A History of Europe

From 1378 to 1494

W.T. Waugh

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317217022
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Weltgeschichte

First published in 1932, this book looks at a period that has often been thought of as a time of general decline in the most characteristic features of medieval civilisation. While acknowledging decline in many areas during this period — the power of the Church, feudalism, guilds, the Hanseatic League, the autonomy of towns and the end of the two Roman empires — the author argues that there was also signs of development. National consciousness, the power of the bourgeoisie and trade and industry all rose markedly in this period alongside intellectual and artistic achievements outside of Italy. This book asserts that in amongst the failure and decline new forces were creating new substitutes.

CHAPTER I

FRANCE, 1380–1407

CHARLES VI AND THE PRINCES OF THE LILIES

A Regency established

WHEN, on September 16, 1380, Charles V of France died, his elder son, also called Charles, was only eleven years old. The boy had been carefully educated under the direction of Philip of M6zi£res, who was held in high regard for his knightly prowess, his learning, and his piety. Charles was not, however, brilliant in any respect—being far less clever than the other royal minor of the time, Richard II of England. But he resembled Richard in being cursed with a superfluity of uncles. There were the three brothers of the late King—Louis, Duke of Anjou, Philip, Duke of Burgundy, and John, Duke of Berry—and the brother of the late Queen, Louis, Duke of Bourbon. Of these Anjou and Burgundy had the widest political ambitions; but all could be trusted to put their own interests before any others and to use every opportunity of feathering their own nests. Charles V, with his customary foresight, had made provision for a royal minority with the evident object of mitigating some of the disadvantages to which the new king would be exposed. The Duke of Anjou, the eldest of the three brothers, was to be regent. The King’s person was to be in the charge of Burgundy and Bourbon, who were to be advised by a council specially chosen for the purpose. Charles VI, it was also laid down, should be deemed to have come of age on his fourteenth birthday.

These dispositions were never put into complete effect. No sooner was Charles V dead than quarrels of all kinds broke out—between the King’s uncles, between the university and the city of Paris, between Charles V’s confidential counsellors and their rivals. Louis of Anjou claimed both the regency and the personal charge of the King; but it was decided that until the coronation he should content himself with the former, while Charles VI, as his father had wished, should be under the tutelage of Burgundy and Bourbon. This arrangement lasted but a short while, for the coronation took place at Rheims on November 4. It was ominous that Anjou and Burgundy nearly came to blows over a point of precedence at the very coronation feast. The negotiations that followed are in many respects obscure, but the upshot was that on January 28, 1881, a council of Regency was established. It was composed of twelve members, among whom were the four royal dukes, with the Duke of Anjou as president.

The new Council soon had a chance of proving its mettle. For some years past, France, like England, had been the victim of serious internal unrest. Charles V’s success in defeating the English and restoring good government to his subjects had not been inexpensive, and resentment at his exactions was bitter and widespread. Already, both in the far south and in the far north, it had come to open violence. The disorders in the south, where Montpellier had been particularly disturbed, had been put down temporarily and drastically punished by the Duke of Anjou. In Flanders, however, Ghent was in arms against the Count, and the revolt was spreading rapidly among the other towns.

Widespread disorder

On his death-bed Charles V had renounced the direct taxes called fouages, which for years had been a terrible burden on many parts of the country. By many it was understood that all extraordinary taxation had been abolished, and even among those who interpreted Charles’s intentions correctly there was a determination to use the opportunity to obtain release from the sales-taxes, commonly called “impositions,” and from the still more unpopular salt-tax—the gabelle. In November 1880, an assembly containing representatives of the Three Estates met at Paris, and was asked by the chancellor to sanction the levy of a new imposition. This demand, so contrary to expectation, set Paris aflame. Next day a crowd, headed by the prévôt des marchands and said to number 20,000 persons, appeared at the Palais, and the royal Council, frightened into compliance, ordained the abandonment of all aides, a term commonly applied to all revenues save those derived regularly from the King’s domaine.

The Parisians believed that they had secured freedom from all except feudal exactions. But the Government interpreted its concession to mean simply that it remitted what was due on taxes already demanded. It had not given any undertaking for the future; the next winter saw several meetings of Estates, provincial and general, in Languedoil, the outcome being that, in March 1381, a new fouage was levied in order to raise troops for the English war. The effect of recent events, however, was shown in the elaborate regulations drawn up to prevent misapplication of the money and the government’s handsome promises of administrative reform.

Rising in Rouen, Feb. 1382

How far the Rising which convulsed England a little later stimulated the malcontents of France to further violence it is hard to say. Its influence was probably slight, for nothing sensational happened in France until the English insurgents had been completely suppressed and their rebellion was a manifest failure. Whatever the cause, however, the year 1382 witnessed disorder in many French towns. In February the news that the fouage of the previous year was to be increased caused a rising in Rouen. The participants were mainly people of small estate, but a few rich merchants figured as leaders and still more were believed to be encouraging the movement behind the scenes. The happenings during the three days when Rouen was in the hands of the insurgents remind one of what had occurred in London eight months before. Royal officials, the higher clergy, unsympathetic merchants, Jews, were attacked. The charters of the abbey of St. Ouen were torn up, and the abbot had to renounce its rights and privileges. The prisons were thrown open, and a few great houses plundered. Finally the famous charter of the Normans was solemnly read in the cathedral, and all present swore to observe it. Then disorder ceased, and envoys went to Paris to placate the government.

The Maillotins in Paris

Meanwhile, on March 1, a rebellion had broken out in Paris itself, owing to attempts to collect a new sales-tax to which the town had refused its consent. The mob had armed itself with iron mallets which it had found in the arsenal of the Hôtel de Ville, and the uprising’ was consequently remembered as the revolt of the Maillotins. Jews, tax-collectors and lawyers were maltreated or killed. Prisons were opened, archives pillaged, wine-cellars plundered. The King was constrained to negotiate with the rebels, who demanded a general amnesty, the abolition of aides, and a return to the financial system of Louis IX and Philip the Fair. He might have been compelled to make humiliating promises but that the richer citizens, alarmed by the excesses of the Maillotins, now intervened forcibly and soon got the upper hand. In response to their overtures, the government agreed to follow the financial policy of St. Louis (whatever that might be) and to grant an amnesty to everyone but the ringleaders of the Maillotins. Paris returned to its obedience, though the executions of rebels, which were unexpectedly numerous, nearly provoked another, outbreak.

The King then went to deal with Rouen, where royal officers had already begun reprisals. The city underwent a terrible punishment. The Commune, which dated from the time of Henry II of England, was abolished, and the place put under a royal bailli. A heavy indemnity was also exacted. Shortly afterwards the Estates of Normandy consented to the levy of a number of impositions. The first attempt to collect these caused a fresh riot in Rouen; but the royal captain of the town was able to cope with the emergency, the malcontents were harshly punished, and the final result of this series of disturbances was that the people of Normandy were more heavily taxed than they had been at the beginning of the year. Paris, too, found itself threatened with further punishment, but managed to turn aside the wrath of the government by paying a large sum of money.

Suppression of the risings

There were likewise troubles in the south. In the autumn of 1881 the mere announcement that the Duke of Berry had been appointed lieutenant of the King in Languedoc was enough to cause an insurrection in Béziers. Many of the leading men of the place were killed, and there was much plundering of wealthy houses. The disturbances died away without interference from outside; but the Duke executed more than forty artisans, and exacted a heavy indemnity. He then demanded of the Estates of Languedoc a new fouage, which he levied notwithstanding protests from many towns. When Carcassonne refused to receive him, the neighbouring countryside was laid waste by his troops.

The greater part of southern France, indeed, had for some time been disturbed by the so-called Tuchins, a name of uncertain meaning. In the north they would simply have been called brigands. They were people down on their luck, ruined by the wars, or good for nothing. In some regions they subjected themselves to a rough discipline; and now and then they had an understanding with the authorities of a town or with an impoverished noble. But, notwithstanding attempts to prove that the activity of the Tuchins was part of a great democratic or anti-clerical movement, they seem as a rule to have been mere marauders, who were driven to crime by hunger and tried to avoid violence. In 1382 a vigorous effort to suppress them was initiated, and after a year or two some effect was produced, though Languedoc remained very restless. This is not astonishing when one learns the punishment which was meted out to the whole area in 1383. A not very representative assembly held at Lyons was partly surprised, partly cajoled, partly terrified into consenting to the reestablishment of all the aides levied in the days of Charles V. It was further told that to purge its misdeeds Languedoc must pay a fine of 800,000 francs. Every community, however loyal and orderly it might have been, had to contribute to this sum, though it is true that those deemed specially culpable had to pay more than the rest. The amount was mainly raised by crushing fouages: and to gauge the effect on the minds of the people it should be remembered, first, that they had believed the fouage to have been abolished; secondly, that in 1382 the King and the Duke of Berry had granted what passed as a general pardon for recent disturbances.

Philip van Artevelde in Ghent

The harshness of the Government was due largely to what had been happening in Flanders. There for a year or two after Charles V’s death the country had remained divided between the Count—Louis de Maele—and the aristocratic party on the one hand, and the democratic party, headed by Ghent, on the other. At the beginning of 1382 things were going ill for the rebels, and in the hope of reviving the morale of their party the democrats of Ghent chose as their captain-general Philip van Artevelde, son of the great Jacques, a wealthy, public-spirited, eloquent, and energetic man. He sternly suppressed disaffection, introduced very strict disciplinary measures, arranged for the more equitable distribution of the dwindling food-supply, and placed the government of the city more completely under popular control. Having failed in an attempt to come to terms with the Count, he was obliged by lack of food to take the field against Bruges. On May 3, the citizens of Bruges followed the Count and his knights in a rash assault on the entrenchments of the men of Ghent at Beverhoutsveld. They were ignominiously repulsed; the victors entered Bruges at their heels, the town was pillaged, the members of the aristocratic party were slain by hundreds, and the Count barely escaped to Lille in disguise. Numerous towns forthwith drove out the aristocrats and joined the revolt.

Louis de Maele turned for help to his son-in-law Philip the Bold, who, as his probable successor, had every reason for upholding his authority. For his part, Charles VI was eager to try his hand at fighting, especially against schismatic rebels. Thus, in the summer of 1382, it was decided by the royal Council to organize an expedition against the insurgents of Flanders. Ghent, alarmed, tried to negotiate an agreement, but without success, and had to console itself with the promise of help from England.

The French began their campaign in the November of a rainy Flanders autumn. The strength of their army lay in the men-at-arms, and Artevelde would have been well advised to rely mainly upon mud. As a matter of fact, he showed little military capacity at any stage. The French cleverly secured the passage of the Lys at Comines, and took Ypres. Artevelde then advanced from Bruges and entrenched himself at Roosebeke. There, on November 27, he foolishly took the offensive, his whole army charging in a closely packed triangle, with the men of Ghent at the striking point. The attack, though made with great resolution and temporary success, was on too narrow a front; the wings of the French army swung inwards; the Flemings were helplessly trapped and butchered. Artevelde perished; his body was hung in chains by order of the Count, and burial was denied to the corpses of the other slaughtered Flemings.

Battle of Roosebeke Nov. 27, 1382

Bruges at once surrendered, promising to pay an indemnity and to recognize Pope Clement VII. But Ghent rejected the demands of Charles VI, who was tired of the campaign and went back to France.

Harsh treatment of Paris

The abrupt departure of the French from Flanders was partly accounted for by the belief of the Regency that it would now be safe to supplement the reprisals already inflicted upon Paris and Rouen. It was said, indeed, that the Parisians had given covert aid to the Flemish rebels, and Charles entered his capital as though it were a conquered town. A number of notable officials and over 300 citizens were arrested. Many executions speedily followed, one victim at least suffering for deeds alleged to have been committed during the troubles of 1358. The Council began to levy new impositions without even a pretence of securing the approval of an assembly of Estates. On January 27, 1383, the King ceremoniously promulgated an enactment withdrawing the city’s privileges; the office of prévôt des marchands was abolished, his powers being entrusted to the royal prévôt; the gilds were to be subject to officers named by the King; no gild or fraternity might meet save to go to church. The executions continued briskly for another month, and when on March 1 the King granted a general pardon, forty persons were excluded from its operation.

Further reprisals at Rouen

At Rouen royal commissioners arrested more than 300 citizens. An appeal to the royal pardon of the previous year—even a letter from the King ordering the commissioners to regard it—produced no apparent effect, since it was alleged that disturbances since its issue had cancelled it. Many of the prisoners were executed, more held to ransom. A new fine was levied on the town. As years passed, the Commune began to function again in fact if not in name, and a certain prosperity returned, but Rouen never wholly recovered.

Bishop Despenser’s crusade

It is gratifying to find that the government had to pay for its eagerness to castigate royal towns; for its failure to crush Ghent after the battle of Roosebeke compelled it to send two further expeditions to Flanders and frustrated enterprises which it wished to undertake elsewhere. Both rival popes were organizing crusades against each other, and Urban VI committed the command of one of these holy expeditions to Henry Despenser, Bishop of Norwich, who had displayed his warlike proclivities in the suppression of the Peasants’ Revolt in England. Under the influence of the English government and Parliament it was decided to send the crusaders to Flanders, where they would help Ghent and its allies. It was true that most of the Flemings, whatever their political party, were Urbanists in regard to the Schism in the Church. Still, it might be argued that anything that helped Ghent would harm the King of France, who was the most powerful supporter of Clement VII at Avignon.

The expedition might have been very dangerous to France, but it was grossly mismanaged. The English crusaders, thanks to their archers, won a little battle against an army of the Count’s. They took Dunkirk, Bourbourg, Cassel, and other adjacent places, and laid siege to Ypres. Responding to an appeal from the Count, Charles VI came to the rescue in the summer of 1383. On the approach of the French army, Despenser left Ypres, evacuated most of his conquests, and prepared to defend Gravelines. But he soon accepted a sum of money and went home. The English were angry at this ignominious end to the enterprise, but the French made no effort to exploit their success, and Ghent remained unconquered.

Next year the situation in Flanders was profoundly changed by the death of Louis de Maele, and the succession of Philip the Bold of Burgundy. He had no difficulty in seeming recognition in the greater part of the county. Ghent, perceiving that only foreign support could enable it to withstand so powerful an enemy, bid high for English aid, placed itself under the protection of King Richard, and flew the English flag. In 1385 it accepted as captain an English knight, John Bourchier, with whose retinue its citizens succeeded in taking Damme. A great French army, which had been assembled for a descent on England, was thereupon diverted to north Flanders; Damme was besieged and recovered, and the surrounding country savagely plundered. But again Charles VI went away without attempting to reduce Ghent itself.

Philip the Bold of Burgundy succeeds to Flanders, 1384

One reason why the French seldom pushed home their victories in Flanders was that the Counts did not like to see them there except in time of special danger. The Duke of Burgundy was particularly anxious to restore order in his new comity without assistance from outside. He let it be known that he was in a conciliatory mood. It was not long before envoys from Ghent and its allies met representatives of the Duke at Toumai. The two sides bargained like equals, and the men of Ghent steadfastly refused to ask for mercy on their knees. In December, 1385, peace was signed, on terms very favourable to the rebels. The privileges of Ghent and its allies were confirmed. Trade was to be as free as heretofore. In Flanders the Duke would appoint only officials of Flemish birth. The men of Ghent might favour either Pope as they pleased. It is not surprising that the Duke was well received when he made his solemn entry into Ghent soon afterwards.

The French government and the French people

The story of these risings in France is not of great interest. But they have commonly been too lightly passed over by historians. The reign of Charles V is remembered as one of the most successful in the medieval history of France. French arms were victorious, and the government was unusually efficient. Yet it is clear from what followed the change of ruler that there was bitter and widespread discontent, and that, if the French had generally preferred Charles V to Edward III, it was not because they believed his rule to be better. The treatment accorded by the Regency to the malcontents is instructive. Disaffection was treated as unpardonable. If mercy was ever shown, it was only because it would have...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Maps
• Introduction
• Chapter I France, 1380–1407—Charles VI and the Princes of the Lilies
• Chapter II France, 1407–1429—Treason and Invasion
• Chapter III France, 1429–1461—Expulsion of the English, and Establishment of the Royal Authority
• Chapter IV Germany, 1378–1410—Wenzel and Rupert
• Chapter V The Great Schism, 1378–1413
• Chapter VI Germany, 1410–1437—Sigismunn
• Chapter VII The Council of Constance
• Chapter VIII The Councils of Siena and Basse
• Chapter IX John Hus and his Follooers
• Chapter X France, 1461–1494
• Chapter XI The Greatness and Downfall of Burgundy
• Chapter XII France—Economic and Social Conditions
• Chapter XIII Germany, 1437–1493—Kings and Princes
• Chapter XIV Germany—Social and Economic Conditions
• Chapter XV The Scandinavian Countries
• Chapter XVI Spain
• Chapter XVII Eastern Europe
• Chapter XVIII The Fall of the Byzantine Empire and the Turkish Coquest of the Balkan Peninsula
• Chapter XIX Italian Politics
• Chapter XX The Papacy and the Church in the Latter Part of the Fifteenth Century
• Chapter XXI The Classical Renaissance, and Its Relation to Thought, Letters and Art in the Fifteenth Century
• Chapter XXII Science, Discovery and Invention in the Fifteenth Century
• Genealogical Tables
• Index