The Church had recently been racked by the departure of the Pope from Rome and the commencement of the seventy-year-long Avignon Papacy (1309-1375), often called the "Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy," since French kings appeared to control the Pope. It was a grave blow to the authority of the papacy. The Hundred Years' War (1335-1453) was, as its name says, a protracted and debilitating conflict between France and England. Both were part of the disintegration of what is known as the "Medieval synthesis," the union of social, political and religious forces which gave rise to the magnificent culture of the Middle Ages. All in all, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were difficult and depressing times, certainly by comparison to the glorious ages preceding (the High Middle Ages) and following them (the Renaissance).

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