1. A Century of Turmoil

2. Objectives:
• Know what the Great Western Schism was, the events
that led to it, what happened during it, and its effects.
• Know who John Wycliff and Jan Huss were and what
they argued.
• Know what the plague and the Black Death were.
• How was it spread?
• What factors led to its rapid spread?
• How did it affect society during its progress?
• What were its aftereffects on Europe?
• How did it affect the Church as well as the European
Jews?

3. • What was the Hundred Years War?
• Between whom was it fought and why?
• What was so pivotal about the Battle of Crecy (and
the follow-up of Poitiers and Agincourt)?
• What’s the end result?
• Know about Joan of Arc.
• Who was she, what did she do, and why was her
participation in the Hundred Years War pivotal?

4. Church Turmoil
The Great Western Schism
• King Philip IV of France and Pope Boniface VIII weren’t
getting along too well. Philip was disobeying Boniface
and eventually takes Boniface prisoner, though he
escapes and dies.
• Philip, having enough of uppity Italian popes,
“persuades” the College of Cardinals to elect a French
pope who will be housed at Avignon in France instead
of Rome.

6. • Having a French pope based in France allowed Philip
and the French kings to exercise more control over the
papacy.
• Seven popes were in Avignon from 1305 to 1378.
• In 1378, Pope Gregory XI tries moving the papacy back
to Rome but dies while visiting there.
• The Cardinals, pressured by a Roman mob, elected an
Italian as Pope Urban VI.
• The only problem was that Urban quickly proved
himself to be an overbearing, pompous, temperamental
jerk.
Jerk

7. • The cardinals take off from Rome, declare that the
election of Urban was illegitimate because it was done
under duress and fear of the mob and elected
somebody else pope, Clement VII, who was based in
Avignon.
• This created a little problem because now there were
two popes who were validly elected by the proper
people.
• Europe quickly took sides:
• In Avignon Clement’s corner were France, Spain,
Cyprus, Burgundy, Savoy, Naples, and Scotland.
• In Rome Urban’s corner were Denmark, England,
Flanders, HRE, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Norway,
Poland, and Sweden.

8. • The problem lasted past both of them and when they
died, new Avignon and Roman popes were elected.
• In 1408, a council at Pisa tried resolving the issue by
electing somebody else. This only succeeded in adding
a THIRD pope to the mix. Smooth move, guys.
• Finally, in the Council of Constance, 1414-1418, all
three popes are deposed/compelled to abdicate. A new
pope, based in Rome is elected, and the Roman line is
considered the valid one.

9. The Church also faced challenges from early reformers.
John Wycliffe
• Not to be confused with Wyclef Jean.

10. • Wycliffe was an English theology professor who argued
that the Church should live in poverty much like the
apostles did.
• The Church, naturally, wasn’t real keen on this idea
since it owned a lot of land and treasure. It also
needed to finance military actions.
• That and most folks prefer luxury to poverty.
• Wycliffe also wasn’t a fan of the papacy. He thought
Christ was the head of the Church and the pope was
not only dispensable, but could be anti-Christian.
• He died in 1384 of an apparent stroke. The Council of
Constance in 1415 declared him a heretic and ordered
his books burned, his body exhumed, burned and ashes
cast into a river. They were. He was.

11. Jan Huss
• A Czech reformer who taught that the authority of the
Bible was greater than that of the pope (among other
disagreements).
• Hus was arrested by the Council of Constance (after
being promised safe passage to the Council), and
burned at the stake.

14. The Plague
• The plague is an infectious disease caused by the
bacteria Yersinia pestis (for those of you biology
people, it’s a gram negative, bipolar staining
coccobacilli).

15. • You can actually be infected in several different ways.
1. One is
pneumonic
plague and
is the second
most
common
variety.
• It can come from bacteria migrating from the
lymph nodes to the lungs or from inhalation.
• Flu-like symptoms present quickly and there may
also be coughing up of blood.
• It will kill in one to six days and has a mortality
rate of nearly 95% when left untreated.

16. 2. Septicemic plague
• Usually associated with the hunting and skinning of
infected animals.
• Bite-like bumps appear on the skin and leave black
patches.
• If left untreated, the mortality rate is nearly 100%
and death usually comes on the same day
symptoms first appear.

17. 3. Bubonic plague
• The most common variety and the most well-known.
This is what we’ll talk about.

18. Bubonic plague
• Spread by fleas and rodents, usually rats.
• Here’s what happens:
1. A flea bites an infected rat and gets the bacteria in
its gut.
2. The bacteria multiplies and forms a plug in the flea’s
gut. This plug makes the flea very hungry and more
aggressive than normal.
3. The flea attempts to feed on a human, but the
plugged gut keeps it from keeping down the blood.
Instead, it vomits the blood back into the body with
plague bacteria mixed in. The human becomes
infected.
4. The flea will eventually starve to death. The human
gets the plague.

20. • It causes a swelling of the lymph node – whichever
node it gets to first, but usually the groin since
people will get bitten on the legs – because the
bacteria multiply like crazy there.
• This swelling is called a bubo and is a bump 1-10 cm
across and very painful, even to the touch. It may
be so painful that the person can’t even move that
part of the body.
• If left untreated, the mortality rate is about 50%.

22. The Black Death refers to the plague outbreak that began
about 1347
• It actually wasn’t just an epidemic, it was a pandemic
as it popped up in other parts of the world at the same
time.
• It appears to have first broken out in central Asia and
then traders and Mongols spread it from there.
• In one case, the Mongols laid siege to the city of
Caffa in the Crimea, controlled by the Genoese. The
Mongols were being decimated by the disease and
started catapulting the corpses over the walls in a
form of biological warfare.
• The Genoese fled and took the disease back to
southern Italy with them. Most were dead or dying
by the time they got to port. Some ran aground
with all aboard dead. From there, it spread like

24. • Modern scholars estimate that anywhere from half to
two-thirds of Europe’s population died during the
outbreak of 1348 to 1350. (but estimates have ranged
from 1/3 to 2/3).
• Whatever the proportion, tens of millions of people
died in just a little over two years.
• Towns and cities were filthy and tightly packed,
which helped spread the disease.
• People were afraid to leave their homes and they
would die there with nobody finding them. They
were only known to be dead because neighbors
would complain of the smell from the decaying
bodies.
• Most were afraid to handle the dead or be around
the sick. Bodies stacked up. In Paris, a city of
100,000 – 800 people were dying per day.

25. • Mothers refused to see their sick children. Close
family members were to be fled from and not taken
care of.
• There were too many dying at once to give proper
burials in individual graves. Instead, large pits were
dug and the bodies dumped in.
• As Catholics, they believed they needed to be given
last rites in order to enter heaven, but many of the
living priests didn’t want to be around the sick.
Other priests charged exorbitant prices to give the
rites.

26. • Symptoms
• Will set in three to seven days after infection.
• Chills, fever, diarrhea, headaches, and swelling of
the lymph nodes.
• Lymph nodes are part of your lymphatic system,
which transports fluid and immune system stuff
around the body. The nodes are like filters
stocked with lymphocytes (a type of white blood
cell) that kill bacteria and viruses that come
through.
• They’re mainly clustered in a few places in your
body, like the armpits, groin, neck, chest, and
abdomen.

28. • People had a variety of responses to the pandemic.
• Doctoring wasn’t all that advanced. Some were
fanciful costumes meant to scare away the evil
spirits.

29. • People carried around flowers and herbs in their
pockets thinking the scents would ward away the
disease.
• Other places thought sound was the answer and
rang church bells or fired cannons.
• Plague hospitals filled up and were more hospices
to isolate the sick than anything else.

30. • Others gave themselves
over to religious
devotion.
• The Church, however,
was unable to stop
the pestilence. The
clergy died like
everyone else. Monks
died off even faster
due to the close
quarters of the
monasteries.
• The plague was seen
as a punishment by
God for the people’s
sinfulness.

31. • Some became flagellants. They traveled from
town to town, singing hymns and chanting while
flagellating themselves, i.e. whipping themselves,
in a sign of physical penance.
• People at first flocked to the flagellants,
especially considering the Church’s inability to
do anything. Some flagellant groups, though,
actually spread the plague to new towns.

32. • Some blamed the Jews and wild conspiracy theories
developed that they were poisoning the water and
food supplies.
• In fact, Jews died at a lesser rate than others, but
this was likely due to Rabbinical laws dictating
greater hygiene and the fact that they were
isolated in ghettoes. They still, however, died in
alarming numbers.
• The Christians responded by persecuting the
Jews. They were arrested, tortured, and put to
death. Still others were simply seized by mobs
and burnt to death. Tens of thousands died in
this way.
• Surviving Jews started migrating to eastern
Europe, especially Poland where the king was
giving them protection.

33. • Ironically, fleeing this first Holocaust to eastern
Europe worsened the 20th century Holocaust
when the Nazis took the region.

34. • Some became exceptionally morbid. Art and
literature focused on death and disease.

36. •

37. • Results
• A lot of people died.
• This was, strangely, a good thing for the survivors.
• Europe had become overpopulated by the mid-
1300’s and this thinned the herd.
• Economically and socially, it helped to break down
the feudal/manorial system.
• There were no longer enough serfs and peasants
to go around and little ability to force them to
stay on the land. Landowners started competing
for labor through wages and freedom.
• Moreover, laborers could start demanding
them, which gave them greater power.
• More land and food was available.

38. • The Church was also weakened.
• Its image had been tarnished by its inability to
stop the plague.
• It didn’t help that the clergy had also been
decimated and some of the replacements were
inexperienced and/or not very devoted to their
religious responsibilities.
• The weakening of the Church helps lead to the
Renaissance and Reformation later on.

39. • There’s even some speculation that the Black Death
helped end the Medieval Warming Period and begin
the Little Ice Age because the empty field reforested
and sucked carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

42. The Hundred Years’ War
• A war between England and France that went off and
on from 1337 to 1453 (more like a 116 year war).
• It starts off because the French king dies and the
English king, Edward III, claims the French throne due
to relations (it’s complicated).

43. • The entire thing was fought on French soil and the
English got the better of the French most of the time,
but the French ultimately won the war.
• The English were almost always outnumbered, but
they had better weapons and a paid professional
army, which was highly unusual at the time.
• There were three pivotal battles.

44. The Battle of Crecy – 8/26/1346
• The English had just 11,000 soldiers, which included
2,000 knights and 7,000 longbowmen. The French
had 60,000 soldiers, with 12,000 to 20,000 of them
knights.
• The English were in a strong defensive position and
were well-disciplined. The French were under an
assortment of nobles who thought of themselves
more as allies than vassals of the king. They didn’t
take orders well.
• Upon arriving on the battlefield, the French king,
Philip, wanted his army to rest for the day and
attack in the morning.

45. • The nobles, however, were eager to attack that
day. They thought it would be a cakewalk. They
also wanted to capture the best prisoners who
would fetch the highest prices when held for
ransom.
• They were also operating on chivalry and
everyone wanted their own personal glory.
• The French attacked at 6 PM after a brief
rainstorm turned the field they had to cross into
mud and with the sun setting behind the English
and in their eyes. It was tactical stupidity.

47. • Philip’s Genoese crossbowmen attacked first but were
out of range. They were not, however, out of range of
the English archers with longbows and they got cut
down.
• The crossbowmen panic and flee.
• The mounted French knights, sneering at the fleeing
commoners, charge… through and over the Genoese.

48. • The knights are slaughtered by the massive hail of
armor-piercing arrows raining down on them. The
arrows got either the knights or their horses.
Dismounted knights on muddy ground were sitting
ducks.
• Charge after charge is decimated. Few French knights
even make it to the English lines.
• Only night stops the battle.

50. • Around 10,000 to 15,000 French soldiers are killed
compared to just around 200 English killed.
• Around a third of the French nobility was killed.
• What French soldiers were still alive were taken
prisoner to be held for ransom. Those who couldn’t be
moved, were killed by having special long daggers
plunged through the face plates of the helmets or
through the armpit into the heart.
• At the battles of Poitiers and Agincourt, similar events
took place: greatly outnumbered English forces defeat
French heavy infantry through use of the longbow.

52. • The battles represent a sea-change in medieval
warfare.
• The value of a professional army is proven.
• In most feudal systems, people are called up as
needed and you take what you can get.
• With the English, a professional army is paid and
regularly practices and trains with their weapons
and have unit cohesion.
• The chivalrous knight is dead.
• The invincible armored noble knight is a liability.
The noble with his powerful expensive warhorse
and his fancy-pants armor can be defeated by a
commoner with relatively cheap bow and arrow.

53. Joan of Arc
• By 1429, France was on the ugly end of the war. They
had lost a lot of territory (including Paris), they were
still recovering from the plague, the English had
severely damaged the countryside, there were
succession troubles, and the English had laid siege to
Orleans – the last city in the way of English domination
of France.

54. • Enter Joan of Arc.
• She was born into a well-to-do family about 1412 and
says she started having visiting visions from Saints
Margaret and Catherine and the archangel Michael,
starting when she was 13.
• When she was 17, the voices told her she would help
liberate France and put Charles VII, who had no power
and was rather useless, on the throne.

56. • Joan was able to gain an audience with Charles VII,
told him of his mission, and asked to be outfitted in
knight’s armor and to lead his army.
• He had her theologically examined. She came out
ok.
• Having exhausted nearly every other rational option,
he went irrational and told her yes.

57. • Joan continues on to more
battles, leading the French
and clobbering the English.
• France gets back Orleans,
Jargeau, Beaugency, and
Reims.
• Reims was especially
important because that’s
where French kings were
coronated.
• After getting it back,
Charles VII was
formally coronated
king of France, in
fulfillment of Joan’s
mission.

58. • Joan went to Oreleans.
• Following the advice of her voices, she leads French
forces against the entrenched English who had been
besieging the city for five months.
• Through force of will, moral and skilled military
leadership, she pastes the English and lifts the
siege.

59. • In 1430, she’s captured in battle by England’s allies the
Burgundians, while bravely covering the retreat of her
forces.
• The Burgundians attempt to ransom her to Charles
VII, but the little rat who she put on the throne
refuses. They sell her to the English instead.

60. • The English put on a show trial that charge her with
heresy.
• There was no evidence against her and all the
witnesses were in her favor.
• In one famous exchange, she’s "Asked if she knew
she was in God's grace, she answered: 'If I am not,
may God put me there; and if I am, may God so
keep me.'“
• This was a brilliant answer because the question
was a trap. ‘Yes’ would have meant she knew
she was saved which nobody was supposed to
know for sure and that would prove she was a
heretic. ‘No’ would have been admitting her guilt
and was a heretic. Her interrogators didn’t know
what to make of her answer.

61. • While the trial was for heresy, it was really a
political, not religious trial, and the verdict was
foreordained: guilty.
• She was executed by being burned at the stake.
While burning, she cried out Jesus’ name and those
of the saints while looking at a crucifix held in front
of her.
• Her remains were then burned twice more until
there was just ash so that there wouldn’t be any
relics and they were tossed into a river. She was
19.
• The executioner later said he feared he would be
damned for executing a holy woman.
• She was declared a saint by the Catholic Church in
1920. Had a rather remarkable record in those two
years.

62. • The end result is that France
takes the upper hand in the
war and almost completely
drives out the English by
1453, leaving them just
Calais.
• Divinely inspired or no, she
marked the turning point of
the war. Had the English
succeeded in taking Orleans,
they likely would have
conquered the rest of France
and European history would
have been much different.