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1351-1360
1361-1370
1371-1380
1381-1390
1391-1400
1401-1410
1411-1420
1421-1430

Timeline
for
Our Period of Interest


1361-1370






1361   Plague reappears in England and France.
  January Petrarch visits Jean on an embassy from Galeazzo Visconti. He writes a report of the shocking and dismal condition of France.
1362   Jean attempts to deal with the brigand companies. He hires the Archpriest Arnaut de Cervole and dispatches him with a small royal army led by the Comte de Tancarville and the Comte de la Marche.
  6 April Against the advice of de Cervole de Tancarville and de la Marche storm the height at Brignas, near Lyon. They are thoroughly defeated by the brigands.
    Jean goes to Avignon, to discuss a crusade.
  22 June Edward III formally emancipates Jean de Montfort and gives him responsibility for the Duchy of Brittany. Jean de Montfort returns to Brittany
  23 September Negotiations between the de Monfort and de Penthièvre parties attempting to end the civil war in Brittany break down, having only achieved an extension of the truce.
  July Jean returns to Paris to find that the Dauphin and the Council have disallowed parts of the treaty on the grounds that it gave away too much, and that the Duc d'Anjou has broken his parole and fled. Coupled with the arrears in payment of the ransom, Jean feels his honor in disrepute, and concludes, bafflingly, that he must return to captivity in England.
[Grandes Chroniques Image].
1363 July Truce of Evran: The de Montfort and de Penthièvre parties agree to another truce, and to appear before the Prince of Wales at Poitiers. The proposed settlement is that the Duchy of Brittany be split, and both contenders allowed to use the title of Duke.
  September Embassies of the de Montfort and de Penthièvre parties meet in Poitiers and arrange for a meeting between Jean IV de Montfort and Charles de Blois.
1364 January Jean arrives in London.
  February Jean de Montfort and Charles de Blois meet at Poitiers. de Montfort is pressing for the ratification of the plan proposed at Evran, the splitting of the Duchy, but de Blois refuses to speak to him directly, and rejects the proposed settelment.
    Pope Urban V issues two Bulls of Excommunication, Cogit Nos and Miserabilis Nonullorum prohibiting dealings with the brigand companies in France, and offering a plenary indulgence to any who die fighting them. The companies don't seem to notice.
  March Jean falls ill of an unknown malady.
  4 March The Scots Parliament refuses to recognize Edward III as King of Scotland.
  April Jean dies. Edward gives him a magnificent funeral and returns the body to France for burial at St. Denis.
Coronation of Charles V.
[Grandes Chroniques Image][Froissart's Chronicle Image]
  May(?) Bertrand du Guesclin wins the battle of Cocherel, in Normandy, defeating the forces of Charles of Navarre and ending his threat to Paris.
[Froissart's Chronicle Image]
The Captal de Buch is taken captive, but released without ransom in the hopes of winning him over to the French side. He comes over, and is granted large revenues by King Charles.
  29 September Charles de Blois looses the battle of Auray, and his life, in Brittany.
[Froissart's Chronicle Image]
Bertrand du Guesclin, fighting for de Blois, is taken captive, and Olivier de Clisson, fighting for de Montfort and the English troops under Chandos looses his eye.
1365   Charles V invites Thomas de Pisan, a Doctor of Astrology at the University of Bologna, to come to his court, and keeps him on at a salary of 100 francs a month.
  April Treaty of Guérande: Jean de Montfort, the English claimant, becomes Duc de Bretagne, though in accordance with the treaty of Bretigny it remains a fief of France. Jeanne de Penthièvre keeps the County of Penthièvre and the Viscompté de Limoges. She agrees to render homage and recognize Jean IV as Duke. He agrees to pay her 10,000 livres (tournois) a year, and to try to negotiate the return of Jeanne's two sons, held hostage in England.
  12 June King Edward bans the playing of football in London, orders archery practice instead.
  Whitsunday Emperor Charles IV, interested in repelling the Turks from the eastern sections of the Empire, and Urban V, interested in repelling the brigand companies from France, call for a crusade in Hungary. This is to be led by Arnaut de Cervole, a brigand himself.
  Summer Those brigand companies that have decided to go begin moving to a rendezvous in Lorraine. Their reputation is such however that they are met with resistance by the citizens of Strasbourg, who refuse to let them cross the Rhine bridge. The Emperor is forced by his citizens to block them with his army, and the companies return to France after having been gone for only a month.
  27 July Engurrand de Coucy and Isabella Plantagenet are married at Windsor.
  November Engurrand and Isabella return to France.
1366 May King Charles V ratifies the treaty of Guérande.
    Jeanne de Penthièvre arranges to make annual payments of 7,000 livres tournois to Jean Goldbêtre, a moneylender from Bruges, as repayment of her massive war debts. This loan is secured in part by pledging the viscounty of Limoges.
    Bertrand du Guesclin, having charmingly extorted 200,000 francs from the Pope, gathers the brigand companies and brings them to Castille, to fight for Don Enrique de Trastamara, the illegitimate brother of King Pedro the Cruel, who's oppressions had caused his people to rise up against him. Du Guesclin and his men fight with such effect that by fall Pedro has fled, and Enrique is crowned King Enrique II.
  May Engurrand and Isabella return to England.
  11 May Engurrand de Coucy is named Earl of Bedford, with an income of 300 marks a year.
  December Jean IV does Homage to Charles V for the Duchy of Brittany.
1367   Prince Edward, interested in breaking up the French-Castillian alliance, and having been promised by Don Pedro that he would be repaid for all his expenses, begins a campaign in Castille.
    Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent, Wife of Prince Edward, bears him a son, named Richard, at Bordeaux. This is the Future Richard II.
  April Isabella de Coucy bears Engurrand another daughter, Phillipa
    The battle of Najera. Against the advice of Bertrand du Guesclin and Marshal d'Audrehem, King Enrique gives battle to Don Pedro and Prince Edward. The result is an overwhelming defeat for Enrique, who is forced to flee. Don Pedro is restored to the throne, and du Guesclin is taken prisoner.
[Froissart's Chronicle Image]
On the positive side, the brigand companies are devastated, and France has some relief, until Prince Edward releases his English-Gascon troops.
    Pope Urban sails from Marsellies to Rome, taking the papacy back to Rome.
  June Engurrand de Coucy becomes Comte de Soissons
1368 26 January As had been predicted, King Pedro defaults on his debts. Prince Edward convenes the Estates of Aquitaine, and is granted a hearth tax of ten sols per hearth, to be levied for five years. The Gascons, under the leadership of Jean I d'Armagnac, oppose this, Jean refuses to permit the collection of the tax, and appeals to Charles V.
    The Franciscan monks at the abbey of Guingamp, where Charles of Blois is buried, begin circulating reports of miracles. Jean IV de Montfort, not wanting to be known as the persecutor of a holy man, complains to the Pope, who orders the monks to stop.
    Jeanne de Penthièvre falls behind on her payments to Jean Goldbêtre, mostly due to the fact that Jean IV de Bretagne fails to make his payments to her. Prince Edward orders Limoges seized and sold to repay the debt to Goldbêtre. This order begins a series of hearings by Prince Edwards Senechal of Limosin, Thomas de Roos.
    Emperor Charles IV comes to Rome to meet with Pope Urban regarding an alliance against the Visconti.
  April Lionel, Duke of Clarence, is in Paris on his way to Milan to marry Violoante Visconti. He is entertained regally. Amadeus of Savoy is also present at the celebrations.
  June Lionel Plantagenet and Violante Visconti are married in a resplendent ceremony, which includes a feast where all the meats are gilded.
  June Following a meeting of princes, prelates and royal officers Charles V agrees to hear the grievances of the Comtes d'Armagnac and Périgord, and the Sire d'Albret.
  October Lionel, Duke of Clarence, dies in Italy of an undiagnosed fever.
  Mid-November King Charles summons Prince Edward to Paris to answer the complaints against him by the lords of Gascony. Edward assures him that he will come "with helmet on our head and 60,000 men in our company".
  December Prince Edward orders the viscounty of Limoges sold to Robert Knolles, for the debt owed by Jeanne de Penthièvre. Olivier IV de Clisson steps in and pays the debt.
1369   King Charles dispatches du Guesclin to Castille in support of Don Enrique, to put an ally on the throne. At the Battle of Montiel, near Toledo in March, King Pedro is defeated.
Pedro is captured
[Froissart's Chronicle Image]
and executed
[Grandes Chroniques Image]
by Enrique, who is put back on the throne.
    Charles V asks Pope Urban V to open an inquiry into the purported miracles at the burial site of Charles of Blois. Reversing his earlier position, Urban orders the inquiry made.
  April King Charles launches an effort to revive the French fleet, which had fallen into disrepair since the 1330s, and spends several months in the Rouen region overseeing the project.
  2 May King Charles V and representatives of the lords of the Aquitaine await Prince Edward in Paris. The Prince does not show. King Charles waits a week, then accepts the grievances of the Gascon lords.
  May King Charles V declares the Treaty of Bretigny void, and declares war on England.
    Geoffrey Chaucer finishes The Book of the Duchess dedicated to the memory of Blanche, wife of John of Gaunt.
  June King Enrique of Castille concludes a major naval treaty with France.
  11 June John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and second son of Edward III, contracts to serve for six months in France.
  1 July Philippe de Burgundy agrees to lead 1,000 lances in an attack on England.
  9 July Jeanne de Penthièvre cedes the viscounty of Limoges to Charles V. He secretly cedes it back to her the same day. In theory this is done to attempt to recruit lords in the region back to the French side.
  26 July John of Gaunt lands at Calais, expecting Edward III to join him in a month.
  August Charles V summons the Estates of the local area to meet at Rouen. The Estates support a proposal to make war, and replace the hearth tax with indirect taxes, which are high, and unpopular.
    Philippe and his 1,000 lances are sent to oppose John of Gaunt. Philippe is under strict orders not to engage Gaunt without direct orders from Charles V.
    Byzantine Emperor John V comes to Rome to meet with Urban about the unification of the Eastern and Western Christian churches. The talks get hung up on matters of ritual.
  September Edward III's troops, but not Edward, reinforce John of Gaunt. Burgundy withdraws his troops, and John of Gaunt pillages the countryside southwest as far as the Seine. His aim is apparently Harfleur, but he is unable to penetrate it's defences, and returns to England.
    The Captal de Buch, who had given Charles his fealty after the battle of Cocherel, relapses. He repudiates his homage, returns the properties he was granted, and rejoins the English.
  October Philippe de Burgundy and Marguerite of Flanders are married.
    Sir Robert Knollys raids through Picardy.
1370   Sir John Chandos dies. At Lussac, on a bridge over the Vienne, during a skirmish he is struck a blow to the blind side of his head. He dies the next day.
    Pope Urban V agrees that the Inquiry into the miracles of Charles of Blois should take place outside Brittany, at Angers, in Anjou.
  Late July Sir Robert Knollys, with a force of 1,500 men-at-arms and 4,000 archers, departs Calais, and pillages his way across France, from Arras to Vermandois, then west towards Brittany.
  August The bishop of Limoges, Jehan de Cros, convinced to it by the bribes of the Duc de Berry, changes his alliegance from Edward to Charles V surrendering the city.
  End of October Sack of Limoges. In response to the "treason" of it's bishop and people, frustrated with all the losses he has faced since Najera, and maddened by being bedridden with dropsy, Prince Edward orders an atrocity. Limoges is cruelly sacked and burned, it's fortifications are razed and more than 3,000 are slain. This is the basis for Edward's title of "the Black Prince".
  September Faced with a revolt in the Papal States and the Visconti military buildup, Urban returns to Avignon.
    Following the Sack of Limoges Robert de Fiennes, Constable of France, asks to be relieved of his duties. Charles summons a Great Council to discuss the defense of the realm.
  2 October Bertrand du Guesclin is appointed Constable of France.
  24 October At Ponterson, in Brittany, Bertrand du Guesclin and Olivier III de Clisson sign a mutual defense agreement with each other.
  November Pope Urban V dies.
  4 December At Pontvallain, near Le Mans, Bertrand du Guesclin and Olivier III de Clisson attack and defeat a contingent of Robert Knolles' forces, commanded by Thomas de Grandson.
[Froissart's Chronicle Image]
  December Bertrand du Guesclin and Olivier III de Clisson attack and defeat John Cresswell, another of Knolles' commanders. du Guesclin retires to winter quarters at Saumer, de Clisson remains in the field.
  December Olivier III de Clisson attacks and defeats another English detachment, that was being sent to reinforce Robert Knolles. The English begin calling de Clisson 'the Butcher'.


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