12. Nov. 11, 13 Disastrous
14th and 15th centuries: Gunpowder, and Renaissance
Tuesday: Trial of Joan of Arc
(Web)
Thursday: Kishlansky 53.
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince;
Bulliet Ch. 14 (355-362); Ch.
16 (408-416)
(Finish up: III.
Impact of Black Death – see previous lecture notes)
–
I. Judicial and
political change in 13th century
- heresy
trials
–Revival of more “rational”
judicial procedures: inquisitions replace ordeal
–national monarchies
•II. Hundred
Years’ War
–Joan of Arc
–Gunpowder
I. Judicial and political change in 13th
century
During the early Middle Ages, rulers lost the power to do a lot of things we take for granted in a state
Like collect taxes
Maintain a professional army
to run the law courts or keep records or maintain infrastructure of roads, bridges, etc.
Also, to persecute religious or political minorities.
In the 12th and (esp.) the 13th century, you see the rebirth of the bureaucratic apparatus that makes religious persecution possible
Today, first we will talk about this, and turn to Hundred Years’ War, focusing on the trial of Joan of Arc.
A. Rebirth of heresy
The first bureaucracy to revive in Europe was that of the church.
When we did last encounter persecution of heretics in this
course> (Late Roman and early Byzantine Empires –
esp. under Justinian)
In the early Middle Ages, heresy had almost died out completely – not because everybody was “orthodox” in their faith, but because expectations were low:
in era of low literacy, focus was on ritual, not belief (baptism and attendance to church once a year was enough to be considered Christian)
no bureaucratic apparatus existed for systematic persecution of belief any way.
Among the poor – esp. the peasants - many popular non-Christian practices (herbal magic, holy trees and springs, belief in fairies) survived
In 12th and (esp.) 13th century, things began to change.
Increase in literacy – esp. lay literacy – encouraged new religious ideas
Here are some examples of beliefs that were considered heretical in the middle ages:
- that the world is eternal, not created (Aristotle’s idea)
- that all matter belongs to realm of the devil (only spirit belonged to God), so sexual reproduction is evil (Cathar)
- that confession to a layman was as beneficial as confession to a priest (Waldensian heresy)
(charges against ascetic lay women – Bequine - from 14th c inquisitor’s manual: http://www2.kenyon.edu/projects/margin/inquisit.htm
that Lord Jesus Christ (insofar as he was man)
and his disciples as well owned nothing either individually or in common,
because they were perfectly poor in this world.
that
having nothing individually or in common constitutes perfect evangelical
poverty.
that neither the pope nor anyone else
can change anything in the gospel of Christ, nor can they add or subtract
anything.
that the Bible can be read in the
vernacular (i..e not only in Latin and Greek)
In addition to these
“heresies”, there is in the 13th
- 14th centuries a tendency to label a variety of popular
superstitious (herbalism; belief in fairies; dances around holy trees) as witchcraft - alliance of individuals with devil to
effect “magic”
At first, heresy and witchcraft dealt with through preexisting techniques: the bishops’ courts would convict someone of heretical belief; barons or king’s officials would punish them (through burning among other methods)
Between the 9th and 12th centuries, ordeals had been used to try criminals in medieval Europe
Example in Usamah Ibn Munqidh
Accused criminal thrown in vat of water to sink or float (guilty if floats)
God was thought to intervene to show guilt or innocence
In 1230’s, the medieval inquisition was first instituted by the church
Pope appointed permanent judges (inquisitors) who would judge accusations of heresy
Mendicant friars – Franciscans and Dominicans – most commonly employed.
If the accused readily confessed their crime and repented, they were usually released with a penance (for example, pilgrimage).
If refused to confess, inquisitors would hear testimony of witnesses, and (sometimes) use torture on the accused to encourage them to confess.
If convicted,
an unrepentant heretic was usually put to death (burning, the stake,
etc.) – but not by the church. The
inquisitor would simply excommunicate the heretic, and then hand him or her
over to the “secular arm” – the secular officials who would punish according to
laws of the land.
Significance of inquisition:
Didn’t lead to many executions in the 13th century; that will only happen in the early modern period
Gave church a tool by which to unify belief (we should understand that the inquisitors considered their job a pastoral one – to save Christians who otherwise would damn themselves and their associates)
In subsequent
centuries will give the state a tool for weeding out dissidents
and marginal segments of society.
(connect to Trial of Joan of Arc)
B. Beginnings of national monarchies in 12th - 13th centuries CE
Kind of state which will eventually be most successful at ruling and keeping loyalty of the people
National
monarchies – kings ruling over nations (people united by common ethnicity);
territory of nation considered inviolable
These come into existence in Europe between 1100 and 1300 AD,
And are the ancestors of our own modern nation states
England and France will be the earliest states in Europe to develop national monarchies.
FRANCE: CAPETIAN KINGS
Around 1100 AD, the French king was very weak - they only controlled the bit of northern France around Paris (Ile-de-France)
the French nobility controlled the rest - technically as vassals to the French king, but in practice as independent rulers.
By the middle of the 12th century, matter had got even worse:
because of inheritance and marriage, the English king controlled more of France than the French king did:
(MAP) Henry II
Technically, the English king held French territory in fief - i.e. as vassal to the king of France for this territory - but in practice the English ruled these lands as part of their own kingdom.
Taking back fiefs
The Capetian kings of France had one thing going for them: they were good at fathering sons:
The Capetians were the longest lived European dynasty of the Middle Ages -
came to power in late 10th century, and surviving until 14th century.
Very few other families lasted for 400 years.
This longevity of the Capetian dynasty is important because
In theory, when a vassal dies without heir, the fief is supposed to return to the lord.
By the 12th century, the Capetians began to enforce this principle
They would wait until a duke died without heir - and then take control over the duchy (and not grant it to another duke)
They also confiscated fiefs when vassals proved disloyal.
Appointed bureaucrats directly answerable to king
In addition to taking back fiefs, French kings started to appoint new bureaucrats to oversee tax collection and justice (baillis, seneschals) in their vassals' fiefs.
So instead of relying just of nobles, kings of France - as in England - began to administer directly.
Sum up ways French kings centralized kingdom of France:
1. Took back fiefs (counties, duchies) when vassals died
2. Kings appointed bureaucrats (tax collectors, judges) directly answerable to themselves
Example: judicial system
Disputes judged by royal officials who act both as prosecution, jury, and judge (much as in Roman Empire)
ENGLAND
In England, government was centralized differently than in France.
1. English kings were powerful to begin with because they had won England by conquest - Norman conquest in 1066.
Remember, the Normans had created an important duchy in France in 10th and 11th centuries.
They got the pope's approval to conquer England, when the last Anglo-Saxon king died without heir.
The duke of Normandy - William (William the Conqueror) led an invasion of England in 1066.
A tapestry (Bayeux Tapestry) embroidered by his wife recorded his campaign
William brought knights and horses with him on the ships: IMAGE
(this use of horses was one reason William defeated the English, who were used to fighting on foot - not horseback)
He defeated his rival claimant at Battle of Hastings.
William and his Normans were brutal to the defeated - IMAGE
(here is picture from Bayeux Tapestry of Normans torching a house with a woman and child inside)
Estimated 1/5 of Anglo-Saxons killed
William confiscated the lands of the Anglo-Saxon nobility - treating it as his own personal booty, and distributed fiefs to his vassals (the "barons").
These Norman barons became the new nobility in England, and William the new king
the Anglo-Saxon majority were their peasants and servants:
Eventually the two peoples would fuse into one - the Norman and Anglo-Saxon culture combined.
(In our own language - English - is a mixture of the French of these Norman conquerors and the native Anglo-Saxon.
"pig" is an Anglo-Saxon word - "pork" a French one
"deer" Anglo-Saxon - "venison" French
(class bias to vocabulary: animal which peasant has to catch is called by Anglo-Saxon word; cuisine nobles ate - has French name))
But the Anglo-Saxons had in fact possessed a more sophisticated government than the Normans had (remember Normans fairly recent Scandinavian arrivals in France)
English kings would make extensive use of Anglo-Saxon institutions to rule their kingdoms:
System of justice:
Anglo-Saxon Juries: were groups of local men of a district who gave collective testimony in a lawsuit (didn’t actually judge guilt originally – sheriffs did)
Norman kings made use of grand juries: the jurors of a community would consider evidence and make accusations of wrong-doing
sheriffs appointed by the king would then judge accused (for murder, robbery, theft, arson, rape)
By 13th century, trial juries actually made judgments (gave "verdicts"); kings' officials enforced their decisions.
Importance of English system of justice?
We Americans have inherited this jury system from medieval England
Immediate effect in the 12 and 13th century was to strengthen authority of kings - since they dealt directly with juries - not through intermediaries like the nobility.
This was a far more centralized system of justice (because of use of royal judges and officials) than feudal medieval justice (where nobles, church ran show)
Still, strong element of involvement of local community in form of jury
Gradually old ways of judging guilt by Ordeal (putting accused's hand in boiling water) replaced by jury or judge hearing witnesses and interrogating the accused (with torture)
OPPOSITION TO ROYAL CENTRALIZATION.
We've talked about ways kings of France and England centralized their kingdoms - and created a royal bureaucracy under their direct control instead of the nobles.
But what did the nobles and church think of royal centralization?
They didn't like it- and their resistance will keep European monarchies from becoming as absolute as Roman empire had been
CONFLICT BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE
(also between king and bishops: Thomas Becket, archbishop, executed by king Henry II's men)
Revolts from English king John
England especially faced multiple revolts by the nobility against the king.
One of the most important occurred under King John - and led to Magna Carta
John offended the English nobles in his efforts to raise money for a war with France. (1204-1214).
Instead of just using feudal knights, he started to use professional mercenaries (companies) - both of cavalry, foot soldiers.
To pay for them, he began to levy new sorts of fines - esp. on their barons.
He wanted to choose husbands for noble heiresses - or fine them instead.
He fined people for hunting or taking wood from forests.
He took people to court - esp. the rich - for petty misdeeds (or nothing at all) so that he could confiscate their land.
Some of these men became outlaws - hiding from the king's justice in forests of England - historical kernel of "Robin Hood legends date to this time.
The basic problem was that kings could not just raise taxes - the way our Congress can.
Kings were supposed to rule according to custom - not through innovation.
John's inventive ways of raising revenues offended his barons.
In 1215, the English barons revolted from John and forced him to make concessions.
Magna Carta (in readings for this week) was major concession:
Document in which king defines customary obligations of nobility - and agrees not to demand new ones without the barons' agreement
In future, king supposed to get baron's permission to raise new revenues
.
The barons' agreement to new taxes was supposed to be
expressed at Great councils - which come to be called Parliaments.
In course of 13th century, the English kings are forced through revolt to call Parliaments to approve any new taxes.
In 1265 - for the first time - representatives from the towns ("commons") attended the Parliament as well as nobles and clerics (under Simon).
After this, English Parliament consisted of two houses:
House of Lords - barons and clerics
House of commons - townsmen
Both houses voted on new taxes for wars, etc.
This Parliament was beginnings of representative government of England - and the ancestor of our own Congress.
II. THE HUNDRED
YEARS’ WAR
What was it: war between France and England
Lasting (with some interruption) 1338 – 1453
immensely damaging, especially in its last years, when gunpowder and cannons were used for the first time.
This combination of war and plague helped incite the first peasant rebellions Europe had ever faced.
A. Cause of Hundred Year's War
The cause of the Hundred Years’ War was the hereditary claim the King of England had over the French throne.
The Capetians had been one of the longest lived royal dynasties of European history – however in 1328, the last Capetian king died without a son.
By strict inheritance, the French crown should have gone to the king of England.
(Like royal families even today, the French and English royals had been intermarrying.)
The French nobility refused to let the king of England inherit.
They elected someone else king (Philip VI of Valois)
This dispute over who should be king was the initial cause of war.
B. First stage of war 1338-1360: English victories
At first glance, you would have though France should have had an easy victory – it had three times England’s population, was wealthier, and fought the war on its own territory.
But until the last two decades (after 1415), England won most of the battles.
France’s weakness arose largely out of its disunity.
France was a bundle of feudal principalities – whose nobles were not prone to take orders from the king.
In addition to being more centralized than the French, the English had military superiority.
The greatest English victory being at Poitiers in 1356.
Edward the Black Prince led his army against a larger French army
Edward's army was a combined force: archers, pikemen, light infantry, and cavalry;
the French, by contrast, clung to their old-fashioned feudal cavalry.
The English had archers using the longbow, a weapon with great penetrating power that could sometimes kill armored knights
The English archers routed the French cavalry and took the French king (John) captive.
After this victory, both French and English continue fighting - but both kingdoms begin to show signs of falling apart.
these are the years that the bubonic plague had struck Europe.
People were dying by the millions.
And their rulers were taxing those who left to pay for their wars .
B. Peasant revolts would break out in both France and
England in course of Hundreds' Years War
Jacquerie
The French peasants who had been paying for the war broke out in a rebellion called the Jacquerie.
The rebels torched castles, churches and towns.
These peasants – the Jacquerie – were brutally put down by the French aristocracy.
IMAGE
But the rebellion hurt France’s war effort.
In the middle of the 14th century (1360), France had to make a humiliating peace with England, giving England possession over a large part of northern France.
England: Peasant rebellion of 1381:
But England also had its troubles.
In 1381, a "crazy priest" John Ball provoked a peasant rebellion.
he preached that in beginning in the world there had been no slaves or serfs.
England will be punished until all social distinctions were leveled – there would be no lords and vassals
peasants should be paid for any work they did.
60,000 o f these peasants marched to London (under Wat Tyler) to present their demands to the king (Richard II).
Their leader ended up being killed by the king’s men, and the crowd dispersed.
No sort of social equality was every achieved in late medieval Europe.
Importance of peasant rebellions:
For first time, peasants (not just propertied) were demanding rights from the government
Didn’t succeed – but will plant seed for later rebellions
The early 15th century was probably low point for French in Hundred Year’s War:
the young English King Henry V invaded French territory.
By using his archers, he destroyed the French army at Agincourt.
Inflicting 7,000 casualties to England's 500
By 1422, the French had given way entirely: the English King (Henry VI) was declared ruler of both England and France (1422).
The disinherited son of the last French king, the dauphin (Charles VII) withdrew to part of France still under French control (Bourges).
Joan of Arc
It was at this point that a very unlikely hero arose in France – a teenage girl Joan of Arc.
Joan of Ark had been born to a peasant family - free farmers not serfs.
At the age of 13, this illiterate shepherdess started to hear the voices, preceded by a great light.
She claimed they were the voices of Saints Margaret and Catherine, queens of France, and Archangel Michael.
They convinced her to swear to remain a virgin."
When Joan was about 17, the voices told her to leave her village without her father's knowledge and rescue Orléans from the English
She cut her hair off, dressed in armor, and went to Charles, the son of the last French king, and told him she had been sent to save Orleans
He was skeptical, but the French were desperate.
In 1430, Charles let Joan lead the French troops.
She made soldiers stop visiting prostitutes - and stop swearing.
She rescued Orleans from the English, and stopped the English advance.
Joan convinced Charles to venture into enemy territory and get crowned king at Reims (kings of France had to be crowned at Reims)
But after her initial victories, Joan began to lose skirmishes.
In 1431,she was captured by the English.
Trial of Joan for witchcraft and heresy by the English
The English wanted to prove that Joan had led the French to victory with the help of the Devil, not God.
They handed her over to inquisitors to be tried as a false prophet and a witch.
In the Kishlansky readings this week, you’ll read what sort of interrogation Joan went through.
The Inquisitors above all wanted to make the witch confess to her (and it was usually her) sins – so that she could be reconciled with God before being burned.
We still possess the court records from Joan’s trial – for the inquisitors kept excellent records.
They accused her of hearing voices from the devil (not angels)
Dozens of witnesses were called but none would accuse her.
For 10 weeks, the inquisitors questioned her, to get her to confess.
She did give in briefly - but then retracted her confession.
The English finally burned her as "Relapsed, heretic, apostate, idolater,"
French win war
After Joan's execution, the French slowly began to regain France.
Two things go right for French after Joan inspired them to get back together again:
Burgundy went back over to the French side and by 1437 the French figure out how to use gunpowder effectively :
Gunpowder (combinatin of sulfur, potassium nitrate and carbon) had been invented by the Chinese - originally for use in fireworks
Chinese had used it as military weapon against Mongols (shooting projectiles through bamboo) -
Europeans would be responsible for turning it into more deadly weapon.
During the Hundred Year's war - gunpoweder only used for cannons (guns not invented yet)
And these cannons not very effective yet.
Still, Europeans' willingness to innovate to win - and to win at any cost - was demonstrated in this long war.
In 1450 French successfully employed two cannons against English longbowmen (battle of Formigny).
English finally driven out of all of France (except port Calais) by 1453.
Soon afterward, the French church declared that Joan's conviction as a heretic had been invalid.
What is important about the Hundred Years War?
1.New military techniques –
This was a war unlike what Europe had seen previously – both sides used scorched-earth tactics – destroying and pillaging civilians more than usual.
New armies: instead of just the levy of feudal knights, kings were recruiting foot soldiers and archers from commoners.
New technology: long bow of the English, and by the early 15th
century, gunpowder.
By the end of Hundred Years War, European warfare was moving quickly towards its early modern form – armies of both infantry and cavalry, using artillery (cannons) as well as swords.
The medieval knights were becoming obsolete
2. Rise of national consciousness in both France and England – a clear distinction of what it meant to be French versus English, and a sense of the boundaries of these kingdoms.
The French refused to accept an English king as their king - no matter whether his claim was legitimate or not.
Joan Arc of symbolized the new patriotism:
- she, a mere peasant, had a burning wish to restore France’s rightful king and expel the English
.
peasant revolts
Joan of Arc
4. State usurping church’s authority over religious persecution
Joan’s trial is also an early example of state (in this case, English king) trying to assert control over religion for its own purpose
In Joan’s case, still employ church courts.
In next couple of centuries, will start trying heretics and witches in secular courts (which will kill a lot more people)