1340s
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The 1340s was a decade that began on 1 January 1340 and ended on 31 December 1349. It was in the midst of a period in
In
In Europe, the decade continued the period of gradual economic decline, often mistitled the "depression" of the 1340s. This followed the end of the
In Africa, the two great empires were the Christian
Political leaders
Asia
Political developments
Mongol decline
The Chagatai Khanate was being split by religious dissensions between the traditionalist Mongol adherents of the Yasa and the Mongol and Turkish converts to Islam.[5] The eastern half of Chagatai seceded under the conservative Mongol element when Tughluk Temür seized power in Moghulistan around 1345.[5] The Khanate continued in Transoxiana, but the Chatagai khans became the puppets of the now enthusiastically Muslim Turkish amirs, and the amir Kazghan overthrew the Khan Kazan in 1347.[6]
In the
China
In China, the Mongol Yuan dynasty was in a gradual state of decline, due to complex and longstanding problems such as the "endemic tensions among its ruling elites".
Toghto's first term exhibited a fresh new spirit which took a predominantly centralist approach to political solutions.
Toghto's replacement as chancellor was Berke Bukha, an effective provincial administrator who took the opposite, decentralised approach to Toghto.[18] Bukha had learned firsthand from the great Hangzhou fire of 1341 that central regulations had to be violated to provide immediate and effective relief.[17] Accordingly, he promoted able men to local positions and gave them discretionary authority to handle relief and other problems.[17] Similarly, he granted local military garrisons blanket authorisation to prevent the spread of banditry.[17] In 1345, Bukha's administration sent out twelve investigation teams to visit each part of China, correct abuses, and "create benefits and remove harms" for the people.[17]
Bukha's approach failed to arrest the mounting troubles of Yuan China in the 1340s, however.[17] The central government was faced with chronic revenue shortfalls.[17] Maritime grain shipments — vital for the inhabitants of the imperial capital — had seriously declined from a peak of 3.34 million bushels in 1329 to 2.6 million in 1342.[19] From 1348 on, they continued only when permitted by a major piratical operation led by Fang Kuo-chen and his brothers, which the authorities were unable to suppress.[20] Additionally, the Yellow River was repeatedly swelled by long rains, breaching its dykes and flooding the surrounding areas.[20] When the river finally began shifting its course, it caused "widespread havoc and ruin".[20] In 1349, the emperor recalled Toghto to office for a second term.[20] With high enthusiasm and strong belief from his partisans that the problems were soluble, he began a radical process of recentralisation and heavy restriction of regional and local initiative in the following decade.[20]
India
The 1340s saw the founding of the
]Culture, religion and philosophy
Pope
Military technology
- The poet
Europe
Political developments
War and decline in Western Europe
In Europe, the decade continued the period of gradual economic decline,[24] which followed the end of the Medieval Warm Period and the start of the Little Ice Age in the 1300s. This secular decline, often mistitled a "depression", affected most of Western Europe, with the exception of a few Italian city-states.[24] It was the result of factors which had begun earlier in the century, the main cause being the breaking of the balance between Church and state.[24] The more dominant state increasingly interfered in the social and economic life of late medieval Europe, imposing detrimental taxation and regulation.[24] King Edward III of England faced a brief standoff with some dissident barons in 1341 — one of only two such isolated standoffs in his popular reign.[25] Meanwhile, the role of the Parliament of England became more defined, with the House of Commons regularly petitioning Edward from about 1343 onward.[26]
Europe entered a period which saw almost continuous war for the next century.
In 1346, the Battle of Crecy became the first great land battle of the Hundred Years' War, and the most stunning victory of Edward's career.[28] English longbowmen crippled the French knights for many years to come, allowing Edward to take the key Channel port of Calais in 1347.[28] Meanwhile, public discontent caused the town of Lyon to riot in 1347.[29] Importantly, the English campaign of the 1340s "brought the hegemony of high medieval France to a decisive close."[28]
Central Europe
In the
In 1341,
Northern Europe
In 1340, a German law-code was drawn up by the
The
In
Accordingly, there were political divisions in the Russian states in this decade. The southern territories of
Eastern Europe
- Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347 within the Byzantine Empire
- John III Comnenus becomes emperor of Trebizond (1342)[43]
- Guy de Lusignan becomes King Gosdantin II of Armenia (1342)[44]
- The Patriarchate of Antioch is transferred to Damascus under Ignatius II (1342)[45]
- Serbian expansion
- In 1342, Louis I became King of Hungary.[46]
Southern Europe
In Rome, the general despair brought on by the Plague and the absence of the Pope have been cited as possible causes for the rise of the Roman notary Cola di Rienzo: in 1347, he assumed the title of censor and claimed to restore the Roman Republic.[47] He utilised popular rhetoric, and invited the men of Trastevere to sack the palaces of the fleeing Roman nobility.[47] Cola tried to establish direct government with elections in the rione of the city, but he lacked the means to take the Castel Sant'Angelo and he was cut down by the Roman aristocracy in 1354.[47]
There were several rulers of the Kingdoms of Spain in the 1340s.
By 1343, Aragon had acquired the
In 1341,
Society and economy
Economic collapse and crisis
To finance the continuing wars of the 1340s, Edward III of England granted to a small group of merchants a monopoly on the export of wool.[52] In return, they agreed to collect the "poundage", or wool tax, on his behalf.[52] This included a tariff on the import of woolen cloth, which put out of business the Italian and foreign merchants that had dominated the wool export trade.[52] The monopoly merchants went bankrupt in the following decade.[52]
Edward also introduced three new gold coins in 1344: the
In France, the king's personal expenditure on dowries, gratuities, the upkeep of the palace, his travels and his wardrobe, consumed the entirety of the royal income.
The Italian city states were booming at the start of the decade. In 1340,
Social unrest
The situation in the towns remained delicate: while on one hand the trades were dominant, and Villani counted no fewer than 200 textile workshops in Florence around 1340, working conditions and entry restrictions imposed by the guilds created tensions with the unemployed and unskilled labourers.[58] Strikes or grèves occurred in Ghent in 1337–1345 and in Florence in 1346.[59] In 1349–1350, the fullers and weavers of Ghent and Liège massacred each other.[60] The failures in the food supply in the regions of Provence and Lyon, in 1340 and 1348 respectively, affected contemporaries particularly harshly.[61] This was not just because these generations were unused to them, but because they were accompanied by war and followed by epidemic in this decade.[61]
The Black Plague
In 1340, the total population of Europe was 54 million; by 1450, it would be 37 million, a 31% drop in only a century.
The pandemic, which began in central Asia, was first reported in Europe in the summer of
Victims were only ill for two or three days and died suddenly, their bodies almost sound… They had swellings in the armpits and groin, and the appearance of these swellings was an unmistakable sign of death… Soon, in many places, of every twenty inhabitants only two remained alive. The mortality was so great at the hospital of Paris that for a long time more than 500 bodies were carried off on wagons each day, to be buried at the cemetery of the Holy Innocents.[66]
The reasons for the plague's success are not yet entirely understood.[65] Urban overcrowding,[65] declining sanitary conditions[65] and the "lively European trade in (rat-infested) grain" have been cited as causes of the plague's rapid transmission;[66] while favourable climatic conditions and the summer months may also have aided its spread.[65] In the summer of 1348 it reached England, arriving first at Melcombe Regis in Dorset.[66] It had spread through the southwestern shires to London by winter.[66] It peaked in the summer of 1349,[67] when it was passed on into Germany and Austria, and in winter it was in Scotland, Scandinavia and Spain.[65]
In general, towns were hit more severely than rural areas, the poor more than the rich, and the young and fit more than the old and infirm.[68] Norman Davies generalises that "No pope, no kings were stricken."[68] Hundreds died in each parish, although some figures may have been exaggerated.[69] Norwich, a city that did not exceed 17,000, was reported as having lost 57,000.[70] The Italian humanist Giovanni Boccaccio records a loss of 100,000 in Florence, exceeding the total population of the city.[68] The figure was probably closer to 50,000.[68] Regardless, modern studies make it clear that the plague's toll in this decade was heavy.[69]
Heaviest hit were the clergy, who were brought into direct contact with plague victims. Guillaume de Nangis records that "some monks and friars, being braver, administered the sacraments", and that the sisters at the hospital of Paris, "fearless of death, carried out their task to the end with the most perfect gentleness and humility. These sisters were all wiped out by death…"[66] In the dioceses of York and Lincoln, about 44% of the clergy perished, while nearly 50% died in the Exeter, Winchester, Norwich and Ely.[69] In all, half of the English clergy may have died.[69]
In 14th century England, the Black Plague "served as a somber backdrop to a deepening economic crisis… and growing social tensions and religious restlessness."[71] Villages were deserted, herds were untended, wool and grain markets were crippled and land values plummeted.[72] The plague would strike periodically in subsequent decades.[72] However, it is also suggested that in Europe in general, the Black Plague solved the economic recession, in that the reduction in population returned the supply of cash credit and money per capita to its pre-crisis level, laying the foundation for recovery.[73] Wages rose, and the peasantry benefited from a more open, fluid society.[72][Note 1] At the end of the decade, the economic effects of the Black Plague "may well have been more purgative than toxic."[72]
Fashion
Culture, religion and philosophy
Architecture
A number of European building projects were completed in the 1340s, mainly consisting of cathedrals and universities. In
The High Gothic choir of
In
The
Art
In religious art, a series of stained glass windows were completed for the choir clerestory of Évreux Cathedral in Normandy c. 1340.[85] Stained glass was also completed for the former Königsfelden Abbey in Switzerland, around the same time.[85]
The possibilities of
In 1340, toward the end of his life, the painter Simone Martini was called to Avignon to work for the papal court.[88] His frescos in the portico of Avignon Cathedral have been lost, but the frescoes in the papal palace, painted by his pupils or colleagues around 1340, survive.[88] Another notable religious artist was the Pisan painter Francesco Traini, who painted the Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas as part of an Italian altarpiece "which reflects the divine order of the cosmos".[89]
In sculpture, the main artist was Andrea Pisano, who maintained a workshop in Pisa with his son Nino Pisano from 1343 to 1347.[90] They are noted for the famous sculpture Maria lactans, and their work on Orvieto Cathedral.[90]
Literature
In 1341, Petrarch was crowned poet laureate in Rome, the first man since antiquity to be given this honor.[91]
- Codex Manesse, completed 1340
- Michael of Northgate (Ayenbite of Inwyt, 1340)
- Giovanni Boccaccio (works)
- Petrarch (Africa, 1343)
- Geoffrey Chaucer (born 1343)
- Perceforest, completed 1344
Military technology
It was around this decade that
Philosophy and religion
In the 1340s, Catholic Church was governed under the
In 1340s, the controversial
On November 21, 1340, Autrecourt too was summoned him to
In 1343, Clement VI issued the papal bull Unigenitus. The bull defined the doctrine of "The Treasury of Merits" or "The Treasury of the Church" as the basis for the issuance of indulgences by the Catholic Church.[100]
Africa
In the Horn of Africa, the 1340s were part of the century and a half (1314–1468) that comprised "the crowning era of medieval Ethiopia", which began with the reign of Amda Seyon I.[101] The crusading spirit of Amda's conquests in the previous decades had established an effective Ethiopian hegemony over his divided Muslim neighbours, but the chief concern of his conquests had been above all to maintain trade for both Muslims and Christians.[102] On Amda's death in 1344, the size of his Christian Empire was double what it had been in 1314.[103] Trade flourished in ivory and other animal products from the western and southwestern border regions, while food products were exported from the highlands to the eastern lowlands and coastal ports.[104] He was succeeded as emperor by his eldest son Newaya Krestos, who followed his father's policies toward the Mulisms in the east, most of whom continued to be tributaries of Ethiopia.[105]
In the
Americas
Very little is known of the Americas in this period, save what can be determined from
Other Mississippian sites which went into decline after this decade, from about 1350 on, include the
In Central America, the
Notes
- According to Fossier (p 89), a number of yeomen had benefited by the disappearance of many of their neighbours, as they were able to take over their empty farmlands and were then in a position to pay the going wages. However, while Hollister (p 285) and Soto (p 71) argue for the plague's positive socio-economic effects, Fossier (p 89) further suggests these were offset by state intervention in the form of royal taxation and wage restrictions. Edward III's issuance of the Ordinance of Labourers in 1349 limited the steep rise in wages that resulted from the plague, and the yeomen who had previously benefited now found themselves "deprived by royal ordinance of their essential workforce". The enforcement of such wage restrictions in 1351–1359 was to provoke serious unrest in Cheshire and Oxfordshire in that decade, while increased taxation in France caused similar discontent culminating in the Jacquerie(Fossier, p 89–90).
References
- ^ a b c d e Soto, p 70-71
- ^ a b Rothbard, p 70
- ^ Saunders, p 164, 165
- ^ a b c Saunders, p 165
- ^ a b Saunders, p 172-173
- ^ Saunders, p 173
- ^ Boyle, p 413
- ^ Saunders, p 146
- ^ a b Boyle, p 415
- ^ Boyle, p 415-416
- ^ a b Boyle, p 416
- ^ a b Franke, p 561
- ^ Franke, p 572
- ^ Franke, p 568, 572
- ^ a b c Franke, p 573
- ^ Franke, p 573-574
- ^ a b c d e f g Franke, p 574
- ^ Franke, p 573, 574
- ^ Franke, 574–575
- ^ a b c d e Franke, p 575
- ^ a b Saunders, p 153
- ^ Saunders, p 153-154
- OCLC 856868990.
- ^ a b c d e f g Rothbard, p 67
- ^ Hollister, p 269
- ^ Hollister, p 278
- ^ Fossier, p 69
- ^ a b c d e f g h Hollister, p 272
- ^ Fossier, p 38
- ^ a b c d Rendina, p 378
- ^ a b c Christiansen, p 210
- ^ a b Christiansen, p 211
- ^ a b Christiansen, p 200
- ^ a b c Christiansen, p 212
- ^ a b Skyum-Nielsen, p 129
- ^ a b c Christiansen, p 190
- ^ Christiansen, p 191-192
- ^ Christiansen, p 192
- ^ a b c Christiansen, p 193
- ^ Christiansen, p 191
- ^ Christiansen, p 191 & 193
- ^ Nossov (2007), p 8
- ISBN 978-1476609294.
- ISBN 9004122923.
- ^ "Primates of the Apostolic See of Antioch". Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese. Primates of the Apostolic See of Antioch. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
- ^ "Louis I king of Hungary". Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
- ^ a b c Fossier, p 105
- ^ a b c Davies, p 393
- ^ O'Callaghan, p 212
- ^ Fossier, p 66
- ^ Del Lungo, Stefano (July 2012). "Reckless foundations, Natural disasters or Divine punishment in the 14th century Italian culture (the storm or tsunami of Amalfi in 1343)". ResearchGate. Retrieved June 18, 2020.
- ^ a b c d Rothbard, p 221
- ^ Fossier, p 113
- ^ a b Fossier, p 34
- ^ Fossier, p 115
- ^ Fossier, p 99
- ^ a b Fossier, p 100
- ^ Fossier, p 102
- ^ Fossier, p 107
- ^ Fossier, p 104
- ^ a b Fossier, p 40
- ^ a b c d e f Davies, p 409
- ^ a b c Davies, p 411
- ^ a b c Fossier, p 55
- ^ a b c d e f Fossier, p 53
- ^ a b c d e f Hollister, p 283
- ^ Hollister, p 283-284
- ^ a b c d Davies, p 412
- ^ a b c d Hollister, p 284
- ^ Smith, p 28
- ^ Hollister, p 282
- ^ a b c d Hollister, p 285
- ^ Soto, p 71
- ^ Toman, p 478
- ^ Toman, p 178
- ^ Toman, p 209
- ^ Toman, p 144-145
- ^ Toman, p 260
- ^ "Käfigturm (Prison Tower)". Berninfo.com. Archived from the original on 2007-01-29. Retrieved 2008-07-11.
- ^ Toman, p 280
- ^ Davies, p 1248
- ^ "A Historical University, Tradition and Progress since the 13th century". University of Valladolid. Archived from the original on 2008-12-12. Retrieved 2008-07-11.
- Queen's College, Oxford. Retrieved 2009-06-18.
- ^ Neillands, p 109-110
- ^ a b Toman, p 477
- ^ a b Toman, p 444
- ^ Toman, p 464-465
- ^ a b Toman, p 446
- ^ Toman, p 439
- ^ a b Toman, p 331
- ISBN 9780061311628.
- ^ a b c Nicolle, p 21
- ^ Delbrück, p 28
- ^ Nossov (2005), p 209
- ^ a b c Rendina, p 376
- ^ a b c d e "William of Ockham, Philosopher of Nominalism". Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. Archived from the original on 2008-07-20. Retrieved 2008-07-12.
- ^ a b "William of Ockham – 1.3 Munich". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University. Retrieved 2008-07-12.
- ^ a b "William of Ockham". Catholic Encyclopedia (1913). Newadvent.org. Retrieved 2008-07-12.
- ^ a b c d "Nicholas of Autrecourt". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University. Retrieved 2008-07-12.
- ISBN 978-0-52028-695-5p. 75
- ^ Henze, p 63-64
- ^ Henze, p 65-66
- ^ Henze, p 66
- ^ Henze, p 65
- ^ Henze, p 67
- ^ a b Stride (page numbers please!)
- ^ Rees, p 6
- ^ "Welcome to Cahokia Mounds". Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. 2008. Retrieved 2009-06-18.
- ^ "Mound 55". Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. 2008. Archived from the original on 2013-06-15. Retrieved 2009-06-18.
- ^ Schwegman, John E. "Kincaid Mounds – A Prehistoric Cultural and Religious Center In Southern Illinois". Kincaid Mounds Organization. Archived from the original on 2009-05-17. Retrieved 2009-06-18.
- ^ a b c "An Archaeological Sketch of Moundville". University of Alabama. 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-18.
Bibliography
- Christiansen, Eric (1997). The Northern Crusades. Penguin. ISBN 0140266534.
- Davies, Norman (1996). Europe: A History. ISBN 0-19-820171-0.
- Delbrück, Hans et al. History of the Art of War. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. ISBN 0803265867
- Frank, Herbert; Twitchett, Denis (2006). The Cambridge History of China. Volume VI: Alien regimes and border states, 907–1368. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-24331-5.
- Fossier, Robert (1986). The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages: 1250–1520. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521266467.
- Henze, Paul B. (2000). Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia (Illustrated ed.). C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. ISBN 1850655227.
- Hollister, C. Warren (1992) [1966]. Lacey Baldwin Smith (ed.). The Making of England, 55 BC to 1399 (A History of England). Vol. I (Sixth ed.). ISBN 0-669-24457-0.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - Neillands, Robin. The Hundred Years' War. New York: Routledge, 1990. ISBN 0415071496
- ]
- Nossov, Konstantin. Ancient and Medieval Siege Weapons. City: The Lyons Press, 2005. ISBN 1592287107
- Nossov, Konstantin (2007). Medieval Russian Fortresses AD 862–1480. ISBN 9781846030932.
- O'Callaghan, Joseph (2004). Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain. ISBN 0812218892.
- Rees, Bob and ISBN 0435314254
- ISBN 094546648X. Archived(PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09.
- Rendina, Claudio (2002). The Popes: Histories and Secrets. Translated by Paul McCusker. Seven Locks Press. ISBN 193164313X.
- Skyum-Nielsen, Niels (1981). Danish Medieval History & Saxo Grammaticus. Museum Tusculanum Press. ISBN 8788073300.
- Smith, Lacey Baldwin (1988) [1966]. Lacey Baldwin Smith (ed.). This Realm of England, 1399 to 1688 (A History of England). Vol. II (Fifth ed.). ISBN 0-669-13422-8.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - Saunders, JJ (2001). The History of the Mongol Conquests. ISBN 0-8122-1766-7.
- Soto, Jesús Huerta de. Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles. (ISBN 0945466390
- Stride, G.T & C. Ifeka: "Peoples and Empires of West Africa: West Africa in History 1000–1800". Nelson, 1971
- Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972).
- Toman, Rolf, ed. (2007). The Art of Gothic: Architecture, Sculpture, Painting. photography by Achim Bednorz. ISBN 978-3-8331-4676-3.
Further reading
- Newton, Stella Mary (1999). Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince: A Study of the Years 1340–1365. Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 085115767X.
External links
- Media related to 1340s at Wikimedia Commons