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By Root 1668 0

little money and even his nuptial crown, which he had brought to serve at his coronation, had to be sold. The resplendent hauberk embroidered in gold, worn over his armor, went too, and he wore in its place a simple cloth with fleur-delys painted in yellow. In place of the delicate meats and pastries he was accustomed to, he ate rabbit stew and barley bread. As the months went by, starving pack animals could not move and war-horses, “instead of pawing the ground and whinnying with pride, languished with lowered heads like common beasts.”

Ever since he had left Paris, Anjou had been bombarding the Council by letter and messenger to fulfill its promise to finance a supplementary campaign against Naples under the command of Enguerrand de Coucy. While still in Avignon, he had urged his agent in Paris, Pierre Gérard, to make every effort to engage Coucy. No money was to be paid to him until he had committed himself in writing to join Anjou, but Gérard was instructed “always to proceed with this seigneur as graciously as possible.” Pope Clement urgently supported Anjou’s pleas to the crown, reporting “superb” offers from various parts of Italy and every promise of success, and expressing his deep chagrin at the refusal of the French Council to aid an enterprise on which the health of the Church depended. Nevertheless, Anjou was left dangling through the year of Roosebeke. Not until after the suppression of Paris, when the Treasury had been replenished by fines, was the crown ready to fulfill its promise. By this time Amadeo was dead and the “army of Xerxes” huddled in misery at Bari.

Coucy was ready and eager to go to Anjou’s aid. He was in constant consultation in Paris with Anjou’s chancellor, Bishop Jean le Fèvre, and repeatedly asked to know if Le Fèvre had obtained a positive reply from the King. At last, in April 1383, the Council agreed to give Anjou 190,000 francs, of which 80,000 represented aids levied on his own possessions. Just at that moment, England in a last infirmity of war hunger, launched yet another invasion. All energies were turned to meet it, and all men-at-arms, by order of the Duke of Burgundy, were prohibited from leaving the kingdom. Coucy’s expedition was frustrated. An army was indeed organized, not for Italy but once again for Flanders where the English had seized Dunkirk.

Led by Henry Despenser, Bishop of Norwich, the English raid was the fruition of Urban’s effort for a “crusade” against schismatic France. It began in scandal and was to end in fiasco. The moral harm done to papal obedience in England by the methods of financing the “crusade” outweighed anything the papacy could have gained, even with success. Friars as papal agents were endowed with “wonderful indulgences” and extra powers to sell or, worse, to refuse absolution “unless the people gave according to their ability and estate.” Even the sacrament was at times withheld from parishioners who refused an offering to the crusade. Gold, silver, jewels, and money were collected, especially, according to Knighton, “from ladies and other women.… Thus the secret treasure of the realm, which was in the hands of women, was drawn out.” Protest was re-invigorated and evoked one of Wyclif’s last tracts, “Against Clerical Wars.” Lollard preachers denounced “these worldly prelates … chief captains and arrayers of Satan’s battles to exile good life and charity.” Because of the false nature of the absolutions, they said, “No tongue may tell how many souls go to hell by these cursed captains and Anti-Christs’ jurisdictions and censures.”

Norwich was a prelate not merely martial but actively bellicose. Though a bishop, he was described by Walsingham as “young, unbridled and insolent … endowed neither with learning nor discretion, experienced neither in preserving nor bestowing friendship.” By the time he had gathered sufficient funds and a force of about 5,000, his intended allies in Ghent were sadly subdued. He succeeded, however, after landing at Calais, in quickly taking Gravelines, Dunkirk, and Bourbourg on the Flemish coast. After laying siege