The Hanseatic League, originally established primarily by traders of the Netherlands and Flanders, now included some 52 towns, most of them German, including Bremen, Cologne, Danzig, Dortmund, Hamburg and Hanover. (Ref. 222) At this time Germany was essentially a federation of provinces, each ruled by secular or ecclesiastical princes acknowledging a limited fealty to the head of the Holy Roman Empire. Ludwig Wittelsbach of Bavaria made himself emperor and then battled with pope John XXII over the imperial succession and finally crowned his own pope. (Ref . 8). William of Occam, a Franciscan theologian and philosopher, took refuge with this Emperor Ludwig IV, after he had been excommunicated in England. He was important as a forerunner of Martin Luther, in attacking papal claims to temporal authority and appealing to the authority of the Bible. Bavaria was briefly united under the Wittelsbach emperor but at his death the imperial crown went to Charles IV of Bohemia. In this century, the Brandenburg rulers became members of the Electoral College which chose the German king and emperor, but Wittelbachs, Habsburgs and Luxembourgs all contested for the crown while papal intervention contributed to monarchial weakness. (Ref. 8) Additional Notes

Although it was a period of degeneration in some areas of Germany, there were also new ideas appearing that foreshadowed a more modern state. One of these was a growing territorialism, with the formation of Standestaaten, or states based on estates, without feudal arrangement and with the gradual establishment of non-noble, civil service, pointing the way toward more centralized communities. The second concept was that of bourgeoisie. In 1300 only 811 towns north of the Alps had a flourishing trade but by 1450 there were 3,000 such towns. Leagues of these were formed for mutual protection and the acme of this was the Hanseatic League, which reached its high point in this century. Salted herring made the merchants of this Hanse wealthy. Although the fundamental basis was economic, the League used war, if necessary to protect its interests. The merchant families formed a new class of patricians and guilds appeared for artisans and workmen. The still famous Loewenbrau brewery was started in Munich in 1383. Blast furnaces, which allowed iron to be cast, resulted in the transformation of European iron technology, a feature which, in turn, revolutionized warfare by decreasing the useful ness of castles and the value of chivalry. (Ref. 213) A final factor of importance in this era was the Teutonic Knight. Even by 1300 Germans had pushed beyond the Elbe, seizing the Baltic littoral and settling in Poland and Hungary. (Ref. 177, 184, 222)

Cruel persecution of Jews reached a peak, with wholesale murders in Swabia, Bavaria and the Rhine as well as in Switzerland and Austria. Famine, followed commonly by the Black Death, reached almost every German village. Many felt that the epidemic was a judgment of God and they joined a fanatic religious movement, the "Flagellants", who turned on the Jews in many areas, accusing them of causing the plague by poisoning of the wells. Jewish persecution may have accelerated the eastward shift of the Jewish population in Europe and helped to populate Poland with Jewish merchants. Economically, wage and price patterns were disrupted, class conflicts were exacerbated and an increased personal mysticism appeared within the Christian religion. (260,140).

Although subject to the Holy Roman Emperor, the Habsburgs controlled the duchy of Austria and were gradually extending their holdings. By the time of Rudolf IV (1356-65), the family had consolidated their position and Austria was a major power. The University of Vienna was founded in 1365 (Ref. 8)

Hungary began the century with close to 1,000,000 people, consisting in a minority of Magyars ruling a majority of Slavs. The Arpad Dynasty became extinct in 1301, and Charles Robert of Anjou was brought in to rule and with French and Italian ideas and wines, Hungary became a western state. Industrial immigrants began to arrive from Germany, Flanders and Italy. It was a century of some glory and essentially peace for Hungary and adjacent states. One-third of all the gold production in the world, in the amount of 3,000 pounds each year, came from Hungary. Charles Robert set up a systematic fiscal policy with that gold as a base. Charles' son, Louis, although still an Angevin, became one of the greatest kings and was called "the Great", chiefly because of territory gained and his added assumption of the Polish throne in 1370. Some estimates give up to 3,000,000 people in Hungary by that time. The government was typical of European feudalism with nobles supplying military support for the monarch. Allied with Genoa, Louis had a long struggle with Venice which ended in the Peace of 1381 in which Venice ceded Dalmatia and paid tribute. Serbia, Wallachia and Moldavia all recognized the suzerainty of Louis and he even had a victory over the Turks in northern Bulgaria in 1366. At Louis' death his daughter Maria became queen and married Sigismund of Luxemburgs who became guardian of the kingdom. This situation was soon challenged by Charles of Durazzo and Naples, who had a large following in southern Hungary and Croatia and he became king in 1385 only to be assassinated about a year later. This resulted in a Croatian revolt and it was 1387 before Sigismund regained control and this time assumed the throne, himself. He was absent from the country most of the time, however, and there was a marked decline in royal power. In 1396 there was a disastrous loss in battle with the Turks, Dalmatia was taken again by Venice and there were Hussite invasions from Bohemia as a result of Sigismund's attempt to gain the Bohemian throne. (Ref. 119, 126)

Like Austria, Bohemia was a part of the German Holy Roman Empire, but with its own king. After the death of Wenceslas III (1306), the ancient Przemyslid line ended and a foreigner, John of Luxemburg, son of Emperor Henry VIII, was brought in to form a new dynasty, making Bohemia a part of the West. Limited in power by written law and subject to actions of a national diet, he actually showed little concern for Bohemian affairs. In spite of this Bohemia became a power in international politics. John supported the Teutonic Knights against Lithuania and for a time ruled western Lombardy, as well as the Tyrol. He died in the battle of Crecy, fighting on the side of the French. His son became King Charles I and soon Emperor Charles IV of the Holy Roman Empire. He was the greatest of the Bohemian kings, maintaining peace with the Germans, organizing good government, rebuilding and beautifying Prague and founding the University of Prague as the first university in central Europe. By the Golden Bull, initiated in the empire in 1356 transforming it from a monarchy into an aristocratic federation with seven electors to vote on the emperor and other matters, the King of Bohemia was given first place among those electors. Charles was a bright young man in every way except as a military leader and was the last of the great medieval kings. His one black mark was his subsidizing of the massacre of Jews and giving of their property to his supporters. His son and successor, Wenceslas IV, was a useless alcoholic and the remainder of the century was one of political chaos and degeneration. At the end of the century John Huss was pushing for the use of the vernacular in church liturgy and a religious movement known as Hussites began to form. Slavic nationalism rose in full force and added another disconcerting element.

(Ref. 8, 119)

The Swiss were the best soldiers in Europe and were frequently hired out as mercenaries and they repulsed all attempts of the Austrian dukes to enforce feudal rights. In 1315, after defeating the Habsburg dukes by rolling rocks down the hills on to the knights, at the battle of Morgarten, three cantons made the further step of forming the Swiss Confederacy, on their way to establishing the most stable and sensible democracy in history. Soon the original three cantons had been joined by five others. The Confederacy, however, remained a part of the Holy Roman Empire, although the southern communes emancipated themselves from the domination of the House of Habsurg by defeating Leopold II of Swabia, in 1388. Blamed for spreading the Black Death, Jews were persecuted at Lake Geneva and Basel. (Ref. 222)

Racially and geographically Spain was lacking in unity. Its population was a mixture of many stocks - Iberian, Celtic, Carthaginian and Roman, Teutonic and Arabic, Moorish and Jewish - and its mountains had prevented it from acquiring homogeneity.

In the Christian areas they had only religion in common. The one saving grace of 14th century Spain was wool, the chief source of royal revenue. By 1400 this country was exporting wool all over Europe and especially to Tuscany, while English exports there had dropped. (Ref. 213, 222)

Bands of mercenaries employed by every side took place in dynastic wars over most of the country. Although the successors of Alfonso X were not very capable, Alfonso XI (1340) did defeat an attack of Spanish and Moroccon Moslems and ended the African menace. This battle of Rio Salado (1340) saw perhaps the first use of cannon in Europe. (Ref. 281) Throughout the Hundred Years War, Castile supported France but tried to avoid actual hostility with England. Pedro the Cruel came to power in mid-century and, helped by the Franciscan monks, promoted a terrible persecution of Jews. Some of the latter converted to Christianity while others fled or were killed. Otherwise Pedro's reign was little more than a dynastic struggle with his half-brother, Enrigue (Henry) Trastamara.

The French, outraged by Pedro's treatment of his French wife, sent Du Guesclin to Spain to support Enrigue, while the English supported Pedro until they, too, became estranged by the kings' viscous character. Ultimately Enrigue defeated and killed Pedro and subsequently reigned as Enrigue II Trastamara. In Spanish history this was the "Trastamara usurpation" of 1369. Peace was made with both Aragon and Portugal by 1374. (Ref. 222) Enrigue's son, John I, and grandson, Enrigue III followed him on the throne before the end of the century.

In Aragon territories, James II held Sardinia and Corsica, while giving Sicily to his brother Frederick. There was continued turmoil among the nobility, however, with Alfonso IV ruling from 1327 to 1336 and then giving way to Pedro IV who ruled from 1336 to 1387. He was virtually a prisoner of the nobility for much of that reign and was eventually succeeded by a nephew, John I of Aragon. Pedro's daughter, Eleanor, married another John, son of Enrigue of Castile, so that these two communities became reconciled. Granada remained under Moslem rule, tolerant and prosperous. The physician Ibn-a Khatib described the contagious aspect of the Black Death, in contrast to the general concept of the times, which was that it was due to divine vengeance.

The great king Diniz was succeeded in 1325 by his son, Afonso IV. The latter had a troubled reign, including civil war with the opposition led by his son, Pedro (Peter) I. Under Ferdinand I further war with Castile occurred as Castile's Juan (John) claimed the throne because of his marriage to a Portuguese princess,- Beatrix, but the Castilians were beaten at the battle of Aljubarrota on August 14, 1385, which became Portuguese Independence Day. Under the Avis Dynasty, with John I the Great, Portugal entered the greatest period of its history. John married John Gaunt's daughter, Philippa, thus making the subsequent Avis family part English. (Ref. 119, 222)

The States-General met for the first time in 1302. Everywhere the new monarchies were finding a powerful aristocratic reaction and it was a particularly bad century for France. In addition to the revolt of the nobles there were labor-employer troubles and then England's attempt to conquer France, which began the Hundred Years' War in 1331. This came close to initial success with victories for England at Crecy in 1346 when Edward III's 4,000 knights and 10,000 English and Welsh longbowmen defeated Philip VI's 38,000 assorted heavily armored men and again at Poitiers in 1356, when the Black Prince of Wales took France's Jean II (John) prisoner. (Ref. 8, 222) Cannon were first used at Calais, in 1347. (Ref. 260) Unrest in Paris in that same year was led by Etienne Marcel and eventually led to violence. French expansion eastward was checked by the expanding Duchy of Burgundy. As can be noted on the accompanying small maps, by 1360 England controlled all of the southwestern portion of modern day France. By 1380, however, Charles V had retaken most of that territory. The devastation of the crops was responsible for more deaths in that war than the battles themselves. When Genoa, reeling from a final defeat by Venice in 1396, accepted French protection, the stage seemed set for a full-scale French intervention in Italy, but this was not yet to be as Charles VI, inheriting the throne, became insane and the French government was paralyzed. (Ref. 8, 213)

France had other problems in this century. Four general famines occurred and there was a crisis in north European salt production, partly because of the Hundred Years' War and partly because of economic conditions. The chief source of salt then became the beach pans of Bouigneuf Bay in southern Brittany, but this was of poor quality. Other problems were religious in nature. Early in the century Philip IV, wanting the Knights Templars' property, forced Pope Clement to allow the Grand Inquisitor, Guillaume of Paris, to prosecute the Templars as heretics. De Molay was burned at the stake in this activity and thus became a martyr. Since the Knights, originally an ascetic Catholic order, had over the years become very wealthy and were serving as the bankers of civilization, their prosecution could not help but interfere with the country 's economic as well as religious activities. France expelled all Jews in 1394. (Ref. 49, 211, 260)

NOTE: Insert FRANCE IN MID-14TH CENTURY (1328/1360)

Credits can go to some Frenchmen of this century, however. Jean Buridan wrote on theoretical physics and astronomy, anticipating Galiter, Descartes and Newton. Henri de Mondeville and Guy de Chauliac were great French surgeons and Nicole Oresme developed a system of co-ordinates and employed graphs to show the growth of functions, preparing the way for Copernicus. (Ref. 49, 125)

The Dutch had succeeded in reopening the trade route around the Danish peninsula and had somewhat overcome the dominance of the Germanic Hanse in the Baltic trade. (Ref. 137) Growing realism and individualism in the arts was the most striking feature in the Netherlands, whose culture was strongly and proudly Germanic. (Ref. 177)

Farther south in Flanders1 as early as 1302 there was a general uprising against French influence and the burgher oligarchy. In spite of this and a great famine lasting from 1315 to 1317 which greatly affected Flemish cities, Flanders enjoyed a great economic development and along with Brabant had become the largest industrial complex in northern Europe, chiefly exporting woolens. As labor-employer troubles developed, however, a communistic type of organization appeared. As the English began to dominate the commercial activities in Flanders, a political crisis developed and the communes made the Count of Flanders, Louis of Nevers, prisoner (1325). Philip marched in, massacred the burghers on the field of Cassel and established French administration again. When England's Edward III replied with an embargo on wool export from England in 1336 the weavers of Ghent, under the wealthy James van Artevelde, became virtual masters of the country and made a commercial treaty with England. When Edward then declared himself King of France the Flemings recognized him as their sovereign and made a political alliance with him, all of this becoming a part of the start of the Hundred Years War. In 1369 the daughter of the Count of Flanders married the Duke of Burgundy with a two-fold result. First, there occurred a concentration of Flemish, French and Burgundian artists in the Burgundian cities and secondly after 1384 control of Flanders passed to Burgundy. (Ref. 8, 222, 119)

In Great Britain, as a whole, the Black Death dropped the population from 3.7 million in 1348 to 2.2 million in 1377 and it dropped another 100,000 in the next 50 years.

Magnus II, who was also King of Sweden, ruled Norway as king from 1319 until he turned the Norwegian crown over to his son Haakon Vl in 1343. Margaret, daughter of Denmark's Valdemar IV, was married at ten years of age to King Haakon VI and ten years later she had a son, Olaf, who became king of Denmark when Valdemar died and then king of Norway when Haakon died. When Olaf expired in 1387, Margaret was elected as Queen, thus introducing the system of election already in practice in Denmark and Sweden.

Magnus II became the Swedish king in 1319 at the age of three years, with his mother as regent and effective ruler. Through his mother Magnus also succeeded to the Norwegian crown and during a troubled period in Denmark actually gained Scania, Halland, and Bleking temporarily for Sweden. Even after he assumed the reign for himself, there was a definite weakening of the royal power and a rise of the aristocracy. The first meeting of the Riksdag, which included nobles and burghers, was in 1359. By 1363 Magnus was deposed and succeeded by Albert of Mecklenburg, who was always a tool of the nobility. They eventually dethroned him in 1388, calling in Margaret, already Queen of Norway and regent of Denmark, thus uniting all three countries. Officially she formed the Union of Kalmar in 1387 under the name of her grand-nephew and adopted son, Eric of Pomerania, but she retained the effective power. Additional Notes

The successful reign of Eric Menved ended in 1320 by capitulation and Christopher II was elected, with limitations laid down by the nobility and clergy. In 1340 Christopher was driven from the throne by Gerhard, Count of Holstein. This was indicative of the dominance of the German Hansa towns in Danish politics at that time. From 1332 to 1340 Denmark was in a state of anarchy, with no king and actually ruled by German Counts from adjacent territories. The Scanian provinces across the sound placed themselves under the Swedish king, Magnus Smek, as a separate province. But then came Valdemar IV, the youngest son of Christopher, to take the throne as one of the greatest Danish kings. The Church was subordinated to the royal power and the nobles and towns were made to perform their military obligations as Valdemar reconquered the territories lost by his father, in wars with Sweden, Holstein and Schleswig. In 1361 he even took on the Hansa. Copenhagen was sacked but the Danes defeated the Hansa fleets in 1362 at Helsingborg.

Valdemar had been raised at the Imperial German court as a European man of fashion; his wife was a Schlesvig princess. Although not liked much by the Danes, he ruled efficiently. During his reign he sold Estonia to German nobles, then conquered the Goths of Gotland, an island in the Baltic which was actually a part of Sweden although controlled by the Hanseatic League. The second war with the Hansa occurred from 1368 to 1370 and this time the League was supported by Sweden, Norway, Holstein, Mecklenburg and even by some of the Danish nobles. Badly defeated, Valdemar accepted the Peace of Stralsund which again made the Hansa supreme in the Baltic. Valdemar's grandson, Olaf, ruled from 1376, under the regency of his mother, Margaret, until his death in 1387 when Margaret became queen, ruling also in Norway and Sweden. (See map, page 726)

After 30 years of being the battle field for war between Sweden and Russia, in 1323 a boundary treaty was drawn up and solemnized and Finland became a true province of Sweden, remaining so for the next 500 years.

Northern Estonia was sold by Denmark to German nobles of the Teutonic Knights, who were already pretty well distributed throughout that area. About two centuries of eastward migration of Germans, with the founding of such cities as Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, Greifswald, Cammin and Kolberg had resulted in the formation of the Hanseatic League in 1358. The bulk of the peasantry in the Baltic States retained their Finno-Ugrian character and there was not any actual military conquest except in Prussia. (Ref. 8) In this and the next century the northern seas swarmed with herring and the Hanseatic League (with some strong competition from the Dutch) tended to dominate the commerce. Herring has to be salted within 24 hours of the catch and so this was of ten done at sea with salt imported from the south. The same chemical allowed cabbage to be preserved through the winter and the Baltic lands had a frontier boom, sending timber and grain to the Low Countries. As in most of Europe, however, the Black Death came on the scene in 1350. (Ref. 211, 137, 279)

Early in the century Poland withdrew from a previous short-term Bohemian association and in spite of pressure by the German Knights on the west and north and by Lithuania on the east, Vladislav united Poland into a coherent kingdom with a capital at Cracow. Casimir III, called the Great, continued as a fine administrator, indulging in some territorial exchanges and founding the University of Cracow. In both this and the next century, Poland's internal strife was perpetually between kings attempting unification and nobles trying to establish more of an oligarchy type of government. Externally Poland pushed alternately against the Teutonic Knights northward, trying to get to the Baltic, and southeast toward the Black Sea. As a result of a dynastic agreement in 1370, Louis of Hungary became the Polish king and reigned until his death about 1382. The Poles then accepted Louis' younger daughter, Jadwiga, and married her to Jagiello of Lithuania, at which time they separated from Hungary. Beginning in this century the Poles used their rivers for transportation of great rafts carrying wood to the Baltic Sea. Like other European medieval cities, Prague was a walled, self-contained unit, but occasionally it was necessary to move the walls to allow for growth. (Ref. 260)

NOTE: Insert Map 74. Lithuania and Poland 13th-14th Centuries

Lithuania was the largest territorial state of 14th century Europe and Gedymin (1316- 1341) and Olgierd (1345-1377) of the Gedimimas family were the real founders of that nation. Blocked by the Germans on the Baltic, they took advantage of the weakness of the Russian principalities to extend control to the east and south by acquiring Polotsk, Minsk and the middle Dnieper region, with Vilno as the capital of the state. Several times Olgierd advanced to the very outskirts of Moscow and he extended his domains to the Black Sea, where he defeated the resident Tatars, re-establishing an extensive realm that had been occupied in prehistoric times by the Baltic Galindas. The Lithuanians were people that had originated in the upper Dnieper basin and mixed with Lappons, who had been pushed south by the Baltic Finns. At the end of the century Lithuania was ruled by Jagiello, a pagan. When he married the Polish princess Jadwiga, as noted above, she converted him to Christianity and he then took the name Valdislav II. This marriage united Poland and Lithuania into a giant Slavic kingdom in 1385. The Polish-Lithuanian link was always loose, however, for several reasons not the least of which was that Poland was Catholic and Lithuania was chiefly Orthodox. In addition, they tended to pull in opposite directions, with the Poles chiefly concerned with the inroad of the Germans while the Lithuanians expanded along the Black Sea, hoping to exploit the decline of the Golden Horde. The latter were still tough enough, nevertheless, to defeat the Lithuanians in 1399 and close off their Black Sea outlet. (Ref. 49, 119, 61, 137) (See map, page 726, also)

Russia did not exist as a nation at this time. The western-most territory was dependent to Lithuania; the north had a variety of independent city-states, including from north to south the Principates of Novgorod, Moscow and Ryazan. The east, including all the territory north of the Caspian, some east of the Caspian, all north of the Black Sea in a diagonal line running northeast - all this was the Khanate of the Golden Horde with its Mongol-Turk marauder occupants. It was noted in the last chapter that in all probability the plague was brought to the Euro-Asian steppes from the southeast of Asia, then by the Mongols to the Crimea, from whence it spread to all of Europe. In 1347 the city of Caffa (now Feodosiya) was under siege by the Tartars when they suddenly began dying off with plague. The living Mongols catapulted their dead companions into the city and as the Christian defenders started home, nearly all died at sea. It was the survivors that started the epidemic in Italy that soon spread to the entire continent. (Ref. 8, 137, 125)

Novgorod was an important city of the Hanseatic League with a population in this century of about 400,000, a high rate of literacy and a thriving economy. In the Ukraine the old Scythian population, mixed with Slav and some Mongol blood, reverted to a nomadic life and became the Christian Cossacks, forming somewhat of a buffer against the Tartars. The general population shift, however, was northward. In 1318 the Yarlik (charter) given by the Golden Horde to a north Russian subaltern, passed on to Prince Yuri of Moscow and then to Ivan of Moscow, who also brought the Church Metropolitan to that city. The Russians of the era were very pious, monasteries were numerous and the Patriarch Alexis was virtually the ruler of the Russian people from 1354 to 1370 as the church was the life and culture of all. In mid-century Ivan II of Moscow refused to pay tax to the Mongols and the latter retaliated by raiding and massacring some 24,000 people and burning the city of Moscow. After this, however, the Mongol hold on Russia gradually weakened and in the great battle of Kulikovo, Dmitri Donskoi (meaning "of the Don"), then ruler of Moscovy, defeated the Tartar army in 1380 for the first time. Lithuanian armies, which were supposed to help the Mongols, did not arrive on time and probably related to this defeat is the fact that in the same year the Golden Horde was conquered by the White Horde from the east, which then migrated into its territories, although in the West all were still known by the former name. The Mongol-Turks were still not completely destroyed, however, and lived to attack Moscow again. (Ref. 131, 119)