A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century Read online

  By Barbara W. Tuchman

  BIBLE AND SWORD (1956)

  THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM (1958)

  THE GUNS OF AUGUST (1962)

  THE PROUD TOWER (1966)

  STILWELL AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN CHINA (1971)

  NOTES FROM CHINA (1972)

  A DISTANT MIRROR (1978)

  PRACTICING HISTORY (1981)

  THE MARCH OF FOLLY (1984)

  THE FIRST SALUTE (1988)

  A Ballantine Book

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group

  Copyright © 1978 by Barbara W. Tuchman

  Maps copyright © 1978 by Anita Karl

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  This edition published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 79-88536

  eISBN: 978-0-307-79369-0

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Map

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Maps and Illustrations

  Foreword

  Part One 1. “I Am the Sire de Coucy”: The Dynasty

  2. Born to Woe: The Century

  3. Youth and Chivalry

  4. War

  5. “This Is the End of the World”: The Black Death

  6. The Battle of Poitiers

  7. Decapitated France: The Bourgeois Rising and the Jacquerie

  Photo Insert

  8. Hostage in England

  9. Enguerrand and Isabella

  10. Sons of Iniquity

  11. The Gilded Shroud

  12. Double Allegiance

  13. Coucy’s War

  14. England’s Turmoil

  15. The Emperor in Paris

  16. The Papal Schism

  Part Two 17. Coucy’s Rise

  18. The Worms of the Earth Against the Lions

  19. The Lure of Italy

  20. A Second Norman Conquest

  21. The Fiction Cracks

  22. The Siege of Barbary

  23. In a Dark Wood

  Photo Insert

  24. Danse Macabre

  25. Lost Opportunity

  26. Nicopolis

  27. Hung Be the Heavens with Black

  Epilogue

  Bibliography

  Reference Notes

  About the Author

  “For mankind is ever the same and nothing is lost out of nature, though everything is altered.”

  —JOHN DRYDEN,

  “On the Characters in the Canterbury Tales,”

  in Preface to Fables, Ancient and Modern

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to express my thanks to all who have helped me in one way or another to write this book: to Maître Henri Crepin, Deputy Mayor of Coucy-le-Château and president of the Association for Restoration of the Castle of Coucy and Its Environs, for his hospitality and guidance; to my editor Robert Gottlieb for enthusiasm and belief in the book as well as judicious improvements; to my daughter Alma Tuchman for substantial research, my friend Katrina Romney for sustained interest and to both for critical reading. For first aid in medieval complexities, I am especially indebted to Professors Elizabeth A. R. Brown and John Henneman; also to Professor Howard Garey for elucidating problems of medieval French, and to Mr. Richard Famiglietti for the benefit of his familiarity with sources in the period. For various advice, guidance, translations and answers to queries, I am grateful to Professors John Benton, Giles Constable, Eugene Cox, J. N. Hillgarth, Harry A. Miskimin, Lynn White, Mrs. Phyllis W. G. Gordan, John Plummer of the Morgan Library, and, in France, Professors Robert Fossier of the Sorbonne, Raymond Cazelles of Chantilly, Philippe Wolff of Toulouse, Mme. Therese d’Alveney of the Bibliothèque Nationale, M. Yves Metman of the Archives Nationales, Bureaux des Sceaux, M. Georges Dumas of the Archives de l’Aisne, and M. Depouilly of the Museum of Soissons; also to Professor Irwin Saunders for introductions to the Institute for Balkan Studies in Sofia, and to Professors Topkova-Zaimova and Elisabeth Todorova of that Institute for assisting my visit to Nicopolis; also to Widener Library at Harvard and Sterling Library at Yale for borrowing privileges, and to the helpful and knowledgeable staff of the New York Public Library for assistance of many kinds. To unnamed others who appeared briefly to lend a hand on my journey of seven years, my gratitude is equal.

  Maps and Illustrations

  Maps

  Europe in the 14th Century

  France after the Treaty of Brétigny, 1360

  Italy in 1360

  The Swiss Campaign, 1375–76

  Nicopolis and Other Castles on the Danube (BN: Ms. Lat. 7239, fo. 113–14)

  Illustrations

  COLOR PLATES

  1. The royal palace in Paris (BN: Ms. Fr. 23279, fo. 53)

  2, 3. The Effects of Good Government, in the City and in the Country, by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Scala/Editorial Photocolor Archives)

  4. The Battle of Poitiers (BN: Ms. Fr. 2643, fo. 207)

  5. Deer hunt from Hours of Marguerite d’Orléans (BN: Ms. Lat. 1156B, fo. 163)

  6. Guidoriccio da Fogliano, by Simone Martini (Scala/Editorial Photocolor Archives)

  7. Banquet for the Emperor (BN: Ms. Fr. 2813, fo. 473v)

  8. Departure for Mahdia campaign (British Museum: Harleian mss. 4379, fo. 60b)

  9. Bal des Ardents (BN: Ms. Fr. 2646, fo. 176)

  BLACK AND WHITE PLATES

  7.1Coucy-le-Château (from Androuet Du Cerceau, Les plus excellents bâtiments de France, 1648)

  7.2The abandoned castle in later years (from Alexandre Du Sommerard, Les Arts au Moyen Age, 10th ser., pl. IX)

  7.3 Fortune’s wheel (Morgan Library: Ms. 324, fo. 34v)

  7.4 Coucy’s seals (AN: Bureaux des sceaux)

  7.5 Chaucer’s squire (The Huntington Library: Ellesmere ms. 26, C9)

  7.6 A 14th century carriage (Zentralbibliothek, Zürich)

  7.7 View of Paris (BN: Ms. Fr. 2645, fo. 321v)

  7.8 A country village (BN: Ms. Fr. 22531)

  7.9 Charles of Navarre (Photo: Giraudon)

  7.10 Jean II (The Louvre)

  7.11 The Black Prince (Dean and Chapter of Canterbury)

  7.12 English archers (British Museum: Addit. mss. 42130, fo. 147v)

  7.13 View of London (British Museum: Royal mss. 16F 11, fo. 73)

  7.14 The Last Judgment (Archives photographiques, Paris)

  7.15 The world as a globe (BN: Ms. 574, fo. 42)

  7.16 The child’s education (Morgan Library: Ms. 456, fo. 68v)

  7.17 Pillage and burning (BN: Ms. Fr. 2644, fo. 135)

  7.18 A charivari (BN: Ms. Fr. 146, fo. 34)

  7.19 The fourth horseman of the apocalypse (Musée Condé, Chantilly; Photo: Giraudon)

  7.20 The Triumph of Death (Scala/Editorial Photocolor Archives)

  7.21 Burial of the plague victims (Bibliothèque royale, Bruxelles: Ms. 13076–77, fo. 24; Photo: Giraudon)

  7.22 Penitential procession (Musée Condé, Chantilly; Photo: Giraudon)

  7.23 A Cardinal (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection, Munsey Fund, 1932, and Gift of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., 1947)

  7.24 Knights (AN; Photo: Giraudon)

  7.25 Peasants (Musée Condé, Chantilly; Photo: Giraudon)

  7.26 Slaughter of the Jacques (BN
: Ms. Fr. 2643, fo. 226v)

  7.27 Murder of the marshals (BN: Ms. Fr. 2813, fo. 409v)

  7.28 The war-dog (BN: Ms. Lat. 7239, fo. 61r)

  7.29 The Battle of Sluys (BN: Ms. Fr. 2643, fo. 72)

  7.30 Widowed Rome (BN: Ms. Ital. 81, fo. 18)

  7.31 Florence (BN: Vb, 37 fol.)

  23.1 Papal palace at Avignon (Prints Division, New York Public Library)

  23.2 Coins (American Numismatic Society)

  23.3 A Sienese army (from Aldo Cairola, Il Palazzo Pubblico di Siena, Copyright© 1963 Editalia)

  23.4, 23.5. The Swiss campaign (Berner Chronik, facsimile ed., Bern, 1943, vol. 1, pls. 202 and 206, Copyright 1943, Aare Verlag Bern)

  23.6 Sir John Hawkwood (Scala/Editorial Photocolor Archives)

  23.7 Pierre de Luxemburg (Musée Calvet, Avignon; Photo: Braun)

  23.8 Burning of the Jews (Bibliothèque royale, Bruxelles: Ms. 13076–77, fo. 12v

  23.9 Jew (Cathedral of Tarragona; Photo Mas, Barcelona)

  23.10 Christine de Pisan (BN: Ms. Fr. 835, fo. 1)

  23.11 Jean de Berry (Archives photographiques, Paris)

  23.12 Philip of Burgundy (Photo: Giraudon)

  23.13 Charles V receiving Aristotle’s Ethics (Bibliothèque royale, Bruxelles: Ms. 9505–06, fo. 1)

  23.14 Pope Urban VI (Photo: Leonard Von Matt, Buochs, Switzerland)

  23.15 Clement VII (Photo: Giraudon)

  23.16 The siege of Mahdia (BN: Ms. Fr. 2646, fo. 79)

  23.17 Louis d’Orléans (Photo: Giraudon)

  23.18 The Visconti device (BN: Ms. Lat. 6340, fo. 901v)

  23.19 Gian Galeazzo Visconti (The Louvre; Photo: Giraudon)

  23.20 Froissart offering his Chronicles to Charles VI (BN: Ms. Fr., nouv. acq., 9604, fo. 1)

  23.21 Gerson preaching (Bibliothèque municipale de Valencienne; Photo: Giraudon)

  23.22, 23.23 Bureau de la Rivière and Cardinal Jean de La Grange (Archives photographiques, Paris)

  23.24 Effigy of Guillaume de Harsigny (Museum of Laon)

  23.25 Danse Macabre (Archives photographiques, Paris)

  23.26 Lamentation of the Virgin (BN: Ms. Lat. 9471, fo. 135)

  23.27 Massacre of the prisoners at Nicopolis (BN: Ms. Fr. 2646, fo. 255v)

  23.28 Posthumous portrait of Coucy (Museum of Soissons)

  23.29 Ruins of the donjon of Coucy in 1917 (Association for the Restoration of Coucy and Its Environs)

  23.30 Coucy-le-Château today (Photo: S.P.A.D.E.M.)

  Foreword

  The Period, the Protagonist, the Hazards

  The genesis of this book was a desire to find out what were the effects on society of the most lethal disaster of recorded history—that is to say, of the Black Death of 1348–50, which killed an estimated one third of the population living between India and Iceland. Given the possibilities of our own time, the reason for my interest is obvious. The answer proved elusive because the 14th century suffered so many “strange and great perils and adversities” (in the words of a contemporary) that its disorders cannot be traced to any one cause; they were the hoofprints of more than the four horsemen of St. John’s vision, which had now become seven—plague, war, taxes, brigandage, bad government, insurrection, and schism in the Church. All but plague itself arose from conditions that existed prior to the Black Death and continued after the period of plague was over.

  Although my initial question has escaped an answer, the interest of the period itself—a violent, tormented, bewildered, suffering and disintegrating age, a time, as many thought, of Satan triumphant—was compelling and, as it seemed to me, consoling in a period of similar disarray. If our last decade or two of collapsing assumptions has been a period of unusual discomfort, it is reassuring to know that the human species has lived through worse before.

  Curiously, the “phenomenal parallels” have been applied by another historian to earlier years of this century. Comparing the aftermaths of the Black Death and of World War I, James Westfall Thompson found all the same complaints: economic chaos, social unrest, high prices, profiteering, depraved morals, lack of production, industrial indolence, frenetic gaiety, wild expenditure, luxury, debauchery, social and religious hysteria, greed, avarice, maladministration, decay of manners. “History never repeats itself,” said Voltaire; “man always does.” Thucydides, of course, made that principle the justification of his work.

  Simply summarized by the Swiss historian, J. C. L. S. de Sismondi, the 14th century was “a bad time for humanity.” Until recently, historians tended to dislike and to skirt the century because it could not be made to fit into a pattern of human progress. After the experiences of the terrible 20th century, we have greater fellow-feeling for a distraught age whose rules were breaking down under the pressure of adverse and violent events. We recognize with a painful twinge the marks of “a period of anguish when there is no sense of an assured future.”

  The interval of 600 years permits what is significant in human character to stand out. People of the Middle Ages existed under mental, moral, and physical circumstances so different from our own as to constitute almost a foreign civilization. As a result, qualities of conduct that we recognize as familiar amid these alien surroundings are revealed as permanent in human nature. If one insists upon a lesson from history, it lies here, as discovered by the French medievalist Edouard Perroy when he was writing a book on the Hundred Years’ War while dodging the Gestapo during World War II. “Certain ways of behavior,” he wrote, “certain reactions against fate, throw mutual light upon each other.”

  The fifty years that followed the Black Death of 1348–50 are the core of what seems to me a coherent historical period extending approximately from 1300 to 1450 plus a few years. To narrow the focus to a manageable area, I have chosen a particular person’s life as the vehicle of my narrative. Apart from human interest, this has the advantage of enforced obedience to reality. I am required to follow the circumstances and the sequence of an actual medieval life, lead where they will, and they lead, I think, to a truer version of the period than if I had imposed my own plan.

  The person in question is not a king or queen, because everything about such persons is ipso facto exceptional, and, besides, they are overused; nor a commoner, because commoners’ lives in most cases did not take in the wide range that I wanted; nor a cleric or saint, because they are outside the limits of my comprehension; nor a woman, because any medieval woman whose life was adequately documented would be atypical.

  The choice is thus narrowed to a male member of the Second Estate—that is, of the nobility—and has fallen upon Enguerrand de Coucy VII, last of a great dynasty and “the most experienced and skillful of all the knights of France.” His life from 1340 to 1397 coincided with the period that concerned me, and, from the death of his mother in the great plague to his own perfectly timed death in the culminating fiasco of the century, seemed designed for my purpose.

  Through marriage to the eldest daughter of the King of England, he acquired a double allegiance bridging two countries at war, which enlarged the scope and enriched the interest of his career; he played a role, usually major, in every public drama of his place and time, and he had the good sense to become a patron of the greatest contemporary chronicler, Jean Froissart, with the result that more is known about him than might otherwise have been the case. He has one grievous imperfection—that no authentic portrait of him exists. He has, however, a compensating advantage, for me: that, except for a single brief article published in 1939, nothing has been written about him in English, and no formal, reliable biography in French except for a doctoral thesis of 1890 that exists only in manuscript. I like finding my own way.

  I must beg the reader to have patience in making Coucy’s acquaintance because he can only be known against the background and events of his time which fill the first half dozen chapters. Enguerrand (pronounced with a hard “g”) made his first mark on history at the age of eighteen in 1358, which does not occur until Chapter 7.

  I come now to the
hazards of the enterprise. First are uncertain and contradictory data with regard to dates, numbers, and hard facts. Dates may seem dull and pedantic to some, but they are fundamental because they establish sequence—what precedes and what follows—thereby leading toward an understanding of cause and effect. Unfortunately, medieval chronology is extremely hard to pin down. The year was considered to begin at Easter and since this could fall any time between March 22 and April 22, a fixed date of March 25 was generally preferred. The change over to New Style took place in the 16th century but was not everywhere accepted until the 18th, which leaves the year to which events of January, February, and March belong in the 14th century a running enigma—further complicated by use of the regnal year (dating from the reigning King’s accession) in official English documents of the 14th century and use of the papal year in certain other cases. Moreover, chroniclers did not date an event by the day of the month but by the religious calendar—speaking, for example, of two days before the Nativity of the Virgin, or the Monday after Epiphany, or St. John the Baptist’s Day, or the third Sunday in Lent. The result is to confuse not only the historian but the inhabitants of the 14th century themselves, who rarely if ever agree on the same date for any event.

  Numbers are no less basic because they indicate what proportion of the population is involved in a given situation. The chronic exaggeration of medieval numbers—of armies, for example—when accepted as factual, has led in the past to a misunderstanding of medieval war as analogous to modern war, which it was not, in means, method, or purpose. It should be assumed that medieval figures for military forces, battle casualties, plague deaths, revolutionary hordes, processions, or any groups en masse are generally enlarged by several hundred percent. This is because the chroniclers did not use numbers as data but as a device of literary art to amaze or appall the reader. Use of Roman numerals also made for lack of precision and an affinity for round numbers. The figures were uncritically accepted and repeated by generation after generation of historians. Only since the end of the last century have scholars begun to re-examine the documents and find, for instance, the true strength of an expeditionary force from paymasters’ records. Yet still they disagree. J. C. Russell puts the pre-plague population of France at 21 million, Ferdinand Lot at 15 or 16 million, and Edouard Perroy at a lowly 10 to 11 million. Size of population affects studies of everything else—taxes, life expectancy, commerce and agriculture, famine or plenty—and here are figures by modern authorities which differ by 100 percent. Chroniclers’ figures which seem obviously distorted appear in my text in quotation marks.