Why the Middle Ages Ended in the 14th Century

Most historians will somewhat arbitrarily set a date for the Middle Ages from around 500 A.D. to 1500 A.D., and this is generally accepted. However, in my book Missing Monarchy: Correcting Misconceptions About The Middle Ages, Medieval Kingship, Democracy, And Liberty, I argue that the proper end date for this unique period we refer to as the “Middle Ages” should be around 1300. I see the 14th century as the most transformative century in Western history. It marks a clear transition between medieval society and the pre-modern. Let’s have a look.

The Early and High Middle Ages: Germanic, Christian, Feudal

During the centuries often referred to as the “early” and “high” Middle Ages (what I see as the “true” Middle Ages), Germanic influences were heavy, yet baptised into Christendom. Theologians and rulers instituted Christian laws, abolished pagan practices, and feudalism and hereditary inheritance became significant.
Historians identify a trinity of significant forces during the Middle Ages: Catholic, Roman, and Germanic. Perhaps this is true, but the fall of Rome stands out to me. The lack of secular Roman influence separated and enabled these societies. While it is perhaps not correct to refer to the period as feudal, the influences of feudalism were heaviest in these sectors of Europe.

Early Roots of the Renaissance

Many historians place the Renaissance during the 15th and 16th centuries. It may have overcome medieval society then, but I see traces of it arising much earlier. We can detect the philosophies bringing about the later Renaissance in specific circles in the 13th century and perhaps even before. When Dante began writing his work, The Divine Comedy, in 1308, he was already concerned that the pillars of feudalism and hierarchy were decaying or gone. Thus, the Middle Ages differed notably from the earlier classical Roman and pagan societies and their later revival during the Renaissance.

The Fourteenth Century: A New Europe Emerges

The “Middle Ages,” I believe, actually met their demise during the 14th century. During the 14th century, various influences arose and a new Europe was born. Centralised political systems based on representative control and obedience to some overarching authority began to replace self-governance, tribal customs, and localism, leading to many peasant and aristocratic revolts (more on this soon). Realms were no longer made up of consenting individuals who had chosen their lord and their desired customs, thus being unified wholes. The people of various towns, cities, and villages were left competing for or attempting to maintain their political power. Professor Alfred J. Andrea wrote, “During the fourteenth century, the forces of disharmony and separation became quite evident and, at times, seemed to threaten not only the stability but the very existence of European Christian civilisation.”

The Weakening of Papal Authority

The Papal and Church influences were severely weakened primarily due to the “Babylonian Captivity,” from 1309 to 1376, where the Papacy removed from Rome to Avignon in France and came under the influence of the French kings (Other factors included increased Church bureaucracy and centralization, ever-growing corruption, and rising exaction from the faithful to fund the two). In addition, the rise of towns, cities, capitalism, and trade empowered the new centralised Monarchs (as opposed to the prior medieval kings) to resist the Pope and the Church. These economic changes allowed the freshly minted Monarchs to rely on mercenaries and money instead of clerics and lords.

Secular Power Ascends

Of the papal power’s decrease and the crown’s increase during this century, Professor Malcolm Vale wrote, “the Church had to a large extent been absorbed by the state.” The Church was no longer the director of rulers, but rulers began to direct the Church. And while the realms remained “Christian,” the people were subordinate to governmental rulers in a way unknown before. Removing the Church as the highest authority transformed kingship into monarchy as rulers expanded their powers. Vale continues, “The eclipse of ecclesiastical power—and especially papal power—was accompanied by an expansion and elaboration of secular rule. The image of Kingship changed. Later Medieval kings were unlike other men; they dressed differently, carried and wore special insignia, and were supposed to possess certain traditional kingly attributes, amongst them law-giving.”

Monarchs Eclipse the Church

Unlike the Medieval king, who was limited by law and unable to alter it or expand his minimal powers and authority over select vassals—who were often more powerful than he was and resisted him—and royal lands, the monarchs’ newly acquired political power meant they became the highest authority; they felt emancipated from the shackles of vassals, the Pope and the Church. They could now declare law, and thus expand their authority, and became rulers of geographical realms; people were now their subjects rather than being their servants. Only in the early 14th century was a king powerful enough to overshadow the Pope. Steve Weidenkopf observed, “As the 14th century dawned, Christendom was in crisis. No longer did kings and lords look to govern the temporal order peacefully, with the Church maintaining a society rooted in Christian virtue. Instead, secular lords separated themselves politically from the Pope and reached for a reign of absolute control of their subjects.” Professors and historians Oliver J. Thatcher and Edgar Holmes McNeal wrote, “At this time secular rulers were everywhere growing in power, and centralizing the authority in their own hands, which led them to try to diminish the power of the clergy.” Kings became true sovereigns, the grandest powers in Europe. Italian historian Giorgio Falco wrote, “this was the dawn of the new Europe.” This transformation in the power structure enabled the eventual rise of modern authoritarian governments.

Plague and Social Upheaval

Long-distance trade and Mongol invasions from the East brought new diseases and the plague during the 14th century. In 1347, the great plague reached Europe, leaving devastation in its path. In response to the plague’s destruction, radical groups such as the Flagellants (condemned as heretical by the Church) became prominent. The plague affected many aspects of society, from politics and economics to religion and culture. The modern perception of the Middle Ages as dark and dreary comes mainly from artwork of the plague-infested 14th century (the opposite was true). Contemporary writer Jean de Venette said, due to the great plague, “A new era has consequently resulted. But sad to say, the world has not changed for the better…for thereafter men were more greedy and grasping…they were more quarrelsome and troubled one another more frequently with suits, disputes, brawls, and legal pleas…the enemies of the king of France and even of the Church were stronger and more wicked than before. They stirred up wars on sea and land, and greater evils sprang up everywhere. From that time charity also began to grow quite cold, and evil flourished, along with ignorance and sinfulness.”

Towns Rise, Warfare Changes

In western Europe before the 14th century, there were few habitations we today would even describe as towns. Their rise to prominence transformed the economy, feudalism, politics, and culture. Kings and lords began to leave the castle and countryside and enter towns, and urban political preferences began to dominate.12 Wars became more devastating, longer, and bloodier as revenue from towns and cities and increased taxation enabled powerful Monarchs to wield mercenary and full-time professional armies. They replaced the loyal, aristocratic, oath-bound feudal vassals of the Middle Ages.

The Decline of Women and Minority Rights

The treatment of women suffered. Before the 14th century, it was not uncommon for women to have extensive political and economic power. They worked the same jobs as men, owned businesses and land, and were held in high regard. Likewise, the treatment of minorities and “heretics” was also far more lenient before the 14th century.

The Rise of the Inquisitions

The Inquisitions were really of much later origin, and the Church took a far more lenient attitude towards heretics during the Middle Ages, seeking their conversion by intellectual debate and rarely condemning them to death. The British Isles had their first Inquisition in 1309, with no convicted individuals. The first witch was not burned at the stake until 1275. The persecution of witches did not begin in earnest until the second half of the 15th century with the papal bull Summis desiderates affectibus and the publication of the “Hammer of Witches.” The witch craze and witch hunts did not originate in the medieval period but emerged during the 16th and 17th centuries, simultaneously with the rise of modern science and nationalism.

Centralised Power and the Rise of Racism

Racism has always been an issue, but the centralisation of political power that arose during the 14th century, forcing distinct groups into the same political system where a majority rules, intensified it. People began despising the “other” groups they contested with for control and began to blame them for their loss of self-government.

The Century that Transformed Europe

All these events immensely impacted culture, religion, politics, and society. In the span of one hundred years, Europe morphed into a new being and started on the long road to the current era.

Representative Governments

Arising once more in the 13th century, representative governments were based on the resurgence of Roman political philosophies. The purpose was for the king to bring the growing influence of towns and their economies under his authority. These towns were full of non-feudal, non-oath-giving individuals. It would be nearly impossible to control them or obtain an oath of fidelity, so they brought in leaders from these communities and conferred on them the sovereignty of the towns they came from to “represent them.” This was the king’s way of bringing the entire area under a central domain without extracting loyalty from individuals (like vassals) and allowing a more direct bargain on his end.

The central authority swallowed up entire towns and cities. Large numbers of individuals who never gave consent or agreement to their ruler would nonetheless be subjected to his rule. Instead, the “majority” who were supposed to be “represented” by selected community members were used as justification to take away the liberty of others. Mobs began to replace individuals. The king now only had to bribe and handle a few representatives eager for handouts instead of providing a service that individuals would consent to. Here, we see the rise of the modern state where a central authority worked with “representatives” to give each other special treatment as they began to manipulate the people for their benefit.

More and more, autonomous peasants and fief holders were no longer considered a part of a feudal agreement under customs but under the rule of the king, who held authority over a geographical area. He would attach to them obligations they supposedly owed him. Obligations on peasants and serfs increasingly became harsher after the 13th century.

The rise of these professional parliaments also brought permanent taxation and standing (therefore more extensive and deadly) armies, making money rather than land the dominant power.1 The heavier taxes, regulations and obligations placed on peasants by parliamentary governments led to revolts. Professor and historian Chris Wickham explained, “Revolts of this kind were very rare in the early Middle Ages, when state power was relatively weak…The fact that they became more common after 1250 and much more common after 1350 was a result, above all, of the fact that states…taxed more heavily and ruled more intensively than they had before. They were a reaction to a more intrusive state power.” As peasants were subjected to parliamentary legislation against their will, they rightly revolted.

The rise in influence of the English parliament was not for the benefit of “we the people” but as a route for King Edward III to raise more money for his war with France.3 The older feudal customs, originating organically from the community and Christianity, were too restrictive on power-hungry Monarchs. A mechanism was needed to bring about change (Parliament and legislation), but the people would never agree to such a thing, so the desired changes needed to be made “in their name.” They need representatives able to be successfully manipulated, as King Edward did when he made various concessions to Parliament so it would cooperate with his agenda.

From its inception, the return of Roman ideas of the state has been used to manipulate and abuse the people. After experiencing the long-term effects of republics and representatives, the 15th-century Italian friar Girolamo Savonarola wrote, “know that the only purpose of parliament is to snatch the sovereign power from the hands of the people.”

Thus, the representative form of government did not arise to give the people representation but to allow the king to control the masses of people more easily. It would, in fact, not only set the path for internal political and civil wars, peasant revolts (many of them now being deprived of consent), and the destruction of the unified whole, but also eradicate individual liberty and self-governance at all levels. The peasants who revolted in England grumbled they now had “no sovereign to whom we can complain, or who would be willing to hear us.”

As parliamentary legislatures increased governmental power,6 substantial peasant rebellions began in France in 1358, England in 1381, Catalonia in 1395, and Germany in 1524. In the generations and centuries following the implementation of Roman ideas during the 13th century, we see large-scale peasant revolts and documents like the 1215 Magna Carta attempting to restore the liberty previously existing under kingship. For example, King John violated feudal laws, and thus the barons rightfully forced him to sign the famous Magna Carta. Historian Bede Jarett OP described Magna Carta as “undoubtedly a feudal document in intent, drawn up by the northern barons, placing the king under restraint set out in terms of feudal principle; it was an elaboration of his coronation oath forced on a king who had broken it.”

Magna Carta and the Reassertion of Ancient Liberties

To fund his war in France, King John implemented unjust taxes and erected powers not in accord with established laws and customs. The people, the Church, and the barons all objected to his actions and forced him to sign Magna Carta to return to “ancient and just laws.” The Barons demanded he “restore those laws and ancient liberties, and was bound by his oath to observe them.” If he refused to uphold his end, the barons and the people would no longer be loyal to him since he had broken faith with them. Historian Frederic Austin Ogg wrote, “The primary purpose of the barons in forcing the king to grant the charter was not to get a new form of government or code of laws, but simply to obtain a remedy for certain concrete abuses, to resist the encroachments of the crown upon the traditional liberties of Englishmen…Not a new constitution was wanted, but good government in conformity with the old one.” Magna Carta was not a great document of freedom overturning hundreds of years of despotism, but desperate attempts by free people to prevent the plague of Roman ideas from transforming kings into monarchs.

From Custom to Written Law

As written law came into broader acceptance, lawyers (who generally studied and were influenced by Roman ideas in Italian universities) began to impact the understanding of law. Historian Susan Reynolds wrote, “The written customs of the later Middle Ages reflected a kind of law that was just beginning to emerge in the thirteenth century and was fundamentally different from the pre-professional, customary law.” Professor Edward James wrote, “the very act of issuing written law codes gave the king more of a role in the law than he had had before.” It began the transference of customs owned by the people to written documents enforced and controlled by rulers. Snatching sovereignty from the people and entrusting it to the rulers.

The Limits and Dangers of Legal Documents

Written documents such as the Magna Carta or the United States Bill of Rights were not advances in liberty but signs of its decay.5 In response to the king’s newly claimed powers, these documents set “limits” on what areas the government could not intrude on. Not only do we see how these written documents no longer work, but they give the impression, and set up the provision, that all other areas of life are open to the possibility of government control as well. Further, a written document to “preserve” rights simply means those rights can also be taken away when their preservation is no longer desired.

The Rise of the Secular Priesthood

Even worse, it says the rights written, protected, controlled, and “interpreted” (always in the direction of more government control) by federal judges are dependent on human agents. The Declaration of Independence claims our rights come from the creator, but those rights are only valid when written, ratified, and interpreted by federal judges and politicians. In other words, God is secondary, and his inalienable rights must first be filtered through the government to ensure and adequately understand and apply the rights God has granted. We have set up a secular priesthood to interpret God’s desires for us. Documents such as the Bill of Rights could be better understood as people submitting to their government to rule over them while desperately holding on to a few cherished liberties, for a time.

Customs as a Defence Against Tyranny

Customs remained better intact than written law because rulers could not manipulate them in the same way. Further, under unwritten customs, “limitations” on government, such as the Bill of Rights, are unnecessary and dangerous. The people are the owners of their rights derived from God and nature. They don’t need political activists appointed as judges, lawyers, and politicians to tell them their rights. Officials serve them, not the other way around. No “limitations” are necessary because the rulers have no “rights” or authority. Medieval historian Fritz Kern wrote, “The State itself had no rights…It can, for example, raise no taxes, for according to the medieval view, taxation is a sequestration of property.” It was not judges or kings who “interpreted,” created or manipulated law; instead, under customs, Durant wrote, “The community itself was, therefore, the chief source of law.” Under kingship, you would far more need a document declaring the king’s rights and “limitations” on the people, not the reverse. But, of course, that could never happen because it would assume the law belonged to the governors, not the governed.

The Illusion of Representation

Even the idea that someone is needed to “represent” you is defensive. It says your liberty, customs, and ways of life are not ensured unless you have a proper majority in various governmental groups doing your bidding. You must constantly be under attack and trusting/needing officials to protect you; the predictable result is that you get no protection. It says you are not the protector and owner of your rights; someone else is. You’re transferring your God-given inalienable rights into the hands of politicians.

Capitalism and the Collapse of the Old Order

The late medieval peasants (or, as I would argue, pre-modern) were hit from two sides at once. The rise of towns, merchants, and their financial interests overpowered feudal customs, rural aristocratic lords, bishops, and even at times, the new monarchs. As a result, the people were “freed” from the oppression of lords and obligations (obligations tied to the benefits they received from feudal arrangements), but quickly found their new capitalist representatives far more oppressive than the lords they had freed them from.

The merchants and capitalists sought representative government (that they could control and manipulate) they sought to expand the power of the government under their control to transform the economy into a capitalist one and remove people from independent farming through regulation, taxation, and special handouts to friends in the country to wage labor in the towns and cities.

Capitalism emerged during the 14th century, as towns and the merchant class became prominent economic and political forces. During that period, most people lived very localised lives in agrarian, self-sufficient, small villages. These agrarian units had no desire, need for, or interest in stock markets, bailouts, inflation, the economy, subsidies, recessions, job numbers, etc. They did not “go to work.” They worked for themselves (often with obligations of tribute to the Lord and tithing to the church). If they had a shop or business, it was family-owned and attached to their house; they were their own bosses, devoid of regulation and taxation. They were managers of themselves and providers for themselves.

However, as capitalism replaced the old order, the powerful could purchase land to own outright and free of obligations, and an increasingly smaller percentage of the population, often the rich merchant class or other influential individuals, owned more and more money, power and land. Individuals became powerful, and communities diminished. As time elapsed, political and economic power gravitated to the centre. These individuals gobbled up large tracts of land, and entire towns and villages succumbed to centralised power. The powerful merchant class and major landowners influenced monarchs and parliaments and began to increase government power and authority, always to their advantage.

Abolishing the feudal order freed representatives from their severe limitations and enabled them to pass legislation in their favour; greed overcame personal relationships. The new rulers (generally the rich merchant types who ruled the towns) placed harsher taxation and oppressive regulations on the peasants. Not surprisingly, the massive peasant uprising of the 13th-14th centuries and beyond often came from towns where the local bishops and lords were recently overthrown as secularism began to show its tyrannical head.

The freedom and self-governance known to peasants under the kings of the Middle Ages have never been achieved in “the West,” and the replacement of monarchs with elected officials has only worsened the situation. Moreover, the later revolutions overthrowing the local lords were not led by “the people” but by the upper class, wealthy urban capitalists who transferred the power of kings to themselves and removed the old limitations while preferring to enact new legislation.

A Century of Abrupt Change

To me, the 14th century marks the transition from the Medieval period to the early modern era. No other time displays such an abrupt and drastic change or so clearly separates the old order from the origins of the new.