Dimitri’s Reviews > A Distant Mirror: the Calamitous 14th Century > Status Update

The concept of the immaticulate conception was a modern, absurd contention between Avignon , defened by the great monkish scolar Jean Garson at the University of Paris, and the original papacy in Rome. Yet while the democratisation of chivalry to officials & merchants was morally deplored, few who professed disbelief during life took chances with faith when they neared the end.

In reality, every age is a checkerboard of light & dark:

"Coucy was right in his perception of diminishing prestige, even if his suggested remedy was only to make matters worse. The Guelders campaign of 1388 proved that SNAFU was a military condition long before the word: straight into the wet & mud of the Ardennes. The credit of the Uncles (duke of Burgundy etc.) reigning on behalf of the mad Charles VI ran out"

"Reconnoitering terrain in advance was not part of medieval warfare because it was not part of tournaments. the clash was everything" . [?]

Coucy's gift, unusual for his time, was recognition of realities... [in a similar fashion] Out of the heap of ruins after Poitiers, Charles had learned the discipline of adjusting ambitions to possibilities; his son's reign was to be spent unlearning that as fast as possible."

"A few years later, the papal shism brought Wycliffe to the turning point that led to protestantism ( clergy was ruled non-necessary, in favour of a personal interpretation of the Bible in one's own language). Richard II showed the aristocracy's true colours to the rebellious peasants: "Villeins ye are and veilleins ye shall remain !"

In an era without guns or tear gas, mobs inspired immediate terror.. what had happened in the last 30 years as a result of plague, war, oppression & incompetence was a weakened acceptance of the system, a mistrust of government, an awakening sense that authority could be challenged, that change was in fact possible. the King, like the Tsar, remained the illusory saviour from the misconduct of his nobles.

"Aside from Charles V, most rulers governed by impulse in the 14th century (when declaring taxes void); their assumptions of full feudalism were also behind the times. While France smoldered, true revolt erupted in June 1381 in England, not of the urban class (like Paris under Etienne Marcel in 1356) but of the peasants. In a time whose economy was largely rural, they were the working class that mattered."

"Scorched at last after 30 years of compulsive plotting, Charles of Navarre was left to live out a destitute & friendless decade in his mountain kingdom so much too narrow for his soul. So might Satan have been penned in a sheepfold."

Two ultra-lavish diners endlessly recycled in popular history books #2:

"At a banquet given in Coucy's time by a certain Vidame de Chartres, the ceiling painted like the sky opened to allow the diner to descend on machines resembling clouds which raised the dishes again when they had been emptied. An artificial storm lasting half an hour accompanied dessert, dropping a rain of scented water & a hail of sweetmeats."

Two ultra-lavish diners endlessly recycled in popular history books #1:
"On a previous visit by the Emperor to the Count of Savoy in 1365, mounted nobles had served platters of food poised on the ends of lances, especially fitted with brackets for the purpose. Whatever its moral limitations, chivalry required a strong wrist"

"Poets & writers served frequently as ambassador because their rhetorical power cobferred distinction on the elaborate speech required on this occassion" [Geoffrey Chaucer is an example]