Notes for Chapter 14, sections 3-5.

Section Three:

Many growing cities of the Middle Ages were dark, unsafe, dirty, and unhealthy. There were no streetlights or police. People did not go out at night for fear of a robber. Waste was dumped into open gutters. This caused disease to spread very easily and quickly through crowded cities. The plague was called "The Black Death". It was in Europe. It began in Asia and spread through trade routes.It entered ports by way of trading ships. Black rats on the ships carried the disease. The plague was spread to people by bites from fleas on the rats.The exact number of deaths from the plague in Europe is unknown. It happened so quickly that the alive people couldn't keep track of how many and burying the dead.Some entire villages and towns were wiped out. About 25 million people died in Europe from 1347-1351. That's about one third of the population. It caused many changes in Europe. People's faith in God was shaken. The church lost some of it's power and importance. Relations between the upper class and lower class changed. Workers, now in short supply, demanded higher wages. In several European countries, peasants staged uprisings.

Section Four:

Vernacular Languages- everyday speech that varied from place to place spoken by people with little education, most were related to Latin.
Troubadours-traveling singers who wrote poems about love and chivalry.
Dante Alighieri- great midieval writer.
Geoffrey Chaucer- great midieval writer.
Scholasticism- an attempt to bring together faith and reason.
Peter Abelard- an important philosopher of scholasticism, taught in Paris in the 1100s.


Section Five:

A series of conflict between England and France was the Hundred Years' War. In 1328 the last male member of France's Capetian dynasty died. Edward III claimed the French throne. The French assembly chose Philip VI, the Count of Flanders, as king instead. In 1337 Edward brought an army to Flanders, hoping to gain control of this rich trading area.Thus the Hundred Years' War began. It continued for 116 years as a series of raids and battles. Sometimes there were long periods of uneasy peace. England won many battles but lost the war. By 1453 France controlled all of England's lands except Calais. The Hundred Years' War saw the use of new weapons in Europe. At the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, English foot soldiers used longbows. With these bows they could fire arrows quickly, hitting targets up to 200 yards away. French knights on horseback were no match for the English and their longbows. Both the English and the French used gunpowder and cannons in battle. Castles no longer provided protection for a fuedal lord because one powerful cannon blast could break through a castle's wall. Longbows, gunpowder, and cannons further weakened knightly warfare.Besides loss of life and land, The Hundred Years' War had another important affect on England. Parliament, particularly the House of Commons, gained more power over the king.