The name Thomas Bradwardine (c. 1290 – 26 August 1349) is not a name as recognizable today as some of his contemporaries including Dante, Petrarch, Edward III, and William of Ockham, but his intellectual achievements and involvement in major events of the fourteenth century are not to be forgotten. Little is known about his early life, but the last years of his life and his turn as Archbishop of Canterbury reflect the dramatic events that were occurring across Europe.

While the Black Death was not the only or even primary catalyst of the persecutions that befell the Jews and the changes that occurred in European Jewry, it was an accelerant that hastened trends that were already beginning in Medieval Europe. An interesting immediate consequence of the Black Death that directly affected the Jews was their migration into Eastern Europe, one of the areas least affected by the Black Death. As more and more Jews fled or were expelled from Western, Central, and Northern Europe the heads of Eastern European kingdoms saw an opportunity in inviting these Jews to live in their areas to provide the same financial benefits that the Jews had provided to others royal leaders. Prior to the Black Death, Prince Bolesław the Pious (1221-1279), the dominant prince in a fractured Poland, issued the Statute of Kalisz in 1264 in which he designated the Jews as a special and protected population in Poland.

Antisemitism has a long history in Europe. One of the most violent outbreaks of antisemitism before the twentieth century was during the Black Death (about 1346-1351). Thousands of Jews were killed throughout Europe and many more were tortured. To escape persecution, great numbers of Jews fled their homes. Jews were accused of spreading the disease that was ravaging the continent. The most common accusation against Jews was that they were poisoning wells with agents of disease, an accusation also made by Athenians against Spartans during the Peloponnesian War during the fifth century CE when a plague ravaged the city. As early as April 1348, Jews were murdered in Toulon (in southeastern France) as the supposed source of the Black Death. The specific argument that Jews spread the plague by poisoning wells, the most common accusation against them, did not immediately appear.

The victory at Orleans seemed to confirm that Joan was indeed sent by God and on the strength of this, she asked the Dauphin to give her co-command of the army with John, Duke of Alencon and gained permission to recapture bridges along the Loire in readiness for an advance on Reims and a coronation, a brave move considering that the town was deep in enemy territory.

With Alencon and Orleans now accepting Joan’s strategic decisions, the army retook Jargeau. She was struck on the helmet by a stone cannonball while scaling the fortress walls, but survived to win the day. The army moved on and retook Beaugency on the 17th of June and the next day met an English relief force under the command of Sir John Fastolf. The two sides met at the tiny village of Patay with the English intending to form their now traditional formation of men at arms in the centre and archers on the wings. The French surprised them however and their vanguard of heavily armoured knights got in among the archers before they could embed their stakes. The battle became a rout and the mounted English fled leaving the Archers to be massacred.