We’re in Aix-en-Provence, sitting at a café in a beautiful square called Place de l’Hotel. We’ve ordered some liquid refreshments — a glass of wine for my thirsty Better Half, and a pastis for moi. I had the thought that if I drank like a Frenchman, maybe my french will improve. We shall see.
Pernod
Pastis is an alcoholic drink that’s popular throughout France, but especially in southern France. “Pernod”, (pronounced “pear-no”) is one of the most popular brands, so with a little assistance from our server, that’s what I ordered. Hey – here it comes now.
When you order a pastis, the server brings a small glass partially filled with pastis, and a little pitcher of cold water. Pastis comes in various colors, but in this case it looks like a little shot of whiskey.
To prepare it for consumption, add cold water to the pastis, and presto! The stuff turns white! To make it stronger, add less water. To make it weaker, add more water. Now it looks almost like a miniature glass of cold milk. But when you taste it, it tastes like licorice.
One of the main ingredients in pastis is anise. That’s where the licorice taste comes from. Producers add a variety of other herbs and spices to make their own unique style of pastis. On a hot day in Provence, a sip of cold, liquid licorice with a little zing to it can be pretty refreshing.
But let’s get back to the 14th century and our prep for tomorrow’s day-trip to Avignon. As noted in the previous post, the 14th century was a rough one if you lived in western Europe.
The Miserable 14th Century
Throughout the 14th century, England and France fought the Hundred Years War. In between battles, bands of out-of-work mercenaries terrorized villages. The King of France at the time was Philip the Fair.
Philip the Fair must have been quite a guy, but perhaps not in a good way. He got his nickname because he was a good-looking dude, not because he was equitable and just. Otherwise, today he might be called Philip the “Unfair.” Or worse.
To finance the war with England, he borrowed huge sums of money from the Knights Templar – an organization of knights who took an oath of chastity, obedience, and poverty. Their original mission was to protect Christians traveling in the Holy Land, but their numbers and riches grew to the extent that the pope declared them to be a sovereign entity.
Philip felt threatened by the Knights Templar. He decided that instead of trying to pay them back, he’d round them up, kill them all, and put an end to the whole operation. It was in the 14th century that he took care of that nasty business.
Erasing debts owed to the Knights Templar wasn’t enough to pay all the bills, but guess who else had money? Jewish people living in France. So early in the 14th century, Philip expelled all Jews and confiscated everything they owned. (See? Not exactly “fair”). But the worst was yet to come…
Enter the Plague
Midway into the century, the plague hit western Europe. Compared to the plague, all those other bad things were child’s play. If you got the plague, you could be gone in three days. If the plague came to your town, chances are that a third of the people living there would die a gruesome death within months. In Avignon, nearly half of the population was wiped out.
The only good thing about the 14th century is that they had good nick-names for people in power. There was Robert the Wise, John the Gaunt, Peter the Cruel, Charles the Lame, Charles the Bad, and let us not forget Wladyslaw the Elbow-High.
At the start of the 14th century, the fellow who was pope of the Catholic Church decided to set up shop in the little town of Avignon. At the time, it wasn’t a big deal. Popes hadn’t been in Rome for a while. In the 14th century, Rome was such a mess that not even a pope was safe there.
The Pope Moves to Avignon
Avignon is upstream from Arles, at a spot where there’s a bend in the Rhône river and a large outcropping of rock. At the start of the 14th century, the kingdom of France occupied the west side of the river. Various counties and part of the Kingdom of Naples were on the right side.
From the pope’s point of view, Avignon had a few good things going for it. Avignon was located on land that belonged to the Kingdom of Naples, which was very pro-pope. It was geographically central to the Christian Church’s world at the time. And perhaps best of all, it was just a stone’s throw away from where some of the best wine in the world was produced.
When the pope moved to Avignon, it was a busy little town of about 4,000 people. (Paris and London had populations in excess 100,000). Seven popes and a hundred years later, Avignon’s population had grown tenfold to 40,000. What was the big attraction? The pope? Nope. (But that was a good guess). It was the pope’s money, of course!
To be continued…
