With that, he crossed himself, turned on his good side and slept.
Bordeaux
22 February 1370
Only a thin line separates the cardinal sin of treason from the lesser transgression of consorting with the enemy. Gennaro Altobardi fervently hoped he was not about to cross that line.
On the pretext of family business, a fully-recovered Altobardi had taken leave of Hawkwood and returned briefly to Pisa. He had spent only two nights there in the company of his wife and family before setting off for Bordeaux, confident he could secure an audience with King Edward of England or his son, the Black Prince.
The war between England and France had flared up once again with the arrival in Aquitaine several months earlier of yet another large contingent of English troops. To date, however, hostilities had been confined to sporadic forays as each side sought to probe the other’s weaknesses and determine what strategy might work to its longer-term advantage.
Altobardi’s progress towards Bordeaux had not been without danger but, as an Italian accompanied only by two valets, he clearly posed no threat to either side. The principal risk to life and limb had come not from French or English forces but from roving bands of cutthroats and highwaymen who scoured the countryside looking for easy pickings. It was with some relief then that, four days earlier, Altobardi had at last tracked along the final stretch of the Garonne and seen in the distance the majestic silhouette of Saint Andrew’s Cathedral. He had taken lodgings in the shadow of the Gallo-Roman ramparts that corseted the city and had without further delay presented his compliments and credentials – as an ambassador of the sovereign city state of Pisa – to the quartier général from which the king and the Black Prince were directing operations.
Altobardi’s hopes of being granted an immediate audience were quickly dashed. He had cooled his heels until early that morning, when a herald messenger had been despatched to his chambers to ascertain what specific business brought him to Bordeaux.
‘I come at the wish of Pisa and as one who serves Sir John Hawkwood,’ he had replied.
*
Barely an hour later, Altobardi found himself in the presence of the English monarch and his son.
‘You speak in the name and with the authority of Hawkwood?’ asked King Edward.
‘I do not, your Grace. I speak in the name of Pisa.’
‘Then pray state what business lies before us.’
Altobardi had no authority from Hawkwood. Quite the contrary: had the latter suspected Altobardi’s presence in Bordeaux he would have considered it an act of treachery. Altobardi was aware he was guilty of consorting with an ‘enemy’, yet reminded himself that this was Hawkwood’s enemy, not Pisa’s. Besides, Hawkwood himself never showed any qualms about ‘consorting’ – whenever, wherever and with whomsoever, providing it suited his mood and purpose of the moment and worked ultimately to his advantage.
Altobardi weighed his words carefully. ‘I am given to understand that your business, sire, is to protect and pursue England’s interests here in France. To do so, you need men of experience and fortitude. Captain-General Hawkwood is such a man. His White Company has proved itself without equal these several years past.’
Edward and his son exchanged glances.
It was the Black Prince who spoke. ‘The John Hawkwood of whom you speak is no true servant of England.’
The king gestured for his son to be silent. ‘Where is Hawkwood now?’ he asked. ‘Does he serve Pisa?’
That was precisely the point, thought Altobardi. Did Hawkwood serve Pisa or did Pisa serve Hawkwood?
‘He is bound by a contract with Pisa and has honoured that contract to the letter.’
‘He fights, then, for Pisa?’ put in the Black Prince impatiently.
‘He fights in the service of Pisa, but also at the behest of others who retain him from time to time.’
King Edward was confused. Or pretended to be. ‘Then he does not always fight for Pisa?’
‘No, sire. He has indeed fought for Pisa, but also, and as circumstances dictated, for Florence and Milan, and against Florence and Milan. Against the Papal States, also.’
‘A man of dubious allegiances, it would seem,’ grunted the Black Prince.
‘A man of great integrity,’ said Altobardi, bristling. He could not bring himself to speak ill of Hawkwood. Nor would it serve his immediate purpose to do so.
‘Yet you do not speak for him?’
‘I speak in his favour and in that of Pisa. And it would be greatly to his benefit and yours that he now be recalled to serve his native England once more.’
‘And the benefit to Pisa?’
‘The city states of Italy war and intrigue without pause,’ answered Altobardi. ‘And the condottieri who serve us serve themselves at our expense. They are often a far greater threat than – ’
‘The threat they pose,’ cut in King Edward, ‘is surely of your own making. I have no use for men whose loyalties shift in the wind.’
‘Hawkwood is an Englishman through and through,’ countered Altobardi. ‘He would again serve England, of that I am certain. And he would serve England well. Of that you, your Grace, can also be certain.’
The Black Prince could scarcely contain his anger. ‘He will serve for money, to be sure, but not for love of country,’ he rasped.
‘As you see, my son has little faith in John Hawkwood,’ said the king. ‘For myself, I am undecided. God knows, we have great need of those with his qualities in the field. But, I ask myself, at what price?’
‘That I cannot say, your Grace. For a stipend, certainly, but also for restitution of his rank and reputation. As for myself, I do no more than offer my services as a go-between.’
‘And this without his knowledge or consent?’
‘Without his knowledge or consent.’
Altobardi had said his piece but was far from certain he had made his case. To him, the re-opening of hostilities between England and France was an opportunity too valuable to be missed: a golden opportunity to free Hawkwood to serve once more the country of his birth. And Pisa and Italy would be – there was no other way to put it – free of him.
In his anxiety to do what seemed best for Hawkwood and for Pisa, Altobardi had given little thought to the imbalances that might ensue in Italy as a whole should his plan succeed. For that matter, he could not even be certain that Hawkwood would even consider relinquishing his increasingly lucrative base in Italy and returning to the service of a king and country that had once rejected him.
He felt a twinge of anxiety. Had he reasoned well? Or had he been too naïve? If the latter, there was at least one consolation: should the English king dismiss Altobardi’s proposal out of hand, Hawkwood need never know of these negotiations.
Altobardi waited.
‘There is much to be considered here,’ said King Edward after a long pause. ‘I bid you withdraw that we may deliberate. You shall know of our decision this day.’
Altobardi bowed and left the council chamber.
*
Late that same afternoon, a detail of men-at-arms presented itself at Altobardi’s lodgings. His two valets were dismissed and he was escorted to the city dungeon. He was given no explanation why the English king and his irascible son had rejected his overtures out of hand.
‘For reasons I cannot fathom,’ Edward said to his son later that day, ‘that Italian envoy comes at Hawkwood’s bidding. Hawkwood seeks to ingratiate himself and restore himself to our favour. I question his motives and I fear his intentions.’
‘The Italian weasel had best rot in the jail where he now lies,’ the Black Prince replied. ‘And a pox be on John Hawkwood and all those who do his bidding.’
Habemus Papam
Great was the festival they held that day
Avignon
22 September 1370
To the dismay of the French and their allies, Guillaume de Grimoard – better known as Pope Urban V – had left the opulent Palais des Papes in Avignon some
three years previously, fiercely determined to relocate the Avignonese Curia to Rome after six decades of self-imposed papal exile. Only then, he had reasoned, would there be any real prospect of achieving his ultimate goal of reuniting the western and eastern branches of the Mother Church.
Urban V had entered Rome in triumph in October 1367, accompanied by an imposing force of several thousand. He left Italy in silent ignominy in early September 1370.
He had been appalled at the physical and moral decay that had devastated Rome. Mendicants and brigands roamed streets strewn with garbage and reeking of urine and human and animal excrement. Public monuments and buildings were little more than ruins, defaced and plundered. The clergy, culled by the Black Death, were as impotent as they were corrupt, their churches crumbling and deserted. In the surrounding countryside, bands of freebooters ravaged outlying towns and villages, foraging for food and plunder and leaving a wasteland in their wake.
The Vicar of Christ had struggled manfully to put the Holy City to rights. For three long years, he had presided over measures conducive to the restoration of Rome. He had ordered streets and buildings repaired and cleaned; he had employed labourers to tend to the city’s gardens and public spaces; he had arranged the distribution of papal alms from the treasure trove amassed in Avignon on the strength of the lucrative sale of favours and indulgences; he had attempted to whip into some semblance of order what remained of the clergy; and, above all, he had preached respect for and observance of the Christian sacrament.
The return of the Pope and his court went some small way towards a revival of Rome’s fortunes, but Urban had soon realised there was too much to be done and so little time in which to do it. It proved a thankless task. Night after night, he wept tears of frustration and heartfelt grief at the knowledge that the glorious Rome of antiquity was irreparably consigned to the pages of history.
His other great designs had also been thwarted. He had conducted protracted negotiations with the patriarch of Constantinople, but no accommodation had been reached: the Greek and Latin branches of the Church remained separate. He had implored the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV, to come to his aid. To no avail: the emperor’s renowned skills as a diplomat clearly outweighed his military prowess. Charles had ventured once into Italy, only to be met by strong opposition; his supplies running low and his forces depleted, he had promptly turned tail and scurried back to comparative safety beyond the Alps.
Urban had not hesitated to meet the anti-papal forces head-on in the field. He had imposed an economic and spiritual embargo on the renegade city of Perugia, ordering the excommunication of its citizens and all those who aided and abetted them. The Perugians had responded by taking up arms and enlisting mercenaries, among them Hawkwood’s White Company and freebooters in the pay of Bernabò Visconti. Urban’s army had been driven back and forced to seek refuge in Viterbo; the mercenaries duly arrived and laid siege to the city until the Pope beat a hasty retreat to Rome, his tail between his legs.
In the interim, Urban had repeatedly tried to negotiate an agreement of sorts with King Edward of England, the notion being that the latter desist from providing any form of support to one of the principal Italian thorns in Urban’s flesh, the Visconti dynasty of Milan. At one point, Urban had threatened their excommunication sine die, but the Viscontis had appeared singularly unimpressed. For his part, Edward appeared to detect little strategic – not to mention monetary – benefit in a quid pro quo whereby he would withdraw support from the Pope’s enemies in Italy in exchange for the Pope withdrawing support from England’s enemies in France. Edward procrastinated, reinforcing Urban’s considered opinion that the English monarch was duplicity incarnate.
Urban was forced to acknowledge that he had miscalculated and overplayed his hand. Worse, perhaps, he had erred in other significant ways, not least by maintaining in Rome a papal court which was ostensibly Italian but, in reality, overwhelmingly French. All Italy – friend and foe alike – was united in its bitter resentment of this. Papal authority was unquestionably at its lowest ebb for centuries. Any hopes he had cherished of uniting Italy were clearly doomed to fail: it would remain a country torn apart by bellicose city states and foreign interlopers.
To his credit, Urban had identified the threat posed to Italy by the proliferation of the mercenary hordes, denouncing them in successive papal bulls. To his intense chagrin, however, his threats of instant excommunication had fallen on deaf ears. The mercenaries ignored him and continued to hold Italy to ransom, and he was powerless to stop them as long as the individual city states had recourse to their services.
It seemed to the Pope that only one course of action was now open to him: if he could not bring the city states to their senses under the unifying banner of the Holy Church, he must allocate a healthy portion of the seemingly endless supply of papal wealth – secreted in the basement of the Palais des Papes in Avignon – to hire his own condottieri.
He had arrived at this conclusion only with the deepest regret. It proved of no consequence, however: Pope Urban V died on the night of 19 December 1370 – of, so rumour had it, old age and a broken heart. It would be for his successor to carry on where he had left off.
Avignon
5 January 1371
He rose before dawn and walked slowly to and fro on the upper terrace of the Papal Palace until a limpid winter sun tinged the pink-tiled roofs of Avignon and cast first rays across the silt-brown waters of the Rhône.
The Conclave had emerged from its cum clavi seclusion on 30 December 1370 to announce the outcome of its deliberations: thirty-four-year-old Pierre Roger de Beaufort was deemed papabile – fit for and worthy of papal office – and was to succeed Urban V as the seventh in a line of French-born Avignonese popes dating back to Clement V in 1305.
Beaufort harboured few illusions about his unanimous election and the reasons that underpinned it. There was little doubt in his mind that the Cardinals regarded him as altogether too inexperienced. They evidently expected that this new Vicar of Christ – who had taken the name of Gregory XI – would prove pre-eminent in one respect and in one respect only: his malleability. As well they might, considering that Beaufort had not yet even been ordained into the priesthood.
Gregory was determined to prove the Cardinals wrong.
In some respects, at least, he was anything but inexperienced in matters of the church. A nephew and protégé of Pope Clement VI, he had been made a canon deacon at the tender age of eleven, and had been elevated to the rank of cardinal in 1329, when only nineteen. This was even before his admission to the theological faculty at the university in Perugia. There he had immersed himself in, among other things, papal history: not only could he could reel off from memory and in sequence the names and terms of office of his predecessors ever since St Peter in AD 32, he could also recite their achievements – or lack thereof.
In that respect, Gregory suspected he would have little to fear by comparison with the majority of the Avignonese popes who had gone before him. Clement V had been little more than the lackey of King Philip IV of France and would be best remembered for some eclectic contributions to canon law – the so-called Clementinae – and a preoccupation with amassing and hoarding wealth. John XXII had spent a considerable portion of his eighteen years in office adjudicating what, in Gregory’s view, was little more than a petty doctrinal squabble among opposing factions within the Franciscan Order, or interceding on a regular basis between Louis IV of Bavaria and Frederick of Austria in their long-running dispute as to which of them should inherit the crown of the Holy Roman Empire. Benedict XII, meanwhile, had dabbled in politics, attempting with a conspicuous lack of success to resolve the conflict between England and France (although, to his credit, he had also essayed a series of administrative reforms). And Clement VI’s career had been ‘distinguished’ by the purchase of Avignon from Queen Joan of Sicily in 1348 and by his subsequent obsession with the enlargement and embellishment of the Palais des Papes.
In truth, o
f his papal precursors in Avignon, Gregory privately admitted to genuine admiration for only two, Innocent VI and his own immediate predecessor, Urban V. It was no coincidence that both had worked assiduously to restore the papacy to Rome and to effect reunification of the Roman and Eastern churches. These were ambitions passionately shared by Gregory XI.
This was not to say that life in Avignon was not to his taste. Far from it. The pontifical and cardinal courts were nothing short of magnificent and the city as a whole had grown in both economic and intellectual stature. Not only was the Palais des Papes a monument to luxury, it was also a heavily fortified haven of papal security.
Today would see Gregory’s ritual investiture. In his heart, he profoundly regretted it would take place not at the Holy See in Rome but here, in the surrogate surroundings of Avignon. There was nothing else for it, however, as Gregory was among the first to concede.
He had visited Rome during his study years in Perugia and had been shocked to see the wasteland of poverty and squalor the Eternal City had become. He shared Urban’s horror at the sight of Rome’s proud monuments overrun with vermin, the cattle grazing in what had once been the glorious basilica of St Peter, the soot-darkened shell of St John Lateran, and the terrors of the Roman night.
In a few hours, Pierre Roger de Beaufort would emerge from the sacristy dressed in the traditional white cassock, white stockings and red slippers embroidered with crosses of gold. He would recite the Oath of Office, vowing to change nothing of the received tradition of the Church, to sustain its stewardship, to cleanse and purge it of all that contravened canonical order, and to guard its holy canons and decrees as the Divine Ordinance of Heaven. On pain of retribution, he would undertake never to act in contradiction of his office. He would also vow to subject ‘to the severest excommunication’ any and all who acted against evangelical tradition and the purity of the orthodox faith.
Condottiere: A Knight's Tale Page 19