Lesson Plans

The Western Heritage ©2000

by Kagan, Ozment, and Turner

Focus Lesson 1

Chapter 9: "The Late Middle Ages (1300–1527)"

AP* Course Description

1. Intellectual and Cultural History
   • Changes in religious thought and institutions
   • Secularization of learning and culture
   • Major trends in literature and the arts
   • Intellectual and cultural developments and their relationship to social values and political events
   • Developments in social, economic, and political thought
   • The diffusion of new intellectual concepts among different social groups
2. Political and Diplomatic History
   • The rise and functioning of the modern state in its various forms
   • The extension and limitation of rights and liberties (personal, civic, economic, and political); majority and minority; political persecutions
   • The growth and changing forms of nationalism
   • Relationship between domestic and foreign policies
   • War and civil conflict: origins, developments, technology, and their consequences
3. Social and Economic History
   • The role of urbanization in transforming cultural values and social relationships
   • The shift in social structures from hierarchical orders to modern social classes: the changing distribution of wealth and poverty
   • The influence of sanitation and health care practices on society; food supply, diet, famine, disease, and their impact
   • The development of commercial practices and their economic and social impact
   • Changes in the demographic structure of Europe, their causes and consequences

Key Components

• Instructor's Manual: pp. 21–22
• Study Guide and Workbook, Vol. I: pp. 87–96
• Test Item File: pp. 45–50

Key Web Sites

• Europe, from 1300 to 1500
• Western and Central Europe Chronology: Conflict between Pope and Emperor
• The Black Death: Bubonic Plague
• Rambaud on the Mongol Yoke and the Influence of the Tatars on the Russian Development

Key Words and Terms

Suggested Pacing

Test Strategy

Key Concepts

• The Hundred Years' War
  Understanding the Hundred Years' War and its roots is essential if students are to understand the future dynamics of the relationship between England and France. This war established the rivalry between the two countries for ascendancy in European power politics.
  
  
• The Struggles in the Late Medieval Church
  The struggles between the Roman Catholic Church and secular authorities played out in the Reformation and in the growth of powerful nation-states in Western Europe. This conflict should be viewed against the lack of struggle in eastern empires in the same period. This is one of the great differences between East and West and its consequences will be evident over time.

Summing Up Student Understanding

POWER

• Joan of Arc's calling from God and the repercussions of it
• God's intervention during the Black Death because of repentance and the actions of the Flagellants
• Medieval art as representative of people's feelings about death; based on the teachings of the Church . . . both negative and positive
• The Church's teaching to think often about death by visiting the dying, going to burials, and visiting graves
• Involvement of priests in helping those with the plague, even to the point of falling victim to the plague themselves
• Monarchs as supporters of the Church
• Reunion of the Eastern and Western churches for a short time
• Growth of the Church's political power
• The Church's own court and taxes
• Jubilee year
• Papal bulls
• Development of doctrines on indulgences and Purgatory

CHAOS

• Spiritually weakened Church
• Image of the Church split between "papal monarchy" and "body of the faithful," thus leading to discontent among the local churches
• Appeal of heretical movements to the people
• Reformers within the Church
• Shift by political rulers of their ire from the emperor to the Church
• Political nature of the college of cardinals
• Conflicts between popes and political leaders over such things as taxation and secular trials of the clergy
• Charges of corruption among the Church hierarchy
• French control of the pope, including the Avignon Papacy (Babylonian Captivity)
• Defender of Peace
• Reaction of other nations to the Avignon Papacy (Babylonian Captivity)
• Wycliffe, Huss, and Nicholas of Clamanges
• Lollards and Hussites
• Great Schism
• Conciliar Movement

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• Aspects of Western Civilization, Vol. I, edited by Rogers—Chapter 7, Section III
• Sources of the West, Vol. I, edited by Kishlausky—Part II, "The High Middle Ages"