:Unceasing Strife, Unending Fear: Jacques de Thérines and the Freedom of the Church in the Age of the Last Capetians

Abstract

Jacques de Thérines, Cistercian abbot of Chaalis and Pontigny, learned doctor of theology, was one of those historical characters who should have written his personal memoirs, preferably in the tell-all style favored today, but did not. In his own time he enjoyed somewhat the status of an inside player; he observed great events from the epicenters; he mingled with those who moved and shaped those events directly. What he knew or heard might have enlightened us on many points, had he chosen to tell the story. It has fallen rather to William Chester Jordan to present that story, pieced together faute de mieux from Jacques's official writings: the quodlibets that he produced on questions of the day, his arguments at the Council of Vienne, the records of his abbatial administration. This book gives us a fresh look at the events of a turbulent time through the eyes of a fresh source, but those eyes do not quite penetrate the veil of the sanctums where the great deeds were plotted and decided.