Episode 4: Licensed Disorder – Carnival, the Ars Nova, and the Limits of Permitted Rebellion
The problem reached Avignon from inside the choir. By 1324, the papal court had become one of the great administrative centers of Western Christianity, and Pope John XXII governed an institution whose authority depended on more than doctrine. Authority also lived in ritual, in the repeated forms through which doctrine became audible and recognizable. Plainchant…