Daniel’s Reviews > A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century > Status Update

1389 mass Catholic issues over the immaculate conception, even though Thomas Aquinas said she was conceived in original sin and that was the orthodox position. The strife and controversy of the time led the Pope to accept immaculate conception. And some background on King Wenceslaus’s drunken reign and how the hussite rebellion cause him to die in a fit of apoplexy

Knights were waging war for the chivalric opportunity to do valor, not merely for a goal. They enjoyed the struggle of war itself. The Crusades added a religious element to this same impulse.

Chaucer repented of everything he wrote that was not pious before he died so that he might be saved “on the day of doom.”

Authors like Petrarch did not like copyist scribes because they would always add little changes and edits as they wrote copies.

“In the decline of Rome, too, there must have been pockets of wealth and delight in serene days where trouble never penetrated.”

The failure of French chivalry and knights, from hardened warlords to effeminate decadent nobles that required extreme comforts on every campaign. Misery soon to follow with further english battles

The extravagance of some lords like the Duke de Berry, John of Valois, could not be believed even in medieval fiction