A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

by Barbara W. Tuchman

  Between Coucy and Florence a duel now began. Approaching his goal, Coucy made heavier demands and gave fewer reassurances. In reply to a renewed Florentine protest against pillaging by his soldiers, he blamed it on the resistance of the inhabitants, and with cool arrogance demanded a tribute of 25,000 florins from Florence and 20,000 from Siena. The Signoria met in anxiety; some argued for paying, some for refusing, some for a token payment to maintain the façade of friendship and prevent assault by Coucy’s men-at-arms. While sending forward envoys with various proposals, Florence warned Jacopo Carraciolo, the governor of Arezzo who was now in their pay, to fortify his walls, prepare to provision Florentine reinforcements when they should appear, and expect attack on September 18. With generous sums contributed by the bourgeois magnates, they began assembling an armed force.

  For a week, while waiting the outcome of his demands, Coucy remained in the vicinity without advancing. Siena paid him 7,000 florins; Florence, without making refusal explicit, paid nothing. As if satisfied, Coucy resumed his march, but, instead of making for Arezzo, took the road southward toward Cortona. This diversion proved to be a ruse to relax the vigilance of Carraciolo. On the night of September 28–29, Coucy turned back toward Arezzo and, on reaching the city, divided his force in two groups. He sent one to assault the walls with great clamor and shouts, while he led the stronger section with his best knights silently around to the San Clemente gate on the other side. Crashing down the doors, the French poured through, crying, “Long live King Louis and the Sire de Coucy! Death to Guelfs and the Duke of Durazzo!” As Carraciolo’s men-at-arms rushed to meet them, battle cries and clang of blows filled the city, combat surged through every street and around the old Roman amphitheater until the defenders gave way before superior numbers and retreated to the citadel. The lords of Pietramala regained their homes in triumph, and while Arezzo again suffered rape and pillage, Coucy claimed the city in the name of King Louis of Naples, Sicily, and Jerusalem.

  At that moment Louis of Anjou had been dead for nine days. For a year and a half he had rusted in the heel of Italy, with no kingship but the title, while his army wasted and dwindled and some who could afford it took ship for home. With control of Bari and other coast towns on the Adriatic, he could be provisioned by sea and may not have been as entirely destitute as pictured by the monastic chroniclers who liked to enlarge on the theme of vainglory’s fall. But he was immobilized for lack of funds. His impoverished knights rode on donkeys or marched on foot “to hasten the day of combat” but could find nothing more than occasional skirmishes. In September 1384, Anjou caught a severe chill after overexerting himself against looters in his army. Fever developed, and recognizing death’s presence, the Duke, like his brother Charles V, completed his will on his last day. The dying seemed always to know when their hour was at hand, doubtless because cures were not expected and the onset of certain symptoms was recognized as fatal. How it happened that they were so often in condition at the end to dictate last wills or codicils is harder to explain, unless it was because dying was an organized ritual with many attendants to assist the process.

  With passion for conquest undiminished, Anjou called in his will on Pope Clement to ensure that his son, Louis II, should succeed to the Kingdom of Naples, and on Charles VI to “brandish the sword of his incomparable power” to avenge Queen Joanna. He appointed Coucy as his viceroy to carry on the campaign, with a provision that he could not be removed except by order of the Duchesse d’Anjou confirmed by the King, Burgundy, and Berry. He died on September 20 in the castle of Bari in a room overlooking the sea. While his body in a lead coffin was shipped back to France for burial, and his forces disintegrated, Charles of Durazzo held funeral services suitable to his late rival’s rank, and clothed his court in mourning.

  Anjou’s death was not yet known on the Arno when Florence was stunned to learn of Coucy’s capture of Arezzo. The Balia or Council of Ten, appointed in times of crisis, hastily assembled. Letters and ambassadors were dispatched to Genoa, Bologna, Padua, Perugia, Verona, Naples, even to Milan, urging all to join Florence in a league against the invader whose presence was said to endanger all Italy. Hawkwood’s company was summoned from Naples and Pope Urban was asked to levy a special tithe on the clergy for funds to drive the “schismatics” out of Italy and thwart the triumph of the Anti-Pope. In the midst of the furor, news arrived by way of Venice that the French claimant to Naples was dead. Florence rejoiced and redoubled her preparations to surround Coucy in Arezzo.

  Unaware both of the storm rising around him and of Anjou’s death, Coucy took pleasure in informing the Signoria of his capture of Arezzo, not doubting, he wrote smoothly, that they would be delighted by an event so happy for the partisans of King Louis. With even greater pleasure, the Signoria wrote back to the “illustrious lord and dearest friend” to inform him with “a great sting of grief” that Anjou had died and that several of his chief companions had already appeared in Venice on their way home. Coucy naturally did not believe it, suspecting a Florentine trick intended to discourage him.

  To impress the inhabitants, he established himself in splendid style and set himself to win adherents for the Angevin claimant by keeping open table and receiving with largesse all comers who declared themselves partisans of his cause. But while besieging the citadel, he shortly became aware that he was being enveloped if not actually besieged himself by a Florentine force on the north and his former companion-in-arms, Sir John Hawkwood, on the south. At this juncture the purpose of his campaign collapsed when evidence reached him confirming the fact of Anjou’s death.

  Coucy discovered himself isolated in the center of Italy with no expectation of relief and no point in holding out. Rather, his problem was getting out. To have clung to Arezzo for the sake of pursuing the Angevin cause in obedience to Anjou’s will would have been correct but doomed. Messages from a remainder of Anjou’s followers urged him to enter the kingdom of Naples and be its Governor, but Coucy was not the knightly type of heroic fool either to march unthinking toward disaster or to accept it with brainless valor when it came. He meant to use his hold of Arezzo to extract himself without loss of prestige to the Angevin cause—and recover the cost of the campaign as well.

  Siena, which had refused to join the Florentine league, was his lever. He offered to sell Arezzo to Siena for 20,000 florins, knowing that rivalry would force Florence to offer a better price including a safe-conduct through Tuscany. Florence had not recruited any very firm support for her league, owing to the fears of other states that she would use it for her own aggrandizement. Bernabò, in the interests of his French alliance, had advised regaining Arezzo by money rather than force and warned Florence that the King of France and his uncles might take harsh reprisals against Florentine merchants and bankers if Coucy were attacked.

  Florence, too, knew when to put discretion before valor. Through Coucy, her prospect of acquiring Arezzo was now suddenly restored. Overtures were made for the surrender of Carraciolo, the city’s governor, including an offer to pay the back wages of his men-at-arms. Given the prospect of pay which they had thought lost, Carraciolo’s men let it be known to their chief that they were ready to abandon a useless resistance. Accordingly, he agreed to surrender on condition that Florence recompense him for damages suffered in defending the city. No combat without money was standard for the age of chivalry.

  Because Florence had prepared to use armed force against Coucy, contrary to her promise of neutrality, she was concerned about possible reprisals by France. To forestall these, the Signoria addressed to Charles VI a voluminous recital of Coucy’s wrongdoings: the pillaging and injuries, the demands for tribute, the dealing with rebels (the Pietramala) in Florentine territory. In sorrow, the letter told how, after feigning peaceful intentions, Coucy had acted in hostility like an enemy, how “we, even though unaccustomed to deceitful words, saw through his plans” and were saddened that “such a noble and high-minded man, especially of Gallic blood, whose proper and natural virtue is
magnanimity, could allow himself to invent lies and set traps”; how, in the belief that he could not truly represent the King of France by such conduct, “we prepared an army to repel force by force”; how, finally, “we write this with grief and bitterness so that you may know that our actions are justified.”

  Having put that on the record, the republic reached amicable arrangements with Coucy in two skillfully drafted separate treaties of November 5. In the first, Enguerrand de Coucy, desirous of recognizing and recompensing the affection, devotion, and respect always shown by the Republic of Florence to the royal house of France, ceded Arezzo, its walls, fortresses, houses, furnishings, inhabitants, rights, and privileges to Florence in perpetuity. No mention of a consideration was made, in order that the treaty might appear purely as an act of policy by Coucy in the Angevin interest against Durazzo. He made it a condition that the Pietramala were to be restored to their properties, that Florence was to remain neutral with regard to Naples, that French envoys and messengers to Naples would be afforded free passage with the right to buy provisions, and that he and his men should enjoy the same conditions on returning to France.

  The sum agreed on in the second treaty was twice what he had asked from Siena. Considering the great cost to the Sire de Coucy of taking the city of Arezzo, and considering that he had traversed Florentine territory “without causing damage” (Florence was flexible in these matters) and intended to depart in the same manner, the republic agreed to pay him 40,000 gold florins, of which three fourths were to be paid at once before cession of the city, and the remaining 10,000 either at Bologna, Pisa, or Florence according to his wish, within two weeks after his evacuation of Arezzo. In generous disposal of the citizens’ property, the French were permitted to take away with them whatever they could carry on the day of departure.

  For preserving appearances while gaining desired ends, the settlement was a diplomatic masterpiece. The losers were Durazzo, who was forced to accept an accomplished fact; the Pietramala, who, having expected to regain power, were enraged; and the people of Arezzo, whom nobody recompensed. In revenge, on the day of departure the Pietramala ambushed a French foraging party and lured others “into their homes by offers of food and afterward killed them.” Coucy at once demanded punitive action by Florence to prove that such hostilities “are gravely displeasing to you and the friendship between us stands firm.” Florence offered fulsome regrets and, in lieu of action, an artistic denunciation of the “detestable” Pietramala. Their family name, Tarlati, it was said, derived from a word meaning “rotten wood that has been gnawed by insect borers,” while the name Pietramala, deriving from pietra meaning stone, suited them equally “for they are hard and unyielding in their crimes.” With these colorful if not helpful remarks the duel between Florence and Coucy came to an end.

  Mutual obligations were carried out. Florence paid 30,000 florins on November 15 and 17, Carraciolo surrendered on the 18th, Coucy evacuated Arezzo on the 20th. Avoiding the hostile populace he would have encountered by returning the way he had come, he crossed the mountains and returned along the eastern slope to Bologna, posting rear-guard units on the way to present the appearance of a victor’s return. At Bologna on Christmas Day he received the final payment in full. He re-entered Avignon in January 1385, adding a passage over the Alps in midwinter to a remarkably scatheless record.

  Coucy’s gift, unusual for his time, was recognition of realities, as seen in the contrast between his conduct of an expeditionary force and Anjou’s. The quest for the crown of Naples—however harshly judged by critics after the fact—was not necessarily destined for catastrophe. Anjou had as good a chance as and a better claim than his opponent. What defeated him was a late start, poor generalship, and a waste of time and resources on the ceremonial display of kingship before the thing itself was in hand. If he had led a rapid and spartan advance with all energies and resources applied to the objective, the outcome could well have been different. But the “if” asks for a modern attitude in a medieval age.

  The social damage was not in the failure but in the undertaking, which was expensive. The cost of war was the poison running through the 14th century. The funds contributed by the crown and by Anjou himself, not to mention the sum stolen by Pierre de Craon, were squeezed from the people of France for a cause which could in no way, present or future, benefit them. This did not escape notice, nor soothe the popular mood. On hearing of Anjou’s death, a tailor of Orléans named Guillaume le Jupponnier, when “overcome with wine,” burst into a tirade in which can be heard the rarely recorded voice of his class. “What did he go there for, this Duke of Anjou, down there where he went? He has pillaged and robbed and carried off money to Italy in order to conquer another land. He is dead and damned, and the King St. Louis too, like the others. Filth, filth of a King and a King! We have no King but God. Do you think they got honestly what they have? They tax me and re-tax me and it hurts them that they can’t have everything we own. Why should they take from me what I earn with my needle? I would rather the King and all kings were dead than that my son should be hurt in his little finger.”

  The record of the tailor’s case states that his words expressed “what others dared not say.” After arrest and imprisonment, he was pardoned by the Governor of Orléans.

  Anjou’s widow, born Marie of Brittany, a daughter of the saintly if ruthless Charles of Blois and his unyielding wife, pursued the crown of Naples on behalf of her son Louis II with the same strenuous pertinacity as her parents had pursued the dukedom of Brittany, and with no better results. In a life-long contest against Charles of Durazzo and his son, Louis II was no more successful than his father had been. While Naples passed to the rule of Aragon and then to the Spanish Bourbons, the Angevins persevered in their claim for two centuries with all the undismayed persistence of royalty in pursuit of a crown denied.

  The other French aim in Italy—imposing Clement by force-though never attempted by Anjou, was not abandoned. Rather it became an increasing obsession. In the meantime, madness shadowed Pope Urban as he quarreled fatally with Charles of Durazzo and was driven from Naples. Employing mercenaries, he rampaged through Italy in ceaseless disputes, besieged and besieging, captive and rescued, sputtering anathemas and excommunications, dragging behind him the six captive cardinals whom he accused of conspiracy to put him under restraint. When the horse of one of them went lame, Urban had the unfortunate prelate put to death and his corpse left unburied by the roadside. Afterward he executed four of the remaining five. He did not grace the Church of Rome.

  Pierre de Craon returned to France after Anjou’s death, disposing of obvious riches. While many of his recent companions, remnants of Anjou’s army, begged their way on foot out of Italy, he appeared at court with a magnificent retinue, exciting indignation. “Ha! False traitor,” cried the Duc de Berry on seeing him enter the Council, “wicked and disloyal, you deserve death! It is you who caused my brother’s death. Seize him, and let justice be done!” No one dared carry out the command in fear of Craon’s Burgundy connection. Craon continued to ornament the court of Charles VI and to escape for a long time a relentless lawsuit by the Duchesse d’Anjou and her son, although ultimately he was ordered to pay back 100,000 francs.

  Ironically, after escaping harm in Italy, Coucy suffered a fall from his horse in Avignon with serious injury to his leg. Possibly a compound fracture, it was severe enough to keep him confined to bed for nearly four months. As Anjou’s viceroy, he took responsibility for the ragged veterans returning from Bari, distributing funds and mediating disputes. On the arrival of Anjou’s widow to establish her son’s claims in Provence, he visited her several times (presumably in a litter), advised her in the matter of Pierre de Craon, and “comforted her as best he could.” During these visits he may well have met and talked with the author of one of the great commentaries of the 14th century.

  Honoré Bonet, Benedictine Prior of Salon in Provence, was attached in some capacity to the Anjou household and living in Avignon durin
g the years 1382–86 while writing his observations on the kind of experience in which Coucy was an actor. The Tree of Battles was an examination of the laws and customs of war and, inevitably, of its moral and social effects. His purpose in writing the book, Bonet stated, was to find an answer to the “great commotions and very fierce misdeeds” of his own time. His conclusion was blunt. Stated in the form of a question—“Whether this world can by nature be without conflict and at peace?”—his answer was, “No, it can by no means be so.”

  “I make a Tree of Mourning at the beginning of my book,” he wrote, on which could be seen three things: the “tribulation such as never was before” of the schism; the “great dissension” among Christian princes and kings; and the “great grief and discord” among communities. Bonet examined many practical and moral questions—whether, if a man is captured while under safe-conduct, the guarantor is bound to ransom him at his own cost; whether a man should prefer death to flight from battle; what were a knight’s rights to wages, including sick pay and pay while on leave; what were the rules of spoil. Through every discussion his governing idea was that war should not harm those who do not make war, while every example of his own time showed that it did. He is “heart-stricken to see and hear of the misery inflicted on poor laborers … through whom, under God, the Pope and all the kings and lords in the world have their meat and all their drink and clothing.” In answer to the question whether it is permissible to take prisoner the “merchants, tillers of the soil, and shepherds” of the enemy, his answer was no: “All husbandmen and plowmen with their oxen when they are carrying on their business” and any ass, mule, or horse harnessed to a plow should have immunity “by reason of the work they do.” The reason was fundamental: security of the laborer and his beasts benefits all because they work for all.