Paris, Saint-Séverin, ambulatory.
Photograph courtesy of Whitney S.
Stoddard.
of reform by endowing the Collège de Navarre at the University of Paris. Established
early in the 14th century and patronized by successive members of the Évreux family,
this institution produced a series of brilliant intellectuals who attracted others to a circle
of reformers that wielded influence in three successive reigns after 1350. Eloquent
preachers associated with this circle espoused such causes as a stable coinage, lower
taxes, honest government, and (unusual for this period) the suppression of noble violence
against unprotected peasants.
When competing princely factions (Burgundy vs. Orléans and then Armagnac)
disrupted French politics in the early 15th century, it was John the Fearless, duke of
Burgundy (r. 1404–19), whose success in posing as a reformer won over the Parisian
bourgeoisie and important elements at the university. The next major uprising in Paris,
that of the Cabochiens in 1413, led to a major ordinance of reform, but the excesses of
the rebels antagonized most of the princes, and the ordinance did not survive the
suppression of the uprising. The duke of Burgundy, isolated politically by this incident,
had to flee Paris, but his forces regained the city in 1418 and massacred his rivals. His
murder the following year pushed his son into alliance with England, and the Treaty of
Troyes (1420) recognized Henry V as heir to the French throne. During the lifetime of
this alliance (to 1435), Paris remained under Anglo-Burgundian control. Charles VII’s
troops finally recaptured the city for the Valois monarchy in 1436, but several more
decades would pass before Paris regained its former stature as the undisputed political
and intellectual center of the realm.
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