Joan of Arc
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Transcript of Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc
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Sharing Epidemic Disease:the ‘great dying’
Historical Epidemiology• The ‘Little Ice Age’, c. 1300 CE
• declining agricultural output • widespread famine --- ability to
resist disease decreased
Bubonic Plague spreads from south-west China• carried by traders• with Mongols• on animals Yersinia (syn.
Pasteurella) pestis
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What does this do in a society? between ¼ and 1/3 of western Europeans died
Social and Economic effects
• massive labor shortage• demand for higher
wages• population movements• governments attempt to
freeze wages, stop serf movements• strong resistance
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China
Europe
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Recovery• secular political power
• taxes to rebuild• large armies to police and for ‘diplomacy’
• religious, philosophical traditions• plague as punishment against individuals
against ‘outside’ groups like Mongols
• Justification for right to rule: China’s ‘Mandate of Heaven’
India’s ‘Akbar is God’divine right of kingship
• humanist traditions: human kind’s place on earth
Recovery in Western Europe: State Building and Beyond• China: centralized Empire
• Europe: regional states tael of silver
• Europe develops new taxes – how and why?• Italian states: bonds• France: salt tax• England: hearth tax,
head tax plow tax
• large standing armies• French Louis XI (r.1461-1483) • standing army of 15,000
Why the need for large standing armies?
Sipahi cavalry of the Ottoman ‘Moorish’ architecture in Cordoba, Spain forces (service for tîmâr)
Beyond brute force:A. The Renaissance – 14C-16C• a ‘re-discovery’ of classical culture• perspective; human anatomy and musculature
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)• architecture: domed cathedrals
B. Humanists• literature, history, moral philosophy• deeply devoted to Christianity
Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) critical Greek-Latin edition of NT
• rediscovery of classical Latin texts, often ignored in monastic libraries
• rejection of monastic lifestyle: morally virtuous lifeengaged in the world
• reconciliation of Christianity with rapidly changing European society
European Exploration in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans
Portuguese early leaders in Atlantic exploration
motives:
Colonization of the Atlantic Islands
• Ceuta, north Africa• Madeiras • Azores Islands
• geopolitical value, and• investments in sugarcane plantations
• further exploration of west African coast:geopoliticaldiscover cheap labour; but class trumps race
initially
Indian Ocean Trade – only the beginning1488 Bartolomeu Dias around Cape of
Good Hope1497-1499 Vasco de Gama to India and back
A naus – ship style of the Gabriel
‘May the Devil take thee! What brought you hither?’
Conclusion:
In order to understand any event, period, development:
Know the motives of the sides involvedwhat at that time is shaping their choices? economicpoliticalbeliefspush of restraints and pull of possibilities
Be specific in terms of chronology
Don’t tell a story, organize an argument [ie there should be a ‘because’]