The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [55]
Europe was moving ahead politically as well. Monarchs began to call on members of the local town for advice. Then the towns assigned representatives to see the sovereign. Eventually, elections chose these town representatives. The monarchs clearly saw the power of the towns as they grew into powerful cities and dared not ignore them. These elected representative bodies slowly became parliaments, and their power grew as time moved on. The crowned heads trying to build power were able to call on the city and its rich merchants for additional taxes, and money was power (things never change). These funds enabled the national kings to establish their superiority over the local warlords partially through the purchase of powerful artillery to batter down castle walls. This new money helped the monarchs carve out national boundaries ultimately leading to nation states. Of course, all this brought so much power to the parliaments they could challenge the king for ultimate authority over the nation—and in some cases, they won. Overall, things were looking up for Europe in the early 1200s, but numerous new tribulations were approaching that would quell the happy times.
In 1347, an ultra deadly executioner called on Europe by way of ships from the east bringing a merciless assailant—the Black Death. This eastern marauder exterminated over 25 million lives possibly cutting the population of Europe by about one-third to one-half. It was total ruin. No one knew fleas that had bitten infected rats carried the disease. Rats were commonplace at the time, and fleas were everywhere just like all the other bugs. No one had invented bug killer, and bugs enjoyed eating on humans regularly. To the people of the age the disease just spread. Had God flung hell to earth punishing humanity for wrongs beyond comprehension? The Black Death of 1347 was the last of the great plagues to strike Europe in this era. The march of death by plague started as early as 452 and continued to hit Europe in waves until the Black Death finally ended the disease cycle. The Byzantine Empire was on the rise under Justinian when the plague hit and destroyed about one-third to one-half of the people in the empire. It is thought that well over one hundred million (100,000,000) people died in the plagues that swept over Europe from 452 to 1347. These plagues helped destroy commerce and unity in Europe for a thousand years—just about the same amount of time assigned to the Dark Ages.
The Little Ice Age began in 1200, but hit in force by 1300 causing temperatures to drop precipitously and putting an end to high crop yields. The plague, the Little Ice Age, and the wars throttled any chance of recovery after 1200.
Chronic feudal wars, the Hundred Years War between England and France (fought in France), the War of the Roses in England, and other local wars too numerous to account continued while people died in throngs from the plague. The Hundred Years War between France and England coupled with the Black Death and the falling temperatures all but wiped out the population of France and central Europe. The bad times had returned in spades.
While all this was going on, the Catholic Church began arguing over who was the rightful pope. In the Great Schism (1378 to 1417) there were two popes, and each pope excommunicated the other as well as all his followers. They also mounted crusades against one another. This caused great problems for the Catholic Church. The Church decided to call a council to decide who the real pope would be. It couldn’t make things any worse, right? The council of Pisa in 1409 elected a third pope who promptly excommunicated the other two, who then excommunicated him. The Council of Constance (1417) eventually named the one and only rightful pope, and said he must reside in Rome. The concept of a council of Church leaders solving a crisis of such magnitude put some Catholics on edge. Was a council’s authority above that of the pope? The question still goes unanswered.