PHILIPPE DE MEZIERES'S LIFE OF SAINT PIERRE DE THOMAS AT THE CROSSROADS OF LATE MEDIEVAL HAGIOGRAPHY AND CRUSADING IDEOLOGY

Philippe de Mezieres (1327-1405), politician, crusade propagandist, counselor to the French king Charles V, spiritual thinker, and prolific author, met Pierre de Thomas (ca. 1305-1366), a Carmelite friar who rose to become a papal legate and titular patriarch of Constantinople, in 1362 on Cyprus. The two men were soul mates and embarked on many joint diplomatic and military ventures of which the most dramatic was the taking of Alexandria in 1365. Pierre de Thomas died shortly afterwards and within months Philippe began to write his Life of Pierre de Thomas with a view to his canonization. A somewhat later inquiry into Pierre's miracles and sanctity had no result. This article explores how Philippe tried to construct a new saint-to whom he was attached by deep emotions-at a time when canonizations became more formalized and difficult and when the ideal of the crusade became more and more problematic in the face of late medieval political realities.