Summary+-+Chapter+11+(Later+Middle+Ages)


 * __The Later Middle Ages: Crisis and Disintegration in the Fourteenth Century__**

//PS: This is taken STRAIGHT from the Chapter Eleven Study Guide//

After the grand adventures of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the crises and social disintegration of the fourteenth century shocked the whole of Europe. Economic, social, military, political, religious, and even intellectual and cultural crises led to a sense of desperation and doom. As in every age, some people surrendered to pessism; as in every age, some took the chaos as a challenge, endured it, and eventually triumphed over it. The economic and social crises were caused by famine, plague, and fumbling attempts to adjust to new realities in rural and urban life. There were revolts both in the countryside and in the growing cities, all of them born of desperation, all seeking redress of grievances in a world that appeared less and less just. The Hundred Years' War between England and France affected all of Europe and led to military and political instability. The decline in the power of the triumphal Catholic church of the previous century began with the claim of Pope Boniface VIII to temporal supremacy and a challenge to his claim from Philip IV of France. When their feud was over, the papacy was forcibly moved [from Rome] to Avignon, France, and remained there for most of a century; and after that there came a schism that rent the church for another quarter century. Yet when church leaders began calling for a change in ecclesiastical structure, with power devolving to councils, religion among the masses remained strong, and a mystical movement swept the monastaries. Even the unity of Scholastic thought and Latin literature seemed to be crumbling. Late Scholasticism challenged its own firm foundations, and poets began more and more to write in their vernacular languages. On the other hand, urban life adjusted to new times, as it must, and there were advances in medical and technological fields. Instability and chaos slowed but did not derail human development.