Calamity Of The 14th Century

The 1300s have been called the “calamitous” fourteenth century because of the changes and transformations that led to bloodshed and ended up continuing into the Renaissance. The events that marked the 14th century as calamitous were the Hundred Years’ War and its inventions, the Avignon Papacy, and the Great Schism. Also, the 21st century is compared to the 14th as being just as transformative and calamitous. The transformation can be described in how quickly our technology is advancing, but can also be compared to the calamity of the 14th century because of the loss of culture that is driven by popular culture of the West and is spreading throughout the world, taking over and replacing folk culture. Furthermore, one event that helps to support

The first invention was the longbow, this allowed for artillery to be shot at from a long distance away, thus replacing lances. Also, arrows from longbows easily pierced chainmail, forcing new armor called plate mail to be created (Green). Later, the invention of gunpowder made even plate mail useless. These inventions forced the concept and rules of military to be thought out. Eventually, the French won the war when Joan of Arc led the French to reclaim their lands (Green). The Joan of Arc is depicted in a painting by Antoine DuFour’s Lives of Famous Women in 1504. It shows her on a white horse holding a flag representing the French (Durfour). The Avignon Papacy was another event that has led to the 14th century to be named the calamitous 14th century. The Avignon Papacy took place after the popes lived in Avignon instead of Rome in 1309-1377. The church needed more money, so some of the popes sold pardons for sins, taxed the clergymen more, helped their own family members get elected into office, and sold church offices. These things greatly

The 21st century is calamitous because popular culture is taking over Folk culture making the world less diverse and more connected, this is because popular culture spreads very quickly through the use of hierarchal diffusion, contagious diffusion, and relocation diffusion; folk culture spreads slowly through relocation diffusion. Popular culture isn’t very religious because profits are proven to be lower when only appealing to a certain religion and has a very large impact on the environment. Natural resources are used in much greater quantities with popular culture and a uniform landscape, or a landscape that looks relatively the same everywhere across the globe, is shown to be almost everywhere popular culture is, thus lessening diversity (Correa). The 2000s are transformative because of the new technology that is constantly being upgraded and is much more innovative than during the 20th century. For example, the first computer was huge and almost useless, but during the 21st century, humans have upgraded to small, portable, smartphones and laptops that have almost unlimited amount of space and data. These new innovations in technology have made advancements in weapons and war machines easily accessible, thus furthering our ability to fight war, comparative to during the 1300s when the long bow and gunpowder was invented