A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

by Barbara W. Tuchman

In 1373 he was sent on a diplomatic mission to Italy to negotiate a commercial treaty with the Doge of Genoa and to conduct “secret business” in Florence.

“In different circumstances from Langland, Chaucer enjoyed a grant from the King of a daily pitcher of wine and was married to Katherine Swynford’s sister Philippa, a relationship that had brought them both into the ducal household. The Book of the Duchess was a graceful elegy for Gaunt’s first wife, Blanche, a well-beloved lady who had died at the age of 27 after bearing seven children. Though its choice of language was considered peculiar, its author lost no favor for that. In 1373 he was sent on a diplomatic mission to Italy to negotiate a commercial treaty with the Doge of Genoa and to conduct “secret business” in Florence. It was the year of Boccaccio’s lectures in Florence on Dante. Chaucer returned steeped in new material, but his epic of Troilus and Criseyde, adapted from Boccaccio, had to wait while he was dispatched to treat of peace with France.”

Poets and writers served frequently as ambassadors because their rhetorical powers conferred distinction on the elaborate speeches required on these occasions.

The French offered many proposals, including title to twelve cities of Aquitaine (which England already held), if Edward would give back Calais and all that he had taken in Picardy; either that, they said, “or else nothing.” Stubbornly the English refused, believing that as long as they held their foothold in northern France they could yet return and regain their losses.

Lancaster hoped to discredit the bishops with the laity. He assigned four Masters of Theology to Wyclif’s defense and proceeded himself in company with the Marshal, Sir Henry Percy, and their armed retinues to attend the hearings at St. Paul’s.

Lancaster had succeeded in breaking up the proceedings, which was his object, but at a cost of turning popular sentiment ever more against himself, not against the bishops.

After flight and humiliation, Lancaster required that his authority be restored by a formal apology from the city.

“After flight and humiliation, Lancaster required that his authority be restored by a formal apology from the city. The Princess pleaded with the citizens to be reconciled with the Duke for her sake; the King’s sovereignty was invoked; the authorities of London exacted the release of Peter de la Mare as the price of their apology; the clergy regained the offices of Chancellor and Treasurer. Factions were deepened and the state further torn by the affair.”

By the time the English envoys reached home, King Edward too had died, on June 23, the penultimate day of the truce.

Other lords, like the Captal de Buch and Clisson, had transferred their loyalty from one side to another, but they were generally Gascons or Bretons or Hainaulters who did not feel themselves basically French or English.

Plainly, Coucy could play no great part in his country’s affairs if he maintained neutrality as before.

Out of the polarity of war, a sense of French nationhood developed against the foil of England.

Homage and dynastic marriages were still the form of loyalty, but country was becoming the determinant.

The double allegiance was broken. In becoming “a good and true Frenchman,” Coucy had chosen a nationality, even if the word did not yet exist.

The French renewed belligerency the instant the truce expired. In combination with the Spanish fleet, they launched a series of raids on England’s south coast even before they learned of King Edward’s death.

Despite the insistence of a group of French knights who wanted to hold Rye as a permanent base—a kind of Calais in England—the Admiral refused. Occupation was not the French object but destruction and terror to bring the English to a peace treaty, and to prevent reinforcements for Calais, where the French were planning a major attack.

The dread that haunted the English out of a dark atavistic terror of ancient Danish raiders and conquering Normans was brought to awful reality.

It was no accident that out of these invaded counties, Kent and Sussex, the Peasants’ Revolt was to come.

“When Lancaster’s castle of Pevensey on the Sussex coast was endangered, the Duke was reported by the ever-hostile Walsingham to have refused to send defenders, with the callous remark, “Let the French burn it. I am rich enough to rebuild it.” The remark sounds invented and as such breathes the same malice toward the nobles as animated another clerical chronicler, Jean de Venette—and for the same reason: failure of the knights to defend the land and people against their enemies. It was no accident that out of these invaded counties, Kent and Sussex, the Peasants’ Revolt was to come.”

THE MOST SPECTACULAR if not the most significant event of the decade in France was the visit to Paris of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV, in December to January 1377–78.

In theory the Holy Roman Emperor exercised a temporal sway matching the spiritual rule of the Pope over the universal community under God.

Although vestiges of the imperial prestige remained, neither theory nor title any longer corresponded to existing reality.

“Although vestiges of the imperial prestige remained, neither theory nor title any longer corresponded to existing reality. Imperial sovereignty in Italy was hardly more than a sham; it was dwindling on the western fringe of the empire in Hainault, Holland, and Luxemburg, and retreating in the east before the growing nationhood of Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland. Its core was a haphazard federation of German principalities, duchies, cities, leagues, margraves, archbishoprics, and counties under shifting and overlapping sovereignties. Hapsburgs and Luxemburgs, Hohenstaufens, Hohenzollerns, Wittelsbachs, and Wettins despoiled each other in endless wars; the Ritter or knight lived by robbing the merchant; every town believed its prosperity depended on the ruin of its rival; within the towns, merchants and craft guilds contended for control; an exploited peasantry smoldered and periodically flamed in revolt. The Empire had no political cohesion, no capital city, no common laws, common finances, or common officials. It was the relic of a dead ideal.”

As theoretic lay leader of the Christian community, the Emperor was an elected sovereign currently drawn from the Luxemburg rulers of Bohemia.

He himself represented the nationalist tendencies that were making his imperial title obsolete.

“Charles IV was astute enough to recognize that the Empire of his title was not that of Charlemagne. His central concern was the Kingdom of Bohemia, whose territorial enlargement and cultural enrichment he pursued with effect that earned him the title “Father of His Country.” He himself represented the nationalist tendencies that were making his imperial title obsolete.”

While the Emperor’s welcome was being prepared, Coucy entered the war with England, not in his home territory of Picardy but in Languedoc against the Gascons, under the leadership of the Duc d’Anjou, Governor of Languedoc.

Charles V wanted to build up the visit as a showcase for his claim of a just war, but not to leave his people under any illusions about the Emperor as overlord or universal monarch.

Expressing himself as “madly desirous” to see the famous treasure and relics of St. Denis, the Emperor was shown the preserved body of the saint, who, having been martyred by decapitation on the hill of Montmartre (hence its name), had walked with his head in his hands to the site where he laid the head down and founded the abbey.

“Expressing himself as “madly desirous” to see the famous treasure and relics of St. Denis, the Emperor was shown the preserved body of the saint, who, having been martyred by decapitation on the hill of Montmartre (hence its name), had walked with his head in his hands to the site where he laid the head down and founded the abbey.” Reference Tuchman, Barbara W. (2011, Aug. 3). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.” Kindle Edition. Chapter 15 The Emperor in Paris, p. 309 of 682, 48%.

The state dinners drew on all the resources of the 14th century to delight, amaze, and glut the guests.

The King had ordered four courses of ten pairs of dishes in each, but thoughtfully eliminated one course of ten to reduce the time the Emperor would have to sit at table.

“The King had ordered four courses of ten pairs of dishes in each, but thoughtfully eliminated one course of ten to reduce the time the Emperor would have to sit at table. As it was, he would have had to partake of thirty pair of such dishes as roast capons and partridges, civet of hare, meat and fish aspics, lark pasties and rissoles of beef marrow, black puddings and sausages, lampreys and savory rice, entremet of swan, peacock, bitterns, and heron “borne on high,” pasties of venison and small birds, fresh-and salt-water fish with a gravy of shad “the color of peach blossom,” white leeks with plovers, duck with roast chitterlings, stuffed pigs, eels reversed, frizzled beans—finishing off with fruit wafers, pears, comfits, medlars, peeled nuts, and spiced wine.”

Artificers at banquets, as described in Chaucer’s Franklin’s Tale, could bring bodies of water into the hall, make boats row up and down, grim lions appear, flowers spring from meadows, grapevines grow, and a castle seemingly made of stone vanish, or “thus it seemed to every manne’s sight.”

In the miracle plays and mysteries staged for the populace, realism was the desired effect.

“In the miracle plays and mysteries staged for the populace, realism was the desired effect. A system of weights and pulleys resurrected Jesus from the tomb and lifted him to a ceiling of clouds. Angels and devils were made to appear magically through trapdoors; Hell opened and closed its monstrous mouth, and Noah’s flood inundated the stage from casks of water overturned backstage while stone-filled barrels turned by cranks resounded with thunder. When John the Baptist was decapitated, the actor was whisked away so cunningly in exchange for a fake corpse and fake head spilling ox blood that the audience shrieked in excitement. Actors playing Jesus sometimes remained tied to the cross reciting verses for three hours.” Reference Tuchman, Barbara W. (2011, Aug. 3). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.” Kindle Edition. Chapter 15 The Emperor in Paris, p. 311 of 682, 48%.

Anti-Christ appears at his appointed time, traditionally fixed at three and a half years before the Last Judgment.

“Apocalypse, never far out of mind, was enacted in the Day of Judgment and the Harrowing of Hell when Christ goes down to lead Adam and the prophets out to Paradise. Anti-Christ appears at his appointed time, traditionally fixed at three and a half years before the Last Judgment. Born of Satan’s seduction of a woman of Babylon, and instructed in all the demonic arts, he gains such power that kings and cardinals pay him homage until he is overthrown at Armageddon in the triumph of good over evil. The saved are separated from the damned, and angels empty the vials of wrath.”

Charles’s ultimate purpose, the apotheosis of his case against England, was reached the following day at a state assembly attended by fifty of the imperial party and about the same number of leading French personages—royal Dukes, prelates, peers including Coucy, knights, and members of the Council.

Departing by way of Reims, the Emperor was escorted to the frontiers of the kingdom by Coucy and attendant nobles. Possibly hastened by the exertions of so much ceremonial, his death followed ten months later in November 1378.

The memorable visit, even if devoid of practical effect, honored and enhanced the crown of France.

“The memorable visit, even if devoid of practical effect, honored and enhanced the crown of France. Although royal powers were undefined, and the Council’s authority unformulated, and the institutions of royal government always in flux, Charles V’s sense of the crown’s role was firm: kingship depended on the King’s will. The sovereign was not above the law; rather, his duty was to maintain the law, for God denied Paradise to tyrants. Sanction derived in theory from the consent of the governed, for kings and princes, as a great theologian, Jean Gerson, was to remind Charles’s successor, “were created in the beginning by the common consent of all.” As Charles knew well, the cult of monarchy was the basis of the people’s consent. He deliberately fed the cult while at the same time he was the first to show that rulership could be exercised “from the chamber” independent of personal leadership in battle.”

In the bright apogee of 1378, France was not immune from trouble.

“In the bright apogee of 1378, France was not immune from trouble. War had come back to Brittany and Normandy; Charles of Navarre, as venomous as ever after twenty years, was again in dangerous league with the English; heresy and sorcery were on the rise, testifying to needs unsatisfied by the Church.”

The Beghards, or Brethren of the Free Spirit, who claimed to be in a state of grace without benefit of priest or sacrament, spread not only doctrinal but civil disorder.

In monk-like robes deliberately ragged, the Brethren of the Free Spirit cluttered the towns like sparrows, preaching, begging, interrupting church services, scorning monks and priests.

Like the heresy of the Spiritual Franciscans, the sect of the Free Spirit persisted and spread in spite of the Inquisition.

Apocalypse was in the air.

“Apocalypse was in the air. The Duc d’Anjou in 1376, in the course of authorizing an annual corpse for dissection by the medical faculty of Montpellier, took notice that the population was so reduced, owing to epidemics and wars, that “it may be diminished to ever greater extent and the world brought to nothing.””

In 1366 the Council of Chartres ordered anathema to be pronounced against sorcerers every Sunday in every parish church.

Demonology and the black arts were the opposite of heresy, not more pious than the Church but impious, seeking communion with the Devil, not God.

“Demonology and the black arts were the opposite of heresy, not more pious than the Church but impious, seeking communion with the Devil, not God. Adepts in their rites worshiped Lucifer arrayed as the King of Heaven and believed that he and the other fallen angels would recapture Heaven while the Archangel Michael and his fellows would take their places in Hell. A pact with the Devil offered pleasure without penitence, enjoyment of sexuality, riches, and earthly ambitions. If the price was eternal hellfire, that was what many could expect anyway at the Day of Judgment. Though old and indigenous, demonology was never more than an aberration, but insofar as it offered an alternative answer, it was seen by the Church as dangerous.”

As the times darkened, all magic and witchcraft came to be taken as an implied contract with Satan.

Women turned to sorcery for the same reasons they turned to mysticism.

“Women turned to sorcery for the same reasons they turned to mysticism. In Paris in 1390 a woman whose lover had jilted her was tried for taking revenge by employing the magical powers of another woman to render him impotent. Both were burned at the stake.”

The Devil was a Gothic satyr with horns and cloven hoofs, fierce teeth and claws, a sulfurous smell and sometimes ass’s ears.

The clear voice of common sense spoke through the King’s adviser in philosophy, Nicolas Oresme, who despised both astrology and sorcery. A man of scientific spirit though a bishop, he was a mathematician and astronomer and translator of the Politics and Ethics of Aristotle. One of his books began with the sentence, “The earth is round like a ball,” and he postulated a theory of the earth’s rotation.

Unorthodoxy, as always, made disproportionate noise. Heresy and sorcery, though increasingly significant, were not the norm. In 1378 the real danger to the Church emerged from within.

IN ITALY the war for control of the Papal States had renewed itself in 1375.

Anti-papism now pervaded Florentine politics in a wild swing of the perpetual feud of Guelf and Ghibelline.

Under the slogan Libertas inscribed in gold on a red banner, Florence organized a revolt of the Papal States in 1375 and formed a league against the papacy, joined by Milan, Bologna, Perugia, Pisa, Lucca, Genoa, and all the various potentates who had territorial ambitions in the Papal States.

Robert of Geneva, the Pope’s Legate in Italy, was a cardinal of 34 who shrank from no force to regain control of the papal patrimony.

To reconquer the Papal States, he persuaded Gregory XI to hire the Bretons, worst of the mercenary bands, with the extra incentive of removing them from the vicinity of Avignon.

Swearing clemency by a solemn oath on his cardinal’s hat, Cardinal Robert persuaded the men of Cesena to lay down their arms, and won their confidence by asking for fifty hostages and immediately releasing them as evidence of good will. Then summoning his mercenaries, including Hawkwood, from a nearby town, he ordered a general massacre “to exercise justice.” Meeting some demurral, he insisted, crying, “Sangue et sangue!” (Blood and more blood!), which was what he meant by justice.