Joan of Arc

2

Sharing Epidemic Disease:the ‘great dying’

Historical Epidemiology• The ‘Little Ice Age’, c. 1300 CE

• declining agricultural output • widespread famine --- ability to

resist disease decreased

Bubonic Plague spreads from south-west China• carried by traders• with Mongols• on animals Yersinia (syn.

Pasteurella) pestis

3

What does this do in a society? between ¼ and 1/3 of western Europeans died

Social and Economic effects

• massive labor shortage• demand for higher

wages• population movements• governments attempt to

freeze wages, stop serf movements• strong resistance

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1300 CE 1400 CE 1500 CE

China

Europe

4

Recovery• secular political power

• taxes to rebuild• large armies to police and for ‘diplomacy’

• religious, philosophical traditions• plague as punishment against individuals

against ‘outside’ groups like Mongols

• Justification for right to rule: China’s ‘Mandate of Heaven’

India’s ‘Akbar is God’divine right of kingship

• humanist traditions: human kind’s place on earth

Recovery in Western Europe: State Building and Beyond• China: centralized Empire

• Europe: regional states tael of silver

• Europe develops new taxes – how and why?• Italian states: bonds• France: salt tax• England: hearth tax,

head tax plow tax

• large standing armies• French Louis XI (r.1461-1483) • standing army of 15,000

Why the need for large standing armies?

Sipahi cavalry of the Ottoman ‘Moorish’ architecture in Cordoba, Spain forces (service for tîmâr)

Beyond brute force:A. The Renaissance – 14C-16C• a ‘re-discovery’ of classical culture• perspective; human anatomy and musculature

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)• architecture: domed cathedrals

B. Humanists• literature, history, moral philosophy• deeply devoted to Christianity

Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) critical Greek-Latin edition of NT

• rediscovery of classical Latin texts, often ignored in monastic libraries

• rejection of monastic lifestyle: morally virtuous lifeengaged in the world

• reconciliation of Christianity with rapidly changing European society

European Exploration in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans

Portuguese early leaders in Atlantic exploration

motives:

Colonization of the Atlantic Islands

• Ceuta, north Africa• Madeiras • Azores Islands

• geopolitical value, and• investments in sugarcane plantations

• further exploration of west African coast:geopoliticaldiscover cheap labour; but class trumps race

initially

Indian Ocean Trade – only the beginning1488 Bartolomeu Dias around Cape of

Good Hope1497-1499 Vasco de Gama to India and back

A naus – ship style of the Gabriel

‘May the Devil take thee! What brought you hither?’

Conclusion:

In order to understand any event, period, development:

Know the motives of the sides involvedwhat at that time is shaping their choices? economicpoliticalbeliefspush of restraints and pull of possibilities

Be specific in terms of chronology

Don’t tell a story, organize an argument [ie there should be a ‘because’]