A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

Product Information

Charles V who succeeded to the throne of France in 1364 developed a fairly effective strategy for dealing with the mercenaries, the tarde venus--pack them off to fight still more foreign wars!

There is John Wycliffe becoming buddies with, of all people, John of Gaunt (Duke of Lancaster) because they both want the state to be over the church, not the church over the state as it then was.born since the Black Death and Poitiers and the nadir of French fortunes, harked back to the pursuit of those strange bewitchment, honor and glory. A mirror reflects an image of the viewer back onto themselves – but this mirror was placed so far away that it was hard to make out any of the images in a way that felt satisfying. In the chapter entitled 'The Worms of the Earth Against the Lions' I was just about to cheer wholeheartedly for the weavers of Ghent until I read of the way they in turn oppressed the lower class fullers; and my sympathy was with commoners of Anjou demanding tax relief until "In a frenzy of triumph and unspent wrath, the people rushed to rob and assault the Jews, the one section of society upon whom the poor could safely vent their aggression. And just when I thought I couldn’t get more enthralled, we actually begin the life of Enguerrand de Coucy VII. In his book written in 1387, The Tree of Battles, he asked “Whether this world can by nature be without conflict and at peace?

Conspicuous consumption became a frenzied excess, a gilded shroud over the Black Death and lost battles, a desperate desire to show oneself fortunate in a time of advancing misfortune. Barbara Tuchman's 14th century: Period of brilliant turbulence: The 14th century as a period of adjustment".If no concert or performance was scheduled after the evening meal, the company entertained each other with song and conversation, tales of the day’s hunting, “graceful questions” on the conventions of live, and verbal games. More pillaging, killing, raping and hostage taking ensued from mercenary Free Companies made up of former soldiers, mostly Englishmen who did not want to give up their way of life when the military campaigns ended. A Distant Mirror is actually a biography of a nobleman named Enguerrand de Coucy VII (pronounced On-geh-hon-de-koo-see). She told me she had read this one three times – now, if that isn’t high praise it is hard to know what is. From 1980 to 1983, dual hardcover and paperback awards were given in most categories, and in multiple nonfiction subcategories, including History.