Chapter VII: The Betrayal of the Kingdom (3)

It is one of the strangest contrasts of history that while France was at the lowest ebb of its national history, the University of Paris was attempting to carry out one of the greatest revolutions in the history of Europe. The conciliar movement in the church, which produced such great international gatherings as the councils of Constance and of Bâle, and which aimed to limit papal absolutism by something like a parliamentary system, was due to the work of men like Jean Gerson, chancellor of the University of Paris, and Pierre D’Ailly, scholar and prelate. It was universally admitted that abuses had crept into the administration of the church. There was evidently something wrong when, while Frenchmen were perishing from famine, and France was on the verge of ruin, the papal court at Avignon luxuriated on a revenue that was more than royal, and a pope (John XXII) could accumulate a treasure of eighteen millions of gold florins, and jewels and vestments estimated at seven millions more.

But the evils which date from the residence at Avignon were increased twofold during the schism. All Christendom was in doubt how this would end. For the civil war in the church had divided the countries under rival obediences. France, Scotland, and Spain adhered to the pope at Avignon; and England, Germany, and Italy obeyed the Italian pope.

At first they tried to induce the rivals to resign; and Pedro de Luna, who was elected pope at Avignon as Benedict XIII, won the high office by declaring that he would resign as easily as take off his hat. But the wily prelate, after his election, declared that no earthly power could dethrone him, and for more than a decade defied the attempts of reformers to achieve union. It was then that in the University of Paris the theologians began agitation for a universal council, as supreme over the pope. It is said that a German doctor began the movement, but the credit has gone to France. First at Pisa and then at Constance, the great parliaments of the church took in hand the reformation.

In the later council (1414-1418) union was achieved by the deposition of opposing popes and the election of Martin V (see volume on The Papacy), but the decree _Frequens_ which demanded regular meeting of councils in the future, was gradually lost sight of in the following pontificates, and the great experiment of a constitutional church was a failure. That such an attempt should be made while France was in the throes of this great Hundred Years’ War, and that mostly by Frenchmen, shows that alongside of the story of carnage, crime, and superstition, there were signs of intellectual life and earnest effort of reformers, which are suggestive in the age of Wycliffe and Huss.

A strange page of history is opened here. Sigismund, emperor of Germany, who presided at the council of Constance, was anxious to play a great part in the world’s affairs. He took advantage of the great international assemblage in his dominions to attempt to put himself at the head of a European confederacy to fight the Turks, who were advancing along the Danube.

To accomplish this he made a journey into France and England to try to prevent the war. His visit took place just before the fatal invasion of Henry V which brought the victory of Agincourt.[38] To raise the money for that journey Sigismund made over the mark of Brandenburg to Frederick of Hohenzollern, burggraf of Nuremberg, and thus founded the power of the Hohenzollern.

Henry V, was willing to accede to Sigismund’s plans, but although he even offered the succession of Hungary as a bribe, the court of France refused to make the peace he desired, and Sigismund’s great effort at European concord resulted in only one thing--the foundation of the great dynasty which rules in Germany to-day. France and England went their own way, bringing mutual disaster for another generation.[a]

FOOTNOTES

[30] [This old French word denoted either a song or a particular kind of dance.]

[31] Doubtless a monkish exaggeration.

[32] [At the siege of Arras the harquebus was used for the first time.]

[33] This embellishment is of Monstrelet’s[n] contrivance. He places it apart from the account of the battle after the long list of the killed. Lefebvre, an eye-witness, could not make up his mind to copy Monstrelet in this place.

[34] Lefebvre[j] and Monstrelet[n] are the authorities for this statement. De Barante[o] says without naming his source, “Henry V put a stop to the carnage and caused the wounded to receive relief.” [Tyler,[s] after reviewing the evidence, declares that “Henry did not stain his victory by any act of cruelty. His character comes out of the investigation untarnished by a suspicion of his having wantonly shed the blood of a single fellow-creature.”]

[35] [For other views of the battle of Agincourt see our history of England.]

[36] [But neither for that matter had, in person, the count d’Armagnac. The princes had refused the aid of any civic corps, and as Burgundy could command but the town folk of Flanders and Picardy, his offers of help were rejected. The responsibility of the battle lay therefore entirely with the Armagnacs; but, as Crowe[h] says, “to the honour of the Burgundian party, more of its princes, than of the Armagnacs, fell on the field of Agincourt.”]

[37] [In 1402 letters-patent were issued by the king permitting the bourgeois of Paris to constitute themselves into a religious fraternity for the representation of the “Mystery of the Passion.” This is the origin of the modern tragic theatre. The “morality plays,” or comedies, were created by the clerks of the _basoche_--the corporation formed by the clerks of the _procureurs_ of the parliament of Paris. This body exercised extensive jurisdiction over its members--its head bore the title of “king.” In the reign of Charles VI playing-cards were perfected, and about 1420 Jan van Eyck, called Jean of Bruges, discovered a drying oil, which has caused him to be regarded as the inventor of oil painting. Hitherto men had used distemper, fresco, gum, paste, or white of egg.[b]]

[38] [It was Sigismund’s grandfather, the blind King John of Bohemia, whose death at Crécy gave the famous motto, _Ich dien_, to the prince of Wales.]