Europe in the Middle Ages

by Ierne L. Plunket

Twice defeated, a wise prince might have done well to consider terms of peace with those who, though rustics, had proved more than his equals; but Charles, a brave soldier, would not recognize that his own bad generalship had largely contributed to his disasters. He chose to believe instead in that convenient but somewhat thin excuse for failure, ‘bad luck’, and prophesied that his fortune would turn if he persevered.

More dubious of their ruler’s ability than his fortune, the Flemings, as they grudgingly voted money for a fresh campaign, besought their Duke to make peace. His former allies, once dazzled by his name and riches, were planning to desert him: but Charles was deaf alike to hints of prudence or tales of treachery.

Near the town of Nanci he met the Swiss for a third time, and once more the famous horns, ‘the bull’ of Uri and ‘the cow’ of Unterwalden, bellowed forth their calls to victory, and the Burgundians, inspired by treachery or forebodings of defeat, turned and fled. None knew what had happened to the Duke, until a captured page reported that he had seen him cut down as he fought stubbornly against great numbers. Later his body was discovered, stripped for the sake of its rich armour, and half-embedded in a frozen lake.

Thus fittingly died Charles ‘the Rash’, leaving the reputation as a warrior that he would gladly have earned to his enemies the Swiss, now regarded as amongst the invincible veterans of Europe.

* * * * *

The voice of freedom had spoken so loudly through the Forest Cantons that mediaeval Europe had been forced to acknowledge her claim, and elsewhere also democratic forces were openly at work. We have spoken in previous chapters of the ‘Communes’ of northern France and Italy, precocious in their civilization, modern in their demands for self-government. In Italy, at least, they had been strong enough to form Leagues and defeat Emperors; but commercial jealousy and class feuds had always prevented these Unions from developing into a federation.

This is true also of southern Germany, where towns like Augsburg and Nuremburg become, as the central mart for trade between Eastern and Western Europe and also between Venice, Genoa, and the lands north of the Alps, rivals in wealth and luxury of Mediterranean ports. During periods like the ‘Great Interregnum’, when German kingship was of no avail to preserve peace or order, it was associations of these towns that sent out young burghers to fight the robber knights that were the pest of the countryside, and to protect the merchandise on which their joint fortunes depended.

Union for obvious purposes of defence was thus a political weapon forged early in town annals; but, on the other hand, it was only slowly that burghers and citizens came to realize the advantages of permanent combination for other ends, such as commercial expansion, or in order to secure stable government.

This limited outlook arose partly from the very different stages of development at which mediaeval towns were to be found at the same moment. Some would be just struggling out of dependence on a local bishop or count by the payment of huge tolls, at the same time that others, though enjoying a good deal of commercial freedom, were still forced to accept magistrates appointed by their neighbouring overlord. Yet again, a privileged few would be ‘free’ towns, entirely self-governed, and owning allegiance only to the Emperor. Perhaps a master mind could have dovetailed all these conflicting systems of government into a federation that would have helped and safeguarded the interests of all, but unfortunately the mediaeval mind was a slave to the fallacy that commercial gain can only be made at the expense of some one else.

The men of one town hated and feared the prosperity of another and were convinced that the utmost limit of duty to a neighbour was their own city walls. Nothing, for instance, is more opposed to modern codes of brotherhood than the early mediaeval opinion on the subjects of wrecks. Men and women of those days saw no incongruity in piously petitioning God in public prayer for a good wreckage, or in regarding the shipwrecked sailor or merchant cast on their rocks as prey to be knocked on the head and plucked.