Troubled times: 1483; Innocent VIII; Intro to a drummer in Niklashausen

The year 1483 was another tumultuous one for many kingdoms and city-states across Europe. The king of France Louis XI died but his chosen heir Charles VIII was only thirteen years old, so he was 'kept' as regent by his elder sister Anne, later called Madame la Grande who was only twenty-two at the time herself.

In England, Edward IV died and his younger brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester took and then wrestled for the throne. The clouds of doom were already gathering around him though. He was the one people would remember as Richard III.

In Germany, Maximillian was permitted joint rule of the Holy Roman Empire with his father Ferdinand III. More active than his father, Maximillian would try to increase their Roman Empire first in Burgundy, then Holland and then, at length, in Italy. They tried to extend their dominion through marriages and armed conflict.
It was in 1483 that Charles of France would be betrothed to Margaret, daughter of Maximillian. So as a child, Margaret was queen of France until the age of eleven when Charles married someone else for other acquisitions, namely Brittany.

The Inquisition got going strongly this same year with the appointment of Tomas Torquemada in Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella.

In Rome, the Sistine chapel was consecrated and high mass was celebrated for the first
time there on the feast of Assumption by pope Sixtus IV as the chapel was dedicated to the virgin Mary.

Of course the war on Ferrara continued in north Italy. In September of that year there was a great fire - started by a stray candle - that destroyed the eastern wing of the Ducal Palace in Venice.

At least from this point in time things would seem to more rapidly spin out of control and more and more areas would be affected by war, changing leadership, changing priorities until all would be rearranged (c. 1530) by an emperor who as a child, spent a good deal of time under the same Margaret's guardianship. But his reign is still nearly forty years in the future.

The lives of the emperors and their court and activities, personalities, failings and successes did have a tremendous effect on people at large through all of these times. But it is hard to talk about those links because that runs the risk of getting tangled up in long discussions of wars and marriage alliances and brokerings and break-ups. Like with Margaret and Charles. The ramifications could be teased out endlessly without learning much. Better to have a guide or learn to be armed with good questions before plunging into the swamps of speculation surrounding motivations of marriage alliances.

Instead, the popes had other ambitions toward establishing stability and certainty across Christendom. The pope after that della Rovere Sixtus IV, was Giovanni Batista Cibo, called Innocent VIII who also tried to enforce some stability in Italy and elsewhere during his time as Father of the Church. He granted some impossible marriages, he went after the failings of King Ferdinand of Naples. He also went after witches in Germany, Waldensians elsewhere and gave support to the Inquisition in Spain. He also seemed not to mind slavery, the easy dispersal of indulgences and the near selling of certain offices of the church. Sixtus IV had made him cardinal and so from 1473 - 1484 he lived in Rome. But before that he had been bishop of Savona near Genoa. This background may have had much to do with his attitude on activities such as slavery, witches, demons, simony, corruption. He was also deemed by Sixtus IV's nephew, Giuliano della Rovere to be pliant enough for his uses. This della Rovere would become Julius II, 'the warrior pope'.

Cibo, Innocent VIII, became famous for his bull against witches and warlocks in Germany. Within three months of accession he sent a pair of crusaders to counter such terrible threats. Just one example of those threats was a drummer dedicated to the virgin Mary, east of Mainz, deep in the forest, 1476, just a few years before. In a very quick spring this rustic - this drummer - had established himself as a great preacher who could attract and direct huge crowds and pilgrimages gaining much notoriety, prestige and offerings. Offerings that otherwise, presumably would have gone to the church. This could not be allowed.

This one example of a start-up independent preacher should not be seen as causing the pope's reaction or even the 'last straw'. In fact they may not be at all directly related. We are not likely to know. But funding or the lack of it still remains, broadly, one of the over-arching reasons for quashing or encouraging such start-ups. The other is simply a strategy, logistics in control of populations, and the two still go well together.

This point is plainly driven home in Richard Wunderli's short but revealing 1992 book The Drummer of Niklashausen.