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Montpellier

2 stories from this place.

The Footnote June 25, 2026 · Avignon

The Personal Physician of Three Avignon Popes Who Wrote the Standard European Surgical Textbook for Three Centuries

Guy de Chauliac served as personal physician to Popes Clement VI, Innocent VI, and Urban V at Avignon between 1342 and 1370. His *Chirurgia Magna* (1363) was the dominant European surgical textbook from the 14th century to the 17th — and contained the most detailed eyewitness account of the 1348 Black Death by a doctor who survived it.

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The Footnote June 24, 2026 · Sant'Alberto di Butrio, Lombardy

The Italian Letter That Claimed Edward II Did Not Die in Berkeley Castle But Reached Lombardy Disguised as a Pilgrim

A letter discovered in the Montpellier archives in 1878 — addressed to Edward III from the papal notary Manuel Fieschi around 1336 — claimed that Edward II had escaped his Berkeley Castle imprisonment, walked across Europe in disguise, and was living as a hermit at the Lombard hermitage of Sant'Alberto di Butrio. Modern historians remain divided.

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