Chapter 28, Holy City Avignon
In the Provence countryside where the Black Death spread, in addition to a few lucky farmers, there were two other types of people who also survived a lot.
The first is naturally the lords and nobles huddled in castle fortresses. Their castles are generally far away from densely populated cities and are relatively closed. If these lords immediately implemented strict quarantine measures after the news of the plague spread, prohibiting merchants and travelers from entering, and not allowing their own people to go out without authorization, then the chance of survival would be much higher - in the Black Death During the invading death spree, less than one-fifth of the people in the entire Provence region survived; but the number of surviving nobles was slightly higher than this tragic proportion.
Of course, even those noble lords who are still alive, under the current desperate situation of "die as soon as they step out", can only hide in the house and close the door, allowing the uninvited guests led by the time travelers to wander in their territory. He did whatever he wanted, while still being terrified of the armed men. Will they come to attack? Not to mention how powerful these strange armed men are. If they can't fight in, even if their castle is impenetrable and well-defended, as long as the plague is brought in by these outsiders during the battle, they will The remaining dead houses must be summoned by the Lord together.
But although Li Wei and the others were "burning all their houses, snatching all their livestock, and losing all their moral integrity" along the way, and they had a great time moving things and setting fire to them, they were not a real group of robbers after all. Therefore, when they see those heavily guarded castles, they usually just stay away from them - it is too troublesome to negotiate with these extremely vigilant and extremely neurotic guys and gradually lower their guard. , and the benefits that can be obtained are limited. However, once they encounter the "castle of the dead" that has become a haunted house, they will break in without politeness and empty out any valuable things inside: As the moral commissar Guo said, this It’s not the Japanese who enter the village, it’s the use of waste!
Then, what is even more troublesome are the missionaries in rural churches and monasteries - when any devastating disaster breaks out, it is often an excellent opportunity for a pandemic of religious fanaticism. Although the pervasiveness of the Black Death is terrifying, there are still some fanatical priests who are not afraid of death walking around the streets, mobilizing the masses, spreading their beliefs, and deceiving them to do all kinds of inexplicable things: whip themselves with whips, use various A curious way to torture yourself He and his family, donated all his property, wife and children, and volunteered to work as cattle and horses for the priests... I heard that Levi and other foreign guys actually came to "rob business" or "rob the Lord's lamb". Those radical bastards will naturally not have a good look on their faces.
Along the way from Marseille to Avignon, there were mental patients shouting all kinds of weird slogans for three days. They appeared from time to time to oppose Li Wei and the others. The reason was very simple and ridiculous - "The plague is God." The punishments given to humans that can cure diseases must be heretics and devils!”
Of course, after seeing living "angels" performing miracles, and being threatened by heavily armed knights and warriors, most of these fanatics regained their senses and knelt down in submission. There were even many people He immediately transformed into a die-hard and fanatical follower of "Saint Levi". But in addition to these guys who are aware of current affairs, there are also many granite-headed die-hards. Even if they see an angel standing in front of them, they insist that it is an illusion or a devil, and wave their fists menacingly to fight. In short, they are completely useless. How to communicate normally.
Fortunately, although Europeans these days believe in the Virgin Mary, the white lotus-like Marist ideology is not very popular. Faced with these inexperienced fanatical religious lunatics, there is no way for Levi’s team to No one is full of love and shouts, "Treating them harshly will turn more people into enemies. We should treat them tolerantly and try our best to Meet all their demands, respect their personal beliefs, and reflect on what mistakes we made that led to their refusal to die"... Instead, in accordance with the typical medieval way of thinking, we decisively adopted a policy of humanitarian destruction against them, whether it was The young priest and the archbishop were all treated as heretics and burned to ashes, so they didn't cause any trouble.
Especially after more than sixty kilometers away from Marseille, they met a cardinal on the road who had escaped from the city of Avignon to avoid the plague. The cardinal seemed to have heard a little bit about the "miracle" in Marseille, so he had a rather arrogant attitude at the beginning. As soon as they met, he angrily accused Livy of abandoning the right path and worshiping heretics. As a priest serving God, This crooked way will never be tolerated... But when a group of angels with wings floated above his head and aimed at his feet and dropped a string of thunderbolts, he was immediately frightened to the point of peeing and pooping, making all kinds of ugly appearances.
However, it’s scary to be scared to death. If you don’t admit it, you still don’t admit it. Although the living angel stood in front of him with an angry face, and although the lightning cast by the angel had exploded at his feet, the cardinal was still dead. He has a tough mouth and refuses to admit that the guy in front of him is an angel!
There is no other way. You want to know what religious people are most afraid of? The first fear is that a large number of believers will apostatize and convert or become atheists. The second fear is of course that the true God will descend to earth. As the saying goes, "The closer you are to God, the less religious you are." Regardless of ancient and modern times, at home and abroad, generally speaking, the closer you are to God, the less religious you are. Being a senior cleric, they usually have a clearer understanding of what the god they believe in is. Son... They may be happy to get a clay and wood sculpture, and spend a lot of money to decorate it to be splendid and beautiful, so as to help themselves deceive believers into donating money and materials to beautiful women, but they absolutely cannot stand this clay and wood sculpture. He suddenly turned into a living creature, asking for this and that from himself, giving orders.
Indeed, medieval Europeans have always been known for their pious beliefs, and church clergy repeatedly declared that they were "servants of the Lord." But the problem is, if there really was an angel sent by God to the world to issue decrees at that time, the first reaction of the Holy See must have been: "...The stake is ready, and all members of the Inquisition are dispatched! Send that angel who falsely claims to be there as soon as possible. The birdman **** is on the road quickly!”
Of course, it is more difficult to say who sends whom on the road next. There are more than one or two popes who have died extremely ugly deaths in history. As long as the magic power of this "angel" is powerful enough and can withstand the edict of the church, there will soon be many devout priests and nuns. You have to throw away your moral integrity and chop off the heads of those die-hard bishops to repent... Otherwise, how do you think Protestantism will come about in the future?
Therefore, given that this granite-headed cardinal is really unable to communicate and act as a bridge between time travelers and the Holy See, Knight Levi, who has become accustomed to seeing death in the past few years, after lowering his head and thinking for a while, can only quickly Regretfully, he blasted the cardinal into pieces with a fireball, and then continued on his journey, preparing to go to the city of Avignon to find the next senior cleric who could communicate...
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In short, everyone turned into a band of bandits, burning villages, robbing things, extorting money, and roasting people alive, and plundered and moved forward. They evacuated countless abandoned villages, castles, and monasteries, and burned a large number of heretics. Flames were billowing and black smoke was rising into the sky, like devils crossing the border... But no matter how slowly they walked, they finally approached their destination, the "Holy Land" Avignon where Pope Clement VI was stationed.
——In 1348, when the Black Death broke out, the papal seat of the European Catholic Church was not in the Eternal City of Rome, Italy, but had been moved to Avignon in Provence, France since 1309. It was known as "Avignon" in history. prisoner".
The reason why this happened was originally because of the fierce conflict between King Philip IV of France and Pope Boniface VIII at the end of the thirteenth century. In French history, Philip IV was the A warlike and powerful monarch. In order to unify France and finance the war against Britain, Philip IV, who was financially strapped, attempted to tax the clergy of the church who had been tax-free before. This move naturally seriously harmed the interests of the church.
However, the new pope Boniface VIII, who had just launched a coup to kill the previous pope and came to power, was also a powerful figure. He immediately issued an encyclical in 1296 stating that the secular monarch had no right to exercise any power over the church and clergy! This directly provoked a fierce struggle with Philip IV.
In the next few years, the two sides continued to fight civilly and violently, winning and losing each other. Finally, as the saying goes, great minds disappear when all power is concentrated in one person - and, in many cases, it is not really necessary to concentrate all power in one person. And as long as this person thinks that all the power is concentrated on him, he can become a A crazy idiot... Boniface VIII, who was eager to win, ignored the fact that the authority of the church had declined significantly since the failure of the Crusades, and actually prepared to break up with him directly, excommunicating the French king and declaring that he would no longer be a Christian. Being a Christian, anyone can rebel reasonably and legally, and then launch a crusade to attack Paris!
——This not only seriously overestimates the current appeal of the Catholic Church, but also pushes the church to the precipice of becoming an enemy of all European princes.
Therefore, King Philip IV of France, who had received the news, and with the hint and acquiescence of other princes and many powerful factions in Italy, decided to strike first and used a leapfrog tactic. In 1303, he directly sent troops across the sea to launch a sneak attack. The Papal State, led by powerful Italian factions and opposition within the church, invaded the villa of Pope Boniface VIII in one fell swoop. The invaders unceremoniously stripped Boniface VIII of his clothes, tied him up with chains like a dog, paraded and beat him in public in Rome, doing all they could to humiliate him, and finally drove the pope to death. .
Next, Philip IV used the remaining power of defeating Boniface VIII to forcefully install a French bishop as pope two years later, named Clement V. But the problem is that the previous papacy has always been monopolized by Italians. When they learned that a foreigner came to seize power, the papacy in central Italy suddenly went into an uproar. Many Italian bishops openly declared that they would kill the French pope. ! Faced with such an undisguised death threat, poor Pope Clement V did not dare to go to the Vatican in Rome to take office, for fear that he would die in unknown circumstances as soon as he arrived in the Papal States.
But since you have become the pope, you still have to go to the Holy See to take up the post, otherwise it will be equivalent to automatically absenting yourself from work and resigning. The countermeasure that Clement V came up with was reverse thinking: If I don’t want the mountain, let the mountain come to me! Since those Italian cardinals don’t welcome me there, I will move the entire Holy See to France! After gaining the home field advantage, and with the support of a local snake like Dharma King, let’s see who is punishing whom!
Therefore, starting in 1309, with the great assistance of the King of France, the Catholic Church was moved to Avignon, and all subsequent popes were French. It was not until 1377 that Pope Gregory XI got rid of French control and moved the Holy See back to Rome - but this was not the final end of the Avignon Holy See: just one year later, Gregory XI After Shi died of illness, Avignon and Rome elected two new popes respectively, and the Germans (Holy Roman Empire) also stepped in and elected a third new pope! As a result, the three popes of the three nationalities, Germany, France and Italy, faced off for a long time and attacked each other, leading to the "Catholic Schism" that lasted for forty years... Until the end of the "Three Popes' Rebellion", Avignon served as the It has been the papal residence for more than a century and can be called the religious holy place in Europe in the Middle Ages after Rome.
Although the origin of Avignon, a holy place, does not have any sanctity to save all living beings, it is only a naked battle and power game... Moreover, the era of "Prison of Avignon" is also recognized It was an important historical turning point for the European Catholic Church from prosperity to decline. But in any case, the presence of the Catholic Church and the spending power of those high-ranking church members have indeed greatly revitalized the economy of Avignon, a small inland city, allowing a large amount of wealth to spread from France, Germany, Italy and even further afield. Places flowed here, stimulating the development and prosperity of the city - regardless of other things, just the pilgrims and envoys who came and went to see the Pope every year brought huge tourism revenue to Avignon.
Therefore, decades after the church settled in, this ordinary country town on the Rhone River quickly grew to a population of about 50,000. According to the social standards of medieval Europe, it could already be called a first-class city, almost Comparable to Marseille, the capital of Provence.
The Avignon people proudly believed that they had replaced the Roman citizens and became the people closest to God and heaven in the world.
Unfortunately, when the Black Death surged from the Port of Marseille, the holy magic of the Catholic Church failed to keep the disease out of the city.
——After a short and meaningless struggle, Avignon was still swallowed by death.
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On the outskirts of Avignon, on the banks of the Rhone River, Chevalier Levi and a group of others stood on the river embankment, looking at the surging river and remaining silent.
At this moment, between the rolling waves of the Rhone River, there are countless rotting and swollen corpses of humans and animals. The number is so large that it has even silted up the river channel and piled up into "floating islands" composed of corpses. The originally clear river water was also tainted with a disgusting stench by so many corpses. The scene was so miserable and terrifying that it was like the River Styx in hell. People couldn't help but want to vomit and cover their noses after seeing it.
In the villages and fields on both sides of the Rhone River, there is no smoke left and carrion is everywhere. There were no farmers working in the fields, only overgrown weeds, no pedestrians or caravans on the road, and no ships' sails on the river... When everyone walked there, it felt like they were walking through a silent wilderness.
——Although this was supposed to be one of the most developed, richest and most densely populated areas in France!
And above the heads of their group, there were a large number of crows croaking and gathering and circling all day long, as if waiting for something...
"...Well, it seems that the situation in Avignon is even more terrifying than in Marseille!" After staring blankly for a long time, Knight Levi finally took the lead to break the silence, "...Hurry into the city! This place is still waiting for us to save it!”