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 permission, then the chance of survival would be much higher.
During the death craze, 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.
They do whatever they want, and at the same time they are still fearful of the armed gangs.
Will the disciples come over to attack, not to mention how powerful these strange armed men are, and whether they can get 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 not be able to survive.
All the dead people must be summoned by the Lord together.
But although Li Wei and the others burned down their houses, robbed all their livestock, lost all their moral integrity, and had a great time moving things and setting fires along the way, they were not a real bandit group after all.
Therefore, when they see those heavily guarded castles, they usually just stay away from negotiating with these wary and extremely neurotic guys, gradually dispelling their guard, which is really troublesome.
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 devils entering the village, it’s the waste utilization Then, what is even more troublesome is that when any devastating disaster breaks out for missionaries in rural churches and monasteries, 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 I and my family, as well as donated all my property, wife and children, volunteered to work as cattle and horses for the priests, etc.
I heard that Levi and other foreign guys actually came to "rob business" or "rob the Lord's lamb", those radical Naturally, the faction's magicians will 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: "Plagues are sent to mankind by God."
Punishment, those who 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 die-hards with granite heads.
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.
They should be treated tolerantly and try their best to We must meet all their demands to the best of our ability, respect their personal beliefs, and reflect on what mistakes we made that led to their refusal to obey.”
Instead, in accordance with the typical medieval way of thinking, we decisively adopted a policy of humanitarian destruction against them, regardless of whether they were small or small.
Priests and archbishops were all treated as heretics and burned to ashes, so they didn't cause any trouble.
Especially after more than sixty kilometers 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 was quite arrogant 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, He was determined not to tolerate this crooked way.
However, when a group of angels with wings floated above his head and aimed at his feet, throwing strings 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, whether you want to admit it or not 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 stubborn and stubborn. , refusing to admit that the guy in front of me is an angel.
No way, you have 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 come down 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 more senior the clergy are, the clearer they usually are about the gods they believe in.
They might be happy to make a clay and wooden sculpture, and spend a lot of money to make it splendid and beautiful, so as to help themselves deceive believers into donating money and materials to beautiful women, but they absolutely cannot stand it.
This clay and wood sculpture suddenly turned into a living creature, asking for this and that from him and giving orders.
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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 to send the birdman who falsely claims to be an angel to death."
Get 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.
Don't throw away your moral integrity and chop off the heads of those die-hard bishops who come 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.
In short, everyone transformed into a gang of robbers, burning villages, robbing things, extorting money, and roasting people alive.
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 the destination of their trip, 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 is known in history as the "Prison of Avignon" ".
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 13th century.
In French history, Philip IV was a warlike person. 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 infringed on the interests of the church.
However, the new pope Boniface VIII, who had just launched a coup to kill the previous pope, 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, thus 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: When all the power is concentrated in one person, great minds disappear.
And, in many cases, it is not really necessary to concentrate all the power in one person, but only By making this person think that all the power is concentrated on him, he can become Boniface VIII, a crazy and mentally retarded man who was eager to win, ignored the reality that the authority of the church had declined significantly since the failure of the Crusades.
He was actually prepared to directly break up with him, excommunicate the French king, and declare that he was no longer a Christian.
Anyone can rebel reasonably and legally, and then launch a crusade to attack Paris This not only seriously overestimated the current appeal of the Catholic Church, but also pushed the church to the precipice of becoming an enemy of the 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 strategy that Clement V came up with was reverse thinking: If I don't go to the mountains, let the mountains come to me.
Since those Italian cardinals don't welcome me, 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 died of illness. , Avignon and Rome elected two new popes respectively, and the German Holy Roman Empire also stepped in and elected The emergence of the third new pope resulted in a long-term confrontation between the three popes of the three nationalities of Germany, France and Italy, and they sent troops to attack each other, erupting the "Catholic Schism" that lasted for forty years.
Until the end of the "Three Popes' Rebellion", Aveni It served as the papal residence for more than a century and was the most religious holy place in medieval Europe after Rome.
Although the origin of Avignon, a holy place, does not have any sanctity of saving all sentient beings, it is only a naked battle and power game.
Moreover, the era of "Prison of Avignon" is also recognized as Europe's most sacred place.
An important turning point in the history of the Catholic Church from prosperity to decline.
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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, the pilgrims and envoys who come and go to meet the Pope every year bring 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 brief and pointless struggle, Avignon was swallowed up by death.
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 contaminated with a disgusting stench by so many corpses.
The scene was so miserable and horrifying 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 weeds growing wildly.
There were no pedestrians or caravans on the road, and there were no sails of ships on the river.
People walking there felt like they were walking through a silent wilderness.
Although this was originally one of the richest areas in France with the highest degree of development, the richest products, and the most densely populated areas.
And above the heads of their group, there were a large number of crows croaking and gathering and circling all day long, as if they were 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, "Come into the city quickly.
This place is still waiting for us to save it." oshow7: