Money printer go brr. King Jean tries to get clever debasing currency and trying to reform the military. Long account of Battle of Poitiers, another debacle for the French. The 100 years war seems to develop one confused and stupid battle at a time. Each is harambe-like.
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“Complaints were heard that the archers had killed too many who might have been held for ransom”
This business of capturing enemy knights for ransom is hilarious. The business model was ransoms. Like LatAm gangs. Military objectives had to compete with ransom objectives.
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This tension between archers (remote work, pragmatic war) and knights (melee work, honor war) appears to have been a much bigger deal than I thought. It’s like Jane Jacobs commerce vs guardian syndromes. Archers = win effectively, via strategery. Knights = honor points.
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The French apparently underutilized their archers for honor reasons. Besides being limited to crossbows and lacking longbow capacity.
Must resist crossbow vs longbow Internet bunny trail and return to book.
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Now we’re talking commerce and urban life in Paris. Apparently streets didn’t have names then and people spent hours lost. Also curfew on economic production work after dark and sumptuary laws still constraining conspicuous consumption . Guardian > Commerce. Economy no go brrr.
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“... furniture was meager. Beds, which served for sitting as well as sleeping, were the most important item. Chairs were few: even kings and popes received ambassadors sitting on beds”
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1357, third estate under provost Étienne marcel gets Dauphin to fire old cronies of king jean captured by English and sign a sort of “magna carta of third estate” ordinance. Jean repudiates it from captivity.
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Long section on brigand bands, some the size of small armies ravaging France as it became ungoverned. English knights staying behind to loot after Poitiers and ransomed and bankrupt French knights joining them. Gallantry gone rotten. Medieval mad max.
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These English bands in 14th century France, looting merrily in a nominal truce during the 100 year war, are basically what we’d call terrorists today, except they had no ideology beyond loot. Reminds me of post-Soviet-withdrawal transformation of mujahideen into terror groups.
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“Country families hastened with their goods to take refuge in cities, monks and nuns abandoned their monasteries, highways and roads were unsafe”
So cities were like Rivendell in LOTR 🤔
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Third estate assault on dauphin/regent loses support of nobility. So now it’s peasants plus third estate vs nobility and lame duck monarchy. Meanwhile king Jean is living luxuriously in England as captive waiting to be ransomed. French still trying to do so despite extreme terms
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Now into the Jacquerie rebellion of 1358. When nobility turn to vampiric brigandage, clearly peasantry must turn into zombie mobs. Am rooting for peasants here though. They were the less awful people. Seriously exploited. This is like Trumps vs Trumpies.
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Ah shit. Clearly I backed the wrong conceptual horse here as Rick would say. The Jacques have been slaughtered by the knights. Bloodbath.
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This era in Europe is relentlessly stupid with no redeeming qualities. Just pointless slaughter, plague, and general shittiness. No wonder it triggered the age of exploration in the next century. Who would want to live like this?
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“...short of a fluke like the capture of a king at Poitiers, medieval armies had no means of achieving a decisive result, much less a surrender.” On Edwards’s weird campaign in France in the winter if 1958 trying to exactvthe biggest possible ransom for Jean
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The Treaty of Bretigny... this is some weird-ass shit. Large territorial claims insured by exchanging a king for a bunch of nobility? Apparently this was the occasion when the first franc was minted.
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Our hero, Enguerrand de Coucy is among the nobles exchanged for the king. Eng is apparently going to end up as the son-in-law of Edward... this hostage/ransom shit among royalty was all very nominal. The royalty treated each other like royalty.
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Writer dude Jean Froissart is on the ship carrying noble hostages back to England. He’s gonna make Eng famous. Geoffrey Chaucer is also onboard. Eng is curiously lifeless so far in this long 7 chapter setup. Finally he’s getting foregrounded. I never read the Canterbury tales.
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It’s a be somebody or do something century. Tuchman says unless you were royalty nobody cared about your appearance or character. You were known only by your deeds. Curious kind of dehumanization. Much klout. Very karma.
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No live portraits of Eng exist, only one painted 200y after his death. He was apparently tall, dark, and handsome. And could sing and dance well. Basically a generic harlequin romance cover hero.
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1361, plague is back after 12 years. Everybody is gloom-and-doom. This is relentless shittiness. Including actual shit. London is awash in manure apparently. No wonder the rich lived a barbell life of death sports and nihilistic hedonism.
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“Between the happening of a historical process, and its recognition by rulers, a lag stretched, full of pitfalls”
The rulers here are half-criminal brigands anyway. The poor really seem to need the monarch for hope.
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tfw the highlight of your day is half an hour of bedtime reading about the Black Death enjoying the schadenfreude. At least one group of people
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Now into the story of Eng and his spoiled bride-to-be, Isabella Kardashian-Hilton. Woman sounds awful.
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Chapter about women. Seems like the age had a theory of submission around women’s role in the works but in practice they had a lot more unofficial agency than anyone admitted. They ran things while the men were off fighting or being held ransom etc.
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Eng and Isabella now married, with 2 daughters. It’s 1367 and they’ve been given a lot of wealth, titles and territory in both England and France. Dude’s married up. Still not gone to life though. Isabella is better portrayed so far.
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Eng and Isabella now back to France, 3/4 of which is now overrun by brigand companies who are getting institutionalized. Description is a bit like gang-run Mexico or Afghanistan today. Except line between them and “legitimate” royalty/nobility is really just a matter of taste.
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The old king jean and pope innocent are now dead. Charles and the new pope urban try to export the brigand companies to Hungary for a crusade against Turks and fail, but succeed in exporting them to Spain where Anglo-French proxy wat is unfolding under excuse of fighting Moors.
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This is very confusing 4d chess. Also the brigands are weirdly religious enough to demand both loot and absolution when attacking the clergy. Everybody tries to pay off brigands to go away with other people’s money. Stationary bandits pay off roaming bandits with OPM.
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Brigands are zeroth estate really. Includes both fuckit knights and even destitute clergy. First and second estate are trying to get rid of them by taxing the third to the limit. Had anyone made up zeroth estate concept? If not I claim it. Hobbesian ground state of humanity.
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Another side read: knights vs archers, contemporaneous Indian edition.
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Replying to @zacbracz and @vgr
You get a fragmented picture by reading various sources. One thing common among all Rajput accounts is that they adopted a full frontal attack strategy. We also know that they started recruiting bhil archers but couldn't get rid of their melee habit.
scroll.in/article/728636
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Back to the story. It’s around 1368 now. Coucy frees serfs for rent. The nobility appears to be slowly healing after 2 decades of war and plague. The brigand companies have been foisted onto Spain. Life sucks for most people but nobility is doing ok.
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Long passage now about the Visconti family of Italy who sound like psycho gangsters. They are challenging papal forces. Brigand company called the White Company fights on all sides of all conflict. Hobbesian ergodicity goingbon here.
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Here we go. Looting and explosions and sirens and choppers in DTLA outside as we pick up the story in 1360s Italy.
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Another boom outside my window. Fireworks? Meanwhile in 14th century Italy Duke Lionel of England dies after marrying Violante Visconti at a lavish wedding and elsewhere Philip of Burgundy marries Marguerite of Flanders which will apparently have consequences later.
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“The amount the rich could squander on occasions like these in a period of repeated disasters appears inexplicable, not so much with regard to motive as with regard to means. Where, in the midst of ruin and decline... did the money come from to endow the luxury?”
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France and England back at war. Eng begs neutrality and goes off to fight in papal-Visconti wars instead. Wins glory in future war that changes nothing and returns with honor to a France that’s winning. Plague back for third wave, Petrarch and Boccaccio dead. 1374.
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This section is a bit of a slog. Tedious chapter in the 100 years war. Very grimdark wind-down of futile shit. Age of chivalry slowly dying, nobody achieving any strategic aims. Key figures aging and dying. Eng has had a charmed career so far.
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Second half of book is turning into a bit of a drag. First half was going brrrr. Not author’s fault. The material is like our time. Running out of manic pandemic energy. Eng off to fight a war in Austria to claim some title. Financed by French monarchy to get rid of companies.
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This is the Gugler war. The mercenary army was barely in control, pillaging along the way. Half the intent was to lose them.
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