A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

by Barbara W. Tuchman

Meanwhile, Florence was excommunicated by the Pope, who invited non-Florentines to prey upon the commerce of the outlaw.

“Meanwhile, Florence was excommunicated by the Pope, who invited non-Florentines to prey upon the commerce of the outlaw. Her caravans could be seized, debts could not be collected, clients were not bound to keep their contracts. Florence retaliated by expropriating ecclesiastical property and forcing local clergy to keep churches open in defiance of the ban. Popular sentiment was so aroused that the Committee of Eight who directed strategy were called the Eight Saints, and the conflict with the papacy came to be known in Italian annals as the War of the Eight Saints.”

Since June 1376, Catherine of Siena, who was to be canonized within a century of her death and ultimately named patron saint of Italy along with Francis of Assisi, had been in Avignon exhorting the Pope to signal reform of the Church by returning to the Holy See.

St. Brigitta in her revelations saw his bloody footsteps when he walked and how, when crowned with thorns, “his eyes, his ears, his beard ran with blood; his jaw distended, his mouth open, his tongue swollen with blood. His stomach was pulled in so that it touched his spine as if he had no more intestines.”

As word spread of Catherine’s visions and fasting, people came to see her in her trances.

While Catherine pleaded for peace at home, crying, “Woe, woe, peace, peace, for God’s sake …,” she implored all the potentates no less heartily to visit war upon the infidel.

Of the Duc d’Anjou, whom she envisioned as leader of the crusade, she begged that he (of all people) despise the pleasures and vanities of this world and unite himself to the cross and the passion of Jesus in holy war.

To the Pope, whom she addressed in a familiar version of Holy Father as “my sweet papa” (dolce babbo mio), she poured out all her themes in endless letters and in public and private audiences in which Raymond of Capua acted as interpreter because Catherine spoke in the Tuscan dialect and the Pope in Latin.

For most people reform meant relief from ecclesiastical extortions.

“Fear of God is thrown away,” lamented Brigitta in Rome, “and in its place is a bottomless bag of money.” All the Ten Commandments, she said, had been reduced to one: “Bring hither the money.”

Even Catherine in a moment of clarity knew reform could not come from within.

“Even Catherine in a moment of clarity knew reform could not come from within. “Do not weep now,” she said to Father Raymond when he burst into tears at some new scandal for the Church, “for you will have still more to weep for” when in the future not only laymen but clerics would rise against the Church. As soon as the Pope attempted reform, she said, the prelates would resist, and the Church “will be divided, as it were by a heretical pestilence.””

Catherine herself was never heretical, never disillusioned, never disobedient.

On Gregory’s death, the citizens of Rome, seeing at last a chance to end the reign of French popes, sent a deputation of important citizens to the Vatican to urge the election of a “worthy man of the Italian nation,” specifically a Roman.

Because the cardinals gave no pledge of a Roman, rumor spread that a French-dominated Pope would mean return of the papacy to Avignon. Public excitement rose and threatening crowds gathered as the cardinals, surrounded by “many strong soldiers and warlike nobles,” entered the Vatican for the conclave. Beneath the windows they could hear the populace howling, “Romano lo volemo! [We want a Roman!] Romano! Romano!”

Papal power, raising him to authority over the high-born cardinals, went instantly to Urban’s head.

Since there was no procedure for ousting a Pope for unfitness, their plan was to annul the election as invalid on grounds that it had been conducted under duress from mob violence.

Repudiation of a Pope was so fateful an act that it is impossible to suppose the cardinals envisaged a schism.

Dominated by the French, the College of Cardinals was unconcerned about Italian feelings and so threatened by curtailment of its revenues in the name of reform that even the three* Italian cardinals gave tacit consent to the vote.

War on schismatics gave Catherine a new holy cause.

With one Pope and College of Cardinals in Rome and another Pope and College in Avignon, the schism was now a terrible fact. It was to become the fourth scourge—after war, plague, and the Free Companies—of a tormented century.

England, in natural opposition to France and a French Pope, remained loyal to Urban; Scotland of course took the other side.

“England, in natural opposition to France and a French Pope, remained loyal to Urban; Scotland of course took the other side. Flanders, though a fief of France, remained Urbanist largely because the Count of Flanders was following a pro-English policy in the war. The Emperor Charles IV died just in time to be spared a decision, but his son and successor, Wenceslas, so recently and lavishly entertained in Paris, declared for Urban and carried most of the Empire with him, except for certain areas such as Hainault and Brabant closely linked to France. The stand taken by the new Emperor, followed by Hungary, Poland, and Scandinavia, was a bitter disappointment to Charles V, who had thought his own decision would draw other sovereigns in its wake, leaving Urban isolated and forced to resign.”

Neutrality in the schism, in which Pedro IV of Aragon also tried to take refuge, was illusory.

Of all the “strange evils and adversities” predicted for the century, the effect of the schism on the public mind was among the most damaging. When each Pope excommunicated the followers of the other, who could be sure of salvation?

People might be told that the sacraments of their priest were not valid because he had been ordained by the “other Pope,” or that the holy oil for baptism was not sanctified because it had been blessed by a “schismatic” bishop.

Though no religious issue had created the schism, once it became an accomplished fact, partisans were divided by the same hatred as marked the later religious wars.

“Though no religious issue had created the schism, once it became an accomplished fact, partisans were divided by the same hatred as marked the later religious wars. To Honoré Bonet in France, Urban appeared as the falling star to whom was given the key to the “bottomless pit” in St. John’s vision of the Apocalypse. The “smoke of a great furnace” arising from the pit to darken the sun was the schism darkening the papacy. The accompanying “locusts and scorpions” were the “traitorous Romans” who, by terrorizing the conclave, had forced the false election.”

Since papal revenue was cut in half, the financial effect of the schism was catastrophic.

Sale of indulgences, seed of the Reformation, became financially important.

More than anyone else, Charles V was responsible for allowing the schism to take hold, for Clement would have had no footing without the support of France.

A week later for the benefit of the public a great ceremony was held in the plaza of Notre Dame, where on a platform especially erected for the occasion the four cardinals supported by the Duc d’Anjou proclaimed the advent of Clement VII and declared schismatic anyone who refused obedience.

Two years later, after the death of Charles V, all four faculties passed a resolution in favor of a General Council to put an end to the schism, and appealed to the crown to summon one.

In England the schism brought Wyclif to the turning point that led to protestantism.

“In England the schism brought Wyclif to the turning point that led to protestantism. At first he welcomed Urban as a reformer, but as the financial abuses of both Popes grew more flagrant, he came to regard both as Anti-Christs and the schism as the natural end of a corrupted papacy.”

In a culminating heresy, he transferred salvation from the agency of the Church to the individual: “For each man that shall be damned shall be damned by his own guilt, and each man that is saved shall be saved by his own merit.” Unperceived, here was the start of the modern world.

Though his voice was silenced, his work spread through dissemination of the Bible in English.

“When he had preached disendowment of the Church’s temporal property, Wyclif had had powerful friends, but when he rejected the sacerdotal system, his patrons, fearing heresy and the jaws of Hell, withdrew. In 1381 a council of twelve doctors of the University of Oxford was to pronounce eight of his theses unorthodox and fourteen heretical, and to prohibit him from further lecturing or preaching. Though his voice was silenced, his work spread through dissemination of the Bible in English.”

Wyclif died in 1384, and the current of protest, as persecution intensified, ran on underground.

“Wyclif died in 1384, and the current of protest, as persecution intensified, ran on underground. When Jan Hus was burned at the stake for heresy by the Council of Constance in 1415, Wyclif’s bones were ordered dug up and burned at the same time. Even riddled by the schism, the Church was still in control. The cracking of old and famous structures is slow and internal, while the façade holds.”

With Europe polarized between two papacies, and the Church politicized by the rivals’ struggle for secular support, it became harder to heal the schism each year that it lasted.

“With Europe polarized between two papacies, and the Church politicized by the rivals’ struggle for secular support, it became harder to heal the schism each year that it lasted. All thoughtful men recognized how it was damaging society and tried to find the means of reunification, but in the schism, as in the war, vested hostilities kept the breach open. Ecumenical Council, advocated by the University of Paris and many individuals, was the obvious solution. As a challenge to their supremacy, however, both Popes adamantly rejected it. The hateful rift in Christendom was to last for forty years. According to a popular saying toward the end of the century, no one since the beginning of the schism had entered Paradise.”

NOW “WHOLLY FRENCH” ONCE MORE, Coucy served as the King’s right arm through the closing efforts of the reign.

On learning that Navarre had again secretly negotiated to re-open Normandy to the English, Charles V swore to drive his faithless vassal out of every town and castle he held there.

Under interrogation, De Rue testified freely—without torture, as the King took care to have stated in the authorized chronicle—that Charles of Navarre planned to poison the King of France right after Easter through a steward of the royal bakery.

On being informed of this situation while he was paring his nails with a knife, the Count of Foix rushed to his son’s cell, seized him by the throat saying, “Ha, traitor, why dost thou not eat?” and accidentally cut him across the jugular with the knife that was still in his hand. The boy turned on his side without a word and, the wound proving fatal, died the same day.

The fall of Evreux delighted the King who came to Rouen to greet the victors who “had so well sped.” Only Cherbourg, which the English could supply by sea, withstood prolonged sieges commanded at different times by Du Guesclin and Coucy, and remained in English hands.

Clisson came of a turbulent family embattled on both sides in Brittany. His father, discovered in dealings with Edward III, had been beheaded by Philip VI, who had him arrested in the middle of a tournament, thrown in prison, and conducted almost naked to his execution without trial. The victim’s wife was said to have carried her husband’s severed head from Paris to Brittany to display before her seven-year-old son and exact his oath of vengeance and eternal hate for France.

“Clisson came of a turbulent family embattled on both sides in Brittany. His father, discovered in dealings with Edward III, had been beheaded by Philip VI, who had him arrested in the middle of a tournament, thrown in prison, and conducted almost naked to his execution without trial. The victim’s wife was said to have carried her husband’s severed head from Paris to Brittany to display before her seven-year-old son and exact his oath of vengeance and eternal hate for France.” Reference Tuchman, Barbara W. (2011, Aug. 3). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.” Kindle Edition. Chapter 15 The Emperor in Paris, p. 347 of 682, 54%.

When, after a triumphant welcome in London, he was summoned by the Council to answer for acting without the King’s leave, his hot reply summed up the growing exasperation of the Third Estate with the less than adequate performance by the Second.

In April 1379, Coucy and Rivière with several new colleagues went once more in quest of peace to a parley at Boulogne. They were empowered to make new concessions of territory and sovereignty and again to offer a marriage, in the person of Charles’s baby daughter, Catherine, to Richard II.

“In April 1379, Coucy and Rivière with several new colleagues went once more in quest of peace to a parley at Boulogne. They were empowered to make new concessions of territory and sovereignty and again to offer a marriage, in the person of Charles’s baby daughter, Catherine, to Richard II. Through six parleys in the last six years the mirage of peace had mocked its seekers. In the same period, except for French success in Normandy, continuance of war had brought no advantage to either side but rather, through increasing antagonism and suspicion, had made the war harder to end.”

Delayed until winter by lack of wind and then by threat of a French raid, Arundel took part of his force to Southampton to guard against an enemy landing and, while there, to conduct himself indistinguishably from the enemy.

Already in 1378 the Commons had complained of the drain of money in a war in which they no longer perceived a national interest.

Pope Urban, not yet in his mad stage, was exercising every pressure to prevent Richard’s marriage to a French princess and encourage a marriage to Wenceslas’ sister, Anne of Bohemia, which would weld England and the Empire in an Urbanist axis.

In the final irony for Charles, it was the schism, for which he was responsible, that frustrated his goal of peace.

Coucy’s rank, prowess, and territorial importance would have warranted military command in any case, but other qualities were making him indispensable to the crown. Intelligence, tact, skills of rhetoric, and a noticeable levelheadedness were coming to be more useful than the traditional mindless impetuosity of the knight in the iron cocoon.

On the day Coucy took command of Picardy, July 19, 1380, the Earl of Buckingham landed at Calais and, with a force known from paymasters’ records to number 5,060, began a march of devastation and plunder through the region for which Coucy was now responsible.

Buckingham’s raid was to prove virtually a replica of Lancaster’s seven years before—an open-eyed walk into privation, hunger, and ultimate futility.

England’s most experienced soldier, Sir Robert Knollys, and other famous knights such as Lord Thomas Percy and Sir Hugh Calveley accompanied Buckingham to France.