7 - The late Middle Ages

Summary

The two centuries from the early fourteenth to the early sixteenth form one of the more enigmatic periods in European history. It was one of continuous warfare and civil disturbance, yet it saw the birth of humanism and the beginnings of the Renaissance. It has been represented as a period of economic depression, while at the same time the peasantry in some parts of Europe enjoyed a higher material living standard than at any other time in the Middle Ages (Fig. 7.1). It was an era of extreme bigotry, intolerance, and superstition, and at the same time of reason and enlightment. Its art showed a preoccupation with death, and at the same time it could display the lightness and grace which we associate with the Renaissance. These many contradictions spring from the horrific experiences of the Great Plague and its subsequent recurrences. The bubonic plague reached western Europe in the ships of the Genoese at the end of 1347. It came from the Crimea in the bloodstreams of infected rats, having been brought to the Crimea in the baggage of merchants from the Far East. Wherever the ships called, the pathogens of the plague went ashore with the crew and spread rapidly through the local population. Their vectors were the black rat and the flea, the former carrying and nurturing the bacillus, the latter distributing it to all whom it bit. Crowded, dirty, and rat-infested homes were ideal for its diffusion. It spread fast.