This is London with news from the 14th century.

We begin with a dispatch from Dr L Kip Wheeler of web.cn.edu ..

Throughout the whole of the thirteen hundreds more and more of the upper classes, the scholars, and the lawyers are speaking the Middle English tongue of their people rather than the Norman French tongue of their ancestors. 

The mystery plays are coming out of the churches and being performed by guilds. There are more actors, more spectacles, outdoor stages, and comic elements. So much is going on.

Now here are the headlines of the rest of the news.

1300

:: There’s a new king in Poland. He will be known as Wenceslas II.

:: In France, Guillaume de Machaut is born. Posterity will know him as a great poet and composer of music. [He lived until 1377.]

:: We hear of a new manuscript in the Old French language. The title is reported as The Travels of Marco Polo. We wait to hear further news.

1301

:: At Caernarfon Castle, Edward, the son of our King Edward, is created Prince of Wales. He is the first English prince to hold that title. 

1303

:: In France the squabble between King Philip IV and the Pope over the exercise of papal authority in French sovereign territory appears to be over. It is reported that Pope Boniface VIII has died as a result of injuries sustained during his recent abduction by a French emissary and his subsequent rescue by a squad of Italians from Anagni.

1304

:: In the Tuscan city of Arezzo a new poet has been born. He will go far. [Francesco Petracco lived until 1374.]

1305

:: There are reports of a major upset in the Papacy. Pope Clement V has moved his headquarters from Rome to Avignon. So begins the Babylonian Captivity. It will last for almost 70 years.

1306

:: The rebel identified as Robert the Bruce has been crowned King of Scotland in the place called Scone.

1307

:: In Scotland, our King Edward has died while on a punitive expedition against the rebel Robert the Bruce. 

:: He is succeeded by the Prince of Wales who becomes King Edward II and will rule for 20 years.

:: In Ravenna, the Florentine born Dante Alighieri has begun to compose his great poem La Divina Comedia, a task which will occupy him until his death in 1321.

1308

:: The Holy Roman Emperor Albert I has died and will be succeeded by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII. 

:: In the days of Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor ruled a great swathe of territory but that began to be fragmented as the inevitable result of the Franks having no custom of primogeniture. And even in the year 800, when Charlemagne was crowned in Rome on Christmas Day, it was Pope Leo III who placed the crown on the new Emperor’s head. It’s not going too far to suggest that, for much of the time since, the Pope, as the head of the Universal Church, and the Emperor, as the head of the senior temporal power, have been at loggerheads with each other. It can be a messy business involving military force on the one side and the weapon of supernatural sanctions on the other. Ah well! They do say God is on the side of the big battalions.

Stay tuned for our next bulletin at 1310.

francis cameron

oxford, 31 august 2014