11-13th C. Population Expansion of High Middle Ages:
        increased security w/ end of Viking & Magyar raids (Moslems remain threat)
agricultural improvements; rise in food supply permits surplus population;
rise of towns, commerce, first local, then international; coinage, banking

14th C. Ecnomic Contraction:

CRISIS OF THE 14TH CENTURY -- end to medieval expansion
Signs: war, famine, plague & revolution = "four horsemen of the Apocalypse"
Eschatological interpretation: traditional "signs of last times"

I. THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR, 1337-1453 (England vs France):
English efforts to hold onto territoriesin France provokes 100 Years War
Florentine banking collapse triggered by default on war loans to English & French Kings
            Bardi & Peruzzi largest in Europe; bankrupted 1343-45

II. FAMINE: demographic pressure on land: extension of arable reaches limits
           climactic change: cooling trend ("Little Ice Age" begins 1300), rains = crop failures;
           evidence from glacial core samples, dendroclimatology (tree rings)

MALTHUSIAN CRISIS (Malthus = 18th C. English economist):
           population growth outstrips food production = rise in death rate
1290'S: first famines in northern Europe; 1310-1319 reach Mediterranean
           results: steep rise in food prices and in mortality rates (+10-15%)
weakened population (& livestock 1320's) more susceptible to disease
1340's: 6 mos of continuous heavy rain: no crops sown, animals slaughtered
Florence: 1347 communal distribution of grain ration

III. BUBONIC PLAGUE: BLACK DEATH, 1347-8 (endemic to 1660 London)

1347: plague comes on Genoese galley from Crimea to Messina, Sicily
spreads to Italy, N. Africa, Spain, northern Europe

BOCCACIO: author of Decameron: stories told by Florentines fleeing plague
Prologue: most famous description of plague in European literature

Symptoms: buboes = painful swelling of lymph nodes in neck, armpit or groin
           within 3 days: fever, black splotches (internal hermorraghing)
Causation: divine wrath? poisoned air? (miasma) Jews/lepers poisoning wells?
measures: isolation of sick, quarantine, burning contaminated clothes
religious: processions, public penance = flagellants; prayer: St. Roch

1894 Alexander Yersin (French bacteriologist) identifies bacillus
YERSINIA PESTIS: common bacterium in rodents, transmitted by fleas
           fleas prefer rodents, then move to others (animals, humans)

Mortality rates: 1/2 to 2/3 of population in infected areas (not 100% fatal)
Steep population decline, abandonment of arable land, labor shortages
           overall economic regression: except for rise in wages
tension rises between landlord and peasant: commutation of feudal dues
leads to rising expectations; new govt'l taxation for war