Notes on Chapter 14

• The Black Death swept through Europe in 1347, which was a terrible plague.
• Plague began in Asia and spread along busy trade routes.
• It entered ports by way of trading ships, black rats on the ship carried the disease.
• Plague spread to people by bites from fleas on the rats.
• Deaths happened rapidly. Some entire villages and towns were wiped out.
• About 25 million people died in Europe from 1347-1351 (1/3 of population).
• Caused changes - faith in God shaken, workers demand higher wages, peasants staged uprisings.

• Geoffrey Chaucer - a midieval writer. Had great influences on literary styles and approaches.
• Chauncer born in England about 1340. Fought in France for about 10 years, served as diplomat thoughtout western Europe.
• The Canterbury Tales - one of most famous works, stories told from pilgrims
• Wrote in dialect known as Middle English. Later writers followed his example.
• vernacular languages - everyday speech that varied from place to place, spoken by people with little education.
• troubadours - traveling singers who wrote poems about love and chivilary.
• Dante Alighieri - a great medieval writer
• scholasticism - attempt to bring together faith and reason
• Peter Abelard - important philosopher of scholasticism
• Thomas Aquinas - monk of Dominican order
• gothic - a style of church architecture

Hundred Year's War

• Hundred Year's War - series of conflicts between England & France
• 1328 - last male member of France's Capetian dynasty died
• Edward III claimed French throne
• 1337 - Edward brought an army to Flanders hoping to gain control of rich trading area
• Wars continued for 116 years as a series of raids and battles
• England won many battles but lost war
• 1453 - France controlled all of England's French lands except Calais.
• 1415 - Battle of Agincourt
• late 1300s - king needed Parliament's consent on all special taxes.