Crisis and Renaissance

1340–1492

Currents of both crisis and renewal swept through medieval society in the years 1340–1492. On the one hand, throughout the fourteenth century, Europeans faced myriad challenges, from pestilence to war to rebellions. On the other hand, the city-states of the northern Italian peninsula helped to spark a period of great creativity that historians often refer to as the Renaissance, which reached its peak in the 1400s. The documents in this chapter capture these twin themes, beginning with contemporary accounts of the catastrophic effects of the Black Death and the search for scapegoats, though many people viewed the plague as divine punishment. The Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453) added to people’s troubles as the kings of France and England battled for land and prestige. Both sides raised taxes to finance the war, leading to a wave of rebellions, including the English Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, described in Document 2. The very church that at its height had claimed to be the spiritual and temporal head of Christendom could not help because it was a house divided and threatened by abuses and calls for reform, as the selections by Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1342–1400; Document 3) and letters of Jan Hus (1427–1415; Document 4) reveal. At the same time, however, men of the upper classes in Italy defined themselves self-consciously as living in new times. For such men and a few women, this was a time of rebirth, distinct from what they viewed as a millennium of barbarism. Imitating the values and styles of antiquity, the Renaissance was defined by the studia humanitatis (roughly, the liberal arts), from which the term humanism was derived. The fifth document illustrates the application and possibilities of humanism, whereas the sixth document demonstrates that the realities of Italian life often did not match Renaissance ideals.