Europe (c.1400-1458)

43. France

France 201 Nicholas as head of the Church of Caesarea, where he lived in seclusion high in the mountains, content with a small monastery. Summoning teachers of Arab law from Spain, he made a new translation into our language of the book which they call the Qur’an, which contains the mysteries, or rather the ravings, of the false prophet Muhammad, and he exploded its follies with convincing and vivid arguments and proofs.510 154. In Arles, the tomb of Louis, cardinal of St. Cecilia and bishop of that city, whom I saw presiding over the assembly of fathers in Basel, gained a great reputation for miracles, and sick people flocked there from all quarters in the hope of a cure.511 43 FRANCE 155. WHEN Count Jean of Armagnac was stricken with an incestuous passion for his sister and tried to marry her, King Charles of France judged him worthy to be expelled by force from his father’s inheritance.512 510. Juan de Segovia (c. 1390–1458), an ardent conciliarist, served on the committee that elected Felix V at Basel and was created cardinal in 1440 by Felix. He resigned the cardinalate in 1449 and was appointed titular bishop of Caesarea, but he retired to Aiton, France, where he collaborated with Muslim jurist Yça Gidelli on a translation of the Qur’an, which was never finished. See Ann Marie Wolf, “Precedents and Paradigms: Juan de Segovia on the Bible, the Church and the Ottoman Threat,” in Scripture and Pluralism: Reading the Bible in the Religiously Plural Worlds of the Middle Ages, ed. Thomas Hefernan and Thomas Burman (Leiden: Brill, 2005). 511. Louis d’Aleman (c. 1390–1450), archbishop of Arles (1423) and cardinal (1426), was a reformer who supported Felix V at Basel and helped elect him, but was later reconciled with Nicholas V. He was buried at St. Trophime in Arles and was beatified in 1527; see New Catholic Encyclopedia (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2003), vol. 8: 805; Alban Butler, Butler’s Lives of the Saints, ed. Paul Burns (Collegeville, Minn: Liturgical Press, 2003), 154. 512. Count Jean V of Armagnac (r. 1450–73) fathered children with his sister Isabelle and unsuccessfully sought papal dispensations to marry her. Charles VII expelled him from France, more for political reasons than his incestuous relationship, but Louis XI allowed him to return. For more on this bizarre story and the count’s later absolution by Pius himself, with heavy penance, including a promise to partake in crusade against 202 France 156. In the kingdom of France itself, it happened in our time that a young girl from Lorraine named Jeanne, following instructions from God (as they believe), dressed and armed herself like a man and took command of the French army. Fighting herself in the front ranks—miraculous to relate!—she rescued much of the kingdom from the hands of the English.513 157. After Duke Philip of Burgundy had put behind him the injustice of his father’s death, abandoned the English, and defected to the French, major disputes and rivalries arose between King Charles and his son Louis, the dauphin of Vienne.514 At that time, Charles of Anjou, the dauphin’s uncle, held a great deal of influence with the king. Since Duke Jean of Alençon could not abide his power, and the ruler of Bourbon and his bastard brother also regarded the government of Anjou with animosity, they persuaded the dauphin to desert his father.515 For this, they said, might prompt the king to reject Charles out of love for his son and to use better counsel in ruling the kingdom, which seemed to be going to ruin in that man’s hands. The dauphin was swayed by them and left for Nevers without paying his respects to his father. When he learned of this, the king hurriedly assembled an army and led it into Alençon, where he seized numerous fortifications without much difficulty and accepted the duke’s surrender. Next, he moved against his son. Since the cities of Nevers did not dare to protect the dauphin against his father’s power, they asked him to leave. He then took himself to Bourbon, where shortly afterward the duke of Bourbon, in fear of the Turks, see Commentaries, Bk IV (Gragg and Gabel, vol. 3: 315–20). See also Nouvelle Biographie Générale (Paris: Firmin Didot Frères, 1853–66), vol. 3: 257–59. 513. Jeanne d’Arc (c. 1412–31). For...