Pope Clement VI

in the year 1348, amid one of the greatest catastrophes in European history.

Pope Clement VI issued a papal mandate whose opening passage says the Church rightly detests the unbelief of the Jews and, in that same passage, invokes the Incarnation and Christian mercy as the reason to protect them anyway.

Later in that same mandate, Clement commands bishops and other Church officials, under pain of excommunication, to stop Christians from murdering Jews on their own authority.

That is not two popes.

It was only later that year, when confessions were extracted from Jewish prisoners in Savoy under torture and circulated across the continent as supposed proof of an international conspiracy, that the well-poisoning story became one of the principal justifications for persecution in the German-speaking lands.

And within a year, it would reach a horrifying scale in Germany and Switzerland.

The man sitting in Avignon that year was Pope Clement VI, elected in 1342.

He watched the plague devastate his own city while reports reached him that Christians elsewhere were murdering Jews over an accusation with.

The sturdy plebeians, notwithstanding, were very near giving to the chivalry of France a lesson quite different from what they expected, but after a gallant stand-up and long-doubtful fight near the town of Cassel, they were defeated with terrible slaughter and compelled to receive back their banished sovereign.

Having achieved this triumph, Philip, on his return to his dominions, sent by Roger, Abbot of Fécamp, afterwards Pope Clement VI, a message to King Edward commanding him to repair to France and do him homage for the fief of Guyenne.

This summons was subsequently repeated, and then before returning an answer, Edward, according to his wont, submitted the question to a parliament assembled at Westminster in February 1329, at which it was decided, probably under the influence of Mortimer, whose interest it then was to preserve the peace, that the king should obey the citation.

It would seem, however, that a secret protest was placed on record that his claim to the crown of France was not in any way compromised by his consenting to do homage for his duchy.

But hearing that the Duke of Normandy was advancing to reinforce Charles of Blois, he concentrated and entrenched his forces under the walls of Vannes.

All through the worst of a very severe winter, with soldiers mutinying, horses dying, and supplies running short, the two armies lay encamped within sight of one another.

Till at length in January 1343, two cardinals arrived from Clement VI, who had succeeded to the papal throne, to endeavour to bring about a peace.

A truce was agreed upon at Malletois to last till Michaelmas.

A dispensation was required for the new marriage, and this Louis proclaimed on his own imperial authority, an action which stirred up anew the papal ire, whilst there was considerable outcry in Germany itself, where the emperor was daily becoming more and more unpopular.

So strong was this feeling that Pope Clement VI had little difficulty in inducing five of the electors to choose a new king of the Romans, 1346, in the person of Charles of Bohemia, son of King John, who lost his life in the same year at the Battle of Crecy.

Louis was engaged in raising men and money to meet this new danger when he was struck down by sudden death in the midst of a bear hunt near Munich, 1347, and left the field clear for the Luxembourg candidate.

Louis the Bavarian had passed a long and troubled reign.

His policy was chiefly to uphold his cause against all opponents and to exalt his own family.

He seems to have had no other aims nor any clear conception of how to support the papal dignity.

Anti-pope Clement VII, 1378 to 1394, was only 36 years of age, tall and commanding in appearance, far more agreeable and conciliatory in manners than his low-born rival, but a warrior rather than a churchman.

As papal legate in North Italy, he had headed bands of mercenary soldiers and was stained by the responsibility of a pitiless massacre at Cesena.

His fourth child, Isabella, married Edward II, and their child was Edward III.

Philip III's youngest son was Charles, Count of Valois, the father of Philip VI, who reigned from 1328 to 1350.

His son was John, who ruled from 1350 to 1364.

End table the French succession.

The Church saw the danger and moved against it.

In the autumn of 1349, Pope Clement VI condemned the flagellants outright and ordered them suppressed.

Within a few years, the processions were broken up and driven underground.

But the fear that had fed them did not vanish when they did.

He had to travel to the Pope, who was then in Avignon, France.

Pope Clement VI consecrated him on the 10th of July in 1349.

On his return to England, Bradwardine contracted the Black Death and died just months later, on this, the 26th of August, having served only 38 days.

But he remains a significant figure in intellectual and theological history, Thomas Bradwardine, theologian and defender of God's sovereignty, a mathematician, a confessor to the king, and briefly Archbishop of Canterbury.