Pisano from 1343 to 1347. They are noted for the famous sculpture Maria lactans, and their work on Orvieto Cathedral. Literature In 1341, Petrarch was crowned poet laureate in Rome, the first man since antiquity to be given this honor. Codex Manesse, completed 1340 Michael of Northgate (Ayenbite of Inwyt, 1340) Giovanni Boccaccio (works) Petrarch (Africa, 1343) Geoffrey Chaucer (born 1343) Perceforest, completed 1344 Military technology It was around this decade that medieval cannon began to be used more widely in Europe, appearing in small numbers in several European states by the 1340s. "Thunder jar" weaponry utilizing gunpowder and other firearm technology spread to Spain in 1342 and to the city of Aachen in Northern Germany in 1346. "Ribaldis" were first mentioned in the English Privy Wardrobe accounts between 1345 and 1346, during preparations for the campaign in France. The effectiveness of these cannon was limited, as they are believed to have only shot large arrows and simple grapeshot, but they were so valuable that they were directly controlled by the Royal Wardrobe. Contemporary chroniclers such as the French Jean Froissart and the Florentine Giovanni Villani record their destructiveness on the field at the Battle of Crecy in 1346. Philosophy and religion In the 1340s, Catholic Church was governed under the Avignon Papacy. Pope Benedict XII died on 25 April 1342, and was buried in a mausoleum in Avignon Cathedral. Thirteen days later, the cardinals elected Benedictine cardinal and theologian Pierre Roger de Beaufort as Pope Clement VI. He reigned as pope until 1352. In 1340s, the controversial Franciscan friar and Scholastic philosopher William of Ockham was at Munich under the protection of the Holy Roman Emperor, Louis of Bavaria, since 1330. During this time, he wrote exclusively on political matters, as an advocate of secular absolutism against papal authority, for which he had previously been excommunicated. Among the followers of Ockhamism — condensed as the omnipotence of God and Occam's Razor — were John of Mirecourt (fl. c. 1345) and Nicholas of Autrecourt (fl. c. 1347), both of whom taught at the University of Paris. Ockham, Mirecourt and Autrecourt all agreed on the principle of noncontradiction and experience as bases of certainty. On November 21, 1340, Autrecourt too was summoned him to Avignon to respond to allegations of false teaching. The trial, under Pope Benedict XII and his successor Clement VI, lasted until his conviction in 1346. Autrecourt was