After a classic Middle Ages dominated by the luminous figure of Saint Louis, the historical meteorology suddenly changes. A time of convulsions and cataclysms arrives. If we could describe this “end of the Middle Ages” as “autumn”, the word may seem weak in the light of the trials that are taking place in the kingdom of France: wars, invasions, epidemics (black plague), famines, jacqueries, “ flayers "who terrorize the countryside. Thus, after more than three centuries of happy Capetian continuity, arise, under the first Valois, crises of succession, popular emotions and princely rebellions. We understand that this unstable period may have been perceived by historians as "twilight" , if not as "agony" (Michelet). If you stroll through the Louvre in the sculpture department of the Middle Ages, the caesura is moreover striking between the serene, smiling and luminous statues of the 13th century and the recumbent gnaws by the worms, with tormented features, of the following century.
The historian endeavors to unearth the "intellectual and spiritual forces" which, while denouncing the weaknesses of the powers, carried the aspirations of a society tested by misfortuneIf the
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