Page 334 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

Byzantine power in the Balkans, the threat from the Turks finally doomed the long-lasting empire.
Beginning in northeastern Asia Minor in the thir- teenth century, the Ottoman Turks spread rapidly, seizing the lands of the Seljuk Turks and the Byzantine Empire. In 1345, they bypassed Constantinople and moved into the Balkans. Under Sultan Murad (moo- RAHD), Ottoman forces moved through Bulgaria and into the lands of the Serbians, who provided a strong center of opposition under King Lazar (lah-ZAR). But in 1389, at the Battle of Kosovo (KAWSS-suh-voh), Otto- man forces defeated the Serbs, making Kosovo a battle- field long revered and remembered by the Serbs. Not until 1480 were Bosnia, Albania, and the rest of Serbia added to the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans.
In the meantime, in 1453, the Ottomans also completed the demise of the Byzantine Empire. With 80,000 troops ranged against only 7,000 defenders, Sultan Mehmet II (meh-MET) laid siege to Constantino- ple. In their attack on the city, the Turks made use of massive cannons with twenty-six-foot barrels that could launch stone balls weighing up to twelve hundred pounds each. Finally, the walls were breached, and the Byzantine emperor died in the final battle. Mehmet II, standing before the palace of the emperor, paused to reflect on the passing nature of human glory.
After their conquest of Constantinople, the Ottoman Turks tried to complete their conquest of the Balkans, where they had been established since the fourteenth century. Although they were successful in taking the Romanian territory of Wallachia (wah-LAY-kee-uh) in 1476, the resistance of the Hungarians initially kept the Turks from advancing up the Danube valley. Until the end of the fifteenth century, internal problems and the need to consolidate their eastern frontiers kept the Turks from any further attacks on Europe. But at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Ottomans would renew their offensive against the West, challeng- ing Hungary, Austria, Bohemia, and Poland and threat- ening to turn the Mediterranean into a Turkish lake.
The Church in the Renaissance
Q FOCUS QUESTION: What were the policies of the Renaissance popes, and what impact did those policies have on the Roman Catholic Church?
As a result of the efforts of the Council of Constance, the Great Schism of the Catholic Church had finally been brought to an end in 1417 (see Chapter 11). The
ending of the schism proved to be the council’s easiest task; it was much less successful in dealing with heresy and achieving reform.
Dealing with Heresy and Reform
Heresy was not a new problem, and in the thirteenth century, the church had developed inquisitorial ma- chinery to deal with it. But two widespread movements in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries—Lol- lardy and Hussitism—posed new threats to the church.
WYCLIF AND LOLLARDY English Lollardy was a product of the Oxford theologian John Wyclif (WIK-lif) (ca. 1328–1384), whose disgust with clerical corruption led him to a far-ranging attack on papal authority and me- dieval Christian beliefs and practices. Wyclif alleged that there was no basis in Scripture for papal claims of temporal authority and advocated that the popes be stripped of their authority and their property. Believ- ing that the Bible should be a Christian’s sole authority, Wyclif urged that it be made available in the vernacular languages so that every Christian could read it. Reject- ing all practices not mentioned in Scripture, he also condemned pilgrimages and the veneration of saints. Wyclif attracted a number of followers who came to be known as Lollards (literally, “mutterers”).
HUS AND THE HUSSITES A marriage between the royal families of England and Bohemia enabled Lollard ideas to spread to Bohemia, where they reinforced the ideas of a group of Czech reformers led by the chancellor of the university at Prague, John Hus (1374–1415). In his call for reform, Hus urged the elimination of the cor- ruption of the clergy and attacked the excessive power of the papacy within the Catholic Church. Hus’s objec- tions fell on receptive ears, for the Catholic Church, as one of the largest landowners in Bohemia, was already widely criticized. Moreover, many clergymen were Ger- man, and the native Czechs’ strong resentment of the Germans who dominated Bohemia also contributed to Hus’s movement.
The Council of Constance attempted to deal with the growing problem of heresy by summoning Hus to appear before it. Granted safe conduct by Emperor Sigismund, Hus went in the hope of a free hearing of his ideas. Instead he was arrested, condemned as a her- etic, and burned at the stake in 1415. This action turned the unrest in Bohemia into revolutionary up- heaval, and the resulting Hussite wars racked the Holy Roman Empire until a truce was arranged in 1436.
296 Chapter 12 Recovery and Rebirth: The Age of the Renaissance
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