Plague, War, and Social Change in the “Long”Fourteenth Century 225signed for their Atlantic trade, adapted carvel construc-
tion to this design to create a lighter, cheaper hull with
greater carrying capacity.
The final step was the addition of multiple masts.
Shipbuilders soon discovered that a divided rig reduced
manning requirements because smaller sails were easier
to handle. It also made possible the use of different
sails—combined according to need, thereby increasing
speed and maneuverability under a wider variety of
conditions. With Portuguese, Dutch, and Basque inno-
vators leading the way, a recognizably modern ship had
evolved by 1500.
Given the military rivalry among states, a marriage
between the new shipbuilding techniques and the cast
bronze cannon was inevitable. The full tactical implica-
tions of this were not immediately apparent, but by the
last quarter of the fifteenth century the major states
were acquiring ships capable of mounting heavy guns.
The competition to control the seas was on, and no
state with maritime interests could afford to ignore it.
Centers of Conflict:
The Eastern Frontiers
For much of the later Middle Ages, the great north Eu-
ropean plain, where it made a borderless transition into
Asia, was in turmoil. East of the Elbe, two great move-
ments were under way. The first was the eastward ex-
pansion of the German-speaking peoples. Population
growth in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries led to
the establishment of German settlements in Poland,
Lithuania, and the Baltic regions as well as in Transylva-
nia and the Ukraine. The movement was not always
peaceful, bringing the Germans into conflict with the
Slavs who inhabited the region. Relations improved lit-
tle with time, and the German “colonies” tended to re-
main isolated from their neighbors by linguistic barriers
and mutual resentments. In its later phases, German ex-
pansion was led by the Teutonic Knights, a military or-
der on the crusading model. From the mid-thirteenth
century, the Knights attempted the large-scale conquest
of Slavic as well as unclaimed land on which German
peasants were then encouraged to settle (see map 12.1).
On its eastern fringes (see document 12.4) the
Slavic world was under equal pressure from the Mon-
gols, who conquered most of Russia and the Ukraine in
1240–42 and who raided as far west as Breslau in Sile-
sia. The center of resistance to Mongol rule became the
grand duchy of Moscow, founded by the son of the
Russian hero, Alexander Nevsky. Nevsky had defeated
a Swedish incursion in 1238 and the Teutonic Knights
in 1240. His descendants were forced to concern them-
selves almost exclusively with Asia. Though continuing
to pay tribute to the Mongol khans, the Musovites en-
gaged in sporadic warfare with them until 1480 when
Ivan III refused payment and became, in effect, the first
tsar. An early sign of the grand duchy’s preeminence
was the transfer of the Russian Orthodox patriarchate
from Kiev to Moscow in 1299.
During the fourteenth century, Russian preoccupa-
tion with the Mongols encouraged the Teutonic
Knights to step up their activities in the Baltic. Resis-
tance was provided by the Catholic kingdom ofDOCUMENT 12.4
The Novgorod Chronicle
Novgorod was an important trading city north of Moscow.
This excerpt from its city chronicle provides a vivid picture of
conditions on Europe’s eastern frontier in the year 1224.A.D.1224. Prince Vsevolod Gyurgevits came to
Novgorod. The same year the Germans killed
Prince Vyachko in Gyurgev and took the town.
The same year, for our sins, this was not [all] the
evil that happened: Posadnik[an elected official
somewhat resembling a burgomaster or mayor] Fe-
dor rode out with the men of Russia and fought
with the Lithuanians; and they drove the men of
Russia from their horses and took many horses,
and killed Domazhir Torlinits and his son and of
the men of Russa Boghsa and many others, and the
rest they drove asunder into the forest. The same
year, for our sins, unknown tribes came, whom no
one exactly knows, who they are, nor whence they
came out, nor what their language is, nor of what
race they are, nor what their faith is, but they call
them Tartars.... God alone knows who they are
and whence they came out. Very wise men know
them exactly, who understand books, but we do
not know who they are, but have written of them
here for the sake of the memory of the Russian
princes and of the misfortune which came to them
from them.
The Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016–1471,trans. Robert Michell
and Nevill Forbes. Camden Society, 3d series, vol. 25. London:
Camden Society Publications, 1914.