ТОП просматриваемых книг сайта:
The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France. R. Knecht J.
Читать онлайн.Название The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780007393381
Автор произведения R. Knecht J.
Издательство HarperCollins
A disastrous year
Louis XII might have been expected to leave Italy alone after his last disastrous campaign, particularly as Henry VIII and Maximilian were now threatening his northern frontiers, but he would not accept the loss of Milan. His new treaty with Venice encouraged him to launch another trans-Alpine campaign. He gathered an army 12,000 strong in April 1513 and placed it under the command of Louis de La Trémoïlle, who was assisted by d’Aubigny and Trivulzio. It crossed the Alps in May and captured Alessandria. Four thousand Swiss shut themselves up in Novara. The French, meanwhile, seized Milan with the help of the anti-Sforza faction within the city. Heartened by this success, La Trémoïlle laid siege to Novara. The town was bombarded and its walls breached, but, hearing that a Swiss relief army was approaching, La Trémoïlle withdrew to Trecate. Here he pitched camp and, believing that he was not being pursued, allowed his troops some rest. The Swiss, however, launched a furious attack, taking the French by surprise. The main blow fell on the German mercenaries, the landsknechts, who were nearly all wiped out. One of the few survivors was the future Marshal Florange, who allegedly received forty-six wounds. The gendarmerie was never seriously engaged in the battle. La Trémoïlle, it seems, waited for an attack that never came, allowing his infantry to be cut to pieces. When he realized that all was lost, he ordered his men to retreat. By the end of June they were back in France. After the French débâcle all the towns in the duchy of Milan, except those under Venetian occupation, submitted to Sforza.
The French defeat in Italy coincided with an invasion of northern France. In mid-June a huge English army commanded by the earl of Shrewsbury and the duke of Suffolk landed in Calais. After joining an imperial army, it laid siege to Thérouanne. Louis XII hurriedly sent an army to Artois under the seigneur de Piennes with orders to relieve Thérouanne but to avoid a pitched battle. He managed to get supplies through to the beleaguered garrison, but as his men-at-arms were returning from their mission, they were intercepted near Guinegatte. Obeying orders, they avoided an engagement, but as they retreated they spread confusion among the French reserve. The retreat became a headlong flight, hence the name ‘Battle of the Spurs’ given to the action. Among the captains who fell into English hands were the duc de Longueville and Bayard. Thérouanne surrendered on 23 August, but instead of marching on Amiens and Paris, the English seized Tournai which they kept until 1521.
More misfortunes soon befell Louis XII. Early in September, 20,000 to 30,000 Swiss invaded Burgundy and laid siege to Dijon. The town’s governor, La Trémoïlle, knowing that his men were outnumbered and that no relief could be expected soon, opened talks with the enemy. They were strong enough to bid for high stakes. Under the Treaty of Dijon, which La Trémoïlle signed in his master’s name, Louis gave up all his claims to Milan and Asti. He also promised to buy off the Swiss for 400,000 écus. La Trémoïlle handed over hostages as security for the treaty’s execution, and the Swiss returned to their cantons. Dijon and Burgundy had been saved, but Louis disavowed La Trémoïlle and refused to ratify the treaty. His breach of faith was not soon forgiven by the Swiss.
The winter of 1513 brought no relief to France’s ailing monarch. Anne of Brittany died without giving him the son he had wanted so much. Her claim to Brittany passed to her daughter, Claude. On 18 May 1514 she married François d’Angoulême. The ceremony at Saint-Germain-en-Laye was a simple affair, as the court was still in mourning for the queen. Eyewitnesses, noting Louis’s sickly appearance, did not give him long to live, but he was about to spring a surprise. In January 1514 he drew closer to Pope Leo X by recognizing the Fifth Lateran Council and in March he renewed his truce with Ferdinand of Aragon. His master stroke, however, was to drive a wedge between Henry VIII and Maximilian. An Anglo-French treaty, signed in London in August, was sealed by a marriage between Louis and Henry’s sister Mary. Public opinion was shocked that a girl of eighteen, universally acclaimed for her beauty, should marry a gouty dotard of fifty-three, but she was ready to pay a heavy price to become queen of France. Henry had also promised to allow her to choose her second husband, a likely prospect, given Louis’s age and health.
Louis and Mary were married at Abbeville on 9 October. After the wedding night Louis boasted that he had ‘performed marvels’, but few believed him, least of all François d’Angoulême, who stood most to lose from the king’s remarriage. ‘I am certain,’ he declared, ‘unless I have been told lies, that the king and queen cannot possibly have a child.’ Within a short time, Louis began to show signs of wear and tear. The Basoche put on a play in which he was shown being carried off to Heaven or to Hell by a filly given by the king of England. Soon after Christmas, Louis fell ill at the palace of the Tournelles in Paris. He died on 1 January 1515 and was immediately succeeded on the throne by François d’Angoulême. Soon afterwards Mary Tudor secretly married the duke of Suffolk, whom Henry VIII had sent to France to congratulate François on his accession.
The French or Gallican church faced a serious crisis at the end of the Middle Ages, which was constitutional as well as moral. The papacy had become an absolute monarchy: it controlled appointments to ecclesiastical benefices by means of ‘provisions’ and ‘reservations’ and it taxed the clergy by means of annates, tenths, and so on. All this caused much discontent among the clergy. Cathedral and monastic chapters resented the loss of their traditional right to elect their bishops and abbots; the clergy begrudged paying taxes to the papal Curia. The demand arose for the reform of the church in its head and its members. But who was to carry out that reform? Could the papacy be trusted to reform itself?
During the fourteenth century some churchmen began to argue that the responsibility for reform lay not with the papacy but with a General Council. The Dominican John of Paris put forward the theory that a council, since it represented the whole church, was superior in authority to the pope and might depose him if he misused his power. Marsilio of Padua, in his Defensor Pacis, denied Christ’s institution of the papal primacy and argued in favour of the superiority of a council since it represented the people. Supporters of the conciliar theory were able to put it into practice following a disputed election to the papacy in 1378. The only way of solving the problem of two rival popes seemed to be to call a General Council. This offered a chance, not merely of healing the Great Schism, but also of bringing about reform through a limitation of papal authority. The Council of Constance (1414–18) managed to heal the schism, but otherwise was a disappointment. It issued two decrees: one laid down that a General Council derived its authority directly from Christ; the other provided that such a council should meet at regular intervals. Both decrees represented a victory for the conciliar party, but not a decisive one. It was difficult to see how a General Council, meeting occasionally, could assert its authority over a permanent and powerful papacy. The traditional concept of the papacy remained intact, and the new pope, Martin V, did not confirm the decrees of the council. By banning appeals from the pope to another tribunal, he implicitly rejected the doctrine of conciliar supremacy.
This, however, was not the end of attempts to put a General Council above the pope. The decisive battle between the pope and the conciliarists was fought at the Council of Basle (1431–49). In May 1439 it declared as a dogma of the Christian faith that ‘the General Council is above the pope’. It deposed Pope Eugenius IV, replacing him with Felix V; it abolished annates and reservations; and it passed a decree providing for regular provincial and diocesan synods. Yet it failed to defeat the pope for two reasons. First, the radicalism of the council