The Perfect Storm:The 1300s

The One Hundred Years War

• Political Corruption

• The People are tired of constant Rape, Pillage, and Murder. It is not the Kings and Nobility that suffer

• Also the Kings are raising taxes to pay for this war with little gain for the common people

Avignon Papacy

• Religious Corruption

• The Papacy of the Roman Catholic Church is moved to Avignon France by King Phillip IV

• A new Papacy will form in Rome again to counter act the one in Avignon

• Eventually, Europe will have three Popes at once and all will be Excommunicated

The Bubonic Plague• Corruption of Medieval Society

• 1/3 of the population of Europe dies in 3 years and there is no explanation as to why

• The Church’s explanation is that God is punishing sinful man

Influx of Knowledge from the Crusades

• The Knowledge of Greece and Rome was also kept by the Muslims and Byzantines.

• During the Crusades the knights of Europe begin to experience these cultures

• They Crusaders bring the ideas of Greece and Rome back to Western Civilization