A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

  Hired by one or another of the Italian city-states in their chronic wars, Hawkwood could soon command the highest price for his services. However ruthless his methods—and they inspired the proverb “an Italianized Englishman is a devil incarnate”—he spent no time on mere brigandage, but contracted his company to whatever power had the capacity to pay, on either side in any war. He fought for Pisa against Florence and vice versa, for the papal forces against the Visconti and vice versa, and on leaving the service of the Visconti, correctly turned back to Galeazzo the castles the White Company had conquered. War was business to Hawkwood, provided that his contracts exempted him from fighting against the King of England. When he died after 35 years in Italy, rich in lands, pensions, and renown, he was buried in the cathedral of Florence and commemorated by Uccello’s equestrian fresco over the door. National pride in the year of his death reclaimed him; at the personal request of Richard II, his body was returned to England for burial in his native town.

  In Italy the companies were used virtually as official armies in public wars. In France they were out of control. The only effective counter-force would have been a permanent army, which was not yet within the vision of the state nor within its financial capacity. The only feasible strategy against the companies was to pay them to go somewhere else. Since the King of Hungary was appealing for help against the Turks, a concerted effort to drain off the menace in a crusade was made in 1365 by the Pope, the Emperor, and the King of France.

  The person nominated by the former Regent, now Charles V, to lead the crusade was a strange new captain as rough as his Breton name, which the French rendered De Clequin or Kaisquin or Clesquy until fame settled on Bertrand Du Guesclin. Flat-nosed, dark-skinned, short, and heavy, “there was none so ugly from Rennes to Dinant.” So begins Cuvelier’s rhymed epic designed to create a French hero to rival Chandos Herald’s panegyric of the Black Prince. “Wherefore his parents hated him so sore that often in their hearts they wished him dead. Rascal, Fool, or Clown they were wont to call him; so despised was he as an ill-conditioned child that squires and servants made light of him.” The parents were poor nobility. The uncouth son, unspoiled by tournaments, learned to fight in the guerrilla warfare of Brittany in the service of Charles of Blois, becoming skilled in the tactics of ambush and ruse, the use of disguise, spies, secret messengers, smoke clouds to hide movements, bribes of money and wine, torture and killing of prisoners, and surprise attacks launched during the “Truce of God.” He was intrepid as he was unscrupulous, fierce with the sword but ever ready to use stratagem; hard, tricky, and ruthless as any écorcheur.

  Born between 1315 and 1320, he did not become a knight until he was over 35 and had won local renown in the defense of Rennes. His bold capture of a fortress from the Navarrese, witnessed by the Regent, began his prominence in the royal service. Though Charles V was not a fighter himself, he had a fighting purpose. Through all the years since the Treaty of Brétigny, his single silent overriding aim was to frustrate the renunciations of territory that would have dismembered the realm. Having no wish to lead a host in battle, he knew he needed a military leader, and found one in this “hog in armor,” the first effective commander comparable to the Black Prince or Sir John Chandos to appear on the French side.

  In 1364, the opening year of Charles’s reign, Du Guesclin led the French to victory, then defeat, in two historic battles. In the first at Cocherel in Normandy against the forces of Charles of Navarre, the numbers were small but the outcome was large, for it led to the elimination of Navarre’s chronic threat to Paris. The battle was even more notable for the capture of Navarre’s cousin, the Captal de Buch, whom Charles afterward liberated without asking ransom in the hope of winning over this heart of turbulence to the French side. The second battle five months later, at Auray on the rocky Breton coast, was decisive for the war in Brittany. Charles of Blois, the French candidate for the dukedom, was killed and Du Guesclin taken prisoner. This was the last clash of the rival Dukes of Brittany, leaving the English candidate, Jean de Montfort, in possession, although by the terms of the Treaty of Brétigny the dukedom remained a French fief. The defeat was in fact turned by Charles V into a source of advantage. By means of a huge pension, he persuaded Blois’s widow to yield her claim, thus ending the running war and the bleeding of French strength. Charles V was one who preferred not to fight where he could buy.

  Du Guesclin, after being ransomed, did not fall from favor. His rise had been predicted by astrology and the prophecies of Merlin, which may have appealed to Charles, who, for all his astuteness, was a devotee of astrology, as was Du Guesclin. Besides keeping an astrologer at hand on all his campaigns, Bertrand was also married to one, a lady trained in the subject and famed for her occult powers. The King’s interest was more scientific. Like most rulers, he employed a court astrologer who advised on propitious times for action and carried out confidential missions; but going beyond that, Charles commissioned translations of astrological works and founded a college of astrology at the University of Paris which he equipped with library, instruments, and royal scholarships.

  In 1365 he summoned to his court Thomas of Pisano, a doctor of astrology from the University of Bologna whose imaginative if somewhat risky talents must have suited the King because he kept him on at a salary of 100 francs a month. It is not impossible that Charles’s perpetual illnesses may have owed something to a medicine containing mercury prepared for him by Thomas, for which the doctor was much blamed. Undeterred, Thomas went on to an experiment “unique and ineffable,” of which the object was to expel the English from France. Out of lead and tin, he fashioned hollow images of nude men, filled them with earth collected from the center and four corners of France, inscribed the foreheads with the names of King Edward or one of his captains, and, when the constellations were right, buried them face down while he recited spells to the effect that this was perpetual expulsion, annihilation, and burial of the said King, captains, and all adherents.

  When it came to removing the companies, a more practical method was through crusade in Hungary. The Emperor Charles IV, anxious to repel the Turks, came himself to Avignon with an offer to underwrite the costs of the journey and guarantee the revenues of Bohemia for three years to pay the mercenaries. His appearance at mass with Urban V on Whitsunday, Emperor and Pope sitting side by side, at peace for the first time in living memory, cast a spell of hope over the occasion. Urban announced that the tithes of the French clergy would be turned over to the King of France to enable him to finance his share of the enterprise. Despite all the promised money, and Paradise too—for excommunication would be lifted by crusade—the mercenaries viewed the prospect of Hungary with the greatest distaste, asking “why should they go so far to make war?” But pressed by the strength of sentiment for their departure and given Arnaut de Cervole, one of their own, as leader replacing Du Guesclin, some were persuaded. From various places, various bodies set forth in the summer of 1365 for a rendezvous in Lorraine within the Empire.

  The rest was fiasco. The brigands’ terrible repute roused the population of Alsace to desperate resistance. Despite Arnaut’s assurances that he had no designs on the country and wanted only to water his horses in the Rhine, the citizens of Strasbourg refused to let them cross the bridge, and the Emperor was forced by his subjects to appear with an army to bar the way. The companies’ own reluctance more than the people’s resistance turned them back within a month. In the meantime a new enterprise had need of them in Spain.

  The Anglo-French war had not really been ended in Brétigny; it had moved down to Spain to take sides in a struggle for the crown between Pedro the Cruel, King of Castile, whose oppressions had aroused a revolt, and his illegitimate brother Don Enrique of Trastamare, eldest of his father’s ten bastards and leader of the opposition. The issue affected the balance of forces swirling around Languedoc, Aquitaine, and Navarre. Since Pedro was supported by the English and had furthermore abandoned and reputedly murdered his wife, who was a sister of th
e Queen of France, and since Don Enrique was the protégé of the French, whose accession would place an ally on an important throne, the struggle sucked in the former antagonists. Furthermore, Don Pedro was an enemy of the Pope, who had excommunicated him for refusing to obey a summons to Avignon to answer charges of wicked conduct.

  The Spanish cockpit offered, under the guise of a crusade against the Moors of Granada, an ideal outlet and perhaps a grave for the companies. Du Guesclin as the appointed leader had persuaded twenty-five captains of the most dangerous companies, including Hugh of Calveley and Eustache d’Aubrecicourt and others who had been his opponents at Auray, to follow him to Spain. High pay was promised, but the men of the companies had no intention of crossing the Pyrenees without a grip on hard cash. The confrontation by which it was obtained, told with relish in Cuvelier’s epic, is a microcosm of the 14th century, even though it has been said of Cuvelier that “the tyranny of rhyme left him little leisure for accuracy.”

  Marching to Avignon instead of directly to Spain, the companies camped within sight of the papal palace across the Rhône at Villeneuve. There the Pope sent a trembling cardinal to tell them “that I who have the power of God and all the saints, angels and archangels, will excommunicate the whole company if they do not go from hence without delay.” Met courteously by Du Guesclin and the “learned, wise and prudent knight” Marshal d’Audrehem, veteran of Poitiers, the cardinal was asked if he had brought any money; he tactfully replied that he had been sent to learn their purpose in coming to Avignon.

  “Sir,” responded d’Audrehem, “you see before you men who for ten years have committed many evil deeds in the realm of France, who are now on their way to fight the miscreants in Granada,” and whose leaders were conducting them there “so that they should not return again to France.” Before leaving, each was a suppliant for absolution, therefore the Holy Father was begged “to release us from all our sins and from punishment of the grievous and weighty crimes which all of us have committed since infancy, and besides, that for our voyage he would present us with 200,000 francs.”

  “Changing his face,” the cardinal replied that, though their numbers were great, he thought he could assure them of absolution, but not the money. “Sir,” quickly intervened Bertrand, “we must have all that the Marshal has asked, for I tell you that there are many here who care little for absolution; they would rather have the money.” Adding that “we are leading them to where they can rightfully pillage without doing harm to Christian people,” he urged that unless their demands were met, the men could not be managed, and the longer they waited, the sorrier it would be for Villeneuve.

  Hastening back over the bridge, the cardinal told the Pope first about the companies’ request for absolution, saying that he had brought their confession of crimes. “They have … committed all the evil that one could do and more than one could tell; so they beg for mercy and pardon of God and full absolution from you.”

  “They shall have it,” said the Pope without hesitation, “provided that they then leave the country.” Then the additional matter of 200,000 francs was laid before him. From his window Urban could see the men-at-arms seizing livestock, chickens and geese, good white bread, and everything they could carry away. Summoning a council for advice on how to raise the money, he adopted the suggestion that it be raised from a tax on the bourgeois of Avignon, “so that the treasures of God might not be diminished.” When the money thus collected was brought to Du Guesclin by the Provost of Avignon along with the absolutions signed and sealed, Du Guesclin asked if it had come from the papal treasury. On being told that it had been contributed by the commons of Avignon, he denounced the avarice of Holy Church “very irreverently” and swore he would not accept a penny unless it came from the clergy; all the taxed money must be restored to the people who had paid it. “Sir,” said the Provost, “God grant you a happy life; the poor people will be greatly rejoiced.” The money was duly returned to the people and replaced by 200,000 francs from the papal treasury, for which the Pope quickly indemnified himself by imposing a tithe on the clergy of France.

  On the English side, image-making was at work too, notably by Chandos Herald, who celebrated the Black Prince’s rule of Aquitaine at this time as “seven years of joy, peace and pleasantness,” when in fact it was the reverse. The Prince’s arrogance and extravagance were arousing in his Gascon subjects a fury of resentment and a turning toward France. Imbued with ideals of largesse and the nobility of bankruptcy, the Prince was indifferent to any balance between income and expenditure. He made up the gap by taxes which alienated the loyalty and allegiance he was supposed as viceroy to promote. “Since the time that God was born, never was open house kept so handsomely and honorably.” He fed “more than fourscore knights and full four times as many squires”—some 400 people—at his table every day, maintained a huge retinue of squires, pages, valets, stewards, clerks, hawkers, and huntsmen; held banquets, hunting parties, and tournaments, and would himself be served by none but a knight wearing golden spurs. His wife, the beauteous Joan, outdid her sister-in-law Isabella in sumptuous fabrics, furs, jewels, gold, and enamel. The Prince’s reign, Chandos Herald enthusiastically reported, was marked by “liberality, high purpose, good sense, moderation, righteousness, reason, justice and restraint.” Except for the first two, the Prince had none of these qualities.

  Du Guesclin’s warriors went off to Spain, where they fought with such effect and dispatch that Don Pedro fled, Don Enrique was crowned King, and the companies, of whom too few found a grave, returned all too soon to France. The interests of England, however, renewed the struggle. Don Pedro appealed to the Black Prince, who, moved by eagerness for war and glory, took up his cause. He was moved, too, by the need to break a Franco-Castilian alliance which, owing to a strong Spanish fleet, threatened English communication with Aquitaine and heightened the persistent English fear of invasion. Finances, as always, were crucial. Don Pedro swore to repay all costs when he had regained the throne, and the Black Prince, though advised not to rely on a man so stained by villainies, refused to forgo the battle. With Du Guesclin and the French companies again supporting Don Enrique, the war was reopened in 1367 and the outcome reversed.

  At the Battle of Najera in April 1367 the English won a victory famous in medieval annals, and the French suffered another of the defeats that were undercutting not only the renown but the fact of military supremacy. Don Enrique had been advised by Du Guesclin and Marshal d’Audrehem not to risk a pitched battle against the Prince and “the best fighting men on earth,” but rather to cut off their supplies and “to famish them without striking a blow”—the same advice given and ignored by the French at Poitiers. For various reasons of terrain, weather, and because it would have seemed ignoble to the new King’s Spanish following, the advice was impractical and the result catastrophic. Don Enrique fled, Don Pedro was restored, and Bertrand Du Guesclin a second time taken prisoner. Although inclined to hold him, the Prince let himself be stung by Bertrand’s taunt that he was keeping him “out of fear,” and agreed to let him be ransomed at a stiff price of 100,000 francs.

  If glory was lost at Najera, the defeat, like that of Auray, was not without advantage, for only battered remnants of the companies returned to France. For this relief Du Guesclin received the credit, so that, as Deschamps was to write, all the prayers of the common people were lavished upon him. Further relief resulted from the deaths of the bandit leader Seguin de Badefol and the “Archpriest”—the former poisoned at dinner by Charles of Navarre to avoid paying him, and the latter assassinated by his own followers. The respite, however, was short. When Don Pedro, as predicted, defaulted on his debts, the Black Prince, hard-pressed by angry unpaid troops, “encouraged them underhand” to filter back into France to supply themselves there by the usual forceful means. Small in numbers but war-hardened and formidable, Anglo-Gascon bands made their way into Champagne and Picardy, “where they did so much damage and wicked acts as caused great tribulation.”
r />   For the Prince, the glory of Najera quickly turned sour; the victory for him was the peak of Fortune’s Wheel—all the rest was to be downward. His pride alienated the Gascons, for “he did not value a knight at one button, nor a burgher nor a burgher’s wife, nor any common folk.” When he transferred the burden of Don Pedro’s debts to the people of Guienne in the form of annual hearth taxes in 1367–68, Gascon lords rebelled and re-opened negotiations with Charles V for a return to French allegiance. A cause and an instrument for upsetting the Treaty of Brétigny was now in the French King’s hands.

  Chapter 11

  The Gilded Shroud

  Such was the France to which Coucy returned in 1367. His own domain, judging by a major step he took in the following year, suffered from the shortage of labor that was afflicting landowners everywhere since the Black Death. Picardy, in the path of English penetration from the start, had suffered not only from invaders but also from the Jacquerie and the ravaging of the Anglo-Navarrese. Rather than pay the repeated taxes that followed upon French defeats, peasants deserted to nearby imperial territory in Hainault and across the Meuse.

  To hold labor on the land, Coucy’s rather belated remedy was enfranchisement of the serfs, or non-free peasants and villagers, of his domain. From “hatred of servitude,” his charter acknowledged, they had been leaving, “to live outside our lands, in certain places, freeing themselves without our permission and making themselves free whenever it pleased them.” (A serf who reached territory outside his lord’s writ and stayed for a year was regarded as free.) Except for the charter issued to Coucy-le-Château in 1197, Coucy’s territory was late in the dissolution of serfdom, perhaps owing to former prosperity. Free peasants were already in the majority in France before the Black Death. Abolition had occurred less from any moral judgment of the evils of servitude than as a means of raising ready money from rents. Though the paid labor of free tenants was more expensive than the unpaid labor of serfs, the cost was more than made up by the rents, and, besides, tenants did not have to be fed on the job, which had amounted to an important expense.