Despenser's Crusade

Despenser's Crusade
Part of the Hundred Years' War and the Western Schism
Map of English conquests in France from 1360 to 1453, shown in pink and in yellow in Flanders
Date December 1382 – September 1383 Location Western Flanders Result Franco-Flemish victory
Belligerents
Kingdom of England Ghent rebels Papal States	Kingdom of France County of Flanders Avignon Papacy
Commanders and leaders
Bishop Henry le Despenser Frans Ackerman Pope Urban VI	King Charles VI Count Louis of Flanders Antipope Clement VII

Despenser's Crusade (or the Bishop of Norwich's Crusade, sometimes just Norwich Crusade) was a military expedition led by the English bishop Henry le Despenser in 1383 that aimed to assist the city of Ghent in its struggle against the supporters of Antipope Clement VII. It took place during the great Papal schism and the Hundred Years' War between England and France. While France supported Clement, whose court was based in Avignon, the English supported Pope Urban VI in Rome.

Popular at the time among the lower and middle classes, Despenser's Crusade "was only widely criticised in hindsight",^[1] and "for all its canonical propriety, [it] was the Hundred Years' War thinly disguised".^[2] Among contemporary critics of the crusade were John Wyclif and the chronicler Jean Froissart, who charged its leaders with hypocrisy.^[2]