The knights descend into mercenary anarchy. — This post originally appeared on Substack. Missed an earlier post? Here’s part 1, part 2 and part 3. Read this already? Here’s part 5. The flayers As a preface to the outbreak of the Jacquerie, I did my best to sum up the infuriating uselessness of the aristocracy in arms. How useless…

A peasant uprising tries to exterminate the aristocracy and the mayor of Paris tries to harness it against the captive king. — This post originally appeared on Substack. Missed an earlier post? Here’s part 1 and part 2. Read this already? Here’s part 4 and part 5. Marcel and the Jacques The Church and secular authorities soon got a handle on the situation and suppressed the flagellants with predictably medieval brutality. Plague-born challenges to the powers…

Roving bands seek redemption, revenge and an end to the pestilence by shunning the Church, flogging themselves and killing their neighbors. — This post originally appeared on Substack. Missed part 1? It’s right here. Read this already? Here’s part 3, part 4 and part 5. Flagellants and pogromists The scholars of the University of Paris produced the officially accepted explanation for the plague in 1348: in Tuchman’s paraphrase, “a triple conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, and…

What can we learn from the Black Death? — This post originally appeared on Substack. Already read this one? Here’s part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5. Sometime around early spring, the thought occurred to you. Maybe it was just once, or maybe the notion clanged around your head for a while: this could be it. The…