A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [370]
Next in importance was Ste. Trinité, his heaviest investment in salvation. He orders for the monastery “a notable silver cross weighing forty Paris marks [about 23 pounds], a silver censer, two cruets for water and wine for use in the Divine service, a silver ewer for washing the hands of the priest, a fine and notable silver-gilt chalice of fitting weight and workmanship for such a monastery, four pairs of ornaments for the priest, deacon, and sub-deacon, of which three shall be for ordinary use and the fourth for the solemnities of important holy days.”
In the further interest of his soul, bequests follow to no fewer than 21 separate churches and chapels, including Notre Dame de Chartres, “who, as we firmly believe, made for us a visible miracle.” The other bequests range from 100 florins for the chapel of Pierre de Luxemburg at Avignon to 1,000 florins for Notre Dame de Liesse, where Coucyhad escorted Charles VI after his first attack of madness, plus 100 florins each to five separate chantries in Soissons for prayers for his soul, and 6,000 to his executors for further prayers at their discretion. The sum of 1,000 florins was to be distributed among the poor of Paris, the same to the poor of his own domain, and 800 bequeathed to the Hôtel Dieu in Paris.
Unlike many nobles concerned with deathbed restitutions, Coucy evidently had no one he had wronged on his mind, but only some debts to be fulfilled. His only possessions at hand—a gown and a tapestry-are to be sold to pay his servants and to pay Abraham, “apothecary and merchant of Brusa,” for medicines. Debts incurred on the voyage are to be paid by means of jewels he has deposited in Venice. The King of France is asked to hold his lands in France to ensure that revenues will be collected and used for all legacies he has directed. Geoffrey Maupoivre and Jacques d’Amance, Marshal of Lorraine (the duchy of his wife’s family), are named executors, supplemented by Comte d’Eu, Boucicaut, and Guy de Tremoille for aid and counsel. These three together with Guillaume de Tremoille, Jacques de la Marche, and six other French knights witnessed and signed the document.
Two days later, on February 18, 1397, Enguerrand VII, Sire de Coucy and Count of Soissons, died in Brusa.
A whole man in a fractured time, he was the least compromised of his class and kind by brutality, venality, and reckless indulgence. His fellows have been well described by Clisson’s biographer as “in turn refined and barbaric, generous and bloody, knavish and chivalrous, above mankind in their courage and love of glory, beneath mankind in their hates, their furious follies, their duplicity and savage cruelty.” Coucy was distinct from most in being apparently immune from those furious follies. He saw his role steadily, accepted every responsibility but the constableship, remained sagacious in judgment, cool and capable in performance. In that steadiness, sagacity, and competence, and in commanding the respect and trust of all associates, he had many of the qualities of George Washington, short of leadership, which needs a cause to call it forth. If there have been mute inglorious Miltons in rural villages, presumably there have been unrealized Washingtons born in unpropitious times. The 14th century produced bourgeois leaders like the two Van Arteveldes, Etienne Marcel, Cola di Rienzi, but few from the noble class, partly because leadership was presupposed in the king, who, until the time of Charles V, personally led the nobles into battle. When Jean II was in captivity, the northern French nobles asked Charles of Navarre, because he was a king, to lead them against the Jacques. The nobility, however,