Unit 13

The Great Mortality

"The Black Death" or simply, "The Plague."

Hundred Years' War

- 116 years - a series of conflicts in Western Europe from 1337 to 1453, waged between the House of Plantagenet and its cadet House of Lancaster, rulers of the Kingdom of England, and the House of Valois over the right to rule the Kingdom of France.

• What were some of the steps that Ferdinand and Isabella took to homogenize their kingdoms and establish their power in the Iberian Peninsula?

- Ferdinand and Isabella married one another in 1479, the two kingdoms united to form the country we call "Spain."

What were the symptoms and qualities of the plague, according to the primary sources?

- The descriptions of the symptoms are fairly uniform across all of the sources. The symptom that appears most commonly is the coughing of blood. Most witnesses describe the appearance of "buboes" on the body. Buboes are large lumps of pus that would occur at the site of a lymph node: on the neck, under the arms, or on the upper legs near the groin. Blood could not circulate to the tissue that covered the bubo, causing the skin to become necrotic and dark. This symptom was the origin of the term "Black Death." - took hold in a house it often happened that no one remained who had not died. And it was not just that men and women died, but even sentient animals died. Dogs, cats, chickens, oxen, donkeys, sheep showed the same symptoms and died of the same disease. [...] Some fled to villas, others to villages in order to get a change of air. Where there had been no [pestilence], there they carried it; if it was already there, they caused it to increase. - We know that the progression of the illness was very rapid. Most sources report that after a person began coughing blood, they usually died within a day. After the appearance of a bubo, an individual reportedly died within three to four days, although this form of the illness does not seem to have been as deadly. There are reports of patients who survived after contracting this manifestation of the plague.

Why was Spain the first country to reach the Americas in the 15th century?

- The main motivations for colonial expansion were profit through resource extraction and the spread of Catholicism through indigenous conversions. - The motivations for colonial expansion were trade and the spread of the Christian faith through indigenous conversions. The Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de Leon was an early invader of the Americas, traveling to the New World on Columbus' second voyage.

• What reduced the quantity of Silk Road goods coming into Western Europe?

- the increase in the price of silkworm cocoons and the reduction in the importance of silk in the garments of the bourgeoisie in the 19th century caused the decline of the silk industry in Europe. - With less cost, harassment and danger, many goods and materials that the Silk Road could not transfer were conveyed through the sea route.

How did the bubonic plague travel to the Mediterranean?

In October 1347, a fleet of Genovese trading ships fleeing Caffa reached the port of Messina in Sicily. [...] Looting of these lost ships also helped spread the disease. From there, the plague spread to Genoa and Venice by the turn of 1347-1348, spreading across Italy.

Track trajectory of the spread of the plague by watching the second video in the maps section. What pattens do you observe (if any?)

It was mostly contained in Europe and the few times it was out of Europe it was contexted to the silk roads in some way

• What was Joan of Arc's role in changing the course of the Hundred Years' War

Joan of Arc was a French peasant who said she was told by angels and saints to help lead the French to victory in the Hundred Years' War. She helped defeat England several times but was captured and executed for heresy.

self-flagellation

Literal or figurative beating of oneself

According to The Vinland Saga, why did the Vikings abandon their settlement in North America?

Perhaps there were too few of them to sustain a settlement. Or they may have been forced out by American Indians. [...] The scholars suggest that the western Atlantic suddenly turned too cold even for Vikings.

Who gained more practical power as a result of economic changes after the plague? The European monarchs, or Mamluk Sultans?

The European monarchs (?)

What were some of the ways that people in Europe and the Mediterranean attempted to prevent the plague from spreading?

The most popular theory of how the plague ended is through the implementation of quarantines. The uninfected would typically remain in their homes and only leave when it was necessary, while those who could afford to do so would leave the more densely populated areas and live in greater isolation.

What steps did the Mongols take to revitalize trade along the Silk Roads?

Under the rule of the four Mongol states—the Chagatai Khanate, the Il-Khanate, the Yuan Dynasty, and the Khanate of the Golden Horde—the overland Silk Road trade was not merely revitalized; it flourished on an unprecedented scale. The various Mongol khanates profited from taxing Silk Road trade. However, because they monopolized all of the land in Eurasia, they could afford to keep customs taxes very low (never higher than five percent on the cost of the goods being trans-ported). The low cost of doing business encouraged more merchants to use the Silk Roads as a means of transport. The Mongols recognized that the danger of being attacked and robbed by interlopers had discouraged many potential merchants from bringing their goods across the wide breadth of the trade networks. So, they used their own military, along with paid mercenaries, to secure protection for the traders. Beginning in the mid-thirteenth century, it was no longer unheard of for an individual to traverse the entire length of the Silk Roads, from the Mediterranean to the Pacific.

Who was Freydis?

a Norse woman said to be the daughter of Erik the Red (as in her patronym), who is associated with the Norse exploration of North America and the discovery of Vinland with his son Leif Erikson.

What factors motivated Spain to attempt to find a western route to the source of the Silk Roads?

a direct and efficient route to the Orient - home of spices, silks and wealth. The Spanish explorers were in search of mineral wealth, looking for El Dorado (the City of Gold) and they aspired to spread Christianity.

Joan of Arc

a heroine of France for her role during the Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years' War, and was canonized as a saint. She was born to Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle Romée, a peasant family, at Domrémy in the Vosges of northeast France.

Pax Mongolia

a historiographical term modelled after the original phrase Pax Romana which describes the stabilizing effects of the conquests of the Mongol

The plague that afflicted the people of the Mediterranean still exists today. Why is it so much less destructive now than it was in the fourteenth century?

can be treated with simple, penicillin-derived antibiotics. If diagnosed quickly, most people make a full recovery

Spanish Inquisition

his state-sponsored tribunal targeted recent converts, who were subjected to inter-rogation by Church officials. If they did not confess to being heretics, the deponents were often tortured until they confessed. Most of the people who did confess were imprisoned for life. Some, however, were sentenced to death by being burned at the stake. As for his part in homogenizing the population of Iberia, Ferdinand conquered and annexed the last remaining Muslim-majority territory, Granada.

The Great Famine

widespread food shortage that killed thousands