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  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. The New Cambridge Medieval History
  • Cited by 4
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
March 2008
Print publication year:
1998
Online ISBN:
9781139055758
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521382960
Subjects:
Area Studies, European History 1000-1450, British History: General Interest, European History after 1450, History, European Studies
Collection:
Cambridge Histories - British & European History
Series:
The New Cambridge Medieval History (7)
Information

Book description

This volume covers the last century (interpreted broadly) of the traditional western Middle Ages. Often seen as a time of doubt, decline and division, the period is shown here as a period of considerable innovation and development, much of which resulted from a conscious attempt by contemporaries to meet the growing demands of society and to find practical solutions to the social, religious and political problems which beset it. The volume consists of four sections. Part I focuses on both the ideas and other considerations which guided men as they sought good government, and on the practical development of representation. Part II deals with aspects of social and economic development at a time of change and expansion. Part III discusses the importance of the life of the spirit: religion, education and the arts. Moving from the general to the particular, Part IV concerns itself with the history of the countries of Europe, emphasis being placed on the growth of the nation states of the 'early modern' world.

Reviews

‘In a series of elegantly written and richly textured sketches, this large book provides some 32 chapters on the material, cultural and political condition of late medieval Europe. The task has been immense and the product is testimony to the editorial commitment that has sustained it in moments when others would surely have faltered and fallen.’

Source: The Times Higher Education Supplement

‘This is a triumphant final volume of the series, which will enrich historical literature for a long time to come.’

Jeremy Catto Source: The English Historical Review

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Contents

Page 2 of 3

Contents
  • (a) - Ireland
    pp 496-513
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Richard II was unusual, indeed unique, among medieval English monarchs in making two visits to Ireland in the course of his reign. Any advance in Ireland must therefore be financed from England, where there was a general reluctance to sanction large-scale expenditure on Ireland. In keeping with the view that Irish problems should be the responsibility of Irish resources, the English government enforced Absentee Acts which required those holding lands in Ireland either to reside there and defend them or to provide for their protection. In the first half of the fifteenth century there were ten appointees to the Irish lieutenancy. Ormond also differed from English lieutenants in his relationship with the Gaelic Irish, particularly with the learned classes who enjoyed a quasi-clerical status and immunity in Gaelic society. The victory of Edward IV ended the possibility of a continuing confrontation between a Lancastrian England and a predominantly Yorkist Anglo-Ireland.
  • (b) - Scotland: 1406–1513
    pp 514-531
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Fifteenth-century Scotland was a very violent society. To understand the mentalitè of fifteenth-century Scotland, historians have naturally emphasised the nationalism of Wyntoun and Bower. Historians of Scotland have tried to demonstrate the success of the kingdom in terms of contemporary experience. The nature of Scottish political society highlights sharply an issue obscured by more 'developed' societies: that in the end, successful rule is a political and not a constitutional matter. Fifteenth-century Scotland provides us with the paradox of exceedingly tough and effective kings ruling a decentralised kingdom, in which to an increasingly unusual degree local power could be exercised without challenge. Scotland was the first kingdom to receive formal recognition of the right of the crown to nominate to the greater benefices. No doubt Scotland had this distinction because the Papacy was more willing to give to the less important kingdom; but that was hardly a relevant consideration to the Scots.
  • (c) - Wales
    pp 532-546
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter introduces the history of Wales as the revolt drew to a close and the comment that 'modern Wales begins in 1410' has in it a measure of truth. The ending of the revolt marks the beginning of a change in the attitudes and perceptions of the Welsh political nation. The vision of the restoration of an ancient independence was replaced by the urge to work within a wider political dimension. The reign of Henry VI has been seen as a period of particular violence and disorder in Wales; the most graphic picture is that drawn by Sir John Wynn of Gwydir. There were various discussions of Welsh problems; with royal authority in the state it was in under Henry VI, it was difficult to contain or control the activities of such men as Gruffydd ap Nicholas. The wars in England brought Wales into the mainstream of English politics and its leaders on to the English political stage.
  • (a) - The Northern Italian States
    pp 547-570
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Italy in the fifteenth century was becoming a more coherent political area and it is hard to confine discussion to the northern part of the peninsula, without reference to the pope or to the king of Naples. Rising levels of taxation and borrowing, increasing expenditure on state enterprises, eroded the instinctive capitalistic interests of individual entrepreneurs and distorted the economies of the Italian states. In the early fifteenth century the hegemonic aspirations of first the Visconti and then Ladislas of Naples appeared to be the controlling factors in Italian politics. Of the three main states of northern Italy it is Florence which has attracted most interest from historians in the first half of the fifteenth century. Florentine republicanism was edging gradually towards oligarchy in the later years of the fourteenth century. The corollary to the emergence of class and cultural division within the individual societies of Renaissance Italy was a tendency for the elites to seek links with each other.
  • (b) - The Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples
    pp 571-587
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Half the territory of Italy, lay within the kingdom of Naples and the papal states, for much of the land, marsh and arid plain, defied habitation or exploitation. In contrast to its passive commercial role, the kingdom developed an active naval power thanks to the revival of the and arsenal by its Aragonese rulers. Technical distinctions can be drawn between the feudal nobility of Naples and the proprietary landowners of the papal states, but all shared a common aristocratic ethos and often, as with the Orsini family of Rome, ramified throughout the south. Martin's sure-footed performance within the papal territories was matched by similar adroitness in his dealings with Naples. Sforza's departure for Milan left Alfonso uncontested arbiter of the papal states as Florence and Venice concentrated their attention on the fate of the Visconti dominions. In Naples and in Rome the way had been prepared for a long-lasting Spanish domination.
  • (a) - Aragon
    pp 588-605
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The death of King Martí led to a crisis within the states of the crown of Aragon. Martí's death brought to an end the dynasty founded with the marriage of the infanta Petronilla of Aragon to Ramon Berenguer, count of Barcelona, which had reigned uninterruptedly since 1137. The Compromise of Caspe cannot be reduced to a mere matter of the rights of succession limited, to the kingdom of Aragon. The kingdom is perhaps better described as the 'crown of Aragon', a term already in current use long before Jerónimo Zurita first introduced it into historiography. The victor of Caspe, Fernando de Antequera, made clear his intention of continuing the Mediterranean policy of his Catalan predecessors. The war had strengthened Joan II in his conviction that the future of Aragon lay in Castile, potentially much stronger than Aragon-Catalonia. Castile, however, was exhausted by decades of internecine fighting between opposing noble factions, a festering sore in the side of the Trastámaran dynasty.
  • (b) - Castile and Navarre
    pp 606-626
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The history of fifteenth-century Castile seemed to be one of cosmic chaos, a period of almost constant anarchy until Isabel 'the Catholic' and her husband, Ferdinand of Aragon, restored law and order in the 1480s. Castile was overwhelmingly of greater significance, emerging as the dominant partner of the uneasily 'united' Spain established towards the end of the century, while the small realm of Navarre, retaining a precarious independence. The 'Catholic Monarchs', credited with introducing new notions about enhanced royal authority, even 'absolutism', were simply building on the work of their predecessors, particularly Isabel's father, Juan II. For administrative purposes, above all as far as taxation was concerned, Navarre was organised into regions known as merindades, the royal financial administration betraying French rather than Castilian influences. In 1449, therefore, the two principal disruptive elements in Castilian political life, noble intrigue and hostility towards the conversos, fused together to produce a serious rebellion in the city of Toledo.
  • (c) - Portugal
    pp 627-644
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Portugal comprises distinct geographical zones, a mountainous in the north, a lowland in the south, the dividing line being the river Tagus. The principal urban centres, Coimbra, Lisbon, Oporto and Silves, were riverside communities, as were many lesser settlements with a history of fishing, shipbuilding and maritime enterprise. The consciousness of Portuguese nationalism, portuguesismo, awoke with war: the battle of Aljubarrota, elaborately reported by chroniclers and further exalted by myth, marked its birth. Of all the elements forming Portuguese political structures, the royal office was the most important. Joäo I secured for the crown in 1402, when all cities came to be recognised as belonging to the crown; only Braga, seat of the primate of Portugal, eventually had its former independence restored, reverting to archiepiscopal control. The two reigns of Joäo I and Duarte reveal coherent continuity, a result of the fact that Duarte was associated with his father's rule in the last third of the latter's very long reign.
  • 25 - The Swiss Confederation
    pp 645-670
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The system of alliances among imperial provinces and cities known as the Swiss Confederation, emerged as a distinct political unit within the German Empire. About 1370, the small states of the Confederation, whose territorial expansion had scarcely begun, were no more than isolated dots on the multi-coloured political map of what is now Switzerland. The rise of the Confederation at the fifteenth century was influenced very significantly, though not exclusively, by events in the Austro-Habsburg sphere of influence. The events in the Aargau underline the importance of relations with the Empire for the ambitions of the political elite within the Confederation. The transformation and decline of the political order built up by the Austrian dynasty and nobility were counterbalanced by the decisive progress in the constitution of urban territorial rule. The drive towards political independence and territorial expansion in the cities and rural cantons of the Confederation advanced alongside the beginnings of an institutional inner consolidation of the state.
  • 26 - The States of Scandinavia, c. 1390– c. 1536
    pp 671-706
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The Black Death struck the whole of Scandinavia except Iceland; in Norway, in particular, its effects were aggravated by subsequent epidemics, smallpox in 1359-60, plague in 1371. In the political history of the Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and the states of the Scandinavian peninsula, Norway and Sweden, the long fifteenth century from c.1390 to the Reformation forms a well-defined period. In Sweden, the resumption of alienated crown lands had aroused the opposition of the Church. The Great Schism having undermined the authority of the Papacy, the general council emerged as the leading ruling body of the Church. Sweden had deposed Erik and was ruled by Karl Knutsson as regent. In the winter of 1439-40 Erik concluded an alliance with the overlord of the Low Countries, Duke Philip of Burgundy. The battle of Brunkeberg was a turning-point in Scandinavian history. The riksråd, convoked to meet on 30 October, declared on the following day that Christian was lawful heir to Sweden.
  • 27 - Hungary: Crown and Estates
    pp 707-726
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The main feature of political history in fifteenth-century Hungary was the shift from monarchical to aristocratic power. The fall of Belgrade in 1521 and the disastrous defeat in the battle of Mohács meant the end of the independent kingdom of Hungary. Having survived the disastrous defeat of the crusade at Nicopolis and loosened the fetters placed on him by his electors, the great lords King Sigismund of Luxemburg maintained an, at times, tenuous hold on Hungary for decades. Sigismund's establishment of the Order of the Dragon in 1408 marked the consolidation of his hold on the government of the kingdom. Sigismund was, less successful in meeting the crown's evergrowing financial needs. In the 1430s Ottoman raids reached deep inside Hungarian territory. The Ottomans could prohibit the co-operation of the Albanian and Hercegovinian centres of anti-Turkish resistance with the advancing troops of Hunyadi and his allies.
  • 28 - The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, 1370–1506
    pp 727-747
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Central and eastern Europe in the late Middle Ages was home to many ethnic, cultural, political and social systems. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries this region, experienced an increase in settlement density, especially in the kingdom of Poland and certain areas of the grand duchy of Lithuania. The Angevin period lasted sixteen years, maintaining the unity of the kingdom of Poland and its administration. The Angevin regime, in particular during the regency of the nobles from Little Poland, heightened the nobility's sense of its political value. The Lithuanian state, which developed as a monarchy in the thirteenth century, had been consolidated by Grand Duke Gediminas, and was to reach the peak of its political power as an independent state in the second half of the fourteenth century. The Polish-Lithuanian federation now became the great power of central and eastern Europe. Casimir IV's intention was to weave a network of alliances based on the several branches of the Jagiellonian dynasty.
  • 29 - Russia
    pp 748-770
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Russia' is the state descended from the grand principality that coalesced around Moscow in the fourteenth century and began the historical continuum that extended to the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and modern Russia. Powerful rivals included the city republics of Novgorod and Pskov, not forgetting the grand duchy of Lithuania. The dynamics of geopolitics in this century were structured by Moscow's rivalry with the grand duchy of Lithuania. Archbishop Evfimii also evoked Novgorod's past in architecture, rebuilding several churches according to their original twelfth-century designs. Architecture joined literature and icons in embellishing Moscow. The Cathedral of the Dormition, became a repository of Moscow's past and future pretensions. The Cathedral of the Dormition symbolically depicted God's blessing on Moscow, its antiquity and eminence and its ties to Constantinople, Kiev and Vladimir. Moscow reached even beyond Kiev to classical Antiquity to assert its status, a step paralleling Renaissance-era historiography throughout Europe.
  • 30 - Byzantium: The Roman Orthodox World, 1393–1492
    pp 771-795
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Byzantines were more concerned than most medieval people with the insecure business of measuring time and defining authority. In secular terms the Ottoman state already ruled far more Orthodox Christians than did the Byzantine emperor. In the fifteenth century, 'Byzantines' still called themselves 'Romans', synonymous with 'Christians'; in Greek their Church was Catholic. This chapter concentrates on the Roman Orthodox in the last century of their world. It focuses on four homelands, based on Salonica, Mistra, Constantinople and Trebizond. The city of Salonica has many names: Greek Thessalonike, Roman Thessalonica, Slav Solun, Venetian Saloniccho, Turkish Selanik and Hebrew Slonki. The history of the Morea is a late Byzantine success story, which illustrates the dilemmas faced by Roman Orthodox leaders who were caught between the west and the Ottomans. Trebizond in the Pontos, the last Byzantine Empire to be conquered by Mehemmed II, is a final illustration of the bonds which held the Roman Orthodox world together in the fifteenth century.
  • 31 - The Latin East
    pp 796-811
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The Latin communities in the east were composed predominantly of minority groups of westerners settled, permanently or temporarily, in the eastern Mediterranean, largely in consequence of earlier movements of Latin expansion. The cosmopolitan world of scattered Levantine ports and islands was united by its seas, by its shipping and by the extensive trade which the Latins moved across them. Latin Levantine outposts and activities depended for their survival upon an overall naval superiority which Ottoman or Mamluk fleets could seldom match. The southern Levant trade was not a Venetian monopoly but Venice increasingly assumed the predominant role in it after about 1410, while the hitherto considerable presence of Genoese, Catalans and other westerners diminished. The Latins on Cyprus reserved political power and fiscal advantages to themselves, maintaining a social distance from the Greeks which was rooted in religion and culture. In the Levant the Turks normally expelled Latin settlers while reaching accommodations with the Greeks.
  • 32 - The Ottoman World
    pp 812-830
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The process of Ottoman expansion was halted by the Anatolian campaign of the Mongol khan, Timur. The Ottoman Empire disintegrated in Anatolia as the various Turkish states, which had been annexed by the Ottomans, were restored by Timur to their previous lords. The Christian states, particularly the Byzantines, the Venetians and the Wallachians, tried to secure maximum advantage from the division of the Ottomans by supporting one prince against the others. Dynastic clashes and social upheaval were to continue within the Ottoman Empire until 1425. The civil wars gave the opportunity to the Turkish emirs to move against the Ottomans. About 1430, the Ottoman state had sixteen provinces in Anatolia and twelve in Rumelia. Agriculture, constituting the basis of the Ottoman economy and the financial support of the army, was closely connected to the timar system. Murad II was generally described as a ruler who preferred peace to war.
  • 33 - Conclusion
    pp 831-840
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The diversity of European experience at the end of the Middle Ages could also be seen in the changing role played by nobilities, now increasingly national, in a rapidly altering world. The economic history of Europe was affected by famine and even more by war, although it is claimed that war did not have as ruinous an effect on international trade as might be expected. The rise of the state, which historians of recent years have traced back to the thirteenth century, took on different forms and emerged at different tempi in different parts of Europe. Royal intervention in England against the subversive activities of the Lollard heretics in the century's early years, and the establishment, by royal request in 1478, of the Inquisition in Castile, originally to deal with converted Jews who renounced their Christianity. The development of taxation, already advanced in many territories by 1400, was now becoming a marked feature of life over the whole of Europe.

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