Turning point from 1100-1500 (A.D.)?

Question

I have this project in Global History class (high school) and I have to pick a turning point in history that occured between 1100 A.D. - 1500 A.D. I might do the Renaissance of The 12th Century but do you have any good ideas?

BESIDES COLUMBUS!

or the Black Death.

Answer 1

Magna Carta - 1215

"Magna Carta was the most significant early influence on the long historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law today."

Answer 2

The renaissance of the 12th century would be a good one, if no other reason that is so often overlooked. Quite frankly, 1492, the Black Death and the invention of the printing press are a bit over-done for this kind of project.

Look specifically at France. There are four people you find information on, three of them were writers, and the other was a queen so it should be fairly easy:

Peter Abelard
Marie of France (the one who wrote the "Lais", not the princess)
Bernard of Clairvaux
Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Good luck!

Answer 3

The Black Death is the biggest turning point in the time period you listed. The loss of Acre ended the Crusades and alowed the Turks to began an offensive against the west leading to the fall of Byzantium, but this event pales in comparison to the changes brought about by the Black Death.
The PLauge nearly ended the use of latin in much of France because latin grammer instructors died off. It also broke people's faith in the Catolic CHurch (the flaggellents were vehemently anti-clerical).

In many ways nothing really turned in that time period what-so-ever. Medieval scholars used works from Ovid, Virgil and other Roman (ie: classical authors) before the Humanist movement . Personally nothing really changed in those 400 years except for the social changes planted in Europe's culture by the plague. If forced to pick something I'd choose the Black Death, or the discovery of AMerica in 1492.

Personally I think it's too bad you can't pick something from the 16th century (Lutheranism, the sack of ROme or the rise of nationalism for example)

Answer 4

From what I understand, 1492 is important for a number of reasons, including:
1. Columbus' voyage of discovery to America
2. The Jews were banished from Spain unless they converted to Christianity. The Jews had provided a number of skills and services to the country, so Spain was weakened in the long run.
3. Last Moors defeated in Spain.

Answer 5

The Black Death was an outbreak of bubonic plague that entered Melcombe Regis in 1348, and within a year had killed nearly half the population.

The Black Death, began with a minor outbreak of bubonic plague, medical term Yersinia Pestis, which started in the Gobi Dessert. It was transmitted throughout China and reached Europe when a Kipchak army, besieging a Crimean trading post, catapulted plague-infested corpses over the city walls. Plague spread throughout Europe, carried by fleas in the fur of rats, and eventually reached the Dorset coast on 24th June 1348.

Contagion carried quickly, and about two thirds of the population became infected. The morbidity rate was about 66%, i.e. if you caught it, you had a two to one chance of dying. Chroniclers relate how the disease raged in a town for about a month and then left. It moved gradually northwards until it had burnt itself out. Within twelve months, nearly half the population was dead.

After the problem of burying the dead in plague pits was over, people tried to get back to normality. But life was never the same again. The decreased population meant a shortage of labour and workmen demanded and received pay increases. The government of Edward III tried to cap pay increases by an Act of Parliament, The Statute of Labourers, the first government attempt to control the economy. Workmen who demanded too much were placed in the stocks, that is trapped in a wooden gadget for a day, and employers who paid over the odds were fined. The Act was largely unsuccessful as employers coaxed workers from other employers, with promises abundant pay increases, and wages kept on rising. One recorded case shows that a joiner who built the stocks for the punishment of greedy workers was paid three times the legal rate for his labour.

The government also passed The Sumptuary Act of 1367, making it illegal for the lower classes to spend their new wealth on new apparel of ermine or silk. Only the aristocracy and some senior gentlefolk were allowed to wear these items. Today when barristers are raised to the rank of Queen’s Council, they are said to ‘take silk’, indicating their elevation in status. The Act has never been repealed, so if you wear silk, and if any of Edward III’s commissioners are still alive, you could get put in the stocks!

By the reign of Richard II, the economy had settled down and landowners switched from labour intensive methods, grain production, to low labour processes, particularly sheep farming. Increased wool production boosted the economy and became the nation’s chief export, making England a major economic power.

Answer 6

How about the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, which could be argued as the real ending of the medieval period - coincidentally (or not) on the same date that Christopher Columbus (who was possibly a converted Jew) set sail westward for the Indies, beginning the most expansionist and brutal period of European imperialism?

Answer 7

nicely the certainty which you have been religious shows you have been under no circumstances relatively with God, extra advantageous than possibly you have been with a company, a denomination, a circle or an inststution. that's what's faulty with faith guy gets a mans thought approximately God and whilst she or he runs out of his very own confusion he waves hsi fist interior the air and says there is not any God. Now whilst i replaced into religious i found out i wished actuality. actuality is waht facilitates a guy or woman to adventure freedom in religious identification. particularly of attempting to maintain on with the guidelines of a few religious business enterprise. So athiest congrats on being what you have been the full time, yet please be conscious that faith of no perception on an known basis reason in case you slip up God purely could persuade you he's relatively there.

Answer 8

Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in 1447 is a major turning point. It certainly speeded up the circulation of Renaissance ideas.

Answer 9

I say you can do the renaissance since its the rebirth in ideas of the classical. There's great figures Da vinci, Michelangelo, etc. Or you can do the Reformation which put many religions to question and that caused many new religions to flourish. Good luck.

Answer 10

Try the crusades