by
Damien F. Mackey
The leader of a group of supposed conspirators arrested without warning
at the behest of the king … by “agents of the king”, on the thirteenth day
of a month, with his fellow conspirators also seized “all at once”.”
Introduction
So far, my only other articles in this series have been these two:
Scrutinising the C7th AD for its conundrums and anachronisms
(1) Scrutinising the C7th AD for its conundrums and anachronisms
and:
Bible-themed people and events permeate what we call [the] C15th AD
(3) Bible-themed people and events permeate what we call C15th AD
Here now, in this new article, we shall be considering these so-called C14th AD entities:
1. Jacques de Molay: 1244-1314
2. Guillaume de Nogaret: 1260-1313
3. Philip IV ‘the Fair’: 1268-1314
4. Queen Estera (Esther, Esterke): c. 1350
5. Dante Alighieri: 1265-1321
6. Francesco Petrarch: 1304-1374
7. Avignon Exile: 1309-1376
1. Jacques de Molay
Much of the fascinating story of Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, and the demise of the Knights Templar appears to have been lifted right out of the ancient Book of Esther, though with names and locations changed and, sometimes, with character rôles reversed.
This is all dealt with fairly comprehensively in my article:
Book of Esther key to Knights Templar and 1307 AD
https://www.academia.edu/75561693/Book_of_Esther_key_to_Knights_Templar_and_1307_AD
at the beginning of which I wrote:
“In fact, Jacques’ world was shattered in the predawn hours of the next morning,
Friday, October 13, when the Temple in Paris was invaded by agents of the king.
All the Templars that could be found in the kingdom of France were, all at once,
in the same moment, seized and locked up in different prisons, after an order
and decree of the king”.
Sharan Newman
Introduction
For some, the origin of the 13th as being an unlucky day has arisen from a famous conspiracy in the Old Testament’s Book of Esther; for others it may have come about due to an incident in (presumably) modern European history about which very much has been written in recent times. In the first case, in the Book of Esther, it is the plot of the evil Haman and his co-conspirators to annihilate all the Jews in the 13th day of the month Adar (Esther 3:6-13).
This is perhaps the first famous 13th day incident in history, that is if you believe that the story of Queen Esther is in fact history, rather than just a pious and edifying fiction. But some historians regard the arrest of the leaders of the Knights Templar on the 13th day of October, 1307, as the reason why the 13th day is considered to be unlucky. Sharan Newman has considered the thirteenth in the context of the Templars in her book, The Real History Behind the Templars (Penguin 2009, p. 249):
I have often heard that our superstition about Friday the thirteenth being an unlucky day stems from the arrest of the Templars. It’s very difficult to trace the origin of a folk belief. It does seem that the thirteenth was an unlucky number long before the Templars, and there are traditions that Friday is an unlucky day, perhaps stemming from Friday being the day of Jesus’ crucifixion. I haven’t been able to discover when the two beliefs were joined. It was certainly unlucky for Jacques [de Molay] and the rest of the Templars. In fact, Jacques’ world was shattered in the predawn hours of the next morning, Friday, October 13, when the Temple in Paris was invaded by agents of the king. “All the Templars that could be found in the kingdom of France were, all at once, in the same moment, seized and locked up in different prisons, after an order and decree of the king”.
[End of quote]
So which of these views, if either, is the correct one?
I would say both.
But how, both?
When reading Newman’s critical account of the famous Templar incident I was struck for the first time (even though I had read about this many times before) by the host of likenesses in the overall account of this gripping story with the details of the biblical Book of Esther.
The comparisons are, I think, amazing.
Just to take as a starting-point the brief account given above by Newman, we have here all of the basic elements that we find also in the plot of the Book of Esther, namely:
The leader of a group of supposed conspirators arrested without warning
at the behest of the king (not mentioned in the above account), by “agents of the king”, on the thirteenth day of a month, with his fellow conspirators also seized “all at once”.
This action was followed by the execution of the leader and of all of his followers.
Both accounts are fascinating.
The Book of Esther is considered by some to be a well worked out piece of literature, with not too much in it by way of historical reality.
And, there is again so much intrigue surrounding the Knights Templar - as nearly anyone living today would probably know, thanks to authors such as Dan Brown - that it is often hard to separate what is fact about them from what is fiction.
Books continue to be churned out on this most fascinating of subjects.
The logistics of the arrest of these formidable knights, on the 13th day, “in the same moment”, for instance, can almost beggar belief.
And for what reason?
There is no unanimity at all about the why’s and the wherefore’s of it. It is all a bit bizarre, something like the cruel execution of the old and amiable Socrates.
In various of my now many historical reconstructions (some might prefer to call them historical deconstructions), dedicated to Jesus Christ, the Alpha and Omega, and Lord of all history, I have argued that some key Old Testament personages and events have, strangely, been sucked into the Black Hole of so-called ‘Dark Ages’ history (600-900 AD), where they have been re-cast - given a modern colouring (names, geography).
The supposed incident of king Philip the IV’s capture of the chief Templars, on that fateful 13th day of October 1307, is of course outside that timescale. However, thanks to Newman’s critical account of it, I have been suddenly struck by the host of likenesses in the overall account of it with the Book of Esther, with which I am well familiar.
Though this event, as just said, falls a bit outside the ‘Dark Ages’ period, it, too, seems to be largely fictional. I am not going to go so far as to deny the historical existence of the main players in the drama, but I am going to make bold as to insist that many of the dramatic events in this terrible tale are completely fictitious as to AD time, though they did actually occur (with different names and geography, of course) back in about the C6th BC, in an equally terrifying conspiracy of biblical proportions: the story of Queen Esther.
It will be the purpose of this article to unravel the modern tale by showing how it, in its basic elements, finds its real place in the Book of Esther.
An Important Note About the Characters Involved
As was the case in my article, “Beware of Greeks Bearing Myths”: http://bookofjob-amaic.blogspot.com/search/label/Beware%20of%20Greeks%20Bearing%20Gifts
- in which I had argued that the biblical books of Tobit and Job underlie much of Homer’s Odyssey - I had noted that what certain characters might have done or said in the original (biblical) versions, can be, in the case of the copycat version, transferred to another character: “I need to point out that it sometimes happens that incidents attributed to the son, in the Book of Tobit, might, in The Odyssey, be attributed to the son's father, or vice versa (or even be attributed to some less important character).
The same sort of mix occurs with the female characters”, so now do I say the same thing again in the case of the Book of Esther as absorbed into the presumed C14th AD scenario.
So who are the main players in the supposed C14th incident involving the Knights Templar, who I believe find their basis in the Book of Esther?
….
The Wicked Conspirator
In the Book of Esther the chief conspirator is of course Haman himself, who, as we have read, conspires to massacre all the Jews. Haman is the archetypal secret Masonic or Illuminati type of conspirator, bent on world domination. Now Jacques de Molay, because of the ambiguity (good and bad) associated with him, also partly fills the role of Haman, as the wicked conspirator, but partly, too, he emerges as the righteous persecuted party.
Newman tells as follows of this most enigmatic Jacques de Molay (op. cit., p. 227):
Jacques de Molay, the final Grand Master of the Templars, has become a figure of legend. To some he was a martyr, to others a heretic. He was either the victim of a plot or justly punished for the crimes of the order. Plays have been written about him. A Masonic youth group is named after him. Was he the last master of a secret society? Was he a heretic who denied the divinity of Christ? Or was he just a devout soldier caught up in the snares of the king of France, a relic of a dying world?
Who was this man who presided over the Templars in their last days?
This to be continued in 2. (Guillaume de Nogaret).
Concerning Jacques de Molay, himself:
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/jacques-de-molay
“Hardly anything is known about his life prior to his promotion to the rank of grand master in 1298”.
Even greater frustration, biographically speaking, is met in the case of the founding first Grand Master of the Templars, Hugh de Payen, as indicated in my article:
A Huge Pain trying to find a history of Hugues de Payens
https://www.academia.edu/101036560/A_Huge_Pain_trying_to_find_a_history_of_Hugues_de_Payens
….
But who was Hugh?
Where is Payns? What was his background and who were his family? What could have led him to devote his life to fighting for God?
Despite his importance, even in his own day, a contemporary biography of Hugh has never been found. Nor has any medieval writer even mentioned reading one. I find this interesting because it indicates to me the uneasiness people felt about the idea of warrior monks. Other men who founded orders, like Francis of Assisi or Robert of Arbrissel, had biographies written about them immediately after their deaths. The main purpose of this was to have an eyewitness account of their saintliness in case they were suggested for canonization. Of the little that was written about Hugh, nothing was negative, but there .... does not seem to have been any sense that he was in line for sainthood.
So how do we find out more about this man who started it all?
The first clue we have is from the chronicler William of Tyre. He says that Hugh came from the town of Payns, near Troyes in the county of Champagne. …. William also mentions Hugh’s companion, Godfrey of St. Omer, in Picardy, now Flanders.
These two men seem, in William’s eyes, to be cofounders of the Templars, but it was Hugh who became the first Grand Master.
This may have been through natural leadership, but it also may have been because Hugh had the right connections.
Payns is a small town in France, near Troyes, the seat of the counts of Champagne. It is situated in a fertile farmland that even then had a reputation for its wine. It’s not known when Hugh was born, or who his parents were. The first mention of him in the records is from about 1085-1090, when a “Hugo de Pedano, Montiniaci dominus,” or Hugh of Payns, lord of Montigny, witnessed a charter in which Hugh, count of Champagne, donated land to the abbey of Molesme. …. In order to be a witness, our Hugh had to have been at least sixteen. So he was probably born around 1070.
Over the next few years, four more charters of the count are witnessed by a “Hugo de Peanz” or “Hugo de Pedans.” Actually, the place name is spelled slightly differently each time it appears. …. It is also spelled “Hughes.” Spelling was much more of a creative art back then. However, it’s fairly certain that these are all the same man. These show that Hugh was part of the court of the count of Champagne, perhaps even related to him.
The last of these charters in Champagne is from 1113. The next time we find the name Hugh de Payns, it is in 1120 in Jerusalem. …. So now we have confirmation of the story that Hugh was in Jerusalem in 1119-1120 to found the Templars outside of later histories. However, it is not until five years later that Hugh witnesses a charter in which he lists himself as “Master of the Knights Templar.” …. In between, he is witness to a donation made in 1123 by Garamond, patriarch of Jerusalem, to the abbey of Santa Maria de Josaphat. Here Hugh is listed only by the name “Hugonis de Peans.”
There is no mention of the Templars and Hugh is near the end of the list of witnesses, showing that he was not one of the most important people present. ….
How did Hugh get to Jerusalem?
What happened in those five years between witnessing a charter as a layman and becoming Master of the Templars? We can guess, but unless more information appears, we can’t know for certain. ….
2. Guillaume de Nogaret
My Book of Esther article (above) continues:
….
Similarly Guillaume de Nogaret, the king’s adviser and henchman, can on the one hand represent the wicked Haman in the C14th saga, whilst, on the other hand, he can appear to be the hero, or righteous adviser, like Mordecai, who got rid of a most pernicious influence (Haman/fallen Templars).
It is de Nogaret who apparently organises the 13th day capture of the Templars.
For some, though, de Nogaret definitely had an evil (Haman-like) reputation. Thus Newman (op. cit., pp. 244-245):
[King Philip’s] close adviser Guillaume de Nogaret has been blamed for every evil thing Philip did, especially regarding Pope Boniface and the Temple. It’s possible that Philip was easily duped. It’s also possible that Philip, like many people, preferred to make a good impression on the public and let underlings take the heat. He might have been a Teflon king.
….
I’m sure the matter will continue to be debated for years.
“[Nogaret] also earned the enmity of a much better writer than he”, Newman goes on to tell (ibid., p. 274). “In the Divine Comedy Dante compared Nogaret to Pontius Pilate …”.
This particular Guillaume may very well merge in the story of the Templars with Guillaume de Paris, the Inquisitor General of Paris, whose directions King Philip was … inclined to follow.
….
Newman has dedicated her Chapter Thirty-Two to a character whom she says has been “considered the most sinister”, Guillaume de Nogaret.
She begins (ibid., p. 272):
Of all the people involved in the arrest and trials of the Templars, Guillaume de Nogaret has been considered the most sinister, the man who was the mastermind behind everything that happened. This servant of the king had cut his teeth on the stage with Pope Boniface VIII in 1303 and was ready once again to prove himself to his master, King Philip IV, by destroying the Templars as well. Many have considered him the evil genius behind the trial of the Templars as well as the campaign against Boniface.
Who was this man? Was he pulling the strings to make King Philip dance to his tune or was it Guillaume who was the puppet, taking the fall for the king?
What a marvellous description - this could also be about the rise and fall of Haman!
The name “Nogaret” is, according to Newman (ibid.), “not the name of a place but is a variation on the Occitan word nogarède, or “walnut grower” …. Interestingly, the Jews, on the Feast of Purim – the feast that grew from the Jewish victory over Haman (Esther 10:13; 11:1) – eat what they call “Haman’s ears” (Oznei Haman); a special triangular pastry whose ingredients include chopped up walnuts.
Nogaret’s rise to power had been rapid, just as Haman’s was (Esther 3:1-2):
… King Ahasuerus promoted Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him and set his seat above all the officials who were with him. And all the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate bowed down and did obeisance to Haman; for the king had so commanded concerning him ….
Newman (op. cit., pp. 273-274):
Sometime around 1296, Nogaret received a call from Paris. He’d made the big time, legal counsel to the king! …. Over the next few years he successfully handled several negotiations for Philip. In 1299, he was rewarded by being promoted to the nobility. After that, he was entitled to call himself “knight” ….
Nogaret seems to have been Philip’s main counselor during the king’s battle with Pope Boniface.
….
In Philip’s confrontation with the pope, Nogaret was apparently the guiding hand and also the one who physically led the attack on the pope in his retreat at Anagni in 1303.
….
In [his use of the media], Nogaret was a master. According to Nogaret’s defense of the king’s actions, Boniface was a heretic, idolater, murderer, and sodomite. He also practised usury, bribed his way into his position, and made trouble wherever he went. …. These charges were never proved but they convinced many. They also gave Guillaume de Nogaret good material for his diatribe against the Templars four years later.
Similarly, Haman had earlier dubious ‘form’. He had actually been secretly plotting, via the agency of “two eunuchs of the king”, against king Ahasuerus himself (Esther 12:1-6). Haman had obviously covetted the first place in the empire right from the start. The plot was foiled by Mordecai, who then became the object of Haman’s wrath.
But Haman was proud. “… he thought it beneath him to lay hands on Mordecai alone. So, having been told who Mordecai’s people were, Haman plotted to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus” (Esther 3:6).
As noted earlier, Guillaume de Nogaret may also be merged with Guillaume of Paris, at whose instigation King Philip claimed to have sent out his secret orders for the arrest of the Templars on that fateful 13th day. Newman (op. cit., p. 249):
Philip winds up by telling his officials that he is only taking this drastic step at the request of the Inquisitor General in Paris, and with the permission of the pope, because the Templars pose a clear and present danger to all the people of Christendom.
…..
Guillaume de Paris, the Inquisitor, was also Philip’s private confessor.
This is exactly the same scenario as in the case of Haman’s plot. The king is, in this instance at least, passive. And, for Ahasuerus, it is owing to the advice of the “counselors”, as he said, with “Haman … in charge of affairs”, that the king had proposed to annihilate the Jews (Esther 13:3-7):
When I asked my counselors how this might be accomplished, Haman - who excels among us in sound judgment, and is distinguished for his unchanging goodwill and steadfast fidelity, and has attained the second place in the kingdom - pointed out to us that among all the nations in the world there is scattered a certain hostile people, who have laws contrary to those of every nation and continually disregard the ordinances of kings, so that the unifying of the kingdom that we honourably intend cannot be brought about. We understand that this people, and it alone, stands constantly in opposition to every nation, perversely following a strange manner of life and laws, and is ill-disposed to our government, doing all the harm they can so that our kingdom may not attain stability.
Therefore we have decreed that those indicated to you in the letters written by Haman, who is in charge of affairs and is our second father, shall all – wives and children included – be utterly destroyed by the swords of their enemies, without pity or restraint, on the fourteenth day of the twelfth month, Adar, of this present year, so that those who have long been hostile and remain so may in a single day go down in violence to Hades, and leave our government completely secure and untroubled hereafter.
3. Philip IV ‘the Fair’
Most important in all of this is the King - Philip IV, known as both ‘the Fair’ (handsome) and as the ‘Iron King’.
He appears to have been a greedy and exacting king, and in this he much resembles the accountant-like King Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther.
Regarding this latter king’s apparent obsession with ‘the bottom line’, see my article:
Judaism’s tricky association with the calculative Medo-Persian king
https://www.academia.edu/122752256/Judaism_s_tricky_association_with_the_calculative_Medo_Persian_king
In my Esther article (above) I wrote this about him as follows:
The King
King Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther and King Philip IV le Bel (“the Fair”) in the C14th. Both can be competent, but they are also flawed. Both are keen on money.
Both have a tendency towards gullibility - being “duped and taken advantage of by his entourage” is a description of King Philip that we shall encounter below - he being prepared to leave important affairs in the hands of his trusted officials.
Philip IV’s supposed contemporary, Bernard Saisset, certainly thought that Philip le Bel was all show and no substance. Thus Newman (op. cit., p. 241): “One comment that Saisset made became famous throughout Europe. “Our king resembles an owl, the fairest of birds but worthless. He is the handsomest man in the world, but he only knows how to look at people unblinkingly, without speaking”.”
And similarly (ibid., p. 244):
Historians have disagreed as to how much Philip was the instigator of the deeds attributed to him. …. Another contemporary said, “Our king is an apathetic man, a falcon. While the Flemings acted, he passed his time in hunting …. He is a child; he does not see that he is being duped and taken advantage of by his entourage” ….
This last aspect of the king’s make up is certainly apparent at least in his counterpart in the Book of Esther, king Ahasuerus (of whom we do not have a physical description).
King Ahasuerus, after he had been duped by Haman and his fellow conspirators, seems then to have come to his senses, to have matured. Thus he decrees with the wisdom of hindsight (Esther 16:8-9): “In the future we will take care to render our kingdom quiet and peaceable for all, by changing our methods and always judging what comes before our eyes with more equitable consideration”.
Still, this Ahasuerus must have been basically a most competent king to have been able to rule over so massive an empire (127 provinces, Esther 1:1).
It is only to be expected that he would have had to delegate responsibilities to his ministers. He had an active and close-knit bureaucracy (Esther 12:10: 1:13, 14; 2:14; 3:12; 4:6; 7:9) and he kept close about him “sages who knew the laws (for this was the king’s procedure toward all who were versed in law and custom” (1:13). He had also a most efficient courier and postal service (3:13; 8:1; 12:22). Newman has made some favourable comments on King Philip as an administrator (op. cit., p. 245): “From looking at the records, I’m inclined to think he was smarter than people thought and not just a puppet …”.
Another of the significant changes in King Philip’s reign is his reliance on lawyers to maintain the workings of the state. Unlike his ancestors, Philip’s advisers were not relatives or knights who owed him military service, but legal administrators. “The strongest, most highly developed … branch of the government was the judicial system” …. Philip was a master at using this system to give legal justification for all his actions, including annexing the land of other countries, bringing down a pope, expelling the Jews, and, of course, destroying the Templars. His legacy is still being disputed.
In many ways he strengthened the French government …. He established a weblike bureaucracy that, as far as I can tell, still survives.
Essentially this is all perfectly apt for king Ahasuerus as well.
Did he not, for instance, employ his legal team to determine the case of his first wife, Queen Vashti, whom he subsequently dismissed on their advice (Esther 12:12-21)? – thereby paving the way for the young Esther. He also greatly strengthened his kingdom, adding further tribute to his treasuries (Esther 10:1-2): “King Ahasuerus laid tribute on the land and on the islands of the sea [presumably Greece]. All the acts of his power and might, and the full account of the high honor of Mordecai, to which the king advanced him, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Media and Persia?”
….
That King Philip IV was interested in money and pomp is apparent from any written account of him. And these identical factors also seem to be well to the fore in the Book of Esther in regard to king Ahasuerus.
Thus he, in a great banquet, “displayed the great wealth of his kingdom and the splendor and pomp of his majesty for many days, one hundred eighty days in all” (Esther 1:4). Just as Haman had provided big money for the king’s treasury, “so that the king would not suffer any loss”, so presumably had “the treasurer of the Templars [given] Philip a loan of 200,000 florins … enormous loan …” (Newman, p. 231).
Around 1297, the king had collected another sum from the Templars (p. 230): “… King Philip had borrowed 2,500 livres from the Temple”.
Haman seemed to know the empire better than did the king, as he has to tell the king of the geography of the Jews. The Jews were largely at this time in the ‘Babylonian Captivity’, due to the destruction of their city and Temple by king Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’. And indeed we read that there was also a ‘Babylonian Captivity’ of Temple Knights as late as 1302, but by the Saracens, supposedly, not by the Chaldeans (Newman p. 230): “… the brethren of the Temple were dishonourably conducted to Babylon…”.
Likewise, Jacques de Molay well knew the kingdom of his king and beyond it, due to his vast travels (ibid.): “The next two years [1294-1295] were spent in a tireless crisscross of the countries in which the Templars were most invested: France, Provence, Burgundy, Spain, Italy, and England”.
….
Our composite King seems to be replicated in the Polish king, Casimir III ‘the Great’, at least insofar as the latter was married to a Queen Esther (Estera, Esterke).
And we certainly need an Esther-like queen to complete our package, even though the reign of Casimir III (1333-1370) would be considered to have post-dated the Templar (Estherian) crisis.
4. Queen Estera (Esther, Esterke)
While a more appropriate female may eventually be found in a Templar context, this semi-legendary woman does, in many ways, fit like a glove:
A Queen Esther in the C14th AD
(4) A Queen Esther in the C14th AD
According to Dr. Pearl Herzog (2012):
https://mishpacha.com/the-polish-queen-esther/
The Polish Queen Esther
In the ancient Jewish quarter of the Kazimir district in Krakow Poland you’ll find a street called Ulica Estery. It’s named after Queen Esterke as she was referred to in Yiddish. Like Purim’s Queen Esther this 14th century Jewess was married to a gentile king — Casimir III — and used her position of power to save Polish Jews from persecution.
About 200 years after Queen Esterke lived Rabbi Dovid Ganz (a student of both the Rema and the Maharal) authored a book titled Tzemach Dovid which is the first Jewish documentary evidence of Queen Esterke’s existence. He writes that there was a Jewish Queen Esther whose husband Casimir granted the Jews of Poland special liberties as a result of her influence.
A Jew in the Palace
King Casimir was also likened to King Achashveirosh. An anti-Semitic priest Przeslaw Mojecki who was obviously familiar with the Purim story writes in his book Jewish Cruelties (published in 1589): “We know from chronicles that our Polish Asswrus [Achashveirosh] Casimir the Great took Esther in place of his own wife the despised Adleida and begat with her two sons — Niemira and Pefka — and daughters as well and persuaded by Esther he permitted to bring them up as Jews.” The priest goes on to describe Esther as being conniving and having manipulated King Casimir to promulgate what Mojecki considers a hateful law.
The linking of Esterke’s life with Purim’s Queen Esther is also found in a play called “Estherke” by Herschel Eppelberg which was first performed in Warsaw in 1890. The play contains many parallels to the Megillah including a fast called by Queen Esterke to assure the success of her appeal to King Casimir when she tries to plead for the safety of her people. The attempts of an evil priest to block the granting of rights to the Jews is reminiscent of Haman’s actions centuries earlier.
….
And, according to the Wikipedia article, “Esterka”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esterka
Esterka (Estera) refers to a mythical Jewish mistress of Casimir the Great, the historical King of Poland who reigned between 1333 and 1370. Medieval Polish and Jewish chroniclers considered the legend as historical fact and report a wonderful love story between the beautiful Jewess and the great monarch.[1]
Legend
The first account of Esterka can be found in scripts of the 15th-century Polish chronicler Jan Długosz and recorded again, a century later, by the famous Jewish chronicler David Gans, who even maintained that Esterka was married to the king.[2] Gans wrote:
"Casimir, the king of Poland, took for himself a concubine - a young Jewess named Esther. Of all the maidens of the land, none compared to her beauty. She was his wife for many years. For her sake, the king extended many privileges to the Jews of his kingdom. She persuaded the king to issue documents of freedom and beneficence."[3]
According to the legend, Esterka was the daughter of a poor tailor from Opoczno named Rafael. Her beauty[4] and intelligence were legendary. She was later installed in the royal palace of Lobzovo near Krakow.[5]
Esterka was said to have played a significant role in Casimir's life. In the legend, she performed as a King's adviser in support of various initiatives: free trade, building stone cities, tolerance to representatives of different religious faiths and support of cultural development. Casimir was loyal to the Jews and encouraged them. For many years, Krakow was the home of one of the most important Jewish communities in Europe.[5] He was called The Great King for his intelligence and bright vision, which helped him to increase the size and wealth of Poland. During the years of the Black Death Esterka's influence helped to prevent the murder of many Polish Jews who were scapegoated for the disease.
King Casmir had several wives, but Esterka was said to have been the only one who gave him male offspring despite the fact that they never were officially married. Their sons, Pelko and Nemir, were said in the legend to have been baptized on the request of their father. The two became the mythical ancestors of several Polish noble families. To develop legal and commercial relations between Jews, Poles, and Germans, Pelko was sent to Kraków. In 1363, Nemir was sent to Ruthenia to establish a new knightly order, which later became the patrimonial nest of the Rudanovsky dynasty [6] She also had two daughters brought up as Jews.[5] ….
The reign of Casimir III and Queen Esther, coincided (in part) with - as we have just read - the Black Death (1347-1351).
Perhaps, given the shaky historicity of the King and his wife, this lengthy phenomenon, too, will now need to be seriously re-assessed.
For instance we read at:
https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/black-death-was-not-widespread-or-catastrophic-long-thought-new-study
The Black Death was not as widespread or catastrophic as long thought – new study
The Black Death is believed to have been the most devastating pandemic in Europe's history. Now paleoecologists and historians have cast doubt on how bad it was.
• 10 February 2022
….
In popular imagination, the Black Death is the most devastating pandemic to have ever hit Europe. Between 1346 and 1353, plague is believed to have reached nearly, if not every, corner of the continent, killing 30%-50% of the population. This account is based on texts and documents written by state or church officials and other literate witnesses.
But, as with all medieval sources, the geographical coverage of this documentation is uneven. While some countries, like Italy or England, can be studied in detail, only vague clues exist for others, like Poland. Unsurprisingly, researchers have worked to correct this imbalance and uncover different ways for working out the extent of the Black Death’s mortality.
In our new study, we used 1,634 samples of fossil pollen from 261 lakes and wetlands in 19 European countries. This vast amount of material enabled us to compare the Black Death’s demographic impact across the continent. The result? The pandemic’s toll was not as universal as currently claimed, nor was it always catastrophic. ….
Here, finally, we leave the Book of Esther parallels that have carried us through a large slice of the conventional C14th AD, to consider Dante (5.) and Petrarch (6.).
5. Dante Alighieri
I agree with those who reckon that:
Dante ‘resembles [a] Hebrew prophet’
https://www.academia.edu/24965241/Dante_resembles_Hebrew_prophet_
Another article that I have written on the subject provides a long list of parallels between Dante and the Hebrew prophet, Daniel:
Dante's ‘Old Man’ is prophet Daniel's King Nebuchednezzar
(4) Dante's 'Old Man' is prophet Daniel's King Nebuchednezzar
‘… the immediate parallelism of Dante’s “old man” is to
King Nebuchadnezzar's dream in the second book of Daniel.
Here, the man is similarly fashioned, with a head of gold,
chest and arms of silver, a waist of bronze, and legs of iron.
However, both the feet in the Biblical passage are
of iron mixed with clay, while in Dante
one foot is iron and the other is of clay’.
….
Works of Dante considered spurious (Many sceptics of Book of Daniel).
The title of father of modern Dante scholarship unquestionably belongs to Karl Witte (1800-83), whose labours set students of the nineteenth century on the right path both in interpretation and in textual research. More recently, mainly through the influence of G.A. Scartazzini (d. 1901), a wave of excessive scepticism swept over the field, by which the traditional events of Dante's life were regarded as little better than fables and the majority of his letters and even some of his minor works were declared to be spurious.
Hebrew prophet (Daniel was indeed that).
Never, perhaps, has Dante's fame stood so high as at the present day, when he is universally recognized as ranking with Homer, Æschylus, Sophocles, and Shakespeare, among the few supreme poets of the world. It has been well observed that his inspiration resembles that of the Hebrew prophet more than that of the poet as ordinarily understood.
On a similar note, see my article:
‘Socrates’ as a Prophet
(12) 'Socrates' as a Prophet | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Dante ‘Becomes’ Nebuchednezzar
Dante’s “inspiration resembles that of the Hebrew prophet
more than that of the poet as ordinarily understood”. So we have read.
But it has also been said (see below):
“Dante is to Nebuchadnezzar as Beatrice is to Daniel”.
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“Why should Dante have cast himself as the tyrannical Babylonian ruler?”
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For some incredible likenesses to the Book of Daniel in Dante’s writings it may suffice to quote from the following two intriguing articles:
Robert Hollander
(Princeton University)
17 May 2005
Paradiso 4.14: Dante as Nebuchadnezzar?
The following passage, a simile, apparently establishes a four-way typological analogy, three terms of which are disclosed, and one of which is not expressed, but is understood easily and by all who have dealt with this text. At the same time, it has always caused displeasure or avoidance in its readers:
Fé sì Beatrice qual fé Danïello,
Nabuccodonosor levando d'ira,
che l'avea fatto ingiustamente fello;
(Par. 4.13-15)
The cast of characters of this passage also (and obviously) includes the protagonist, even if he is not named in it. And indeed, all readily agree that, in this "equation," Dante is to Nebuchadnezzar as Beatrice is to Daniel. The problem only begins once we have come that far.
Dante has accustomed his readers to understanding his typological analogies readily. One such that usefully comes to mind with reference to our passage is found farther along in Paradiso, the allusion to the figurally related pair Ananias/Beatrice and its unexpressed but pellucidly clear companion duo, in similar relation, Saul of Tarsus/Dante:
"perché la donna che per questa dia
regïon ti conduce, ha ne lo sguardo
la virtù ch'ebbe la man d' Anania ."
(Par. 26.10-12)
While not all aspects of this quadripartite relation have proven to be easily assimilated (for instance, what exactly Beatrice's gaze represents), it is probably fair to say that its basic business has escaped no one: Dante, blinded by the presence of St. John, is assured by him that he will soon regain his sight by the ministrations of Beatrice, who will serve as the new Ananias to his Saul (Acts 9:8-18), blinded on the road to Damascus.
To return to our less well understood simile, we find that it puts into parallel Beatrice (placating Dante's anxiety) and Daniel (stilling Nebuchadnezzar's wrath). It thus also necessarily puts into parallel Dante and Nebuchadnezzar, a relation that at first makes no sense at all[1]. The poet has earlier in the Commedia visited this biblical text (found in the second book of the prophet Daniel), the account of the king's dream and Daniel's interpretation of it (see Inf. 14.94-111 for Dante's version of that dream, embodied in the representation of the veglio di Creta). Here he fastens on its perhaps strangest aspect: the new king's desire to kill all the wise men in his kingdom of Babylon who could neither bring his forgotten dream back to mind nor then interpret it � about as untoward a royal prerogative as anyone has ever sought to enjoy. Thus it seems natural to wonder in what way Dante may possibly be conceived of as being similar to the wrathful king of Babylon. The entire commentary tradition observes only a single link:
Nebuchadnezzar's displeasure and Dante's puzzlement are both finally relieved by (divinely inspired � see Trucchi on these verses [2]) external intervention on the part of Daniel, in the first case, and then of Beatrice.
However, saying that is akin to associating Joseph Stalin and Mother Teresa on the nearly meaningless grounds that both were among the most famous people of their time. Why should Dante have cast himself as the tyrannical Babylonian ruler? That is a question that has only stirred the edges of the ponds in the commentaries and has never had a sufficient answer. If we turn to the work of my friend Lino Pertile, we find that he, after correctly noting the verbal playfulness of the tercet ("Fé... fé... l'avea fatto... fello" [we might want to compare Par. 7.10-12: "Io dubitava e dicea 'Dille, dille! / fra me, 'dille' dicea, 'a la mia donna / che mi diseta con le dolci stille'," an even more notably--and playfully--overwrought tercet]), characterizes this simile as being "hyperbolic and distracting rather than illuminating."[3] That is because Pertile, like almost everyone else (and perhaps understandably), believes that "Beatrice might reasonably be compared to Daniel, but the analogy between Dante's tongue-tying intellectual anxiety and Nebuchadnezzar's wrath is hardly fitting."[4] That, this writer must confess, was until very recently his own view of the matter.[5] However, if one looks in the Epistle to Cangrande (77-82), one finds a gloss to Par. 1.4-9 that is entirely germane here. And apparently, in the centuries of discussion of this passage, only G.R. Sarolli, in his entry "Nabuccodonosor" in the Enciclopedia dantesca[6], has noted the striking similarity in the two texts, going on to argue that such similarity serves as a further proof of the authenticity of the epistle.[7] In that passage Dante explains that his forgetting of his experience of the Empyrean (because he was lifted beyond normal human experience and could not retain his vision) has some egregious precursors: St. Paul, three of Jesus's disciples, Ezekiel (such visionary capacity certified by the testimony of Richard of St. Victor, St. Bernard, and St. Augustine); and then he turns to his own unworthiness to be included in such company (if not hesitating to insist on the fact that he had been the recipient of exactly the same sort of exalted vision): "Si vero in dispositionem elevationis tante propter peccatum loquentis oblatrarent, legant Danielem, ubi et Nabuchodonosor invenient contra peccatores aliqua vidisse divinitus, oblivionique mandasse" [But if on account of the sinfulness of the speaker (Dante himself, we want to remember) they should cry out against his claim to have reached such a height of exaltation, let them read Daniel, where they will find that even Nebuchadnezzar by divine permission beheld certain things as a warning to sinners, and straightway forgot them].[8] Dante, like the Babylonian king, has had a vision that was God-given, only to forget it. And now he is, Nebuchadnezzar-like, distraught; Beatrice, like the Hebrew prophet, restores his calm. It is worth observing that Dante's way of stating what Daniel accomplished is set forth in negative terms: He helped the king put off the wrath that had made him unjustly cruel; the poet does not say Daniel restored the dream, the loss of which caused the king to become angry with his wise men in the first place. But that is precisely what we are meant to conclude, as the text of the epistle makes still clearer.
Thus the typological equation here is not otiose; Dante is the new Nebuchadnezzar in that both of them, if far from being holy men (indeed both were sinners), were nonetheless permitted access to visionary experience of God, only to be unable to retain their visions in memory. The king enters this perhaps unusual history, that of those who, less than morally worthy, forgot the divine revelation charitably extended to them, as the first forgetter; Dante, as the second.
This is exactly the sort of spirited, self-conscious playfulness that we expect from this greatest of poets, who doubled as his own commentator. And that commentator, in the Epistle to Cangrande, was not only the first to deal with this passage but the only one to have got it right.[9]
________________________________________
[1] If one also considers Dante's other typological reference to the book of Daniel (6:22; see Mon. III.i.1), where Dante compares himself to the prophet in the lions' den, one quickly understands the non-binding nature of any particular identity in his series of self-definitions. See note 5 for his drawing attention to himself as David or as Uzzah, depending on the context in which he is working.
[2] Ernesto Trucchi, comm. to Par. 4.13-15, DDP.
[3] Lino Pertile, "Paradiso IV," in Dante's "Divine Comedy," Introductory Readings III: "Paradiso," ed. Tibor Wlassics ( Lectura Dantis [virginiana], 16-17, supplement, 1995), p. 50.
[4] Ibid.
[5] But see an earlier study of another figural construction in which Dante is observed connecting himself as antitype to an entirely negative precursor in surprisingly positive terms: Robert Hollander, "Dante as Uzzah? (Purg. X.57 and Epistle XI.9-12)," in Sotto il segno di Dante: Scritti in onore di Francesco Mazzoni, ed. L. Coglievina & D. De Robertis (Florence: Le Lettere, 1999), pp. 143-51. In that instance also the meaning of a passage in the poem is deepened by one in an epistle, if in that case the Latin text may have preceded the vernacular one, as is almost certainly not true in this.
[6] ED IV, 1973, p. 1a. For an independent and similar argument (without reference to Sarolli's voce), see Albert Ascoli, "Dante after Dante," in Dante for the New Millennium, ed. T. Barolini and H.W. Storey (New York: Fordham University Press, 2003), pp. 358-59 & nn.
[7] Sarolli continues, brushing aside the traditional commentator's explanation, which focuses on the Daniel/Beatrice typology by simply avoiding the Nebuchadnezzar/Dante one, to speculate that what is really at stake is the parallelism Babylonian wise men/Plato, a pairing that simply doesn't compute. (The wise men are not wrong; Plato is--or at least his ideas, in their raw form, are deeply culpable.)
[8] Epistola XIII.81, ed. E. Pistelli (SDI, 1960); tr. P. Toynbee (both cited from the Princeton Dante Project).
[9] Whatever doubt remains concerning the authenticity of the epistle has been effectively and considerably challenged by a recent study: Luca Azzetta, "Le chiose alla Commedia di Andrea Lancia, l'Epistola a Cangrande e altre questioni dantesche," L'Alighieri 21 (2003): 5-76.
And we read further at:
http://members.tripod.com/Snyder_AMDG/ImageMan.html
An Image of Man
Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno, Canto XIV, Lines 103-116
What makes a man? According to nursery rhymes the ingredients include snips and snails and puppy dog tails; according to modern times the ingredients are dollars and bills, gold and silver. According to Dante, the image of every man is revealed in the fourteenth canto of the Inferno with the allegory of the "old man" beneath Mount Ida from whom the three mythological rivers spring, and who is made of gold, silver, bronze, iron and clay. But is this a man, this concoction of various elements? And is this everyman? Dante's answer would be 'yes,' followed by an injunction to 'look deeper.'
Taking Dante's command to heart, the immediate parallelism of this "old man" is to King Nebuchadnezzar's dream in the second book of Daniel. Here, the man is similarly fashioned, with a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, a waist of bronze, and legs of iron. However, both the feet in the Biblical passage are of iron mixed with clay, while in Dante one foot is iron and the other is of clay. Daniel explains the various metals as the succession of empires after the "golden age" of Nebuchadnezzar. In the dream, a stone "cut out by no human hand (Daniel 2:34)" smites the base, cracking every layer of the statue. The image crumbles, blown away by the wind, and the stone becomes a mountain. Dante's man is likewise fissured, but no reason is given for the disfigurement. Here the golden head remains intact, and no mountain takes the place of the statue in the Inferno, but "from the splay/of that great rift run tears (Canto XIV, ln. 112-113)" which form three of the four mythological rivers: Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon.
The similarity between the two images is striking, and one must assume that Dante expected his Medieval audience to draw such an obvious connection. It remains to the reader to probe the deeper meanings. Biblical scholars have long held that Nebuchadnezzar's dream was not merely a prophecy about the King's own reign and the empires after him, but a foreshadowing of the Reign of God, as symbolized by the victorious mountain.
In Dante's Divine Comedy, Christ has already come through Hell (Canto IV, ln. 52-63) and liberated the righteous - the stone has already cracked the statue and become a mountain. The Reign of God proclaimed by the Gospels and symbolized by the mountain has come to pass. In Dante's geography, the "great old man stands under the mountain's mass (Canto XIV, ln. 159)." This mountain may be either Calvary or Purgatory, both "ladders" to the Heavenly Kingdom.
Daniel explains that the feet of the King's statue that are made of iron mixed with clay represents an ill-made empire that shall be a "divided kingdom" with "some of the firmness of iron…in it," that is "partly strong and partly brittle," "mix[ed] with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together (Daniel 2:41-43)." By separating the two substances so that one leg is iron and the other clay, Dante shows a more completely "divided kingdom." Some scholars have argued that this may represent or prefigure our own modern separation of church and state. Secular critics have made the case that the "right foot…baked of the earthen clay,/…the foot upon which he chiefly stands (Canto XIV, ln. 110-111)" is the Church herself, "weakened and corrupted by temporal concerns and political power struggles (Musa, 77)." This may certainly have been one of Dante's multilayered meanings, but is not necessarily the only allegory.
The old man is mentioned as Virgil and Dante enter the Burning Sands after the Wood of the Suicides in Hell. These two rings are reserved for those violent against the Self (suicides), God (blasphemers), Nature (Sodomites) and Art (usurers). The iron foot is described in Daniel as that metal that "breaks to pieces and shatters all things…it crushes (Daniel 2:40)."
Iron is the element associated with weaponry and war - a violent element appropriate to the circle of the violent. Clay, often used as a symbol for man's human frailty, may be one answer to the riddle of the right foot. The people in Hell fell because they relied on their own flawed humanity rather than the divine providence or intellect, which the unshattered golden head may symbolize.
6. Francesco Petrarch
“Petrarch wrote “On Famous Men”, a series of biographies.
He, as it were, ‘repeated’ the work of the 'ancient' Plutarch's – 'Parallel Lives'.”
A. Fomenko and G. Nosovskiy
This incredible parallel prompted me to write the article:
Plutarch and Petrarch
(4) Plutarch and Petrarch
Petrarch is a highly important figure as a virtual founder of the Renaissance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca (Italian: [franˈtʃesko peˈtrarka]; July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (/ˈpiːtrɑːrk, ˈpɛtrɑːrk/), was an Italian scholar and poet in Renaissance Italy, who was one of the earliest humanists. His rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Renaissance. ….
Mackey’s comment: For a new angle on Cicero, see my:
Ptolemy IX “Chickpea” and Cicero “Chickpea”
https://www.academia.edu/32758739/Ptolemy_IX_Chickpea_and_Cicero_Chickpea_
The Wikipedia article continues:
Petrarch is often considered the founder of Humanism.[1]
In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri.[2] Petrarch would be later endorsed as a model for Italian style by the Accademia della Crusca.
That radical pair of Russian mathematicians, A. Fomenko and G. Nosovskiy, whose historical revisions will often go right over the top, do have some interesting things to say, though, about Petrarch, who they believe was the same as Plutarch (How it was in Reality): http://chronologia.org/en/how_it_was/05_30.html
….
37. PLUTARCH AND PETRARCH.
The researchers of Petrarch's work point out an oddity which is incomprehensible to them. Petrarch wrote many letters to his contemporaries. And in his Latin correspondence Petrarch strived - allegedly on purpose - TO OBSCURE THE REALITY OF THE MIDDLE AGES BY SUBSTITUTING IT WITH 'CLASSICAL ANTIQUTY'. When addressing his contemporaries, he used the ancient nicknames and names – Socrates, Laelius, Olympius, Simonides, etc. meaning that he wrote the way as if he 'lived in an ancient time'. We are told that he Latinised his letters on purpose, so they take assumed the form of antiquity. Even when talking of his own era, he 'disguised' it under the elegant drapery of the 'classically ancient'.
…. today it is necessary to seriously consider a theory purporting that Petrarch purposefully disguised the Middle Ages as 'the classical antiquity'.
Petrarch wrote "On Famous Men", a series of biographies. He, as it were, 'repeated' the work of the 'ancient' Plutarch's – 'Parallel Lives'.
It is likely that PLUTARCH is simply another nickname of PETRARCH. As a result of the activities of recent chronologists Petrarch 'divaricated' on the pages of the chronicles. One of his reflections under the name of 'Plutarch' was moved into the deepest past. Approximately 1400 years back, as in the cases with Poggio Bracciolini and Alberti ….
Almost all the characters of PETRARCH are public figures of 'classical' republican Rome: Lucius Junius Brutus, Publius Horatius Cocles, Camillus, Titus Manlius Torquatus, Fabricius, Quintus Fabius Maximus, Marcus Porcius Cato Major, Scipio Aemilianus Africanus, etc. Most likely, Petrarch - aka Plutarch – simply wrote the biographies of the personalities of his epoch. Only later the editors of the XVI-XVII cc. reviewed these life descriptions and shifted them into the deep past. ….
And again, they write:
https://endchan.xyz/.media/fba2af595c521ef8b1cfeea922f59b16-applicationpdf.pdf
How Petrarch created the legend of the
glorious Italian Rome out of nothing
….
In 1974 the world celebrated 600 years since the death of Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374), the first prominent writer of the Middle Ages who, according to Leonardo Bruni, “had been the first who… could understand and bring into light the ancient elegance of the style that had been forlorn and forgotten before” ([927]).
The actual personality of Petrarch is nowadays perceived as mysterious, vague and largely unclear, and reality often becomes rather obfuscated. But we are talking about the events of the XIV century here! The true dating of the texts ascribed to Petrarch often remains thoroughly unclear.
Already an eminent poet, Petrarch entered the second period of his life – the period of wandering. In the alleged year of 1333 he travelled around France, Flanders and Germany. “During his European travels, Petrarch became directly acquainted with scientists, searching the libraries of various monasteries trying to find forgotten ancient manuscripts and studying the monuments to the past glory of Rome” ([644], page 59). Nowadays it is assumed that Petrarch became one of the first and most vehement advocates of the “ancient” authors who, as we are beginning to understand, were either his contemporaries, or preceded him by 100-200 years at the most.
In 1337 he visited the Italian Rome for the first time ([644], page 59). What did he see there? Petrarch writes (if these are indeed his real letters, and not the result of subsequent editing), “Rome seemed even greater to me than I could have imagined – especially the greatness of her ruins” ([644]). Rome in particular and XIV century Italy in general had met Petrarch with an utter chaos of legends, from which the poet had selected the ones he considered congruent to his a priori opinion of “the greatness of Italian Rome.” Apparently, Petrarch was among those who initiated the legend of “the great ancient Italian Rome” without any solid basis. A significant amount of real mediaeval evidence of the correct history of Italy in the Middle Ages was rejected as “erroneous.” It would be of the utmost interest to study these “mediaeval anachronisms” considered preposterous nowadays, if only briefly.
According to mediaeval legends, “Anthenor’s sepulchre” was located in Padua ([644]). In Milan, the statue of Hercules was worshipped. The inhabitants of Pisa claimed their town to have been founded by Pelopsus. The Venetians claimed Venice to have been built of the stones of the destroyed Troy! Achilles was supposed to have ruled in Abruzza, Diomedes in Apulia, Agamemnon in Sicily, Euandres in Piemont, Hercules in Calabria. Apollo was rumoured to have been an astrologer, the devil, and the god of the Saracens! Plato was considered a doctor, Cicero a knight and a troubadour, Virgil a mage who blocked the crater of the Vesuvius, etc.
All of this is supposed to have taken place in the XIV century or even later!
This chaos of information obviously irritated Petrarch, who had come to Rome already having an a priori idea of the “antiquity” of the Italian Rome. It is noteworthy that Petrarch left us no proof of the “antiquity of Rome” that he postulates. On the contrary, his letters – if they are indeed his real letters, and not later edited copies – paint an altogether different picture. Roughly speaking, it is as follows: Petrarch is convinced that there should be many “great buildings of ancient times” in Rome. He really finds none of those. He is confused and writes this about it:
“Where are the thermae of Diocletian and Caracalla? Where is the Timbrium of Marius, the Septizonium and the thermae of Severus? Where is the forum of Augustus and the temple of Mars the Avenger? Where are the holy places of Jupiter the Thunder-Bearer on the Capitol and Apollo on the Palatine? Where is the portico of Apollo and the basilica of Caius and Lucius, where is the portico of Libya and the theatre of Marcellus? Where are the temple of Hercules and the Muses built by Marius Philip, and the temple of Diana built by Lucius Cornifacius? Where is the temple of Free Arts of Avinius Pollio, where is the theatre of Balbus, the Amphitheatre of Statilius Taurus? Where are the numerous constructions erected by Agrippa, of which only the Pantheon remains? Where are the splendorous palaces of the emperors? One finds everything in the books; when one tries to find them in the city, one discovers that they either disappeared [sic!] or that only the vaguest of their traces remain”. ([644])
These countless inquiries of “where” this or the other object might be, especially the final phrase, are amazing. They indicate clearly that Petrarch came to Italian Rome with an a priori certainty that the great Rome as described in the old books is the Italian Rome. As we are now beginning to understand, these books were most probably referring to the Rome on the Bosporus.
However, in the early XIV century or even later, it was ordered to assume that the ancient manuscripts referred to Italian Rome. Petrarch had to find “field traces” of the “great Roman past” in Italy; he searched vigorously, found nothing, and was nervous about this fact.
However, the letters attributed to Petrarch contain traces of Roman history that differs considerably from the history we are taught nowadays. For instance, Petrarch insists that the pyramid that is now considered “the Pyramid of Cestius” is really the sepulchre of Remus ….
Could Petrarch have been correct? Really, Scaligerian history doesn’t know the location of the grave of the “ancient” Remus. ….
7. Avignon Exile
“Especially significant was Petrarch's image of the Avignon papacy as
the equal to the Babylonian Captivity, the idea that the popes lived
in thrall just as the Israelites spent 70 years in captivity in Babylon,
an image Martin Luther embraced with alacrity”.
Matthew Bunson
For centuries, now, comparisons have been drawn between the biblical Babylonian Captivity of 70 years duration and the Avignon Captivity of the Church in France of approximately the same length of time.
At: https://www.gotquestions.org/Avignon-Papacy.html for instance, the question is asked:
What was the Avignon Papacy /
Babylonian Captivity of the Church?
with the following answer being given:
Answer: The Avignon Papacy was the time period in which the Roman Catholic pope resided in Avignon, France, instead of in Rome, from approximately 1309 to 1377. The Avignon Papacy is sometimes referred to as the Babylonian Captivity of the Church because it lasted nearly 70 years, which was the length of the Babylonian captivity of the Jews in the Bible (Jeremiah 29:10).
There was significant conflict between King Philip IV of France and Pope Boniface VIII. When the pope who succeeded Boniface VIII, Benedict XI, died after an exceedingly short reign, there was an extremely contentious papal conclave that eventually decided on Clement V, from France, as the next pope. Clement decided to remain in France and established a new papal residence in Avignon, France, in 1309. The next six popes who succeeded him, all French, kept the papal enclave in Avignon.
In 1376, Pope Gregory XI decided to move the papacy back to Rome due to the steadily increasing amount of power the French monarchy had developed over the papacy in its time in Avignon. However, when Gregory XI died, his successor, Urban VI, was rejected by much of Christendom. This resulted in a new line of popes in Avignon in opposition to the popes in Rome. In what became known as the Western Schism, some clergy supported the Avignon popes, and others supported the Roman popes.
The Western Schism gave rise to the conciliar movement (conciliarism), in which ecumenical church councils claimed authority over the papacy. At the Council of Pisa in 1410, a new pope, Alexander V, was elected and ruled for ten months before being replaced by John XXIII. So, for a time, there were three claimants to the papacy: one in Rome, one in Avignon, and one in Pisa. At the Council of Constance in 1417, John XXIII was deposed, Gregory XII of Rome was forced to resign, the Avignon popes were declared to be “antipopes,” and Pope Martin V was elected as the new pope in Rome.
These decisions were accepted by the vast majority of Christendom, and so the Western Schism was ended, although there were various men claiming to be the pope in France until 1437. ….
And again at:
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8903 we read:
The great Italian humanist and poet Petrarch wrote of the popes during the so-called Avignon Papacy:
Now I am living in France, in the Babylon of the West . . . Here reign the successors of the poor fishermen of Galilee; they have strangely forgotten their origin. I am astounded, as I recall their predecessors, to see these men loaded with gold and clad in purple, boasting of the spoils of princes and nations; to see luxurious palaces and heights crowned with fortifications, instead of a boat turned downward for shelter.
These pontiffs — all of them French — resided at Avignon, France, instead of Rome, from 1309 to 1377.
The letters of Petrarch were a reflection of his own dislike for Avignon and his desire to see the popes return to the Eternal City. But Petrarch's harsh caricature of the popes also has served as ammunition for writers, critics, and heretics ever since. Especially significant was Petrarch's image of the Avignon papacy as the equal to the Babylonian Captivity, the idea that the popes lived in thrall just as the Israelites spent 70 years in captivity in Babylon, an image Martin Luther embraced with alacrity. ….
[End of quote]
