Historian Barbara Tuchman has claimed that the fourteenth century was “calamitous,” by which she means that great calamity attended the years 1300 AD to 1450 AD. Of course, it is not so neat as that, but in general it is true that the world changed dramatically in that century. We have already witnessed one major aspect of that change: the Black Death. In the five years of the plague’s major activity, it wiped out more than 70 million people, roughly one-third of Europe’s population. The plague was not over in 1351. It returned from time to time, although with less disastrous effects. Another major event of Tuchman’s calamitous fourteenth century is the Hundred Years’ War.
The Hundred Years’ War was a massive conflict that began in 1337. It mostly involved the countries of England and France, but the region of Flanders was involved somewhat as well. With some respite while under various truces, France and England fought for 116 years, until 1453. The causes of the Hundred Year’s war are varied and form a major plank in understanding what would bring these two countries to fight for such a long period of time. In order to fully understand the causes, the background should be reviewed.
The French had long been concerned with the English feudal holdings in Aquitaine. For two hundred years French kings had been seeking ways to remove the English presence there. Since the days of King John Aquitaine had slowly been reduced in size and would never reach the expanse it had under the Angevin Empire (except during rare moments of the coming conflict). The French also permitted the subjects of Aquitaine to bring any complaints against their lord directly to the French crown. This was a violation of the English lord’s rights in practice, but one which the French subjects repeatedly took advantage of. It was a constant source of friction between the English and the French and had conflict written all over it.
Another major piece of background information is the Babylonian Captivity of the Church. The relationship between papacy and monarchy had always been difficult as events like the Investiture controversy proved. The issue of church and state was a constant, some would say defining, problem during the Middle Ages. The period surrounding the Hundred Years’ War stands as the high point of the medieval world. Under the weight of so many conflicting relationships, the medieval world began to collapse in on itself and the Babylonian Captivity of the Church was but one effect of that collapse.
One of the defining struggles leading up to the Babylonian Captivity was the right to tax clergy members. Traditionally, the clergy were exempt from all local and state taxes. This did not mean they were not taxed; they were not taxed by secular authorities. Clergy were taxed by their superiors. Priests paid taxes (a portion of the tithe) to bishops, who paid taxes to arch-bishops, and so on until the papacy received its portion of ecclesiastical revenues. This system was so standardized that parishes and bishoprics were said to allow a certain income to the priest or bishop who oversaw it. Nonetheless, Philip IV wanted a share of the clerical coffers and insisted he had a right to it. This insistence prompted the Papal Bull called Clericis Laicos. This important letter, issued in 1296 AD proclaimed that no clergy “pay nothing under pretext of any obligation” to secular authorities.
Philip was not happy and the typical game of excommunication and force ensued. With such an unrepentant king on his hands, Boniface VIII issued another Papal Bull that made the most sweeping statement of any regarding papal authority. The Bull of Unam Sanctum claimed “it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” Te die had been cast. Even as Boniface prepared to excommunicate Philip IV, Philip prepared a physical response to the bull. Philip kidnapped Boniface and held him for three days at a castle in Anagni near Rome. Though he was released, the event had traumatic consequences for Boniface, who died about a month later.
Philip then saw to the election of a new pope who was French. Clement V mot only became, as most historians and theologians have viewed him, a puppet pope for the French king, but also moved the center of papal authority from Rome to the French city of Avignon. Six popes ruled the papacy from Avignon in France for about seventy years. This period has been called the Babylonian Captivity of the Church for a number of reasons. The humanist Petrarch (see chapter twenty-six) once called Avignon the “Babylon of the West.” Every office and permission for any crime or sin was able to be bought and sold in Avignon. The corruption already present in the papacy and the Roman Catholic Church took on heinous dimensions that were immortalized in works like Dante Aligheri’s Divine Comedy. Tuchman describes the general corruption of the church. “When bishops purchased benefices at the price of year’s income, they passed the cost down, so that corruption spread through the hierarchy from canons and priors to priesthood and cloistered clergy, down to mendicant friars and pardoners. It was at this level that the common people met the materialism of the Church, and none were more crass than the sellers of pardons.”
All of this was apparently done to satisfy the French kings lust for power and wealth. The Babylonian Captivity eroded, to a great extent, the last real power that the Roman Catholic Church possessed in Europe. As the years waned on, reformers became more and more numerous, facing the corruption of the papacy with doctrinal and practical changes. Within two hundred years Martin Luther would set the final nail in the coffin of the strangle hold Roman Catholicism had on the European mind.
A final piece of background information necessary to understand the causes of the Hundred Years’ War is the obliteration of the Knights Templar. The Knights Templar had been formed as a multi-national organization for knights to participate in the crusades. After the crusading period they found themselves in possession of a great deal of wealth. This attracted the eyes of Philip IV of France. Using his puppet pope, Clement V, Philip had the Knights arraigned on charges of devil-worship, witchcraft and sorcery and other heretical beliefs and practices. The papacy confiscated all property and wealth and gave it to a rival organization, the Hospitallars of St. John, who very soon gave a large donation to Philip IV of France.
A final piece of background information review is the unique place that chivalry had in medieval society. Chivalry, as we have discussed, was an ideal that wedded Germanic warrior customs, Roman legal customs, and Christian ethics and morality into a complicated framework of behavior and duty for the medieval knight. We have already seen how the code of chivalry has developed from a mere attitude between two knights to a more complicated system of courtly love and romance. Chivalry deserves a place in the background of the Hundred Years’ War because it was the knights that fought the conflict. Their behavior, as captured by chroniclers like Jean Froissart, shows the darker side of chivalry that the external coverings of Christian morality over a diseased heart can never totally hide. Knights who were not converted men with their hope and trust in Christ could be fiendishly evil and perpetrators of inhuman suffering. Many knights in Europe were itching for a fight. They loved to perform at tournaments and gain popularity. The crusades had siphoned off some of this spirit, but they had been over now for a hundred years. Chivalry, at this time, meant that there were warriors who wanted a war.
With this background information in place, it is time to consider the causes of the Hundred Years’ War, that crowning event of the High Middle Ages that signaled the end of the medieval way of life. There are generally four causes of the Hundred Years’ War given by historical accounts. They come in no particular order, but some are weightier than others.
The first cause is typically listed as the English claims in Aquitaine. This contest mentioned earlier fueled a great conflict of interest that was bound to boil over eventually. The second cause is Anglo-Frankish competition over the region of Flanders. Flanders, on the northern border of France and sharing the English Channel was strategically located both for military matters and economic matters. The third cause is the very aspects of chivalry we have just mentioned. The fourth, and possibly most direct cause of the Hundred Years’ War, has to do with the succession to the French throne in 1328.
In 1328 Charles IV died without a male heir. He had three possible claimants to the throne. Philip IV’s daughter had married the king of England and their son, Edward III, had a possible claim to the throne. The other two claimants were sons of a brother and half-brother of the deceased king. Philip of Valois was the favored candidate and Philip of Evreux was unlikely to gain recognition. The dispute over the crown seemed settled on Philip of Valois until the control of Flanders came into question. Edward III used the dispute over the French crown to justify a full-scale invasion and the Hundred Years’ War began in 1337 AD.
No comments:
Post a Comment