Philippe de Mézières

At first, he served under Luchino Visconti in Lombardy but within a year he entered the service of the husband of Joanna I of Naples, Andrew, Duke of Calabria, who was the son of the King Charles I of Hungary.

He realized the advantage which the discipline of the Saracens gave them over the disorderly armies of the West, and conceived the idea of a new order of knighthood, but his efforts proved fruitless.

After the capture of this city he received the government of a third part of it and a promise for the creation of his order, but the Crusaders, satisfied by the immense booty, refused to continue the campaign.

Philippe remained for some time at Avignon, seeking recruits for his order, and writing his Vita S. Petri Thomasii (Antwerp, 1659), which is invaluable for the history of the Alexandrian expedition.

Philippe lived thenceforward in the convent of the Celestines in Paris, but nevertheless continued to exert an influence on public affairs, and to his close alliance with Louis of Orleans may be put down the calumnies with which the Burgundian historians covered his name.

In 1389 he wrote his Songe du Vieil Pèlerin, an elaborate allegorical voyage in which he described the customs of Europe and the near East, and advocated peace with England and the pursuit of the Crusade.

In 1395 he addressed to Richard II of England an Epistre pressing his marriage with Isabella of Valois and encouraging him to make peace with France and going into a new Crusade against the Turkish armies that were breaking into Europe.

This defeat inspired Philippe with no enthusiasm, and justified his fears and was the occasion of his last work, the Epistre lamentable el consolatoire, in which he put forward once more the principles of his order as a remedy against future disasters.