Yielding to Heaven’s warning and Lancaster’s counsel, Edward appointed commissioners to treat with the French on revised peace terms. They met at the little village of Brétigny about a league’s distance from Chartres, where the twenty years’ war was at last brought to an end-as it then seemed.
Signed May 8, 1360, the Treaty of Brétigny covered a maze of legal and territorial details in 39 articles, five letters of confirmation, and multiple rhetoric as eternal as lawyers. Basically it was a return to the original settlement of 1358. King Jean’s ransom was put back to 3 million gold écus and Edward’s excess territorial demands were abandoned, to that extent marking his last campaign as a failure and a waste. But the basic cession of Guienne and Calais to the King of England free of homage was confirmed, plus the transfer of other territories, towns, ports, and castles between the Loire and the Pyrenees and in the region of Calais, representing in all about a third of France, the largest gain ever recorded in western Europe up to that time. Edward renounced the crown of France and all territorial claims not granted in the treaty.
To ensure fulfillment, the earlier provision for forty hostages representing the greatest in the realm was renewed, again including Enguerrand de Coucy. As lord of the greatest stronghold in northern France and a center of resistance to the English, he was deliberately selected in the belief that the peace would be better kept if such men were hostages.
The group was headed by the four “Fleurs-de-Lys” or royal princes—namely, the King’s two sons, Louis and Jean (future Ducs d’Anjou and de Berry); his brother, the Duc d’Orléans; and the Dauphin’s brother-in-law, Louis II, Duc de Bourbon. The Counts d’Artois, d’Eu, de Longueville, d’Alençon, de Blois, de St. Pol, d’Harcourt, de Grandpré, de Braisne, and other grands seigneurs and notable fighters including Matthieu de Roye, Coucy’s former guardian, made up the list. King Jean was to be returned as far as Calais, where he would remain until a first payment of 600,000 écus was made on his ransom and a preliminary transfer of territories had taken place. He would then be liberated with ten of his fellow prisoners from Poitiers and replaced by forty hostages of the Third Estate—the real source of money—four from Paris and two from each of eighteen other towns. Thereafter, sovereignty of towns and castles was to be transferred, and the remainder of the ransom paid, 400,000 at a time, in six installments at six-month intervals, with one fifth of the hostages released upon each delivery.
The Treaty of Brétigny was “too lightly given to the great grief and prejudice of the kingdom of France” in the judgment of the anonymous chronicler of the Quatre Valois, of whom nothing is known except that he was a citizen of Rouen. Fortresses and good towns were given up, he wrote, that “could not have easily been conquered,” which was true enough, but the treaty was excused on the ground that it was necessary to deliver the King.
Delivering France from the companies was even more urgent. In an appendix to the treaty, Edward forbade on pain of banishment any further acts against the peace by English men of war, but there was no firm intent behind the provision and it brought France no surcease. In fact the Treaty of Brétigny opened the period of the companies’ greatest flourishing, as a swarm of newly discharged soldiers in groups labeled the Tard-Venus (Late-Comers) scavenged on the heels of their predecessors and gradually swelled the ranks of the mercenary armies.
Efforts to raise the ransom were stretched to the extreme. Towns, counties, and noble domains assessed themselves, among them the house of Coucy, which contributed 27,500 francs. Sales taxes of twelve pence in the pound were levied on Paris and the surrounding country, to be paid by nobles and clergy and “all persons capable of paying.” When returns were meager, recourse was had to the Jews, who were invited back on a grant of twenty years’ residence for which they were to pay twenty florins each on re-entry and seven florins annually thereafter.
Jean himself sold his eleven-year-old daughter Isabelle in marriage to the nine-year-old son of the rich and rampant Visconti family of Milan for 600,000 gold florins. The alliance of the King of France with an upstart Italian tyrant was almost as great a wonder as the defeat of Poitiers. To obtain the princess, Galeazzo Visconti, the bridegroom’s father, offered half the money cash down and half in return for a territorial dowry. The marriage was to take place in July, immediately following betrothal as was customary, but had to be postponed when the princess fell ill of a fever. What anxiety must have hovered over a daughter’s sickbed, on which so much gold depended!
At that time the plague had re-appeared what was to be a major recurrence in the following year. After escaping to country villas for the summer months while thousands died in Milan and corpses rotted in sealed houses, the Visconti brothers returned as the plague abated, and sent throughout Italy for jewels, silks, and gorgeous raiment in preparation of the wedding. Guests were assured it “would be the greatest that Lombardy had ever seen.” The French princess, having recovered, was dispatched to Milan via Savoy regardless of risk, and duly married in mid-October in festivities of “imperial” luxury lasting three days. A thousand guests with all their retainers converged upon the city for the occasion. The opulent show put on by the Visconti—and paid for by their subjects—only underlined what was widely seen as a humiliation for France. “Who could imagine,” wrote Matteo Villani, considering the greatness of the crown of France, “that the wearer of that crown should be reduced to such straits as virtually to sell his own flesh at auction?” The fate of the King’s daughter seemed to him “truly an indication of the infelicity of human affairs.”
King Jean meanwhile had been waiting in English custody at Calais since July along with his youngest son, now called Philip the Bold. The surname of the future Duke of Burgundy was earned at a banquet given by King Edward for the prisoners of Poitiers, in the course of which the young prince jumped up from the table in a fury and struck the master butler, crying, “Where did you learn to serve the King of England before the King of France when they are at the same table?” “Verily, cousin,” commented Edward, “you are Philip the Bold.” In 1361, on the death of Philip de Rouvre, King Jean took over the duchy of Burgundy for his youngest son who was to make it a fateful inheritance.
On October 24, 1360, a first payment of 400,000 écus on Jean’s ransom, collected mostly in the north, was delivered to the English at Calais. The Visconti gold was so entangled in complex financial deals, dowries, and exchanges between Jean and Galeazzo that it seems not to have assisted the ransom. Though less than the stipulated sum, the 400,000 was accepted, and the peace treaty, with some modifications, thereupon formally ratified as the Treaty of Calais. The signature of Enguerrand de Coucy as one of the chief hostages was added to the document. After jointly swearing with Edward to keep the peace perpetually according to the terms of the treaty, the two Kings parted, and Jean after four years’ imprisonment returned at last to his ravaged country.
Four days after his liberation, on October 30, the party of French hostages in the custody of King Edward and his sons sailed for England. Some were to stay for ten years, some to return in two or three, some to die in exile. Among their varying fates, Enguerrand’s was unique: he was to become the son-in-law of the King of England.
Immortality traveled with him across the Channel. Whether on the same ship or another of the convoy, a young clerk of bourgeois family from Valenciennes in Hainault was journeying to England to present an account he had written of the Battle of Poitiers to Queen Philippa of England, his countrywoman, in hopes of obtaining her patronage. By name Jean Froissart, aged 22 or 23, he succeeded in pleasing the Queen and, with her encouragement, began collecting material for the chronicle that was to make him the Herodotus of his age. Consciously the celebrator of chivalry, he wrote with intent that “the honorable and noble adventures and feats of arms, done and achieved by the wars of France and England, should notably be inregistered and put in perpetual memory.” Within those confines, no more complete and vivid chronicle exists. Crystallized in the “perpetual memory??
? Froissart achieved for them, the nobles of his time forever ride, brilliant, avaricious, valiant, cruel. If, as Sir Walter Scott complained, Froissart had “marvelous little sympathy” for the “villain churls,” that was a condition of the context.
The convoy carrying the hostages contained an extraordinary concentration of the primary actors of the day. Among them was another observer who had immortality to bestow. Humanity was Geoffrey Chaucer’s subject, and all of 14th century society—except the lowest—his scope. Twenty years old at this time, born in the same year as Enguerrand de Coucy, he had accompanied the English army to France as a member of the household of the King’s second son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence. While in a foraging party outside Reims, he had been captured by the French and ransomed by King Edward for £16, which compared favorably with the £6 13s. 4d. paid in compensation for Lord Andrew Lutterall’s dead horse and with the £2 paid to ransom the average archer. No documentary evidence attests to Chaucer’s presence on the return voyage to England, but since the Duke of Clarence sailed with the hostages, it is more than likely that Chaucer, as a member of his retinue, accompanied him.
In due time Coucy was to meet and know Chaucer and become a friend and patron of Froissart, although there is nothing to show whether the three young men made contact during the voyage. Some time afterward, however, while eagerly observing everyone who might be material for his history, Froissart took notice of his future patron. At a court festivity in England when elaborate dances and singing preceded the banquet, he observed how “the young lord de Coucy shined in dancing and caroling whenever it was his turn. He was in great favor with both the French and English, for whatever he chose to do he did well and with grace and all praised him for the agreeable manner in which he addressed everyone.” In the talents that a stylish young nobleman was supposed to show, Enguerrand was clearly an accomplished performer who, not surprisingly, attracted attention.
Pursuit of adventures under Mars and Venus was supposed to be the business of a young knight’s life. “If at arms you excel,” advises the God of Love in the Roman de la Rose, “you will be ten times loved. If you have a good voice, seek no excuse when asked to sing, for good singing gives pleasure.” Dancing and playing the flute and strings also aid the lover on his way to a lady’s heart. He should likewise keep his hands, nails, and teeth clean, lace his sleeves, comb his hair, but use no paint or rouge, which are not fitting even for women. He should dress handsomely and fashionably and wear fresh new shoes, taking care that they fit so well that “common folk will discuss how you got them on and where you entered them.” He should finish off with a garland of flowers, which costs little.
How far Enguerrand conformed to this ideal cannot be said, for no portrait exists, which is not exceptional since, except for royal personages, the art of portraiture was hardly yet practiced. The 14th century seems to have been interested in individual appearance and character traits only in the case of ruling figures or an occasional oddity like Bertrand Du Guesclin. Other people are undifferentiated by chronicles and illustrators and become personalities only through their deeds. For Enguerrand de Coucy two clues to appearance exist; one that he was tall and strong, as his figure was described under a rain of blows in his last battle; the other that he may have been dark and, in maturity, saturnine, as he appears in a portrait painted more than 200 years after his death. Since the portrait was commissioned by a Celestine monastery which Enguerrand had founded, some tradition of the founder’s looks may have survived to instruct the artist, but the face portrayed could just as well have been imaginary.
The most vivid description of all is non-specific; yet in his singing and dancing, elegant horsemanship, charm of manner, and lover’s talents, it is impossible not to see the young Enguerrand de Coucy in the Squire of the Canterbury Tales. Which is not to say that Chaucer, who saw knights and squires every day during his career at court, had Enguerrand particularly in mind when he drew the sparkling portrait in the Prologue. Nevertheless it fits.
A lovyere and a lusty bacheler
With lokkes crulled [curled] as they were leyd in presse,
Of twenty yeer of age he was, I gesse.
Of his stature he was of evene lengthe,
And wonderly deliver, and great of strengthe.
And he had been sometime in chevachye,
In Flaundres, in Artoys, and Picardye,
And born him wel, as of so litel space,
In hope to stonden in his lady grace.
Embroudered was he as it were a mede
Al ful of fresshe floures whyte and rede.
Singing he was or floytinge [fluting] all the day;
He was as fresh as is the month of May.
Short was his goune, with sieves long and wyde.
Wel coude he sitte on hors and faire ryde.
He coude songes make and wel endyte,
Jouste and eek daunce, and wel purtreye and wryte.
So hote he lovede that by nightertale [nighttime]
He sleep namore than dooth a nightingale.
Headed by the four “Lilies,” Anjou, Berry, Orléans, and Bourbon, the hostages in their silks and parti-colors, “embroidered like a field of flowers,” brought no less splendor to England than the prisoners of Poitiers whom they replaced. They were required to live at their own expense—considerable in the case of the Duc d’Orléans, who had sixteen servants with him and a total retinue of over sixty. Handsomely entertained with banquets and minstrels and gifts of jewels, the hostages moved about freely and joined in hunting and hawking, dancing and flirting. French and English chivalry took pride in treating one another courteously as prisoners, however greedy the ransom—in contrast to Germans, who, according to Froissart’s scornful report, threw their prisoners “in chains and irons like thieves and murderers to extort a greater ransom.”
Coucy would not have felt alien in England. His family possessed lands there inherited from his great-grandmother Catherine de Baliol, although these had been confiscated during the war by King Edward and handed over as a munificent reward to the captor of the King of Scotland.
English and French, like English and Americans of a later day, shared a common culture and, among nobles, a common language, the legacy of the Norman Conquest. At about the time the hostages arrived, the use of French by the upper class was beginning to be replaced by the national speech of the commoners. Before the Black Death, French had been the language of the court, Parliament, and the lawcourts. King Edward himself probably did not speak English with any fluency. French was even taught in the schools, much to the resentment of the bourgeois, whose children, according to a complaint of 1340, “are Compelled to leave the use of their own language, a thing which is known in no other country.” When many clerics who could teach French were eliminated by the Black Death, children in the grammar schools began learning their lessons in English—with both profit and loss, in the opinion of John of Trevisa. They learned grammar more quickly than before, he wrote, but, lacking French, they were at a disadvantage when they “scholle passe the se and travayle in strange londes.”
Because of its island limits and earlier development of parliamentary power, England was more cohesive than France, with a greater national feeling, enhanced by growing antagonism to the papacy. Now with the ransoms of two kings, Jean of France and David of Scotland, the triumphs in battle and the territorial gains, England had turned the tables on William the Conqueror. Yet beneath the pride and glory and flow of cash, the effects of war were gnawing at the country.
The plunderers of France brought home the habit of brigandage. Many in the invasion forces had been outlaws and criminals to begin with who had joined up for a promised pardon. Others were made lawless and violent by the approved daily practice in France. Returning home, some formed companies in imitation of their fellows who had stayed in France. “Arrayed as for war,” they robbed and assaulted travelers, took captives, held villages for ransom, killed, mutilated, and spread terror. A statute of 1362 instructe
d justices to gather information “on all those who have been plunderers and robbers beyond the seas and are now returned to go wandering and will not work as they were used to do.”
In the spring of 1361, twelve years since the passing of the great plague, the dreaded black swellings reappeared in France and England, bringing “a very great mortality of hasty death.” An early victim was the Queen of France, Jean’s second wife, who died in September 1360 ahead of the main epidemic. The Pestis Secunda, sometimes called the “mortality of children,” took a particularly high toll of the young, who had no immunity from the earlier outbreak, and, according to John of Reading, “especially struck the masculine sex.” The deaths of the young in the Second Pest halted repopulation, haunting the age with a sense of decline. In the urge to procreate, women in England, according to Polychronicon, “took any kind of husbands, strangers, the feeble and imbeciles alike, and without shame mated with inferiors.”
Because the pneumonic form was absent or insignificant, the death rate as a whole was less than that of the first epidemic, although equally erratic. In Paris 70 to 80 died daily; at Argenteuil, a few miles away where the Oise joins the Seine, the number of hearths was reduced from 1,700 to 50. Flanders and Picardy suffered heavily, and Avignon spectacularly. Through its choked and unsanitary quarters the plague swept like flames through straw. Between March and July 1360 “17,000” were said to have died.