philip VI.
In 1341, conflict over the succession to the Duchy of Brittany

began the War of the Breton Succession, in which Edward
backed John of Montfort and Philip backed Charles of Blois.
Action for the next few years focused around a back-and-forth
struggle in Brittany. The city of Vannes in Brittany changed
hands several times, while further campaigns in Gascony met
with mixed success for both sides. The English-backed
Montfort finally succeeded in taking the duchy but not until
1364.
Battle of Crécy and the taking of Calais
• In July 1346, Edward mounted a major invasion

across the channel, landing in Normandy's Cotentin,
47
at St. Vaast. The English army captured the city of

Caen in just one day, surprising the French. Philip
mustered a large army to oppose Edward, who chose
to march northward toward the Low Countries,
pillaging as he went. He reached the river Seine to
find most of the crossings destroyed. He moved
further and further south, worryingly close to Paris,
until he found the crossing at Poissy. This had only
been partially destroyed, so the carpenters within
his army were able to fix it. He then continued on
his way to Flanders until he reached the river
Somme. The army crossed at a tidal ford at
Blanchetaque, leaving Philip's army stranded.
Edward, assisted by this head start, continued on
his way to Flanders once more, until, finding himself
unable to outmanoeuvre Philip, Edward positioned
his forces for battle and Philip's army attacked.
The Battle of Crécy of 1346 was a complete disaster for the

French, largely credited to the longbowmen and the French
king, who allowed his army to attack before it was ready. Philip
appealed to his Scottish allies to help with a diversionary
attack on England. King David II of Scotland responded by
invading northern England, but his army was defeated and he
was captured at the Battle of Neville's Cross, on 17 October
1346. This greatly reduced the threat from Scotland.
In France, Edward proceeded north unopposed and besieged

the city of Calais on the English Channel, capturing it in 1347.
This became an important strategic asset for the English,
allowing them to keep troops safely in northern France. Calais
48
would remain under English control, even after the end of the
Hundred Years' War, until the successful French siege in 1558.
Battle of Poitiers
The Black Death, which had just arrived in Paris in 1348,

began to ravage Europe. In 1355, after the plague had passed
and England was able to recover financially, King Edward's son
and namesake, the Prince of Wales, later known as the Black
Prince, led a Chevauchée from Gascony into France, during
which he pillaged Avignonet and Castelnaudary, sacked
Carcassonne, and plundered Narbonne. The next year during
another Chevauchée he ravaged Auvergne, Limousin, and Berry
but failed to take Bourges. He offered terms of peace to King
John II of France (known as John the Good), who had
outflanked him near Poitiers, but refused to surrender himself
as the price of their acceptance.
This led to the Battle of Poitiers (19 September 1356) where

the Black Prince's army routed the French. During the battle,
the Gascon noble Jean de Grailly, captal de Buch led a
mounted unit that was concealed in a forest. The French
advance was contained, at which point de Grailly led a flanking
movement with his horsemen cutting off the French retreat and
succeeding in capturing King John and many of his nobles.
With John held hostage, his son the Dauphin (later to become
Charles V) assumed the powers of the king as regent.
After the Battle of Poitiers, many French nobles and

mercenaries rampaged, and chaos ruled. A contemporary
report recounted:
49
... all went ill with the kingdom and the State was undone.
Thieves and robbers rose up everywhere in the land. The
Nobles despised and hated all others and took no thought for
usefulness and profit of lord and men. They subjected and
despoiled the peasants and the men of the villages. In no wise
did they defend their country from its enemies; rather did they
trample it underfoot, robbing and pillaging the peasants'
goods ...
Fr om t he C hr o ni cl es of J e a n de V e ne tt e
Reims Campaign and Black Monday
Edward invaded France, for the third and last time, hoping to
capitalise on the discontent and seize the throne. The
Dauphin's strategy was that of non-engagement with the
English army in the field. However, Edward wanted the crown
and chose the cathedral city of Reims for his coronation (Reims
was the traditional coronation city). However, the citizens of
Reims built and reinforced the city's defences before Edward
and his army arrived. Edward besieged the city for five weeks,
but the defences held and there was no coronation. Edward
moved on to Paris, but retreated after a few skirmishes in the
suburbs. Next was the town of Chartres.
Disaster struck in a freak hailstorm on the encamped army,

causing over 1,000 English deaths – the so-called Black
Monday at Easter 1360. This devastated Edward's army and
forced him to negotiate when approached by the French. A
conference was held at Brétigny that resulted in the Treaty of
Brétigny (8 May 1360). The treaty was ratified at Calais in
October. In return for increased lands in Aquitaine, Edward
renounced Normandy, Touraine, Anjou and Maine and
50
consented to reduce King John's ransom by a million crowns.

Edward also abandoned his claim to the crown of France.
First peace: 1360–1369
The French king, John II, had been held captive in England.
The Treaty of Brétigny set his ransom at 3 million crowns and
allowed for hostages to be held in lieu of John. The hostages
included two of his sons, several princes and nobles, four
inhabitants of Paris, and two citizens from each of the nineteen
principal towns of France. While these hostages were held,
John returned to France to try and raise funds to pay the
ransom. In 1362 John's son Louis of Anjou, a hostage in
English-held Calais, escaped captivity. So, with his stand-in
hostage gone, John felt honour-bound to return to captivity in
England.
The French crown had been at odds with Navarre (near

southern Gascony) since 1354, and in 1363 the Navarrese used
the captivity of John II in London and the political weakness of
the Dauphin to try to seize power. Although there was no
formal treaty, Edward III supported the Navarrese moves,
particularly as there was a prospect that he might gain control
over the northern and western provinces as a consequence.
With this in mind, Edward deliberately slowed the peace
negotiations. In 1364, John II died in London, while still in
honourable captivity. Charles V succeeded him as king of
France. On 16 May, one month after the dauphin's accession
and three days before his coronation as Charles V, the
Navarrese suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Cocherel.
51
French ascendancy under Charles V:

1369–1389
Aquitaine and Castile
• In 1366 there was a civil war of succession in Castile

(part of modern Spain). The forces of the ruler Peter
of Castile were pitched against those of his half-
brother Henry of Trastámara. The English crown
supported Peter; the French supported Henry.
French forces were led by Bertrand du Guesclin, a
Breton, who rose from relatively humble beginnings
to prominence as one of France's war leaders.
Charles V provided a force of 12,000, with du
Guesclin at their head, to support Trastámara in his
invasion of Castile.
Peter appealed to England and Aquitaine's Black Prince for

help, but none was forthcoming, forcing Peter into exile in
Aquitaine. The Black Prince had previously agreed to support
Peter's claims but concerns over the terms of the treaty of
Brétigny led him to assist Peter as a representative of
Aquitaine, rather than England. He then led an Anglo-Gascon
army into Castile. Peter was restored to power after
Trastámara's army was defeated at the Battle of Nájera.
Although the Castilians had agreed to fund the Black Prince,

they failed to do so. The Prince was suffering from ill health
and returned with his army to Aquitaine. To pay off debts
incurred during the Castile campaign, the prince instituted a
hearth tax. Arnaud-Amanieu VIII, Lord of Albret had fought on
52
the Black Prince's side during the war. Albret, who already had
become discontented by the influx of English administrators
into the enlarged Aquitaine, refused to allow the tax to be
collected in his fief. He then joined a group of Gascon lords
who appealed to Charles V for support in their refusal to pay
the tax. Charles V summoned one Gascon lord and the Black
Prince to hear the case in his High Court in Paris. The Black
Prince answered that he would go to Paris with sixty thousand
men behind him. War broke out again and Edward III resumed
the title of King of France. Charles V declared that all the
English possessions in France were forfeited, and before the
end of 1369 all of Aquitaine was in full revolt.
With the Black Prince gone from Castile, Henry de Trastámara

led a second invasion that ended with Peter's death at the
Battle of Montiel in March 1369. The new Castilian regime
provided naval support to French campaigns against Aquitaine
and England. In 1372 the Castilian fleet defeated the English
fleet in the Battle of La Rochelle.
1373 campaign of John of Gaunt
In August 1373, John of Gaunt, accompanied by John de

Montfort, Duke of Brittany led a force of 9,000 men from Calais
on a chevauchée. While initially successful as French forces
were insufficiently concentrated to oppose them, the English
met more resistance as they moved south. French forces began
to concentrate around the English force but under orders from
Charles V, the French avoided a set battle. Instead, they fell on
forces detached from the main body to raid or forage. The
French shadowed the English and in October, the English
found themselves trapped against the River Allier by four
53
French forces. With some difficulty, the English crossed at the

bridge at Moulins but lost all their baggage and loot. The
English carried on south across the Limousin plateau but the
weather was turning severe. Men and horses died in great
numbers and many soldiers, forced to march on foot, discarded
their armour. At the beginning of December, the English army
entered friendly territory in Gascony. By the end of December
they were in Bordeaux, starving, ill-equipped and having lost
over half of the 30,000 horses with which they had left Calais.
Although the march across France had been a remarkable feat,
it was a military failure.
English turmoil
With his health deteriorating, the Black Prince returned to

England in January 1371, where his father Edward III was
elderly and also in poor health. The prince's illness was
debilitating, and he died on 8 June 1376. Edward III died the
following year on 21 June 1377 and was succeeded by the
Black Prince's second son Richard II who was still a child of 10
(Edward of Angoulême, the Black Prince's first son, had died
sometime earlier). The treaty of Brétigny had left Edward III
and England with enlarged holdings in France, but a small
professional French army under the leadership of du Guesclin
pushed the English back; by the time Charles V died in 1380,
the English held only Calais and a few other ports.
It was usual to appoint a regent in the case of a child monarch

but no regent was appointed for Richard II, who nominally
exercised the power of kingship from the date of his accession
in 1377. Between 1377 and 1380, actual power was in the
hands of a series of councils. The political community
54
preferred this to a regency led by the king's uncle, John of

Gaunt, although Gaunt remained highly influential. Richard
faced many challenges during his reign, including the
Peasants' Revolt led by Wat Tyler in 1381 and an Anglo-
Scottish war in 1384–1385. His attempts to raise taxes to pay
for his Scottish adventure and for the protection of Calais
against the French made him increasingly unpopular.
1380 campaign of the Earl of Buckingham
In July 1380, the Earl of Buckingham commanded an

expedition to France to aid England's ally, the Duke of
Brittany. The French refused battle before the walls of Troyes
on 25 August; Buckingham's forces continued their chevauchée
and in November laid siege to Nantes. The support expected
from the Duke of Brittany did not appear and in the face of
severe losses in men and horses, Buckingham was forced to
abandon the siege in January 1381. In February, reconciled to
the regime of the new French king Charles VI by the Treaty of
Guérande, Brittany paid 50,000 francs to Buckingham for him
to abandon the siege and the campaign.
French turmoil
After the deaths of Charles V and du Guesclin in 1380, France

lost its main leadership and overall momentum in the war.
Charles VI succeeded his father as king of France at the age of
11, and he was thus put under a regency led by his uncles,
who managed to maintain an effective grip on government
affairs until about 1388, well after Charles had achieved royal
majority.
55
With France facing widespread destruction, plague, and

economic recession, high taxation put a heavy burden on the
French peasantry and urban communities. The war effort
against England largely depended on royal taxation, but the
population was increasingly unwilling to pay for it, as would be
demonstrated at the Harelle and Maillotin revolts in 1382.
Charles V had abolished many of these taxes on his deathbed,
but subsequent attempts to reinstate them stirred up hostility
between the French government and populace.
Philip II of Burgundy, the uncle of the French king, brought

together a Burgundian-French army and a fleet of 1,200 ships
near the Zeeland town of Sluis in the summer and autumn of
1386 to attempt an invasion of England, but this venture
failed. However, Philip's brother John of Berry appeared
deliberately late, so that the autumn weather prevented the
fleet from leaving and the invading army then dispersed again.
Difficulties in raising taxes and revenue hampered the ability

of the French to fight the English. At this point, the war's pace
had largely slowed down, and both nations found themselves
fighting mainly through proxy wars, such as during the 1383–
1385 Portuguese interregnum. The independence party in the
Kingdom of Portugal, which was supported by the English, won
against the supporters of the King of Castile's claim to the
Portuguese throne, who in turn was backed by the French.
Second peace: 1389–1415
The war became increasingly unpopular with the English

public due to the high taxes needed for the war effort. These
taxes were seen as one of the reasons for the Peasants' Revolt.
56
Richard II's indifference to the war together with his

preferential treatment of a select few close friends and advisors
angered an alliance of lords that included one of his uncles.
This group, known as Lords Appellant, managed to press
charges of treason against five of Richard's advisors and
friends in the Merciless Parliament. The Lords Appellant were
able to gain control of the council in 1388 but failed to reignite
the war in France. Although the will was there, the funds to
pay the troops was lacking, so in the autumn of 1388 the
Council agreed to resume negotiations with the French crown,
beginning on 18 June 1389 with the signing of the three-year
Truce of Leulinghem.
In 1389, Richard's uncle and supporter, John of Gaunt,

returned from Spain and Richard was able to rebuild his power
gradually until 1397, when he reasserted his authority and
destroyed the principal three among the Lords Appellant. In
1399, after John of Gaunt died, Richard II disinherited Gaunt's
son, the exiled Henry of Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke returned to
England with his supporters, deposed Richard and had himself
crowned Henry IV. In Scotland, the problems brought in by the
English regime change prompted border raids that were
countered by an invasion in 1402 and the defeat of a Scottish
army at the Battle of Homildon Hill. A dispute over the spoils
between Henry and Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland,
resulted in a long and bloody struggle between the two for
control of northern England, resolved only with the almost
complete destruction of the House of Percy by 1408.
In Wales, Owain Glyndŵr was declared Prince of Wales on 16

September 1400. He was the leader of the most serious and
widespread rebellion against England authority in Wales since
57
the conquest of 1282–1283. In 1405, the French allied with

Glyndŵr and the Castilians in Spain; a Franco-Welsh army
advanced as far as Worcester, while the Spaniards used galleys
to raid and burn all the way from Cornwall to Southampton,
before taking refuge in Harfleur for the winter. The Glyndŵr
Rising was finally put down in 1415 and resulted in Welsh
semi-independence for a number of years.
In 1392, Charles VI suddenly descended into madness, forcing

France into a regency dominated by his uncles and his brother.
A conflict for control over the Regency began between his uncle
Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy and his brother, Louis of
Valois, Duke of Orléans. After Philip's death, his son and heir
John the Fearless continued the struggle against Louis but
with the disadvantage of having no close relation to the king.
Finding himself outmanoeuvred politically, John ordered the
assassination of Louis in retaliation. His involvement in the
murder was quickly revealed and the Armagnac family took
political power in opposition to John. By 1410, both sides were
bidding for the help of English forces in a civil war. In 1418
Paris was taken by the Burgundians, who were unable to stop
the massacre of Count of Armagnac and his followers by a
Parisian crowd, with an estimated death toll between 1,000
and 5,000.
Throughout this period, England confronted repeated raids by

pirates that damaged trade and the navy. There is some
evidence that Henry IV used state-legalised piracy as a form of
warfare in the English Channel. He used such privateering
campaigns to pressure enemies without risking open war. The
French responded in kind and French pirates, under Scottish
protection, raided many English coastal towns. The domestic
58
and dynastic difficulties faced by England and France in this

period quieted the war for a decade. Henry IV died in 1413 and
was replaced by his eldest son Henry V. The mental illness of
Charles VI of France allowed his power to be exercised by royal
princes whose rivalries caused deep divisions in France. In
1414 while Henry held court at Leicester, he received
ambassadors from Burgundy. Henry accredited envoys to the
French king to make clear his territorial claims in France; he
also demanded the hand of Charles VI's youngest daughter
Catherine of Valois. The French rejected his demands, leading
Henry to prepare for war.
Resumption of the war under Henry

V: 1415–1429
Burgundian alliance and the seizure of Paris
Battle of Agincourt (1415):
In August 1415, Henry V sailed from England with a force of

about 10,500 and laid siege to Harfleur. The city resisted for
longer than expected, but finally surrendered on 22 September.
Because of the unexpected delay, most of the campaign season
was gone. Rather than march on Paris directly, Henry elected
to make a raiding expedition across France toward English-
occupied Calais. In a campaign reminiscent of Crécy, he found
himself outmanoeuvred and low on supplies and had to fight a
much larger French army at the Battle of Agincourt, north of
the Somme. Despite the problems and having a smaller force,
his victory was near-total; the French defeat was catastrophic,
59
costing the lives of many of the Armagnac leaders. About 40%

of the French nobility was killed. Henry was apparently
concerned that the large number of prisoners taken were a
security risk (there were more French prisoners than there
were soldiers in the entire English army) and he ordered their
deaths.
Treaty of Troyes (1420)
Henry retook much of Normandy, including Caen in 1417, and

Rouen on 19 January 1419, turning Normandy English for the
first time in two centuries. A formal alliance was made with
Burgundy, which had taken Paris after the assassination of
Duke John the Fearless in 1419. In 1420, Henry met with King
Charles VI. They signed the Treaty of Troyes, by which Henry
finally married Charles' daughter Catherine of Valois and
Henry's heirs would inherit the throne of France. The Dauphin,
Charles VII, was declared illegitimate. Henry formally entered
Paris later that year and the agreement was ratified by the
Estates-General.
Death of the Duke of Clarence (1421)
On 22 March 1421 Henry V's progress in his French campaign

experienced an unexpected reversal. Henry had left his brother
and presumptive heir Thomas, Duke of Clarence in charge
while he returned to England. Clarence engaged a Franco-
Scottish force of 5000 men, led by Gilbert Motier de La Fayette
and John Stewart, Earl of Buchan at the Battle of Baugé.
Clarence, against the advice of his lieutenants, before his army
had been fully assembled, attacked with a force of no more
than 1500 men-at-arms. Then, during the course of the battle,
60
he led a charge of a few hundred men into the main body of the
Franco-Scottish army, who quickly enveloped the English. In
the ensuing melée, the Scot, John Carmichael of Douglasdale,
broke his lance unhorsing the Duke of Clarence. Once on the
ground, the duke was slain by Alexander Buchanan. The body
of the Duke of Clarence was recovered from the field by
Thomas Montacute, 4th Earl of Salisbury, who conducted the
English retreat.
English success
Henry V returned to France and went to Paris, then visiting

Chartres and Gâtinais before returning to Paris. From there, he
decided to attack the Dauphin-held town of Meaux. It turned
out to be more difficult to overcome than first thought. The
siege began about 6 October 1421, and the town held for seven
months before finally falling on 11 May 1422.
At the end of May, Henry was joined by his queen and together
with the French court, they went to rest at Senlis. While there,
it became apparent that he was ill (possibly dysentery), and
when he set out to the Upper Loire, he diverted to the royal
castle at Vincennes, near Paris, where he died on 31 August.
The elderly and insane Charles VI of France died two months
later on 21 October. Henry left an only child, his nine-month-
old son, Henry, later to become Henry VI.
On his deathbed, as Henry VI was only an infant, Henry V had

given the Duke of Bedford responsibility for English France.
The war in France continued under Bedford's generalship and
several battles were won. The English won an emphatic victory
at the Battle of Verneuil (17 August 1424). At the Battle of
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Baugé, the Duke of Clarence had rushed into battle without

the support of his archers. At Verneuil, the archers fought to
devastating effect against the Franco-Scottish army. The effect
of the battle was to virtually destroy the Dauphin's field army
and to eliminate the Scots as a significant military force for the
rest of the war.
French victory: 1429–1453
Joan of Arc and French revival
The appearance of Joan of Arc at the siege of Orléans sparked

a revival of French spirit, and the tide began to turn against
the English. The English laid siege to Orléans in 1428, but
their force was insufficient to fully invest the city. In 1429
Joan persuaded the Dauphin to send her to the siege, saying
she had received visions from God telling her to drive out the
English. She raised the morale of the troops, and they attacked
the English redoubts, forcing the English to lift the siege.
Inspired by Joan, the French took several English strongholds
on the Loire.
The English retreated from the Loire Valley, pursued by a

French army. Near the village of Patay, French cavalry broke
through a unit of English longbowmen that had been sent to
block the road, then swept through the retreating English
army. The English lost 2,200 men, and the commander, John
Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, was taken prisoner. This
victory opened the way for the Dauphin to march to Reims for
his coronation as Charles VII, on 16 July 1429.
62
After the coronation, Charles VII's army fared less well. An

attempted French siege of Paris was defeated on 8 September
1429, and Charles VII withdrew to the Loire Valley.
Henry's coronations and the desertion of Burgundy
Henry VI was crowned king of England at Westminster Abbey

on 5 November 1429 and king of France at Notre-Dame, in
Paris, on 16 December 1431.
Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians at the siege of

Compiègne on 23 May 1430. The Burgundians offered her for
ranson to the Dauphin who refused the offer. The Burgundians
then transferred her to the English, who organised a trial
headed by Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais and member of
the English Council at Rouen. Joan was convicted and burned
at the stake on 30 May 1431 (she was rehabilitated 25 years
later by Pope Callixtus III).
After the death of Joan of Arc, the fortunes of war turned

dramatically against the English. Most of Henry's royal
advisers were against making peace. Among the factions, the
Duke of Bedford wanted to defend Normandy, the Duke of
Gloucester was committed to just Calais, whereas Cardinal
Beaufort was inclined to peace. Negotiations stalled. It seems
that at the congress of Arras, in the summer of 1435, where
the duke of Beaufort was mediator, the English were
unrealistic in their demands. A few days after the congress
ended in September, Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy,
deserted to Charles VII, signing the Treaty of Arras that
returned Paris to the King of France. This was a major blow to
English sovereignty in France. The Duke of Bedford died on 14
63
September 1435 and was later replaced by Richard

Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York.
French resurgence
The allegiance of Burgundy remained fickle, but the English

focus on expanding their domains in the Low Countries left
them little energy to intervene in the rest of France. The long
truces that marked the war gave Charles time to centralise the
French state and reorganise his army and government,
replacing his feudal levies with a more modern professional
army that could put its superior numbers to good use. A castle
that once could only be captured after a prolonged siege would
now fall after a few days from cannon bombardment. The
French artillery developed a reputation as the best in the
world.
By 1449, the French had retaken Rouen. In 1450 the Count of

Clermont and Arthur de Richemont, Earl of Richmond, of the
Montfort family (the future Arthur III, Duke of Brittany),
caught an English army attempting to relieve Caen and
defeated it at the Battle of Formigny in 1450. Richemont's
force attacked the English army from the flank and rear just as
they were on the verge of beating Clermont's army.
French conquest of Gascony
After Charles VII's successful Normandy campaign in 1450, he

concentrated his efforts on Gascony, the last province held by
the English. Bordeaux, Gascony's capital, was besieged and
surrendered to the French on 30 June 1451. Largely due to the
English sympathies of the Gascon people, this was reversed
64
when John Talbot and his army retook the city on 23 October
1452. However, the English were decisively defeated at the
Battle of Castillon on 17 July 1453. Talbot had been persuaded
to engage the French army at Castillon near Bordeaux. During
the battle the French appeared to retreat towards their camp.
The French camp at Castillon had been laid out by Charles
VII's ordinance officer Jean Bureau and this was instrumental
in the French success as when the French cannon opened fire,
from their positions in the camp, the English took severe
casualties losing both Talbot and his son.
End of the war
Although the Battle of Castillon is considered the last battle of

the Hundred Years' War, England and France remained
formally at war for another 20 years, but the English were in
no position to carry on the war as they faced unrest at home.
Bordeaux fell to the French on 19 October and there were no
more hostilities afterwards. Following defeat in the Hundred
Years' War, English landowners complained vociferously about
the financial losses resulting from the loss of their continental
holdings; this is often considered a major cause of the Wars of
the Roses that started in 1455.
The Hundred Years' War almost resumed in 1474, when the

duke Charles of Burgundy, counting on English support, took
up arms against Louis XI. Louis managed to isolate the
Burgundians by buying Edward IV of England off with a large
cash sum and an annual pension, in the Treaty of Picquigny
(1475). The treaty formally ended the Hundred Years' War with
Edward renouncing his claim to the throne of France. However,
future Kings of England (and later of Great Britain) continued
65
to claim the title until 1803, when they were dropped in

deference to the exiled Count of Provence, titular King Louis
XVIII, who was living in England after the French Revolution.
Some historians use the term "The Second Hundred Years'

War" as a periodisation to describe the series of military
conflicts between Great Britain and France that occurred from
about 1689 (or some say 1714) to 1815. Likewise, some
historians refer to the Capetian–Plantagenet rivalry, series of
conflicts and disputes that covered a period of 100 years
(1159–1259) as "The First Hundred Years War".
Significance
Historical significance
The French victory marked the end of a long period of

instability that had was seeded with the Norman Conquest
(1066), when William the Conqueror added "King of England" to
his titles, becoming both the vassal to (as Duke of Normandy)
and the equal of (as king of England) the king of France.
When the war ended, England was bereft of its Continental

possessions, leaving it with only Calais on the continent. The
war destroyed the English dream of a joint monarchy and led
to the rejection in England of all things French, although the
French language in England, which had served as the language
of the ruling classes and commerce there from the time of the
Norman conquest, left many vestiges in English vocabulary.
English became the official language in 1362 and French was
no longer used for teaching from 1385.
66
National feeling that emerged from the war unified both France
and England further. Despite the devastation on its soil, the
Hundred Years' War accelerated the process of transforming
France from a feudal monarchy to a centralised state. In
England the political and financial troubles which emerged
from the defeat were a major cause of the War of the Roses
(1455–1487).
Lowe (1997) argued that opposition to the war helped to shape

England's early modern political culture. Although anti-war
and pro-peace spokesmen generally failed to influence
outcomes at the time, they had a long-term impact.
England showed decreasing enthusiasm for conflict deemed not

in the national interest, yielding only losses in return for high
economic burdens.
In comparing this English cost-benefit analysis with French

attitudes, given that both countries suffered from weak leaders
and undisciplined soldiers, Lowe noted that the French
understood that warfare was necessary to expel the foreigners
occupying their homeland. Furthermore, French kings found
alternative ways to finance the war – sales taxes, debasing the
coinage – and were less dependent than the English on tax
levies passed by national legislatures. English anti-war critics
thus had more to work with than the French.
Bubonic plague and warfare reduced population numbers

throughout Europe during this period. France lost half its
population during the Hundred Years' War, with Normandy
reduced by three-quarters and Paris by two-thirds. During the
same period, England's population fell by 20 to 33 percent.
67
Military significance
The first regular standing army in Western Europe since

Roman times was organised in France in 1445, partly as a
solution to marauding free companies. The mercenary
companies were given a choice of either joining the Royal army
as compagnies d'ordonnance on a permanent basis, or being
hunted down and destroyed if they refused. France gained a
total standing army of around 6,000 men, which was sent out
to gradually eliminate the remaining mercenaries who insisted
on operating on their own. The new standing army had a more
disciplined and professional approach to warfare than its
predecessors. The Hundred Years' War was a time of rapid
military evolution. Weapons, tactics, army structure and the
social meaning of war all changed, partly in response to the
war's costs, partly through advancement in technology and
partly through lessons that warfare taught. The feudal system
slowly disintegrated as well as the concept of chivalry.
By the war's end, although the heavy cavalry was still

considered the most powerful unit in an army, the heavily
armoured horse had to deal with several tactics developed to
deny or mitigate its effective use on a battlefield. The English
began using lightly armoured mounted troops, known as
hobelars. Hobelars' tactics had been developed against the
Scots, in the Anglo-Scottish wars of the 14th century. Hobelars
rode smaller unarmoured horses, enabling them to move
through difficult or boggy terrain where heavier cavalry would
struggle. Rather than fight while seated on the horse, they
would dismount to engage the enemy.
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Chapter 4
Ottoman Turks
The Ottoman Turks (or Osmanlı Turks, Turkish: Osmanlı

Türkleri) were the Turkish-speaking people of the Ottoman
Empire (c. 1299–1922/1923). Reliable information about the
early history of Ottoman Turks remains scarce, but they take
their Turkish name, Osmanlı ("Osman" became altered in some
European languages as "Ottoman"), from the house of Osman I
(reigned c. 1299–1326), the founder of the House of Osman,
the ruling dynasty of the Ottoman Empire for its entire 624
years. Expanding from its base in Bithynia, the Ottoman
principality began incorporating other Turkish-speaking
Muslims and non-Turkish Christians. Crossing into Europe
from the 1350s, coming to dominate the Mediterranean and, in
1453, capturing Constantinople (the capital city of the
Byzantine Empire), the Ottoman Turks blocked all major land
routes between Asia and Europe. Western Europeans had to
find other ways to trade with the East.
Brief history
The "Ottomans" first became known to the West in the 13th

century when they migrated from their homeland in Central
Asia westward to the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum in Anatolia. The
Ottoman Turks established a beylik in Western Anatolia under
Ertugrul, the capital of which was Söğüt in western Anatolia.
Ertugrul, leader of the nomadic Kayı tribe, first established a
principality as part of the decaying Seljuk empire. His son
Osman expanded the principality; the polity and the people
were named "Ottomans" by Europeans after him ("Ottoman"

being a corruption of "Osman"). Osman's son Orhan expanded
the growing realm into an empire, taking Nicaea (present-day
İznik) and crossed the Dardanelles in 1362. All coins
unearthed in Söğüt during the two centuries before Orhan bear
the names of Illkhanate rulers. The Seljuks were under the
suzerainty of the Illkhanates and later the Mongolian Timur
lane. The Ottoman Empire came into its own when Mehmed II
captured the reduced Byzantine Empire's well-defended
capital, Constantinople in 1453.
The Ottoman Empire came to rule much of the Balkans, the

Caucasus, the Middle East (excluding Iran), and North Africa
over the course of several centuries, with an advanced army
and navy.
The Empire lasted until the end of the First World War, when it
was defeated by the Allies and partitioned. Following the
successful Turkish War of Independence that ended with the
Turkish national movement retaking most of the land lost to
the Allies, the movement abolished the Ottoman sultanate on
November 1, 1922 and proclaimed the Republic of Turkey on
October 29, 1923. The movement nullified the Treaty of Sèvres
and negotiated the significantly more favorable Treaty of
Lausanne (1923), assuring recognition of modern Turkish
national borders, termed Misak-ı Milli (National Pact).
Not all Ottomans were Muslims and not all Ottoman Muslims
were Turks, but by 1923, the majority of people living within
the borders of the new Turkish republic were identified as
Turks. Notable exceptions were the Kurds and the few
remaining Armenians, Georgians and Greeks.
70
Culture and arts
The conquest of Constantinople began to make the Ottomans

the rulers of one of the most profitable empires, connected to
the flourishing Islamic cultures of the time, and at the
crossroads of trade into Europe. The Ottomans made major
developments in calligraphy, writing, law, architecture, and
military science, and became the standard of opulence.
Calligraphy
Because Islam is a monotheistic religion that focuses heavily

on learning the central text of the Quran and Islamic culture
has historically tended towards discouraging or prohibiting
figurative art, calligraphy became one of the foremost of the
arts.
The early Yâkût period was supplanted in the late 15th century
by a new style pioneered by Şeyh Hamdullah (1429–1520),
which became the basis for Ottoman calligraphy, focusing on
the Nesih version of the script, which became the standard for
copying the Quran (see Islamic calligraphy).
The next great change in Ottoman calligraphy came from the

style of Hâfiz Osman (1642–1698), whose rigorous and
simplified style found favour with an empire at its peak of
territorial extent and governmental burdens.
The late calligraphic style of the Ottomans was created by

Mustafa Râkim (1757–1826) as an extension and reform of
Osman's style, placing greater emphasis on technical
71
perfection, which broadened the calligraphic art to encompass

the sülüs script as well as the Nesih script.
Poetry
Ottoman poetry included epic-length verse but is better known

for shorter forms such as the gazel. For example, the epic poet
Ahmedi (-1412) is remembered for his Alexander the Great. His
contemporary Sheykhi wrote verses on love and romance.
Yaziji-Oglu produced a religious epic on Mohammed's life,
drawing from the stylistic advances of the previous generation
and Ahmedi's epic forms.
Painting
By the 14th century, the Ottoman Empire's prosperity made

manuscript works available to merchants and craftsmen, and
produced a flowering of miniatures that depicted pageantry,
daily life, commerce, cities and stories, and chronicled events.
By the late 18th century, European influences in painting were

clear, with the introduction of oils, perspective, figurative
paintings, use of anatomy and composition.
72
Chapter 5
Fall of Constantinople
• The fall of Constantinople was the capture of the

Byzantine Empire's capital by the Ottoman Empire.
The city fell on 29 May 1453, the culmination of a
53-day siege which had begun on 6 April 1453.
The attacking Ottoman Army, which significantly outnumbered

Constantinople's defenders, was commanded by the 21-year-
old Sultan Mehmed II (later called "Mehmed the Conqueror"),
while the Byzantine army was led by Emperor Constantine XI
Palaiologos. After conquering the city, Mehmed II made
Constantinople the new Ottoman capital, replacing Adrianople.
The fall of Constantinople marked the end of the Byzantine

Empire, and effectively the end of the Roman Empire, a state
which dated back to 27 BC and lasted nearly 1,500 years. The
capture of Constantinople, a city which marked the divide
between Europe and Asia Minor, also allowed the Ottomans to
more effectively invade mainland Europe, eventually leading to
Ottoman control of much of the Balkan peninsula.
The conquest of Constantinople and the fall of the Byzantine

Empire was a key event of the Late Middle Ages and is
considered the end of the Medieval period. The city's fall also
stood as a turning point in military history. Since ancient
times, cities and castles had depended upon ramparts and
walls to repel invaders. Constantinople's defenses in
particular, especially the Theodosian Walls, were some of the
most advanced defensive systems in Europe and the world.
However, these substantial fortifications were overcome with

the use of gunpowder, specifically in the form of large cannons
and bombards, heralding a coming change in siege warfare.
State of the Byzantine Empire
Constantinople had been an imperial capital since its

consecration in 330 under Roman emperor Constantine the
Great. In the following eleven centuries, the city had been
besieged many times but was captured only once before: the
Sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204.
The crusaders established an unstable Latin state in and
around Constantinople while the remainder of the Byzantine
Empire splintered into a number of successor states, notably
Nicaea, Epirus and Trebizond. They fought as allies against the
Latin establishments, but also fought among themselves for
the Byzantine throne.
The Nicaeans eventually reconquered Constantinople from the

Latins in 1261, reestablishing the Byzantine Empire under the
Palaiologos dynasty. Thereafter, there was little peace for the
much-weakened empire as it fended off successive attacks by
the Latins, Serbs, Bulgarians and Ottoman Turks. Between
1346 and 1349 the Black Death killed almost half of the
inhabitants of Constantinople. The city was further
depopulated by the general economic and territorial decline of
the empire, and by 1453, it consisted of a series of walled
villages separated by vast fields encircled by the fifth-century
Theodosian Walls.
By 1450, the empire was exhausted and had shrunk to a few

square kilometers outside the city of Constantinople itself, the
74
Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmara and the Peloponnese

with its cultural center at Mystras. The Empire of Trebizond,
an independent successor state that formed in the aftermath of
the Fourth Crusade, was also present at the time on the coast
of the Black Sea.
Preparations
When Mehmed II succeeded his father in 1451, he was just

nineteen years old. Many European courts assumed that the
young Ottoman ruler would not seriously challenge Christian
hegemony in the Balkans and the Aegean. In fact, Europe
celebrated Mehmed coming to the throne and hoped his
inexperience would lead the Ottomans astray. This calculation
was boosted by Mehmed's friendly overtures to the European
envoys at his new court. But Mehmed's mild words were not
matched by his actions. By early 1452, work began on the
construction of a second fortress (Rumeli hisarı) on the
European side of the Bosphorus, several miles north of
Constantinople. The new fortress sat directly across the strait
from the Anadolu Hisarı fortress, built by Mehmed's great-
grandfather Bayezid I. This pair of fortresses ensured complete
control of sea traffic on the Bosphorus and defended against
attack by the Genoese colonies on the Black Sea coast to the
north. In fact, the new fortress was called Boğazkesen, which
means "strait-blocker" or "throat-cutter". The wordplay
emphasizes its strategic position: in Turkish boğaz means both
"strait" and "throat". In October 1452, Mehmed ordered
Turakhan Beg to station a large garrison force in the
Peloponnese to block Thomas and Demetrios (despotes in
Southern Greece) from providing aid to their brother
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Constantine XI Palaiologos during the impending siege of

Constantinople. Karaca Pasha, the beylerbeyi of Rumelia, sent
men to prepare the roads from Adrianople to Constantinople so
that bridges could cope with massive cannon. Fifty carpenters
and 200 artisans also strengthened the roads where necessary.
The Greek historian Michael Critobulus quotes Mehmed II's
speech to his soldiers before the siege:
My friends and men of my empire! You all know very well that
our forefathers secured this kingdom that we now hold at the
cost of many struggles and very great dangers and that, having
passed it along in succession from their fathers, from father to
son, they handed it down to me. For some of the oldest of you
were sharers in many of the exploits carried through by them—
those at least of you who are of maturer years—and the
younger of you have heard of these deeds from your fathers.
They are not such very ancient events nor of such a sort as to
be forgotten through the lapse of time. Still, the eyewitness of
those who have seen testifies better than does the hearing of
deeds that happened but yesterday or the day before.
European support
Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI swiftly understood

Mehmed's true intentions and turned to Western Europe for
help; but now the price of centuries of war and enmity between
the eastern and western churches had to be paid. Since the
mutual excommunications of 1054, the Pope in Rome was
committed to establishing authority over the eastern church.
The union was agreed by the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII
Palaiologos in 1274, at the Second Council of Lyon, and
indeed, some Palaiologoi emperors had since been received into
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the Latin Church. Emperor John VIII Palaiologos had also

recently negotiated union with Pope Eugene IV, with the
Council of Florence of 1439 proclaiming a Bull of Union. The
imperial efforts to impose union were met with strong
resistance in Constantinople. A propaganda initiative was
stimulated by anti-unionist Orthodox partisans in
Constantinople; the population, as well as the laity and
leadership of the Byzantine Church, became bitterly divided.
Latent ethnic hatred between Greeks and Italians, stemming
from the events of the Massacre of the Latins in 1182 by the
Greeks and the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 by the Latins,
played a significant role. Ultimately, the attempted union
between east and west failed, greatly annoying Pope Nicholas V
and the hierarchy of the Roman church.
In the summer of 1452, when Rumelı Hisari was completed and

the threat of the Ottomans had become imminent, Constantine
wrote to the Pope, promising to implement the union, which
was declared valid by a half-hearted imperial court on 12
December 1452. Although he was eager for an advantage, Pope
Nicholas V did not have the influence the Byzantines thought
he had over the Western kings and princes, some of whom were
wary of increasing papal control. Furthermore, these Western
rulers did not have the wherewithal to contribute to the effort,
especially in light of the weakened state of France and England
from the Hundred Years' War, Spain's involvement in the
Reconquista, the internecine fighting in the Holy Roman
Empire, and Hungary and Poland's defeat at the Battle of
Varna of 1444. Although some troops did arrive from the
mercantile city-states in northern Italy, the Western
contribution was not adequate to counterbalance Ottoman
strength. Some Western individuals, however, came to help
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defend the city on their own account. Cardinal Isidore, funded

by the Pope, arrived in 1452 with 200 archers. An
accomplished soldier from Genoa, Giovanni Giustiniani, arrived
in January 1453 with 400 men from Genoa and 300 men from
Genoese Chios. As a specialist in defending walled cities,
Giustiniani was immediately given the overall command of the
defence of the land walls by the Emperor. The Byzantines knew
him by the Latin spelling of his name, "John Justinian", named
after the famous 6th century Byzantine emperor Justinian the
Great. Around the same time, the captains of the Venetian
ships that happened to be present in the Golden Horn offered
their services to the Emperor, barring contrary orders from
Venice, and Pope Nicholas undertook to send three ships laden
with provisions, which set sail near the end of March.
Meanwhile, in Venice, deliberations were taking place

concerning the kind of assistance the Republic would lend to
Constantinople. The Senate decided upon sending a fleet in
February 1453, but the fleet's departure was delayed until
April, when it was already too late for ships to assist in battle.
Further undermining Byzantine morale, seven Italian ships
with around 700 men, despite having sworn to defend
Constantinople, slipped out of the capital the moment
Giustiniani arrived. At the same time, Constantine's attempts
to appease the Sultan with gifts ended with the execution of
the Emperor's ambassadors.
Fearing a possible naval attack along the shores of the Golden

Horn, Emperor Constantine XI ordered that a defensive chain
be placed at the mouth of the harbour. This chain, which
floated on logs, was strong enough to prevent any Turkish ship
from entering the harbour. This device was one of two that
78
gave the Byzantines some hope of extending the siege until the
possible arrival of foreign help. This strategy was enforced
because in 1204, the armies of the Fourth Crusade
successfully circumvented Constantinople's land defences by
breaching the Golden Horn Wall. Another strategy employed by
the Byzantines was the repair and fortification of the Land
Wall (Theodosian Walls). Emperor Constantine deemed it
necessary to ensure that the Blachernae district's wall was the
most fortified because that section of the wall protruded
northwards. The land fortifications consisted of a 60 ft (18 m)
wide moat fronting inner and outer crenellated walls studded
with towers every 45–55 metres.
Strength
The army defending Constantinople was relatively small,

totalling about 7,000 men, 2,000 of whom were foreigners. At
the onset of the siege, probably fewer than 50,000 people were
living within the walls, including the refugees from the
surrounding area. Turkish commander Dorgano, who was in
Constantinople working for the Emperor, was also guarding
one of the quarters of the city on the seaward side with the
Turks in his pay.
These Turks kept loyal to the Emperor and perished in the

ensuing battle. The defending army's Genoese corps were well
trained and equipped, while the rest of the army consisted of
small numbers of well-trained soldiers, armed civilians, sailors
and volunteer forces from foreign communities, and finally
monks. The garrison used a few small-calibre artillery pieces,
which in the end proved ineffective. The rest of the citizens
repaired walls, stood guard on observation posts, collected and
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distributed food provisions, and collected gold and silver

objects from churches to melt down into coins to pay the
foreign soldiers.
The Ottomans had a much larger force. Recent studies and

Ottoman archival data state that there were some 50,000–
80,000 Ottoman soldiers, including between 5,000 and 10,000
Janissaries, 70 cannons, and an elite infantry corps, and
thousands of Christian troops, notably 1,500 Serbian cavalry
that Đurađ Branković was forced to supply as part of his
obligation to the Ottoman sultan —just a few months before,
Branković had supplied the money for the reconstruction of the
walls of Constantinople. Contemporaneous Western witnesses
of the siege, who tend to exaggerate the military power of the
Sultan, provide disparate and higher numbers ranging from
160,000 to 300,000 (Niccolò Barbaro: 160,000; the Florentine
merchant Jacopo Tedaldi and the Great Logothete George
Sphrantzes: 200,000; the Cardinal Isidore of Kiev and the
Archbishop of Mytilene Leonardo di Chio: 300,000).
Ottoman dispositions and strategies
Mehmed built a fleet (partially manned by Spanish sailors from

Gallipoli) to besiege the city from the sea. Contemporary
estimates of the strength of the Ottoman fleet span from 110
ships to 430 (Tedaldi: 110; Barbaro: 145; Ubertino Pusculo:
160, Isidore of Kiev and Leonardo di Chio: 200–250;
(Sphrantzes): 430). A more realistic modern estimate predicts a
fleet strength of 110 ships comprising 70 large galleys, 5
ordinary galleys, 10 smaller galleys, 25 large rowing boats, and
75 horse-transports.
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Before the siege of Constantinople, it was known that the

Ottomans had the ability to cast medium-sized cannons, but
the range of some pieces they were able to field far surpassed
the defenders' expectations. The Ottomans deployed a number
of cannons, anywhere from 50 cannons to 200. They were built
at foundries that employed Turkish cannon founders and
technicians, most notably Saruca, in addition to at least one
foreign cannon founder, Orban (also called Urban). Most of the
cannons at the siege were built by Turkish engineers,
including a large bombard by Saruca, while one cannon was
built by Orban, who also contributed a large bombard.
Orban, a Hungarian (though some suggest he was German),

was a somewhat mysterious figure. His 27 feet (8.2 m) long
cannon was named "Basilica" and was able to hurl a 600 lb
(270 kg) stone ball over a mile (1.6 km). Orban initially tried to
sell his services to the Byzantines, but they were unable to
secure the funds needed to hire him.
Orban then left Constantinople and approached Mehmed II,

claiming that his weapon could blast "the walls of Babylon
itself". Given abundant funds and materials, the Hungarian
engineer built the gun within three months at Edirne. However,
this was the only cannon that Orban built for the Ottoman
forces at Constantinople, and it had several drawbacks: it took
three hours to reload; cannonballs were in very short supply;
and the cannon is said to have collapsed under its own recoil
after six weeks. The account of the cannon's collapse is
disputed, given that it was only reported in the letter of
Archbishop Leonardo di Chio and in the later, and often
unreliable, Russian chronicle of Nestor Iskander.
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Having previously established a large foundry about 150 miles

(240 km) away, Mehmed now had to undertake the painstaking
process of transporting his massive artillery pieces. In
preparation for the final assault, Mehmed had an artillery train
of 70 large pieces dragged from his headquarters at Edirne, in
addition to the bombards cast on the spot. This train included
Orban's enormous cannon, which was said to have been
dragged from Edirne by a crew of 60 oxen and over 400 men.
There was another large bombard, independently built by
Turkish engineer Saruca, that was also used in the battle.
Mehmed planned to attack the Theodosian Walls, the intricate

series of walls and ditches protecting Constantinople from an
attack from the West and the only part of the city not
surrounded by water. His army encamped outside the city on 2
April 1453, the Monday after Easter.
The bulk of the Ottoman army was encamped south of the

Golden Horn. The regular European troops, stretched out along
the entire length of the walls, were commanded by Karadja
Pasha. The regular troops from Anatolia under Ishak Pasha
were stationed south of the Lycus down to the Sea of Marmara.
Mehmed himself erected his red-and-gold tent near the
Mesoteichion, where the guns and the elite Janissary regiments
were positioned. The Bashi-bazouks were spread out behind
the front lines. Other troops under Zagan Pasha were employed
north of the Golden Horn. Communication was maintained by a
road that had been destroyed over the marshy head of the
Horn. The Ottomans were experts in laying siege to cities. They
knew that in order to prevent diseases they had to burn
corpses, sanitarily dispose of excrement, and pay close
attention to their sources of water.
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Byzantine dispositions and strategies
The city had about 20 km of walls (land walls: 5.5 km; sea
walls along the Golden Horn: 7 km; sea walls along the Sea of
Marmara: 7.5 km), one of the strongest sets of fortified walls in
existence. The walls had recently been repaired (under John
VIII) and were in fairly good shape, giving the defenders
sufficient reason to believe that they could hold out until help
from the West arrived. In addition, the defenders were
relatively well-equipped with a fleet of 26 ships: 5 from Genoa,
5 from Venice, 3 from Venetian Crete, 1 from Ancona, 1 from
Aragon, 1 from France, and about 10 from the empire itself.
On 5 April, the Sultan himself arrived with his last troops, and
the defenders took up their positions. As Byzantine numbers
were insufficient to occupy the walls in their entirety, it had
been decided that only the outer walls would be manned.
Constantine and his Greek troops guarded the Mesoteichion,
the middle section of the land walls, where they were crossed
by the river Lycus. This section was considered the weakest
spot in the walls and an attack was feared here most.
Giustiniani was stationed to the north of the emperor, at the
Charisian Gate (Myriandrion); later during the siege, he was
shifted to the Mesoteichion to join Constantine, leaving the
Myriandrion to the charge of the Bocchiardi brothers. Minotto
and his Venetians were stationed in the Blachernae Palace,
together with Teodoro Caristo, the Langasco brothers, and
Archbishop Leonardo of Chios.
To the left of the emperor, further south, were the commanders

Cataneo, who led Genoese troops, and Theophilus Palaeologus,
who guarded the Pegae Gate with Greek soldiers. The section of
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the land walls from the Pegae Gate to the Golden Gate (itself
guarded by a Genoese called Manuel) was defended by the
Venetian Filippo Contarini, while Demetrius Cantacuzenus had
taken position on the southernmost part of the Theodosian
wall. The sea walls were manned more sparsely, with Jacobo
Contarini at Stoudion, a makeshift defence force of Greek
monks to his left hand, and Prince Orhan at the Harbour of
Eleutherios. Pere Julià was stationed at the Great Palace with
Genoese and Catalan troops; Cardinal Isidore of Kiev guarded
the tip of the peninsula near the boom. Finally, the sea walls
at the southern shore of the Golden Horn were defended by
Venetian and Genoese sailors under Gabriele Trevisano. Two
tactical reserves were kept behind in the city: one in the Petra
district just behind the land walls and one near the Church of
the Holy Apostles, under the command of Loukas Notaras and
Nicephorus Palaeologus, respectively. The Venetian Alviso
Diedo commanded the ships in the harbour. Although the
Byzantines also had cannons, the weapons were much smaller
than those of the Ottomans, and the recoil tended to damage
their own walls.
According to David Nicolle, despite many odds, the idea that

Constantinople was inevitably doomed is incorrect, and the
overall situation was not as one-sided as a simple glance at a
map might suggest. It has also been claimed that
Constantinople was "the best-defended city in Europe" at that
time.
Siege
At the beginning of the siege, Mehmed sent out some of his

best troops to reduce the remaining Byzantine strongholds
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outside the city of Constantinople. The fortress of Therapia on

the Bosphorus and a smaller castle at the village of Studius
near the Sea of Marmara were taken within a few days. The
Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmara were taken by Admiral
Baltoghlu's fleet. Mehmed's massive cannons fired on the walls
for weeks, but due to the cannons' imprecision and extremely
slow rate of reloading, the Byzantines were able to repair most
of the damage after each shot, mitigating the cannons' effect.
Meanwhile, despite some probing attacks, the Ottoman fleet

under Baltoghlu could not enter the Golden Horn due to the
chain the Byzantines had previously stretched across the
entrance. Although one of the fleet's main tasks was to prevent
any foreign ships from entering the Golden Horn, on 20 April, a
small flotilla of four Christian ships managed to slip in after
some heavy fighting, an event which strengthened the morale
of the defenders and caused embarrassment to the Sultan.
Baltoghlu's life was spared after his subordinates testified to
his bravery during the conflict. He was most likely injured in
the eye during the skirmish. Mehmed stripped Baltoghlu of his
wealth and property and gave it to the janissaries and ordered
he be whipped 100 times
Mehmed ordered the construction of a road of greased logs

across Galata on the north side of the Golden Horn, and
dragged his ships over the hill, directly into the Golden Horn
on 22 April, bypassing the chain barrier. This action seriously
threatened the flow of supplies from Genoese ships from the
nominally neutral colony of Pera, and it demoralized the
Byzantine defenders. On the night of 28 April, an attempt was
made to destroy the Ottoman ships already in the Golden Horn
using fire ships, but the Ottomans forced the Christians to
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retreat with heavy losses. 40 Italians escaped their sinking

ships and swam to the northern shore. On orders of Mehmed,
they were impaled on stakes, in sight of the city's defenders on
the sea walls across the Golden Horn. In retaliation, the
defenders brought their Ottoman prisoners, 260 in all, to the
walls, where they were executed, one by one, before the eyes of
the Ottomans. With the failure of their attack on the Ottoman
vessels, the defenders were forced to disperse part of their
forces to defend the sea walls along the Golden Horn.
The Ottoman army had made several frontal assaults on the

land wall of Constantinople, but they were always repelled with
heavy losses. Venetian surgeon Niccolò Barbaro, describing in
his diary one such land attack by the Janissaries, wrote:
They found the Turks coming right up under the walls and
seeking battle, particularly the Janissaries ... and when one or
two of them were killed, at once more Turks came and took
away the dead ones ... without caring how near they came to
the city walls. Our men shot at them with guns and crossbows,
aiming at the Turk who was carrying away his dead
countryman, and both of them would fall to the ground dead,
and then there came other Turks and took them away, none
fearing death, but being willing to let ten of themselves be
killed rather than suffer the shame of leaving a single Turkish
corpse by the walls.
After these inconclusive frontal offensives, the Ottomans

sought to break through the walls by constructing tunnels in
an effort to mine them from mid-May to 25 May. Many of the
sappers were miners of Serbian origin sent from Novo Brdo and
were under the command of Zagan Pasha. However, an
86
engineer named Johannes Grant, a German who came with the

Genoese contingent, had counter-mines dug, allowing
Byzantine troops to enter the mines and kill the workers. The
Byzantines intercepted the first tunnel on the night of 16 May.
Subsequent tunnels were interrupted on 21, 23, and 25 May,
and destroyed with Greek fire and vigorous combat. On 23
May, the Byzantines captured and tortured two Turkish
officers, who revealed the location of all the Turkish tunnels,
which were subsequently destroyed.
On 21 May, Mehmed sent an ambassador to Constantinople

and offered to lift the siege if they gave him the city. He
promised he would allow the Emperor and any other
inhabitants to leave with their possessions. Moreover, he would
recognize the Emperor as governor of the Peloponnese. Lastly,
he guaranteed the safety of the population that might choose
to remain in the city. Constantine XI only agreed to pay higher
tributes to the sultan and recognized the status of all the
conquered castles and lands in the hands of the Turks as
Ottoman possession. However, the Emperor was not willing to
leave the city without a fight:
As to surrendering the city to you, it is not for me to decide or

for anyone else of its citizens; for all of us have reached the
mutual decision to die of our own free will, without any regard
for our lives.
Around this time, Mehmed had a final council with his senior
officers. Here he encountered some resistance; one of his
Viziers, the veteran Halil Pasha, who had always disapproved
of Mehmed's plans to conquer the city, now admonished him to
abandon the siege in the face of recent adversity. Zagan Pasha
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argued against Halil Pasha and insisted on an immediate

attack. Believing that the beleaguered Byzantine defence was
already weakened sufficiently, Mehmed planned to overpower
the walls by sheer force and started preparations for a final
all-out offensive.
Final assault
Preparations for the final assault began in the evening of 26

May and continued to the next day. For 36 hours after the war
council decided to attack, the Ottomans extensively mobilized
their manpower in order to prepare for the general offensive.
Prayer and resting was then granted to the soldiers on the 28th
before the final assault would be launched. On the Byzantine
side, a small Venetian fleet of 12 ships, after having searched
the Aegean, reached the Capital on 27 May and reported to the
Emperor that no large Venetian relief fleet was on its way. On
Saturday 28 May, as the Ottoman army prepared for the final
assault, large-scale religious processions were held in the city.
In the evening, a solemn last ceremony of Vespers before
Pentecost was held in the Hagia Sophia, in which the Emperor
with representatives and nobility of both the Latin and Greek
churches partook. Up until this point, the Ottomans had fired
5,000 shots from their cannons using 55,000 pounds of
gunpowder.
Shortly after midnight on 29 May, on the Greek Orthodox feast

of Pentecost, the all-out offensive began. The Christian troops
of the Ottoman Empire attacked first, followed by successive
waves of the irregular azaps, who were poorly trained and
equipped, and Anatolian Turkmen beylik forces who focused on
a section of the damaged Blachernae walls in the north-west
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part of the city. This section of the walls had been built earlier,
in the 11th century, and was much weaker. The Turkmen
mercenaries managed to breach this section of walls and
entered the city, but they were just as quickly pushed back by
the defenders. Finally, the last wave consisting of elite
Janissaries, attacked the city walls. The Genoese general in
charge of the defenders on land, Giovanni Giustiniani, was
grievously wounded during the attack, and his evacuation from
the ramparts caused a panic in the ranks of the defenders.
With Giustiniani's Genoese troops retreating into the city and

towards the harbour, Constantine and his men, now left to
their own devices, continued to hold their ground against the
Janissaries. However, Constantine's men eventually could not
prevent the Ottomans from entering the city, and the defenders
were overwhelmed at several points along the wall. When
Turkish flags were seen flying above the Kerkoporta, a small
postern gate that was left open, panic ensued, and the defence
collapsed. Meanwhile, Janissary soldiers, led by Ulubatlı
Hasan, pressed forward. Many Greek soldiers ran back home to
protect their families, the Venetians retreated to their ships,
and a few of the Genoese escaped to Galata. The rest
surrendered or committed suicide by jumping off the city walls.
The Greek houses nearest to the walls were the first to suffer
from the Ottomans. It is said that Constantine, throwing aside
his purple imperial regalia, led the final charge against the
incoming Ottomans, perishing in the ensuing battle in the
streets alongside his soldiers. On the other hand, the Venetian
Nicolò Barbaro claimed in his diary that Constantine hanged
himself at the moment when the Turks broke in at the San
Romano gate. Ultimately, his fate remains unknown.
89
After the initial assault, the Ottoman army fanned out along
the main thoroughfare of the city, the Mese, past the great
forums and the Church of the Holy Apostles, which Mehmed II
wanted to provide a seat for his newly appointed patriarch to
better control his Christian subjects. Mehmed II had sent an
advance guard to protect these key buildings.
A few lucky civilians managed to escape. When the Venetians

retreated over to their ships, the Ottomans had already taken
the walls of the Golden Horn. Luckily for the occupants of the
city, the Ottomans were not interested in killing potentially
valuable slaves, but rather in the loot they could get from
raiding the city's houses, so they decided to attack the city
instead.
The Venetian captain ordered his men to break open the gate of
the Golden Horn. Having done so, the Venetians left in ships
filled with soldiers and refugees. Shortly after the Venetians
left, a few Genoese ships and even the Emperor's ships
followed them out of the Golden Horn. This fleet narrowly
escaped prior to the Ottoman navy assuming control over the
Golden Horn, which was accomplished by midday. The army
converged upon the Augusteum, the vast square that fronted
the great church of Hagia Sophia whose bronze gates were
barred by a huge throng of civilians inside the building, hoping
for divine protection. After the doors were breached, the troops
separated the congregation according to what price they might
bring in the slave markets.
Ottoman casualties are unknown but they are believed by most

historians to be very heavy due to several unsuccessful
Ottoman attacks made during the siege and final assault. The
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Venetian Barbaro observed that blood flowed in the city "like

rainwater in the gutters after a sudden storm" and that bodies
of Turks and Christians floated in the sea "like melons along a
canal".
Plundering phase
Leonard of Chios witnessed the horrible atrocities that followed

the fall of Constantinople. The Ottoman invaders pillaged the
city, enslaved tens of thousands of people, and raped women
and children. Even nuns were subjected to sexual assault by
the Ottomans:
All the valuables and other booty were taken to their camp,
and as many as sixty thousand Christians who had been
captured. The crosses which had been placed on the roofs or
the walls of churches were torn down and trampled. Women
were raped, virgins deflowered and youths forced to take part
in shameful obscenities. The nuns left behind, even those who
were obviously such, were disgraced with foul debaucheries.
During three days of pillaging, the Ottoman invaders captured

children and took them away to their tents, and became rich
by plundering the imperial palace and the houses of
Constantinople. The Ottoman official Tursun Beg wrote:
After having completely overcome the enemy, the soldiers

began to plunder the city. They enslaved boys and girls and
took silver and gold vessels, precious stones and all sorts of
valuable goods and fabrics from the imperial palace and the
houses of the rich... Every tent was filled with handsome boys
and beautiful girls.
91
If any citizens of Constantinople tried to resist, they were

slaughtered. According to Niccolò Barbaro, "all through the day
the Turks made a great slaughter of Christians through the
city". According to Makarios Melissenos:
As soon as the Turks were inside the City, they began to seize
and enslave every person who came their way; all those who
tried to offer resistance were put to the sword. In many places
the ground could not be seen, as it was covered by heaps of
corpses.
The women of Constantinople suffered from rape at the hands

of Ottoman forces. According to historian Philip Mansel,
widespread persecution of the city's civilian inhabitants took
place, resulting in thousands of murders and rapes, and
30,000 civilians being enslaved or forcibly deported. The vast
majority of the citizens of Constantinople were forced to
become slaves.
Many women and girls would have been sold as sex slaves, and
slavery would continue to be allowed until the early 20th
century. According to Nicolas de Nicolay, slaves were displayed
naked at the city's slave market, and young girls could be
purchased. George Sphrantzes says that people of both genders
were raped inside Hagia Sophia. According to Steven Runciman
most of the elderly and the infirm/wounded and sick who were
refugees inside the churches were killed, and the remainder
were chained up and sold into slavery.
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Mehmed II "permitted

an initial period of looting that saw the destruction of many
Orthodox churches", but tried to prevent a complete sack of
the city. The looting was extremely thorough in certain parts of
92
the city. On 2 June, the Sultan found the city largely deserted
and half in ruins; churches had been desecrated and stripped,
houses were no longer habitable, and stores and shops were
emptied. He is famously reported to have been moved to tears
by this, saying, "What a city we have given over to plunder and
destruction."
Looting was carried out on a massive scale by sailors and

marines who entered the city via other walls before they had
been suppressed by regular troops, who were beyond the main
gate. According to David Nicolle, the ordinary people were
treated better by their Ottoman conquerors than their
ancestors had been by Crusaders back in 1204, stating only
about 4,000 Greeks died in the siege. Many of the riches of the
city were already looted in 1204, leaving only limited loot to
the Ottomans.
Aftermath
Mehmed II granted his soldiers three days to plunder the city,

as he had promised them and in accordance with the custom of
the time. Soldiers fought over the possession of some of the
spoils of war. On the third day of the conquest, Mehmed II
ordered all looting to stop and issued a proclamation that all
Christians who had avoided capture or who had been ransomed
could return to their homes without further molestation,
although many had no homes to return to, and many more had
been taken captive and not ransomed. Byzantine historian
George Sphrantzes, an eyewitness to the fall of Constantinople,
described the Sultan's actions:
93
On the third day after the fall of our city, the Sultan celebrated
his victory with a great, joyful triumph. He issued a
proclamation: the citizens of all ages who had managed to
escape detection were to leave their hiding places throughout
the city and come out into the open, as they were to remain
free and no question would be asked. He further declared the
restoration of houses and property to those who had
abandoned our city before the siege. If they returned home,
they would be treated according to their rank and religion, as
if nothing had changed.
• — George Sphrantzes
The Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque, but the Greek
Orthodox Church was allowed to remain intact and Gennadius
Scholarius was appointed Patriarch of Constantinople. This
was once thought to be the origin of the Ottoman millet system;
however, it is now considered a myth and no such system
existed in the fifteenth century.
The fall of Constantinople shocked many Europeans, who

viewed it as a catastrophic event for their civilization. Many
feared other European Christian kingdoms would suffer the
same fate as Constantinople. Two possible responses emerged
amongst the humanists and churchmen of that era: Crusade or
dialogue. Pope Pius II strongly advocated for another Crusade,
while the German Nicholas of Cusa supported engaging in a
dialogue with the Ottomans.
The Morean (Peloponnesian) fortress of Mystras, where

Constantine's brothers Thomas and Demetrius ruled,
constantly in conflict with each other and knowing that
Mehmed would eventually invade them as well, held out until
94
1460. Long before the fall of Constantinople, Demetrius had

fought for the throne with Thomas, Constantine, and their
other brothers John and Theodore. Thomas escaped to Rome
when the Ottomans invaded Morea while Demetrius expected to
rule a puppet state, but instead was imprisoned and remained
there for the rest of his life. In Rome, Thomas and his family
received some monetary support from the Pope and other
Western rulers as Byzantine emperor in exile, until 1503. In
1461 the independent Byzantine state in Trebizond fell to
Mehmed.
Constantine XI had died without producing an heir, and had

Constantinople not fallen he likely would have been succeeded
by the sons of his deceased elder brother, who were taken into
the palace service of Mehmed after the fall of Constantinople.
The oldest boy, renamed Murad, became a personal favourite of
Mehmed and served as Beylerbey (Governor-General) of Rumeli
(the Balkans). The younger son, renamed Mesih Pasha, became
Admiral of the Ottoman fleet and Sancak Beg (Governor) of the
Province of Gallipoli. He eventually served twice as Grand
Vizier under Mehmed's son, Bayezid II.
With the capture of Constantinople, Mehmed II had acquired

the future capital of his kingdom, albeit one in decline due to
years of war. The loss of the city was a crippling blow to
Christendom, and it exposed the Christian West to a vigorous
and aggressive foe in the East. The Christian reconquest of
Constantinople remained a goal in Western Europe for many
years after its fall to the Ottoman Empire. Rumours of
Constantine XI's survival and subsequent rescue by an angel
led many to hope that the city would one day return to
Christian hands. Pope Nicholas V called for an immediate
95
counter-attack in the form of a crusade, however no European

powers wished to participate, and the Pope resorted to sending
a small fleet of 10 ships to defend the city. The short lived
Crusade immediately came to an end and as Western Europe
entered the 16th century, the age of Crusading began to come
to an end.
For some time Greek scholars had gone to Italian city-states, a

cultural exchange begun in 1396 by Coluccio Salutati,
chancellor of Florence, who had invited Manuel Chrysoloras, a
Byzantine scholar to lecture at the University of Florence. After
the conquest many Greeks, such as John Argyropoulos and
Constantine Lascaris, fled the city and found refuge in the
Latin West, bringing with them knowledge and documents from
the Greco-Roman tradition to Italy and other regions that
further propelled the Renaissance. Those Greeks who stayed
behind in Constantinople mostly lived in the Phanar and
Galata districts of the city. The Phanariotes, as they were
called, provided many capable advisers to the Ottoman rulers.
Third Rome
Byzantium is a term used by modern historians to refer to the

later Roman Empire. In its own time, the Empire ruled from
Constantinople (or "New Rome" as some people call it, although
this was a laudatory expression that was never an official title)
was considered simply as "the Roman Empire." The fall of
Constantinople led competing factions to lay claim to being the
inheritors of the Imperial mantle. Russian claims to Byzantine
heritage clashed with those of the Ottoman Empire's own
claim. In Mehmed's view, he was the successor to the Roman
Emperor, declaring himself Kayser-i Rum, literally "Caesar of
96
Rome", that is, of the Roman Empire, though he was

remembered as "the Conqueror". He founded a political system
that survived until 1922 with the establishment of the
Republic of Turkey.
Stefan Dušan, Tsar of Serbia, and Ivan Alexander, Tsar of

Bulgaria, both made similar claims, regarding themselves as
legitimate heirs to the Roman Empire. Other potential
claimants, such as the Republic of Venice and the Holy Roman
Empire have disintegrated into history.
Impact on the Churches
Pope Pius II believed that the Ottomans would persecute Greek

Orthodox Christians and advocated for another crusade at the
Council of Mantua in 1459. However, Vlad the Impaler was the
only Christian ruler who showed enthusiasm for this
suggestion.
In 17th-century Russia, the fall of Constantinople had a role in

the fierce theological and political controversy between
adherents and opponents of the reforms in the Russian
Orthodox Church carried out by Patriarch Nikon, which he
intended to bring the Russian Church closer to the norms and
practices of other Orthodox churches. Avvakum and other "Old
Believers" saw these reforms as a corruption of the Russian
Church, which they considered to be the "true" Church of God.
As the other Churches were more closely related to
Constantinople in their liturgies, Avvakum argued that
Constantinople fell to the Turks because of these heretical
beliefs and practices.
97
The fall of Constantinople has a profound impact on the

ancient Pentarchy of the Orthodox Church. Today, the four
ancient sees of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and
Constantinople have relatively few followers and believers
locally, because of Islamization and the Dhimma system to
which Christians have been subjected since the earliest days of
Islam, although migration has created a body of followers in
Western Europe and the United States,. As a result of this
process, the centre of influence in the Orthodox Church
changed and migrated to Eastern Europe (e.g., Russia) rather
than remaining in the former Byzantine Near East.
Legacy
Legends
There are many legends in Greece surrounding the Fall of

Constantinople. It was said that the partial lunar eclipse that
occurred on 22 May 1453 represented a fulfilment of a
prophecy of the city's demise. Four days later, the whole city
was blotted out by a thick fog, a condition unknown in that
part of the world in May. When the fog lifted that evening, a
strange light was seen playing about the dome of the Hagia
Sophia, which some interpreted as the Holy Spirit departing
from the city. "This evidently indicated the departure of the
Divine Presence, and its leaving the City in total abandonment
and desertion, for the Divinity conceals itself in cloud and
appears and again disappears." For others, there was still a
distant hope that the lights were the campfires of the troops of
John Hunyadi who had come to relieve the city. It is possible
that all these phenomena were local effects of the cataclysmic
98
Kuwae volcanic eruption in the Pacific Ocean which occurred

around the time of the siege. The "fire" seen may have been an
optical illusion due to the reflection of intensely red twilight
glow by clouds of volcanic ash high in the atmosphere.
Another legend holds that two priests saying divine liturgy over
the crowd disappeared into the cathedral's walls as the first
Turkish soldiers entered.
According to the legend, the priests will appear again on the

day that Constantinople returns to Christian hands. Another
legend refers to the Marble Emperor (Constantine XI), holding
that an angel rescued the emperor when the Ottomans entered
the city, turning him into marble and placing him in a cave
under the earth near the Golden Gate, where he waits to be
brought to life again (a variant of the sleeping hero legend).
However many of the myths surrounding the disappearance of

Constantine were developed later and little evidence can be
found to support them even in friendly primary accounts of the
siege.
Cultural impact
Guillaume Dufay composed several songs lamenting the fall of

the Eastern church, and the duke of Burgundy, Philip the
Good, avowed to take up arms against the Turks. However, as
the growing Ottoman power from this date on coincided with
the Protestant Reformation and subsequent Counter-
Reformation, the recapture of Constantinople became an ever-
distant dream. Even France, once a fervent participant in the
Crusades, became an ally of the Ottomans.
99
Nonetheless, depictions of Christian coalitions taking the city

and of the late Emperor's resurrection by Leo the Wise
persisted.
29 May 1453, the day of the fall of Constantinople, fell on a

Tuesday, and since then Tuesday has been considered an
unlucky day by Greeks generally.
Impact on the Renaissance
The migration waves of Byzantine scholars and émigrés in the

period following the sacking of Constantinople and the fall of
Constantinople in 1453 is considered by many scholars key to
the revival of Greek and Roman studies that led to the
development of the Renaissance humanism and science. These
émigrés were grammarians, humanists, poets, writers,
printers, lecturers, musicians, astronomers, architects,
academics, artists, scribes, philosophers, scientists, politicians
and theologians. They brought to Western Europe the far
greater preserved and accumulated knowledge of Byzantine
civilization. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica: "Many
modern scholars also agree that the exodus of Greeks to Italy
as a result of this event marked the end of the Middle Ages and
the beginning of the Renaissance".
Renaming of the city
Ottomans used the Arabic transliteration of the city's name

"Qosṭanṭīniyye" ( ‫ )ا‬or "Kostantiniyye", as can be
seen in numerous Ottoman documents. Islambol ( ‫ل‬ ‫ اﺱ‬, Full of
Islam) or Islambul (find Islam) or Islam(b)ol (old Turkic: be
Islam), both in Turkish, were folk-etymological adaptations of
100
Istanbul created after the Ottoman conquest of 1453 to express

the city's new role as the capital of the Islamic Ottoman
Empire. It is first attested shortly after the conquest, and its
invention was ascribed by some contemporary writers to
Mehmed II himself.
The name of Istanbul is thought to be derived from the Greek

phrase īs tīmbolī(n) (Greek: εṭςτṭνπόλιν, translit. eis tēn pólin,
"to the City"), and it is claimed that it had already spread
among the Turkish populace of the Ottoman Empire before the
conquest. However, Istanbul only became the official name of
the city in 1930 by the revised Turkish Postal Law as part of
Atatürk's reforms.
In historical fiction
• Lew Wallace, The Prince of India; or, Why

Constantinople Fell. New York: Harper & Brothers
Publishers, 1893. 2 volumes
• Mika Waltari, The Dark Angel (Original title Johannes
Angelos) 1952. Translated from the Finnish by Naomi
Walford and pub. in English edition, New York:
Putnam, 1953
• Peter Sandham, Porphyry and Ash. Hong Kong:
Johnston Fleming, 2019
• Muharem Bazdulj, The Bridge on Landz from The
Second Book, 2000. Translated from Bosnian by Oleg
Andric and Andrew Wachtel and pub. in English
edition, Evanston: Northwestern University Press,
2005
• Andrew Novo, Queen of Cities, Seattle: Coffeetown
Press, 2009
101
• Jack Hight, Siege. London: John Murray Publisher

Ltd, 2010
• James Shipman, Constantinopolis, Amazon Digital
Services, 2013
• C.C. Humphreys, A Place called Armageddon.
London: Orion, 2011
• Emanuele Rizzardi, L'ultimo Paleologo. PubMe
Editore, 2018
• John Bellairs, The Trolley to Yesterday Dial, 1989
• Kiersten White, "The Conqueror's Saga", 2016
• Stefan Zweig, "Die Eroberung von Byzanz (Conquest
of Byzantium)" in "Sternstunden der Menschheit
(Decisive Moments in History)", 1927
Primary sources
For the fall of Constantinople, Marios Philippides and Walter

Hanak list 15 eyewitness accounts (13 Christian and 2
Turkish) and 20 contemporary non-eyewitness accounts (13
Italian).
Eyewitness accounts
• Mehmed Şems el-Mille ve'd Din, Sufi holy man who

gives an account in a letter
• Tursun Beg, wrote a history entitled Tarih-i Abu'l
Fath
• George Sphrantzes, the only Greek eyewitness who
wrote about it, but his laconic account is almost
entirely lacking in narrative
• Leonard of Chios, wrote a report to Pope Nicholas V
102
• Nicolò Barbaro, physician on a Venetian galley who

kept a journal
• Angelino Giovanni Lomellini, Venetian podestà of
Pera who wrote a report dated 24 June 1453
• Jacopo Tetaldi, Florentine merchant
• Isidore of Kiev, Orthodox churchman who wrote eight
letters to Italy
• Benvenuto, Anconitan consul in Constantinople
• Ubertino Puscolo, Italian poet learning Greek in the
city, wrote an epic poem
• Eparkhos and Diplovatatzes, two refugees whose
accounts has become garbled through multiple
translations
• Nestor Iskander, youthful eyewitness who wrote a
Slavonic account
• Samile the Vladik, bishop who, like Eparkhos and
Diplovatatzes, fled as a refugee to Wallachia
• Konstantin Mihailović, Serbian who fought on the
Ottoman side
• a report by some Franciscan prisoners of war who
later came to Bologna
Non-eyewitness accounts
• Doukas, a Byzantine Greek historian, one of the

most important sources for the last decades and
eventual fall of the Byzantine Empire to the
Ottomans
• Laonikos Chalkokondyles, a Byzantine Greek
historian
• Michael Kritoboulos, a Byzantine Greek historian
103
• Makarios Melissourgos, 16th-century historian who

augmented the account of Sphrantzes, not very
reliably
• Paolo Dotti, Venetian official on Crete whose account
is based on oral reports
• Fra Girolamo's letter from Crete to Domenico
Capranica
• Lauro Quirini, wrote a report to Pope Nicholas V
from Crete based on oral reports
• Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II), wrote an
account based on written sources
• Henry of Soemmern, wrote a letter dated 11
September 1453 in which he cites his sources of
information
• Niccola della Tuccia, whose Cronaca di Viterbo
written in the autumn of 1453 contains unique
information
• Niccolò Tignosi da Foligno, Expugnatio
Constantinopolitana, part of a letter to a friend
• Filippo da Rimini, Excidium Constantinopolitanae
urbis quae quondam Bizantium ferebatur
• Antonio Ivani da Sarzana, Expugnatio
Constantinopolitana, part of a letter to the duke of
Urbino
• Nikolaos Sekoundinos, read a report before the
Venetian Senate, the Pope and the Neapolitan court
• Giacomo Languschi, whose account is embedded in
the Venetian chronicle of Zorzi Dolfin, had access to
eyewitnesses
• John Moskhos, wrote a poem in honour of Loukas
Notaras
104
• Adamo di Montaldo, De Constantinopolitano excidio

ad nobilissimum iuvenem Melladucam Cicadam,
which contains unique information
• Ashikpashazade, included a chapter on the conquest
in his Tarih-i al-i Osman
• Neshri, included a chapter on the conquest in his
universal history
• Evliya Çelebi, 17th-century traveller who collected
local traditions of the conquest
105
Chapter 6
Middle Class
The middle class is a class of people in the middle of a social

hierarchy. Its usage has often been vague whether defined in
terms of occupation, income, education or social status. The
definition by any author is often chosen for political
connotations. Modern social theorists—and especially
economists—have defined and re-defined the term "middle
class" in order to serve their particular social or political ends.
Within capitalism, middle-class initially referred to the

bourgeoisie; as distinct from the nobility, then with the further
differentiation of classes as capitalist societies developed to
the degree where the 'capitalist' became the new ruling class,
the term came instead to be synonymous with petite
bourgeoisie.
The common measures of what constitutes middle class vary

significantly among cultures. On the one hand, the term can be
viewed primarily in terms of socioeconomic status. One of the
narrowest definitions limits it to those in the middle fifth of
the nation's income ladder. A wider characterization includes
everyone but the poorest 20% and the wealthiest 20%. Some
theories like "Paradox of Interest", use decile groups and
wealth distribution data to determine the size and wealth share
of the middle class.
In modern American vernacular, the term middle class is most

often used as a self-description by those persons whom
academics and Marxists would otherwise identify as the
working class, which are below both the upper class and the
true middle class, but above those in poverty. This leads to
considerable ambiguity over the meaning of the term middle
class in American usage. Sociologists such as Dennis Gilbert
and Joseph Kahl see this American self-described middle class
(working class) as the most populous class in the United
States.
In 1977 Barbara Ehrenreich and her then husband John

defined a new class in the United States as "salaried mental
workers who do not own the means of production and whose
major function in the social division of labor ... [is] ... the
reproduction of capitalist culture and capitalist class
relations;" the Ehrenreichs named this group the "professional-
managerial class".
There has been significant global middle-class growth over

time. In February 2009, The Economist asserted that over half
of the world's population belonged to the middle class, as a
result of rapid growth in emerging countries. It characterized
the middle class as having a reasonable amount of
discretionary income, so that they do not live from hand-to-
mouth as the poor do, and defined it as beginning at the point
where people have roughly a third of their income left for
discretionary spending after paying for basic food and shelter.
History and evolution of the term
The term "middle class" is first attested in James Bradshaw's

1745 pamphlet Scheme to prevent running Irish Wools to
France. Another phrase used in early modern Europe was "the
middling sort".
107
The term "middle class" has had several, sometimes

contradictory, meanings. Friedrich Engels saw the category as
an intermediate social class between the nobility and the
peasantry in late-feudalist society. While the nobility owned
much of the countryside, and the peasantry worked it, a new
bourgeoisie (literally "town-dwellers") arose around mercantile
functions in the city. In France, the middle classes helped
drive the French Revolution. This "middle class" eventually
overthrew the ruling monarchists of feudal society, thus
becoming the new ruling class or bourgeoisie in the new
capitalist-dominated societies.
The modern usage of the term "middle-class", however, dates to

the 1913 UK Registrar-General's report, in which the
statistician T.H.C. Stevenson identified the middle class as
those falling between the upper-class and the working-class.
The middle class includes: professionals, managers, and senior
civil servants. The chief defining characteristic of membership
in the middle-class is control of significant human capital
while still being under the dominion of the elite upper class,
who control much of the financial and legal capital in the
world.
Within capitalism, "middle-class" initially referred to the

bourgeoisie; later, with the further differentiation of classes as
capitalist societies developed, the term came to be synonymous
with the term petite bourgeoisie. The boom-and-bust cycles of
capitalist economies result in the periodic (and more or less
temporary) impoverisation and proletarianisation of much of
the petite bourgeois world, resulting in their moving back and
forth between working-class and petite-bourgeois status. The
typical modern definitions of "middle class" tend to ignore the
108
fact that the classical petite-bourgeoisie is and has always

been the owner of a small-to medium-sized business whose
income is derived almost exclusively from the employment of
workers; "middle class" came to refer to the combination of the
labour aristocracy, professionals, and salaried, white-collar
workers.
The size of the middle class depends on how it is defined,

whether by education, wealth, environment of upbringing,
social network, manners or values, etc. These are all related,
but are far from deterministically dependent. The following
factors are often ascribed in the literature on this topic to a
"middle class:"
• Achievement of tertiary education.

• Holding professional qualifications, including
academics, lawyers, chartered engineers, politicians,
and doctors, regardless of leisure or wealth.
• Belief in bourgeois values, such as high rates of
house ownership, delayed gratification, and jobs that
are perceived to be secure.
• Lifestyle. In Great Britain, social status has
historically been linked less directly to wealth than
in the United States, and has also been judged by
such characteristics as accent (Received
Pronunciation and U and non-U English), manners,
type of school attended (state or private school),
occupation, and the class of a person's family, circle
of friends and acquaintances.
In the United States, by the end of the twentieth century, more

people identified themselves as middle-class than as lower or
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"working" class (with insignificant numbers identifying

themselves as upper-class). The Labour Party in the UK, which
grew out of the organised labour movement and originally drew
almost all of its support from the working-class, reinvented
itself under Tony Blair in the 1990s as "New Labour", a party
competing with the Conservative Party for the votes of the
middle-class as well as those of the Labour Party's traditional
group of voters – the working-class. Around 40% of British
people consider themselves to be middle class, and this
number has remained relatively stable over the last few
decades.
Marxism
Marxism defines social classes according to their relationship

with the means of production. The "middle class" is said to be
the class below the ruling class and above the proletariat in
the Marxist social schema and is synonymous with the term
"petite-" or "petty-bourgeoisie". Marxist writers have used the
term in two distinct but related ways. In the first sense, it is
used for the bourgeoisie (the urban merchant and professional
class) that arose between the aristocracy and the proletariat in
the waning years of feudalism in the Marxist model. V. I. Lenin
stated that the "peasantry ... in Russia constitute eight- or
nine-tenths of the petty bourgeoisie". However, in modern
developed countries, Marxist writers define the petite
bourgeoisie as primarily comprising (as the name implies)
owners of small to medium-sized businesses, who derive their
income from the exploitation of wage-laborers (and who are in
turn exploited by the "big" bourgeoisie i.e. bankers, owners of
large corporate trusts, etc.) as well as the highly educated
110
professional class of doctors, engineers, architects, lawyers,

university professors, salaried middle-management of capitalist
enterprises of all sizes, etc. – as the "middle class" which
stands between the ruling capitalist "owners of the means of
production" and the working class (whose income is derived
solely from hourly wages).
Pioneer 20th century American Marxist theoretician Louis C.

Fraina (Lewis Corey) defined the middle class as "the class of
independent small enterprisers, owners of productive property
from which a livelihood is derived". From Fraina's perspective,
this social category included "propertied farmers" but not
propertyless tenant farmers.
Middle class also included salaried managerial and supervisory

employees but not "the masses of propertyless, dependent
salaried employees. Fraina speculated that the entire category
of salaried employees might be adequately described as a "new
middle class" in economic terms, although this remained a
social grouping in which "most of whose members are a new
proletariat."
Professional-managerial class
In 1977 Barbara Ehrenreich and her then husband John

defined a new class in the United States as "salaried mental
workers who do not own the means of production and whose
major function in the social division of labor ... [is] ... the
reproduction of capitalist culture and capitalist class
relations;" the Ehrenreichs named this group the "professional-
managerial class". This group of middle-class professionals is
distinguished from other social classes by their training and
111
education (typically business qualifications and university

degrees), with example occupations including academics and
teachers, social workers, engineers, managers, nurses, and
middle-level administrators. The Ehrenreichs developed their
definition from studies by André Gorz, Serge Mallet, and
others, of a "new working class," which, despite education and
a perception of themselves as middle class, were part of the
working class because they did not own the means of
production, and were wage earners paid to produce a piece of
capital.
The professional-managerial class seeks higher rank status

and salary and tend to have incomes above the average for
their country.
Recent global growth
It is important to understand that modern definitions of the

term "middle class" are often politically motivated and vary
according to the exigencies of political purpose which they
were conceived to serve in the first place as well as due to the
multiplicity of more- or less-scientific methods used to
measure and compare "wealth" between modern advanced
industrial states (where poverty is relatively low and the
distribution of wealth more egalitarian in a relative sense) and
in developing countries (where poverty and a profoundly
unequal distribution of wealth crush the vast majority of the
population). Many of these methods of comparison have been
harshly criticised; for example, economist Thomas Piketty, in
his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, describes one of
the most commonly used comparative measures of wealth
across the globe – the Gini coefficient – as being an example of
112
"synthetic indices ... which mix very different things, such as

inequality with respect to labor and capital, so that it is
impossible to distinguish clearly among the multiple
dimensions of inequality and the various mechanisms at work."
In February 2009, The Economist asserted that over half the

world's population now belongs to the middle class, as a result
of rapid growth in emerging countries. It characterized the
middle class as having a reasonable amount of discretionary
income, so that they do not live from hand-to-mouth as the
poor do, and defined it as beginning at the point where people
have roughly a third of their income left for discretionary
spending after paying for basic food and shelter. This allows
people to buy consumer goods, improve their health care, and
provide for their children's education. Most of the emerging
middle class consists of people who are middle class by the
standards of the developing world but not the developed one,
since their money incomes do not match developed country
levels, but the percentage of it which is discretionary does. By
this definition, the number of middle-class people in Asia
exceeded that in the West sometime around 2007 or 2008.
The Economist's article pointed out that in many emerging

countries, the middle class has not grown incrementally but
explosively. The point at which the poor start entering the
middle class by the millions is alleged to be the time when poor
countries get the maximum benefit from cheap labour through
international trade, before they price themselves out of world
markets for cheap goods. It is also a period of rapid
urbanization, when subsistence farmers abandon marginal
farms to work in factories, resulting in a several-fold increase
in their economic productivity before their wages catch up to
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international levels. That stage was reached in China some

time between 1990 and 2005, when the Chinese "middle class"
grew from 15% to 62% of the population and is just being
reached in India now.
The Economist predicted that surge across the poverty line

should continue for a couple of decades and the global middle
class will grow exponentially between now and 2030. Based on
the rapid growth, scholars expect the global middle class to be
the driving force for sustainable development. This
assumption, however, is contested (see below).
As the American middle class is estimated by some researchers

to comprise approximately 45% of the population, The
Economist's article would put the size of the American middle
class below the world average. This difference is due to the
extreme difference in definitions between The Economist's and
many other models.
In 2010, a working paper by the OECD asserted that 1.8 billion

people were now members of the global "middle class". Credit
Suisse's Global Wealth Report 2014, released in October 2014,
estimated that one billion adults belonged to the "middle
class," with wealth anywhere between the range of $10,000–
$100,000.
According to a study carried out by the Pew Research Center, a

combined 16% of the world's population in 2011 were "upper-
middle income" and "upper income".
An April 2019 OECD report said that the millennial generation

is being pushed out of the middle class throughout the
Western world.
114
Russia
In 2012, the "middle class" in Russia was estimated as 15% of

the whole population. Due to sustainable growth, the pre-crisis
level was exceeded. In 2015, research from the Russian
Academy of Sciences estimated that around 15% of the Russian
population are "firmly middle class", while around another 25%
are "on the periphery".
China
Since the beginning of the 21st century, China's middle class

has grown by significant margins. According to the Center for
Strategic and International Studies, by 2013, some 420 million
people, or 31%, of the Chinese population qualified as middle
class. Based on the World Bank definition of middle class as
those having with daily spending between $10 to $50 per day,
nearly 40% of the Chinese population were considered middle
class as of 2017.
India
Estimates vary widely on the number of middle-class people in

India. According to The Economist, 78 million of India's
population are considered middle class as of 2017, if defined
using the cutoff of those making more than $10 per day, a
standard used by the India's National Council of Applied
Economic Research. If including those with incomes $2 – $10
per day, the number increases to 604 million. This was termed
by researchers as the "new middle class". Measures considered
include geography, lifestyle, income, and education. The World
Inequality Report in 2018 further concluded that elites (i.e. the
115
top 10%) are accumulating wealth at a greater rate than the

middle class, that rather than growing, India's middle class
may be shrinking in size.
Africa
According to a 2014 study by Standard Bank economist Simon

Freemantle, a total of 15.3 million households in 11 surveyed
African nations are middle-class. These include Angola,
Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Sudan,
Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. In South Africa, a
report conducted by the Institute for Race Relations in 2015
estimated that between 10%–20% of South Africans are middle
class, based on various criteria. An earlier study estimated
that in 2008 21.3% of South Africans were members of the
middle class. A study by EIU Canback indicates 90% of
Africans fall below an income of $10 a day. The proportion of
Africans in the $10–$20 middle class (excluding South Africa),
rose from 4.4% to only 6.2% between 2004 and 2014. Over the
same period, the proportion of "upper middle" income ($20–$50
a day) went from 1.4% to 2.3%. According to a 2014 study by
the German Development Institute, the middle class of Sub-
Saharan Africa rose from 14 million to 31 million people
between 1990 and 2010.
Latin America
According to a study by the World Bank, the number of Latin

Americans who are middle class rose from 103m to 152m
between 2003 and 2009.
116
Chapter 7
Black Death
The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great

Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic
occurring in Afro-Eurasia from 1346 to 1353. It is the most
fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing the death
of 75–200 million people in Eurasia and North Africa, peaking
in Europe from 1347 to 1351. Bubonic plague is caused by the
bacterium Yersinia pestis, but it may also cause septicaemic or
pneumonic plagues.
The Black Death was the beginning of the second plague

pandemic. The plague created religious, social and economic
upheavals, with profound effects on the course of European
history.
The origin of the Black Death is disputed. The pandemic

originated either in Central Asia or East Asia but its first
definitive appearance was in Crimea in 1347. From Crimea, it
was most likely carried by fleas living on the black rats that
travelled on Genoese slave ships, spreading through the
Mediterranean Basin and reaching Africa, Western Asia and
the rest of Europe via Constantinople, Sicily and the Italian
Peninsula. There is evidence that once it came ashore, the
Black Death was in large part spread by fleas – which cause
pneumonic plague – and the person-to-person contact via
aerosols which pneumonic plague enables, thus explaining the
very fast inland spread of the epidemic, which was faster than
would be expected if the primary vector was rat fleas causing
bubonic plague.
The Black Death was the second great natural disaster to

strike Europe during the Late Middle Ages (the first one being
the Great Famine of 1315–1317) and is estimated to have killed
30 percent to 60 percent of the European population. The
plague might have reduced the world population from c. 475
million to 350–375 million in the 14th century. There were
further outbreaks throughout the Late Middle Ages and, with
other contributing factors (the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages),
the European population did not regain its level in 1300 until
1500. Outbreaks of the plague recurred around the world until
the early 19th century.
Names
European writers contemporary with the plague described the

disease in Latin as pestis or pestilentia, 'pestilence'; epidemia,
'epidemic'; mortalitas, 'mortality'. In English prior to the 18th
century, the event was called the "pestilence" or "great
pestilence", "the plague" or the "great death". Subsequent to
the pandemic "the furste moreyn" (first murrain) or "first
pestilence" was applied, to distinguish the mid-14th century
phenomenon from other infectious diseases and epidemics of
plague. The 1347 pandemic plague was not referred to
specifically as "black" in the 14th or 15th centuries in any
European language, though the expression "black death" had
occasionally been applied to fatal disease beforehand.
"Black death" was not used to describe the plague pandemic in

English until the 1750s; the term is first attested in 1755,
where it translated Danish: den sorte død, l it . 'the black
death'. This expression as a proper name for the pandemic had
been popularized by Swedish and Danish chroniclers in the
118
15th and early 16th centuries, and in the 16th and 17th
centuries was transferred to other languages as a calque:
Icelandic: svarti dauði, German: der schwarze Tod, and French:
la mort noire. Previously, most European languages had named
the pandemic a variant or calque of the Latin: magna
mortalitas, l it . 'Great Death'. The phrase 'black death' –
describing Death as black – is very old. Homer used it in the
Odyssey to describe the monstrous Scylla, with her mouths
"full of black Death" (Ancient Greek: πλεṭοιμέλανοςΘανάτοιο,
r o ma niz e d: pleîoi mélanos Thanátoio). Seneca the Younger may
have been the first to describe an epidemic as 'black death',
(Latin: mors atra) but only in reference to the acute lethality
and dark prognosis of disease. The 12th–13th century French
physician Gilles de Corbeil had already used atra mors to refer
to a "pestilential fever" (febris pestilentialis) in his work On the
Signs and Symptoms of Diseases (De signis et symptomatibus
aegritudium). The phrase mors nigra, 'black death', was used in
1350 by Simon de Covino (or Couvin), a Belgian astronomer, in
his poem "On the Judgement of the Sun at a Feast of Saturn"
(De judicio Solis in convivio Saturni), which attributes the
plague to an astrological conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn.
His use of the phrase is not connected unambiguously with the
plague pandemic of 1347 and appears to refer to the fatal
outcome of disease.
The historian Cardinal Francis Aidan Gasquet wrote about the

Great Pestilence in 1893 and suggested that it had been "some
form of the ordinary Eastern or bubonic plague". In 1908,
Gasquet claimed that use of the name atra mors for the 14th-
century epidemic first appeared in a 1631 book on Danish
history by J. I. Pontanus: "Commonly and from its effects, they
119
called it the black death" (Vulgo & ab effectu atram mortem

vocitabant).
Previous plague epidemics
Recent research has suggested plague first infected humans in

Europe and Asia in the Late Neolithic-Early Bronze Age.
Research in 2018 found evidence of Yersinia pestis in an
ancient Swedish tomb, which may have been associated with
the "Neolithic decline" around 3000 BCE, in which European
populations fell significantly. This Y. pestis may have been
different from more modern types, with bubonic plague
transmissible by fleas first known from Bronze Age remains
near Samara. The symptoms of bubonic plague are first
attested in a fragment of Rufus of Ephesus preserved by
Oribasius; these ancient medical authorities suggest bubonic
plague had appeared in the Roman Empire before the reign of
Trajan, six centuries before arriving at Pelusium in the reign of
Justinian I. In 2013, researchers confirmed earlier speculation
that the cause of the Plague of Justinian (541–542 CE, with
recurrences until 750) was Y. pestis. This is known as the First
plague pandemic.
14th-century plague
Causes
Early theory:
The most authoritative contemporary account is found in a

report from the medical faculty in Paris to Philip VI of France.
120
It blamed the heavens, in the form of a conjunction of three

planets in 1345 that caused a "great pestilence in the air"
(miasma theory). Muslim religious scholars taught that the
pandemic was a “martyrdom and mercy” from God, assuring
the believer's place in paradise. For non-believers, it was a
punishment. Some Muslim doctors cautioned against trying to
prevent or treat a disease sent by God. Others adopted
preventive measures and treatments for plague used by
Europeans. These Muslim doctors also depended on the
writings of the ancient Greeks.
Predominant modern theory
Due to climate change in Asia, rodents began to flee the dried-

out grasslands to more populated areas, spreading the disease.
The plague disease, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, is
enzootic (commonly present) in populations of fleas carried by
ground rodents, including marmots, in various areas, including
Central Asia, Kurdistan, Western Asia, North India, Uganda
and the western United States.
Y. pestis was discovered by Alexandre Yersin, a pupil of Louis

Pasteur, during an epidemic of bubonic plague in Hong Kong in
1894; Yersin also proved this bacillus was present in rodents
and suggested the rat was the main vehicle of transmission.
The mechanism by which Y. pestis is usually transmitted was
established in 1898 by Paul-Louis Simond and was found to
involve the bites of fleas whose midguts had become obstructed
by replicating Y. pestis several days after feeding on an
infected host. This blockage starves the fleas and drives them
to aggressive feeding behaviour and attempts to clear the
blockage by regurgitation, resulting in thousands of plague
121
bacteria being flushed into the feeding site, infecting the host.
The bubonic plague mechanism was also dependent on two
populations of rodents: one resistant to the disease, which act
as hosts, keeping the disease endemic, and a second that lack
resistance. When the second population dies, the fleas move on
to other hosts, including people, thus creating a human
epidemic.
DNA evidence
Definitive confirmation of the role of Y. pestis arrived in 2010

with a publication in PLOS Pathogens by Haensch et al. They
assessed the presence of DNA/RNA with polymerase chain
reaction (PCR) techniques for Y. pestis from the tooth sockets
in human skeletons from mass graves in northern, central and
southern Europe that were associated archaeologically with the
Black Death and subsequent resurgences. The authors
concluded that this new research, together with prior analyses
from the south of France and Germany, "ends the debate about
the cause of the Black Death, and unambiguously
demonstrates that Y. pestis was the causative agent of the
epidemic plague that devastated Europe during the Middle
Ages". In 2011, these results were further confirmed with
genetic evidence derived from Black Death victims in the East
Smithfield burial site in England. Schuenemann et al.
concluded in 2011 "that the Black Death in medieval Europe
was caused by a variant of Y. pestis that may no longer exist".
Later in 2011, Bos et al. reported in Nature the first draft

genome of Y. pestis from plague victims from the same East
Smithfield cemetery and indicated that the strain that caused
the Black Death is ancestral to most modern strains of Y.
122
pestis. Since this time, further genomic papers have further

confirmed the phylogenetic placement of the Y. pestis strain
responsible for the Black Death as both the ancestor of later
plague epidemics including the third plague pandemic and as
the descendant of the strain responsible for the Plague of
Justinian. In addition, plague genomes from significantly
earlier in prehistory have been recovered.
DNA taken from 25 skeletons from 14th century London have

shown plague is a strain of Y. pestis almost identical to that
which hit Madagascar in 2013.
Alternative explanations
It is recognised that an epidemiological account of plague is as

important as an identification of symptoms, but researchers
are hampered by the lack of reliable statistics from this period.
Most work has been done on the spread of the disease in
England, and even estimates of overall population at the start
vary by over 100% as no census was undertaken in England
between the time of publication of the Domesday Book of 1086
and the poll tax of the year 1377. Estimates of plague victims
are usually extrapolated from figures for the clergy.
Mathematical modelling is used to match the spreading

patterns and the means of transmission. A research in 2018
challenged the popular hypothesis that "infected rats died,
their flea parasites could have jumped from the recently dead
rat hosts to humans". It suggested an alternative model in
which "the disease was spread from human fleas and body lice
to other people". The second model claims to better fit the
trends of death toll because the rat-flea-human hypothesis
123
would have produced a delayed but very high spike in deaths,

which contradict historical death data.
Lars Walløe complains that all of these authors "take it for

granted that Simond's infection model, black rat → rat flea →
human, which was developed to explain the spread of plague in
India, is the only way an epidemic of Yersinia pestis infection
could spread", whilst pointing to several other possibilities.
Similarly, Monica Green has argued that greater attention is
needed to the range of (especially non-commensal) animals
that might be involved in the transmission of plague.
Archaeologist Barney Sloane has argued that there is

insufficient evidence of the extinction of numerous rats in the
archaeological record of the medieval waterfront in London and
that the disease spread too quickly to support the thesis that
Y. pestis was spread from fleas on rats; he argues that
transmission must have been person to person. This theory is
supported by research in 2018 which suggested transmission
was more likely by body lice and fleas during the second
plague pandemic.
Summary
Although academic debate continues, no single alternative

solution has achieved widespread acceptance. Many scholars
arguing for Y. pestis as the major agent of the pandemic
suggest that its extent and symptoms can be explained by a
combination of bubonic plague with other diseases, including
typhus, smallpox and respiratory infections. In addition to the
bubonic infection, others point to additional septicaemic (a
type of "blood poisoning") and pneumonic (an airborne plague
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that attacks the lungs before the rest of the body) forms of
plague, which lengthen the duration of outbreaks throughout
the seasons and help account for its high mortality rate and
additional recorded symptoms. In 2014, Public Health England
announced the results of an examination of 25 bodies exhumed
in the Clerkenwell area of London, as well as of wills registered
in London during the period, which supported the pneumonic
hypothesis. Currently, while osteoarcheologists have
conclusively verified the presence of Y. pestis bacteria in burial
sites across northern Europe through examination of bones
and dental pulp, no other epidemic pathogen has been
discovered to bolster the alternative explanations. In the words
of one researcher: "Finally, plague is plague."
Transmission
The importance of hygiene was recognised only in the

nineteenth century with the development of the germ theory of
disease; until then streets were commonly filthy, with live
animals of all sorts around and human parasites abounding,
facilitating the spread of transmissible disease.
Territorial origins
According to a team of medical geneticists led by Mark

Achtman that analysed the genetic variation of the bacterium,
Yersinia pestis "evolved in or near China", from which it spread
around the world in multiple epidemics. Later research by a
team led by Galina Eroshenko places the origins more
specifically in the Tian Shan mountains on the border between
Kyrgyzstan and China.
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Nestorian graves dating to 1338–1339 near Issyk-Kul in

Kyrgyzstan have inscriptions referring to plague, which has led
some historians and epidemiologists to think they mark the
outbreak of the epidemic. Others favour an origin in China.
According to this theory, the disease may have travelled along
the Silk Road with Mongol armies and traders, or it could have
arrived via ship. Epidemics killed an estimated 25 million
across Asia during the fifteen years before the Black Death
reached Constantinople in 1347.
Research on the Delhi Sultanate and the Yuan Dynasty shows

no evidence of any serious epidemic in fourteenth-century
India and no specific evidence of plague in fourteenth-century
China, suggesting that the Black Death may not have reached
these regions.
Ole Benedictow argues that since the first clear reports of the
Black Death come from Kaffa, the Black Death most likely
originated in the nearby plague focus on the northwestern
shore of the Caspian Sea.
Demographic historians estimate that China’s population fell

by at least 15 percent, and perhaps as much as a third,
between 1340 and 1370. This population loss coincided with
the Black Death that ravaged Europe and much of the Islamic
world in 1347–52. However, there is a conspicuous lack of
evidence for pandemic disease on the scale of the Black Death
in China at this time. War and famine – and the diseases that
typically accompanied them – probably were the main causes of
mortality in the final decades of Mongol rule.
• — Richard von Glahn
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European outbreak
Plague was reportedly first introduced to Europe via Genoese

traders from their port city of Kaffa in the Crimea in 1347.
During a protracted siege of the city, in 1345–1346 the Mongol
Golden Horde army of Jani Beg, whose mainly Tatar troops
were suffering from the disease, catapulted infected corpses
over the city walls of Kaffa to infect the inhabitants, though it
is more likely that infected rats travelled across the siege lines
to spread the epidemic to the inhabitants. As the disease took
hold, Genoese traders fled across the Black Sea to
Constantinople, where the disease first arrived in Europe in
summer 1347.
The epidemic there killed the 13-year-old son of the Byzantine

emperor, John VI Kantakouzenos, who wrote a description of
the disease modelled on Thucydides's account of the 5th
century BCE Plague of Athens, but noting the spread of the
Black Death by ship between maritime cities. Nicephorus
Gregoras also described in writing to Demetrios Kydones the
rising death toll, the futility of medicine, and the panic of the
citizens. The first outbreak in Constantinople lasted a year,
but the disease recurred ten times before 1400.
Carried by twelve Genoese galleys, plague arrived by ship in

Sicily in October 1347; the disease spread rapidly all over the
island. Galleys from Kaffa reached Genoa and Venice in
January 1348, but it was the outbreak in Pisa a few weeks
later that was the entry point to northern Italy. Towards the
end of January, one of the galleys expelled from Italy arrived in
Marseilles.
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From Italy, the disease spread northwest across Europe,

striking France, Spain (the epidemic began to wreak havoc first
on the Crown of Aragon in the spring of 1348), Portugal and
England by June 1348, then spread east and north through
Germany, Scotland and Scandinavia from 1348 to 1350. It was
introduced into Norway in 1349 when a ship landed at Askøy,
then spread to Bjørgvin (modern Bergen) and Iceland. Finally,
it spread to northwestern Russia in 1351. Plague was
somewhat more uncommon in parts of Europe with less
developed trade with their neighbours, including the majority
of the Basque Country, isolated parts of Belgium and the
Netherlands, and isolated Alpine villages throughout the
continent.
According to some epidemiologists, periods of unfavourable

weather decimated plague-infected rodent populations and
forced their fleas onto alternative hosts, inducing plague
outbreaks which often peaked in the hot summers of the
Mediterranean, as well as during the cool autumn months of
the southern Baltic states. Among many other culprits of
plague contagiousness, malnutrition, even if distantly, also
contributed to such an immense loss in European population,
since it weakened immune systems.
Western Asian and North African outbreak
The disease struck various regions in the Middle East and

North Africa during the pandemic, leading to serious
depopulation and permanent change in both economic and
social structures. As infected rodents infected new rodents, the
disease spread across the region, entering also from southern
Russia.
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By autumn 1347, plague had reached Alexandria in Egypt,

transmitted by sea from Constantinople; according to a
contemporary witness, from a single merchant ship carrying
slaves. By late summer 1348 it reached Cairo, capital of the
Mamluk Sultanate, cultural centre of the Islamic world, and
the largest city in the Mediterranean Basin; the Bahriyya child
sultan an-Nasir Hasan fled and more than a third of the
600,000 residents died. The Nile was choked with corpses
despite Cairo having a medieval hospital, the late 13th century
bimaristan of the Qalawun complex. The historian al-Maqrizi
described the abundant work for grave-diggers and
practitioners of funeral rites, and plague recurred in Cairo
more than fifty times over the following century and half.
During 1347, the disease travelled eastward to Gaza by April;

by July it had reached Damascus, and in October plague had
broken out in Aleppo. That year, in the territory of modern
Lebanon, Syria, Israel, and Palestine, the cities of Ashkelon,
Acre, Jerusalem, Sidon, and Homs were all infected. In 1348–
1349, the disease reached Antioch. The city's residents fled to
the north, but most of them ended up dying during the
journey. Within two years, the plague had spread throughout
the Islamic world, from Arabia across North Africa. The
pandemic spread westwards from Alexandria along the African
coast, while in April 1348 Tunis was infected by ship from
Sicily. Tunis was then under attack by an army from Morocco;
this army dispersed in 1348 and brought the contagion with
them to Morocco, whose epidemic may also have been seeded
from the Islamic city of Almería in al-Andalus.
Mecca became infected in 1348 by pilgrims performing the

Hajj. In 1351 or 1352, the Rasulid sultan of the Yemen, al-
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Mujahid Ali, was released from Mamluk captivity in Egypt and

carried plague with him on his return home. During 1348,
records show the city of Mosul suffered a massive epidemic,
and the city of Baghdad experienced a second round of the
disease.
Signs and symptoms
Bubonic plague
Symptoms of the disease include fever of 38–41 °C (100–

106 °F), headaches, painful aching joints, nausea and
vomiting, and a general feeling of malaise. Left untreated, of
those that contract the bubonic plague, 80 percent die within
eight days.
Contemporary accounts of the pandemic are varied and often

imprecise. The most commonly noted symptom was the
appearance of buboes (or gavocciolos) in the groin, neck, and
armpits, which oozed pus and bled when opened. Boccaccio's
description:
In men and women alike it first betrayed itself by the

emergence of certain tumours in the groin or armpits, some of
which grew as large as a common apple, others as an egg ...
From the two said parts of the body this deadly gavocciolo soon
began to propagate and spread itself in all directions
indifferently; after which the form of the malady began to
change, black spots or livid making their appearance in many
cases on the arm or the thigh or elsewhere, now few and large,
now minute and numerous. As the gavocciolo had been and
still was an infallible token of approaching death, such also
130
were these spots on whomsoever they showed themselves.This

was followed by acute fever and vomiting of blood. Most victims
died two to seven days after initial infection. Freckle-like spots
and rashes, which could have been caused by flea-bites, were
identified as another potential sign of plague.
Pneumonic plague
Lodewijk Heyligen, whose master the Cardinal Colonna died of

plague in 1348, noted a distinct form of the disease,
pneumonic plague, that infected the lungs and led to
respiratory problems. Symptoms include fever, cough, and
blood-tinged sputum. As the disease progresses, sputum
becomes free-flowing and bright red. Pneumonic plague has a
mortality rate of 90 to 95 percent.
Septicaemic plague
Septicaemic plague is the least common of the three forms,

with a mortality rate near 100%. Symptoms are high fevers and
purple skin patches (purpura due to disseminated
intravascular coagulation). In cases of pneumonic and
particularly septicaemic plague, the progress of the disease is
so rapid that there would often be no time for the development
of the enlarged lymph nodes that were noted as buboes.
Consequences
Deaths
There are no exact figures for the death toll; the rate varied
widely by locality. In urban centres, the greater the population
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before the outbreak, the longer the duration of the period of

abnormal mortality. It killed some 75 to 200 million people in
Eurasia. The mortality rate of the Black Death in the 14th
century was far greater than the worst 20th-century outbreaks
of Y. pestis plague, which occurred in India and killed as much
as 3% of the population of certain cities. The overwhelming
number of deceased bodies produced by the Black Death
caused the necessity of mass burial sites in Europe, sometimes
including up to several hundred or several thousand skeletons.
The mass burial sites that have been excavated have allowed
archaeologists to continue interpreting and defining the
biological, sociological, historical, and anthropological
implications of the Black Death.
According to medieval historian Philip Daileader, it is likely

that over four years, 45–50% of the European population died
of plague. Norwegian historian Ole Benedictow suggests it
could have been as much as 60% of the European population.
In 1348, the disease spread so rapidly that before any
physicians or government authorities had time to reflect upon
its origins, about a third of the European population had
already perished. In crowded cities, it was not uncommon for
as much as 50% of the population to die. Half of Paris'
population of 100,000 people died. In Italy, the population of
Florence was reduced from between 110,000 and 120,000
inhabitants in 1338 down to 50,000 in 1351. At least 60% of
the population of Hamburg and Bremen perished, and a similar
percentage of Londoners may have died from the disease as
well, with a death toll of approximately 62,000 between 1346
and 1353. Florence's tax records suggest that 80% of the city's
population died within four months in 1348. Before 1350,
there were about 170,000 settlements in Germany, and this
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was reduced by nearly 40,000 by 1450. The disease bypassed

some areas, with the most isolated areas being less vulnerable
to contagion. Plague did not appear in Douai in Flanders until
the turn of the 15th century, and the impact was less severe
on the populations of Hainaut, Finland, northern Germany,
and areas of Poland. Monks, nuns, and priests were especially
hard-hit since they cared for victims of the Black Death.
The physician to the Avignon Papacy, Raimundo Chalmel de

Vinario (Latin: Magister Raimundus, lit . 'Master Raymond'),
observed the decreasing mortality rate of successive outbreaks
of plague in 1347–48, 1362, 1371, and 1382 in his 1382
treatise On Epidemics (De epidemica). In the first outbreak, two
thirds of the population contracted the illness and most
patients died; in the next, half the population became ill but
only some died; by the third, a tenth were affected and many
survived; while by the fourth occurrence, only one in twenty
people were sickened and most of them survived. By the 1380s
in Europe, it predominantly affected children. Chalmel de
Vinario recognized that bloodletting was ineffective (though he
continued to prescribe bleeding for members of the Roman
Curia, whom he disliked), and claimed that all true cases of
plague were caused by astrological factors and were incurable;
he himself was never able to effect a cure.
The most widely accepted estimate for the Middle East,

including Iraq, Iran, and Syria, during this time, is for a death
toll of about a third of the population. The Black Death killed
about 40% of Egypt's population. In Cairo, with a population
numbering as many as 600,000, and possibly the largest city
west of China, between one third and 40% of the inhabitants
died inside of eight months.
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Italian chronicler Agnolo di Tura recorded his experience from

Siena, where plague arrived in May 1348:
Father abandoned child, wife husband, one brother another;

for this illness seemed to strike through the breath and sight.
And so they died. And none could be found to bury the dead for
money or friendship.
Members of a household brought their dead to a ditch as best

they could, without priest, without divine offices ... great pits
were dug and piled deep with the multitude of dead. And they
died by the hundreds both day and night ... And as soon as
those ditches were filled more were dug ... And I, Agnolo di
Tura ... buried my five children with my own hands. And there
were also those who were so sparsely covered with earth that
the dogs dragged them forth and devoured many bodies
throughout the city.
There was no one who wept for any death, for all awaited
death. And so many died that all believed it was the end of the
world.
Economic
With such a large population decline from the pandemic, wages

soared in response to a labour shortage. On the other hand, in
the quarter century after the Black Death in England, it is
clear many labourers, artisans, and craftsmen, those living
from money-wages alone, did suffer a reduction in real incomes
owing to rampant inflation. Landowners were also pushed to
substitute monetary rents for labour services in an effort to
keep tenants.
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Environmental
A study performed by Thomas Van Hoof of the Utrecht

University suggests that the innumerable deaths brought on by
the pandemic cooled the climate by freeing up land and
triggering reforestation. This may have led to the Little Ice Age.
Persecutions
Renewed religious fervour and fanaticism bloomed in the wake

of the Black Death. Some Europeans targeted "various groups
such as Jews, friars, foreigners, beggars, pilgrims", lepers, and
Romani, blaming them for the crisis. Lepers, and others with
skin diseases such as acne or psoriasis, were killed throughout
Europe.
Because 14th-century healers and governments were at a loss

to explain or stop the disease, Europeans turned to
astrological forces, earthquakes, and the poisoning of wells by
Jews as possible reasons for outbreaks. Many believed the
epidemic was a punishment by God for their sins, and could be
relieved by winning God's forgiveness.
There were many attacks against Jewish communities. In the

Strasbourg massacre of February 1349, about 2,000 Jews were
murdered. In August 1349, the Jewish communities in Mainz
and Cologne were annihilated.
By 1351, 60 major and 150 smaller Jewish communities had

been destroyed. During this period many Jews relocated to
Poland, where they received a warm welcome from King Casimir
the Great.
135
Social
One theory that has been advanced is that the devastation in

Florence caused by the Black Death, which hit Europe between
1348 and 1350, resulted in a shift in the world view of people
in 14th-century Italy and led to the Renaissance. Italy was
particularly badly hit by the pandemic, and it has been
speculated that the resulting familiarity with death caused
thinkers to dwell more on their lives on Earth, rather than on
spirituality and the afterlife. It has also been argued that the
Black Death prompted a new wave of piety, manifested in the
sponsorship of religious works of art.
This does not fully explain why the Renaissance occurred in

Italy in the 14th century. The Black Death was a pandemic
that affected all of Europe in the ways described, not only
Italy. The Renaissance's emergence in Italy was most likely the
result of the complex interaction of the above factors, in
combination with an influx of Greek scholars following the fall
of the Byzantine Empire. As a result of the drastic reduction in
the populace the value of the working class increased, and
commoners came to enjoy more freedom. To answer the
increased need for labour, workers travelled in search of the
most favorable position economically.
Prior to the emergence of the Black Death, the workings of

Europe were run by the Catholic Church and the continent was
considered a feudalistic society, composed of fiefs and city-
states. The pandemic completely restructured both religion and
political forces; survivors began to turn to other forms of
spirituality and the power dynamics of the fiefs and city-states
crumbled.
136
Cairo's population, partly owing to the numerous plague

epidemics, was in the early 18th century half of what it was in
1347. The populations of some Italian cities, notably Florence,
did not regain their pre-14th century size until the 19th
century. The demographic decline due to the pandemic had
economic consequences: the prices of food dropped and land
values declined by 30–40% in most parts of Europe between
1350 and 1400. Landholders faced a great loss, but for
ordinary men and women it was a windfall. The survivors of
the pandemic found not only that the prices of food were lower
but also that lands were more abundant, and many of them
inherited property from their dead relatives, and this probably
destabilized feudalism.
The word "quarantine" has its roots in this period, though the
concept of isolating people to prevent the spread of disease is
older. In the city-state of Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik, Croatia),
a thirty-day isolation period was implemented in 1377 for new
arrivals to the city from plague-affected areas. The isolation
period was later extended to forty days, and given the name
"quarantino" from the Italian word for "forty".
Recurrences
Second plague pandemic
The plague repeatedly returned to haunt Europe and the

Mediterranean throughout the 14th to 17th centuries.
According to Jean-Noël Biraben, the plague was present
somewhere in Europe in every year between 1346 and 1671.
(Note that some researchers have cautions about the uncritical
137
use of Biraben's data.) The second pandemic was particularly

widespread in the following years: 1360–63; 1374; 1400; 1438–
39; 1456–57; 1464–66; 1481–85; 1500–03; 1518–31; 1544–48;
1563–66; 1573–88; 1596–99; 1602–11; 1623–40; 1644–54; and
1664–67. Subsequent outbreaks, though severe, marked the
retreat from most of Europe (18th century) and northern Africa
(19th century).
The historian George Sussman argued that the plague had not
occurred in East Africa until the 1900s. However, other
sources suggest that the Second pandemic did indeed reach
Sub-Saharan Africa.
According to historian Geoffrey Parker, "France alone lost

almost a million people to the plague in the epidemic of 1628–
31." In the first half of the 17th century, a plague claimed
some 1.7 million victims in Italy. More than 1.25 million
deaths resulted from the extreme incidence of plague in 17th-
century Spain.
The Black Death ravaged much of the Islamic world. Plague

was present in at least one location in the Islamic world
virtually every year between 1500 and 1850. Plague repeatedly
struck the cities of North Africa. Algiers lost 30,000–50,000
inhabitants to it in 1620–21, and again in 1654–57, 1665,
1691, and 1740–42. Cairo suffered more than fifty plague
epidemics within 150 years from the plague's first appearance,
with the final outbreak of the second pandemic there in the
1840s. Plague remained a major event in Ottoman society until
the second quarter of the 19th century. Between 1701 and
1750, thirty-seven larger and smaller epidemics were recorded
in Constantinople, and an additional thirty-one between 1751
138
and 1800. Baghdad has suffered severely from visitations of

the plague, and sometimes two-thirds of its population has
been wiped out.
Third plague pandemic
• The third plague pandemic (1855–1859) started in

China in the mid-19th century, spreading to all
inhabited continents and killing 10 million people in
India alone. The investigation of the pathogen that
caused the 19th-century plague was begun by teams
of scientists who visited Hong Kong in 1894, among
whom was the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre
Yersin, after whom the pathogen was named.
Twelve plague outbreaks in Australia between 1900 and 1925

resulted in well over 1,000 deaths, chiefly in Sydney. This led
to the establishment of a Public Health Department there
which undertook some leading-edge research on plague
transmission from rat fleas to humans via the bacillus Yersinia
pestis.
The first North American plague epidemic was the San

Francisco plague of 1900–1904, followed by another outbreak
in 1907–1908.
Modern-day
Modern treatment methods include insecticides, the use of

antibiotics, and a plague vaccine. It is feared that the plague
bacterium could develop drug resistance and again become a
major health threat. One case of a drug-resistant form of the
bacterium was found in Madagascar in 1995. A further
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outbreak in Madagascar was reported in November 2014. In

October 2017 the deadliest outbreak of the plague in modern
times hit Madagascar, killing 170 people and infecting
thousands.
An estimate of the case fatality rate for the modern bubonic

plague, following the introduction of antibiotics, is 11%,
although it may be higher in underdeveloped regions.
In popular culture
• A Journal of the Plague Year – 1722 book by Daniel

Defoe describing the Great Plague of London of
1665–1666
• Black Death – a 2010 action horror film set in
medieval England in 1348
• I promessi sposi ("The Betrothed") – a plague novel by
Alessandro Manzoni, set in Milan, and published in
1827; turned into an opera by Amilcare Ponchielli in
1856, and adapted for film in 1908, 1941, 1990, and
2004
• Cronaca fiorentina ("Chronicle of Florence") – a
literary history of the plague, and of Florence up to
1386, by Baldassarre Bonaiuti
• Danse Macabre ("Dance of Death") – an artistic genre
of allegory of the Late Middle Ages on the
universality of death
• The Decameron – by Giovanni Boccaccio, finished in
1353. Tales told by a group of people sheltering from
the Black Death in Florence. Numerous adaptations
to other media have been made
140
• Doomsday Book – a 1992 science fiction novel by

Connie Willis
• A Feast in Time of Plague – a verse play by Aleksandr
Pushkin (1830), made into an opera by César Cui in
1900
• Four thieves vinegar – a popular French legend
supposed to provide immunity to the plague
• Geisslerlieder – Medieval "flagellant songs"
• "A Litany in Time of Plague" – a sonnet by Thomas
Nashe which was part of his play Summer's Last Will
and Testament (1592)
• The Plague – a 1947 novel by Albert Camus, often
read as an allegory about Fascism
• The Seventh Seal – a 1957 film written and directed
by Ingmar Bergman
• World Without End – a 2007 novel by Ken Follett,
turned into a miniseries of the same name in 2012
• The Years of Rice and Salt – an alternative history
novel by Kim Stanley Robinson set in a world in
which the plague killed virtually all Europeans
141
Chapter 8
England in the Middle Ages
England in the Middle Ages concerns the history of England

during the medieval period, from the end of the 5th century
through to the start of the Early Modern period in 1485. When
England emerged from the collapse of the Roman Empire, the
economy was in tatters and many of the towns abandoned.
After several centuries of Germanic immigration, new identities
and cultures began to emerge, developing into kingdoms that
competed for power.
A rich artistic culture flourished under the Anglo-Saxons,

producing epic poems such as Beowulf and sophisticated
metalwork. The Anglo-Saxons converted to Christianity in the
7th century and a network of monasteries and convents were
built across England. In the 8th and 9th centuries England
faced fierce Viking attacks, and the fighting lasted for many
decades, eventually establishing Wessex as the most powerful
kingdom and promoting the growth of an English identity.
Despite repeated crises of succession and a Danish seizure of
power at the start of the 11th century, it can also be argued
that by the 1060s England was a powerful, centralised state
with a strong military and successful economy.
The Norman invasion of England in 1066 led to the defeat and

replacement of the Anglo-Saxon elite with Norman and French
nobles and their supporters. William the Conqueror and his
successors took over the existing state system, repressing local
revolts and controlling the population through a network of
castles. The new rulers introduced a feudal approach to
governing England, eradicating the practice of slavery, but

creating a much wider body of unfree labourers called serfs.
The position of women in society changed as laws regarding
land and lordship shifted. England's population more than
doubled during the 12th and 13th centuries, fueling an
expansion of the towns, cities, and trade, helped by warmer
temperatures across Northern Europe.
A new wave of monasteries and friaries was established while

ecclesiastical reforms led to tensions between successive kings
and archbishops. Despite developments in England's
governance and legal system, infighting between the Anglo-
Norman elite resulted in multiple civil wars and the loss of
Normandy.
The 14th century in England saw the Great Famine and the
Black Death, catastrophic events that killed around half of
England's population, throwing the economy into chaos, and
undermining the old political order. Social unrest followed,
resulting in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, while the changes in
the economy resulted in the emergence of a new class of
gentry, and the nobility began to exercise power through a
system termed bastard feudalism. Nearly 1,500 villages were
deserted by their inhabitants and many men and women
sought new opportunities in the towns and cities. New
technologies were introduced, and England produced some of
the great medieval philosophers and natural scientists. English
kings in the 14th and 15th centuries laid claim to the French
throne, resulting in the Hundred Years' War. At times England
enjoyed huge military success, with the economy buoyed by
profits from the international wool and cloth trade, but by
1450 the country was in crisis, facing military failure in
143
France and an ongoing recession. More social unrest broke

out, followed by the Wars of the Roses, fought between rival
factions of the English nobility. Henry VII's victory in 1485
conventionally marks the end of the Middle Ages in England
and the start of the Early Modern period.
Political history
Early Middle Ages (600–1066)
• At the start of the Middle Ages, England was a part

of Britannia, a former province of the Roman Empire.
The local economy had once been dominated by
imperial Roman spending on a large military
establishment, which in turn helped to support a
complex network of towns, roads, and villas. At the
end of the 4th century, however, Roman forces had
been largely withdrawn, and this economy collapsed.
Germanic immigrants began to arrive in increasing
numbers during the 5th and 6th centuries,
establishing small farms and settlements, and their
language, Old English, swiftly spread as more
settlers arrived and those of the previous inhabitants
who had not moved west or to Brittany switched from
British Celtic and British Latin to the migrants'
language. New political and social identities
emerged, including an Anglian culture in the east of
England and a Saxon culture in the south, with local
groups establishing regiones, small polities ruled
over by powerful families and individuals. By the 7th
century, some rulers, including those of Wessex,
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East Anglia, Essex, and Kent, had begun to term

themselves kings, living in villae regales, royal
centres, and collecting tribute from the surrounding
regiones; these kingdoms are often referred to as the
Heptarchy.
In the 7th century, the Kingdom of Mercia rose to prominence

under the leadership of King Penda. Mercia invaded
neighbouring lands until it loosely controlled around 50
regiones covering much of England. Mercia and the remaining
kingdoms, led by their warrior elites, continued to compete for
territory throughout the 8th century. Massive earthworks, such
as the defensive dyke built by Offa of Mercia, helped to defend
key frontiers and towns.
In 789, however, the first Scandinavian raids on England

began; these Viking attacks grew in number and scale until in
865 the Danish micel here or Great Army, invaded England,
captured York and defeated the kingdom of East Anglia. Mercia
and Northumbria fell in 875 and 876, and Alfred of Wessex was
driven into internal exile in 878.
However, in the same year Alfred won a decisive victory against

the Danes at the Battle of Edington, and he exploited the fear
of the Viking threat to raise large numbers of men and using a
network of defended towns called burhs to defend his territory
and mobilise royal resources. Suppressing internal opposition
to his rule, Alfred contained the invaders within a region
known as the Danelaw. Under his son, Edward the Elder, and
his grandson, Æthelstan, Wessex expanded further north into
Mercia and the Danelaw, and by the 950s and the reigns of
Eadred and Edgar, York was finally permanently retaken from
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the Vikings. The West Saxon rulers were now kings of the
Angelcynn, that is of the whole English folk.
With the death of Edgar, however, the royal succession became

problematic. Æthelred took power in 978 following the murder
of his brother Edward, but England was then invaded by Sweyn
Forkbeard, the son of a Danish king. Attempts to bribe Sweyn
not to attack using danegeld payments failed, and he took the
throne in 1013. Swein's son, Cnut, liquidated many of the
older English families following his seizure of power in 1016.
Æthelred's son, Edward the Confessor, had survived in exile in
Normandy and returned to claim the throne in 1042. Edward
was childless, and the succession again became a concern.
England became dominated by the Godwin family, who had
taken advantage of the Danish killings to acquire huge wealth.
When Edward died in 1066, Harold Godwinson claimed the
throne, defeating his rival Norwegian claimant, Harald
Hardrada, at the battle of Stamford Bridge.
High Middle Ages (1066–1272)
In 1066, William, the Duke of Normandy, took advantage of the

English succession crisis to start the Norman Conquest. With
an army of Norman followers and mercenaries, he defeated
Harold at the battle of Hastings and rapidly occupied the south
of England. William used a network of castles to control the
major centres of power, granting extensive lands to his main
Norman followers and co-opting or eliminating the former
Anglo-Saxon elite. Major revolts followed, which William
suppressed before intervening in the north-east of England,
establishing Norman control of York and devastating the
region. Some Norman lords used England as a launching point
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for attacks into South and North Wales, spreading up the

valleys to create new Marcher territories. By the time of
William's death in 1087, England formed the largest part of an
Anglo-Norman empire, ruled over by a network of nobles with
landholdings across England, Normandy, and Wales. England's
growing wealth was critical in allowing the Norman kings to
project power across the region, including funding campaigns
along the frontiers of Normandy.
Norman rule, however, proved unstable; successions to the

throne were contested, leading to violent conflicts between the
claimants and their noble supporters. William II inherited the
throne but faced revolts attempting to replace him with his
older brother Robert or his cousin Stephen of Aumale. In 1100,
William II died while hunting. Despite Robert's rival claims, his
younger brother Henry I immediately seized power. War broke
out, ending in Robert's defeat at Tinchebrai and his
subsequent life imprisonment. Robert's son Clito remained
free, however, and formed the focus for fresh revolts until his
death in 1128. Henry's only legitimate son, William, died
aboard the White Ship disaster of 1120, sparking a fresh
succession crisis: Henry's nephew, Stephen of Blois, claimed
the throne in 1135, but this was disputed by the Empress
Matilda, Henry's daughter. Civil war broke out across England
and Normandy, resulting in a long period of warfare later
termed the Anarchy. Matilda's son, Henry, finally agreed to a
peace settlement at Winchester and succeeded as king in 1154.
Henry II was the first of the Angevin rulers of England, so-

called because he was also the Count of Anjou in Northern
France. Henry had also acquired the huge duchy of Aquitaine
by marriage, and England became a key part of a loose-knit
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assemblage of lands spread across Western Europe, later

termed the Angevin Empire. Henry reasserted royal authority
and rebuilt the royal finances, intervening to claim power in
Ireland and promoting the Anglo-Norman colonisation of the
country. Henry strengthened England's borders with Wales and
Scotland, and used the country's wealth to fund a long-
running war with his rivals in France, but arrangements for
his succession once again proved problematic. Several revolts
broke out, led by Henry's children who were eager to acquire
power and lands, sometimes backed by France, Scotland and
the Welsh princes. After a final confrontation with Henry, his
son Richard I succeeded to the throne in 1189.
Richard spent his reign focused on protecting his possessions

in France and fighting in the Third Crusade; his brother, John,
inherited England in 1199 but lost Normandy and most of
Aquitaine after several years of war with France.
John fought successive, increasingly expensive, campaigns in a

bid to regain these possessions. John's efforts to raise
revenues, combined with his fractious relationships with many
of the English barons, led to confrontation in 1215, an attempt
to restore peace through the signing of the Magna Carta, and
finally the outbreak of the First Barons' War. John died having
fought the rebel barons and their French backers to a
stalemate, and royal power was re-established by barons loyal
to the young Henry III. England's power structures remained
unstable and the outbreak of the Second Barons' War in 1264
resulted in the king's capture by Simon de Montfort. Henry's
son, Edward, defeated the rebel factions between 1265 and
1267, restoring his father to power.
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Late Middle Ages (1272–1485)
On becoming king, Edward I rebuilt the status of the

monarchy, restoring and extending key castles that had fallen
into disrepair. Uprisings by the princes of North Wales led to
Edward mobilising a huge army, defeating the native Welsh
and undertaking a programme of English colonisation and
castle building across the region. Further wars were conducted
in Flanders and Aquitaine. Edward also fought campaigns in
Scotland, but was unable to achieve strategic victory, and the
costs created tensions that nearly led to civil war. Edward II
inherited the war with Scotland and faced growing opposition
to his rule as a result of his royal favourites and military
failures. The Despenser War of 1321–22 was followed by
instability and the subsequent overthrow, and possible
murder, of Edward in 1327 at the hands of his French wife,
Isabella, and a rebel baron, Roger Mortimer. Isabella and
Mortimer's regime lasted only a few years before falling to a
coup, led by Isabella's son Edward III, in 1330.
Like his grandfather, Edward III took steps to restore royal

power, but during the 1340s the Black Death arrived in
England. The losses from the epidemic, and the recurring
plagues that followed it, significantly affected events in
England for many years to come. Meanwhile, Edward, under
pressure from France in Aquitaine, made a challenge for the
French throne. Over the next century, English forces fought
many campaigns in a long-running conflict that became known
as the Hundred Years' War. Despite the challenges involved in
raising the revenues to pay for the war, Edward's military
successes brought an influx of plundered wealth to many parts
of England and enabled substantial building work by the king.
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Many members of the English elite, including Edward's son the

Black Prince, were heavily involved in campaigning in France
and administering the new continental territories.
Edward's grandson, the young Richard II, faced political and

economic problems, many resulting from the Black Death,
including the Peasants' Revolt that broke out across the south
of England in 1381. Over the coming decades, Richard and
groups of nobles vied for power and control of policy towards
France until Henry of Bolingbroke seized the throne with the
support of parliament in 1399. Ruling as Henry IV, he
exercised power through a royal council and parliament, while
attempting to enforce political and religious conformity. His
son, Henry V, reinvigorated the war with France and came
close to achieving strategic success shortly before his death in
1422. Henry VI became king at the age of only nine months
and both the English political system and the military
situation in France began to unravel.
A sequence of bloody civil wars, later termed the Wars of the

Roses, finally broke out in 1455, spurred on by an economic
crisis and a widespread perception of poor government. Edward
IV, leading a faction known as the Yorkists, removed Henry
from power in 1461 but by 1469 fighting recommenced as
Edward, Henry, and Edward's brother George, backed by
leading nobles and powerful French supporters, vied for power.
By 1471 Edward was triumphant and most of his rivals were
dead. On his death, power passed to his brother Richard of
Gloucester, who initially ruled on behalf of the young Edward
V before seizing the throne himself as Richard III. The future
Henry VII, aided by French and Scottish troops, returned to
England and defeated Richard at the battle of Bosworth in
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1485, bringing an end to the majority of the fighting, although

lesser rebellions against his Tudor dynasty would continue for
several years afterwards.
Government and society
Governance and social structures
Early Middle Ages (600–1066);
The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were hierarchical societies, each

based on ties of allegiance between powerful lords and their
immediate followers. At the top of the social structure was the
king, who stood above many of the normal processes of Anglo-
Saxon life and whose household had special privileges and
protection. Beneath the king were thegns, nobles, the more
powerful of which maintained their own courts and were
termed ealdormen. The relationship between kings and their
nobles was bound up with military symbolism and the ritual
exchange of weapons and armour. Freemen, called churls,
formed the next level of society, often holding land in their own
right or controlling businesses in the towns. Geburs, peasants
who worked land belonging to a thegn, formed a lower class
still. The very lowest class were slaves, who could be bought
and sold and who held only minimal rights.
The balance of power between these different groups changed

over time. Early in the period, kings were elected by members
of the late king's council, but primogeniture rapidly became
the norm for succession. The kings further bolstered their
status by adopting Christian ceremonies and nomenclature,
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introducing ecclesiastical coronations during the 8th century

and terming themselves "Christ's deputy" by the 11th century.
Huge estates were initially built up by the king, bishops,
monasteries and thegns, but in the 9th and 10th centuries
these were slowly broken up as a consequence of inheritance
arrangements, marriage settlements and church purchases. In
the 11th century, the royal position worsened further, as the
ealdormen rapidly built up huge new estates, making them
collectively much more powerful than the king—this
contributed to the political instability of the final Anglo-Saxon
years. As time went by, the position of the churls deteriorated,
as their rights were slowly eroded and their duties to their
lords increased.
The kingdom of Wessex, which eventually laid claim to England

as a whole, evolved a centralised royal administration. One
part of this was the king's council, the witenagemot,
comprising the senior clergy, ealdormen, and some of the more
important thegns; the council met to advise the king on policy
and legal issues. The royal household included officials, thegns
and a secretariat of clergy which travelled with the king,
conducting the affairs of government as it went. Under the
Danish kings, a bodyguard of housecarls also accompanied the
court. At a regional level, ealdormen played an important part
in government, defence and taxation, and the post of sheriff
emerged in the 10th century, administering local shires on
behalf of an ealdorman. Anglo-Saxon mints were tightly
controlled by the kings, providing a high-quality currency, and
the whole country was taxed using a system called hidage.
The Anglo-Saxon kings built up a set of written laws, issued

either as statutes or codes, but these laws were never written
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down in their entirety and were always supplemented by an

extensive oral tradition of customary law. In the early part of
the period local assemblies called moots were gathered to apply
the laws to particular cases; in the 10th century these were
replaced by hundred courts, serving local areas, and shire
moots dealing with larger regions of the kingdom. Many
churchmen and thegns were also given permission by the king
to hold their own local courts. The legal system depended on a
system of oaths in which the value of different individuals
swearing on behalf of the plaintiff or defendant varied
according to their social status – the word of a companion of
the king, for example, was worth twelve times that of a churl. If
fines were imposed, their size similarly varied accord to the
oath-value of the individual. The Anglo-Saxon authorities
struggled to deal with the bloodfeuds between families that
emerged following violent killings, attempting to use a system
of weregild, a payment of blood money, as a way of providing
an alternative to long-running vendettas.
High Middle Ages (1066–1272)
Within twenty years of the Norman conquest, the former Anglo-

Saxon elite were replaced by a new class of Norman nobility,
with around 8,000 Normans and French settling in England.
The new earls (successors to the ealdermen), sheriffs and
church seniors were all drawn from their ranks. In many areas
of society there was continuity, as the Normans adopted many
of the Anglo-Saxon governmental institutions, including the
tax system, mints and the centralisation of law-making and
some judicial matters; initially sheriffs and the hundred courts
continued to function as before. The existing tax liabilities
were captured in the Domesday Book, produced in 1086.
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Changes in other areas soon began to be felt. The method of

government after the conquest can be described as a feudal
system, in that the new nobles held their lands on behalf of the
king; in return for promising to provide military support and
taking an oath of allegiance, called homage, they were granted
lands termed a fief or an honour. Major nobles in turn granted
lands to smaller landowners in return for homage and further
military support, and eventually the peasantry held land in
return for local labour services, creating a web of loyalties and
resources enforced in part by new honorial courts. This system
had been used in Normandy and concentrated more power in
the king and the upper elite than the former Anglo-Saxon
system of government. The practice of slavery declined in the
years after the conquest, as the Normans considered the
practice backward and contrary to the teachings of the church.
The more prosperous peasants, however, lost influence and
power as the Normans made holding land more dependent on
providing labour services to the local lord. They sank down the
economic hierarchy, swelling the numbers of unfree villeins or
serfs, forbidden to leave their manor or seek alternative
employment.
At the centre of power, the kings employed a succession of

clergy as chancellors, responsible for running the royal
chancery, while the familia regis, the military household,
emerged to act as a bodyguard and military staff. England's
bishops continued to form an important part in local
administration, alongside the nobility. Henry I and Henry II
both implemented significant legal reforms, extending and
widening the scope of centralised, royal law; by the 1180s, the
basis for the future English common law had largely been
established, with a standing law court in Westminster—an
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early Common Bench—and travelling judges conducting eyres

around the country. King John extended the royal role in
delivering justice, and the extent of appropriate royal
intervention was one of the issues addressed in the Magna
Carta of 1215. The emerging legal system reinvigorated the
institution of serfdom in the 13th century by drawing an
increasingly sharp distinction between freemen and villeins.
Many tensions existed within the system of government. Royal

landownings and wealth stretched across England, and placed
the king in a privileged position above even the most powerful
of the noble elite. Successive kings, though, still needed more
resources to pay for military campaigns, conduct building
programmes or to reward their followers, and this meant
exercising their feudal rights to interfere in the land-holdings
of nobles.
This was contentious and a frequent issue of complaint, as

there was a growing belief that land should be held by
hereditary right, not through the favour of the king. Property
and wealth became increasingly focused in the hands of a
subset of the nobility, the great magnates, at the expense of
the wider baronage, encouraging the breakdown of some
aspects of local feudalism. As time went by, the Norman
nobility intermarried with many of the great Anglo-Saxon
families, and the links with the Duchy began to weaken. By the
late 12th century, mobilising the English barons to fight on the
continent was proving difficult, and John's attempts to do so
ended in civil war. Civil strife re-emerged under Henry III, with
the rebel barons in 1258–59 demanding widespread reforms,
and an early version of Parliament was summoned in 1265 to
represent the rebel interests.
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Late Middle Ages (1272–1485)
On becoming king in 1272, Edward I reestablished royal power,

overhauling the royal finances and appealing to the broader
English elite by using Parliament to authorise the raising of
new taxes and to hear petitions concerning abuses of local
governance. This political balance collapsed under Edward II
and savage civil wars broke out during the 1320s. Edward III
restored order once more with the help of a majority of the
nobility, exercising power through the exchequer, the common
bench and the royal household.
This government was better organised and on a larger scale

than ever before, and by the 14th century the king's formerly
peripatetic chancery had to take up permanent residence in
Westminster. Edward used Parliament even more than his
predecessors to handle general administration, to legislate and
to raise the necessary taxes to pay for the wars in France. The
royal lands—and incomes from them—had diminished over the
years, and increasingly frequent taxation was required to
support royal initiatives. Edward held elaborate chivalric
events in an effort to unite his supporters around the symbols
of knighthood. The ideal of chivalry continued to develop
throughout the 14th century, reflected in the growth of
knightly orders (including the Order of the Garter), grand
tournaments and round table events.
Society and government in England in the early 14th century

were challenged by the Great Famine and the Black Death. The
economic and demographic crisis created a sudden surplus of
land, undermining the ability of landowners to exert their
feudal rights and causing a collapse in incomes from rented
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lands. Wages soared, as employers competed for a scarce

workforce. Legislation was introduced to limit wages and to
prevent the consumption of luxury goods by the lower classes,
with prosecutions coming to take up most of the legal system's
energy and time. A poll tax was introduced in 1377 that spread
the costs of the war in France more widely across the whole
population.
The tensions spilled over into violence in the summer of 1381

in the form of the Peasants' Revolt; a violent retribution
followed, with as many as 7,000 alleged rebels executed. A new
class of gentry emerged as a result of these changes, renting
land from the major nobility to farm out at a profit. The legal
system continued to expand during the 14th century, dealing
with an ever-wider set of complex problems.
By the time that Richard II was deposed in 1399, the power of

the major noble magnates had grown considerably; powerful
rulers such as Henry IV would contain them, but during the
minority of Henry VI they controlled the country. The magnates
depended upon their income from rent and trade to allow them
to maintain groups of paid, armed retainers, often sporting
controversial livery, and buy support amongst the wider
gentry; this system has been dubbed bastard feudalism. Their
influence was exerted both through the House of Lords at
Parliament and through the king's council. The gentry and
wealthier townsmen exercised increasing influence through the
House of Commons, opposing raising taxes to pay for the
French wars. By the 1430s and 1440s the English government
was in major financial difficulties, leading to the crisis of 1450
and a popular revolt under the leadership of Jack Cade. Law
and order deteriorated, and the crown was unable to intervene
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in the factional fighting between different nobles and their

followers. The resulting Wars of the Roses saw a savage
escalation of violence between the noble leaderships of both
sides: captured enemies were executed and family lands
attainted. By the time that Henry VII took the throne in 1485,
England's governmental and social structures had been
substantially weakened, with whole noble lines extinguished.
Women in society
Medieval England was a patriarchal society and the lives of

women were heavily influenced by contemporary beliefs about
gender and authority. However, the position of women varied
considerably according to various factors, including their
social class; whether they were unmarried, married, widowed
or remarried; and in which part of the country they lived.
Significant gender inequities persisted throughout the period,
as women typically had more limited life-choices, access to
employment and trade, and legal rights than men.
In Anglo-Saxon society, noblewomen enjoyed considerable

rights and status, although the society was still firmly
patriarchal. Some exercised power as abbesses, exerting
widespread influence across the early English Church,
although their wealth and authority diminished with the
monastic reforms of the 9th century. Anglo-Saxon queens
began to hold lands in their own right in the 10th century and
their households contributed to the running of the kingdom.
Although women could not lead military forces, in the absence
of their husbands some noblewomen led the defence of manors
and towns. Most Anglo-Saxon women, however, worked on the
land as part of the agricultural community, or as brewers or
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bakers. After the Norman invasion, the position of women in

society changed. The rights and roles of women became more
sharply defined, in part as a result of the development of the
feudal system and the expansion of the English legal system;
some women benefited from this, while others lost out. The
rights of widows were formally laid down in law by the end of
the 12th century, clarifying the right of free women to own
property, but this did not necessarily prevent women from
being forcibly remarried against their wishes.
The growth of governmental institutions under a succession of

bishops reduced the role of queens and their households in
formal government. Married or widowed noblewomen remained
significant cultural and religious patrons and played an
important part in political and military events, even if
chroniclers were uncertain if this was appropriate behaviour.
As in earlier centuries, most women worked in agriculture, but
here roles became more clearly gendered, with ploughing and
managing the fields defined as men's work, for example, and
dairy production becoming dominated by women.
The years after the Black Death left many women widows; in
the wider economy labour was in short supply and land was
suddenly readily available. In rural areas peasant women could
enjoy a better standard of living than ever before, but the
amount of work being done by women may have increased.
Many other women travelled to the towns and cities, to the
point where they outnumbered men in some settlements. There
they worked with their husbands, or in a limited number of
occupations, including spinning, making clothes, victualling
and as servants. Some women became full-time ale brewers,
until they were pushed out of business by the male-dominated
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beer industry in the 15th century. Higher status jobs and

apprenticeships, however, remained closed to women. As in
earlier times, noblewomen exercised power on their estates in
their husbands' absence and again, if necessary, defended
them in sieges and skirmishes. Wealthy widows who could
successfully claim their rightful share of their late husband's
property could live as powerful members of the community in
their own right.
Identity
An English cultural identity first emerged from the interaction

of the Germanic immigrants of the 5th and 6th centuries and
the indigenous Romano-British inhabitants. Although early
medieval chroniclers described the immigrants as Angles and
Saxons, they came from a much wider area across Northern
Europe, and represented a range of different ethnic groups.
Over the 6th century, however, these different groups began to
coalesce into stratified societies across England, roughly
corresponding to the later Angle and Saxon kingdoms recorded
by Bede in the 8th century. By the 9th century, the term the
Angelcynn was being officially used to refer to a single English
people, and promoted for propaganda purposes by chroniclers
and kings to inspire resistance to the Danish invasions.
The Normans and French who arrived after the conquest saw
themselves as different from the English. They had close family
and economic links to the Duchy of Normandy, spoke Norman
French and had their own distinctive culture. For many years,
to be English was to be associated with military failure and
serfdom. During the 12th century, the divisions between the
English and Normans began to dissolve as a result of
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intermarriage and cohabitation. By the end of the 12th

century, and possibly as early as the 1150, contemporary
commentators believed the two peoples to be blending, and the
loss of the Duchy in 1204 reinforced this trend. The resulting
society still prized wider French cultural values, however, and
French remained the language of the court, business and
international affairs, even if Parisians mocked the English for
their poor pronunciation. By the 14th century, however,
French was increasingly having to be formally taught, rather
than being learnt naturally in the home, although the
aristocracy would typically spend many years of their lives in
France and remained entirely comfortable working in French.
During the 12th and 13th centuries, the English began to

consider themselves superior to the Welsh, Scots and Bretons.
The English perceived themselves as civilised, economically
prosperous and properly Christian, while the Celtic fringe was
considered lazy, barbarous and backward. Following the
invasion of Ireland in the late 12th century, similar feelings
were expressed about the Irish, with the distinctions clarified
and reinforced in 14th-century English legislation. The English
also felt strongly about the foreign traders who lived in the
special enclaves in London in the Late Middle Ages; the
position of the Jews is described below, but Italian and Baltic
traders were also regarded as aliens and were frequently the
targets of violence during economic downturns. Even within
England, different identities abounded, each with their own
sense of status and importance. Regional identities could be
important – men and women from Yorkshire, for example, had
a clear identity within English society, and professional groups
with a distinct identity, such as lawyers, engaged in open
fighting with others in cities such as London.
161
Jews
The Jewish community played an important role in England

throughout much of the period. The first Jews arrived in
England in the aftermath of the Norman invasion, when
William the Conqueror brought over wealthy members of the
Rouen community in Normandy to settle in London. The Jewish
community expanded out across England and provided
essential money-lending and banking services that were
otherwise banned by the usury laws. During the 12th century,
the Jewish financial community grew richer still, operating
under royal protection and providing the king with a source of
ready credit.
All major towns had Jewish centres, and even the smaller
towns saw visits by travelling Jewish merchants. Towards the
end of Henry II's reign, however, the king ceased to borrow
from the Jewish community and instead turned to extracting
money from them through arbitrary taxation and fines. The
Jews became vilified and accusations were made that they
conducted ritual child murder, encouraging the pogroms
carried out against Jewish communities in the reign of Richard
I.
After an initially peaceful start to John's reign, the king again

began to extort money from the Jewish community and, with
the breakdown in order in 1215, the Jews were subject to fresh
attacks. Henry III restored some protection and Jewish money-
lending began to recover. Despite this, the Jewish community
became increasingly impoverished and was finally expelled
from England in 1290 by Edward I, being replaced by foreign
merchants.
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Religion
Rise of Christianity
Christianity had been the official imperial religion of the

Roman Empire, and the first churches were built in England in
the second half of the 4th century, overseen by a hierarchy of
bishops and priests. Many existing pagan shrines were
converted to Christian use and few pagan sites still operated
by the 5th century. The collapse of the Roman system in the
late 5th century, however, brought about the end of formal
Christian religion in the east of England, and the new
Germanic immigrants arrived with their own polytheistic gods,
including Woden, Thunor and Tiw, still reflected in various
English place names. Despite the resurgence of paganism in
England, Christian communities still survived in more western
areas such as Gloucestershire and Somerset.
The movement towards Christianity began again in the late 6th

and 7th centuries, helped by the conversion of the Franks in
Northern France, who carried considerable influence in
England. Pope Gregory I sent a team of missionaries to convert
King Æthelberht of Kent and his household, starting the
process of converting Kent. Augustine became the first
Archbishop of Canterbury and started to build new churches
across the South-East, reusing existing pagan shrines. Oswald
and Oswiu, kings of Northumbria, were converted in the 630s
and 640s, and the wave of change carried on through the
middle of the 7th century across the kingdoms of Mercia, the
South Saxons and the Isle of Wight. The process was largely
complete by the end of the 7th century, but left a confusing
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and disparate array of local practices and religious ceremonies.

This new Christianity reflected the existing military culture of
the Anglo-Saxons: as kings began to convert in the 6th and 7th
centuries, conversion began to be used as a justification for
war against the remaining pagan kingdoms, for example, while
Christian saints were imbued with martial properties.
The Viking invasions of the 8th and 9th centuries reintroduced

paganism to North-East England, leading in turn to another
wave of conversion. Indigenous Scandinavian beliefs were very
similar to other Germanic groups, with a pantheon of gods
including Odin, Thor and Ullr, combined with a belief in a
final, apocalyptic battle called Ragnarok. The Norse settlers in
England were converted relatively quickly, assimilating their
beliefs into Christianity in the decades following the
occupation of York, which the Archbishop had survived. The
process was largely complete by the early 10th century and
enabled England's leading Churchmen to negotiate with the
warlords. As the Norse in mainland Scandinavia started to
convert, many mainland rulers recruited missionaries from
England to assist in the process.
Religious institutions
With the conversion of much of England in the 6th and 7th

centuries, there was an explosion of local church building.
English monasteries formed the main basis for the church,
however, and were often sponsored by local rulers, taking
various forms, including mixed communities headed by
abbesses, bishop-led communities of monks, and others formed
around married priests and their families. Cathedrals were
constructed, staffed either with secular canons in the
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European tradition or, uniquely to England, chapters of

monks. These institutions were badly affected in the 9th
century by Viking raids and predatory annexations by the
nobility. By the start of the 10th century, monastic lands,
financial resources and the quality of monasteries' religious
work had been much diminished. Reforms followed under the
kings of Wessex who promoted the Benedictine rule then
popular on the Continent. A reformed network of around 40
monastic institutions across the south and east of England,
under the protection of the king, helped re-establish royal
control over the reconquered Danelaw.
The 1066 Norman conquest brought a new set of Norman and

French churchmen to power; some adopted and embraced
aspects of the former Anglo-Saxon religious system, while
others introduced practices from Normandy. Extensive English
lands were granted to monasteries in Normandy, allowing them
to create daughter priories and monastic cells across the
kingdom. The monasteries were brought firmly into the web of
feudal relations, with their holding of land linked to the
provision of military support to the crown. The Normans
adopted the Anglo-Saxon model of monastic cathedral
communities, and within seventy years the majority of English
cathedrals were controlled by monks; every English cathedral,
however, was rebuilt to some extent by the new rulers.
England's bishops remained powerful temporal figures, and in
the early 12th-century raised armies against Scottish invaders
and built up extensive holdings of castles across the country.
New orders began to be introduced into England. As ties to

Normandy waned, the French Cluniac order became
fashionable and their houses were introduced in England. The
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Augustinians spread quickly from the beginning of the 12th

century onwards, while later in the century the Cistercians
reached England, creating houses with a more austere
interpretation of the monastic rules and building the great
abbeys of Rievaulx and Fountains. By 1215, there were over
600 monastic communities in England, but new endowments
slowed during the 13th century, creating long-term financial
problems for many institutions. The Dominican and Franciscan
friars arrived in England during the 1220s, establishing 150
friaries by the end of the 13th century; these mendicant orders
rapidly became popular, particularly in towns, and heavily
influenced local preaching. The religious military orders that
became popular across Europe from the 12th century onwards
acquired possessions in England, including the Templars,
Teutons and Hospitallers.
Church, state and heresy
The Church had a close relationship with the English state

throughout the Middle Ages. The bishops and major monastic
leaders played an important part in national government,
having key roles on the king's council. Bishops often oversaw
towns and cities, managing local taxation and government.
This frequently became untenable with the Viking incursions of
the 9th century, and in locations such as Worcester the local
bishops came to new accommodations with the local
ealdormen, exchanging some authority and revenue for
assistance in defence. The early English church was racked
with disagreement on doctrine, which was addressed by the
Synod of Whitby in 664; some issues were resolved, but
arguments between the archbishops of Canterbury and York as
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to which had primacy across Britain began shortly afterwards

and continued throughout most of the medieval period.
William the Conqueror acquired the support of the Church for

the invasion of England by promising ecclesiastical reform.
William promoted celibacy amongst the clergy and gave
ecclesiastical courts more power, but also reduced the
Church's direct links to Rome and made it more accountable to
the king. Tensions arose between these practices and the
reforming movement of Pope Gregory VII, which advocated
greater autonomy from royal authority for the clergy,
condemned the practice of simony and promoted greater
influence for the papacy in church matters. Despite the
bishops continuing to play a major part in royal government,
tensions emerged between the kings of England and key
leaders within the English Church. Kings and archbishops
clashed over rights of appointment and religious policy, and
successive archbishops including Anselm, Theobald of Bec,
Thomas Becket and Stephen Langton were variously forced into
exile, arrested by royal knights or even killed. By the early
13th century, however, the church had largely won its
argument for independence, answering almost entirely to
Rome.
In the 1380s, several challenges emerged to the traditional

teachings of the Church, resulting from the teachings of John
Wycliffe, a member of Oxford University. Wycliffe argued that
scripture was the best guide to understanding God's
intentions, and that the superficial nature of the liturgy,
combined with the abuses of wealth within the Church and the
role of senior churchmen in government, distracted from that
study. A loose movement that included many members of the
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gentry pursued these ideas after Wycliffe's death in 1384 and

attempted to pass a Parliamentary bill in 1395: the movement
was rapidly condemned by the authorities and was termed
"Lollardy". The English bishops were charged to control and
counter this trend, disrupting Lollard preachers and to
enforcing the teaching of suitable sermons in local churches.
By the early 15th century, combating Lollard teachings had
become a key political issue, championed by Henry IV and his
Lancastrian followers, who used the powers of both the church
and state to combat the heresy.
Pilgrimages and Crusades
Pilgrimages were a popular religious practice throughout the

Middle Ages in England, with the tradition dating back to the
Roman period. Typically pilgrims would travel short distances
to a shrine or a particular church, either to do penance for a
perceived sin, or to seek relief from an illness or other
condition. Some pilgrims travelled further, either to more
distant sites within Britain or, in a few cases, onto the
continent.
During the Anglo-Saxon period, many shrines were built on

former pagan sites which became popular pilgrimage
destinations, while other pilgrims visited prominent
monasteries and sites of learning. Senior nobles or kings would
travel to Rome, which was a popular destination from the 7th
century onwards; sometimes these trips were a form of
convenient political exile. Under the Normans, religious
institutions with important shrines, such as Glastonbury,
Canterbury and Winchester, promoted themselves as
pilgrimage destinations, maximising the value of the historic
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miracles associated with the sites. Accumulating relics became

an important task for ambitious institutions, as these were
believed to hold curative powers and lent status to the site.
Indeed, by the 12th century reports of posthumous miracles by
local saints were becoming increasingly common in England,
adding to the attractiveness of pilgrimages to prominent relics.
Participation in the Crusades was also seen as a form of

pilgrimage, and indeed the same Latin word, peregrinatio, was
sometimes applied to both activities. While English
participation in the First Crusade between 1095 and 1099 was
limited, England played a prominent part in the Second, Third
and Fifth Crusades over the next two centuries, with many
crusaders leaving for the Levant during the intervening years.
The idea of undertaking a pilgrimage to Jerusalem was not new
in England, however, as the idea of religiously justified warfare
went back to Anglo-Saxon times. Many of those who took up
the Cross to go on a Crusade never actually left, often because
the individual lacked sufficient funds to undertake the
journey. Raising funds to travel typically involved crusaders
selling or mortgaging their lands and possessions, which
affected their families and, at times, considerably affected the
economy as a whole.
Economy and technology
Geography
England had a diverse geography in the medieval period, from

the Fenlands of East Anglia or the heavily wooded Weald,
through to the upland moors of Yorkshire. Despite this,
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medieval England broadly formed two zones, roughly divided by

the rivers Exe and Tees: the south and east of England had
lighter, richer soils, able to support both arable and pastoral
agriculture, while the poorer soils and colder climate of the
north and west produced a predominantly pastoral economy.
Slightly more land was covered by trees than in the 20th
century, and bears, beavers and wolves lived wild in England,
bears being hunted to extinction by the 11th century and
beavers by the 12th. Of the 10,000 miles of roads that had
been built by the Romans, many remained in use and four were
of particular strategic importance—the Icknield Way, the Fosse
Way, Ermine Street and Watling Street—which criss-crossed
the entire country. The road system was adequate for the
needs of the period, although it was significantly cheaper to
transport goods by water. The major river networks formed key
transport routes, while many English towns formed navigable
inland ports.
For much of the Middle Ages, England's climate differed from

that in the 21st century. Between the 9th and 13th centuries
England went through the Medieval Warm Period, a prolonged
period of warmer temperatures; in the early 13th century, for
example, summers were around 1 °C warmer than today and
the climate was slightly drier. These warmer temperatures
allowed poorer land to be brought into cultivation and for
grapevines to be cultivated relatively far north. The Warm
Period was followed by several centuries of much cooler
temperatures, termed the Little Ice Age; by the 14th century
spring temperatures had dropped considerably, reaching their
coldest in the 1340s and 1350s. This cold end to the Middle
Ages significantly affected English agriculture and living
conditions.
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Even at the start of the Middle Ages the English landscape had
been shaped by human occupation over many centuries. Much
woodland was new, the result of fields being reclaimed by
brush after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Human
intervention had established wood pastures, an ancient system
for managing woods and animals, and coppicing, a more
intensive approach to managing woodlands. Other agricultural
lands included arable fields and pastorage, while in some parts
of the country, such as the South-West, waste moorland
remained testament to earlier over-farming in the Bronze Age.
England's environment continued to be shaped throughout the
period, through the building of dykes to drain marshes, tree
clearance and the large-scale extraction of peat. Managed
parks for hunting game, including deer and boars, were built
as status symbols by the nobility from the 12th century
onwards, but earlier versions of parks, such as hays, may have
originated as early as the 7th century.
Economy and demographics
The English economy was fundamentally agricultural,

depending on growing crops such as wheat, barley and oats on
an open field system, and husbanding sheep, cattle and pigs.
In the late Anglo-Saxon period many peasants moved away
from living in isolated hamlets and instead came together to
form larger villages engaged in arable cultivation. Agricultural
land became typically organised around manors, and was
divided between some fields that the landowner would manage
directly, called demesne land, and the majority of the fields
that would be cultivated by local peasants. These peasants
would pay rent to the landowner either through agricultural
labour on the lord's demesne fields or through rent in the form
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of cash and produce. By the 11th century, a market economy

was flourishing across much of England, while the eastern and
southern towns were heavily involved in international trade.
Around 6,000 watermills were built to grind flour, freeing up
labour for other more productive agricultural tasks.
Although the Norman invasion caused some damage as soldiers

looted the countryside and land was confiscated for castle
building, the English economy was not greatly affected. Taxes
were increased, however, and the Normans established
extensive forests that were exploited for their natural
resources and protected by royal laws. The next two centuries
saw huge growth in the English economy, driven in part by the
increase in the population from around 1.5 million in 1086 to
between 4 and 5 million in 1300. More land, much of it at the
expense of the royal forests, was brought into production to
feed the growing population and to produce wool for export to
Europe. Many hundreds of new towns, some of them planned
communities, were built across England, supporting the
creation of guilds, charter fairs and other medieval institutions
which governed the growing trade. Jewish financiers played a
significant role in funding the growing economy, along with the
new Cistercian and Augustinian religious orders that emerged
as major players in the wool trade of the north. Mining
increased in England, with a silver boom in the 12th century
helping to fuel the expansion of the money supply.
Economic growth began to falter at the end of the 13th

century, owing to a combination of overpopulation, land
shortages and depleted soils. The Great Famine shook the
English economy severely and population growth ceased; the
first outbreak of the Black Death in 1348 then killed around
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half the English population. The agricultural sector shrank

rapidly, with higher wages, lower prices and diminishing
profits leading to the final demise of the old demesne system
and the advent of the modern farming system centring on the
charging of cash rents for lands. As returns on land fell, many
estates, and in some cases entire settlements, were simply
abandoned, and nearly 1,500 villages were deserted during this
period. A new class of gentry emerged who rented farms from
the major nobility. Unsuccessful government attempts were
made to regulate wages and consumption, but these largely
collapsed in the decades following the Peasants' Revolt of
1381.
The English cloth industry grew considerably at the start of the

15th century, and a new class of international English
merchant emerged, typically based in London or the South-
West, prospering at the expense of the older, shrinking
economies of the eastern towns. These new trading systems
brought about the end of many of the international fairs and
the rise of the chartered company. Fishing in the North Sea
expanded into deeper waters, backed by commercial investment
from major merchants. Between 1440 and 1480, however,
Europe entered a recession and England suffered the Great
Slump: trade collapsed, driving down agricultural prices, rents
and ultimately the acceptable levels of royal taxation. The
resulting tensions and discontent played an important part in
Jack Cade's popular uprising in 1450 and the subsequent Wars
of the Roses. By the end of Middle Ages the economy had
begun to recover and considerable improvements were being
made in metalworking and shipbuilding that would shape the
Early Modern economy.
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Technology and science
Technology and science in England advanced considerably

during the Middle Ages, driven in part by the Greek and
Islamic thinking that reached England from the 12th century
onwards. Many advances were made in scientific ideas,
including the introduction of Arabic numerals and a sequence
of improvements in the units used for measuring time. Clocks
were first built in England in the late 13th century, and the
first mechanical clocks were certainly being installed in
cathedrals and abbeys by the 1320s. Astrology, magic and
palm reading were also considered important forms of
knowledge in medieval England, although some doubted their
reliability.
The period produced some influential English scholars. Roger

Bacon, a philosopher and Franciscan friar, produced works on
natural philosophy, astronomy and alchemy; his work set out
the theoretical basis for future experimentation in the natural
sciences. William of Ockham helped to fuse Latin, Greek and
Islamic writing into a general theory of logic; "Ockham's Razor"
was one of his oft-cited conclusions. English scholars since the
time of Bede had believed the world was probably round, but
Johannes de Sacrobosco estimated the circumference of the
earth in the 13th century. Despite the limitations of medieval
medicine, Gilbertus Anglicus published the Compendium
Medicinae, one of the longest medical works ever written in
Latin. Prominent historical and science texts began to be
translated into English for the first time in the second half of
the 14th century, including the Polychronicon and The Travels
of Sir John Mandeville. The universities of Oxford and
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Cambridge were established during the 11th and 12th

centuries, drawing on the model of the University of Paris.
Technological advances proceeded in a range of areas.

Watermills to grind grain had existed during most of the Anglo-
Saxon period, using horizontal mill designs; from the 12th
century on many more were built, eliminating the use of hand
mills, with the older horizontal mills gradually supplanted by a
new vertical mill design.
Windmills began to be built in the late 12th century and slowly

became more common. Water-powered fulling mills and
powered hammers first appeared in the 12th century; water
power was harnessed to assist in smelting by the 14th century,
with the first blast furnace opening in 1496. New mining
methods were developed and horse-powered pumps were
installed in English mines by the end of the Middle Ages. The
introduction of hopped beer transformed the brewing industry
in the 14th century, and new techniques were invented to
better preserve fish.
Glazed pottery became widespread in the 12th and 13th

centuries, with stoneware pots largely replacing wooden plates
and bowls by the 15th century. William Caxton and Wynkyn de
Worde began using the printing press during the late 15th
century.
Transport links were also improved; many road bridges were

either erected or rebuilt in stone during the long economic
boom of the 12th and 13th centuries. England's maritime trade
benefited from the introduction of cog ships, and many docks
were improved and fitted with cranes for the first time.
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Warfare
Armies
Warfare was endemic in early Anglo-Saxon England, and major

conflicts still occurred approximately every generation in the
later period. Groups of well-armed noblemen and their
households formed the heart of these armies, supported by
larger numbers of temporary troops levied from across the
kingdom, called the fyrd. By the 9th century, armies of 20,000
men could be called up for campaigns, with another 28,000
men available to guard urban defences. The most common
weapon was the spear, with swords used by the wealthier
nobles; cavalry was probably less common than in wider
Europe, but some Anglo-Saxons did fight from horseback. The
Viking attacks on England in the 9th century led to
developments in tactics, including the use of shield walls in
battle, and the Scandinavian seizure of power in the 11th
century introduced housecarls, a form of elite household
soldier who protected the king.
Anglo-Norman warfare was characterised by attritional military

campaigns, in which commanders tried to raid enemy lands
and seize castles in order to allow them to take control of their
adversaries' territory, ultimately winning slow but strategic
victories. Pitched battles were occasionally fought between
armies but these were considered risky engagements and
usually avoided by prudent commanders. The armies of the
period comprised bodies of mounted, armoured knights,
supported by infantry. Crossbowmen become more numerous
in the 12th century, alongside the older shortbow. At the heart
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of these armies was the familia regis, the permanent military

household of the king, which was supported in war by feudal
levies, drawn up by local nobles for a limited period of service
during a campaign. Mercenaries were increasingly employed,
driving up the cost of warfare considerably, and adequate
supplies of ready cash became essential for the success of
campaigns.
In the late 13th century Edward I expanded the familia regis to

become a small standing army, forming the core of much larger
armies up to 28,700 strong, largely comprising foot soldiers,
for campaigns in Scotland and France. By the time of Edward
III, armies were smaller in size, but the troops were typically
better equipped and uniformed, and the archers carried the
longbow, a potentially devastating weapon. Cannons were first
used by English forces at battles such as Crécy in 1346.
Soldiers began to be contracted for specific campaigns, a
practice which may have hastened the development of the
armies of retainers that grew up under bastard feudalism. By
the late 15th century, however, English armies were somewhat
backward by wider European standards; the Wars of the Roses
were fought by inexperienced soldiers, often with outdated
weapons, allowing the European forces which intervened in the
conflict to have a decisive effect on the outcomes of battles.
Navies
The first references to an English navy occur in 851, when

chroniclers described Wessex ships defeating a Viking fleet.
These early fleets were limited in size but grew in size in the
10th century, allowing the power of Wessex to be projected
across the Irish Sea and the English Channel; Cnut's fleet had
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as many as 40 vessels, while Edward the Confessor could

muster 80 ships. Some ships were manned by sailors called
lithesmen and bustsecarls, probably drawn from the coastal
towns, while other vessels were mobilised as part of a national
levy and manned by their regular crews. Naval forces played an
important role during the rest of the Middle Ages, enabling the
transportation of troops and supplies, raids into hostile
territory and attacks on enemy fleets.
English naval power became particularly important after the

loss of Normandy in 1204, which turned the English Channel
from a friendly transit route into a contested and critical
border region. English fleets in the 13th and 14th centuries
typically comprised specialist vessels, such as galleys and
large transport ships, and pressed merchant vessels
conscripted into action; the latter increasingly included cogs, a
new form of sailing ship. Battles might be fought when one
fleet found another at anchor, such as the English victory at
Sluys in 1340, or in more open waters, as off the coast of
Winchelsea in 1350; raiding campaigns, such as the French
attacks on the south of England between 1338 and 1339, could
cause devastation from which some towns never fully
recovered.
Fortifications
Many of the fortifications built by the Romans in England

survived into the Middle Ages, including the walls surrounding
their military forts and cities. These defences were often
reused during the unstable post-Roman period. The Anglo-
Saxon kings undertook significant planned urban expansion in
the 8th and 9th centuries, creating burhs, often protected with
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earth and wood ramparts. Burh walls sometimes utilised older

Roman fortifications, both for practical reasons and to bolster
their owners' reputations through the symbolism of former
Roman power.
Although a small number of castles had been built in England

during the 1050s, after the conquest the Normans began to
build timber motte and bailey and ringwork castles in large
numbers to control their newly occupied territories. During the
12th century the Normans began to build more castles in
stone, with characteristic square keeps that supported both
military and political functions. Royal castles were used to
control key towns and forests, whilst baronial castles were
used by the Norman lords to control their widespread estates;
a feudal system called the castle-guard was sometimes used to
provide garrisons. Castles and sieges continued to grow in
military sophistication during the 12th century, and in the
13th century new defensive town walls were constructed across
England.
By the 14th century, castles were combining defences with

luxurious, sophisticated living arrangements and landscaped
gardens and parks. Early gunpowder weapons were used to
defend castles by the end of the 14th century and gunports
became an essential feature for a fashionable castle. The
economics of maintaining castles meant that many were left to
decline or abandoned; in contrast, a small number of castles
were developed by the very wealthy into palaces that hosted
lavish feasts and celebrations amid elaborate architecture.
Smaller defensible structures called tower houses emerged in
the north of England to protect against the Scottish threat. By
the late medieval period, town walls were increasingly less
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military in character and more often expressions of civic pride

or part of urban governance: many grand gatehouses were built
in the 14th and 15th centuries for these purposes.
Arts
Art
Medieval England produced art in the form of paintings,

carvings, books, fabrics and many functional but beautiful
objects. A wide range of materials was used, including gold,
glass and ivory, the art usually drawing overt attention to the
materials utilised in the designs.
Anglo-Saxon artists created carved ivories, illuminated

manuscripts, embroidered cloths, crosses and stone sculpture,
although relatively few of these have survived to the modern
period. They produced a wide range of metalwork, frequently
using gold and garnets, with brooches, buckles, sword hilts
and drinking horns particularly favoured designs. Early
designs, such as those found at the Sutton Hoo burial, used a
zoomorphic style, heavily influenced by German fashions, in
which animal shapes were distorted into flowing shapes and
positioned alongside geometric patterns.
From the 7th century onwards more naturalistic designs

became popular, showing a plasticity of form and incorporating
both animals and people into the designs. In the 10th century,
Carolingian styles, inspired by Classical imagery, began to
enter from the continent, becoming widely used in the reformed
Benedictine monasteries across the south and east of England.
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The Norman conquest introduced northern French artistic

styles, particular in illuminated manuscripts and murals, and
reduced the demand for carvings. In other artistic areas,
including embroidery, the Anglo-Saxon influence remained
evident into the 12th century, and the famous Bayeux Tapestry
is an example of older styles being reemployed under the new
regime. Stained glass became a distinctive form of English art
during this later medieval period, although the coloured glass
for these works was almost entirely imported from Europe.
Little early stained glass in England has survived, but it
typically had both an ornamental and educational function,
while later works also commemorated the sponsors of the
windows into the designs. English tapestry making and
embroidery in the early 14th century were of an especially high
quality; works produced by nuns and London professionals
were exported across Europe, becoming known as the opus
anglicanum. English illuminated books, such as the Queen
Mary Psalter, were also famous in this period, featuring rich
decoration, a combination of grotesque and natural figures and
rich colours. The quality of illuminated art in England declined
significantly in the face of competition from Flanders in the
14th century, and later English illuminated medieval pieces
generally imitated Flemish styles.
Literature, drama and music
The Anglo-Saxons produced extensive poetry in Old English,

some of which was written down as early as the 9th century,
although most surviving poems were compiled in the 10th and
early 11th century. Beowulf, probably written between 650 and
750, is typical of these poems, portraying a vivid, heroic tale,
ending with the protagonist's death at the hands of a dragon,
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but still showing signs of the new Christian influences in

England. Old English was also used for academic and courtly
writing from the 9th century onwards, including translations of
popular foreign works, including The Pastoral Care.
Poetry and stories written in French were popular after the

Norman conquest, and by the 12th century some works on
English history began to be produced in French verse.
Romantic poems about tournaments and courtly love became
popular in Paris and this fashion spread into England in the
form of lays; stories about the court of King Arthur were also
fashionable, due in part to the interest of Henry II. English
continued to be used on a modest scale to write local religious
works and some poems in the north of England, but most
major works were produced in Latin or French. In the reign of
Richard II there was an upsurge in the use of Middle English in
poetry, sometimes termed "Ricardian poetry", although the
works still emulated French fashions. The work of Geoffrey
Chaucer from the 1370s onwards, however, culminating in the
influential Canterbury Tales, was uniquely English in style.
Major pieces of courtly poetry continued to be produced into
the 15th century by Chaucher's disciples, and Thomas Malory
compiled the older Arthurian tales to produce Le Morte
d'Arthur.
Music and singing were important in England during the

medieval period, being used in religious ceremonies, court
occasions and to accompany theatrical works. Singing
techniques called gymel were introduced in England in the
13th century, accompanied by instruments such as the guitar,
harp, pipes and organ. Henry IV sponsored an extensive range
of music in England, while his son Henry V brought back many
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influences from occupied France. Carols became an important

form of music in the 15th century; originally these had been a
song sung during a dance with a prominent refrain — the 15th
century form lost the dancing and introduced strong religious
overtones. Ballads were also popular from the late 14th
century onwards, including the Ballad of Chevy Chase and
others describing the activities of Robin Hood. Miracle plays
were performed to communicate the Bible in various locations.
By the late 14th century, these had been extended into
vernacular mystery plays which performed annually over
several days, broken up into various cycles of plays; a handful
have survived into the 21st century. Guilds competed to
produce the best plays in each town and performances were
often an expression of civic identity.
Architecture
In the century after the collapse of the Romano-British

economy, very few substantial buildings were constructed and
many villas and towns were abandoned. New long- and round-
houses were constructed in some settlements, while in others
timber buildings were built imitating the older Roman styles.
The Germanic immigrants constructed small rectangular
buildings from wood, and occasionally grander halls. However,
the conversion to Christianity in the 6th and 7th centuries
reintroduced Italian and French masons, and these craftsmen
built stone churches, low in height, following a narrow,
rectangular plan, plastered inside and fitted with glass and
colourful vestments. This Romanesque style developed
throughout the period, featuring characteristic circular arches.
By the 10th and 11th centuries, much larger churches and
monastery buildings were being built, featuring square and
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circular towers after the contemporary European fashion. The

palaces constructed for the nobility centred on great timber
halls, while manor houses began to appear in rural areas.
The Normans brought with them architectural styles from their

own duchy, where austere stone churches were preferred.
Under the early Norman kings this style was adapted to
produce large, plain cathedrals with ribbed vaulting. During
the 12th century the Anglo-Norman style became richer and
more ornate, with pointed arches derived from French
architecture replacing the curved Romanesque designs; this
style is termed Early English Gothic and continued, with
variation, throughout the rest of the Middle Ages. In the early
14th century the Perpendicular Gothic style was created in
England, with an emphasis on verticality, immense windows
and soaring arcades. Fine timber roofs in a variety of styles,
but in particular the hammerbeam, were built in many English
buildings. In the 15th century the architectural focus turned
away from cathedrals and monasteries in favour of parish
churches, often decorated with richly carved woodwork; in
turn, these churches influenced the design of new chantry
chapels for existing cathedrals.
Meanwhile, domestic architecture had continued to develop,

with the Normans, having first occupied the older Anglo-Saxon
dwellings, rapidly beginning to build larger buildings in stone
and timber. The elite preferred houses with large, ground-floor
halls but the less wealthy constructed simpler houses with the
halls on the first floor; master and servants frequently lived in
the same spaces. Wealthier town-houses were also built using
stone, and incorporated business and domestic arrangements
into a single functional design. By the 14th century grander
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houses and castles were sophisticated affairs: expensively

tiled, often featuring murals and glass windows, these
buildings were often designed as a set of apartments to allow
greater privacy. Fashionable brick began to be used in some
parts of the country, copying French tastes. Architecture that
emulated the older defensive designs remained popular. Less is
known about the houses of peasants during this period,
although many peasants appear to have lived in relatively
substantial, timber-framed long-houses; the quality of these
houses improved in the prosperous years following the Black
Death, often being built by professional craftsmen.
Legacy
Historiography
The first history of medieval England was written by Bede in

the 8th century; many more accounts of contemporary and
ancient history followed, usually termed chronicles. In the
16th century, the first academic histories began to be written,
typically drawing primarily on the chroniclers and interpreting
them in the light of current political concerns. Edward
Gibbon's 18th-century writings were influential, presenting the
medieval period as a dark age between the glories of Rome and
the rebirth of civilisation in the Early Modern period. Late
Victorian historians continued to use the chroniclers as
sources, but also deployed documents such as Domesday Book
and Magna Carta, alongside newly discovered financial, legal
and commercial records. They produced a progressive account
of political and economic development in England. The growth
of the British Empire spurred interest in the various periods of
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English hegemony during the Middle Ages, including the

Angevin Empire and the Hundred Years' War.
By the 1930s, older historical analyses were challenged by a

range of neo-positivist, Marxist and econometric approaches,
supported by a widening body of documentary, archaeological
and scientific evidence. Marxist and Neo-Marxist analyses
continued to be popular in the post-war years, producing
seminal works on economic issues and social protests. Post-
modern analysis became influential in the 1970s and 1980s,
focusing on identity, gender, interpretation and culture. Many
studies focused on particular regions or groups, drawing on
new records and new scientific approaches, including
landscape and environmental archaeology. Fresh
archaeological finds, such as the Staffordshire Hoard, continue
to challenge previous interpretations, and historical studies of
England in the Middle Ages have never been so diverse as in
the early 21st century.
Popular representations
The period has also been used in a wide range of popular

culture. William Shakespeare's plays on the lives of the
medieval kings have proved to have had long lasting appeal,
heavily influencing both popular interpretations and histories
of figures such as King John and Henry V. Other playwrights
have since taken key medieval events, such as the death of
Thomas Becket, and used them to draw out contemporary
themes and issues. The medieval mystery plays continue to be
enacted in key English towns and cities. Film-makers have
drawn extensively on the medieval period, often taking themes
from Shakespeare or the Robin Hood ballads for inspiration.
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Historical fiction set in England during the Middle Ages

remains persistently popular, with the 1980s and 1990s seeing
a particular growth of historical detective fiction. The period
has also inspired fantasy writers, including J. R. R. Tolkien's
stories of Middle-earth. English medieval music was revived
from the 1950s, with choral and musical groups attempting to
authentically reproduce the original sounds. Medieval living
history events were first held during the 19th and early 20th
centuries, and the period has inspired a considerable
community of historical re-enactors, part of England's growing
heritage industry.
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Chapter 9
Scotland in the Late Middle Ages
Scotland in the Late Middle Ages, between the deaths of

Alexander III in 1286 and James IV in 1513, established its
independence from England under figures including William
Wallace in the late 13th century and Robert Bruce in the 14th
century. In the 15th century under the Stewart Dynasty,
despite a turbulent political history, the Crown gained greater
political control at the expense of independent lords and
regained most of its lost territory to approximately the modern
borders of the country. However, the Auld Alliance with France
led to the heavy defeat of a Scottish army at the Battle of
Flodden in 1513 and the death of the king James IV, which
would be followed by a long minority and a period of political
instability.
The economy of Scotland developed slowly in this period and a

population of perhaps a little under a million by the middle of
the 14th century began to decline after the arrival of the Black
Death, falling to perhaps half a million by the beginning of the
16th century.
Different social systems and cultures developed in the lowland

and highland regions of the country as Gaelic remained the
most common language north of the Tay and Middle Scots
dominated in the south, where it became the language of the
ruling elite, government and a new national literature. There
were significant changes in religion which saw mendicant friars
and new devotions expand, particularly in the developing
burghs.
By the end of the period Scotland had adopted many of the

major tenets of the European Renaissance in art, architecture
and literature and produced a developed educational system.
This period has been seen one in which a clear national
identity emerged in Scotland, as well as significant distinctions
between different regions of the country which would be
particularly significant in the period of the Reformation.
Political history
Wars of Independence 1286–1371
John:
The death of king Alexander III in 1286, and the subsequent

death of his granddaughter and heir Margaret (called "the Maid
of Norway") in 1290, left 14 rivals for succession.
To prevent civil war the Scottish magnates asked Edward I of

England to arbitrate. He extracted legal recognition that the
realm of Scotland was held as a feudal dependency to the
throne of England before choosing John Balliol, the man with
the strongest claim, who became king as John I (30 November
1292). Robert Bruce of Annandale, the next strongest claimant,
accepted this outcome with reluctance. Over the next few years
Edward I used the concessions he had gained to systematically
undermine both the authority of King John and the
independence of Scotland. In 1295 John, on the urgings of his
chief councillors, entered into an alliance with France, the
beginning of the Auld Alliance.
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In 1296 Edward invaded Scotland, deposing King John. The

following year William Wallace and Andrew Murrey raised
forces to resist the occupation and under their joint leadership
an English army was defeated at the Battle of Stirling Bridge.
Murrey died of wounds after the battle and for a short time
Wallace ruled Scotland in the name of John Balliol as
Guardian of the realm. Edward came north in person and
defeated Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk. Wallace escaped but
probably resigned as Guardian of Scotland. In 1305 he fell into
the hands of the English, who executed him for treason despite
the fact that he owed no allegiance to England.
Robert I
Rivals John Comyn and Robert the Bruce, grandson of the

claimant Robert Bruce of Annandale, were appointed as joint
guardians in Wallace's place. On 10 February 1306, Bruce
participated in the murder of Comyn, at Greyfriars Kirk in
Dumfries. Less than seven weeks later, on 25 March Bruce was
crowned as king Robert I at Scone. However, Edward's forces
overran the country after defeating Bruce's small army at the
Battle of Methven.
Despite the excommunication of Bruce and his followers by

Pope Clement V, his support grew; and by 1314, with the help
of leading nobles such as Sir James Douglas and the Earl of
Moray, only the castles at Bothwell and Stirling remained
under English control. Edward I had died in 1307 and his heir
Edward II moved an army north to break the siege of Stirling
Castle and reassert control. They were defeated by forces
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under Robert I at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, securing

de facto independence.
In 1320 the Declaration of Arbroath, a remonstrance to the

Pope from the nobles of Scotland, helped to convince Pope
John XXII to overturn the earlier excommunication and nullify
the various acts of submission by Scottish kings to English
ones so that Scotland's sovereignty could be recognised by the
major European dynasties.
The Declaration has also been seen as one of the most

important documents in the development of a Scottish national
identity. Robert's brother Edward Bruce carried out a series of
campaigns against English forces in Ireland and was declared
High King. The campaigns in Ireland, although ultimately
unsuccessful, opened the prospect of what has been
characterised as "Pan-Gaelic Greater Scotia" under the Bruce
dynasty. Robert's forces carried out a series of raids of
Northern England, defeating an English army in 1327 at the
Battle of Stanhope Park. Robert's victories contributed to the
deposition of Edward II and Robert was able to take advantage
of the minority of his son Edward III to secure the Treaty of
Edinburgh–Northampton, signed in May 1328, which
recognised Scotland as an independent kingdom, and Bruce as
its king.
David II
Robert I died in 1329, leaving his five-year-old son to reign as

David II. During his minority, the country was ruled by a
series of governors, two of whom died as a result of a renewed
invasion by English forces from 1332. This was on the pretext
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of restoring Edward Balliol, son of John Balliol, to the Scottish

throne, thus starting the Second War of Independence. Despite
victories at Dupplin Moor (1332) and Halidon Hill (1333), in
the face of tough Scottish resistance led by Sir Andrew Murray,
the son of Wallace's comrade in arms, successive attempts to
secure Balliol on the throne failed. Edward III lost interest in
the fate of his protege after the outbreak of the Hundred Years'
War with France. In 1341 David was able to return from
temporary exile in France. In 1346 under the terms of the Auld
Alliance, he invaded England in the interests of France, but
was defeated and taken prisoner at the Battle of Neville's Cross
on 17 October 1346 and would remain in England as a
prisoner for 11 years. His cousin Robert Stewart ruled as
guardian in his absence. Balliol finally resigned his claim to
the throne to Edward in 1356, before retiring to Yorkshire,
where he died in 1364.
Without swearing allegiance to Edward III, David was released

for a ransom of 100,000 marks in 1357, but he was unable to
pay, resulting in secret negotiations with the English and
attempts to secure succession to the Scottish throne for an
English king. Major issues were his marriages and the failure
to produce an heir. His first wife, Joan, the sister of Edward
III, left him for England sometime after his return and she died
without children in 1362. His planned second marriage to
Margaret, the widow of the knight Sir John Logie, resulted in a
factional division that alienated nobles including Robert
Steward. Eventually the king backed the queen's opponents
and attempted to divorce her. She fled to the continent and
appealed to the Pope for support. Before he could marry again
David died, apparently unexpectedly, bringing the Bruce
dynasty to an end.
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Robert II, Robert III and James I
After the unexpected death of the childless David II, Robert

Stewart, the first of the Stewart (later Stuart) monarchs, came
to the throne in 1371. Despite his relatively venerable age of
55, his son, John, Earl of Carrick, grew impatient and
assumed the reins of government as Lord Lieutenant. A border
incursion into England led to the victory at Otterburn in 1388,
but at the cost of the life of John's ally James Douglas, 2nd
Earl of Douglas. This, along with Carrick having suffered a
debilitating horse kick, led to a shift in power to his brother
Robert Stewart, Earl of Fife, who now was appointed as
Lieutenant in his place. When Robert II died in 1390 John took
the regnal name Robert III, to avoid awkward questions over
the exact status of the first King John, but power rested with
his brother Robert, now Duke of Albany. After the suspicious
death of his elder son, David, Duke of Rothesay in 1402,
Robert, fearful for the safety of his younger son, James (the
future James I), sent him to France in 1406. However, the
English captured him en route and he spent the next 18 years
as a prisoner held for ransom. As a result, after the death of
Robert III later that year, regents ruled Scotland: first Albany
and after his death in 1420 his son Murdoch, during whose
term of office the country suffered considerable unrest.
When the Scots finally began the ransom payments in 1424,

James, aged 32, returned with his English bride, Joan
Beaufort, determined to assert this authority. He revoked
grants from customs and of lands made during his captivity,
undermining the position of those who had gained in his
absence, particularly the Albany Stewarts. James had Murdoch
and two of his sons tried and then executed with further
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enforcement of his authority by more arrests and forfeiture of

lands. In 1436 he attempted to regain one of the major border
fortresses still in English hands at Roxburgh, but the siege
ended in a humiliating defeat. He was murdered by
discontented council member Robert Graham and his co-
conspirators near the Blackfriars church, Perth in 1437.
James II
The assassination left the king's seven-year-old son to reign as

James II. After the execution of a number of suspected
conspirators, leadership fell to Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of
Douglas, as lieutenant-general of the realm. After his death in
1439, power was shared uneasily between the Douglas family,
William, 1st Lord Crichton, Lord Chancellor of Scotland and
Sir Alexander Livingston of Callendar. A conspiracy to break
the power of the Douglas family led to the "Black Dinner" at
Edinburgh Castle in 1440, which saw the judicial murder of
the young William Douglas, 6th Earl of Douglas and his
brother by Livingstone and Crichton. The main beneficiary was
the victims' great uncle James Douglas, Earl of Avondale who
became the 7th Earl of Douglas and emerged as the main
power in the government.
In 1449 James II was declared to have reached his majority,

but the Douglases consolidated their position and the king
began a long struggle for power, leading to the murder of the
8th Earl of Douglas at Stirling Castle on 22 February 1452.
This opened an intermittent civil war as James attempted to
seize Douglas lands, punctuated by a series of humiliating
reversals. Gradually James managed to win over the allies of
the Douglases with offers of lands, titles and offices and the
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Douglases' forces were finally defeated at the Battle of

Arkinholm on 12 May 1455. Once independent, James II proved
to be an active and interventionist king. He travelled the
country dispensing justice and some of the unpopular policies
of the following reign, such as the sale of pardons, may have
originated in this period. Ambitious plans to take Orkney,
Shetland and the Isle of Man came to nothing. His attempt to
take Roxburgh from the English in 1460 succeeded, but at the
cost of his life as he was killed by an exploding artillery piece.
James III
James II's son, aged nine or ten, became king as James III, and
his widow Mary of Guelders acted as regent until her own
death three years later. The Boyd family, led by Robert, Lord
Boyd, emerged as the leading force in the government, making
themselves unpopular through self-aggrandisement, with Lord
Robert's son Thomas being made Earl of Arran and marrying
the king's sister, Mary. While Robert and Thomas were out of
the country in 1469 the king asserted his control, executing
members of the Boyd family. His foreign policy included a
rapprochement with England, with his eldest son, the future
James IV, being betrothed to Cecily of York, the daughter of
Edward IV of England, a change of policy that was immensely
unpopular at home.
During the 1470s conflict developed between the king and his
brothers, Alexander, Duke of Albany and John, Earl of Mar.
Mar died suspiciously in 1480 and his estates were forfeited
and possibly given to a royal favourite, Robert Cochrane.
Albany fled to France in 1479, accused of treason. By this
point the alliance with England was failing and from 1480
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there was intermittent war, followed by a full-scale invasion of

Scotland two years later, led by the Duke of Gloucester, the
future Richard III, and accompanied by Albany. James was
imprisoned by his own subjects in Edinburgh Castle, and
Albany was established as lieutenant-general. Having taken
Berwick-upon-Tweed the English retreated and Albany's
government began to collapse forcing him to flee. Despite
conspiracies and more attempts at invasion, James was able to
regain power. However, the king managed to alienate the
barons, refusing to travel for the implementation of justice,
preferring to be resident in Edinburgh, he debased the coinage,
probably creating a financial crisis, he continued to pursue an
English alliance and dismissed key supporters, including his
Chancellor Colin Campbell, 1st Earl of Argyll, becoming
estranged from his wife, Margaret of Denmark, and his son
James. Matters came to a head in 1488 when he faced an army
raised by the disaffected nobles, and many former councillors,
acting in the name of the prince as James IV. He was defeated
at the Battle of Sauchieburn and killed.
James IV
James IV was 15 when he came to the throne, but soon proved

a capable and independent minded ruler, whose reign is often
considered to have seen a flowering of Scottish culture under
the influence of the European Renaissance. He took a direct
interest in the administration of justice and frequently moved
his court in legal circuits of justice ayres. He defeated a major
Northern rebellion, mainly of supporters of the murdered
James III. It began in Dunbarton in 1489, led by the Earl of
Lennox and Lord Lyle and spreading through the North. James
is credited with finally bringing the Lordship of the Isles under
196
control. He forced through the forfeiture of the lands of the

last lord John MacDonald in 1493, backing Alexander Gordon,
3rd Earl of Huntly's power in the region and launching a series
of naval campaigns and sieges that resulted in the capture or
exile of his rivals by 1507.
For a time he supported Perkin Warbeck, the pretender to the

English throne, and carried out a brief invasion of England on
his behalf in 1496. However, he then established good
diplomatic relations with England, and in 1502 signed the
Treaty of Perpetual Peace, marrying Henry VII's daughter,
Margaret Tudor, thus laying the foundation for the 17th
century Union of the Crowns. Animosity with Henry VIII of
England helped prompt the renewal of the Auld Alliance in
1512. When the Pope organised a Holy League, which included
England, against the French in 1511, James was caught
between incompatible diplomatic policies. He tried to suggest
an unrealistic European Crusade to Constantinople, but after
border skirmishing, when the French were attacked by the
English he declared war on England and was excommunicated
by the Pope. He sent his navy and gunners to support the
French and in 1513 led a major army of perhaps 34,000 over
the border.
After using his formidable artillery train to take Norham Castle

he marched south, where the invasion was stopped decisively
on 9 September 1513 at the Battle of Flodden. The King, many
of his nobles, and a large number of ordinary troops were
killed, commemorated by the song "The Floo'ers o' the Forest".
Once again Scotland's government lay in the hands of regents
in the name of the infant James V.
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Geography
The defining factor in the geography of Scotland is the

distinction between the Highlands and Islands in the north and
west and the lowlands in the south and east. The highlands are
further divided into the Northwest Highlands and the
Grampian Mountains by the fault line of the Great Glen. The
lowlands are divided into the fertile belt of the Central
Lowlands and the higher terrain of the Southern Uplands,
which included the Cheviot hills, over which the border with
England came to run by the end of the period. The Central
Lowland belt averages about 50 miles in width and, because it
contains most of the good quality agricultural land and has
easier communications, could support most of the urbanisation
and elements of conventional medieval government. However,
the Southern Uplands, and particularly the Highlands were
economically less productive and much more difficult to
govern. This provided Scotland with a form of protection, as
minor English incursions had to cross the difficult southern
uplands and the two major attempts at conquest by the
English, under Edward I and then Edward III, were unable to
penetrate the highlands, from which area potential resistance
could reconquer the lowlands. However, it also made those
areas problematic to govern for Scottish kings and much of the
political history of the era after the wars of independence
circulated around attempts to resolve problems of entrenched
localism in these regions.
It was in the later medieval era that the borders of Scotland

reached approximately their modern extent. The Isle of Man fell
under English control in the 14th century, despite several
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attempts to restore Scottish authority. The English were able

to annexe a large slice of the lowlands under Edward III, but
these losses were gradually regained, particularly while
England was preoccupied with the Wars of the Roses (1455–
85). In 1468 the last great acquisition of Scottish territory
occurred when James III married Margaret of Denmark,
receiving the Orkney Islands and the Shetland Islands in
payment of her dowry. However, in 1482 Berwick, a border
fortress and the largest port in medieval Scotland, fell to the
English once again, for what was to be the final change of
hands.
Demography
Because medieval Scotland lacked the intrusive government

and growing bureaucracy that can be found in
contemporaneous England, there is very little evidence on
which to base reliable estimates of population before the early
18th century. On the basis that it had roughly a sixth of the
farmable land of England, it has been suggested that the
population would have been of a similar proportion, probably a
little less than a million at its height before the Black Death
reached the country in 1349. Although there is no reliable
documentation on the impact of the plague, there are many
anecdotal references to abandoned land in the following
decades. If the pattern followed that in England, then the
population may have fallen to as low as half a million by the
end of the 15th century. Compared with the situation after the
redistribution of population in the later clearances and the
industrial revolution, these numbers would have been
relatively evenly spread over the kingdom, with roughly half
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living north of the Tay. Perhaps ten per cent of the population
lived in one of fifty burghs that existed at the beginning of the
period, mainly in the east and south. It has been suggested
that they would have had a mean population of about 2,000,
but many would be much smaller than 1,000 and the largest,
Edinburgh, probably had a population of over 10,000 by the
end of the era.
Economy
Agriculture
Scotland is roughly half the size of England and Wales, but has
only between a fifth and a sixth of the amount of the arable or
good pastoral land, making marginal pastoral farming and,
with its extensive coastline, fishing, the key factors in the
medieval economy. With difficult terrain, poor roads and
methods of transport there was little trade between different
areas of the country and most settlements depended on what
was produced locally, often with very little in reserve in bad
years. Most farming was based on the lowland farmtoun or
highland baile, settlements of a handful of families that jointly
farmed an area notionally suitable for two or three plough
teams, allocated in run rigs to tenant farmers. They usually
ran downhill so that they included both wet and dry land,
helping to offset some of the problems of extreme weather
conditions. This land was divided into the infield, which was in
continuous arable cultivation, and the outfield which was
rotated between arable and grass. Most ploughing was done
with a heavy wooden plough with an iron coulter, pulled by
oxen, who were more effective and cheaper to feed than horses.
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Obligations to the local lord usually included supplying oxen

for ploughing the lord's land on an annual basis and the much
resented obligation to grind corn at the lord's mill. The rural
economy appears to have boomed in the 13th century and in
the immediate aftermath of the Black Death was still buoyant,
but by the 1360s there was a severe falling off of incomes,
which can be seen in clerical benefices, of between a third and
half compared with the beginning of the era. This was followed
by a slow recovery in the 15th century.
Burghs
Most of the burghs were on the east coast, and among them
were the largest and wealthiest, including Aberdeen, Perth and
Edinburgh, whose growth was facilitated by trade with the
continent. Although in the southwest Glasgow was beginning to
develop and Ayr and Kirkcudbright had occasional links with
Spain and France, sea trade with Ireland was much less
profitable.
In addition to the major royal burghs this era saw the

proliferation of lesser baronial and ecclesiastical burghs, with
51 being created between 1450 and 1516. Most of these were
much smaller than their royal counterparts; excluded from
international trade, they mainly acted as local markets and
centres of craftsmanship. In general burghs probably carried
out far more local trading with their hinterlands, relying on
them for food and raw materials. The wool trade was a major
export at the beginning of the period, but the introduction of
sheep-scab was a serious blow to the trade and it began to
decline as an export from the early 15th century and despite a
levelling off, there was another drop in exports as the markets
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collapsed in the early-16th century Low Countries. Unlike in

England, this did not prompt the Scots to turn to large scale
cloth production and only poor quality rough cloths seem to
have been significant.
Crafts, industry and trade
There were relatively few developed crafts in Scotland in this

period, although by the later 15th century there were the
beginnings of a native iron casting industry, which led to the
production of cannon, and of the silver and goldsmithing for
which the country would later be known.
As a result, the most important exports were unprocessed raw

materials, including wool, hides, salt, fish, animals and coal,
while Scotland remained frequently short of wood, iron and, in
years of bad harvests, grain. Exports of hides and particularly
salmon, where the Scots held a decisive advantage in quality
over their rivals, appear to have held up much better than
wool, despite the general economic downturn in Europe in the
aftermath of the plague.
The growing desire among the court, lords, upper clergy and
wealthier merchants for luxury goods that largely had to be
imported led to a chronic shortage of bullion. This, and
perennial problems in royal finance, led to several
debasements of the coinage, with the amount of silver in a
penny being cut to almost a fifth between the late 14th century
and the late 15th century. The heavily debased "black money"
introduced in 1480 had to be withdrawn two years later and
may have helped fuel a financial and political crisis.
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Society
Kinship and clans
The fundamental social bond in late medieval Scottish society

was that of kinship. Descent was agnatic, with members of a
group sharing a (sometimes fictional) common ancestor, in the
south often reflected in a common surname. Unlike in England,
where kinship was predominately cognatic (derived through
both males and females), women retained their original
surname at marriage and marriages were intended to create
friendship between kin groups, rather than a new bond of
kinship. As a result, a shared surname has been seen as a
"test of kinship", proving large bodies of kin who could call on
each other’s support and this could help intensify the idea of
the feud, which was usually carried out as a form of revenge
for a kinsman and for which a large bodies of kin could be
counted on to support rival sides, although conflict between
members of kin groups also occurred.
The combination of agnatic kinship and a feudal system of

obligation has been seen as creating the highland clan system,
evident in records from the 13th century. Surnames were rare
in the highlands until the 17th and 18th centuries and in the
Middle Ages all members of a clan did not share a name and
most ordinary members were usually not related to its head.
The head of a clan in the beginning of the era was often the
strongest male in the main sept or branch of the clan, but
later, as primogeniture began to dominate, was usually the
eldest son of the last chief. The leading families of a clan
formed the fine, often seen as equivalent to lowland gentlemen,
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providing council in peace and leadership in war, and below

them were the daoine usisle (in Gaelic) or tacksmen (in Scots),
who managed the clan lands and collected the rents. In the
isles and along the adjacent western seaboard there were also
buannachann, who acted as a military elite, defending the clan
lands from raids or taking part in attacks on clan enemies.
Most of the followers of the clan were tenants, who supplied
labour to the clan heads and sometimes act as soldiers. In the
early modern era they would take the clan name as their
surname, turning the clan into a massive, if often fictive, kin
group.
Social structure
In the late medieval era the terminology used to describe the

different ranks of Scottish social structure was increasingly
dominated by the Scots language and as a result began to
parallel the terminology used in England. This consciousness
over status was reflected in military and (from 1430)
sumptuary legislation, which set out the types of weapons and
armour that should be maintained, and clothes that could be
worn, by various ranks. Below the king were a small number of
dukes (usually descended from very close relatives of the king)
and earls, who formed the senior nobility. Below them were the
barons, and, from the 1440s, fulfilling the same role were the
lords of Parliament, the lowest level of the nobility with the
rank-given right to attend the Estates. There were perhaps 40
to 60 of these in Scotland throughout the period. Members of
these noble ranks, perhaps particularly those that had
performed military or administrative service to the Crown,
might also be eligible for the status of knighthood. Below these
were the lairds, roughly equivalent to the English gentlemen.
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Most were in some sense in the service of the major nobility,

either in terms of land or military obligations, roughly half
sharing with them their name and a distant and often
uncertain form of kinship. Serfdom died out in Scotland in the
14th century, although through the system of courts baron
landlords still exerted considerable control over their tenants.
Below the lords and lairds were a variety of groups, often ill-
defined. These included yeomen, sometimes called "bonnet
lairds", often owning substantial land, and below them the
husbandmen, lesser landholders and free tenants that made up
the majority of the working population. Society in the burghs
was headed by wealthier merchants, who often held local office
as a burgess, alderman, bailies or as a member of the council.
A small number of these successful merchants were dubbed
knights for their service by the king by the end of the era,
although this seems to have been an exceptional form of civic
knighthood that did not put them on a par with landed
knights. Below them were craftsmen and workers that made up
the majority of the urban population.
Social conflict
Historians have noted considerable political conflict in the

burghs between the great merchants and craftsmen throughout
the period. Merchants attempted to prevent lower crafts and
gilds from infringing on their trade, monopolies and political
power. Craftsmen attempted to emphasise their importance
and to break into disputed areas of economic activity, setting
prices and standards of workmanship. In the 15th century a
series of statutes cemented the political position of the
merchants, with limitations on the ability of residents to
influence the composition of burgh councils and many of the
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functions of regulation taken on by the bailies. In rural society

historians have noted a lack of evidence of widespread unrest
similar to that evidenced the Jacquerie of 1358 in France and
the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 in England, possibly because
there was relatively little of the type of change in agriculture,
like the enclosure of common land, that could create
widespread resentment before the modern era. Instead a major
factor was the willingness of tenants to support their betters in
any conflict in which they were involved, for which landlords
reciprocated with charity and support. Highland and border
society acquired a reputation for lawless activity, particularly
the feud. However, more recent interpretations have pointed to
the feud as a means of preventing and speedily resolving
disputes by forcing arbitration, compensation and resolution.
Government
The Crown
The Crown was at the centre of government in late medieval

Scotland. The unification of the kingdom, the spread of Anglo-
Norman custom, the development of a European trading
economy and Robert I's success in achieving independence
from England, all did much to build up the prestige of the
institution. However, its authority within the kingdom was not
unchallenged, not least from the many semi-independent
lordships and it endured a series of crisis, particularly
frequent minorities and resulting regencies. All of this, in
addition to the relative poverty of the kingdom and the lack of
a system of regular taxation, helped to limit the scale of
central administration and government. Much more than the
206
English monarchy, the Scottish court remained a largely

itinerant institution, with the king moving between royal
castles, particularly Perth and Stirling, but also holding
judicial sessions throughout the kingdom, with Edinburgh only
beginning to emerge as the capital in the reign of James III at
the cost of considerable unpopularity. Like most western
European monarchies, the Scottish Crown in the 15th century
adopted the example of the Burgundian court, through
formality and elegance putting itself at the centre of culture
and political life, defined with display, ritual and pageantry,
reflected in elaborate new palaces and patronage of the arts.
Privy Council
After the Crown the most important government institution was

the Privy Council, composed of the king's closest advisers, but
which, unlike in England, retained legislative and judicial
powers. It was relatively small, with normally less than 10
members in a meeting, some of whom were nominated by
Parliament, particularly during the many minorities of the era,
as a means of limiting the power of a regent. The council was a
virtually full-time institution by the late 15th century, and
surviving records from the period indicate it was critical in the
working of royal justice. Nominally members of the council
were some of the great magnates of the realm, but they rarely
attended meetings. Most of the active members of the council
for most of the period were career administrators and lawyers,
almost exclusively university-educated clergy, the most
successful of which moved on to occupy the major
ecclesiastical positions in the realm as bishops and, towards
the end of the period, archbishops. By the end of the 15th
century this group was being joined by increasing numbers of
207
literate laymen, often secular lawyers, of which the most

successful gained preferment in the judicial system and grants
of lands and lordships. From the reign of James III onwards
the clerically-dominated post of Lord Chancellor was
increasingly taken by leading laymen.
Parliament
The next most important body in the process of government

was parliament, which had evolved by the late 13th century
from the King's Council of Bishops and Earls into a
'colloquium' with a political and judicial role. By the early 14th
century, the attendance of knights and freeholders had become
important, and probably from 1326 burgh commissioners
joined them to form the Three Estates, meeting in a variety of
major towns throughout the kingdom. It acquired significant
powers over particular issues, including consent for taxation,
but it also had a strong influence over justice, foreign policy,
war, and other legislation, whether political, ecclesiastical,
social or economic.
From the early 1450s, a great deal of the legislative business of

the Scottish Parliament was usually carried out by a
parliamentary committee known as the 'Lords of the Articles',
chosen by the three estates to draft legislation which was then
presented to the full assembly to be confirmed. Parliamentary
business was also carried out by 'sister' institutions, before c.
1500 by General Council and thereafter by the Convention of
Estates. These could carry out much business also dealt with
by Parliament—taxation, legislation and policy-making—but
lacked the ultimate authority of a full parliament. In the 15th
century parliament was being called on an almost annual
208
basis, more often than its English counterpart, and was willing
to offer occasional resistance or criticism to the policies of the
Crown, particular in the unpopular reign of James III.
However, from about 1494, after his success against the
Stewarts and Douglases and over rebels in 1482 and 1488,
James IV managed to largely dispense with the institution and
it might have declined, like many other systems of Estates in
continental Europe, had it not been for his death in 1513 and
another long minority.
Local government
At a local level, government combined traditional kinship-

based lordships with a relatively small system of royal offices.
Until the 15th century the ancient pattern of major lordships
survived largely intact, with the addition of two new "scattered
earldoms" of Douglas and Crawford, thanks to royal patronage
after the Wars of Independence, mainly in the borders and
south-west. The dominant kindred were the Stewarts, who
came to control many of the earldoms. Their acquisition of the
Crown, and a series of internal conflicts and confiscations,
meant that by around the 1460s the monarchy had
transformed its position within the realm, gaining control of
most of the "provincial" earldoms and lordships. Rather than
running semi-independent lordships, the major magnates now
had scattered estates and occasional regions of major
influence. In the lowlands the Crown was now able to
administer government through a system of sheriffdoms and
other appointed officers, rather than semi-independent
lordships. In the highlands James II created two new provincial
earldoms for his favourites: Argyll for the Campbells and
Huntly for the Gordons, which acted as a bulwark against the
209
vast Lordship of the Isles built up by the Macdonalds. James

IV largely resolved the Macdonald problem by annexing the
estates and titles of John Macdonald II to the Crown in 1493
after discovering his plans for an alliance with the English.
Warfare
Armies
Scottish armies of the late medieval era depended on a

combination of familial, communal and feudal forms of service.
"Scottish service" (servitum Scoticanum), also known as
"common service" (communis exertcitus), a levy of all able-
bodied freemen aged between 16 and 60, provided the bulk of
armed forces, with (according to decrees) 8 days warning.
Feudal obligations, by which knights held castles and estates
in exchange for service, provided troops on a 40-day basis. By
the second half of the 14th century money contracts of bonds
or bands of manrent, similar to English indentures of the same
period, were being used to retain more professional troops,
particularly men-at-arms and archers. In practice forms of
service tended to blur and overlap and several major Scottish
lords brought contingents from their kindred.
These systems produced relatively large numbers of poorly

armoured infantry, often armed with 12–14 foot spears. They
often formed the large close order defensive formations of
shiltrons, able to counter mounted knights as they did at
Bannockburn, but vulnerable to arrows (and later artillery fire)
and relatively immobile, as they proved at Halidon Hill. There
were attempts to replace spears with longer pikes of 15½ to
210
18½ feet in the later 15th century, in emulation of successes

over mounted troops in the Netherlands and Switzerland, but
this does not appear to have been successful until the eve of
the Flodden campaign in early 16th century. There were
smaller numbers of archers and men-at-arms, which were often
outnumbered when facing the English on the battlefield.
Archers became much sought after as mercenaries in French
armies of the 15th century to help counter the English
superiority in this arm, becoming a major element of the
French royal guards as the Garde Écossaise. Scottish men-at-
arms often dismounted to fight beside the infantry, with
perhaps a small mounted reserve, and it has been suggested
that these tactics were copied and refined by the English,
leading to their successes in the Hundred Years' War.
Artillery
The Stewarts attempted to follow France and England in

building up an artillery train. The abortive siege of Roxborugh
in 1436 under James I was probably the first conflict in which
the Scots made serious use of artillery. James II had a royal
gunner and received gifts of artillery from the continent,
including two giant bombards made for Philip the Good, Duke
of Burgundy, one of which, Mons Meg, still survives. Although
these were probably already outdated on the continent, they
represented impressive military technology when they reached
Scotland. James II enthusiasm for artillery cost him his life,
and James III also experienced ill-fortune when artillery sent
from Sigismund, Archduke of Austria, sank in a storm en route
to Scotland in 1481. James IV brought in experts from France,
Germany and the Netherlands and established a foundry in
1511. Edinburgh Castle had a house of artillery where visitors
211
could see cannon cast for what became a formidable train,

allowing him to send cannon to France and Ireland and to
quickly subdue Norham Castle in the Flodden campaign.
However, 18 heavy artillery pieces had to be drawn by 400
oxen and slowed the advancing army, proving ineffective
against the longer range and smaller calibre English guns at
the Battle of Flodden.
Navy
After the establishment of Scottish independence, Robert I

turned his attention to building up a Scottish naval capacity.
This was largely focused on the west coast, with the Exchequer
Rolls of 1326 recording the feudal duties of his vassals in that
region to aid him with their vessels and crews. Towards the
end of his reign he supervised the building of at least one royal
man-of-war near his palace at Cardross on the River Clyde. In
the late 14th century naval warfare with England was
conducted largely by hired Scots, Flemish and French
merchantmen and privateers. James I took a greater interest in
naval power. After his return to Scotland in 1424 he
established a shipbuilding yard at Leith, a house for marine
stores, and a workshop. King's ships, one of which
accompanied him on his expedition to the Islands in 1429,
were built and equipped there to be used for trade as well as
war, and the office of Lord High Admiral was probably founded
in this period. In his struggles with his nobles in 1488 James
III received assistance from his two warships the Flower and
the King's Carvel also known as the Yellow Carvel.
James IV put the enterprise on a new footing, founding a new

harbour at Newhaven in May 1504, and two years later ordered
212
the construction of a dockyard at the Pools of Airth. The upper

reaches of the Forth were protected by new fortifications on
Inchgarvie. The king acquired a total of 38 ships for the Royal
Scottish Navy, including the Margaret, and the carrack Michael
or Great Michael. The latter, built at great expense at
Newhaven and launched in 1511, was 240 feet (73 m) in
length, weighed 1,000 tons, had 24 cannon, and was, at that
time, the largest ship in Europe. Scottish ships had some
success against privateers, accompanied the king in his
expeditions in the islands and intervened in conflicts in
Scandinavia and the Baltic. In the Flodden campaign the fleet
consisted of 16 large and 10 smaller craft. After a raid on
Carrickfergus in Ireland, it joined up with the French and had
little impact on the war. After the disaster at Flodden the Great
Michael, and perhaps other ships, were sold to the French and
the king's ships disappeared from royal records after 1516.
Religion
The Church
Since gaining its independence from English ecclesiastical

organisation in 1192, the Catholic Church in Scotland had
been a "special daughter of the see of Rome", enjoying a direct
relationship with the Papacy. Lacking archbishoprics, it was in
practice run by special councils of made up of all the bishops,
with the bishop of St Andrews emerging as the most important
player, until in 1472 St Andrews became the first
archbishopric, to be followed by Glasgow in 1492. Late
medieval religion had its political aspects, with Robert I
carrying the brecbennoch (or Monymusk reliquary), said to
213
contain the remains of St. Columba, into battle at

Bannockburn and James IV using his pilgrimages to Tain and
Whithorn to help bring Ross and Galloway under royal
authority. There were also further attempts to differentiate
Scottish liturgical practice from that in England, with a
printing press established under royal patent in 1507 to
replace the English Sarum Use for services. As elsewhere in
Europe, the collapse of papal authority in the Papal Schism
allowed the Scottish Crown to gain effective control of major
ecclesiastical appointments within the kingdom, a position
recognised by the Papacy in 1487. This led to the placement of
clients and relatives of the king in key positions, including
James IV's illegitimate son Alexander, who was nominated as
Archbishop of St. Andrews at the age of 11, intensifying royal
influence and also opening the Church to accusations of
venality and nepotism. Despite this, relationships between the
Scottish crown and the Papacy were generally good, with
James IV receiving tokens of papal favour.
Popular practice
Traditional Protestant historiography tended to stress the

corruption and unpopularity of the late medieval Scottish
church, but more recent research has indicated the ways in
which it met the spiritual needs of different social groups.
Historians have discerned a decline of monasticism in this
period, with many religious houses keeping smaller numbers of
monks, and those remaining often abandoning communal living
for a more individual and secular lifestyle. New monastic
endowments from the nobility also declined in the 15th
century. In contrast, the burghs saw the flourishing of
mendicant orders of friars in the later 15th century, who
214
placed an emphasis on preaching and ministering to the

population. The order of Observant Friars were organised as a
Scottish province from 1467 and the older Franciscans and
Dominicans were recognised as separate provinces in the
1480s. In most burghs, in contrast to English towns where
churches tended to proliferate, there was usually only one
parish church, but as the doctrine of Purgatory gained in
importance in the period, the number of chapelries, priests and
masses for the dead within them grew rapidly. The number of
altars to saints also grew dramatically, with St. Mary's in
Dundee having perhaps 48 and St Giles' in Edinburgh over 50,
as did the number of saints celebrated in Scotland, with about
90 being added to the missal used in St Nicholas church in
Aberdeen. New cults of devotion connected with Jesus and the
Virgin Mary also began to reach Scotland in the 15th century,
including The Five Wounds, The Holy Blood and The Holy Name
of Jesus and new feasts including The Presentation, The
Visitation and Mary of the Snows. In the early 14th century the
Papacy managed to minimise the problem of clerical pluralism,
but with relatively poor livings and a shortage of clergy,
particularly after the Black Death, in the 15th century the
number of clerics holding two or more livings rapidly
increased. This meant that parish clergy were largely drawn
from the lower and less educated ranks of the profession,
leading to frequent complaints about their standards of
education or ability, although there is little clear evidence that
this was actually declining. Heresy, in the form of Lollardry,
began to reach Scotland from England and Bohemia in the
early 15th century, but despite evidence of a number of
burnings of heretics and some apparent support for its anti-
sacramental elements, it probably remained a relatively small
movement.
215
Culture
Education
In medieval Scotland education was dominated by the Church

and largely aimed at the training and education of clerics. In
the later medieval period there was a general increase in the
numbers of educational institutions as well as increasing use
by the laity.
These included private tuition in the families of lords and

wealthy burghers, song schools attached to most major
churches and an increasing number of grammar schools,
particularly in the expanding burghs. These were almost
exclusively aimed at boys, but by the end of the 15th century
Edinburgh also had schools for girls. The growing emphasis on
education cumulated with the passing of the Education Act
1496, which decreed that all sons of barons and freeholders of
substance should attend grammar schools. All this resulted in
an increase in literacy, but which was largely concentrated
among a male and wealthy elite, with perhaps 60 per cent of
the nobility being literate by the end of the period.
Until the 15th century those who wished to attend university

had to travel to England or the continent, but this situation
was transformed by the founding of the University of St
Andrews in 1413, the University of Glasgow in 1451 and the
University of Aberdeen in 1495. Initially these institutions
were designed for the training of clerics, but they would
increasingly be used by laymen who would begin to challenge
the clerical monopoly of administrative post in the government
216
and law. Scottish scholars continued to visit the continent for

their second degrees and this international contact helped
bring the new ideas of humanism back into Scottish
intellectual life.
Art and architecture
Scotland is known for its dramatically placed castles, many of

which date from the late medieval era. In contrast to England,
where the wealthy began to move towards more comfortable
grand houses, these continued to be built into the modern
period, developing into the style of Scottish Baronial
architecture in the 19th century, popular amongst the minor
aristocracy and merchant class. This building type, often built
with defence in mind in the form of the tower house, was
characterised by corbelled turrets and crow-stepped gables
marked the first uniquely Scottish mode of building. Ceilings of
these houses were decorated with vividly coloured painting on
boards and beams, using emblematic motifs from European
pattern books or the artist's interpretation of trailing grotesque
patterns. The grandest buildings of this type were the royal
palaces in this style at Linlithgow, Holyrood, Falkland and the
remodelled Stirling Castle, all of which have elements of
continental European architecture, particularly from France
and the Low Countries, adapted to Scottish idioms and
materials (particularly stone and harl). More modest buildings
with continental influences can be seen in the late 15th
century western tower of St Mary's parish church, Dundee, and
tollbooths like the one at Dunbar.
Parish church architecture in Scotland was often much less

elaborate than in England, with many churches remaining
217
simple oblongs, without transepts and aisles, and often

without towers. In the highlands they were often even simpler,
many built of rubble masonry and sometimes indistinguishable
from the outside from houses or farm buildings. However, there
were some churches built in a grander continental style.
French master-mason John Morrow was employed at the
building of Glasgow Cathedral and the rebuilding of Melrose
Abbey, both considered fine examples of Gothic architecture.
The interiors of churches were often more elaborate before the
Reformation, with highly decorated sacrament houses, like the
ones surviving at Deskford and Kinkell. The carvings at
Rosslyn Chapel, created in the mid-15th century, elaborately
depicting the progression of the seven deadly sins, are
considered some of the finest in the Gothic style. Late medieval
Scottish churches also often contained elaborate burial
monuments, like the Douglas tombs in the town of Douglas.
There is relatively little information about native Scottish

artists during the late Middle Ages. As in England, the
monarchy may have had model portraits used for copies and
reproductions, but the versions that survive are generally
crude by continental standards. Much more impressive are the
works or artists imported from the continent, particularly the
Netherlands, generally considered the centre of painting in the
Northern Renaissance.
The products of these connections included the delicate

hanging lamp in St. John's Kirk in Perth; the tabernacles and
images of St Catherine and St John brought to Dunkeld, and
vestments and hangings in Holyrood; Hugo van Der Goes's
altarpiece for the Trinity College Church in Edinburgh,
commissioned by James III, the work after which the Flemish
218
Master of James IV of Scotland is named, and the illustrated

Flemish Bening Book of Hours, given by James IV to Margaret
Tudor.
Language and literature
It was in this period that the Scots language became the

dominant language of the state and the social elite, while also
becoming linked with Scottish national identity and making
inroads into the highland zone at the expense of Gaelic. Middle
Scots, often called "English" in this period, was derived largely
from Old English, with the addition of elements from Gaelic
and French. Although resembling the language spoken in
northern England, it became a distinct dialect from the late
14th century onwards. It was the dominant language of the
lowlands and borders, brought there largely by Anglo-Saxon
settlers from the 5th century, but began to be adopted by the
ruling elite as they gradually abandoned French in the late
medieval era. By the 15th century it was the language of
government, with acts of parliament, council records, and
treasurer's accounts almost all using it from the reign of
James I onwards. As a result, Gaelic, once dominant north of
the Tay, began a steady decline.
Gaelic was the language of the bardic tradition, which provided

a mechanism for the transference of oral culture from
generation to generation. Members of bardic schools were
trained in the complex rules and forms of Gaelic poetry. In a
non-literate society, they were the repositories of knowledge,
including not just stories and songs, but also genealogies and
medicine. They were found in many of the courts of the great
lords, down to the chiefdoms of the highlands at the beginning
219
of the period. The bardic tradition was not completely isolated

from trends elsewhere, including love poetry influenced by
continental developments and medical manuscripts from
Padua, Salerno and Montpellier translated from Latin. The
Gaelic oral tradition also began to manifest itself in written
form, with the great compilation of Gaelic poetry, the Book of
the Dean of Lismore produced by James and Duncan MacGregor
at the beginning of the 16th century, probably designed for use
in the courts of the greater chiefs. However, by the 15th-
century lowland writers were beginning to treat Gaelic as a
second class, rustic and even amusing language, helping to
frame attitudes towards the highlands and to create a cultural
gulf with the lowlands.
It was Scots that emerged as the language of national

literature in Scotland. The first surviving major text is John
Barbour's Brus (1375), composed under the patronage of
Robert II and telling the story in epic poetry of Robert I's
actions before the English invasion until the end of the war of
independence.
The work was extremely popular among the Scots-speaking

aristocracy and Barbour is referred to as the father of Scots
poetry, holding a similar place to his contemporary Chaucer in
England. In the early 15th century these were followed by
Andrew of Wyntoun's verse Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland and
Blind Harry's The Wallace, which blended historical romance
with the verse chronicle. They were probably influenced by
Scots versions of popular French romances that were also
produced in the period, including The Buik of Alexander,
Launcelot o the Laik and The Porteous of Noblenes by Gibert
Hay.
220
Much Middle Scots literature was produced by makars, poets

with links to the royal court. These included James I who
wrote The Kingis Quair. Many of the makars had university
education and so were also connected with the Kirk. However,
Dunbar's Lament for the Makaris (c. 1505) provides evidence of
a wider tradition of secular writing outside of Court and Kirk
now largely lost. Before the advent of printing in Scotland,
writers such as Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, Walter
Kennedy and Gavin Douglas have been seen as leading a
golden age in Scottish poetry.
In the late 15th century, Scots prose also began to develop as a

genre. Although there are earlier fragments of original Scots
prose, such as the Auchinleck Chronicle, the first complete
surviving works include John Ireland's The Meroure of
Wyssdome (1490). There were also prose translations of French
books of chivalry that survive from the 1450s, including The
Book of the Law of Armys and the Order of Knychthode and the
treatise Secreta Secetorum, an Arabic work believed to be
Aristotle's advice to Alexander the Great. The landmark work
in the reign of James IV was Gavin Douglas's version of Virgil's
Aeneid, the Eneados, which was the first complete translation
of a major classical text in an Anglian language, finished in
1513, but overshadowed by the disaster at Flodden.
Music
Bards, who acted as musicians, but also as poets, story tellers,

historians, genealogists and lawyers, relying on an oral
tradition that stretched back generations, were found in
Scotland as well as Wales and Ireland. Often accompanying
themselves on the harp, they can also be seen in records of the
221
Scottish courts throughout the medieval period. Scottish

church music from the later Middle Ages was increasingly
influenced by continental developments, with figures like 13th-
century musical theorist Simon Tailler studying in Paris before
returning to Scotland, where he introduced several reforms in
church music. Scottish collections of music like the 13th-
century 'Wolfenbüttel 677', which is associated with St
Andrews, contain mostly French compositions, but with some
distinctive local styles. The captivity of James I in England
from 1406 to 1423, where he earned a reputation as a poet and
composer, may have led him to take English and continental
styles and musicians back to the Scottish court on his release.
In the late 15th century a series of Scottish musicians trained
in the Netherlands before returning home, including John
Broune, Thomas Inglis and John Fety, the last of whom became
master of the song school in Aberdeen and then Edinburgh,
introducing the new five-fingered organ playing technique. In
1501 James IV refounded the Chapel Royal within Stirling
Castle, with a new and enlarged choir, and it became the focus
of Scottish liturgical music. Burgundian and English
influences were probably reinforced when Henry VII's daughter
Margaret Tudor married James IV in 1503.
National identity
• The late Middle Ages has often been seen as the era
in which Scottish national identity was initially
forged, in opposition to English attempts to annexe
the country and as a result of social and cultural
changes. English invasions and interference in
Scotland have been judged to have created a sense of
222
national unity and a hatred towards England which

dominated Scottish foreign policy well into the 15th
century, making it extremely difficult for Scottish
kings like James III and James IV to pursue policies
of peace towards their southern neighbour. In
particular the Declaration of Arbroath asserted the
ancient distinctiveness of Scotland in the face of
English aggression, arguing that it was the role of
the king to defend the independence of the
community of Scotland. This document has been
seen as the first "nationalist theory of sovereignty".
The adoption of Middle Scots by the aristocracy has been seen

as building a shared sense of national solidarity and culture
between rulers and ruled, although the fact that north of the
Tay Gaelic still dominated may have helped widen the cultural
divide between highlands and lowlands. The national literature
of Scotland created in the late medieval period employed legend
and history in the service of the Crown and nationalism,
helping to foster a sense of national identity at least within its
elite audience.
The epic poetic history of the Brus and Wallace helped outline
a narrative of united struggle against the English enemy.
Arthurian literature differed from conventional version of the
legend by treating Arthur as a villain and Mordred, the son of
the king of the Picts, as a hero. The origin myth of the Scots,
systematised by John of Fordun (c. 1320-c. 1384), traced their
beginnings from the Greek prince Gathelus and his Egyptian
wife Scota, allowing them to argue superiority over the English,
who claimed their descent from the Trojans, who had been
defeated by the Greeks.
223
It was in this period that the national flag emerged as a

common symbol. The image of St. Andrew, martyred while
bound to an X-shaped cross, first appeared in the Kingdom of
Scotland during the reign of William I and was again depicted
on seals used during the late 13th century; including on one
particular example used by the Guardians of Scotland, dated
1286. Use of a simplified symbol associated with Saint Andrew,
the saltire, has its origins in the late 14th century; the
Parliament of Scotland decreed in 1385 that Scottish soldiers
should wear a white Saint Andrew's Cross on their person,
both in front and behind, for the purpose of identification. Use
of a blue background for the Saint Andrew's Cross is said to
date from at least the 15th century. The earliest reference to
the Saint Andrew's Cross as a flag is to be found in the Vienna
Book of Hours, circa 1503.
224

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Ebook ISBN: 9781984668424

Chapter 2 Western Schism ............................................................................... 27

Chapter 3 Hundred Years' War ......................................................................... 35

Chapter 4 Ottoman Turks ................................................................................ 69

Chapter 5 Fall of Constantinople ...................................................................... 73

Chapter 6 Middle Class .................................................................................. 106

Chapter 7 Black Death ................................................................................... 117

Chapter 8 England in the Middle Ages ............................................................ 142

Chapter 9 Scotland in the Late Middle Ages ................................................... 188

Combined with this influx of classical ideas was the invention

The changes brought about by these developments have led

Historiography and periodization

(1439–1453). Tripartite periodization became standard after

For 18th-century historians studying the 14th and 15th

As economic and demographic methods were applied to the

Modern historiography on the period has reached a consensus

intellectual, cultural, or artistic developments, but not as the

The limits of Christian Europe were still being defined in the

After the failed union of Sweden and Norway of 1319–1365, the

Swedes were reluctant members of the Danish-dominated

The death of Alexander III of Scotland in 1286 threw the

From 1337, England's attention was largely directed towards

and House of York. The war ended in the accession of Henry

The French House of Valois, which followed the House of Capet

Bohemia prospered in the 14th century, and the Golden Bull of

1438, where it remained until its dissolution in 1806. Yet in

The kingdom of Hungary experienced a golden age during the

He had the greatest military potential of the 14th century with

The King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary led the largest army of

The Byzantine Empire had for a long time dominated the

The Bulgarian Empire was in decline by the 14th century, and

developed into a major secular power, culminating in the

The 1469 marriage of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of

Late Medieval European society

Around 1300–1350 the Medieval Warm Period gave way to the

death rate caused by this epidemic range from one third to as

The effects of natural disasters were exacerbated by armed

As the European population was severely reduced, land became

The upheavals caused by the Black Death left certain minority

While the Jews were suffering persecution, one group that

Through battles such as Courtrai (1302), Bannockburn (1314),

The introduction of gunpowder affected the conduct of war

weapons that major change was brought about; the new

Changes also took place within the recruitment and

Parallel to the military developments emerged also a constantly

Christian conflict and reform

The Papal Schism

The French crown's increasing dominance over the Papacy

At the Council of Constance (1414–1418), the Papacy was once

Though many of the events were outside the traditional time

unmolested, his supporters, the Lollards, were eventually

The marriage of Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia

Martin Luther, a German monk, started the German

To many secular rulers the Protestant reformation was a

northern Protestant and southern Catholic parts, resulting in

Trade and commerce