Coucy Enguerrand de - A distant mirror: the calamitous 14th century

Wise, witty, and wonderful A great book, in a great historical tradition.

Commentary

Beautifully written, careful and thorough in its scholarship What Ms. Tuchman does superbly is to tell how it was No one has ever done this better.

The New York Review of Books

Barbara Tuchman is at the top of her powers A beautiful, extraordinary book She has done nothing finer.

The Wall Street Journal

2014 Random House Trade Paperbacks Edition

Copyright 1978 by Barbara W. Tuchman

Maps Copyright 1978 by Anita Karl
All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

R ANDOM H OUSE and the H OUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Originally published in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, in 1978.

ISBN 978-0-345-34957-6
eBook ISBN 978-0-307-79369-0

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 79-88536

www.atrandom.com

Frontispiece: Pol de Limbourg, Death, One of the Four Riders from the Apocalypse (detail), from Trs Riches Heures du Duc de Berry ( Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library)

Cover design: Gabrielle Bordwin
Cover painting: Pol de Limbourg, Death, One of the Four Riders from the Apocalypse (detail), from Trs Riches Heures du Duc de Berry ( Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library)

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For mankind is ever the same and nothing is lost
out of nature, though everything is altered.

J OHN D RYDEN ,
On the Characters in the Canterbury Tales,
In Preface to Fables, Ancient and Modern

. Coucy-le-Chteau (from Androuet Du Cerceau, Les plus excellents btiments de France, 1648)

. The abandoned castle in later years (from Alexandre Du Sommerard, Les Arts au Moyen Age, 10th ser., pl. IX)

. Fortunes wheel (Morgan Library: Ms. 324, fo. 34v)

. Coucys seals (AN: Bureaux des sceaux)

Chaucers squire (The Huntington Library: Ellesmere ms. 26, C9)

. A 14th century carriage (Zentralbibliothek, Zrich)

. View of Paris (BN: Ms. Fr. 2645, fo. 321v)

. A country village (BN: Ms. Fr. 22531)

. Charles of Navarre (Photo: Giraudon)

. Jean II (The Louvre)

. The Black Prince (Dean and Chapter of Canterbury)

. English archers (British Museum: Addit. mss. 42130, fo. 147v)

. View of London (British Museum: Royal mss. 16F 11, fo. 73)

. The Last Judgment (Archives photographiques, Paris)

. The world as a globe (BN: Ms. 574, fo. 42)

. The childs education (Morgan Library: Ms. 456, fo. 68v)

. Pillage and burning (BN: Ms. Fr. 2644, fo. 135)

. A charivari (BN: Ms. Fr. 146, fo. 34)

. The fourth horseman of the apocalypse (Muse Cond, Chantilly; Photo: Giraudon)

. The Triumph of Death (Scala/Editorial Photocolor Archives)

. Burial of the plague victims (Bibliothque royale, Bruxelles: Ms. 1307677, fo. 24; Photo: Giraudon)

. Penitential procession (Muse Cond, Chantilly; Photo: Giraudon)

. A Cardinal (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection, Munsey Fund, 1932, and Gift of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., 1947)

. Knights (AN; Photo: Giraudon)

. Peasants (Muse Cond, Chantilly; Photo: Giraudon)

. Slaughter of the Jacques (BN: Ms. Fr. 2643, fo. 226v)

. Murder of the marshals (BN: Ms. Fr. 2813, fo. 409v)

. The war-dog (BN: Ms. Lat. 7239, fo. 61r)

. The Battle of Sluys (BN: Ms. Fr. 2643, fo. 72)

. Widowed Rome (BN: Ms. Ital. 81, fo. 18)

. Florence (BN: Vb, 37 fol.)

. The royal palace in Paris (BN: Ms. Fr. 23279, fo. 53)

. The Effects of Good Government, in the City and in the Country, by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Scala/Editorial Photocolor Archives)

. The Battle of Poitiers (BN: Ms. Fr. 2643, fo. 207)

Hours of Maruerite dOrleans (BN: Ms. Lat. 1156B, fo. 163)

. Guidoriccio da Fogliano, by Simone Martini (Scala/Editorial Photocolor Archives)

. Banquet for the Emperor (BN: Ms. Fr. 2813, fo. 473v)

. Departure for Mahdia campaign (British Museum: Harleian mss. 4379, fo. 60b)

. Bal des Ardents (BN: Ms. Fr. 2646, fo. 176)

. Papal palace at Avignon (Prints Division, New York Public Library)

. Coins (American Numismatic Society)

. A Sienese army (from Aldo Cairola, Il Palazzo Pubblico di Siena, Copyright 1963 Editalia)

. The Swiss Campaign (Berner Chronik, facsimile ed., Bern, 1943, vol. 1, pls. 202 and 206, Copyright 1943, Aare Verlag Bern)

. Sir John Hawkwood (Scala/Editorial Photocolor Archives)

. Pierre de Luxemburg (Muse Calvet, Avignon; Photo: Braun)

. Burning of the Jews (Bibliothque royale, Bruxelles: Ms. 1307677, fo. 12v)

. Jew (Cathedral of Tarragona; Photo Mas, Barcelona)

. Christine de Pisan (BN: Ms. Fr. 835, fo. 1)

. Jean de Berry (Archives photographiques, Paris)

. Philip of Burgundy (Photo: Giraudon)

. Charles V receiving Aristotles Ethics (Bibliothque royale, Bruxelles: Ms. 950506, fo. 1)

. Pope Urban VI (Photo: Leonard Von Matt, Buochs, Switzerland)

. Clement VII (Photo: Giraudon)

. The siege of Mahdia (BN: Ms. Fr. 2646, fo. 79)

. Louis dOrlans (Photo: Giraudon)

. The Visconti device (BN: Ms. Lat. 6340, fo. 901v)

. Gian Galeazzo Visconti (The Louvre; Photo: Giraudon)

. Froissart offering his Chronicles to Charles VI (BN: Ms. Fr., nouv. acq., 9604, fo. 1)

. Gerson preaching (Bibliothque municipale de Valencienne; Photo: Giraudon)

. Bureau de la Rivire and Cardinal Jean de La Grange (Archives photographiques, Paris)

. Effigy of Guillaume de Harsigny (Museum of Laon)

. Danse Macabre (Archives photographiques, Paris)