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Posted by: David McGuiness
Date posted: Wed May 31 14:51:02 EDT 2000
Subject: Avignon Awakening: From the accession of Clement V to the death of Charles IV Capet ca. 1305-1328
Message:
The Avignon Awakening marks the symbolic end of the theocratic princple in Western Europe and the clear reemergence of the secular State. Indeed, the French speaking Pope Clement V accomplished one of the most consequential and controversial actions in the history of the papacy. After his election in 1305 it is clear that Clement had every intention to go to Rome, but he kept postponing his trip. The situation in Italy offered little to attract a French Pope. Guelphs and Ghibellines had reduced most of central and northern Italy to anarchy. The Papal States were torn by feuds of the Colonna, Orsini and other noble families. With the appearance of the German Emperor Henry VII in Italy, the city of Rome became a battlefield for the imperial and papal forces. Meanwhile, there was urgent business to detain Clement on the other side of the Alps: negotiating peace between Edward I and Philip IV; the acusations against Boniface VIII which had never been terminated; Philip IV's attack on the Knights Templars; and the council in Vienne in 1312. In the end Clement chose as his residence the city of Avignon. This decison initiated seven decades of Papal residence within the French sphere of influence. This "Babylonian Captivity" as it is known will be followed by four decades of Schism in the Church. Although nominally in the Empire, Avignon was socially and culturally French as well as overshadowed by French power. Clement and most of his successors apparently did not intend to make Avignon a permanent residence, but it became such for seven decades under as many Popes.(more later) Copyright DMMcG

Posted by: David McGuiness
Date posted: Thu Jun 1 11:29:56 EDT 2000
Subject: Avignon Awakening Continued ca. 1305-1328
Message:
The Avignon Awakening at the end of the third Orientalization period is at the very cusp of the paradigm shift when one finds older refelections of earlier sacred and theocratic times along with those newer images of the profane and secular world to come. Hero archetype elders like Marco Polo, whose book about his travels in the Oriental world , published in 1298, inspired young and old alike. Elder hero archetype Theodoric of Frieburg, whose manuscript entiled "On the Rainbow", published in 1305, is considered by most scientists to be the first major scientific treatise in Western Europe. Some of the midlife artist archetypes during this awakening were none other than the likes of Dante Alighieri, whose Divine Comedy, a glimpse of Medieval Cosmology and contemporary history, was published just before his death in 1321. Other artists in midlife included the proto-protestant Meister Eckhart published his most important works on mysticism during this awakening. Also midlife artist archetype Marsiglio of Padua will publish his severely anti-papal book entitled Defensor Pacis in 1324. All of these midlife artist archetypes were contemporaries of Clement V, the French Pope at Avignon, and Philip IV who put him there. Young adult prophet archetypes inspired by the work of these two generations included were like William of Ockham, the anti-papal Spiritual Franciscan and proponent of radical poverty. Ockham was a radical student at Oxford in 1317 to 1319 and was by 1328 under the protection of his prophet archetype contemporary Louis IV the Bavarian. Other prophets of this awakening were like the hapless Edward II, the first Prince of Wales, and later King of England. Louis X, Philip V and Charles IV, the last of the Capetians in France were also prophets. Philip VI Valois, the first of his dynasty in France, was a prophet too. Looming over all of them was the figure of the elder hero archetype Pope John XXII, who succeded the younger artist archetype Clement V in 1316. Early in his pontificate, John intervened in that long-standing conflict between two factions in the Franciscan order--the Spirituals, who favored strict adherence to St. Francis' rule of poverty, and the conventuals, who held to looser interpretation. John supported the Conventuals, and persecuted the Spirituals who resisted his decision. He later condemned the whole Franciscan theory of evangelical poverty, asserting scriptural evidence to show that Christ and the Apostles had owned property. John also intervened in a quarrel over the crown of the Holy Roman Empire between Louis IV,the Bavarian, and Frederick of Austria. Louis defeated Frederick in 1322, but John forbade him to exercise imperial authority until he, as pope, settled te dispute. John ended up excommunicating Louis in 1328 because, among other things, he protected the likes of Marsiglio of Padua who had declared that the authority of an ecumenical council was superior to that of the pope. This "generation gap" worsened when prophet archetype Louis attempted, without success, to effect a reconcilliation with hero archetype John. Thereafter the Spiritual Franciscans and their philosophical ally Marsiglio continued to carry on a vigorous crusade from the imperial court at Munich. Observing these paradigmatic changes as nomad archhetype children were like Petrarch, the so-called "father of the Renaissance," seventeen when Dante died, and Boccacio whose later book entitled the Decameron will describe this period of change. And, of course, there was Edward III, the nomad archetype who became king of England at fourteen in 1327 under the regency of his prophet archetype mother Isabella, daughter of artist archetype Philip IV Capet of France. (more later) Copyright DMMcG

Posted by: David McGuiness
Date posted: Fri Jun 2 3:32:27 EDT 2000
Subject: Avignon Awakening Continued ca. 1305-1328
Message:
In 1306 artist archetype Robert the Bruce was crowned King of Scotland and he continued the rebellion begun by William Wallace. Edward I regarded him as a traitor and made every effort to crush the rebellion. Robert's success as King was helped by the ineptitude of his successor Edward II. The real test came in 1314 when a large English army attempted to relieve the garrison of Stirling. Its defeat at Bannockburn on June 24th marked the triumph of Robert Bruce. Almost the whole of the rest of his reign had passed before he forced the English government to recognize his position as King of Scotland. Eventually after the deposition of Edward II in 1327, Edward III's regency governent decided to make peace by the treaty of Northhampton in 1328 on terms that included the recognition of Robert's title as King of Scots and the abandonment of all English claims to overlordship. Prophet archetype Edward II cut a poor figure as king. He is described as weak-willed and frivolous, idle and incompetent. For diversions he enjoyed digging ditches, thatching roofs, and other rustic pursuits along with mechanic arts. Although not bad in themselves, this was a time when a king's business was to govern. Edward was a King who left government to civil servants and personal favorites. A group of the barons, called the Lords Ordainers, forced Edward to accept the Ordinances of 1311, which severly curtailed the governental powers of the royal household and which requird the approval of the magnates in parliament for appointment of the greater offices of state and for important polcy decisions . Edward had hoped to regain some power by a successful campaign against the Scots but, as we have already shown, the disasterous defeat of his army at Bannockburn in 1314 ensured Scottish independende and discredited both the king and the barons of England. From that point the barons dominated the government but their incompetence and selfishness were so obvious that a moderate royalist party was able to restore the king to power in 1322. At the parliament held at York that year Edward enacted a statute declaring null and void the Ordinances of 1311, and any similar future provisions, but also recognizing that important legilation should be enacted by the king in parliament with the consent of those summoned and present "as it hath been hiterto accustomed." After this royalist restoration, the king again fell under the influence of favorites, and the tragicomedy of his reign was climaxed when his prophet archetype Queen Isabella daughter of artist archetype Philip IV ran off with her paramor, and then returned to lead a successful rebellion against her husband. For the first time since the days of the Anglo-Saxons, an annointed was deposed. In 1327 nomad archetype Edward III succeeded as a minor to the throne. His mother Isabella and her lover Mortimer controlled the throne to their advantage. In France, artist archetype Philip IV continued to reign. After his confrontation with Boniface VIII over taxation of the clergy, he was stll pressed for money. In 1306 he led a small internal crusade and confiscated the property of the Jews and collected their debts for the crown. Next he attacked the wealthy Knights Templars. With the decline of crusading this military order had become little more than a banking organization. The Templars had been financial agents of the French monarchy for most of the thirteenth century, and Philip was heavily in their debt. The temptation was too great. Charges of heresy and iniquitous crimes were trumped up and the leading Templars brought to trial. Confessions were extorted and the royal persecution was justified by a flood of propaganda. An Estates General was called in 1308 to gain support. By 1312 Pope Clement V had been won over, partly by blackmail, and the order was suppressed as a matter of expediency, not because the charges had been proved. (more later) Copyright DMMcG

Posted by: David McGuiness
Date posted: Fri Jun 2 7:36:30 EDT 2000
Subject: Avignon Awakening Continued ca. 1305-1328
Message:
Royal debts to the Templars were canceled, and money on deposit with them was seized for the crown. The Hospitalers, to whom the Templars' extensive lands were transferred, paid heavily for the privilege of entering their new fiefs. It was a sordid business, from beginning to end. Guillaume de Nogaret, who directed the proceedings, led Philip to expect a huge windfall but in fact the ruin of the Templars provided only a temporary alleviation of royal finances. It was almost an anticlimax when Philip expelled the Lombard bankers from his tralm, in 1311. Their greatest offense was to have lent large sums to Philip; these debts were canceled, and debts owed to them were collected for the crown. Many people besides French subjects had reason to regret the good old days of St. Louis. In 1314 Philip IV died and was succeeded by his prophet archetype eldest son, Louis X. A reaction among the nobility had been brewing during the last years of the reign of Philip IV. Now it broke out in a series of "leagues" against the crown in which some of the towns and lesser nobles joined the greater lords. But this opposition was never consolidated. The "leaguers" could not unite on a common program. Louis was able to appease each regional group by granting a series of charters under which various grievances were redressed or alleviated. In all other respects the short reign of Louis X was merely a continuation of the policies of his father: further development of the central government , and conflict with Flanders. When Louis died in 1316, the succession was in doubt. He left no son, but the queen was expecting the birth of a child in a few months. A boy was born and was proclaimed King John I immediately, but died in a few days. The throne then passed to Louis X's brother: for the first time in over three centuries the direct succession of father to son in the Capetian line was broken. Philip V was an able ruler, but the events of his reign were not so important as the fact that only his daughters survived him. Philip V died in 1322 and the succession was again given to a brother, the third son of Philip IV. Charles IV dabbled in the politics of te German Empire. even aspiring to the imperial throne, but to no avail. When Charles died in 1328, incredible as it may seem, for the third time in the same generation no son survived the king, although he had been married three times. Charles was the last male survivor of the direct line of Hugh Capet. (more later) Copyright DMMcG

Posted by: David McGuiness
Date posted: Fri Jun 9 17:49:48 EDT 2000
Subject: Avignon Awakening Continued ca. 1305-1328
Message:
For Germany the reign of artist archetype Henry VII of Luxembourg was an important turning point in the history of Central Europe. From the accession of nomad archetype Rudolf of Habsburg in 1273 until the death of hero archetype Albert of Austria in 1308, each ruler had tried unsuccessfully to restore the rights of the German crown and to re-establish the hereditary principle of succession. To this end they had built up their own hereditary lands as the basis of a revived monarchy. The princes' opposition to this policy was climaxed by the deposition of Adolf of Nassau in 1298, and the murder of Albert of Austria in 1308. Henry VII who began to reign in 1309 abandoned the policy. Unable to oppose the princes, he tried--unsuccessfully, as we have seen-- to revive the Hohenstaufen policy of basing his power on control of Italy. After Henry VII , the king no longer possessed effective authority, and the dignity of the crown provided little more than an opportunity for dynastic aggrandizement. At his accession, Henry VII was head of a small western house of Luxembourg. Before the end of his son John on the throne of the kingdom of Bohemia, thus transforming the Luxembourgs into an eastern dynasty rivaling the Habsburgs. When Henry died prematurely, prophet archetype king John of Bohemia was only sixteen and the Luxembourg party of the German magnates swung their support in the electoral college to the strongest anti-Habsburg prince, prophet archetype Louis, duke of Bavaria. The supporters of Louis and of Frederick of Habsburg were about equally divided. This disputed election was followed by civil war from 1314 to 1322, when Louis IV of Bavaria won the throne by defeating Frederick in battle. The reign of Louis of Bavaria was little more than an ignoble scramble for territory and power among the magnates, in which Louis himself took the lead, without any regard for the unity of Germany or the regalian rights of his office, Louis used the waning powers of the crown primarily as the means of promoting dynastic interests of his family. Meanwhile hero archetype, Jphn XXII had become pope and refused to recognize either of the rival candidates. John asserted the right of the papacy to judge a disputed imperial election and denied that the fortunes of battle gave louis any superior right over Frederick. Summoned by the pope to renounce his prerogitave until papal recognition of his title, Louis utterly refused. As we have seen, the pope excommunicated Louis and the final phase of the medieval contest between pope and the emperor began. It was a war of words. All the old theories were trotted out and given more extreme expression. Although Marsiglio of Padua found refuge and patronage at the court of Louis, after being forced to flee Paris for having written Defensor Pacis in 1324, he made no further contribution to the polemics of Louis' reign. Louis obviously approved what little he could understand of the Defensor Pacis, which remains, as we have already noted, the most significant treatise on political theory in the later Middle Ages. (more later) Copyright DMMcG

Posted by: David McGuiness
Date posted: Fri Jun 9 18:37:50 EDT 2000
Subject: Avignon Awakening Continued ca. 1305-1328
Message:
During the Avignon Awakening, we have a unique opportunity to show how wholism does not teach new facts but rather it applies a differnt and sometimes bi polar opposite meaning to the facts. As we have shown, linear history is vertical while cyclical history is horizontal, the whole is symbolically represented in topocosmic fashion in the quadrated circle(i.e. a form of the Celtic Cross). in this case, the new meaning is cyclical that is by analogy the new "wine skin" while the same facts are the linear "old wine" new meaning of the whole. But before we can study the events of this prophetic era, you need to know that the events of the next crisis during the Proto-Renaissance will evidence one of the most horrific periods in the history of humans. In 1348 the great "Black Death" was to errupt. It became the great "equalizer" in a world in great pain and fear. The "Black Death" was connected to the famines and pestilences of the Valois unraveling between this awakening and the next crisis that is to say from 1328 to 1348. In the 1330's and 1340's Europe experienced a second period that was characterized by great enviromental changes. These Climatic changes have been described by historians and meteorologists alike as being a "little ice age" which was the sum product arising from notable changes in the weather patterns of Europe. This small shift in overall temperature patterns brought on shortened growing seasons (and longer turnings) and disasterous weather conditions, including heavy storms and constant rains. The first time that this pattern began noticably to appear in western Europe was during the Avignon awakening which, of course, is at the very end of orientalization III and the beginning of the Euro-American paradigm. We know that between 1315 and 1317 Northern Europe experienced heavy rains that destroyed harvests. These changed enviromental conditions caused serious food shortages. (more later) Copyright DMMcG

Posted by: David McGuiness
Date posted: Fri Jun 9 20:27:24 EDT 2000
Subject: Avignon Awakening Continued ca. 1305-1328
Message:
We have also been showing that from as recent as the Cluniac saeculum the historical turnings and their corresponding generations have become increasingly forshortened. During this era, the number of years between turnings has been becoming shorter and shorter being reduced by at least a decade from nearly thirty years per turning , that had been pretty constant from ancient times to the Cluniac saeculum, to twenty years from Cluny through Orientalization III. From the beginning of the Cluniac saeculum to the Avignon awakening at the end of the second Orientalization III saeculum, the turnings have been getting shorter. This forshortening can be seen as a forewarning that an impaction point was being reached in Europe. The environmental changes between 1315 and 1317 brought on the "great famine" but the fanmine would not have been so severe if population densities hadn't been so high. Indeed these environmental changes aggrivated an already existing movement toward impaction. The length of the turining during this Avignon Awakening is twenty-three years 1305-1328. The length of the Valois unravelling will be twenty years from 1328 to 1348. Clearly Europe had reached impaction and, as we have said, it will be during the Valois unraveling ,that is, during the 1330's and 1340's that environmental conditions were becoming so stressed in Europe that many historians have estimated that famine and pestillance killed roughly ten percent of Europe's populationn. These events were horrible for Europeans, who were, at the same time seeing the world being turned upside down as monarchies and oligarchic republics were replacing popes as heads of state. Indeed, as we have shown, the old theocrats were no longer the leaders of a united Christendom and no longer even residing in Rome. But as bad as environmental things were during the unraveling 1328-1348, they would get even worse. In 1348 at the beginning of the Bubonic crisis, the "Black Death would appear. This plague will carry off an estimated fifty percent of Europe's population. As a result, the length of the historical turning of the Bubonic crisis will expand to thirty years from 1348 to 1378. This turning would have been lengthened in any case due to the famines of the 1330's and 1340's. But the next turning known as the "Florentine high" that immedeately follows the Bubonic crisis will lengthen to an unprecidented thirty-seven years from 1378 to 1415, that is, from the beginning of the "great schism" to the execution of Jan Hus. By the Hussite awakening from 1415 to 1445 it is clear that poulation is on the rebound with the length of the turnings once again being reduced in this case from thirty-seven to thirty years from 1415 to 1445. After the Hussite awakening there will be steady increases in population and corresponding decreases in the length of turnings. By the end of the peoto-renaissance saeculum, the new capitalist economy has kicked in, stimulated by the increased value of labor and a corresponding decrease in the cost of living. Wealth was being broadened and future impaction was being staved off by major changes in the technologies of subsistence. . These changes created greater forms of intensification of production. This new intensification allowed for an increase in the birth rate in Europe and later in the Americas. This population increase has now reached unprecidented levels with the turnings being forshortened to beginning impaction levels once again. From the Civil War saeculum to the present day, foreshortening has continued with the most recent turning of the "60's" being the twenty-two years from 1964 till 1986 and the high before that being nineteen years from 1945 till 1964. We will see later that the increase in the length of turnings between the "50's" and the "60's' , That is, from nineteen years to twenty-two years was the result of the widespreads increase in the use of new technological inovations in the areas of contraception and abortion. This technological intensification produced during the "60's" a marginal decrease in population and marginal increase in the length of the turninhg. It is my prophetic opinion ( which I hold since I am , after all, a prophet archetype) that the current unraveling period will end up being in the teens. With this increase in population and a corresponding change in the mode of productio, the figure of impaction once again begins to rear its ugly head. Now during Orientalization IV, we find our culture in a post-industrial age. At the end of Orientalization III and beginning of the Euro-American paradigm, western Europe was in a post-manorial age. The Avignon awakening does provide for us a useful and illustrative example of an awakening event having a ripple effect from the future to the past. Many of the prophet archetypes of the Avignon awakening, like the Spiritual Franciscans represented by William of Ockham were realizing that something was instinctually very wrong in their society and like prophets of old were "bearing witness" to that something. Ockham and Louis IV of Bavaria saw the wrongs being manifest in a non-apostolic papacy. Others, following the teachings of artist archetype Marsiglio of Padua saw a solution to the problem in the creation of a Res Publica Christiana using a more secular and ecumenical model as a style of government. Still other prophet archetypes, following the teachings of the likes of Meister Eckhart, travelled the road od Christian Mysticism in search of solutions. But all agreed that things had drastically changed from before and were rapidly changing in ways that might not be all that acceptible to God. As we have already shown, these latter day prophets were still "bearing witness" from their intuitional souls, that you either understand the process of change or you die! Copyright DMMcG

The dates of the Late Medieval Paradigm and Orientalization III are 1025-1328. DMMcG

Putting things in order