Bubonic plague (Black Death)  -  the worst natural human disaster in recorded history:
    - deprived Europe of many intellectuals and spiritual leaders => the panic-stricken masses drifted into immoral ways and odd forms of religious life
    - production of foods and goods plummeted, prices soared Nobles tried to make the peasants bear the brunt of the crisis => obtained legislation regulating wages and obliging peasants to work for them
    - economic and social tensions => between peasants and nobles => rebellions in Flanders, France, and England
    - social unrest in  => towns (Florence, Ghent, and Paris) => rebellions against the ruling oligarchies

14 C. => population suffered => long wars:
    - the Hundred Years' War (between France and England) => thousands of French peasants were killed + farmland destroyed
BUT: the French kings - able to increase their income by introducing new taxes during the war; the war => contributed to the growing national unity + gear a sense of national solidarity in England

The Christian world:

Late Middle Ages: the medieval ideal of a united Christian commonwealth guided by the papacy => shattered by the fracturing of Europe into autonomous national monarchies
=> papal prestige => falling as the popes became more embroiled in European politics => many Christians viewed the pope's behavior as more like that of a secular ruler
    - in the bull Unam Sanctam (1302) Pope Boniface VIII vigorously upheld papal claims to supremacy over secular rulers
    - despite his pretensions to supreme power => Boniface => forced to back down in controversies with Edward I of England and Philip IV of France;
controversy with Philip led to the capture of Boniface by the French (1303)
    => 1309 - 1377 - the Babylonian Captivity - the popes lived in Avignon => the Avignonese popes were French => forced to pursue policies favorable to France
    => the papal image was seriously damaged by the removal removal of the papacy from Rome, the luxurious style of living in Avignon, and the appointment of high churchmen to lands where they did not know the language and cared little for the local people

The conflict between Philip and Boniface stimulated an intellectual struggle between proponents of royal power and defenders of papal supremacy; the defenders of royal prerogatives (Marsiglio of Padua) => argued that the state was  self-sufficient and needed no instruction from a higher power => this argument denied the essential features of medieval theocracy

after 1377: the idea of return of the papacy to Rome => the Great Schism => two men claimed to be pope (one in Rome and one in Avignon)
=> the attempt of solve the problem at the Council of Pisa (1409) => complicated the problem by adding a third pope

=> the Great Schism => ended in 1417 by the Council of Constance
* the Conciliar movement represented an attempt to transform the papal monarchy into a constitutional system in which the pope's power would be regulated by a general council; the Holy Roman emperor and the French withdrew support from the councils, making it possible for the popes to regain authority

=> the medieval ideal of a universal Christian community => threatened by reformers questioning the function and authority of the entire church hierarchy
=> those heretics of the Late Middle Ages => anticipated some doctrines of the Protestant Reformation:
    - dissenters => John (Jan) Huss, John Wycliffe

        - they stressed a personal relationship between the individual and God, and challenged the fundamental position of the medieval church by claiming that the Bible itself, rather than church teachings, was the ultimate Christian authority
        - they attacked the wealth of the higher clergy and sought a return to the spiritual purity and material poverty of the early church
        - they rejected the sacerdotal power of the clergy

Modern outlook:

The modern world is linked to the Middle Ages in many ways:

- European cities, middle class, the state system, English common law, the universities - all had originated in the Middle Ages
- Business practices - advanced during that period
- the modern mind evolved only by using the writings of the Greek and Arabic thinkers => preserved, translated, and commented on by medieval scholars
- during the Middle Ages => Europeans began to lead all other nations in the use of technology => Christianity was in part responsible for this change by maintaining that God created the world for human beings => the belief that God was above nature, not within it, meant that Christians did not have to face the spiritual obstacles to exploiting nature that exist in other religions
- Medieval philosophers => by maintaining the superiority of God's law => provided the theoretical basis for the belief that both ruler and ruled are bound by a higher law, an idea that would became a principal element of modern liberal thought (liberalism - Judeo-Christian tradition)
- the Christian stress on the sacred worth of the individual and the higher law of God has had a permanent influence on Western civilization => Social reform has been perpetuated with the ideas of the Judeo-Christian tradition
- the feudal aristocracy continued to enjoy power and privileges for centuries => aristocratic notions of duty, honor, loyalty, and courtly love have endured from medieval times into the 20th C.
- Feudalism contributed to the history of liberty => feudal theory established limits on royal power and defended the rights of the king's vassals; the tradition gradually emerged in the Middle Ages that law should result from the collaboration of the king and his subjects; the development of representative institutions => the British Parliament is related to this tradition

BUT the outlook of Middle Ages differed from that of Modern period by:

- religion was the integrating feature of the Middle Ages; science + secularism determine the modern outlook
- medieval scholastics believed that ultimately reason alone could not provide a unified view of nature and society (a rational soul had to be guided by the divine light); the natural order depended on the supernatural order for its origin and purpose; in the Modern view => both nature and human intellect are self-sufficient => nature operates without divine intervention => no divine assistance is necessary to comprehend either nature or society
- the medieval philosopher arranged nature, society, and knowledge in a hierarchical order; Modern thinkers => the universe is one and nature is uniform; the West broke with the division of medieval society into three classes in favor of a stress on equality of opportunity and equal treatment under the law
- the modern West rejected the customary law (feudal law) => replaced it with a system of laws (objective and impersonal character)

==> the transition from medieval to modern was neither sudden nor complete => there are overlaps in both directions
==>
        the modern outlook => emerged slowly from the Renaissance to the 18th C. Age of Enlightenment