A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

by Barbara W. Tuchman

  Nothing of this was new or remarkable. The Imitation of Christ was what it said it was, an imitation of Christ’s message, a consolation for the humble who are mankind’s majority, a reassurance of the promise that their reward is to come hereafter. For a long time after Thomas’ book appeared, so little was known about its author that Jean Gerson was supposed by some to be the Bacon behind this obscure northern Shakespeare.

  In 1391 Gerson’s plea against the Way of Force held the attention of the court from prime to vespers. Remembering how prison had closed over his predecessors, he pursued his argument at some risk, but as a native of Burgundy he had acquired the Duke as a patron, which may have made the sermon possible. He urged the crown to abandon the Voie de Fait with its “doubtful battle and spilling of blood,” recommending rather a resort to augmented prayer and penitential processions. In a discreet rebuke, he deplored the gagging of the University on the subject of a Church Council, “for I have no doubt that if you had been better informed on what your very humble and devout daughter, the University of Paris, wished to say to you on this matter, you would very willingly have heard it, and great good would have come of it.”

  Boldly he suggested that the welfare of the papacy was subordinate to that of the Christian community as a whole, and that it would be “intolerable” if the Holy See, instituted for the good of the Church, became the instrument of its grave damage. He called on the memory of St. Louis, Charlemagne, Roland and Oliver, and the Maccabees to inspire Charles VI to remove the stain of the schism, a task Gerson did not hesitate to declare more important than a crusade against Islam. “What is greater than the union of Christendom? Who can better achieve that union than the most Christian King?”

  Interference more material than Gerson’s blocked the Voie de Fait for the time being. France could not go to war in Italy without the alliance or, at very least, the benevolent neutrality of Florence and Milan, a prospect distinctly impeded by the fact of their being at war with each other. Each had rival advocates in France. Milan was represented by Valentina Visconti, wife of Louis d’Orléans. Louis dreamed of acquiring the promised Kingdom of Adria, still waiting to be carved out of the Papal States in return for French support. The dream depended on access to the wealth of Milan and on the collaboration of Louis’ father-in-law in the Voie de Fait. Gian Galeazzo’s interests were double-edged. He favored a Kingdom of Adria in friendly—that is, in French—hands, while at the same time he was wary of allowing France to become a power in Italy. He wanted a French alliance against Florence but he did not want to opt openly for Clement or commit himself to the Voie de Fait. While steering through these shoals, he had to frustrate the Florentine league against him, and confound the schemes of Bernabò’s various sons and relations who were bent on his destruction.

  News was spreading in Naples that the King of France and the Anti-Pope Clement were coming to Rome with a great army to reunite the Church. Clement himself was so sure of the program that he had ordered portable altars, riding saddles, pack saddles, blankets, and all equipment for a major move. Pope Boniface in great alarm begged the English to divert the French. This was accomplished not by a threat of war but by an offer of peace. English ambassadors came to France in February 1391 bringing an offer to negotiate a definitive treaty. Coucy and Rivière were delegated to confer with the English, to dine them and “keep them company.” As evidence of serious purpose, the ambassadors said that King Richard’s uncles, Lancaster and the bellicose Gloucester, would represent England at the parley. France could not refuse the momentous opportunity even if it meant postponing the Voie de Fait—which, of course, was the English purpose. The parley was set for the end of June and the march on Rome held in abeyance.

  When June came, the English, having accomplished their original purpose, hung back from the edge of peace. At their request, the parley was postponed for another nine months until the following March. The truth was that England’s counsels were sharply divided. King Richard and his two elder uncles, Lancaster and York, favored peace, while the relentless Thomas of Gloucester adamantly opposed it. In the generation since his father had fought France with no particular animus, the sense of underlying chivalric comradeship had shriveled. Gloucester, the youngest son, was fixed in his conviction that the French were perfidious and tricky and, by shifty legalities and ambiguous language, had cozened the English out of the gains confirmed in the Treaty of Brétigny. He refused to make peace until theyrendered back “all such cities, towns, lands, and seigneuries” which they had falsely taken, not to mention 1,400,000 francs still owing on King Jean’s ransom.

  The real reason for his attitude lay deeper. Essentially, Gloucester and the barons of his party were opposed to peace because they felt war to be their occupation. Behind them were the poorer knights and squires and archers of England, who, unconcerned with rights or wrongs, were “inclined to war such as had been their livelihood.”

  At this moment, England’s old ally, the Duke of Brittany, addicted as ever to feuding, suddenly re-opened his quarrel with France. Discarding a vassal’s loyalty, he became more and more contentious and presumptuous, minting money bearing his own image, and assuming other rights of independent sovereignty. The French were anxious to bring him to submission before the date of the parley with the English, knowing that otherwise their uncovered flank would put them at a disadvantage. Coucy, one of the few persons acceptable to the irascible Duke, arranged for him to meet with the King and Council at Tours. Montfort came up the Loire attended by a suite of 1,500 knights and squires, in a convoy of five ships armed with cannon. For three months, from October to December 1391, the effort dragged on. Half slippery, half intransigent, Montfort could not be brought to terms. As a last resort, the King’s daughter Jeanne, barely a year old, was offered in marriage to Montfort’s son as the only means of attaching Brittany. The same solution had notably failed in the recent past to attach Charles of Navarre. With no great grace, after concluding the arrangement, Montfort went home “conserving all his hate.”

  While at Tours, Coucy was caught up in an affair that was to have bitter if posthumous irony for himself. It happened that the only son and heir of Count Guy de Blois died, leaving an enormous estate devoid of dynastic heirs. The limitless acquisitiveness of Louis d’Orléans focused at once on the property, which lay between his own domains of Touraine and Orléans. He and the King and Coucy rode over together from nearby Tours to visit the bereaved, and also bankrupt, father. Count Guy was the former fellow hostage in England who, to buy his liberty, had transferred his property of Soissons through King Edward to Coucy. Wild spending had since dissipated his great wealth; overeating and drinking had left him and his wife “overgrown with fatness” so that the Count could no longer mount his horse and had to be carried to the hunt in a litter. Given to fits of rage, he had once, in what appears to have been a 14th century habit, killed a knight with his dagger. Now he was old, sick, and childless, surrounded by swarms of quarreling would-be heirs.

  Coucy had much influence with Count Guy, besides holding a lien on his property deriving from money still owed on the Soissons transaction. As “un grand traitteur” (an accomplished negotiator), he was chosen by both parties to evaluate the estate and arrange its sale to Louis d’Orléans. Sale of dynastic property for cash was considered something of a disgrace. If Coucy was reluctant to act in such a matter—and there is no evidence that he was—he was handsomely, almost too handsomely, compensated by Louis for his services. When he succeeded in reducing Blois’ asking price of 200,000 francs for his lands in Hainault by 50,000, or 25 percent, Louis paid him back the difference. At the same time, Louis acquitted Coucy of the debt of 10,000 florins loaned to him for the Tunisian campaign, “in consideration to our said cousin of the many and great services he has rendered to us.” For the entire Blois estate Louis paid 400,000 francs from his wife’s dowry, becoming thereby a territorial proprietor on a level with his uncles.

  Froissart, who had been in the service of Guy de
Blois before the days of the empty purse, delivered himself of the stern and rather surprising judgment that “The Sire de Coucy was greatly to blame in this matter.” Perhaps he meant that Coucy should not have made money out of a transaction which Froissart considered ignoble. The worshiper of a caste often upholds higher ideals for it than its members. In the ultimate irony, Coucy’s own domain after his death was to follow Blois’ into Orléans’ hands.

  Rarely if ever at home, Coucy resumed his duties as Lieutenant-General in Auvergne and Guienne in January 1392, and came north again in March to accompany the King to the great parley at Amiens. In happy omen just before the parley, a son was born to Charles and Isabeau, their fifth child, of whom the two eldest were already dead. Paris celebrated in great emotion as bells pealed and bonfires flamed in the public squares. People filled the churches to thank God for a Dauphin and afterward sang and danced in the streets, where tables loaded with wine and food were set out for them by noble ladies and wealthy bourgeois. The object of their joy was to die at the age of nine, as were four more sons before one of the puny progeny survived to become the feckless Dauphin eventually crowned as Charles VII by Joan of Arc.

  Extraordinary measures were taken to ensure that no quarrels arose between French and English retinues to disrupt the parley. The Council ordered French subjects on pain of death to abstain from all insults and provocative remarks or challenges to, or even talk of, combat. No one was to go out at night without a torch; any page or varlet who provoked a quarrel in a tavern was to earn the death penalty. Four companies of 1,000 guards each were to keep watch day and night to prevent assemblies with potential for trouble. If the fire bell rang, they were not to move from their posts but leave it to the regular fire companies to answer the alarm. The English were to be received with “greatest honors,” treated with utmost courtesy, and entertained free of cost. Innkeepers were not to demand money from them but submit their accounts to the royal exchequer for payment.

  These precautions expressed the French desire less for peace per se than for a settlement that would open the way to the Voie de Fait and to crusade. On the English side, the Dukes of Lancaster and York showed a similar sentiment, but the absence of Gloucester left an ominous hole. In recognition of Coucy’s influence, the English Dukes had brought his daughter Philippa with them, no doubt hoping thereby to win his support for their terms. Philippa had expressed an ardent desire to see the father she barely knew, and Coucy had much joy in the meeting. His daughter “travelled in good state, but like a widow who had enjoyed little pleasure in her marriage.”

  In the presence of Charles seated on his throne, the parley opened at Eastertime in the utmost ceremony and grandeur, as if to support the great burden of its outcome. Lancaster knelt three times on his approach to the throne in the ritual of homage and was welcomed by the King with affectionate words, and by Burgundy and Berry with the kiss of peace. The splendor of the Duke of Burgundy was never more marvelous. He wore black velvet embroidered on the left sleeve with a branch of 22 roses composed of sapphires and rubies surrounded with pearls. On another day he wore a crimson velvet robe embroidered on each side with a bear in silver whose collar, muzzle, and leash sparkled with jewels. The great French lords, including Coucy, each gave a banquet for the English on successive nights at which knightly courtesies were exchanged and old acquaintances renewed.

  Not all the precautions, free meals, and luxurious surroundings were enough to gain a peace. The parley lasted two weeks, but both parties knew it was useless. The English demand for more than a million francs in arrears on Jean’s ransom was met by the French claim for an indemnity of three million for war damages on their soil. They went so far as to scale down their demand for the return of Calais to a demand that the city and walls be razed to make the place unusable. The English refused, considering that as long as they held Calais, “they wore the key to France on their belt.” The sovereignty of Aquitaine was disputed as ever. Even when the French finally offered to pay the arrears on Jean’s ransom and guarantee peaceable possession if not sovereignty of Aquitaine, in return for the razing of Calais, the English held back. They were not sure they wanted peace. When Charles urged the cause of the crusade, they said, as so often before, that they had no powers to conclude definitive terms, but would report back to their King. One more of the countless peace parleys came to nothing. Once more the truce was extended for yet another year. How hard it was to end a war.

  Whether from disappointment or natural causes, King Charles fell ill in the midst of the parley, suffering from high fever and transports of delirium. Removed from Amiens to the quiet surroundings of the episcopal palace at Beauvais, where he was carefully nursed, he soon recovered, and by June had resumed hunting and his other pleasures. No ill omens were attached to the sudden strange illness, although they might well have been.

  32. Papal palace at Avignon as it would have appeared in the 14th century. Engraving by Israel Sylvestre, c. 1650.(illustration credit 23.1)

  33. 14TH CENTURY COINS(illustration credit 23.2)

  34. A Sienese army of 1363 depicted in the area where Coucy’s campaign took place twenty years later. Fresco by Lippo Vanni, 1373, in the Sala del Mappamondo, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena.(illustration credit 23.3)

  THE SWISS CAMPAIGN

  35. The Gügler enter Switzerland under the flags of Coucy and England.(illustration credit 23.4)

  36. The fight at Fraubrunnen showing the flag of Bern (the Bear). Both from the Berner Chronik, c. 1400.(illustration credit 23.5)

  37. Sir John Hawkwood.

  Fresco by Paolo Uccello in the Cathedral of Florence.(illustration credit 23.6)

  38. Pierre de Luxemburg, with a cardinal’s hat on the altar drapery. Portrait, c. 1400.(illustration credit 23.7)

  39. Burning of the Jews. From Gilles li Muisis, Antiquitates Flandriae, 14th century.(illustration credit 23.8)

  40. A Jew wearing the circular badge. Detail from a 14th century fresco of St. Helena’s discovery of the True Cross, in the Cathedral of Tarragona.(illustration credit 23.9)

  41. Christine de Pisan composing her works. From the manuscript of her Oeuvres, vol. Poésies, c. 1405.(illustration credit 23.10)

  42. Jean de Berry, statue in the Cathedral of Bourges.(illustration credit 23.11)

  43. Philip of Burgundy, statue by Claus Sluter in the Champmol, Dijon.(illustration credit 23.12)

  44. Charles V receiving the translation of Aristotle’s Ethics from Nicolas Oresme. From Les éthiques d’Aristote, 1372 version.(illustration credit 23.13)

  45. Pope Urban VI. From a relief on the back of his sarcophagus in the Vatican Grotto, Rome, dated 1389.(illustration credit 23.14)

  46. Clement VII. Fragment of effigy at Avignon.(illustration credit 23.15)

  47. The siege of Mahdia. From Froissart’s Chronicles, Louis de Bruges copy, c. 1460.(illustration credit 23.16)

  48. Louis d’Orléans. Portrait, c. 1420.(illustration credit 23.17)

  49. The Visconti device: a viper swallowing a man,(illustration credit 23.18)

  50. Gian Galeazzo Visconti. Pen drawing by Antonio Pisanello (1397–1455).(illustration credit 23.19)

  51. Froissart offering his Chronicles to Charles VI. From Froissart’s Chronicles, c. 1450.(illustration credit 23.20)

  52. Gerson preaching at the Church of St. Bernard in Paris. From Sermons sur la Passion, illustrated by Baudoin de Lannoy, c. 1480.(illustration credit 23.21)

  53. Burean de la Rivière, statues from La Grange buttress, Cathedral of Amiens.(illustration credit 23.22)

  54. Cardinal Jean de La Grange, statues from La Grange buttress, Cathedral of Amiens.(illustration credit 23.23)

  55. Effigy of Guillaume de Harsigny at Laon.(illustration credit 23.24)

  56. DANSE MACABRE

  Fresco in the Abbey of Chaise-Dien at Riom, 15th century.(illustration credit 23.25)

  57. Lamentation of the Virgin with St. John. From the Rohan Hours, c. 1420.(illustration credit 23.26)

 
; 58. Massacre of the prisoners at Nicopolis. From Froissart’s Chronicles, Louis de Bruges copy, c. 1460.(illustration credit 23.27)

  59. Posthumous portrait of Coucy commissioned by the Celestin monastery of Villeneuve-les-Soissons two hundred years after his death.(illustration credit 23.28)

  60. Ruins of the donjon of Concy, after the German dynamiting of 1917.(illustration credit 23.29)

  61. Aerial view of Coucy-le-Château today.(illustration credit 23.30)

  Chapter 24

  Danse Macabre

  History never more cruelly demonstrated the vulnerability of a nation to the person of its chief of state than in the affliction of France beginning in 1392.

  The circumstances that brought on the crisis arose from a struggle for power centering on the figure of Clisson, the Constable. As the main prop of the ministerial party, he was the object of the uncles’ political enmity as well as of the Duke of Brittany’s undying hatred. For as long as he retained the controlling military post with access to its immense financial advantages, and remained in partnership with the Marmosets and the King’s brother, the uncles saw themselves kept at a distance from power. The Duke of Brittany feared him as a rival in Breton affairs and hated him the more fiercely because he had failed to kill him when he had had the chance. In their common desire to destroy Clisson, the interests of Brittany and the King’s uncles met, and they maintained clandestine contact with each other.