Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign: The Rise of the French Vernacular Royal Biography 9781442689381

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T H E O R I Z I N G T H E I D E A L S O V E R E I GN : T HE R I S E OF T H E F R E N C H V E R N A C U L A R R O YA L B I O G R A P H Y

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DAISY DELOGU

Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign The Rise of the French Vernacular Royal Biography

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2008 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in Canada ISBN 978-0-8020-9807-8

Printed on acid-free paper

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Delogu, Daisy Theorizing the ideal sovereign : the rise of the French vernacular royal biography / Daisy Delogu. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8020-9807-8 1. Kings and rulers, Medieval – Biography – History and criticism. 2. France – Kings and rulers – Biography – History and criticism. 3. Biography – Middle Ages, 500–1500 – History and criticism. 4. Nobility of character. 5. French prose literature – To 1500 – History and criticism. 6. Monarchy – Europe – History – To 1500. I. Title. DC36.6.D45 2008

321c.60940902

C2008-901880-X

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction

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3

1 Models of Sanctity and Kingship in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis: Will the Real Louis IX Please Stand? 22 2 Hugh the Butcher: Lineage, Election, and Succession in the Chanson de Hugues Capet 58 3 The Crusading Ideal in Guillaume de Machaut’s Prise d’Alixandre 92 4 The Herald Chandos’s Vie du Prince Noir: A prince très chrétien

124

5 Reinventing Kingship: Christine de Pizan’s Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V 153 Notes

185

Appendix: Genealogical Table – The Last Capetians, the First Valois, and Claimants to the French Throne 259 Works Consulted

261

Index of Subjects

293

Index of Places and Proper Names 297

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Acknowledgments

My debts of gratitude are many, and it is a pleasure to acknowledge the largest ones here. My thanks go first and foremost to Kevin Brownlee, for his invaluable help and encouragement from start to finish. I also appreciate the careful reading and thoughtful suggestions of Lance Donaldson-Evans and Gerald Prince. I could not have completed the dissertation that provided a point of departure for this book without the generous assistance of the Interlibrary Loan staff at the University of Southern Maine. Portions of chapter 5 have previously appeared in the volume Christine de Pizan: Une femme de science, une femme de lettres, and in the journal Medievalia et Humanistica. I thank the editors of these publications for their kind permission to use revised versions of this material in the present book. Many people have read and commented on different chapters at various stages of their creation and transformation: my warmest thanks go to Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Peter Dembowski, Cecily Hilsdale, Nicole Lassahn, Nicole Leapley, Nadève Ménard, Robert Morrissey, Thomas Pavel, Lucy Pick, Justin Steinberg, Lisa Voigt, Christina von Nolcken, and Rebecca Zorach. I am most grateful to the Franke Institute for the Humanities for affording me the time to complete my manuscript, to my fellow fellows at the Franke during the year 2005–6 for their helpful comments, to the members of my department at the University of Chicago for their encouragement, and to the Humanities Division of the University of Chicago and Dean Martha Roth for generous funds that assisted enormously with permissions and production costs for this book. I wish to recognize my readers at the University of Toronto Press, whose comments enriched and improved my work immeasurably, as well as the care and patience of my editors at Toronto, Suzanne Rancourt and Barbara Por-

viii Acknowledgments

ter. I thank my parents for their love and support throughout this project, especially my wonderful mum, who read every word. Finally, I thank my husband – pep talker extraordinaire – and also Jonah and Ezra, who provided their own sort of inspiration. The help of these and many others has allowed me to produce my best work, while the shortcomings that remain are mine alone.

T H E O R I Z I N G T H E I D E A L S O V E R E I GN : T HE R I S E OF T H E F R E N C H V E R N A C U L A R R O YA L B I O G R A P H Y

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Introduction

Medieval kingship is a complex and original institution, one built on a variety of disparate traditions to meet a range of practical needs. Theories of kingship blend ideas from the Bible and classical antiquity with elements of the social organization of the Roman empire and the premedieval Celtic and Germanic worlds.1 The ideal king was expected to exemplify a dizzying, and sometimes conflicting, array of qualities and behaviour. On the one hand, the medieval king had a quasi-sacral character, representing God on earth, and in particular Christ, Christus rex.2 From the time of Pepin the Short and his sons the French kings were anointed by priests in imitation of the biblical kings of Israel. Anointing made the king unlike any other noble, however powerful, and allowed kings to partake in some way of the sacerdotium, the priestly office.3 The legend of the holy chrism that was brought by a dove for the anointing of Clovis further reinforced the idea that the French king was God’s chosen representative. The king was believed to have special healing powers, and was often perceived to have a saintly character, if not to be a saint outright.4 In addition to his Christly qualities, the ideal king was also a warrior, and in particular the defender of God and the Church.5 The warrior kings of the Old Testament found their medieval counterparts in Charlemagne, Richard the Lionheart, and Saint Louis. 6 Finally, the king was to function as the guarantor of justice. Indeed, the word king, rex, was associated etymologically with the idea of justice (recte regere, or rule rightly). The king was responsible for protecting the poor and the weak, and for ensuring the well-being of those he ruled. In this manner the medieval king alone performed, as Jacques Le Goff has shown, the three functions of Indo-European society as identified by Georges Dumézil. He partook at once of the duties of the oratores, the

4 Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign

bellatores, and the laboratores.7 These identities existed in tension with one another, however, and were constantly subject to renegotiation by different kings in response to changing circumstances. Given the centrality of the king, who was at once the head of medieval society and a microcosmic image of it, it is not surprising that the study of medieval kingship has generated a lengthy and still-growing bibliography.8 Kings have been the subjects of modern biographical studies,9 while medieval kingship has been examined in relation to a wide assortment of disciplines and with respect to a range of other topics, from sanctity to crusade to genealogy.10 Medieval scholars were equally interested in kings and kingship, which provided the focus or structure for a variety of works. Political treatises such as those of Thomas Aquinas, Peter of Auvergne, Ptolemy of Lucca, Giles of Rome, Marsiglio of Padua, and William of Ockham analysed the qualities of the best government, while a specialized genre – the miroir du prince, or mirror for the prince – provided rulers with guidance on the virtues and conduct required for successful kingship. History itself was often perceived as the march through time of a succession of kings, and much historical writing was structured as a series of brief royal biographies.11 Some kings became the subjects of free-standing biographical texts. Einhard’s life of Charlemagne enjoyed enormous success, Helgaud de Fleury wrote a biography of Robert the Pious, Abbot Suger wrote lives of both Louis VI and Louis VII, and Guillaume de Nangis composed biographies of Louis IX and Philippe III. Histories and biographical works were popular reading, and were considered essential to the moral development of young princes and other nobles.12 For many centuries such kings’ lives were composed by clerics in Latin. Then, in 1309, the Champenois nobleman Jean de Joinville completed his Vie de saint Louis, the first biography of a French king to be composed in the vernacular as well as the first saint’s life written by a layperson. For the first time royal biography was released from the monastic culture in which it previously had been produced, and in no small part consumed, to become part of a significantly broader and increasingly secular conversation about kingship. Joinville’s literary enterprise inspired imitators, and the fourteenth century witnessed the production of a number of kings’ lives written in the vernacular, many of them by laypeople. The present study will focus on these late medieval vernacular kings’ lives. Royal biographies are peculiarly well suited to articulating an analysis of kingship because they provide a means of connecting an individ-

Introduction 5

ual life to the theoretical or normative underpinnings of kingship. While authors of didactic and historical works were able to pick and choose from among a variety of examples in order to illustrate the many qualities required for a ruler, those writing kings’ lives confronted issues related to kingship from the perspective of a single, exemplary life. The historically specific context of royal biographies was not always happily reconciled with the authors’ desire to demonstrate the exemplarity of their subjects. The resulting intersection of theoretical concerns and specific circumstances testifies to the often sizeable distance between kingly ideals and their implementation, putting into question in some instances the royal ideal. In spite of the intense and sustained scholarly interest in medieval kingship from the Middle Ages to the present, as well as the unique perspective on kingship provided by medieval biographies, there exists no comparative study at all of kings’ lives, those written in Latin or in the vernacular.13 In the absence of a comparative analysis, one imagines that individual biographies might have been the object of critical investigation, but to a surprising degree this has not been the case. With the exception of Jean de Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis, which has received extensive scholarly attention, and Christine de Pizan’s Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V (1404), which in recent years has attracted increasing interest, very little work has been done on the texts that form the object of the present study.14 This is true in the case of well-known authors like Guillaume de Machaut, whose biography of Pierre I of Lusignan (the Prise d’Alixandre, c. 1369–77) has received much less critical notice than his other works, and it is doubly so in the case of little-known or anonymous authors whose texts – like the Chanson de Hugues Capet (c. 1358) and the Vie du Prince Noir (c. 1385) – are the subject of only a handful of articles each. While they have been mined for historical details – indeed, many of them are important sources for the periods and events they describe – they have largely been ignored by literary scholars, who tend to relegate biography to the realm of history. In fact, the boundary between historical and literary writing was much more fluid in the Middle Ages than it is today, and vernacular kings’ lives were shaped by a range of literary discourses, notably hagiographies, chansons de geste, and Arthurian romances. They thus provide an opportunity to consider the ways in which the canonical genres of the high Middle Ages evolved and recombined in subsequent centuries, and how they interacted with chronicles, vitae, and miroirs du prince.15

6 Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign

Historians of ideas and political theorists have likewise, for the most part, ignored royal biographies, perhaps on the theory that these works have nothing of value to add to late medieval conversations about kingship. Jacques Krynen, for instance, who writes very perceptively about kingship in the late Middle Ages, says of Christine de Pizan’s life of Charles V that ‘the portrait of Charles V is modeled on the archetype of the ideal sovereign. For all its liveliness, the description of the wise king is nevertheless founded upon objective, stereotyped criteria. Without a doubt, the Livre des fais is a miroir adorned with a vita.’16 Krynen articulates a view common to many readers of royal biographies, which is that medieval biographers take as their point of departure a kingly ideal and then write a life that demonstrates how their subject adhered to it. Modern critics too often presume that the aim of medieval biographies was to praise their subjects and to please their patrons, and that these works therefore are not fit to question or to criticize either the specific actions of their subjects or more general tenets of kingship. The words most frequently encountered in modern descriptions of vernacular royal biographies are ‘panegyric’ and ‘eulogy.’ They are thought to be formulaic at best, if not outright false, privileging the exemplarity of their subjects to the detriment of historical accuracy. It is true that models of kingship were extremely important in the composition of kings’ lives, just as accepted models of sanctity shaped the redaction of saints’ lives. However, I believe that influence was likewise exerted in the opposite direction, and that departures from or innovations to conventional notions of kingship, as represented in royal biographies, were able to affect larger ideas about sovereignty. Machaut’s Prise d’Alixandre, for instance, provides a range of possible answers to the single question, Should the king crusade? Such a diverse response cannot conform to a univocal model of kingship, imposed a priori upon the text. Similarly, Christine de Pizan’s reformulation of chivalry and her emphasis on pragmatism and self-interest as kingly qualities effected changes in the perception of the ideal sovereign. In addition to providing a locus for considering theoretical questions about kingship, royal biographies were also used to advance precise political aims. The Chanson de Hugues Capet, a pseudo-biographical account of the life and succession of Hugh Capet, the first Capetian king, illustrates such intervention in a specific political situation. The Chanson’s account of Hugh Capet’s succession and the origins of the Capetian dynasty serves to authorize the reign of Philippe de Valois, who became the first Valois king in 1328, and whose legitimacy was chal-

Introduction 7

lenged by Edward III of England. Upon the death of Charles IV in 1328, the over three-hundred-year-old Capetian dynasty came to an end. The French throne passed to the deceased king’s cousin, Philippe de Valois, rather than to his nephew, Edward III. The dynastic crisis of 1328 was not the century’s first, but was preceded by those of 1316 and 1322. In both these years the deceased king left only daughters, and it was declared in both instances that the throne of France could not be held by a woman, and so it passed to the defunct king’s brother.17 Since Edward III based his claim to the French throne on the fact that his mother, Isabelle, was the daughter of Philippe le Bel (r. 1285–1314) and the sister of the last three Capetian kings, Louis X (r. 1314–16), Philippe V (r. 1316–22), and Charles IV (r. 1322–8), the French affirmed that a woman could not transmit a right that she could not herself enjoy. Hugh Capet’s rise to power, as it is depicted in the Chanson, parallels in many respects that of Philippe de Valois. At the end of the Chanson the French nobles proclaim that in the kingdom of France women can neither occupy nor transmit the throne. This is one of the earliest articulations of the legal fiction that would be refined and promulgated over the course of the fourteenth and early fifteen centuries under the rubric of Salic law. Remarkably, it is pronounced not in a scholarly Latin treatise, but in a tale of adventure and romance, written in French and therefore accessible to a wide public.18 The term Salic law does refer to a set of ancient laws, but not to those that governed French royal succession. Over the second half of the fourteenth century the Salic laws were gradually transformed into the dynastic principle by which women were excluded from rule, and they were then held up as an ancient and immutable custom, one bequeathed to the French from time immemorial.19 In one fell swoop the Chanson draws up the principles that govern royal succession, demonstrates their antiquity – and therefore their credibility – and implicitly designates Philippe de Valois as the only possible heir to the last Capetians. The Chanson thus plays a critical role in a vital political and legal project that spanned over a century and that proved to be singularly successful. Vernacular kings’ lives clearly constitute a great untapped resource that can help us to better understand how theories of kingship evolved over the course of the late Middle Ages, a period that witnessed profound transformations in political philosophical thought. Royal biographies stage the same sorts of concerns that animated political debates of the same period, inviting reflection on topics such as what constitutes the basis for sovereignty? what is the relationship of the king to the

8 Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign

law? to the people? to the Church and the Pope? and what are the obligations of kingship? Three factors are especially relevant to the works that I will consider in the present study, and to ideals of kingship in particular: the ‘rediscovery’ of Aristotle, the rise of the vernacular as a language of ethics and philosophy, and the Hundred Years’ War. William of Moerbeke’s mid-thirteenth-century translations of Aristotle’s Politics and Nicomachean Ethics into Latin provided medieval thinkers with a coherent theory of government that offered a drastically different perspective from that of Augustine, which had previously dominated ideas about the origins and role of government. Augustinian thought perceived the institution of kingship as a constraint imposed from without, one that became necessary since mankind’s fall from grace rendered humans selfish and unable to maintain peace and justice on their own. In contrast, Aristotelians saw man as a naturally social being, and social institutions as the natural, indeed irresistible, consequence of his gregariousness, not as repressive or punitive.20 The idea that the translation and increased dissemination of these important texts constituted a watershed in medieval political theory must be tempered somewhat, since some of Aristotle’s most influential ideas were known through indirect sources, such as the works of Boethius and Cicero, long before the thirteenth century.21 Antony Black argues that Aristotelian political thought did not provide a fixed doctrine so much as a language or vocabulary that medieval thinkers employed to support contrasting, even opposing, political principles.22 Nevertheless, the Politics and Ethics inspired and influenced much of the political theoretical production of the late thirteenth- and fourteenth-centuries. In contrast to Aristotle, the thirteenth and fourteenth century commentators devoted most of their attention to monarchy, especially in France, where other forms of rule were given little consideration. However, like the Philosopher, they approached political philosophy in a pragmatic manner, trying to determine how government might best achieve its end, which was to promote the well-being – spiritual, of course, but also increasingly material as well – of the people. Thomas Aquinas and his student Peter of Auvergne sought to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with Christian belief. Giles of Rome, in his widely read De regimine principe, was one of the most important transmitters of Aristotle’s thought. As a member of an Augustinian order, his work reflects the tensions between the views of Augustine and those of Aristotle. Nicole Oresme’s late-fourteenth-century translations of Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics into French were executed in the medieval sense of the term.

Introduction 9

That is to say, they were not simply translations, but were also commentaries and meditations on Aristotle’s ideas and their possible applications to late medieval political life.23 Aristotle’s philosophy was not the only inspiration for the proliferation of political writing that marked the late Middle Ages. Existing political conflicts also stimulated the development of political thought. Philippe le Bel’s struggles with Pope Boniface VIII in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries resulted in a prominent royal victory in the long-standing conflict between the Church and the kings and emperors of Europe over temporal versus spiritual power.24 These public conflicts prompted the production of a number of texts on both sides of the controversy, including the generally pro-royal Disputatio inter clericum et militem (c. 1297) and John of Paris’s De potestate regia et papali (1302–3), the moderate Quaestio in utramque partem (1303), as well as the more hierocratic texts of James of Viterbo, De regimine christiano (1302), and Giles of Rome, De ecclesiastica potestate (1302). More important, the quarrel invited medieval thinkers to pose the much broader and complex question of ‘who should hold any kind of power, and on whose authority anybody rules.’25 The proposed responses would have ramifications that extended far beyond the immediate context. Some sixty years later, Charles V would have a number of the texts supporting the authority of the king in France translated into French, redeployed as part of his own struggles not with the pope, but with the English. Thus, the late Middle Ages witnessed the emergence of a host of new, or newly pressing, political questions, as well as the language in which to address them in increasingly refined and sophisticated ways. Not surprisingly, this intense reflection on the foundations and nature of secular power led to the modification of ideas about the person of the king. The miroir du prince or mirror for princes, a kind of moral treatise for sovereigns written in a normative prescriptive mode, was an important instrument in promoting and reflecting evolving ideals of kingship.26 Clerics had long been in the habit of furnishing advice and moral guidance to secular rulers. Early mirrors, growing out of those in Deuteronomy 17:14–20 and Augustine’s City of God (5:24), focused on the virtue and morals of the king, and on his obligation to protect and advance the spiritual well-being of his subjects with an eye towards ensuring their salvation, and his own. During the reign of the Carolingians the mirror genre flourished, as powerful ecclesiastics including Alcuin, Jonas of Orleans, and Hincmar of Reims sought to shape the conduct of the kings they served. In his seminal work the Policraticus (1159), John of

10

Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign

Salisbury moved his focus beyond the person of the king to engage in a sustained reflection on the nature of good and bad government. For John, a quality necessary for successful kingship was the wisdom of the ruler. He famously declared that rex illiteratus quasi asinus coronatus, an illiterate king is no better than a crowned ass.27 Here John departs from the clerical tradition that reserved the exercise of wisdom for the sacerdotium to ascribe wisdom to the king himself.28 The Policraticus remained a point of reference for subsequent considerations of kingship and secular power throughout the Middle Ages. The thirteenth century witnessed a notable resurgence in the production of mirrors. Louis IX (r. 1226–70) was deeply interested in kingship from a theoretical, as well as a personal, perspective. Gilbert de Tournai’s Eruditio regum et principum and Vincent de Beauvais’s De eruditione filiorum regalium and De morali principis institutione were produced under the auspices of Louis IX. At approximately the same time, the De regno, attributed to Thomas Aquinas, was written for Henry II of Lusignan, the king of Cyprus. Between 1277 and 1281 Giles of Rome wrote his De regimine principum, dedicated to the future Philippe le Bel, which was almost immediately translated into French by Henri de Gauchy. This text would become the most influential mirror of the fourteenth century, a standard element of any worthy library.29 Louis IX himself was the author of a kind of mirror, the Enseignements that he provided to his son and heir, Philippe.30 The Enseignements are brief, and certain points included therein are intended only for Philippe’s personal use, but the document also has broader applicability in terms of guiding future rulers in becoming, like Louis IX, good Christian kings. The Enseignements mark a further advance in the progression of wisdom from belonging exclusively to the domain of the clergy to that of the king. Here, the king does not simply listen to the wisdom of his clerics, he dispenses wisdom to others. Moreover, because he writes in French his text is readily understandable to his son and other descendants. The importance of Louis’s linguistic choice cannot be underestimated, and it points to a fundamental transformation in late medieval culture: the changing status of the vernacular. By writing his own Enseignements in French, and by means of his literary patronage, notably that of Primat’s Grandes chroniques de France,31 Louis IX made a clear statement about the dignity and the legitimacy – as well as the practicality – of the French language. French had established itself as an important literary language from the twelfth century, and texts intended

Introduction 11

for entertainment, such as romances and chansons de geste, or those directed at a wide audience, such as saints’ lives, had long been composed in French. However, Latin was the language of Church and Empire, of learning and of Roman law, and it retained an undeniable cultural prestige and authority. Where Latin was perceived to be universal and unchanging, French was seen as localized and ephemeral, unsuited to serious intellectual endeavours.32 Over time, however, French began to make inroads into Latin’s linguistic hegemony. Serge Lusignan has shown that during the thirteenth century legal charters and coutumiers, especially in the northern and eastern parts of the kingdom, were increasingly written in French, a practice that was facilitated by the translation, during the same period, of a number of key legal texts. At the same time, chronicles also began to be written in the vernacular in these regions.33 Texts such as the Enseignements are thus in the avant-garde of the vast popularization and secularization of political, philosophical, scientific, and historical knowledge that took place during the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, of which an essential component was the use of the vernacular. Over the course of the fourteenth century French began to compete with Latin as a language worthy of applying not just to technical and practical, but also to abstract and intellectual, pursuits. One could situate the origins of this shift in the mid-thirteenth century, with the appearance of Jean de Meun’s Roman de la rose, a sort of vernacular summa, in which the author takes up, in exhaustive detail, the philosophical, political, and ethical debates of his day.34 In the fourteenth century the two figures who emerge as the most ardent promoters of the vernacular are Charles V (r. 1364–1380) and the writer, philosopher, and royal adviser Nicole Oresme (1323–82).35 Charles V founded the first royal library, which contained over 1200 volumes, and he commissioned the translation into French of countless classical and medieval texts.36 If Charles was the visionary behind his vast translation project and the highly politicized valorization of the French language, as well as the one holding the purse strings, Nicole Oresme was the project’s intellectual powerhouse. Where previous translators and translations had emphasized the practical advantages of the vernacular, Oresme theorizes the cultural and political choices, and the ramifications, that underlie language usage, thereby adding a new dimension to the familiar notions of translatio studii et imperii. In the prologue to his translation of Aristotle’s Ethics, Oresme historicizes Latin, showing that it does not possess a transcendental or essential authority that French lacks.37 In-

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Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign

deed, he writes, there was a time when Latin occupied the same position vis à vis Greek – the former language of philosophy, science, and culture – as French does to Latin in the fourteenth century. The communicative shortcomings of a language can be overcome, Oresme argues, and in large part it is the work of translation that renders a language fit to express a more complete and subtle range of ideas. This is the work that Oresme takes up. The number of neologisms in Oresme’s translations is astonishing.38 In these works, and the many other translations executed in the fourteenth century, particularly during the reign of Charles V, French intellectuals are essentially forging a new French vernacular, one that is competent to address issues of political philosophy in all of their complexity and sophistication. Once these types of texts became available to a non-Latinate public, questions of science, philosophy, ethics, and political theory were no longer the purview of a narrow group of experts, those able to consult the apposite texts in Latin. Instead, the king’s lay counsellors and entourage, indeed the king himself and other nobles, were themselves able to read works of political philosophy, to consider and evaluate the various theories of kingship that they were to enact. Vernacular kings’ lives are at the forefront of this trend towards the popularization of political philosophy. They are linguistically accessible to a wide public,39 and they present their ideas in specific contexts that lend themselves to discussion and debate.40 Their specificity parallels the increasingly practical bent taken by texts such as the miroirs du prince, which, no longer content to delineate the personal qualities of the ideal monarch, increasingly sought to orient the king’s actions towards positive ends. Certainly biographies describe and illustrate the virtues of their biographical subjects, but they also depict their actions, and the results – both positive and negative – that ensue therefrom. A final essential factor in the late medieval transformation in political thought stems from the dynastic crises of the first quarter of the fourteenth century, the end of the Capetian dynasty, and the challenges to the French monarchy occasioned by what came to be known as the Hundred Years’ War. This series of crises and conflicts forced a reexamination of the basis for legitimate kingship, modes of succession, and the relationship – judicial, fiscal, political – of the king to his subjects. The Hundred Years’ War is the name given to the series of intermittent conflicts between England and France that took place between 1337 and 1453. The immediate pretext for the war was the disputed transmission of the French crown following the death of Charles IV, the

Introduction

13

last Capetian king, in 1328. In fact, the dynastic tensions between France and England were long-standing, dating perhaps to Louis IX’s treaty of Paris (1259), which made the English king the vassal of the French for his continental possessions, or even as far back as the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II Plantagenet in 1152, which first associated Aquitaine with the English crown. Indeed, in his presentation to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V traces the origins of the conflict with England to the founding of the kingdom of France and the conquest and conversion of Gascony by Charlemagne.41 This ongoing conflict is more than simply a backdrop for the works examined in the present study. The Hundred Years’ War was the defining political condition of most of the fourteenth century and the first half of the fifteenth, not just for England and France, but for all of western Europe. The failure of most crusade projects initiated in the fourteenth century to materialize, and the failure of those that did take place to achieve measurable results, can be traced to the war, as can the duration of the Great Schism of the West, which began in 1378 and was not resolved until 1417.42 The war provoked a crisis of identity for the French and English alike. The Valois, denounced as usurpers by the English, were forced to legitimate their rule. The French-speaking English royal family, themselves descended from a branch of the French royal family, began to define themselves for the first time in contradistinction to France and the French. As in France, the changing status of the vernacular contributed to the construction of a national identity.43 Issues raised by the war, such as the role of crusade, the relationship of the Church to the increasingly powerful territorial kingdoms, the basis for legitimate rule, and the emergence of national identities, are powerfully illuminated by the works examined in the present study. In part because they were composed largely by laypeople, vernacular royal biographies provide a unique voice in the chorus of political disputation that characterized the late Middle Ages. For the most part their authors were not Latinate clerics, like the authors of the political treatises mentioned here, and their perspectives on kingship were shaped by different sets of circumstances and experiences. For this reason, and because their political content is not overtly presented as such, the political dimensions of vernacular kings’ lives have largely escaped detection. In the absence of chapter headings such as ‘On the rights of the king over his subjects’ or ‘Whether it is better to have a king by election or by hereditary succession,’ the political content of royal biographies must be discerned through the interstices of the text, through

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Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign

what is often left unsaid.44 The texts examined here deploy a range of narrative techniques that allow them to articulate, evaluate, and refigure ideas of political philosophy. The most readily discernable of these methods is the manner in which biographies stage contested ideas and examples of kingship. Though the biographical subject is naturally at the centre of a given text, he by no means exists in a vacuum. Kings operate within a network of royal figures, and the depictions and interactions of these figures invite contemplation and comparison on the part of the reader. Pierre I of Cyprus, the subject of the Prise d’Alixandre, is an unhesitating partisan of crusade. However, the other kings he encounters – Jean II and Charles V of France, the Emperor Charles IV, as well as Jean de Luxembourg, whose memory is evoked – while supportive of crusade as a theoretical proposition, are not all equally willing to actually accompany Pierre. Some of those who choose not to join Pierre’s enterprise are highly praised in the text. What then is the status of crusade, and does it belong to the obligations of kingship? Edward, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine, also interacts with an assortment of kings in the Vie du Prince Noir – Jean II and Charles V of France, Pedro of Castile, Henry of Trastamara – all of whom exhibit moral failings, especially the sin of pride. Here, the contrast between the prince and his royal peers highlights the exceptional virtue of the former. Kings’ lives also allow for the articulation and exploration of opposing political principles. For instance, some of the most pressing questions of medieval political theory – rendered even more immediate by the Hundred Years’ War – concern the basis for legitimate rule. For many medieval political philosophers, especially in France, monarchy was clearly the superior form of government,45 but this certainty still left unresolved a range of problems, such as how to select a king, what the relationship of the king was to the law, and under what circumstances, if any, a king could cease to be. These issues are debated in political treatises of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and they are also depicted in royal biographies of the same period. The Chanson de Hugues Capet portrays the election of a superior individual, followed by the succession of his male descendants, as the best method of selecting a king.46 This is precisely the process later advocated by Nicole Oresme in his translation of and commentary on Aristotle’s Politics, a parallel that shows the degree to which kings’ lives were in communication with the theoretical ideas of their day. The question of legitimacy is likewise posed by the Vie du Prince Noir. At various

Introduction

15

points in the text the narrator and the prince each affirm the justice of England’s claim to the French throne. In addition, the text articulates conflicting precepts concerning legitimate rule, first that one who is not loved and respected by his men does not deserve to rule, and also that no legitimate man should ever support an illegitimate king. Pedro of Castile illustrates the tensions between these two conditions. Although he is the legitimate king of Castile, Pedro’s sobriquet is the Cruel, he has been excommunicated by the pope and accused of murdering his wife, and is easily overthrown by his own nobles. What then is the more fitting basis for sovereignty? Does legal right trump virtue? These questions pose a moral predicament for the Black Prince, who is caught between his country’s alliance with Castile, on the one hand, and Pedro’s personal unworthiness and duplicity, on the other. The text reveals the limitations and weaknesses of both theories of legitimacy, and forces the reader to confront the moral ambiguity of political reality. While theoretical texts such as miroirs du prince presumed that all would go well if only a king demonstrated the requisite moral qualities, the real-life dilemmas depicted by biographies suggest that the king’s individual worth is not a guarantor of success. Finally, like miroirs du prince, biographies emphasize different virtues from one text to another. Thus, while each of the texts I investigate can be said to use a particular figure to illustrate a kingly ideal, the specifics of this ideal are variable, and evolve over time. Such differences are not apparent to the reader of a single text, which is why the comparative approach adopted in this study has been able to bring to light new understandings of biography’s relationship to changing ideals of kingship. The two works that frame this study, Jean de Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis and Christine de Pizan’s Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V, illustrate this evolution in ideals of sovereignty. More than any other king since Saint Louis, Charles V consciously sought to incarnate and to exemplify a certain paradigm of sovereignty. However, the difference in the values and qualities that constitute the two kings’ respective models attests to the radical shift in notions of kingship that took place in the century that separates Louis IX, le roi saint, from his descendent Charles V, le roi avocat.47 Both kings sought, in their own ways, to consolidate and fortify the authority of the king, and both were concerned with the administration of justice as the fundamental guarantor of the contentedness of their people, and thereby the security of their realm. The difference in how they inhabit their kingship can be measured by two anecdotes that reveal their respective attitudes

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Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign

towards the truth, and their contrasting philosophies of language. In a celebrated and oft-repeated story, Joinville describes how Louis IX refused to defraud the Saracens of ten thousand pounds when his ransom was being counted. For him, the truth was an imperative no matter whom he was dealing with. Christine de Pizan, however, describes a scene in which Charles V responded to some members of his entourage who maintained that dissimulation was a type of treason. Charles explained that ‘circumstances make things good or bad, for in one way something can be dissimulated and it is a virtue, and in another way, a vice.’48 Louis’s adherence to virtue was firm and unyielding, heedless of political necessity, whereas Charles was governed by practical concerns, and the greater good of France could justify some moral flexibility.49 Louis’s Augustinian views on language put service to God ahead of any other considerations, while Charles’s more Aristotelian outlook took into account the common good, prompting him to serve what was becoming, during this period, a nation – his beloved France. I believe that these works, and the others studied here, were part of the transformation in ideas about kingship that occurred over the course of the late Middle Ages as well as of the emergence of what can only be called patriotism. In the absence of a dominant tradition of biographical writing, and with a variety of models of life-writing to draw upon – from those of the kings and heroes of chansons de geste and romances to the biographical sketches contained in chronicles, to the saints’ lives of hagiography – vernacular kings’ lives are a disparate body of works.50 Of the texts that I examine, two are in prose, two in verse, and one in the assonanced laisses common to chansons de geste.51 Most of the authors write about contemporary figures whom they knew, at least to some degree, while one writes about a king who lived more than three hundred years prior in an account that, for all its claims to authenticity, contains more fancy than history. Two of the authors name their patrons and discuss the circumstances of their text’s origins, while the other three wrote for no known patron. Most of the authors mingle, to some extent, autobiographical details with their biographical project, while other authors are completely absent from their works.52 What unites these heterogeneous works is the fact that they invite the reader’s engagement and allow for a range of ethical reactions and interpretations. The nature of royal biography made any overtly negative, or even dubious, commentary with respect to the king impossible. Consider, for instance, Christine de Pizan’s relentlessly positive depic-

Introduction

17

tion of the mentally incapacitated Charles VI, the son of her biographical subject, whom she declares to be a ‘prince so good and so nobly raised that there is no fault in him.’53 In Christine’s stated view it is neither fitting nor instructive to point out and dwell on people’s shortcomings.54 Accordingly, she does not comment on the gap between her depiction of the reigning king and his actual state. It is up to her readers first to measure the distance between Christine’s glowing description of the princes of her day and the troubling reality of early-fifteenthcentury France, and then to consider how the political situation might be improved. In the cases where authors do interpret their subjects’ characters or actions, their assessments demand a critical eye, for sometimes the author’s declared conclusions about an individual or an event belie other textual elements. Machaut, for instance, calls upon his readers to weep for the death of Pierre I. But did Pierre I not torture a noblewoman for refusing to marry his servant? Did he not allow justice to be circumvented in his kingdom? Machaut exhibits these facts as well, but any conclusions based upon them are the reader’s to draw. Similarly, the Chanson presents many striking similarities between the tenth-century accession of Hugh Capet and the events of fourteenth-century France, but it is up to the reader to deduce the applicability of the text to the contemporary political situation. The incongruities between an author’s stated conclusions and the events depicted in a text, or the parallels that are implied but not overtly drawn, place the interpretive burden upon the readers, each of whom is free to analyse and evaluate the models of kingship offered in a work. Meaning does not simply reside, transparent, in the text, but is actualized when the text becomes the object of a reader’s attention and reflection. As John Dagenais has argued, medieval texts were ‘acts of demonstrative rhetoric that reached out and grabbed the reader, involved him or her in praise or blame, in judgments about effective and ineffective human behavior. They engaged the reader, not so much in the unraveling of meaning as in a series of ethical meditations and personal ethical choices.’55 This manner of reading is not unique to royal biographies. Many medieval narratives were circular, rather than linear, in form. They contained recurring scenes, figures, motifs, or actions that were intended to be read against one another, compared, and evaluated. In many cases the process of interpretation was itself thematized, thereby providing an intradiegetic model for the reading public.56 The same is true of the texts examined herein. Medieval readers were prepared to look beyond the literal meaning of the text to examine its

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Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign

structure, to make comparisons, to try to understand what further significance might be suggested by the surface meaning of the text. Moreover, as we have seen, developments in political theory, the rise of the vernacular as a medium for intellectual reflection, and the events of the Hundred Years’ War conspired to make politics the object not just of scholarly inquiry, but of the contemplation and conversation of a much wider segment of society. This politically infused atmosphere made it natural for readers to formulate theories about the political implications of the texts they read, and even to make such reflection the basis for actions they might take in their own lives. Kings’ lives may appear mute today, but that is because we have removed them from the conversations of which they were a part, from the lively dialectic between texts and readers that formed the basis for the medieval reading experience.57 By trying to recapture the methodology as well as the mindset of the medieval reader, investigating not just what is said, but also how content is expressed, how narrative elements such as textual order, chronology, repetition, and parallels contribute to or alter the apparent significance of a text, we can arrive at a better understanding of the political interpretations made possible by these lives. The techniques that today we associate with literary analysis, in combination with an appreciation for the historical and political context from which these texts emerge, permit the discovery of what these lives reveal about the history and development of late medieval political philosophy and theories of kingship. In what ways are ideas of political philosophy articulated or advanced in the text? What is the relationship of each life to those that precede and follow it? How, over time, does the ideal of kingship evolve and what is the role of the works in my corpus in this transformation? These are some of the questions that I engage in this book. By placing in dialogue a set of texts that have not formerly been considered as a group, and by reading through the lens of literary analysis works that have more often been read as historical source documents, I have been able to formulate certain conclusions not only about the texts themselves, but also about kingship and government, nascent ideas of nationhood, and the role that literary works play in the production and dissemination of ideas more traditionally conceived of in legal, historical, or institutional terms. Royal biographies have much to tell us about the discursive boundaries and the mutual influence and transformations of literary genres over the course of the Middle Ages. Vernacular royal biography mingles the generic discourses of hagiography, chronicles, chansons de geste, political treatises, and mirrors for the prince. The

Introduction

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questions that I raise concern literary forms, evolving notions of kingship and government, and the place of literature in the articulation, dissemination, and evolution of political thought. My opening chapter investigates the origins – classical and medieval – of vernacular royal biography, and focuses in particular on the ways in which the hagiographical tradition shaped the elaboration of kings’ lives. I study these questions through a reading of Jean de Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis (1309), one of the many biographies of Louis IX, who was hailed as a saint during his own lifetime and was canonized not long after his death. Composed in the vernacular by a layperson, a companion in arms of the king and eyewitness to many of the events he recounts, Joinville’s text represents a turning point and a point of departure in the history of medieval biographical writing. It is the only life of Louis IX to be routinely characterized by modern scholars as a biography and not a hagiography. Complex discursive assumptions underlie these two terms, which have a fiercely contested relationship. Some scholars view hagiography as a subset of biography, while others see biography as a form of historical writing, radically distinct from hagiography in its aims and methods. Joinville’s simultaneous exploitation and transformation of hagiographical conventions created a secular and uniquely medieval prototype for biographical writing in the vernacular. The texts examined here all respond, in some way, to the example of the king-saint. As we will see in the course of this study, an episode from the Chanson de Hugues Capet resembles an incident from Louis IX’s childhood, Pierre I of Lusignan’s crusade to Egypt recalls that of Louis, the Black Prince is not just a chivalric hero but a Christian prince who redeems military failure through Christian humility, and Charles V, more than any other sovereign since perhaps Louis IX himself, understood how to guide public perception in the creation of an exemplary model of kingship. My second chapter focuses on the questions raised by the Valois succession of 1328, and on the fraught and uncertain relationship of the king to the nobility. Following the French defeat at Poitiers (1356) the French king found his rule contested both by the victorious Edward III of England and by Charles II of Navarre. The anonymous Chanson de Hugues Capet (c. 1358), a pseudo-biographical account of the life and political ascent of the founder of the Capetian dynasty, fortifies the fragile authority of the new Valois dynasty by staging theories of dynastic continuity and legitimacy that point to Philippe VI, the first Valois monarch, as the only possible successor to the defunct Capetian line. The

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Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign

Chanson also presents an idealized vision of social relationships in which nobles and non-nobles, united by mutual respect and shared devotion to the king, work together for the good of the kingdom. Nobles and bourgeois alike are constituted as subjects of the king, to whom all owe obedience and loyalty. In chapter 3 I discuss the status of crusade in the late Middle Ages, and its place in the roster of kingly duties. Is a king modelled after Saint Louis still desirable, still viable, one hundred years later? These questions are posed by Guillaume de Machaut’s Prise d’Alixandre (1369–77), a biography of Pierre I of Lusignan, king of Cyprus, who was equally famous for his short-lived conquest of Alexandria and for his murder at the hands of his nobles. The Prise posits Pierre I as an ideal crusaderking in the tradition of Saint Louis. However, the text systematically undermines both the notion that Pierre I adequately represents an ideal crusader and the value of crusade itself as an objective. It gradually instates a disjunction between the laudatory rhetoric that presents Pierre I as a champion of Christ and his conduct, which shows him degrading his rank by agreeing to participate in a duel with one of his followers, neglecting to administer justice, and persecuting a noblewoman. Pierre I’s failings in chivalry, justice, and the protection of the weak represent a betrayal of the most fundamental requirements of kingship, suggesting that Pierre I may not have been a hero, but a tyrant, justly put to death by his nobles.58 Chapter 4 likewise investigates a clash between ideal notions of kingship and their practice. In the Vie du Prince Noir (c. 1385) the author known only as the Herald Chandos writes, and then rewrites, the life of Edward, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine and son of Edward III of England. The first part of the text portrays the prince winning battles against the French, demonstrating clemency in victory, overseeing a smooth takeover of Aquitaine, receiving the homage of his new vassals, and presiding over a contented court and family. The second part adds to this portrait an account of the prince’s militarily successful – but financially and personally devastating – invasion of Castile, the rebellion of his Gascon nobles, the death of his eldest son, and his military losses to the French in Aquitaine. This juxtaposition of contradictory perspectives invites the reader to question the chivalric ideal that the Herald seems to propose in the first half of his text. I submit that the Herald seeks to resolve this problem in part by cultivating an ideal of kingship that is not simply chivalric. On the contrary, conventional chivalry is not adequate to deal with the moral dilemmas faced by the

Introduction

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prince over the course of his political and military career. The Herald permits the prince’s chivalric failings to be compensated for by his status as a Christian prince, one whose humility and religious devotion allow him to transcend the political and to serve, like Saint Louis, as an exemplum to his son and his other followers. In my final chapter I discuss the emergence of a new concept of kingship exemplified by Charles V. In Christine de Pizan’s Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V (1405) Charles V figures, like his namesake Charlemagne, as a patron of learning. Charles sponsored the translation into French of a vast number of works of science, philosophy, and political theory, including Aristotle’s Politics, and created the first royal library. By making these scholarly works accessible (both linguistically and physically) to his lay and to his clerical counsellors, Charles V promoted a union of theory and practice that would prove to be singularly fruitful. In the Livre des fais the tension between the ideal of sovereignty and its practice that dominated the Prise d’Alixandre and the Vie du Prince Noir is resolved by means of a transformation and revitalization of the kingly ideal. Although his sobriquet is the Wise, Charles V might better be known as the Prudent, in the fifteenth-century sense of the term, which envisions prudence as a form of applied wisdom.59 Charles V’s pragmatism and his Aristotelian concern for the public good form the basis for this new model of sovereignty.

1 Models of Sanctity and Kingship in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis: Will the Real Louis IX Please Stand?

While reading Jacques Le Goff’s seminal 1996 biography of Louis IX of France, Saint Louis, I was struck by the title of the chapter in which he discusses Jean de Joinville’s early-fourteenth-century biography of the king: Le ‘Vrai’ Louis IX de Joinville, or, The ‘Real’ Louis IX of Joinville. Le Goff’s use of the word real conveys his belief in, or perhaps simply a desire for, the possibility of attaining the truth of an individual, as well as his conviction that it was Joinville who had arrived at this truth. At the same time, the quotation marks serve to acknowledge the necessary limitations of any literary representation of a life, the impossibility, in a sense, of the biographical enterprise. Le Goff’s is but the latest in a long line of attempts to capture the real Saint Louis. As both a king and a saint Louis IX of France was eminently worthy of literary attention, and his life inspired the production of numerous biographies. The first of these was written shortly after the king’s death in 1270 by the Dominican Geoffroy de Beaulieu, Louis’s confessor from 1250 to 1270. Geoffroy was present at the king’s deathbed, and his text, commissioned by Pope Gregory X, was instrumental in Louis’s canonization. Geoffroy de Beaulieu’s work was continued by another Dominican, the royal chaplain Guillaume de Chartres, who added a series of miracles. Yet another biography was composed between 1302 and 1303 by the Franciscan Guillaume de Saint-Pathus, the confessor of Louis’s wife, Marguerite de Provence, and of their daughter, Blanche. Biographies or histories of Louis IX and his reign were also composed by Primat and Guillaume de Nangis, monks from the royal abbey of Saint-Denis, with which the king had extremely close ties.1 Despite this flurry of literary production, clearly all had not been said on the subject of the sainted king, for in the early years of the four-

Models of Sanctity and Kingship in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis 23

teenth century Jeanne de Navarre, wife of Louis IX’s grandson, the ruling king Philippe le Bel, commissioned yet another life of Louis.2 Unlike the existing lives of Saint Louis, this one was written by a layperson, Jean de Joinville, the seneschal of Champagne and one of Louis’s most intimate companions during the crusade of 1248–54. Although Jeanne died in 1305, Joinville dedicated his text – which he completed in 1309 – to her son, the future Louis X. Joinville’s text was the first saint’s life written by a layperson, and is considered by some to be the first autobiographical text in the vernacular.3 His text is also remarkable for the variety of literary models upon which he draws; hagiography, mirror for princes, crusade narrative, personal memoir, biography, the seneschal’s Vie is a little of all of these. As a highly literate individual, though not a professional writer, Joinville was in the unique position of being familiar with a range of texts, but unconstrained by a particular literary tradition. As the biography of a king who was also a saint, written by a knight instead of a cleric, Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis provides the ideal subject for an investigation of the relationship between secular biography, history, and hagiography. Hagiography and history have long been opposed by a variety of scholars, with biography caught in the middle, some claiming it as a little sister of historiography and others construing it as a general category of which hagiography is a subset. The various lives of Louis IX reflect this contested relationship, with Joinville’s life often categorized as history and contrasted with the other lives of the king composed by clerics, which are perceived as hagiographical. I would like to use Joinville’s text to rethink the relationship between these discursive categories, and to consider the nature and extent of hagiography’s influence on secular biography. At the heart of these problems, I believe, lies the question of models or types, models of sanctity to be sure, but also of kingship. Many scholars recognize the importance of typology to saints’ lives, in which the life, virtues, and miracles of one saint look much like those of another. I believe that such typology is equally essential in the elaboration of kings’ lives, where often the point is not to portray an individual, but to highlight a king’s resemblance to his forefathers, or to depict an abstract ideal of kingship. In the present chapter I will look at the interaction between kingly and saintly models in Joinville’s text, as well as the tension that the text reveals between Joinville and Louis’s differing, sometimes conflicting, conceptions of kingship. Finally, I will situate Joinville’s text within the author’s political and social context, and will consider the legacy of Louis IX.

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Hagiography, History, Biography What is medieval secular biography? In an attempt to respond to this question, it is useful to examine medieval biography’s classical antecedents. Greek biographical writing culminated in the works of Plutarch (c. AD 45–120), whose extant biographies include twenty-two pairs of Parallel Lives and several single Lives. Although his Lives feature politically prominent individuals, Plutarch is careful to distinguish his literary work from historical writing. In the proem of his life of Alexander he writes: I am not writing history but biography, and the most outstanding exploits do not always have the property of revealing the goodness or badness of the agent; often, in fact, a casual action, the odd phrase, or a jest reveals character better than battles involving the loss of thousands upon thousands of lives, huge troop movements, and whole cities besieged ... I must be allowed to devote more time to those aspects which indicate a person’s mind and to use these to portray the life of each of my subjects, while leaving their major exploits and battles to others. (312)

The Latin biographer Cornelius Nepos (c. 100–c. 24 BC) likewise employs Plutarch’s distinction, making similarly categorical claims about the nature of his work. History, then, was presumed to be an account of public and political actions, while biography focused on an individual’s character and motives, or, to summarize E.I. McQueen, history is what people do, while biography is what they are.4 In practice this distinction is somewhat more confusing, since what people are is often revealed by what they do, and what they do, in the case of prominent individuals, is often the stuff of history. Be that as it may, what I find significant in the statements of Plutarch and Nepos is the apprehension of a clear difference between biography and history on the part of the former’s practitioners. We shall see that in the Middle Ages this distinction becomes much more fluid. The Latin biographical tradition reached its high point in the works of Suetonius (c. AD 69–after 130), a contemporary of Plutarch who composed a series of lives of the Caesars. Like Plutarch, Suetonius presumed his readers’ knowledge of historical events, and concentrated his attention on his biographical subjects’ actions and character. However, Suetonius distinguished himself from his Greek near-contemporary in one important respect. While Plutarch avoided what he considered to be

Models of Sanctity and Kingship in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis 25

historical writing, he did employ a more or less chronological approach; Suetonius in contrast eschewed chronology almost entirely, instead structuring his works thematically. These two basic approaches to lifewriting – chronological versus thematic – informed the development of biographical writing in medieval Western Europe. These approaches were by no means mutually exclusive, and could be used in combination, as is the case in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis. During the Middle Ages the literary tradition of biographical writing and the transmission of such texts was quite haphazard. The accidents of manuscript diffusion and preservation determined that the Suetonian model would exert considerable influence over medieval secular biography. It so happened that a copy of Suetonius’s De vitae Caesarum was preserved in the monastery of Fulda, where it was consulted by Einhard (c. 775–840), the author of the Vita Karoli, which itself became an exemplary secular biography.5 Another Latin author who directly influenced at least one medieval secular biography, again by virtue of fortuitous manuscript preservation, was the fourth-century writer Sextus Aurelius Victor,6 whose Epitome de Caesaribus furnished a model for Helgaud’s eleventh-century biography of Robert the Pious entitled the Epitoma Vitae Regis Rotberti Pii. Unlike Einhard’s work, however, Helgaud’s did not circulate further, and therefore did not function as a model for later medieval writers of biography.7 The virtual disappearance of Helgaud’s text points to another issue, which is the relative scarcity of free-standing secular biographies in the Middle Ages. This is not to suggest that medieval readers did not enjoy biographical writing – on the contrary. Felice Lifshitz has pointed out the vast popularity enjoyed by various forms of biography, and Bernard Guenée has observed that medieval readers took what might be considered a biographical approach to history, conceiving of it as the acts of remarkable individuals, rather than as simply a series of events.8 Medieval histories and chronicles were routinely embellished with portraits of kings, nobles, popes, and other prominent figures, mini-biographies that lent colour and a personal dimension to events. Works such as the Latin chronicles of Saint-Denis and the Grandes Chroniques de France included portraits of each sovereign. At the same time, some biographies, such as Abbot Suger’s Vita Ludovici Grossi Regis (Life of Louis VI the Fat), which focused on the military and political events of the reign, displayed a marked historical bent. In this manner, the distinction between history and biography, heretofor sharply delineated by certain classical authors, became blurred.

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Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign

The manner in which secular biography was in some sense subsumed by historical writing, as well as the shortage of examples of freestanding biographical texts, meant that a well-established tradition of secular biographical writing did not really exist in the Middle Ages. Authors of secular lives were inspired by the biographies available to them – both classical and medieval – but were also influenced by other types of life-writing. Romances recorded the lives and deeds of their fictional heroes, while chansons de geste purported to recount the lives and accomplishments of historical figures such as Charlemagne and the crusading hero Godefroy de Bouillon. However, it is important not to underestimate the influence of hagiography as a model for medieval life-writing. Secular biographies in the Middle Ages were vastly outnumbered by their religious counterparts, as the disparity in the numbers of extant manuscripts attests, and would-be authors of secular lives were sure to look to hagiography to provide a blueprint on how to narrate a life. This diverse assortment of literary models and the lack of a dominant paradigm in secular biographical writing explains in part the heterogeneity of the biographical texts known to us. This diversity of biographical texts is accompanied by an apparent resistance on the part of modern scholars and editors to defining these medieval lives as biographies. Robert-Henri Bautier and Gillette Labory refuse to classify Helgaud’s life of Robert the Pious, the Epitoma Vitae Regis Roberti Pii, as biography, citing Helgaud’s lack of chronology and the preponderance of anecdotes intended to illustrate the king’s virtues.9 One might perceive Helgaud’s structure as Suetonian in nature, as the author, assuming his readers’ knowledge of historical events, instead seeks to shed light on what he deems to be the most important aspect of the king – his virtues. Indeed, Helgaud says in his conclusion that he leaves to historians the narration of Robert’s combats, victories, and territorial acquisitions, while assuring his readers that the king won glory and renown in these areas.10 Helgaud himself refers to his work as lectio (96), an allusion to the edifying works read at the refectory, while his choice of title clearly inscribes his work in the tradition of the emperors’ lives composed by Sextus Aurelius Victor and others. If Helgaud is not historical enough in his methods, Abbot Suger, it would seem, errs to the other extreme. Françoise Gasparri says that Suger’s life of Louis VII is more a series of gestes than a biography, while Richard Cusimano and John Moorhead affirm that Suger ‘sought to compose not a life of Louis [VI] but an account of his deeds,’ further

Models of Sanctity and Kingship in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis 27

explaining that ‘in works of this kind the narrating of deeds takes precedence over the provision of biographical data.’11 Modern scholars and editors appear to have definite – and rather narrow – notions regarding what constitutes a biography, notions not necessarily shared by medieval authors, who, in their composition of lives, freely combined characteristics of disparate discursive types. Since the question of what constitutes a medieval biography is a contested one, it is not surprising to see that the relationship between biography, history, and hagiography is similarly vexed. Many modern critics have construed medieval biography and history as sister disciplines, and have frequently opposed them to hagiography. Thomas Heffernan and Felice Lifshitz have both remarked on what they perceive to be the false dichotomy between hagiography and history: Lifshitz writes that ‘“[h]agiography” and “hagiographer” as we use them today came into being specifically in opposition to the words “history” and “historian,”’ while Heffernan notes that ‘the perfectly suitable term hagiography is now virtually impossible to read except as an epithet signifying a pious fiction or an exercise in panegyric.’12 In Sacred Biography Heffernan examines the reasons for this opposition, whose origins he situates in the eighteenth century with the advent of positivist and empiricist visions of history and biography, which rely on the presumption that historical facts are both transparent and recoverable, and which do not acknowledge the inevitability of interpretation, which enters into and influences all phases of historical composition, from the questions historians ask to the texts they ultimately write.13 From an empiricist perspective hagiography cannot constitute a form of biography since the latter is a type of history – that of an individual – while the former is fundamentally unhistorical both in its methods and in its (flawed) understanding of the nature of facts. Although Hayden White has long since exposed the manner in which narrativization creates meaning, how the ‘value attached to narrativity in the representation of real events arises out of a desire to have real events display the coherence, integrity, fullness, and closure of an image of life that is and can only be imaginary,’ our belief in – or perhaps simply our longing for – the transparent representation of the ‘real’ in historical texts has remained curiously persistent. White observes that in order to achieve this semblance of authenticity, to narrativize history, people and events must be made recognizable to the reader ‘as elements of specific story types.’14 Herein lies the problem for medieval saints’ lives, for the story types employed in hagiographies,

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though meaningful for medieval readers, have lost much of their recognizability for modern ones, and therefore are resistant to narrativization and unable to be perceived as true, or corresponding to the real. White’s analysis of narrativization and story types helps to explain, if not justify, the distinction drawn by many modern scholars between biography and hagiography. A desire to separate the two is manifest in scholarly treatments of the various lives of Louis IX that were written in the half-century following his death. Since Louis was a lay saint, the lives written about him were arguably both sacred and secular. However, in the case of Louis IX, it would seem that the identity of the author has determined the generic labels assigned to the various lives of the royal saint. Scholars have routinely distinguished between the lives of Louis IX that emerged from the mendicant milieu from that composed by the nobleman Jean de Joinville, characterizing the former as hagiographical and the latter as historical. Such a classification clearly upholds the opposition between history and hagiography, biography being aligned with the former. On what basis is this distinction made? On the one hand, scholars have cited Joinville’s inscription of his text into a highly specific historical and geographical context, as well as what they consider to be his historiographical methods – Joinville’s descriptions of his sources and the conditions surrounding the work’s composition; a reliance on contemporary chronicles, eyewitnesses, and oral sources; and his personal knowledge of the material he recounts.15 Since all of these criteria apply equally to Geoffroy de Beaulieu’s text, one must look further to explain the generic distinction made between their texts. It is often claimed that the mendicant lives were composed with an agenda in mind, first and foremost the canonization of Louis IX.16 Geoffroy de Beaulieu wrote at the request of Pope Gregory X, and his text was intended to initiate the canonization proceedings. In pursuit of this goal, the mendicant authors are presumed to have taken as their point of departure a saintly ideal, and then to have composed a life that demonstrated Louis’s conformance to this ideal. Joinville, in contrast, is perceived as having no particular agenda and therefore no reason to modify or shape his portrait of the king to conform to a given model. He is believed instead to have taken his own observations and interactions with the king as the basis for his work. According to this line of reasoning, the mendicant version of Louis IX is little more than a type, while Joinville’s is pure and authentic, almost palpably real. Dominique Boutet has used Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis in order to interrogate the distinction between hagiography and biography, in par-

Models of Sanctity and Kingship in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis 29

ticular with respect to the tension between models and individuals.17 Boutet argues that hagiography is paradigmatic, focusing on participation in or adherence to received models of sanctity, while biography is syntagmatic, stressing historically verifiable actions and individuality. From this perspective, hagiography cannot constitute a form of biography, since biography is the life of an individual, while hagiography presents its subjects as representatives of a type, and the events recounted are not necessarily unique to the biographical subject. It seems to me that in practice the boundaries between hagiography and biography, between paradigmatic and syntagmatic, are not so clear-cut. I would like to propose a reconsideration of the relationship between hagiography and biography, one that takes into account the similarities between these two types of life-writing instead of focusing on their differences, and one that reveals the considerable influence exerted by hagiography on medieval secular biography. In what follows, I will challenge the idea that Joinville wrote, or even could have written, his Vie de saint Louis in the absence of models, be they saintly or kingly. Our own modern valorization of the individual may have caused us to overlook the importance of types to the medieval imagination. Many scholars willingly acknowledge the importance of types to hagiography, but are less ready to do so with respect to other forms of writing. Evelyn Birge Vitz has explored these questions with regard to autobiography, a genre that one might imagine could only deal with the individual. However, she affirms the importance of types for medieval people’s understandings of one another in general, and even for their understandings of themselves. She argues that in the Middle Ages character was construed in terms of degree; a person possessed more or less of a given quality, but was not conceived of as qualitatively different from the group or category to which he or she belonged.18 Thus, in literary portraiture individuals might be compared to figures who represent a given quality (one might be as generous as, or more generous than, Alexander, for instance), or shown to possess the skills, qualities, and virtues required of their social role. I believe that royal biography was uniquely susceptible to the influence of hagiography for two reasons. The first is the important role that models play in the elaboration of royal biography, just as they do in hagiography. It is essential for kings, just as it is for saints, to demonstrate conformance to accepted and expected models of conduct, and for many of the same reasons: the creation or affirmation of a sense of community, the fulfilment of readers’ expectations, and the affirmation of

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the validity of the example (royal or saintly) proposed by the text. Medieval royal biography shares with its religious counterpart a tendency towards panegyric, the inclination to view its subject as representative of a type rather than as an individual, and a willingness to suppress or alter certain ‘facts’ in order to maximize the moral and didactic value of a life for its readers.19 The second reason is the oft-noted affinity between secular and sacerdotal power. The healing power of kings, their apparent predisposition to saintliness, the notion of the king’s real and mystical bodies all show how kings, or at the very least kingship, belonged in some sense to the realm of the sacred.20 Since kings were not unlike saints, hagiography constituted a perfectly appropriate example for the elaboration of kings’ lives. For these reasons I believe that biography’s alignment with history (and, implicitly, with truth), as well as hagiography’s radical dissociation from it, constitutes a false dichotomy. Thomas Heffernan has closely studied how models function in saints’ lives. He calls such texts sacred biographies, thereby establishing from the outset the status of hagiography as a subgenre of biography. In his book Sacred Biography he examines the reasons why hagiographies regularly employ the same, or similar, episodes and motifs from one text to another, and how such a process enriches them. Heffernan calls this body of recycled material ‘a veritable thesaurus of established approved actions’ that ‘ensured the authenticity of the subject’s sanctity.’21 As he shows, what may appear to modern readers to be hagiographers’ nearly mindless or mechanical textual (re)production – in which the names may change but the story remains the same – is due in large part to our own radical divorce from medieval religious culture. Heffernan demonstrates this point with his fascinating analysis of Walter Daniel’s biography of Aelred,22 which offers many points in common with Joinville’s. Like Joinville, Walter was a companion of his biographical subject, residing with him for seventeen years in the abbey of Rievaulx, of which Aelred was abbot. Walter Daniel’s text is based on personal experience with his subject, and is permeated, like Joinville’s, by his profound affection for his subject. In addition, Walter inscribes himself as a character in his own text, resulting in what Heffernan calls an ‘autobiographical biography.’23 When narrating the scene of Aelred’s death, Walter places in the mouth of the dying Aelred a passage from Luke 23:46. This is the type of borrowing that exposes hagiographies to accusations of inauthenticity. However, as Heffernan observes, the significance of this moment is not in whether Aelred actually uttered the

Models of Sanctity and Kingship in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis 31

words ascribed to him by Walter, but rather what this particular biblical passage reveals about Aelred. Walter may or may not have conveyed the literal truth about Aelred’s final words, but he did communicate a moral and philosophical truth about the abbot that enriches readers’ understanding of him. Heffernan’s own erudition affords him the opportunity to trace the wide range of associations and significances associated with this particular passage, and to theorize about its place in Walter Daniel’s text. Like a stone dropped into a pond, this quotation produces wavelets that ripple out far beyond its own point of entry into the water. To restrict the production of meaning to a purely literal level is to impoverish such texts. Heffernan refers to the practice of borrowing words, scenes, anecdotes, sayings, and so on, from the Bible or from previous saints’ lives as embedding, and for the writers of hagiography who lived immersed in a rich literary and religious culture, embedding created a network of associations that amplified the complexity and significance of their texts, creating a level of meaning that is lost on readers who cannot detect or understand the implications of the embedded material. Heffernan’s ideas about the use of paradigmatic structures in hagiography and the potential impact of embedded material have significant implications for the understanding of royal biography. Like hagiographies, royal biographies also make use of a thesaurus of approved actions, though of course the actions themselves, as well as their sources, differ from those employed in hagiographies. Authors of medieval royal biographies could look for models of kingship in a variety of places. First and foremost, the Bible provided examples of kingship, notably those of David and Solomon. Helgaud, for instance, explicitly and repeatedly defines Robert the Pious as a new David. The example of Solomon was also invoked by medieval writers, although as Jacques LeGoff has pointed out, its value was somewhat more ambiguous. When employed as a positive exemplum the emphasis was placed on Solomon as a figure of wisdom, a quality that became more important over the course of the Middle Ages.24 In addition to supplying figures who functioned as model kings, the Bible also furnished general precepts concerning the selection and conduct of kings, as in Deuteronomy 17:14–20, while early Church fathers, particularly Augustine, wrote about the duties and qualities of the ideal Christian king.25 Augustine’s notions of kingship centred on the triumvirate of peace, order, and justice, and his vision of kingship dominated much of the thinking on the subject until the late thirteenth and fourteenth cen-

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turies, when the newly rediscovered Aristotelian corpus refashioned to some extent the kingly ideal.26 Such brief prescriptive texts concerning the character and conduct of kings provided the foundations for the miroir du prince, or mirror for the prince, a didactic genre that told kings how to achieve the ideal of kingship.27 Though they do not offer paradigms for life-writing as such, miroirs du prince constitute a powerful influence on royal biographies. Written in a normative, prescriptive mode, miroirs provide a template for the ideal sovereign, indicating which virtues and what sort of conduct were necessary for successful kingship. Two of the most prominent miroirs of the late Middle Ages are John of Salisbury’s Policraticus, written in 1159, and Giles of Rome’s De regimine principum, written between 1277 and 1281 and dedicated to the future Philippe le Bel.28 Both were translated into French, the latter almost immediately and the former during the reign of Charles V (1364–80), and both remained important points of reference throughout the later Middle Ages.29 As Charles Briggs has shown, ‘from the middle of the thirteenth century, the rulers of France ... seem to have made the composition, translation, and propagation, not to mention the reading of texts belonging to the mirrors of princes genre, of which De regimine was the most successful example, into what amounted to a matter of policy.’30 Louis IX himself was the author of a kind of miroir du prince, the Enseignements that he provided to his son and heir, Philippe.31 Some of the points made in the Enseignements, for instance, heeding his mother and having prayers said for his father, are intended only for Philippe. But the document also has broader applicability in terms of guiding future rulers in becoming, like Louis IX, good Christian kings. Louis’s advice to his son also reflects the increasingly practical bent taken by theoreticians of kingship. Later medieval miroirs, such as Philippe de Mézières’s Songe du vieil pelerin (1389), discuss the moral formation of the king while also seeking to orient the ruler’s actions towards concrete and positive ends. Alongside the largely theological models of kingship found in largely theoretical texts, chansons de geste and romances provided an alternative perspective on kingship. Chansons de geste frequently featured historical figures, and they provided both positive and negative images of kingship. In chansons de geste ideas about kingship are communicated through the depiction of specific situations, their progress and resolution. They frequently focus on conflict between a ruler and his barons, and thereby offer a forum for reflection on issues of kingship and the

Models of Sanctity and Kingship in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis 33

place of the king relative to his nobles.32 The kings of romance, though for the most part imaginary, provide no less powerful a model of kingship. Romances supplement the traditional Augustinian emphasis on peace, justice, and order with chivalric virtues such as generosity, prowess, and magnanimity, which are equally essential to their ideal of kingship.33 Given the variety of sources that address the kingly ideal, authors of kings’ lives had quite a catalogue of virtues at their disposal, and could emphasize one set of qualities or another according to their goals and circumstances. In addition to these textual sources, rulers also learned about kingship from their forefathers. We can imagine that such lore was transmitted orally, as when Joinville describes Louis IX telling his children stories of good and bad kings (§689). Likewise, works of history and biography, which depicted the positive and negative characteristics and actions of previous kings, were required reading for noble children. As in saints’ lives, kings derived authority from their successful imitation of previous exemplary kings. Dynastic continuity, legitimacy, and prestige were serious preoccupations of every king, especially those who had reason to feel uncertain of their position, such as the early Capetians or the early Valois. Kings sought in a variety of ways to forge links with the past that would demonstrate and concretize their place in a royal genealogy. The names chosen for royal children, especially boys, were intended to create an association between the child and their ancestor(s) of the same name.34 Similarly, the reordering of the royal tombs in Saint-Denis undertaken by various kings was a symbolic act that demonstrated the authority of the reigning king by displaying the place he occupied in the succession of the kings of France.35 For medieval kings legitimacy belonged to the past and was demonstrated in the present not by means of innovation, but by continuity and respect for tradition.36 Royal biography provided yet another forum in which to stage the connection between a king and his ancestors. The Bible, writings of the Church fathers, theoretical texts, popular literature, the past itself, these are the sources that medieval kings – and theoreticians of kingship – drew upon to create their thesaurus of approved actions. The actions themselves consist of scenes that show kings demonstrating an approved virtue or conforming to expectations, for instance, distributing alms to the poor, constructing or renovating churches, monasteries, and abbeys, or administering justice. There were definite paradigms for kingship in the Middle Ages, and I believe that writers of biographical texts made use of them, just as

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Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign

hagiographers relied on paradigms of sanctity in the depiction of their subjects. Royal biographies demonstrate the greatness of their subjects not by representing their individuality, but by representing (or creating) relationships of resemblance or continuity between the biographical subject and his forefathers. Thomas Heffernan discusses the implications for hagiography of the Christian belief that the saints all shared in the life of the incarnate Christ, that the sacred was ‘radically singular.’37 Adherence to a type showed how a saint shared in this holy collectivity. An analogous, secular collectivity existed in France in the form of the royal dynasty. It was a beloved fiction that the line of French royal succession had carried on, unbroken, from the time of Pharamond, the first king.38 The reigning king shared – indeed bore in his veins – the blood of his ancestors, from that of his own father to the most distant royal heroes of the realm. At certain moments, especially those surrounding dynastic change, it was incumbent upon kings to make explicit the connections between present and past, to show how they incarnated the virtues of their ancestors. Royal biography could be very useful in such contexts. Helgaud’s biography of Robert the Pious, the son of Hugh Capet, was intended, at least in part, to elevate the prestige of the newly instituted Capetian dynasty.39 Likewise, Christine de Pizan’s biography of Charles V portrays the Valois king, only the third of his line, as a kind of secular saint, and his reign as a golden age, a return both to Charlemagne and to Saint Louis. Despite the shared body of virtues that governed the production of kings’ lives, royal biographies are far from uniform. It is important to look at the image of kingship that emerges from a given work in order to see how it compares to alternative paradigms of kingship. Which kings, qualities, actions are presented as exemplary, and which are passed over in silence? What purposes might be served by the evocation of a given model? These are questions to be asked of all the texts in my corpus. At present, I would like to consider how Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis combines saintly and kingly models – often in unexpected ways – to form a unique representation of the king-saint. Holy Words and Good Deeds Considerable scholarship has focused on the structure of Jean de Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis and the qualities of its respective parts. Indeed, Joinville himself had much to say on the topic. The seneschal did not give his text a title, but he is quite explicit about its purpose and nature,

Models of Sanctity and Kingship in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis 35

which he discusses more than once. Joinville first characterizes his work in terms of his patron’s request. He writes that Jeanne de Navarre, the wife of Philippe le Bel, ‘me pria si a certes comme elle pot que je li feisse faire un livre des saintes paroles et des bons faiz nostre roy saint Looÿs’ [begged me quite insistently to make for her a book of the holy words and the good deeds of our king Saint Louis] (§2).40 Thus, the queen desired a book that comprised two components: Louis’s holy words and his good deeds. Joinville then explains how he set about organizing his work so as to comply with the queen’s request: ‘La premiere partie si devise comment il se gouverna tout son tens selonc Dieu et selonc l’Eglise et au profit de son regne. La seconde partie du livre si parle de ses granz chevaleries et de ses granz faiz d’armes’ [The first part discusses how he conducted himself throughout his life according to God and the church and for the good of his kingdom. The second part of the book speaks of his great deeds of prowess and his great deeds of arms] (§2). And so from the very opening of the text the two principal aspects of Louis IX’s person and life are set forth. Louis is both saint and king. On the one hand are his holy words, on the other his feats of prowess. Joinville restates this opposition in §68, which serves as a transition between the two parts. He writes: ‘avons ci ariere escriptes partie de bones paroles et de bons enseignemens nostre saint roy Looÿs ... Et ci aprés commencerons de ses faiz’ [we have written here part of the good words and good teachings of our holy king Louis ... And henceforth we will begin speaking of his deeds]. Thus, Joinville intends to discuss, in separate parts of his text, how Louis conducted himself according to God’s wishes, and also how he behaved in a chivalric manner. It would seem that Joinville is proposing a distinction between Louis’s holy conduct (manifested by his speech) and his chivalric persona (manifested by his deeds), between saint and king, or between hagiography and secular biography. Many readers of Joinville’s Vie have been eager to uphold this apparent opposition, due largely to the perceived differences between the various parts of Joinville’s text. Despite the bipartite textual organization proposed by Joinville in his prologue, the text actually gives the impression of being tripartite, and the first and third parts are unlike the second in a number of respects. In §§1–68 Joinville lists many of the king’s memorable sayings and provides examples of his virtue. In the second, much longer, part of the text (§§69–769), he rapidly evokes the early years of Louis’s reign (§§69–105), then describes at

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Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign

length and in great detail Louis’s – and his own – experiences of the crusade of 1248–54 (§§106–654), and finally recounts the last years of Louis’s reign as well as his death and subsequent canonization, including the author’s own role in the canonization proceedings (§§655–769). The intensity of the crusade experience created the opportunity for intimacy between Joinville and the king, and forms the basis for most of Joinville’s first-hand knowledge of Louis’s habits and character. The frame narrative, in contrast, especially the final part, relies largely on written and oral sources. In his discussion of the Great Ordinance of 1254, for instance, Joinville cites or paraphrases the Grandes Chroniques de France.41 When narrating the king’s death he relies on the eyewitness testimony of Louis’s son, Pierre d’Alençon. Joinville also reproduces a version of the Enseignements of Louis to his son, Philippe, said to have been composed shortly before the king’s demise. The narrative rhythm also varies quite markedly. The first and final parts, both relatively short, each cover approximately twenty years of Louis’s life, while the long central section focuses on the six-year period of the crusade. From an organizational standpoint, the first part is largely thematic, while the crusade narrative is strictly chronological, and the conclusion is a mixture of the two.42 These disparities in structure and style are accompanied by a perceived generic difference between the frame and the central narrative – one that seems to be supported by Joinville’s own division of his text into holy words and good deeds – with the former characterized as hagiography and the latter as crusade narrative, history, biography, or personal memoir.43 Implicit in such distinctions is the idea that the central narrative is somehow authentic and reliable, while the frame is little more than a patchwork of generic sources intended less to capture the king’s individuality than to convey his perfections. I propose that any opposition between Louis’s sanctity and his kingship, or between Joinville’s accounts of the king’s holy words and of his good deeds, is far from absolute. From the outset, even as Joinville lays out the separate parts of his text, he pairs holy church with the good of the kingdom, thereby uniting Louis’s two main preoccupations.44 Elsewhere in the prologue Joinville alleges another motive for his textual organization: ‘avant que je vous conte de ses grans faiz et de sa chevalerie vous conterai je ce que je vi et oÿ de ses saintes paroles et de ses bons enseignemens, pour ce qu’il soient trouvez l’un aprés l’autre pour edefier ceulz qui les orront’ [before I speak to you of his great deeds and of his chivalry I will tell you of what I saw and heard of his holy words

Models of Sanctity and Kingship in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis 37

and of his good teachings, so that they might be found one after the other for the edification of those who will hear them] (§19).45 Thus, Joinville’s organizational principles do not derive (or not only) from the nature of Jeanne de Navarre’s commission, nor from a qualitative difference between two categories of experience, but are explicitly didactic. The king’s teachings are grouped without regard to chronology so that they may be rapidly consulted by the text’s readers. The holy words–good deeds organization announced by Joinville in his prologue is further problematized by the fact that many of the episodes that Joinville includes in part one are not exactly words, but actions, and they do not appear to demonstrate in any systematic fashion Louis’s saintly nature. Some episodes are grouped according to themes or used to illustrate various virtues, but these do not appear to be particularly organized.46 Certain series of anecdotes display an internal coherence, such as the one on Louis’s faith (§§43–53), but it does not belong to a larger exposition of the king’s adherence to the three theological virtues, such as one might expect in a demonstration of the king’s sanctity, and such as one encounters in the highly organized (thematic) life of Louis IX written by Guillaume de SaintPathus.47 Other sayings and stories illuminate aspects of the king’s saintly nature, such as those regarding Louis’s humility (§29), his sobriety in food and drink (§§22–3), and the liturgical organization of his day (§54). Others, however, are as much related to Louis’s kingship as to his Christianity. Joinville concludes part one with a series of anecdotes about the king’s justice (§§55–64). Admittedly, the virtue of justice does have a strong theological component. They are happy who rule justly, Saint Augustine tells us,48 and it is the Franciscan friar, brother Hugh, who tells Louis that no kingdom – Christian or otherwise – was ever lost except by lack of justice (§55, 659). Yet the administration of justice is the prerogative of kings, and Louis’s conscientious exercise of this privilege testifies as much to his exemplary kingship as to his sanctity. Joinville’s opening move, in which he simultaneously posits and destabilizes an opposition between word and deed, saintliness and kingship, is characteristic of his entire text and, I would argue, of Louis’s own struggle to reconcile two contrasting, and often conflicting, models of conduct.49 This could be why Jacques Le Goff, and generations of readers before him, have had the impression that Joinville was more successful than the king’s other biographers in capturing the essence of the ‘real’ Louis IX – because Joinville’s attempt to bring together two models on the level of his text parallels Louis’s own lifelong efforts to

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reconcile these two ideals.50 In what follows I aim to show that Joinville clearly deployed models of kingship that shaped his depiction of Louis IX, and also that he relied on models of sanctity and of hagiographical writing in composing his life of the king-saint. As our cursory glance at part one of Joinville’s text has already shown, these disparate models are by no means distinct, but interact and permeate one another in sometimes surprising ways. Just as issues of kingship infiltrate part one of the Vie de saint Louis, so too part two, supposedly devoted to the king’s chivalric deeds, includes many examples of Louis’s saintly conduct. Although Louis IX’s sainthood was an officially certified fact by the time of Joinville’s writing, it would be erroneous to suggest that Joinville was unconcerned with showing how the king’s sanctity manifested itself throughout his life. Marcus Billson III has discussed the ways in which Joinville’s text conformed structurally to hagiographic traditions, citing his use of anecdotes, his careful description of the king’s birth (including portents), and his exemplary death.51 Françoise Laurent has likewise shown how Joinville’s text functioned within the hagiographic tradition by focusing on the relationship of the king’s chivalric deeds to his sanctity. She perceptively remarks that the crusade episode occupies the textual space traditionally allotted to miracles in saints’ lives, thereby making Louis’s kingly, chivalric acts the manifestation of his saintliness.52 Louis was not a saint solely of the intellect or of the spirit, but of action, and it is through his actions – kingly and chivalric – in the world that he illustrated his saintliness.53 Joinville’s concern with the king’s sanctity is not revealed exclusively by means of the text’s structural qualities; depictions of the king’s virtue likewise form a significant portion of his narrative. Louis exhibits – and Joinville duly describes – the usual and requisite qualities of sainthood. A scene that highlights the radical nature of Louis’s compassion and humility is that in which he personally helped to bury the bodies of men who had been killed in a battle with the Saracens: ‘Nous trouvames que le roy son cors avoit fait enfouir les cors des crestiens que les Sarrazins avoient occis ... et il meismes son cors portoit les cors pourris et touz puans pour mettre en terre es fosses, que ja ne se estoupast, et les autres se estoupoient’ [We found that the king in person had had buried the bodies of Christians whom the Saracens had killed ... and he himself in person carried the putrefying bodies all reeking to place them in the earth in graves, and never did he hold his nose, and the others all held their noses] (§582). Joinville’s accumulation of words desig-

Models of Sanctity and Kingship in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis 39

nating the king (le roy, son cors, il, meismes, son cors) conveys his incredulity that the king would perform such lowly and repulsive work, while the comparison between the king and the others present highlights the king’s singular virtue. The other people who carry bodies hold their noses in an acknowledgment of and attempt to avoid the smell of rotting flesh, while Louis seems to take no notice of any unpleasant aspect of his task. The source of wonder in this scene is twofold by virtue of the fact that the king carried corpses without holding his nose, and also that the king carried corpses without holding his nose. For an ordinary Christian, only the former circumstance would distinguish his or her actions. The king, however, as the highest-ranking figure in the land, was able to exploit his status to increase the value of his saintly acts, staging spectacular scenes of self-abasement in imitation of Christ.54 Louis’s disregard for worldly opinion is evident here, as he risks his kingly reputation and honour in order to adhere to what he believes to be the demands of Christian humility.55 The presence of Joinville in his text allows the reader to appreciate the extreme degree to which the king carries his religious fervour. Joinville would seem to be, by the standards of his time and place, a more sincere and scrupulous Christian than most. He does, after all, dedicate six years of his life to the crusade effort, and he composes a religious text called the Credo.56 Yet, Joinville’s virtue is no match for the king’s. In a famous exchange the king asks Joinville whether he would prefer to commit a mortal sin or to be a leper. Joinville’s prompt reply – that he would rather commit thirty mortal sins than to suffer with leprosy – invites a sober reprimand from the king.57 Joinville’s disarming honesty, readily admitting his willingness to sin, attracts the reader’s sympathy. His beliefs and conduct are human and comprehensible, as when, departing for the crusade, he resists turning back to look at his home – for fear that he might cry? turn back? never return? Such scenes allow the reader to identify with Joinville, whereas the reader can never identify with Louis, but can only admire and attempt to emulate and learn from him. By inviting the reader into the text – creating a bond between Joinville, Louis’s intradiegetic public, and Joinville’s readers, Louis’s extradiegetic public – Joinville’s text functions hagiographically. It inspires the reader to share Joinville’s awe of the king, his admiration for him, and his desire to imitate the king’s behaviour, though he can never reproduce it. Thus, Louis’s sanctity appears most strikingly in the presence of its counterpart – Joinville’s earnest imperfection – while the seneschal’s participation in the text makes possible the active

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involvement on the part of the reader that is one of the goals of hagiography.58 In many scenes Joinville serves as Louis’s foil. One of the most celebrated such episodes, which forms part of the seneschal’s testimony at the canonization proceedings, illustrates the king’s complete honesty. Following the release of the Christian prisoners, Philippe de Nemours tells the king, with evident satisfaction, that in measuring the ransom money owed to the Saracens the Christians managed to defraud their enemies of ten thousand pounds. In contrast to the reaction the nobleman might have expected, the king ‘se courrouça trop fort et dit que il vouloit que en leur rendist les .x. mile livres, pour ce que il leur avoit couvent a paier les .cc. mile livres avant que il partisist du flum’ [became very angry and said that he wanted the ten thousand pounds to be returned to them, for he had given his word that he would pay two hundred thousand pounds before leaving the river] (§387). At this point Joinville, in an almost burlesque intervention, steps on Philippe de Nemours’s foot while reassuring the king that Philippe is only kidding, and that the Saracens have been paid in full. The king, not amused and not entirely convinced, insists again that the entire amount of the ransom be paid in full. Louis’s honesty stands in stark opposition to Philippe de Nemours’s deception and Jean de Joinville’s lie. Not only are the two noblemen unashamed of their deception, they actually persist in it despite the king’s will. From the perspective of Louis’s pragmatic men, the Saracens do not deserve the consideration that one would owe a Christian enemy, whereas Louis perceives his word to be absolutely inviolable. Thus, Joinville conveys Louis’s sanctity most powerfully by means of one of his text’s most remarkable features – its strongly autobiographical nature. Critics have long wondered at Joinville’s (excessive?) prominence in the text, some noting that Joinville seems more interested in telling his own story than that of the king, many opining that the central portion of Joinville’s text was originally composed as a memoir. I would argue that Joinville’s narration of his own story alongside that of the king is precisely what allows him to demonstrate Louis’s extraordinary Christian virtue. Joinville’s presence is essential to the reader’s understanding of Saint Louis, for the seneschal allows us to measure and appreciate the full extent of the king’s saintly conduct. Despite the many hagiographical features of Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis, its departures from hagiographical conventions have been the object of more scholarly attention. Many of Joinville’s readers allege

Models of Sanctity and Kingship in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis 41

that what transforms Joinville’s text from hagiography to something other – be it history, memoir, or biography – is the minuteness of Joinville’s observations and the very specificity he brings to his depiction of the king.59 And indeed, details such as Louis’s ‘clere rire’ (§§500, 566, 766), his fits of temper, his pique and hurt at his brothers’ neglect of him, do not belong to a tradition or to what Thomas Heffernan terms the radical singularity of the sacred,60 but to a unique individual, brought to life on the page by Jean de Joinville. These details render Joinville’s portrait exceptionally vivid and believable, but I do not believe that they account fully for the exceptional nature of his text. The king’s confessor, Geoffroy de Beaulieu, knew the king at least as well as Joinville, and his life of Louis also conveys many intimate details and anecdotes about the king. Another characteristic that is used to distinguish Joinville’s work from those of his fellow biographers is his criticism of the king, which is interpreted as evidence of Joinville’s objectivity. That is not to suggest that hagiographies never discuss their subjects’ flaws. On the contrary, they sometimes dwell on them, but with the purpose of making the subject’s conversion all the more striking.61 Or, the criticisms are used to convey the subject’s virtue, as when Geoffroy de Beaulieu says that he was forced to reprimand the king for fasting too severely. When Joinville describes situations in which he reprimanded the king – for his excessive grief over his mother’s death or his emotional distance from his wife – it is because he believes the king to be in the wrong. While Louis’s other biographers maintain that the king was of an equitable temperament, Joinville shows us Louis’s quick anger, a trait that is visible at many points in the text, and which the king himself acknowledges.62 While some scholars have cited such episodes to demonstrate the objectivity and reliability of Joinville’s text, that is to say, its historical as opposed to hagiographical nature, I believe that in fact they allow Joinville’s Saint Louis to function more effectively as a model of sanctity. Louis’s recognition of his own shortcomings makes him an exceptional example. The figure of Saint Louis, more human, becomes more imitable. One of the paradoxes of Joinville’s text is that its inclusion of unflattering details, a feature that has caused its readers to perceive it as a history or biography rather than a hagiography, is one that allows it to function even more powerfully in a hagiographical context. In multiple ways, then, Joinville’s Vie may not look like hagiography, or what we imagine hagiography ought to look like, but it does function like one.

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The reader’s ability to identify with Joinville creates a space for the public within the confines of Joinville’s text, allowing the reader to join the author in his admiration and imitation of Saint Louis. And the glimpses that Joinville affords the reader of Louis’s flaws brings the radical Christian virtue of the king-saint to a more human level. We can see that many aspects of the Vie that are thought to demonstrate its historicity – its autobiographical dimensions, Joinville’s minute observations and occasional critiques of the king – also function hagiographically. Similarly, scenes that provide evidence of Louis’s saintly nature contain important commentaries on his kingship as well. One such scene occurs on the return voyage to France, when the king’s ship is damaged off the coast of Cyprus. The king’s sailors and a small group of counsellors, including Joinville, all advise the king to disembark with his family. However the king refuses, for he understands that if he abandons his ship no one will want to remain on it, and the hundreds of people on board, many of modest means, will risk remaining stranded in Cyprus. Like many of his anecdotes, Joinville recounts this story both in the part of his text dedicated to Louis’s holy words and in that concerning his good deeds. In part one this episode is the last of four instances in which Joinville saw the king ‘mettre son cors en aventure de mort ... pour espargnier le doumage de son peuple’ [put his life in danger ... in order to spare his people from suffering] (§6).63 In part two the event is described as part of the account of the return of Joinville, the king, and the rest of the crusaders to France. Thus, Joinville does not simply extract Louis’s holy words from their various contexts and regroup them by theme in the first part of his text. Rather, he recounts many of the king’s memorable sayings a second time, integrating them into their historical moment, as part of his chronological exposition of the king’s deeds. The presence of the same anecdote in both parts of Joinville’s text puts into question the possibility of creating an opposition between word and deed, holy and chivalric, saint and king, hagiography and biography, and suggests instead a fundamental unity between these elements in the life of Louis IX. Furthermore, such narrative doubling permits a re-examination of each repeated episode, allowing the reader to consider a given event both from the perspective of how it contributes to Louis’s reputation for sanctity and from the perspective of how it demonstrates his kingly virtue. It would be logical to suppose that part one would provide the saintly perspective and part two the kingly perspective. In fact, however, both points of view are conveyed by each

Models of Sanctity and Kingship in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis 43

version of the story. A more remarkable distinction is between Louis’s and Joinville’s interpretations of the significance of the king’s actions. Refusing to abandon ship, Louis inscribes his actions within a Christian context in which he, like Christ, places the good of his people above his own life. The sailors who advise the king address him as their sovereign. Having admitted that were the ship theirs and full of merchandise they would risk the passage, the king asks them why they advised him to disembark. Because, they explain, ‘or ne argent ne peut esprisier le cors de vous, de vostre femme et de vos enfans qui sont seans’ [one cannot assess with gold or silver the value of your person, or of your wife and children who are here] (§627). This is a statement with which the king might readily concur, since in his negotiations with his Saracen captors he had rejected the notion that he could be freed by money.64 However, in his response the king reframes the issue, not addressing the allusion to his own immeasurable value, but adopting instead a Christian perspective. Louis points out that on the ship ‘il n’i a celi qui autant n’aime sa vie comme je faiz la moie’ [there is no one here who does not love his life as much as I do mine] (§628), thereby affirming the fundamental equality of all souls in the eyes of God. As when he interred the bodies of the fallen Christian knights, Louis asserts himself as a Christian first and foremost, his identity as king only incidental. Paradoxically, it is Louis’s very status as king that makes this sacrifice possible, thereby showing how Louis’s kingship contributes to his sanctity. Joinville acknowledges the sacrificial nature of Louis’s decision, but invites us to view the king’s actions from a feudal as well as a Christian perspective by creating a parallel between this episode and another. Shortly after the army’s arrival in Acre the papal legate offered to take Joinville back to France aboard his ship. Joinville declined the legate’s offer, not ‘pour ce que je ne feusse moult volentiers alé avec li’ [because I would not have gone with him most willingly], but because of a warning he had received before embarking on the crusade: ‘prenés garde au revenir, car nulz chevaliers, ne povres ne richez, ne peut revenir que il ne soit honni se il lesse en la main des Sarrazins le peuple menu Nostre Seigneur en la quel compaingnie il est alé’ [mind how you return, for no knight, neither poor nor rich, can return but covered with shame if he leaves in the hands of the Saracens the little people of Our Lord, in whose company he went] (§421). Granted, the Cypriots are not Saracens, but Louis’s reason for staying on his ship clearly shows his sense of obligation towards his people, and his actions may be viewed

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as a manifestation of the bond between lord and vassal which demanded that the former safeguard the latter. This episode, which illustrates Louis’s Christ-like conduct, also depicts Louis adhering to feudal values that may have more to say about Joinville than about the king. The parallel between the situations and the reactions of Joinville and the king, both of whom jeopardize their own safety because they refuse to abandon their people, suggest the mens’ shared allegiance to a chivalric code that promotes the knightly virtues of loyalty, honour, and courage. The episode also shows how Joinville’s depiction of Louis’s saintly nature is shaped by his own vision of kingship. Indeed, for Joinville it is arguably Louis’s excellence as a king that forms the primary basis for his sanctity. Joinville proudly depicts Louis’s kingly virtues, and the conflict that eventually divides the two men stems from their differing conceptions of kingly duty. The Kingly Ideal in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis Although Louis’s kingship and his sanctity are inseparable, I would like to turn now to the aspects of Joinville’s text that are more explicitly oriented towards Louis’s kingship. I will first show how Louis strives to attain the Augustinian ideals of peace and justice.65 I will then examine further how Joinville’s portrayal of the king is shaped by the seneschal’s own ideas about kingship. Finally, I will look at Joinville’s narration of the painful rupture between himself and Louis over the subject of the king’s second crusade. Joinville’s reliance on kingly models is more visible and less surprising than his deployment of hagiographical ones. The presence of such models is apparent in his very first encounter with Louis IX, which takes place at the knighting ceremony of the king’s brother, Alphonse of Poitiers, in 1241. At this time Louis IX was a very young man, and Joinville younger still.66 Joinville praises the splendour of the event, enumerates those present, and, since he was well positioned to see him, describes the king, who wore ‘une cotte de samit ynde et seurcot et mantel de samit vermeil fourré d’ermines, et un chapel de coton en sa teste, qui moult mal li seoit pour ce que il estoit lors joenne homme’ [a tunic of blue cloth, and a vest and cloak of red satin lined with ermine, with a cotton hat on his head, which looked very bad on him because at that time he was a young man] (§94). The incongruity of the king’s hat perhaps seems insignificant, but Joinville’s remark shows that even as a

Models of Sanctity and Kingship in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis 45

young man he clearly possessed expectations about the king against which he measured Louis IX. Such expectations, Joinville’s internalized beliefs and ideas about kingship as an abstract ideal, likewise govern his evaluation of more significant aspects of the king’s comportment. For Augustine as for Aristotle, justice is the foundation of kingship, and the image of Louis IX administering justice to his people – seated beneath an oak tree in the wood of Vincennes, approachable, amicable – has become legendary. One of the most striking aspects of Louis’s justice is its impression of intimacy. Louis allows his subjects to approach him with their conflicts and he judges or oversees their cases personally, not always relying on jurists or legal specialists to guide his decisions.67 Louis IX’s administration of justice, as depicted by Joinville, is related to an aspect of kingship that gained new importance in the twelfth century following the writing and diffusion of John of Salisbury’s Policraticus. Wisdom became a requisite aspect of kingship, and one that Louis very effectively demonstrates. It is clear from Joinville’s text that Louis understands the law as well as, or better than, his jurists. When their speech required correction, ‘il meismes l’amendoit de sa bouche’ [he himself corrected it with his own mouth] (§60). When the prelates of France ask for the king’s intervention in support of ecclesiastical justice (§§61–4), the king responds of his own accord, without seeking the advice of his jurists or other counsellors. The promptness of the king’s reply and its good sense attest to his substantial intellect. Towards the end of part two Joinville describes a legal case involving himself that the king adjudicated personally. ‘Et ces choses vous moustré je,’ Joinville tells us, ‘pour ce que vous voyez tout cler comme il se delivra tout seul, par son senz, de ce que il avoit a fere’ [And I have told you these things so that you might see clearly how he acquitted himself all alone, by his own intelligence, of what he had to do] (§675). Joinville depicts the application of the king’s intelligence towards practical ends, particularly in the context of his administration of justice, showing Louis to be an effective and capable sovereign. In this respect Louis’s kingship is like his sanctity, which is not cloistered or private, but directed outwardly and translated into positive action. Moreover, it is important to note that despite Louis’s considerable innovations in the administration of justice in the kingdom,68 Joinville does not present the king’s justice as qualitatively different from that of his predecessors, but rather as more perfect. Just as Louis is the king of justice, so too is he the king of peace. As Joinville remarks, ‘se fu l’omme du monde qui plus se traveilla de paiz’

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[he was the man who worked more towards peace than any in the world] (§680). Joinville discusses in two different places the most notable example of Louis’s efforts to make peace reign among Christians – his negotiation of the treaty of Paris with King Henry III of England (1259). As part of this treaty Louis ceded certain territories to Henry III, but retained sovereignty over them, effectively making the king of England the vassal of the king of France with respect to the subject lands.69 Louis’s barons strongly opposed this peace, and Joinville’s use of direct discourse in staging the debate that took place between the king and his advisers lends a theatrical and lively air to this episode. The nobles invoke Louis’s legal rights, arguing that the lands were wrongly ceded, for the kings of England had lost them through judgment.70 Louis first acknowledges his nobles’ point, recognizing that the law was for him, and then provides two reasons for his decision. First, since he and Henry III had married two sisters71 and their children are first cousins, ‘il affiert bien que paiz y soit’ [it is entirely fitting that there be peace] (§65). Moreover, in making the king of England his vassal, Louis brings honour upon himself. The reasons Louis alleges are of two different orders. First, he points to the inadequacy of positive law to effectively deal with the present situation, and invokes natural and divine law, the Christian love that should reign between all people, but in particular between members of the same family. Second, Louis invokes political expediency, showing his nobles the advantage to be gained from the treaty. The textual placement of this episode within part one further illuminates its significance. It immediately follows the series of anecdotes that illustrate the king’s justice (§§55–64) and, I would argue, offers a conclusion to these episodes. What the nobles believe to be a contravention of the law is in fact the finest example of Louis’s justice, which is the justice of human reason illuminated by Christian love. This incident also provides an example of Louis successfully reconciling Christian values with kingship. In effect, he says that conducting oneself as a Christian king does not mean being weak, and what is good for God is good for France. Joinville recounts this episode again in part two of his work. This version of the anecdote is longer, but Joinville employs the same theatrical technique and captures the same points: the reasons for the nobles’ opposition, the king’s acknowledgment of their legal argument, the king’s exposition of his reasons for concluding the treaty. Here, the placement of the episode is likewise significant. Joinville’s account of the treaty of Paris opens a series of anecdotes used to illustrate Louis’s attempts to

Models of Sanctity and Kingship in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis 47

restore and maintain harmony both at home and abroad (§§678–684). Joinville first provides examples of how Louis made peace between his vassals,72 and then describes an incident in which the king helped to negotiate peace between foreign people.73 Apparently this intervention was condemned by some in his council who, Joinville tells us, argued that the king might better have profited from their discord, allowing foreign powers to impoverish themselves in wars with one another and leaving France all the stronger. The king explains to his nobles the folly of such conduct, which might well backfire by attracting the malevolence of other peoples, without counting, Louis says ‘la hainne de Dieu que je conquerroie, qui dit “Benoit soient tuit li apaiseur”’ [the wrath of God that I would bring down, who says, ‘Blessed be the peacemakers’] (§683). As in the discussion surrounding the treaty of Paris the king offers two lines of reasoning – one political and the other Christian. The king operates within two conceptual frameworks, hoping that his nobles will understand at least one if not the other, and perhaps hoping too that they may come to see, as he does, their fundamental compatibility.74 By recounting the same story in both parts of his text, Joinville shows once again how Louis united word and deed, sanctity and kingship. Appearing towards the very beginning and the very end of Joinville’s text, this episode bookends the Vie de saint Louis, encapsulating the significance of Louis’s sanctity and his reign. By providing his nobles with two sets of reasons, showing them that Christian conduct can be politically effective, Louis modifies the paradigm of kingship, moralizing politics in a way that will have lasting effects. In his magisterial work on Saint Louis Jacques Le Goff speaks of the pressure exerted on models by individuals.75 I believe that such pressure is at work in Joinville’s text. Louis IX seeks to embody an ideal of the Christian monarch, but the force of his personality is such that he doesn’t simply exemplify an ideal, he actually alters it. The expectations of kingship will be forever changed in the wake of Saint Louis, and future kings will be forced to contend with the legacy of their saintly forefather. Joinville’s depiction of Louis as a king of justice and peace conforms to traditional and timeless expectations regarding kingship. However, other passages are more quixotic, and seem to reflect Joinville’s own ideas about kingship rather than a general kingly ideal. One such example concerns the issue of clothing. For Joinville, dress clearly makes the man, for he addresses this topic twice in part one of his text, a surprising emphasis given the brevity of this part relative to the

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whole. In contrast to Louis’s other biographers, who highlight the king’s increasing, perhaps excessive, humility, demonstrated in part by his humble dress,76 Joinville presents the king advocating a level of dress suited to one’s rank, as illustrated by a saying of his that Joinville cites in relation to two different anecdotes: ‘l’en devoit son cors vestir et armer en tele maniere que les preudeshomes de cest siecle ne deissent que il en feist trop ne que les joenes homes ne deissent que il en feist pou’ [one should dress and arm oneself such that the worthy men of this world might not say that one dressed too well, nor the young men say that one did not dress well enough] (§25). Joinville first cites this dictum as part of a list of examples of the king’s wisdom. The saying reminds Joinville of a conversation he once had with the previous king, Philippe III, in which the king mentioned the embroidered coats of arms that were the fashion, and told him how costly were some of his own. Joinville replied that this money was ill spent, for the king would have done better to dress more modestly and to spend the money economized thereby on God’s works. Joinville recounts the original circumstances of Louis’s saying in §§35–8.77 Another of Louis’s intimates, Robert de Sorbon, publicly reproached Joinville the luxuriousness of his dress, which exceeded that of the king. Joinville tartly responded that his clothing was left to him by his parents. The king publicly defended Robert de Sorbon, but later took Joinville aside, along with his son and son-in-law, and told them that, in fact, aussi comme le senechal dit, vous vous devez bien vestir et nettement, pour ce que vos femmes vous en ameront miex et vostre gent vous en priseront plus. Car ce dit le sage: ‘En se doit assemer en robes et en armes en tel maniere que les preudeshommes de cest siecle ne dient que on en face trop, ne les joenes gens de cest siecle ne dient que en en face pou.’ as the seneschal says, you should dress well and neatly so that your wives will love you better and your people esteem you more. For the wise man says this: ‘One should be adorned, whether in clothing or in arms, in such a way that the worthy men of this world might not say that one dresses too well, nor the young people of this world that one does not dress well enough.’ (§38)

Joinville presents this didactic moment as utterly straightforward, but certain aspects of the scene invite the reader to question the king’s

Models of Sanctity and Kingship in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis 49

sincerity.78 On the level of content, it is surprising to see the king serving as an apologist for vestimentary finery. Louis’s nod to superficial appearances and public opinion conflicts with his own disregard for worldly approval for his actions; in his own life he cares only for God’s approval. Moreover, from what Joinville himself tells us about the relationship between Louis and his wife, the king was not overly concerned with attracting his wife’s regard. From a narrative perspective, the king prefaces his words with ‘ce dit le sage,’ thereby distancing himself from his own words, which he presents as a kind of maxim or universally accepted truth. This distance creates a space for irony, as does the king’s invocation of ‘le sage,’ for is it really the wise man who speaks thus, or the purveyor of platitudes? On the one hand, this scene demonstrates how Joinville employs models of kingship – perhaps unwittingly, but effectively nonetheless – to shape his portrait of the king. Legitimately or not, Joinville can only present the king’s words as sincere because he, Joinville, respects rank and its demands and recognizes the importance of conjugal love and the esteem of one’s peers and people. Ironically, Joinville may well have conveyed the literal words of the king, yet failed to capture what this exchange meant to or revealed about him. At the same time, Joinville invokes the king’s words in both passages to back up his own judgment of Philippe III and Robert de Sorbon’s vestimentary transgressions. Unlike the king’s saying, Joinville’s reasoning does not really have to do with clothing at all; rather, it is based on respect for tradition and the past. Joinville tells Philippe III that he would do better to spend more money on alms and ‘fait ses atours de bon cendal enforcié batu de ses armes, si comme son pere faisoit’ [make his equipment of good reinforced silk stamped with his arms, as his father used to do (emphasis added)] (§25). Similarly, Joinville justifies his own elegant dress with the statement that ‘cest abit me lessa mon pere et ma mere’ [my father and my mother left me this outfit], while lancing at Robert the accusation ‘vous estes filz de vilain et de vilainne, et avez lessié l’abit vostre pere et vostre mere’ [you are the son of a lowborn man and woman, and you have discarded the clothing of your father and your mother] (§36). Robert’s fault is not that he is richly dressed, but that he has abandoned the station of his parents and has taken on the appearance of a rank that was not his by birth. Here Joinville presents Louis and his words in such a way that they conform to and support his own conceptions of appropriate conduct. Joinville’s respect for tradition is arguably what shapes, more than any

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other single factor, his vision of kingship, and here Louis functions as a guarantor for traditional values. In addition, Joinville uses the figure of the king-saint, here and elsewhere, to condemn the practices of Louis’s descendants who, as he frequently points out, have no respect for the past, and have abandoned the example of their saintly forefather.79 The reigning king at the time of the Vie de saint Louis’s composition, Philippe le Bel, sought to increase and consolidate the authority of the king to the detriment of the powerful barons, such as Joinville. By depicting Louis IX as a staunch upholder of feudal values, a king respectful of baronial rights, Joinville is able to condemn implicitly the reign of Philippe le Bel while advocating a return to the good old days of Louis IX.80 Joinville again reveals his own feudal values in relation to the king’s ability to select and appreciate wise counsellors. When praising Louis’s fiscal policies, which ensured the contentment of his lords, knights, men, and good towns, Joinville observes that ‘ce fesoit il par le conseil de la bone mere qui estoit avec li, de qui conseil il ouvroit, et des preudeshomes qui li estoient demouré du tens son pere et du temps son ayoul’ [this he did on the advice of his good mother who was with him, by whose counsel he acted, and of the worthy men who had remained with him from the time of his father and of his ancestors] (§105). Joinville valorizes the men from whom Louis seeks advice, qualifying them as preudeshomes, including the queen, Blanche, for whose political acumen Joinville has great respect. The ability to select good counsellors reflects positively on the king. These counsellors are not toadies of the young king, but are the same people who advised his father and grandfather. Joinville’s statement illustrates his appreciation of stability, of blood in the case of Blanche of Castile, whose presence signals dynastic continuity, and of political power in the case of the counsellors who retain their influence from one reign to the next.81 Joinville’s pointed praise of Louis for heeding the counsellors of his father and ancestors, and the good results that the king obtained thereby, may well have been directed at the reigning king. Despite his intimacy with Louis IX and his years of loyal service to the crown, Joinville was not part of Philippe III’s inner circle, and even less of Philippe le Bel’s. Joinville may be suggesting that Philippe le Bel is like Rehoboam, who dismissed his father’s counsellors to follow the advice of young and foolish men, and whose kingdom suffered for it. Joinville repeatedly observes in the Vie de saint Louis that Louis’s son and grandson abandoned the example of their blessed forefather, and his life of Louis IX functions in part as a call to return to what

Models of Sanctity and Kingship in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis 51

Joinville perceives to be the traditional ways and values espoused by Louis. In spite of Louis’s frequent requests for counsel, it is true that he very often followed his own opinion in the end. While Joinville appreciated the king’s ability to think and decide issues for himself in the context of the administration of justice, in other cases the seneschal appears to despair of the king’s disregard for advice. During the ransom negotiations with the Saracens Joinville says that ‘[m]oult de gens avoient loué au roy que il se traisist en sa nef, qui l’attendoit en mer, pour li oster des mains aus Sarrazins. Onques le roy ne volt nullui croire, ainçois disoit que il ne partiroit du flum, aussi comme il l’avoit couvent, tant que il leur eust paié .cc. mille livres’ [many people had advised the king to have himself transported on his ship, which waited for him at sea, to remove himself from the hands of the Saracens. The king never wanted to listen to anyone, and instead said that he would not leave the river, for he had so promised, until he had paid them two hundred thousand pounds] (§388). This passage immediately follows the comic scene involving Philippe de Nemours, discussed above, but the tone is very different. Like many of the anecdotes that illustrate the king’s virtue, this scene stages the conflict between the demands of sanctity and kingship. Here, however, the point does not seem to be how Louis’s status as king enhances the value of his actions, or how he reconciles two ideals. The king’s obstinacy about keeping his word to his captors is not presented as a remarkable instance of Christian virtue, but as intransigence that endangers the political future of France. Instances such as this presage the major conflict between Joinville and his king that will be recounted at the end of the text, and that centres around a clash between the demands of sanctity and those of kingship. At the end of the Vie Joinville relates how he foretold both the king’s resolution to embark on a second crusade82 – and its ill-fated results – in a prophetic dream interpreted by his priest (§§731–2). Joinville does not have to wait long for the first part of his dream to be fulfilled. At mass the following day, as the king brings forward the relics of the true Cross, Joinville overhears the following exchange between two nobles: ‘dit l’un: «Jamez ne me creez, se le roy ne se croise illec». Et l’autre respondi que «se le roy se croise, ce yert une des deluireuses journees qui onques feust en France ; car se nous ne nous croisons, nous perdrons le roy, et se nous nous croisons, nous perdrons Dieu, que nous ne nous croiserons pas pour Li mais pour paour du roy»’ [one said, ‘Never believe me again if the king doesn’t take the cross now.’ And the other

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responded that ‘if the king takes the cross, it will be one of the most sorrowful days that ever was in France, for if we don’t take the cross, we will lose the king, and if we take the cross, we will lose God, for we won’t take the cross for Him, but for fear of the king’] (§733). For the second time, the prediction of a crusade and its negative consequences are articulated by individuals other than Joinville. By placing these remarks in the mouths of others, Joinville avoids explicitly judging the king himself, while at the same time justifying his condemnation of the king’s decision. Joinville then tells us that the kings of France and Navarre83 pressured him to take the cross, but that he replied ‘que se je en vouloie ouvrer au gré Dieu, que je demourroi ci pour mon peuple aidier et deffendre ; car se je metoie mon cor en l’aventure du pelerinage de la croiz, la ou je verroie tout cler que ce seroit au mal et au doumage de ma gent, j’en courrouceroy Dieu, qui mist son cors pour son peuple sauver’ [that if I wanted to act according to God’s will that I would remain here to help and defend my people, for if I put myself in danger on the pilgrimage of the cross, there where I might clearly see that it would be for the ill and suffering of my people, I would anger God, who gave himself to save his people] (§735), reasoning that it is easy enough to apply to the situation of France and its king. Joinville’s reply recalls the earlier textual discussions of the duty of lords to their people. The problem – and the disagreement between Joinville and the king – is in determining where one’s duty lies. How exactly can one best help and defend one’s people? Is it by remaining near them and protecting their material wellbeing? or is it by embarking on a crusade in an attempt to advance God’s kingdom on earth? Joinville suggests that the king can best please God by optimally fulfilling his kingly duties. As for the king, it is not clear whether he believes that his duties to God are more important than his kingly obligations or that his crusade represents the fulfilment of both. Joinville holds Louis’s advisers accountable for the king’s decision, affirming that they committed a mortal sin when they counselled such a voyage.84 To blame the king’s advisers is illogical, almost absurd. For one thing, as Louis’s other biographers mention, the king’s desire to embark on a second crusade was not sudden, but had been in his mind for a number of years. Many people, including Pope Clement IV, had tried to dissuade him from such a design. Moreover, Joinville himself, throughout his entire text, had shown the king’s ability to reach decisions on his own and his resolution once he had settled on a course of

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action. Joinville’s anguish upon finding himself so deeply at odds with his king manifests itself in his roundabout manner of condemning the king’s decision, one in which it is not exactly Joinville who blames, nor the king who is blamed. Unable to turn his mind’s eye, or his pen, towards an episode that so pained him, Joinville declares in the next paragraph that ‘[d]e la voie que il fist a Thunes ne weil je riens conter ne dire, pour ce que je n’i fu pas, la merci Dieu’ [of the voyage that he made to Tunis I do not wish to recount or say anything, for I was not there, thank God] (§738). The final portion of Joinville’s text is narrated from a distance, as it were. Joinville reproduces the text of Louis’s Enseignements to his son, Philippe. For his account of the king’s pious death85 Joinville relies on the testimony of Louis’s son, Pierre d’Alençon. One might expect Joinville’s Vie to end here, since it is only logical for a biographical text to be coterminous with the life of its subject, or perhaps to end with the elevation of Louis to sainthood, as would be reasonable in a hagiographical text. Yet despite the ‘Amen’ that follows §765, Joinville adds one final episode to his text, one that, though it does not conclude the life of Louis IX, does conclude the story of Louis and Joinville. Joinville recounts a second dream that he had of the king, a joyous one this time, in which the king came to see the seneschal at his chapel at Joinville and, laughing, assured him that ‘je ne bee mie si tost a partir de ci’ [I do not desire so soon to leave here] (§766).86 Joinville awakens, relieved and joyful, with the resolution to found an altar to Saint Louis in his chapel at Joinville such that he might remain close to his beloved king, and honour him, forever. Joinville seems unaware of the fact that in writing his Vie he has constructed an altar to Louis IX that will prove more lasting than his chapel at Joinville.87 Thus, the text concludes not on a note of rupture, with the distant death of Saint Louis, but with a renewed pledge of friendship between the faithful seneschal and his gracious king.88 Conclusions – the Legacy of Joinville’s Saint Louis Time and again Joinville presents himself as a follower and imitator of his beloved king. He follows Louis IX on crusade, forbids blasphemy in his household just as Louis did in his kingdom, and cares for the people dependent on him, as did the king. More than thirty years after Louis’s death Joinville has an opportunity to follow his king once again, this time as a teller of exemplary tales. Joinville tells us of the king that

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‘avant que il se couchast en son lit, il fesoit venir ses enfans devant li et leur recordoit les fez des bons roys et des bons empereurs, et leur disoit que a tiex gens devoient il prenre bon exemple’ [before going to bed, he had his children come before him and he recounted to them the deeds of good kings and good emperors, and told them that from such people they should take a good example] (§689). Thus, the didactic value of kings’ lives and their power to effect positive change in those who hear them is posited by Louis himself. When the seneschal presents his completed work to the future Louis X ‘pour ce que vous et vostre frere et les autres qui l’orront y puissent prenre bon exemple, et les exemples mettre a oevre’ [so that you and your brothers and the others who hear it might take from it good examples, and put the examples into practice] (§18), he is walking in the footsteps of his king. In Joinville’s tale, however, Louis IX has become the subject, the model to be imitated. Since Louis consciously presented himself as an exemplum during his own lifetime, Joinville’s text continues a project that Louis sanctioned and initiated. Joinville’s dedicatory statement to the future king highlights the dual nature of Louis IX’s exemplarity. His life provides a model of kingship for his great-grandson and heir, as well as a paradigm of Christian virtue useful for the public at large. Louis’s extraordinary morality was of considerable political value to his heirs. In Louis IX the Capetians finally had their saint, and his enormous prestige redounded onto his family and descendants.89 Following his reign the king of France began routinely to be referred to as the Very Christian King, and the reputation of the Capetian dynasty at last equalled that of their Carolingian predecessors.90 Later Capetians such as Philippe le Bel would explicitly and strenuously associate themselves and their actions with their saintly ancestor. Indeed, it is rather ironic that the king condemned by Joinville as unworthy of his grandfather was the individual largely responsible for Louis’s canonization. While Saint Louis’s legacy did provide tremendous symbolic currency, it was also, at times, a heavy burden for his heirs to bear, since they could never hope to live up to the example of their ancestor. In the Vie de saint Louis Joinville does not hesitate to offer harsh criticism to the reigning king. He recounts how Louis once explained to him that narrow escapes from danger represent warnings from God, which should inspire the examination, and modification, of one’s conduct.91 ‘Si y preingne garde li roys qui ore est,’ Joinville proclaims, ‘car il est eschapé de aussi grant peril ou de plus que nous ne feimes; si s’amende de ses mes-

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fais en tel maniere que Dieu ne fiere en li ne en ses choses cruelment’ [And may the king who now reigns take heed, for he has escaped from as great a danger, or greater, than we did; so may he amend his misconduct such that God does not cruelly strike him in his person or his affairs] (§42). For Joinville, and doubtless for many others, Louis IX represents an ideal from which the present generation has strayed. One of Joinville’s principal aims in writing his life of Louis IX was to highlight the full extent of his virtue – political as well as personal – in the hopes that the future king might return to Louis’s ideal. Jean de Joinville’s reprimands and his depiction of the ideal monarch may not have had a transformative effect on Philippe le Bel, but it did have powerful and lasting effects on the ideal of kingship. Almost immediately after the king’s death, the ‘good old days of our lord saint Louis’ would be invoked with nostalgia and regret. Jacques Le Goff has remarked on the irony of the fact that a person so unconcerned with material goods would become forever associated with a period of prosperity and contentment in the kingdom.92 The memory of Louis’s reign was idealized and abstracted after his death, itself the material for future miroirs du prince.93 If Louis’s legacy was a heavy load for the Capetians, it was doubly so for the Valois, who faced the additional challenge of establishing the authority of their reign. The legitimacy of Valois rule was contested almost immediately by Edward III of England, and later by Charles the king of Navarre, both of whom claimed to be more closely related to Louis IX than the reigning king. Thus, the memory of Saint Louis was often used to discredit the first Valois rulers or to condemn their practices. The Valois were held to be neither the literal nor the spiritual descendants of the saint-king.94 Indeed, mentions of Louis IX are strikingly scarce in Christine de Pizan’s biography of Charles V, where she more explicitly associated the wise king with Charlemagne. This does not mean, however, that later kings did not make use of Louis IX’s example and legacy, and we shall see evidence of the king’s long shadow in the other royal biographies examined in the present work. Like Louis IX in the development of kingship, Joinville’s Vie occupies an important place in the development of vernacular royal biography.95 As we have seen, before Joinville’s text there was a somewhat spotty and haphazard tradition of secular biographical writing in Latin, but almost none whatsoever in the vernacular. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed the production of a number of royal biographies in French. Medieval readers had long enjoyed stories of kings, and their

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redaction in the vernacular permitted their wider diffusion and allowed them to join a broader political context. Joinville’s text was the product of a thoughtful and intelligent man of considerable experience. Although he focuses on a historically specific individual and set of circumstances, the questions that his text raises – about the nature of kingship, the duties of the monarch to his kingdom and to Christendom, the appropriate balance of power between a king and his nobles, and that between temporal and spiritual power – permit it to be considered alongside the theoretical treatises of its day. Jean de Joinville was not, as some would have it, a literary innocent, seated at the feet of his king recording his words and deeds. He was an old man by the time he composed his Vie de saint Louis, he had seen and experienced much, and he brought to his writing his own aims and his own ideas about kingship. On a personal level, Joinville shows in his text, for the benefit of those who do not know or who might have forgotten, that he was and remains a worthy knight. Loyal, truthful, courageous, perceptive, Joinville was a servant of his lords, the counts of Champagne, and of Louis IX of France,96 as well as the protector of his men. Joinville also stages, perhaps only for his own sake, his reconciliation with the king and the mutual friendship and respect that continued to unite them, some forty years after the death of Louis IX. Joinville’s portrayal of the king was shaped by models that were current in society, as well as by Joinville’s personal set of beliefs about the nature and duties of the king, notably his respect for traditional, feudal values. Although scholars continue to debate the feudal or modern character of the historical Louis IX, I believe that Joinville’s Saint Louis is fundamentally a feudal king, respectful of the rights of his nobles, jealously guarding royal privileges from the encroachments of the Church, and concerned for the welfare of his people. Joinville’s Louis is also a chivalric hero, courageous and beautiful. In the thick of battle Joinville catches sight of him, and ‘mes onques si bel armé ne vi, car il paroit de sur toute sa gent des les espaules en amon, un heaume doré en son chief, une espee d’Alemaingne en sa main’ [I never saw so beautiful an armed man, for he was head and shoulders taller than all of his men, with a golden helmet on his head and a German sword in his hand] (§228). The stylized and conventional beauty and prowess of the king attests to Joinville’s chivalric aesthetic. While others may depict Louis as constitutionally frail and weak, Joinville does not. In the Vie Louis may be sick, but he is not sickly. Joinville’s king is not the tortured soul we see in Geoffroy de Beaulieu’s life, torn

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between his duties to his office and his desire to live a friar’s life. Joinville’s Louis goes forth confidently, fulfilling the obligations of his rank while conducting himself like a living saint. We finish the Vie with the king’s clere rire still ringing in our ears, the joyful laughter of the king of peace and love.

2 Hugh the Butcher: Lineage, Election, and Succession in the Chanson de Hugues Capet

Some thirty years after its inception in 1328, the nascent Valois dynasty found itself facing its most serious challenges to date. During its years of Valois rule France had experienced numerous and varied difficulties: the nobility had been severely discredited by France’s crushing loss to the English at Crécy (1346), while the general population had been afflicted by plague, the English raids known as chevauchées, and the rampaging Free Companies, all of which contributed to widespread economic decline.1 As a consequence of yet another French defeat at Poitiers (1356), Jean II was made a prisoner of the English, with a resulting void of political authority into which stepped Étienne Marcel, the provost of Paris, and the Estates General. With hopes of reform and dreams of a monarchy assisted and guided by the Estates, Étienne Marcel sought to effect a number of reforms that would have altered the nature of French kingship, essentially transforming Valois rule into a constitutional monarchy. For a time Marcel found common cause with Charles II, king of Navarre, who, along with Edward III of England, was one of the claimants to the French throne. The ambitious Charles de Navarre was content to advance the goals of Étienne Marcel so long as they were compatible with his own, and during the period 1357–8 he posed a serious threat – both political and military – to Paris, the dauphin, and the Valois dynasty. The Chanson de Hugues Capet, an epic-style biography of the founder of the Capetian dynasty, was born of this tumultuous era of civil discord and dynastic insecurity. Although the text purports to recount the life and ascent to power of Hugh Capet (r. 987–96), its numerous parallels with the fourteenth century provide insight into the contemporary political situation, offering models of conduct for fourteenth-century

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nobles and bourgeois alike, and furnishing a legal basis for Valois legitimacy. Since the Chanson is little known, a brief plot summary is useful. The text first describes how Hugh’s noble father ‘ama par amours’ (56) [loved with a romantic love] Beatrice, the daughter of a wealthy butcher.2 At sixteen, the orphaned Hugh leads the life of a young knight, attending tournaments and jousts, and spending his money freely, a lifestyle that eventually forces him to leave his birthplace in order to escape his creditors and to seek adventure. During a brief stop in Paris Hugh receives financial assistance from his maternal uncle, Simon, also a wealthy butcher. Hugh’s adventures in Hainault and Germany are replete with amorous encounters, and with armed skirmishes in which Hugh demonstrates his military prowess against angry fathers.3 The scene then returns to Paris, where Hugh arrives just as the powerful noble Savary has demanded that the recently widowed queen, Blanchefleur, allow him to marry the heir, Marie, and to become king of France. Blanchefleur suspects Savary of poisoning the late king, but she lacks the military might to refuse him. Hugh rallies the Parisian bourgeoisie to Blanchefleur’s aid, kills Savary, and organizes military resistance to Savary’s family and allies, who have besieged the city. Hugh’s forces are seconded by the constable of France and the few nobles who remain loyal to Blanchefleur, by Blanchefleur’s nephew, Drogue of Venice, and by Hugh’s ten bastard sons. The rebellious nobles are ultimately defeated; Hugh marries Marie, and is elected king. In a new round of betrayals Fedry and Asselin, relatives of Savary, kidnap Marie and try to assassinate Hugh. Hugh ultimately prevails with the help of the faithful constable, and peace reigns in France. From a literary standpoint, the Chanson clearly situates itself within a chanson de geste tradition, which it both imitates and parodies.4 Like many chansons it takes as its subject matter the tensions between the French monarchy and the powerful barons of the kingdom. In addition, the text’s division into assonanced laisses, its marks of orality, and pretensions to geo-political and historical accuracy, as well as its combination of serious political concerns and physical, often low-brow humour, all serve to further inscribe the Chanson within these familiar literary conventions.5 However, determining the text’s place from a historical or political perspective, trying to identify its intended public, is a more dubious undertaking. The Chanson has no named author or patron whose identity would provide clues regarding the intended audience and use of the

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text. Only one manuscript of the Chanson is extant,6 suggesting a limited diffusion, although the text may well have been more widely disseminated in popular settings by means of public performances. Although Robert Bossuat claims that the Chanson could not have reached ‘cultivated society,’7 I am not so sure. As we shall see, the Chanson articulates complex and avant-garde political ideas, which I believe were directed towards an educated and politically sophisticated public of clerics and nobles, such as those who were involved in the political events of the late 1350s. At the same time, the Chanson also includes material that would have spoken to different segments of the population. Its chanson de geste framework suggests a lay, noble public for the work, while its positive depiction of the Parisian bourgeois community would have appealed to a non-noble audience of wealthy bourgeois, as well as, perhaps, artisans or urban dwellers of more modest means. The text’s advanced political content elevates it above the level of simple entertainment, while its popular qualities contribute to the text’s appeal, permitting its political ideas to circulate among a wider audience. For the medieval reader the presentation of historical material in the form of a chanson de geste did not, a priori, put into question its authenticity, as it might for modern readers. Indeed, Bernard Guenée has pointed out that the relationship between epic and historical writing was a close one, with considerable reciprocal influence both in terms of style and content.8 Only the most learned, clerkly audience, with access to the requisite historical documentation, would be able to detect the specific departures between the Chanson’s version of Hugh Capet’s life and political ascent and the events themselves.9 The narrator of the Chanson certainly presents his material as authentic, claiming written sources for his account, while the text’s geographic precision and realistic settings contribute to its plausibility.10 Following Hugh and Marie’s marriage the narrator affirms: ‘Ensi que vous orez ou livre qui est fais / Et qui dou latin est en droit romans estrais, / Car ly istore en est dedens le cité d’Ais’ [So you will hear in this book that is written, and which is taken from Latin into correct French, for the history is in the city of Aix] (4765–7). The allusion to the text’s linguistic transformation constitutes further evidence of its authenticity, since it derived from a Latin (and therefore authoritative) source. In addition, the fact that the written source is located at Aix-la-Chapelle instead of Saint Denis, as a fourteenth-century reader might expect, links the Chanson to the time of Charlemagne. Thus, this specific written source, and its location, authenticates the version of Hugh Capet’s life and exploits proposed by the Chanson.

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As we shall see, the Chanson de Hugues Capet is a highly polemical work that seeks to advance specific political goals while at the same time offering more broadly applicable reflections on societal organization, in particular on the ideal relationship between king, nobles, and bourgeois. In trying to come to terms with the text’s political component, it is necessary to understand the setting in which it was composed. Robert Bossuat was the first to convincingly date the composition of the text to the period 1358–60. Previous attempts had provided a much wider range, from 1312 to 1437.11 In ‘The “Chanson de Hugues Capet”’ Bossuat compares the military manoeuvres described in the Chanson – including geographical, topographical, and organizational details – to the 1358 siege of Paris in order to show that the author was witness to, and inspired by, the political events that unfolded in Paris over the spring of that year. Scholars have since built on Bossuat’s work, further detailing the many parallels between the text’s version of the tenthcentury accession of Hugh Capet and the events that took place in the early years of Valois rule.12 In this chapter I will show how, somewhat paradoxically, a pseudobiography of the founder of the Capetian dynasty constituted a powerful tool with which to support the faltering Valois dynasty. Written during the opening stages of the Hundred Years’ War, the Chanson seeks to establish the legitimacy and the authority of the Valois kings. In addition, the Chanson provides a model of social cohesion and harmony that leads, in the text, to durable peace and prosperity for France. I will first look at the role of the bourgeoisie, the singularly positive depiction of which has attracted considerable critical attention.13 However, the Chanson’s rehabilitation of the bourgeoisie is not unequivocal. The present work will nuance previous readings by studying the ambiguities in the representation of this group and the ambivalent attitudes towards them. I will then turn to the role of kinship, genealogy, and loyalty in the text. Hugh Capet’s hybrid social status is of paramount importance, but equally significant are the lines of descent and the relationships – textual, historical, and literary – between other characters. In addition, the question of loyalty to one’s family versus one’s king is critical in a text that addresses civil war. Finally, I will discuss the text’s invocation of both the reditus regni Francorum ad stirpem Karoli [the return of the reign of the Franks/French to the lineage of Charlemagne] and of Salic law, two mutually exclusive theories of dynastic continuity and legitimacy. The reditus linked the Capetian to the Carolingian dynasty by means of female heredity, while Salic law forbade matrilineal succession. Beginning approximately at the time of the Chanson’s composition,

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and increasingly throughout the Hundred Years’ War, Salic law was invoked to explain the Valois succession, and to justify the exclusion of Edward III of England and Charles II de Navarre from the throne of France. The ‘frans bourgois’ of Paris The prominent role of the bourgeoisie in the Chanson de Hugues Capet is one of the text’s most striking aspects.14 Indeed, Ferdinand Lot affirmed that the Chanson constituted a virtual bourgeois manifesto, one that proposed a bourgeois takeover of noble roles and duties. More recent scholarship has tempered this view somewhat, claiming that although the Chanson valorizes the bourgeoisie, it is not intended to fundamentally alter the social order.15 I believe that the Chanson’s portrayal of the bourgeoisie reflects the changing and uncertain status of this group over the course of the fourteenth century, and is more complex and ambiguous than has been acknowledged to date. In this section I will examine the function and representation of the bourgeoisie in the Chanson, looking at their role as royal advisers and participants in the Parisian military efforts, and at the ways in which the text reflects historical sources of tension between the bourgeoisie and the nobility. I will also discuss how the Chanson relates to the events of the late 1350s, in particular the bourgeois uprising led by Étienne Marcel. When discussing the bourgeoisie in the Chanson, I am speaking of the ‘bourgois de Paris,’ the distinctiveness of which is illustrated by the contrast between the Parisian bourgeoisie and that of Orléans. Following Hugh’s coronation, the constable, Blanchefleur, and Marie find themselves in Orléans. Since Hugh and his father both have ties to Orléans, one might expect the bourgeoisie of this city to be particularly loyal to Hugh. In fact, the citizens of Orléans, though not hostile, are so cowardly that they allow Fedry and his rebellious troops to invade the city and to take the constable and the two queens prisoner without offering the slightest resistance. Noëlle Laborderie has astutely observed that the people of Orléans are never designated by the term ‘bourgois.’ Instead, the text speaks of the city, the town, the people of Orléans.16 Thus, a qualitative difference exists in the Chanson between the bourgeoisie of Paris, and those of elsewhere. The reason for this distinction resides in what it meant to be called a bourgois in Paris at the time of the Chanson’s composition. In situating the rise to power of Étienne Marcel, Françoise Autrand first examines

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the financial and political power of the Parisian bourgeoisie. The ‘Hanse des marchands de l’eau,’ an association of wealthy merchants who used the Seine to transport their goods, was charged with defending the members’ common interests.17 The Capetian kings, starting with Louis VI, accorded members of the Hanse privileges that amounted to a monopoly on navigation on the Seine in exchange for the members’ financial support. In order for a ‘foreign’ merchant (which in this case could mean Norman or Bourguignon) to move goods on the Seine they had to associate themselves with a Parisian merchant, a member of the Hanse, and such associations were not to be had cheaply. The duties of the Hanse were numerous and varied, and gave rise to a complex organization that eventually developed into a Parisian institution. The provost of Paris, a position created under Saint Louis and occupied in the 1350s by Étienne Marcel, was elected by the members of the Hanse. Thus, as Françoise Autrand tells us, ‘“Bourgeois de Paris” is, in effect, the title borne by the wealthiest merchants of Paris, those who enjoyed numerous privileges accorded by the king to Parisian commerce. It was a sought-after title.’18 The term bourgois, then, is not used in the Chanson to refer to just any member of the third estate, to any tradesperson, or to any urban dweller, but to a select group of rich and powerful merchants with a long history of loyalty to, and allegiance with, the king. Within this framework the people of Orléans cannot properly be called bourgois, and accordingly they do not manifest the same faithfulness as do the bourgeoisie of Paris, who remain staunchly loyal to the royal family, and to Hugh, throughout the text. The Parisian bourgeoisie are invited by the queen herself to play an important advisory role from the start. When the treacherous Savary first asks for Marie’s hand, Blanchefleur says that it is not hers to give, for she must first consult ‘sen grant linaige’ [her illustrious family] (674) as well as the peers of the realm. As a sort of afterthought, Blanchefleur adds, ‘Je veul que tout y soient, car bien apartenra, / Et ly bourgois oussy de che roiaulme cha’ [I would like them all to be present, for the decision belongs to them, and the bourgeois also of this kingdom] (677– 8). Blanchefleur later tells Savary that she will acquiesce to his demands only ‘[m]ais que my franc bourgois de ceste cité chy / Soient a l’acorder et l’aiient assenty’ [as long as my free bourgeois of this city are likewise in agreement and have consented to it] (723–4). The significance of the bourgeoisie is reiterated by Blanchefleur’s noble counsellors, who assure her that the ‘bourgois de Paris’ (763) will not fail her.19 Curiously, it seems that the bourgeoisie are more capable than the nobles of standing

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up to Savary, who has effectively either convinced or cowed the other nobles into supporting his efforts to have himself crowned king. This unfaltering loyalty on the part of the Parisian population found a historical parallel in the life of the young Saint Louis. In his life of Louis IX Guillaume de Nangis describes how, during one of the noble uprisings that marked the early years of his reign, a plan was formed to kidnap the young king and thereby take control of the kingdom. Blanche of Castile, the queen mother and regent, requested the support of the Parisians, who flocked to Louis’s aid, returning him to Paris and effectively pre-empting the plans of the nobles.20 Such a comparison valorizes the Chanson’s hero and the bourgeoisie, and also instates an implicit comparison between the young Saint Louis and the dauphin Charles, who was likewise saved from a threat of noble rebellion (that of Charles de Navarre) by the loyal Parisians. This is, at least, the spin that the Chanson places on the events of the late 1350s, the reality of Parisian fidelity being somewhat more dubious. This favourable image of the bourgeoisie has been duly noted by many scholars. However, in a curious contradictory movement, the bourgeois are sometimes valorized and negatively stereotyped at the same time. This tendency is apparent in the queen’s meeting with the bourgeoisie. She first appeals to them on what are presumed to be bourgeois terms, alleging that if Savary became king he would revive bad customs. Although she does not specify what these might be, the context suggests that they are related to trade and commerce, and that Savary’s accession would have negative economic repercussions on the bourgeoisie. It is only secondarily that she invokes a noble motive to intervene: the defence of her daughter’s honour.21 An esteemed member of the bourgeois community replies that since Savary has the power to inflict great damage on the kingdom, it would be better to hand Marie over peacefully. For, as he concludes, ‘qui pais puet avoir, sos est qui guerre prent’ [he who can have peace is a fool to choose war] (849). Such concern for practicality rather than principle is exactly what one might expect from a bourgeois leader. It is Hugh Capet, present only as the nephew of Simon the butcher and not because of his own status within the Parisian bourgeois community, who, on behalf of the bourgeoisie, assures Blanchefleur of their support. Hugh has been moved by Blanchefleur’s second reason, and in his speech he declares that it would be ‘grant reproche et grant avillement’ [a great reproach and a great abasement] (862) to allow Savary to marry Marie. He then proclaims, ‘je feray tel cose ainschois l’avesprement / A l’onneur du

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royaume et de nous ensement / Qu’aprez no mort mil ans en parleront ly gent’ [I will do such a thing before nightfall, to the kingdom’s honour and to ours likewise, that for a thousand years after our death people will speak of it] (873–5). Hugh’s proclamation recalls the words of Roland and other epic heroes, thereby establishing him as a defender of legitimacy and of the kingdom.22 More striking than the bourgeoisie’s advising role in the Chanson is their military one. While kings did sometimes solicit the views of the bourgeoisie (albeit in an often interested manner, as when they wished to impose additional taxes), they rarely relied on them militarily, and certainly not to the degree depicted in the Chanson. Here, knights and bourgeois together prepare for battle, and they combat alongside one another. As Albert Gier has observed, this cooperation between different social orders, and the recognition of its necessity in the face of a formidable threat to the kingdom, is one of the innovations of the Chanson, and provides an implicit model for fourteenth-century nobles and bourgeois. This collaboration is not immediate or spontaneous, however, for if some bourgeois hesitate before opposing a powerful noble like Savary, the nobles have reservations of their own about the bourgeoisie’s reliability in battle. Before attacking Fedry’s troops, Blanchefleur’s constable, the count of Dammartin, dismisses Hugh and his bourgeois militia, affirming that ‘entre vous, bourgois au fourré capperon, / Estez devant voz huis trop noble campïon / Et cant vient en bataille, n’i vallez un bouton’ [among yourselves, bourgeois with furred hats, in front of your doors you are indeed noble champions, but when it comes to battle, you’re not worth a button] (1254–6). As it happens, Hugh and his troops prove their worth by rescuing the constable and saving the royal army. Hugh later reproaches the constable for his lack of faith in the bourgeoisie: ‘Mestier avez eü dez bourgois de Paris, / De cellui proprement qui de vous fu laidis; / Ly hons n’est mie saigez de blamer sez amis’ [You needed the help of the bourgeois of Paris, of precisely those whom you insulted. A man is not wise to disparage his friends] (1345–7).23 In an inspiring spirit of cooperation the royal army will later return the favour, rescuing Hugh after his venture into the enemy camp. As contemporary readers would have been well aware, this literary harmony contrasted sharply with historical events of the 1350s. Before the battle of Poitiers, Jean II dismissed the military units of the towns, known as communes.24 Hostility towards the nobility was widespread following the battle of Poitiers, and the king’s discharge of willing and

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loyal, though non-noble, troops was both resented and lamented.25 As the chronicler of the Quatre premiers Valois wrote, ‘fit donner congié le roy Jehan à ses communes de ses bonnes villes. Dont ce fut folie à lui et à ceulx qui conseil lui en donnerent’ [King John dismissed the military units of his good towns, which was folly on his part, and on the part of those who gave him such advice] (46).26 The Chanson’s depiction of the bourgeoisie’s military usefulness provides an implicit judgment of Jean II’s decision to forego their aid, and a recommendation to take advantage of their force and loyalty in the future.27 The text does not propose bourgeois dominance or societal reorganization, but rather an increased appreciation of bourgeois capabilities.28 Yet many of the nobles in the Chanson display considerable resistance and resentment towards the rising power – especially economic – of the bourgeoisie. Those who flock to Fedry’s side in opposition to Blanchefleur and her bourgeois allies complain bitterly to one another about bourgeois usurpation of their societal roles and privileges: Nous serons bien mescant Se chil villain no vont ainsi supeditant; Pour ce qu’il sont trop rique, ne voz prisent un gant; Il ont toutez no terrez et cant c’avons vallant, Car si tost qu’il nous vont aucuns denierz prestant, Tantost va par usure le somme sy montant Que terrez et castiaulz nous font saisir errant. Que maudit soit de Dieu l’avoir dont il ont tant! (1058–65) [We will be worthy of scorn indeed, if these base people continue to crush us in this way. Because they are too rich, they do not even esteem you the value of a glove. They have all our lands, and all that we have of worth, for as soon as they go loaning us a few coins, right away the sum increases so much by means of usury that they seize our lands and castles. May God curse the wealth they possess in such quantity!]

This exclamation is not attributed to specific characters but to a collectivity of nobles, thereby giving these sentiments the character of generally accepted and oft-repeated beliefs. This diatribe echoes a very real concern of the nobility of the time. Since nobles lived on fixed rents, which were vulnerable to the sorts of currency manipulations that Philippe VI and Jean II employed to fund the war with England,29 and since they were also expected to personally finance numerous war-related

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expenses, many nobles, especially those with relatively modest rents, experienced financial difficulties. At the same time, bourgeois financiers like Robert de Lorris profited from those same currency manipulations, and took advantage of their economic power and favour with the king to buy (or to claim as the collateral on unpaid loans) noble properties from their indebted owners, and to marry their children into impoverished noble families, who were willing to trade their name and their noble blood for a large dowry. These very scenarios – the staging of a noble-bourgeois marriage and an impoverished noble vulnerable to bourgeois creditors – are depicted in the Chanson to explain Hugh’s hybrid origins. Hugh Capet’s father, Richier, a noble and a respected adviser to the late king Louis, married a bourgeoise, the daughter of a butcher. As the Chanson recounts it, Richier fell in love with ‘[u]ne gente pucelle qui ot non Beatris; / Tant estoit belle et douce car si en fu sourpris / Ly noblez chevallier qui sen cuer y ot mis / Qu’i le fist demander adont par cez amis / Au pere le pucelle qui d’avoir fu garnis’ [a gracious maid named Beatrice. She was so beautiful and sweet that he was swept away, the noble knight who had entrusted his heart to her, so that he had his friends ask the maid’s father, who was endowed with great wealth, for her hand] (57–61). Robert Bossuat has opined that the author of the Chanson attempted to attenuate the misalliance of Hugh’s parents by inscribing their union within the framework of courtly love. In fact, the author offers two reasons for Richier’s marriage: love and money. To be sure, Richier ‘ama par amours,’ and Beatrice was ‘gente,’ ‘belle,’ and ‘douce.’ But no less noteworthy is the description of her father, who was ‘d’avoir fu garnis’ [endowed with great wealth], and was ‘ly plus riche de trestout le païs’ [the most rich in all the country] (61, 62). From a practical standpoint Richier benefits from his wife’s wealth, while his motives for marrying her can be neatly ascribed to the exalted sentiments that distinguish nobles from bourgeois. The Chanson will repeatedly put forth this curious model for noble conduct in which the nobles profit from the bourgeoisie, while retaining the privileges of their rank. Beatrice’s dowry did not go far, it would seem, for like many historical nobles, Hugh soon finds himself in debt. After seven years of jousts and tournaments Hugh accumulates so many debts that he is threatened with imprisonment (21–7). He leaves his native country to escape his creditors, and becomes a mercenary knight in Hainaut, Brabant, and Germany. Thus, the validity of the intradiegetic nobles’ complaints about bourgeois usurpation of their societal role is borne out by the

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experience of Hugh himself, who has been displaced from his ancestral lands by bourgeois creditors. Hugh’s decision to become a mercenary realistically depicts the options available to poor nobles, as the Free Companies, which were to become the scourge of France for decades to come, were populated in part by just such impoverished nobles. Hugh first goes to Paris, where he asks his maternal uncle, Simon, whom he has never met, to establish him in a princely household.30 Simon immediately observes that Hugh does not maintain the noble lifestyle of his father.31 The disjuncture between Hugh and his noble roots is further highlighted when Simon offers to teach Hugh his trade and to make him his heir, essentially calling on Hugh to reject his noble lineage and to embrace his bourgeois roots, an offer that Hugh flatly rejects. The young man has been raised as a noble and has mastered the use of arms, which is the only career he wishes to pursue.32 Hugh makes a second, more specific, request for financial assistance, asking his uncle for new clothing, a falcon, hunting dogs, and a minstrel to amuse him. The exasperated Simon gives Hugh a bag of money and, with manifest relief, watches him ride off. Thus, in their first meeting Hugh’s nobility is challenged by Simon, and just as adamantly claimed by Hugh, who rejects a bourgeois life as utterly unfit for him (though he happily receives some bourgeois funds). The second meeting between Hugh and Simon unfolds in a very different manner. Hugh, weighed down with the rich gifts of the grateful count Sauvaige, whose daughter he had saved, makes an impressive appearance. Seeing Hugh both handsome and well turned-out, Simon welcomes him joyfully. After hearing of his adventures Simon determines that Hugh is likely to bring him honour, and he wishes to play a role in the young man’s presumed rise. Simon has become much wealthier in the years since their first meeting, and is now the richest bourgeois in Paris. His second proposal to Hugh is a far cry from the first: ‘Vous demorez o moy, je vous pri(e) douchement, / S’aray de vous honneur et je vous ay couvent / Que ravoir vous feray vo terre quitement / Et pour l’amour de vous leveray estat gent / Et vo vous maintenrez oussy honestement, / Joustez, tournois et festez sieuwez hardiement; / Vous serez honorez partout moult hautement’ [You will stay with me, I humbly beseech you. I will derive honour from you, and I promise that I will reclaim your lands for you free and clear, and for love of you will raise you to a noble status, and will maintain you honestly. You will boldly attend jousts, tournaments, and festivities, and you will be highly honoured everywhere] (574–80). Simon essentially

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offers money in exchange for the prestige of an intimate noble connection, an arrangement that recalls marriage agreements between wealthy bourgeois and impoverished nobles, in particular the marriage of Hugh’s own parents. Hugh gladly accepts this arrangement, which honours his noble ancestry and assures him of a noble future. Thus, the social harmony touted by readers such as Albert Gier is achieved in the Chanson, and emblematized by the hybrid descent of its hero, but on limited terms. The bourgeoisie have important and respected roles to play – financially, politically, and militarily – but the text clearly maintains the distinction between the bourgeoisie and the nobility, as well as the pre-eminence of the latter. This simultaneous valorization and circumscription of the bourgeoisie helped to reassure noble audiences about the security of their own position in society. The exploitation of bourgeois capabilities does not mean allowing them to assume the place of the nobility, just as the election of Hugh Capet does not constitute a takeover of royal power. The Chanson is careful to show that the advancement of Hugh and of the bourgeoisie benefits France without threatening nobles’ rights. Noble anxiety about the usurpation of their political function – and of the crown – is depicted in the final battle. When the rebellious duke of Burgundy sees Hugh bearing the armes fleurdelisées, he thinks that the Parisians have crowned him king, and exclaims with stupefaction that the people of Paris are playing the roles of both shepherd and sheep (4067). As the principal peer of France, the duke of Burgundy should have played a prominent role in the selection of a new king. The fact that the Parisians appear to have done so independently constitutes a very threatening appropriation of the nobility’s most important right and responsibility, one that the Chanson is careful not to attribute to Hugh. On the battlefield he explains that he is wearing the arms of France one time only at the specific command of Blanchefleur, and that his use of the armes fleurdelisées, normally reserved for the king, does not imply his succession. Of course the hostile nobles surrounding the city are not privy to this fine distinction, and they assume that Hugh has been crowned without their knowledge or consent. It might seem that these feelings of resentment and hostility are manifested only by the ‘bad’ nobles, those who have rebelled against Blanchefleur, and that such feelings are therefore not representative. However, we have seen that the count of Dammartin, constable of France and Blanchefleur’s loyal supporter, initially disdained the bourgeoisie’s military power, and Hugh himself, despite his own hybrid ori-

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gins, reveals an ambivalent attitude towards the bourgeoisie. The text’s conflicted depiction of the bourgeoisie is related to the complex events of 1356–8, ‘cest temps que les trois estas avoient emprins le gouvernement du royaume’ [that time when the three estates had undertaken the government of the kingdom].33 These years witnessed the increasing authority of the Estates, the rise to power of Étienne Marcel, the direct challenge of Charles de Navarre to the legitimacy of the Valois dynasty, the siege of Paris, and, finally, the assassination of Étienne Marcel and the acclamation of the dauphin Charles into Paris. Here, I wish to focus on one aspect of this period – the very new position of the bourgeoisie following the French defeat at Poitiers.34 The bourgeoisie certainly had aspirations to power before these years, as well as ties to royal authority, as we have seen in relation to the Hanse. Yet it was the vacuum of power following Poitiers that enabled the bourgeoisie – within the framework of the Estates – to explore the possibilities and the limits of their capabilities in an actual, rather than a theoretical, context. Jean II, secretive and jealous of his authority even under normal circumstances, was a prisoner of the English. He had not made Charles regent, or endowed him with the slightest authority, and had even tried to impede any action on the part of the nobility or the Estates in his absence, forbidding the raising of new taxes and the convocation of the Estates. It was as though he imagined that he could somehow immobilize events in France until his return. Charles, though not regent until March of 1358, still wielded a certain amount of power by virtue of his birth, yet he was only eighteen years old at the battle of Poitiers and, as some apparently presumed, might easily be manipulated.35 The period of governance by the Estates, led largely by Étienne Marcel and the bourgeoisie of Paris, was characterized by uncertainty, tension, and shifting alliances, all of which is reflected in the Chanson’s contradictory and ambivalent portrait of the bourgeoisie.36 A 1358–60 dating of the Chanson would situate the text shortly after the 1358 Paris uprising against the dauphin, Charles, led by Étienne Marcel in collaboration with Charles de Navarre, who was declared ‘Captain of Paris’ and who hired English mercenaries to ‘defend’ Paris from the dauphin’s forces, camped outside the city. The spring of 1358 also witnessed the Jacquerie, a peasant rebellion (supported discreetly by Étienne Marcel) that terrorized the nobility for a period of several weeks, as well as the bourgeois attack on Meaux, where the dauphiness, her daughter, and other noblewomen were lodged. All these events were of an order that might have led observers to question the

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loyalty of the Parisian bourgeoisie to the king, and especially to the Valois. After a tense standoff, the outcome of which was not a foregone conclusion, Étienne Marcel was assassinated and the bourgeoisie welcomed the dauphin Charles into the city.37 Following this change of heart, their previous desertion of Charles made it incumbent upon the Parisian bourgeoisie to demonstrate their unwavering loyalty to the Valois monarchy, and it is within this framework that the Chanson’s depiction of unerring bourgeois loyalty may be understood.38 The vision of ideal bourgeois–noble relations that emerges from the Chanson may be compared to the understanding of society proposed by John of Salisbury in his Policraticus (1159). In this work John of Salisbury elaborated the corporeal metaphor of the kingdom, in which the various elements of medieval society were likened to the different parts of the body. In this vision each part, however humble, was accorded a certain dignity. Accordingly, the author of the Chanson is not proposing that the arms become the head, but that each part of the body politic be allowed to fulfil its duties to the best of its abilities and, more important, that each part be respected for its efforts. The Chanson participates in a current of political thought that proposes a new ideal for relations between king, nobles, and bourgeoisie, one in which loyalty to the king, combined with the harmonious interaction of all parts of the social body, would result in peace for France.39 Genealogy and Kinship One of the most striking aspects of both the literary and the historical Hugh Capet is the socially hybrid descent attributed to the founder of the Capetian dynasty. The first written reference to Hugh Capet as a butcher, or descended from butchers, occurs in Dante’s Purgatorio 20.40 Charles Singleton believes that Dante did not invent the idea, but exploited an existing legend to mock and discredit the Capetian dynasty.41 Ferdinand Lot has suggested that the legend originated in Paris and was intended in part to exalt the bourgeoisie and its role in Hugh Capet’s succession to the throne. Gianni Mombello likewise believes that the legend originated in France, in a cultivated milieu. Robert Bossuat argues that it seems more logical to attribute the invention of such an unflattering legend to lands hostile to France, probably those under Hohenstaufen domination at the end of the thirteenth century. Noëlle Laborderie prefers to see the legend as the creation of Italians adverse to the intervention of the ambitious Charles d’Anjou. Bernard

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Ribémont and Michel Salvat likewise situate the origins of the butcher legend in the thirteenth century, and agree that it was perceived as derogatory.42 Whatever its origin, Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski rightly affirms that one of the significant accomplishments of the Chanson ‘is to transform the potentially damaging legend into a celebration of a new social harmony which made possible the beginning of a new dynasty’ (35). How can a work that draws on a disparaging legend, one that emphasizes the purported bourgeois associations of the first Capetian, possibly function as a legitimizing text for the fledgling and besieged Valois dynasty? In order to propose a response to this question I will investigate how the text’s presentation of the butcher legend relates to questions of lineage and origins, and how it reflects others’ perceptions of Hugh as well as his own self-presentation. I will then turn to the depiction of kinship and loyalty, focusing on the family networks of Savary and Blanchefleur. The butcher legend has a literal connotation in the text – Hugh is indeed related to a family of wealthy butchers – as well as a figurative one – Hugh slaughters the kingdom’s enemies as efficiently as a butcher does his animals. Thus, Hugh’s nickname operates on two different levels, and throughout the Chanson various factions highlight one or the other of these two meanings. In his first mention of Hugh the narrator calls upon his listeners to hear the story of a warrior whose story one should esteem and praise (7–8); it is the tale of none other than ‘Huëz Capez c’on apelle bouchier’ [Hugh Capet, whom they call the Butcher] (11). The narrator does not say that Hugh was a butcher, but that he was called the Butcher, and since he was a great fighter the audience might presume that this nickname derives from his effectiveness in battle. Indeed, the narrator goes on to specify that Hugh knew little about butchery, for he was a gentleman and the son of a knight (12–13). Thus, the initial presentation of Hugh Capet affirms his nobility, and allows the audience to understand his nickname to be purely figurative. It is only in the second laisse that the narrator tells the story of Hugh’s parents’ marriage, including his mother’s bourgeois roots.43 The Chanson does not seek to deny the butcher legend. Instead, it undermines its credibility as a political weapon by shedding light on its origins, establishing that Hugh himself was emphatically not a butcher, and suggesting that the true source of the nickname was Hugh’s knightly prowess.44 Hugh’s socially hybrid status causes him to stand apart from the groups he associates with. The bourgeoisie perceive him as superior,

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worthy to be their leader despite his recent arrival in Paris, while the nobles – even those who support him – focus on his bourgeois roots like a curiosity with which they cannot quite come to terms. The constable refers to Hugh as ‘ce bourgois’ (1491), and Drogue, when pointing out the illustrious Hugh, describes first his bourgeois extraction, and secondarily his noble one.45 Curiously, Hugh himself sometimes emphasizes one side or the other of his heritage, depending on the circumstances and his interlocutors. We have seen that he distinguishes himself from his bourgeois uncle Simon, and his undesirable trade. Likewise, at the meeting of the bourgeoisie Hugh vociferously contradicts the ‘excellent’ (834) bourgeois who recommends giving Marie to Savary. However, in interactions with the nobility Hugh often emphasizes his modest origins. When he presents himself to the constable, he first mentions his bourgeois roots, and then his noble ones (1361–2), and when Blanchefleur asks him to wear the armes fleurdelisées, he protests that there are others, more noble and wealthy than he, who are better suited to such an honour (3690–5). In this way, Hugh functions as an outsider with respect to both the bourgeoisie and the nobility. Hugh is unmatched, almost sui generis, and his exceptional nature will be used, as we shall see, to explain and justify the unprecedented manner of his succession. Despite the text’s obsession with Hugh’s family origins, and his oftmentioned hybrid genealogy, Hugh sometimes seems to have sprung from nowhere. His parents are both dead at the beginning of the Chanson, and his many alleged relatives are nowhere in sight. Simon tells Hugh that on his father’s side he has many highly placed relations (581), but not a single one ever appears in the text. Moreover, Simon continues, through his mother Hugh is related to some of Paris’s finest bourgeois (582–4), yet these too remain shadowy figures. While Hugh does have a bourgeois following, no one is mentioned as a family member with the exception of Simon, who, once he has established Hugh on the stage of Parisian public affairs, effectively disappears from the text. Hugh’s only family seems to be his own self-created one, his band of bastard sons, who come to Paris to support his endeavours and to share in his good fortune. Albert Gier has shown that Hugh’s sons function as a microcosm of the harmonious cooperation of noble and bourgeois efforts that the Chanson proposes as an ideal. Though of varying social strata, the brothers pool their resources and work together towards their common advancement and that of France.46 Gier does not discuss the role of the king in this microcosm, but it is simple enough to draw an analogy be-

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tween Hugh the biological father of ten sons and Hugh the figurative father of the French people. Hugh’s sons are like subjects, constituted solely in relation to the king, to whom they owe their allegiance. In turn, the king is expected, like a father, to love and protect his children. Hugh’s apparent lack of family forms a marked contrast with Savary’s extensive family connections, which are critical to his political and military undertaking. Savary bases his pretensions to the throne on his wealth and prominent lineage, and his military power depends in large part on his extended family and network of allies.47 Unlike Hugh, whose ancestors remain obscure and who is assisted only by his offspring, Savary’s relatives come from far and wide to second his claim to the throne and, later, to continue the military effort led by Fedry.48 Blanchefleur also belongs to a broad family network from whom she requests aid.49 Her nephew, Drogue of Venice, comes to her assistance with a great army and eventually turns the tide against Fedry and his forces, who greatly outnumbered the Parisians. Both Savary and Blanchefleur rely on their family alliances to help them in their political and military struggle. Drogue also thinks in terms of family alliances and how they might be turned to his advantage when he notes to himself that Hugh ‘seroit moult bien dignez c’on fust a lui enclin / Et qu’il fut couronnez de couronne d’or fin; / Se je puis esploitier, j’en feray men cousin’ [would be worthy of being obeyed, and of being crowned with fine gold. If I can make it work, I’ll make him my cousin] (3285–7). Indeed, Drogue’s foresight and strategic planning pay off, for after his coronation Hugh sends several of his sons at the head of a vast army to assist Drogue in his war against the pagans. Like many chansons de geste, the Chanson explores the positive and negative aspects of family loyalty, and the potential for conflict between faithfulness to kin and to king. Devotion to one’s family is presented as a given and, initially, appears to be positively connotated. Hugon de Vauvenisse takes Hugh into his employ because he is French, and Hugon has many relatives in France. Later, we learn that Fedry and Savary are among Hugon’s French relations, and Hugon dutifully answers their summons when they find themselves in need. This prompt and virtually automatic response to one’s family accounts for the importance of Savary’s numerous relations, and the emphasis on how enparenté he is.50 This notion is not unique to the traitors, for as one of Hugh’s sons says to his brothers, ‘[N]ous somez tous frerez, c’est drois c’on s’esvertue / Et aidier ly ung l’autre sans ce c’on y arguë’ [We are all brothers, and it is right that we should strive to help one another

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without anyone finding fault] (2711–12). The appropriateness of fidelity to one’s family appears unassailable. However, the Chanson shows how unreflective allegiance to one’s family can place one in a precarious position vis à vis the throne. The contradictions that can arise between fidelity to family and to monarch are best illustrated by Fedry’s continuation of the war against Blanchefleur after Savary’s death. When Hugh, before the peers of France, calls upon Fedry and Asselin to justify their treasonous actions towards Blanchefleur, they cite family allegiance as the reason for their conduct. Fedry explains that after his brother’s death at the hands of Hugh, ‘Manday pour ly vengier et parens et amis; / Se je le ving vengier avec[quez] mez amis, / N’en doy estre blamez dez grans ne dez petis, / Car mez frerez estoit, si fu preus et gentis’ [To avenge him, I sent for my relatives and friends, and I came to avenge him with my friends. For this I should not be blamed by great or small, for he was my brother, and he was courageous and noble] (4713–16). When Hugh points out that Savary was a traitor and an accused murderer besides, Fedry replies, ‘Je ne say se mez frerez dont j’ay telz molz oïs / Fu lerez ne traÿtrez ne recreant fallis, / Mais a tort et a droit, ce sachiez, c’est mez dis, / Doit on toudis aidier cez bons carneulz amis’ [I do not know if my brother, of whom I have heard such words spoken, was a villain or a traitor or a faithless coward, but wrongly or rightly, know this, for it is my statement, one must always help one’s good blood relations] (4724–7). Fedry couches his defence in the language of a universal truth, one that evidently resounds with his noble audience, for Hugh sees that the peers are sympathetic to Fedry’s justification. Thus, the Chanson problematizes what is apparently a virtue: loyalty to one’s family. The traitors demonstrate an automatic, clan-like fidelity to one another, regardless of their duty towards Hugh and the allegiance they have sworn him. This network of alliances that excludes, and even opposes, the king creates centrifugal forces within the kingdom that lead to civil war. Even those nobles who side with Hugh are torn between sympathy for the traitors, whose values they understand and perhaps share, and allegiance towards their king, whose political supremacy they have recognized. Such ambivalence captures the tension and contradictions of the mid-fourteenth century, caught between traditional51 ideas about networks of power and allegiance – those more often associated with earlier medieval periods and manifested by Fedry and his companions, in which a nobleman’s primary duty was to his immediate lord, and not necessarily to his king, or to his lord’s lord –

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and the emergence of new ideas about monarchy and the appropriate relationship between king and nobility, one in which even princes of the blood52 are first and foremost subjects of the king. The efforts of advocates of a strong central monarchy to impose the primacy of the king resulted in a slow and fitful transformation of ‘vassals’ or ‘men’ into ‘subjects.’53 Strong kings, such as Philippe-Auguste, the adult Louis IX, and Philippe le Bel sought to consolidate and fortify the power of the king against that of the barons, while young, weak, or contested kings, such as Philippe VI, were often obliged to share their power with the nobility. Thus, the gradual centralization of monarchical power is more accurately viewed as a kind of back and forth movement rather than as a triumphant, linear progression. The power struggles of king and barons were often the subject of chansons de geste, and so by condemning the rebellious nobles and promoting the authority of Hugh Capet, the Chanson is positioning itself within a specific and established literary tradition. If Savary, Fedry, and their allies remain attached to ‘feudal’ conventions, other characters in the Chanson illustrate alternative models of conduct. When Drogue of Venice receives his aunt’s plea for help, he embarks right away for France but does not immediately join the Parisian forces. Rather, he seeks to discover why the queen is so hated by her nobles. Unlike Fedry, who does not consider the merits of his brother’s argument with Blanchefleur, Drogue investigates the causes of the dispute before going to his aunt’s aid. In fact, when he sees the large number of people who have risen up against her, he wonders what she can possibly have done to elicit such anger on the part of her barons.54 Only once he has determined that Blanchefleur does have justice on her side does Drogue provide military and strategic reinforcement, thereby demonstrating that family loyalty need not be automatic or unreflective. The count of Dammartin, constable of France, exemplifies loyalty to one’s sovereign, for he remains faithful to the queen in spite of his family connections, which link him to Savary and Fedry. This causes considerable resentment on the part of Fedry, who remarks angrily, ‘Ly quens de Danmartin ne nous aime ung bouton / Et c’est de no lynaige, tant fait plus mesprison’ [The count of Dammartin does not love us one jot, and he is of our lineage, which makes the fault that much greater] (2239–40).55 The constable’s loyalty is much more remarkable than Hugh’s, for while Hugh can only benefit from his alliance with Blanchefleur, the count has chosen loyalty to his queen over loyalty to

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his own family, and has effectively been forced to renounce a number of his relations in order to remain a faithful subject of Blanchefleur. The various relationships between the queen and her nobles illustrate the gradual and fitful evolution from a conception of society dominated by complex and overlapping networks of allegiance and alliance towards one characterized by obedience to the king before all others. Savary and his family remain enmeshed in these more traditional relationships. Their king (or regent, in this case) is their lord, but not one to whom they owe allegiance when they feel they have been wronged. The count of Dammartin, in contrast, constitutes himself essentially as a subject of the crown, to which he owes his unconditional obedience and support. While late-medieval nobles are evolving from ‘vassals’ or ‘men’ into subjects, the status of the king is undergoing changes of its own. As Ernst Kantorowicz has described, the idea of the crown is gradually abstracted from that of the king, the crown representing not any individual ruler, but the office or institution of kingship.56 This metamorphosis is evidenced in the Chanson by the changes in the manner in which people refer to Hugh. In the early part of the text Hugh’s supporters routinely and affectionately use his nickname.57 Once Blanchefleur has made Hugh duke of Orléans, his supporters call him the ‘duc d’Orlïens’ (2491, 2601, 3225, 3252) or ‘ce nobille marquis’ (3349). After his coronation he is called ‘Ly rois Huëz’ (4681), ‘ly bon rois Huëz’ (4773), or ‘le noble roy Huon’ (5695). In fact, following Hugh’s coronation, the references to him as king become almost obsessively frequent, occurring more than 140 times in the final third of the text (approximately 1700 lines).58 Thus, Hugh starts out being referred to by his nickname, a moniker that is more personal and individual than a given name, for it relates to an aspect of personality or conduct. At the end of the Chanson, Hugh is designated as a function of his office. Only Hugh’s enemies continue to focus on the literal aspect of his nickname, attributing to Hugh the trade of butcher in an attempt to demean him and to deny his status as king.59 The Chanson’s staging of family versus monarchical loyalty, and feudal versus centralized monarchy, would certainly have resounded with contemporary readers. The struggle between Charles de Navarre and the dauphin Charles that divided Paris in the late 1350s was a family matter at heart,60 one in which cousins disputed a question of hereditary right.61 From the moment of the king of Navarre’s release from prison in November 1357 to the dauphin’s victorious return to Paris on 31 July 1358, the two Charleses struggled for political, military, and

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moral supremacy, drawing bourgeoisie, nobles, prelates, and the University of Paris into their conflict.62 The French nobles who supported Charles de Navarre, like Fedry’s allies, did so at the expense of their loyalty to the French crown. For many French nobles, the ÉvreuxNavarre/Valois conflict forced them to choose between family ties and monarchical loyalty, and the relatively even division of strength between the two Charleses reveals what a bitter and difficult choice this was. Through its presentation and examination of civil war, safely relegated to the realm of the distant past, the Chanson de Hugues Capet explores issues of family versus monarchical allegiance, and illustrates and interprets various responses to the dilemma of where one should place one’s loyalty. Not surprisingly, the Chanson comes down on the side of the crown, placing a premium on faithfulness to one’s sovereign, and subordinating family loyalty to this higher duty. It is just such devotion to the crown that the nascent Valois dynasty hoped to inspire in its subjects, in particular its noble ones.63 As the elite of society, the nobles set an example to be followed by others, and, as illustrated by the Chanson as well as by the events of 1356–8, their privileging of personal or family interests at the expense of royal ones endangers the entire kingdom. The text’s emphasis on the butcher legend and Hugh’s bourgeois roots highlights the improbable fact of Hugh’s election as king. Once he has been chosen, reverence, allegiance, and loyalty are due to the king not only by virtue of his qualities, but also and more importantly because of the office that he occupies. It is to the mechanism of this choosing that we next shall turn. ‘La fille n’y aroit une pomme pourie’: Salic Law and the ‘Reditus’ in Hugues Capet We have seen that the Chanson’s principal conflict centres around royal succession and dynastic legitimacy. The text stages very explicitly the dangers of female rule and succession: Blanchefleur, the regent, cannot defend the kingdom; Marie is presumed to be unable to rule, and is clearly powerless to protect her rights or her person.64 The dispute over her hand, and the throne, results in civil war. Following Hugh’s coronation and anointing, a ‘parlemens de le grant signourie’ [meeting of the great nobles] (4601) provides the future solution to similar dilemmas by articulating what will come to be known, over the course of the fourteenth century, as Salic law. This group delineates the principles that

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will govern the selection of an heir should the reigning king fail to leave male progeny, including the unambiguous stipulation that royal daughters cannot claim even ‘une pomme pourie’ [a rotten apple] (4609).65 The Chanson also illustrates another explanation of dynastic authority and continuity, one that, from a logical standpoint, is at odds with Salic law: the reditus regni Francorum ad stirpem Karoli, or, the return of the reign of the Franks/French to the lineage of Charlemagne. The reditus associated the Capetian and Carolingian dynasties through female lineages, while the so-called Salic law forbade succession by, or by means of, a woman.66 In the Chanson Hugh benefits from the former, while instituting the latter. In this manner the text affirms the legitimacy of the Valois succession to the throne – effected in strict accordance with the directives established under the reign of their Capetian forefather – as well as the fundamental unity and continuity of the French royal line. In this section I will examine the election of Hugh Capet in light of fourteenth-century political debates concerning election versus hereditary succession. In addition, I will review the development and principal tenets of both the reditus and Salic law, and will explore how these legitimizing myths were employed and transformed over the course of subsequent generations. Finally, I will consider how these two mutually exclusive doctrines of political legitimization function together in the Chanson de Hugues Capet to uphold the tenuous authority of the Valois dynasty. The Chanson emphasizes that Hugh’s election was based on his noble conduct and exceptional military capabilities, and not on family connections or hereditary right. As Hugh reminds the nobles, ‘Je suy rois couronnez de France le royon, / Non mie par oirrie ne par estrasïon, / Mais par le vostre gré et vostre elexïon’ [I am the crowned king of the kingdom of France not by heredity or lineage, but by your will and your election] (4639–41). Indeed, he is elected in spite of his mixed family origins. Yet later we learn that Hugh’s son Robert succeeded him, and reigned for thirty-four years (6354–5).67 In this manner the Chanson combines principles of election and hereditary succession. Philippe Contamine has observed that the questions concerning the place of women in succession raised by the dynastic crises of 1316 and 1328 formed part of a more general and ongoing debate about the relative merits of election and hereditary succession. Political thinkers were divided on this topic, with writers including Gilbert of Tournai, Giles of Rome, and Jacques de Cessoles coming down on the side of hereditary succession, and Marsiglio of Padua and the jurist Bartolus on that of

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election, while still others favoured some combination of the two.68 In his translation of and commentary on Aristotle’s Politics (c. 1370–4), Nicole Oresme proposed that a superior lineage be elected by the elite members of the society, and that hereditary succession govern from that point on.69 This is precisely the process followed in the Chanson, as well as in the establishment of the Valois dynasty.70 Like Hugh Capet, Philippe VI was elected, and then succeeded by his son. In this respect the Valois succession adheres to the model established by Hugh Capet, and this parallel lends support to the Valois at a time when the legitimacy of their rule was under attack from competing claims by both Edward III of England and Charles II de Navarre. With regard to the application of Salic law to royal succession, and in particular to the events of the fourteenth century, it is important to remember that the dynastic crisis of 1328 was not the only to occur during the final years of Capetian rule; it was preceded by that of 1316, which followed the death of Louis X, the eldest son of Philippe le Bel (see the genealogical table in the appendix). When he died Louis X left a daughter, Jeanne, and a pregnant wife, Clemence. Clemence gave birth to a son, Jean I, who died in infancy. Jeanne de France was only four years old in 1316 and, moreover, was of suspect legitimacy.71 Since Louis X’s brother, Philippe, acted as regent during Clemence’s pregnancy and during the short life of Jean I, he was well positioned to assume the title of king despite the opposition of young Jeanne’s grandmother, Agnès de Bourgogne, daughter of Saint Louis, her granduncle, Eudes de Bourgogne, as well as his own uncle and brother.72 It was at this time that Philippe’s partisans declared that in the kingdom of France women were not to succeed to the throne. Following Philippe’s coronation in January 1317, a meeting of nobles, prelates, and bourgeoisie was convened to discuss the issue of succession. The doctors of the University of Paris held that Philippe was better suited than his niece to reign since he was separated by only two generations from Saint Louis, and the young Jeanne by three. When Philippe V died in 1322 leaving four daughters, his brother, Charles, ascended to the throne without question or objection. The issue of succession became substantially more complicated when Charles IV died in February 1328 leaving, like his brother Louis X, a daughter and a pregnant wife. Philippe de Valois, the cousin of Charles IV, Philippe V, and Louis X, was selected by the nobles to act as regent during the pregnancy of Jeanne d’Évreux, and upon the birth of a second daughter, he succeeded in having himself elected king.73 Despite

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the similarities between this succession and that of Philippe V, there were also significant differences. Louis X left behind brothers – sons, they too, of Philippe le Bel. Charles IV had no more brothers, though he did have a nephew, Edward III – son of Isabelle of France and Edward II of England and grandson of Philippe le Bel – with apparently legitimate claims to the French throne. For Philippe de Valois, it was easier to be elected by the French nobles than to have his election accepted by the other pretendant to the throne. Perhaps hoping for political or territorial concessions similar to those made to Jeanne de France, rather than the throne itself, Edward III formally articulated his rights to the French throne in 1328.74 Since the French did not wish to have a foreign king, especially one who held his continental possessions from the king of France, it was necessary to demonstrate that Edward’s claims were unfounded.75 Although the nobles and prelates did not invoke Salic law per se at this time, they declared that, logically speaking, a woman could not transmit a right she could not hold, and therefore Edward was not eligible to rule. Still, Edward resisted swearing homage to the new king. He finally did so in June 1329, perhaps influenced by Philippe VI’s resounding victory at Cassel on 23 August 1328.76 In March 1331 the English recognized Edward’s homage to be liege, apparently laying to rest the debate surrounding the Valois succession. In 1337, however, renewed tension between the French and the English prompted Edward III to reassert his claims to the French throne, leading to the beginning of what would come to be called the Hundred Years’ War. Over the course of the war, depending on the status of relations between the French and the English, Edward III and his successors would periodically renounce and reassert their claim to the throne. As part of the peace of Calais in 1360, Edward relinquished his claim to sovereignty over France in exchange for massive territorial concessions. However, in the momentary absence of Edward’s challenge, another pretendant stepped in to dispute the legitimacy of the Valois dynasty: Charles II de Navarre. Although Edward III and the English are conventionally perceived as the more serious danger to France, in the 1350s Charles de Navarre actually posed a greater threat to Valois legitimacy.77 Born in 1332 and crowned king of Navarre in 1350, Charles II was the intelligent and ambitious son of Jeanne de France, the passed-over daughter of Louis X. If anything, Charles’s claim was even more compelling than that of Edward III, for the former descended from the eldest son of Philippe le Bel. Moreover, Charles was French, and was also the clear intellectual

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and military superior of his rival, Jean II. Since his coronation in 1350, Jean II had done little to solidify the legitimacy of the Valois dynasty. Between his questionable treatment of certain nobles and confiscation of their lands,78 his frequent monetary manipulations, which hurt those who depended on fixed rents, and his resounding defeat at Poitiers, Jean II had placed the Valois dynasty in a more precarious position than the one in which he had found it. Those discontented with Jean II’s rule centred their hopes on Charles de Navarre. With Jean II a prisoner in Bordeaux and then in England, the young, unempowered dauphin Charles was left to struggle with Charles de Navarre over the issue of dynastic legitimacy. The Chanson de Hugues Capet situates itself squarely within this conflict, and makes a forceful argument for Valois legitimacy through its unique deployment of the reditus and Salic law. Since it is the older of the two legitimizing doctrines, I will first turn to the reditus. The transition from the Carolingian to the Capetian dynasty provoked reactions ranging from rejoicing to discomfort to hostility. Bernard Guenée has observed that in the wake of the Capetian succession only the kings’ enemies evoked their genealogy, to shame them, while partisans of the Capetians avoided the topic.79 The Valerian prophecy foretold that the Capetians would rule until the seventh generation, suggesting that another dynastic change would then ensue.80 In the seventh generation Philippe Auguste married Isabelle (or Elisabeth) of Hainault, daughter of Baldwin V of Hainault and a direct descendent of Charlemagne. The ascension of their son, Louis VIII, in 1223 marked the start of a new dynasty, one that united (or so the rhetoric went) the Capetian and the Carolingian lines and restored the legitimacy of the French royal line, compromised by Hugh Capet’s questionable ascension of 987. The legitimizing value of the reditus was problematic from a number of viewpoints, however. For one thing, in sanctioning the Capetian line from Philippe Auguste (or Louis VIII) onward it put into question the legitimacy of the previous Capetian kings, those who ruled before the dynasty had rejoined the Carolingian line. Elizabeth Brown has noted that Philippe le Bel and Philippe V rejected the reditus, claiming that Hugh Capet was descended, through his mother, from the Carolingians, and was therefore a legitimate claimant to the throne.81 In addition, there was nothing spectacularly new about the Carolingian descent of Philippe Auguste’s bride. Most, if not all, of the preceding Capetian kings had married women who could claim Carolingian descent, and so it was something of an exaggeration to suggest that the two families were suddenly reunited in the seventh generation of Capetian rule.82

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In the Chanson, Hugh’s marriage to Marie clearly evokes the reditus. Although the text adamantly states that Hugh becomes king by means of his election and not by means of his marriage to Marie, their union nonetheless provides added legitimacy to Hugh’s succession. Unlike the actual reditus, in which the Capetian and Carolingian lines were not rejoined until the seventh generation, the Chanson collapses several generations of Carolingian rule by making Marie the granddaughter of Charlemagne.83 Thus, the Carolingian and Capetian lines are immediately joined by the marriage of Marie and Hugh, while the Capetian dynasty is presented as completely legitimate in its own right, and at the same time united with the Carolingian line from its very inception.84 Gabrielle Spiegel offers an alternative interpretation of the function of the reditus at the time of Philippe Auguste, specifically, that it ‘was not originally aimed at dynastic legitimization. Rather, it took its impulse from the momentous events occurring during the reign of Philip Augustus and the consequences, both territorial and intellectual, of his stunning conquests.’85 Spiegel notes, first, that Hugh Capet and previous Capetians already had ties to the Carolingian dynasty; second, that by the time of Louis VII and Philippe Auguste, the Capetians had clearly established the principle of hereditary succession and their right to rule; and, finally, that the reditus was more significant as a part of a full-fledged Carolingian restoration, than as a simple connection to the heirs of the great emperor. Thus, Spiegel convincingly argues, the muchcelebrated return to the Carolingian line served not to legitimize the already-powerful Capetian dynasty, but to authorize Philippe Auguste’s political and military activities by overtly and elaborately associating them with the emperor Charlemagne. A revived and illustrious link to the previous dynasty supported the political aims of the current ruler. In a similar manner, the glorification of Hugh Capet in the Chanson and the parallel between Philippe VI and his Capetian forefather authorize the Valois dynasty. The belief in a continuous French royal bloodline was fundamental to notions of royal legitimacy; Gabrielle Spiegel has written that a ‘critical aspect of the Dionysian conception of royal history was the belief ... that the three dynasties [i.e., Merovingian, Carolingian, and Capetian] to whom the realm had been entrusted were linked by ties of blood, thus providing an example of dynastic continuity enjoyed by no other peoples in western Christendom. French royal history was, so to speak, a seamless web of legitimate rule.’86 The task facing the Valois was to integrate themselves into this seamless web by showing that they were the only family who could legitimately rule

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France. The Chanson achieves this goal first by means of the parallel between the elections of Hugh Capet and Philippe de Valois. By venerating the exploits of Hugh Capet, emphasizing his merits, and presenting election as a unique and supremely legitimate form of succession, deployed for a unique king, the Chanson simultaneously fortifies and exalts the Valois succession. At the same time, the Chanson’s articulation of Salic law by the ‘parlemens de le grant signourie’ (4601) also authorizes the Valois king by designating Philippe de Valois as the only legitimate successor to Charles IV, some three hundred years before his coronation. After Hugh Capet’s coronation and anointing, the lords of the realm discuss the causes of the civil war and the ways to avoid similar crises in the future. Despite her undisputed right to the throne Marie became a pawn in the struggle for France, not even the prize herself, but a mere means to an end. In order to avoid such discord in the future, the French nobles swore at their parliament that women would have no part in succession, and could neither hold nor transmit the throne: ... s’en Franche avoit roy qui ne laissast en vie Hoir malle aprez se mort, la cose fu jugie: La fille n’y aroit une pomme pourie, For ceulle le douaire ou seroit adrechie, Ainchois prenderoit on en la quinte lignie Ung prinche de ce sanc de le roial partie; Au jugement dez pers de Franche le garnie, En feroient ung roy tenant la signourie, Que mais famme en tenist deree ne demye Ne qu’elle fust en France con roïne servie. (4607–16) [if in France there were a king who did not leave, upon his death, a living male heir, it was decided thusly: the daughter would not have so much as a rotten apple, except only the goods which had been settled upon her. Instead, they would select, from as far as the fifth degree, a prince of this blood of the royal part. In the judgment of the peers of bountiful France they would make him king, holding sovereignty, but a woman would not hold the least part of it, nor in France might she be served as a queen.]

This decision ‘la fu saiellet, n’est nulz qui le desdie, / De la cort dez barons et par foy fianchie’ [was sealed there and faithfully promised, nor did anyone from the nobles’ council contradict it] (4617–18).87 Though

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not so named, for all intents and purposes, the principles articulated above constitute Salic law as it was understood and applied in the late Middle Ages. The so-called Salic law was part of a Franco-Germanic penal and civil law code, which comprised a series of articles originally composed at the end of the reign of the Merovingian king Clovis (481–511). The article that would become the basis for the late medieval Salic law, De allodis, addressed issues related to private inheritance, not to public law or to the transmission of the right to govern.88 In the Liber Historiae Francorum (c. 660), Frédégaire writes that Salic law was established under Pharamond, thereby creating a link between the first king and the first law. The eighth-century Gesta regum Francorum repeats this version of the origins of Salic law, as does Sigebert de Gembloux’s twelfth-century Chronographia. The text of the Salic law dealing with succession exists in two versions, both of which essentially state that the woman may have no part of the inheritance.89 When the Valois found themselves forced to defend their succession in the face of competing claims by Edward III of England and Charles II de Navarre, they sought to retroactively clarify and justify the succession of Philippe V, who had first ascended the throne based on the supposedly long-standing and undisputed custom that it could not pass to a woman. Philippe V’s succession could not be allowed to resemble a simple power play by one who clearly had more authority than his four-year-old niece or the relatives of her scandalous mother. However, it had been awkward for Philippe V himself to admit that he was instituting a new practice, for he too wished his succession to appear to be determined by French custom, and therefore indisputable, rather than the result of his own machinations. For this reason, no declaration was made following Philippe V’s succession, no new law, no summary of the problem that had arisen and the manner in which it was resolved, and, especially, no clear guidelines regarding future issues of succession were articulated. As a result, the counsellors and allies of Philippe VI, as well as the later supporters of the Valois, when confronted with the dynastic challenges raised by the Hundred Years’ War, were forced to refer, somewhat vaguely, to the ‘customs’ of France and the inclusive ‘parlements’ that had settled the earlier questions of succession.90 Still, in the face of such serious opposition from multiple sides, the supporters of the Valois needed to show beyond the shadow of a doubt that Philippe VI had been chosen justly; hence the interest of Salic law. Salic law became the basis for the a posteriori explanation and justification of

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Valois succession, and thereby of the justice of the French position in the Hundred Years’ War. The Salic laws were not unknown in the fourteenth century, yet in 1358, when Richard Lescot found in the library of Saint Denis a manuscript containing the laws, their potential utility with respect to the English challenge to Valois succession was not immediately recognized.91 From a practical standpoint, the application of this text to French royal succession posed several problems. First, the Salic laws referred to questions of ordinary succession and inheritance, not to royal succession. Second, Salic law originated in the lands of the Salian Franks, in the coastal area north of the Rhine in what is today the Netherlands, and did not apply to the kingdom of France. In order for the Salic law to be used to govern French royal succession the terra salica of the text had to be identified with the kingdom of France, while the laws themselves had to be applied only to royal successions, and not to ordinary instances of succession and inheritance, in which it was acceptable, indeed commonplace, for women to inherit or to transmit property.92 Philippe Contamine traces the references made to Salic law over the course of the fourteenth century, but affirms that it was not until the early fifteenth century that the law was invoked specifically with regard to the conflict between France and England.93 Colette Beaune, by contrast, believes that Salic law was applied to the question of the Valois succession at an earlier period than that proposed by Contamine, and specifically argues that the challenges posed by Charles de Navarre and Edward III inspired jurists and clerks in the dauphin Charles’s entourage to develop the idea that Salic law prevented women from succeeding to the French throne.94 This view is supported by the Chanson, which clearly refers to Salic law and employs it in relation to the Valois succession. The Chanson helps to resolve the dilemma of employing Frankish laws governing non-royal succession to the kingdom of France by endowing the laws with an alternative genealogy, one in which the principal points were made at the time of Hugh Capet, with the approbation of the powerful nobles of the kingdom, and were specifically intended to regulate royal succession. With respect to the barons’ council, discussed above, and its outcome, the Chanson states that the barons’ decision was sealed (saiellet), thereby indicating that the results of their discussions were recorded in writing. Thus, the Chanson grounds the tenets of Salic law in a historical reality, providing them with the

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legitimacy inherent in antiquity, describing the conditions under which the law was formulated, and claiming that the results of the nobles’ deliberations, even if the text had since been lost, had been duly recorded at the time. By simultaneously celebrating Hugh Capet, attributing Salic law to his reign, and associating it with his exploits, the Chanson reinforces the legitimacy of the Valois succession, and shows it to be founded on ancient and indisputable law, established by none other than Hugh Capet. It is interesting to note that in most historical texts the creation of Salic law is not attributed to Hugh Capet, but is said to originate variously with Pharamond, the first king, with Clovis, the first Christian king, or with Charlemagne, the great emperor. However, in one history from the late fourteenth century the formulation of Salic law is attributed to the reign of Hugh Capet. In the Chronique des quatre premiers Valois95 the chronicler, presumed to be a clerk from Rouen, writes: Et disoient les Angloiz que par l’establissement qui anciennement fut fait eu temps du roy Hue Cappet que la couronne de France devoit venir au plus prochain hoir masle, pour icelle raison disoient leur roy le plus prochain hoir masle le jour de la mort du dit roy Charles ... Et en oultre disoient les Anglois que l’en ne doit regarder se ce n’est de la partie ou costé du masle ou de la femme; maiz soit de par la femme ou de par l’omme on doit prendre et recepvoir le plus prochain hoir masle à roy. ... Ad ce dient les Françoiz que les Angloiz errent. Car du temps Hue Cappet que la constitucion fut faicte, les femmes furent privées de la couronne de France, et par ce par une raison leurs hoirs en sont privés. Dient les Françoiz que Philippe de Valloiz par les barons de France, par les prelas et par les frans bourgoiz des bonnes villes fut fait roy de France comme le plus prochain hoir masle yssu du costé de l’oir masle. (225) [And the English said that according to the agreement that formerly was made at the time of the king Hugh Capet, the crown of France should go to the closest male heir, and for this reason they said that their king was the closest male heir on the day of the death of the aforesaid king Charles [IV] ... and furthermore the English said that one should not look to see if it was on the male or the female side, but that either by a man or by a woman one should take and receive the closest male heir as king ... To this replied the French that the English were mistaken. For at the time of Hugh Capet during which the agreement was made, women were deprived of the crown

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The matter-of-fact way in which the chronicler points out the error of the English and reiterates the justification of the Valois accession to the throne indicates that by the time of the Chronique’s composition the ideas included under the rubric ‘Salic law’ had long been accepted and employed by the French. This link between Salic law and Hugh Capet in a later and altogether different sort of text than the popular Chanson suggests either that the Chanson was more widely disseminated than has been claimed or that the association between Hugh Capet and Salic law, like the butcher legend, was part of the body of popular beliefs that circulated with regard to the first Capetian. The latter theory is supported by a number of Anglo-Latin texts from the mid-fourteenth century. The first, known today as ‘An Invective against France,’ is thought to have been composed in the late 1340s, or a full decade before the presumed composition of the Chanson.96 The anonymous author of this short work attributes the establishment of Salic law to Hugh Capet, the Butcher. The others are John of Bridlington’s Prophecy, which A.G. Rigg believes to have been composed in approximately 1349–50, and John Ergom’s commentary on the Prophecy (c. 1362–4). These texts provide evidence that the butcher legend, and the idea that Hugh Capet presided over the establishment of Salic law, circulated on both sides of the Channel, and in milieux both favourable and hostile to France.97 The Chanson de Hugues Capet not only validates, but celebrates, election by staging Hugh’s unanimous acclamation as king on the basis of his remarkable personal qualities. Philippe de Valois – he, too, elected by the French nobility and father of a new dynasty – is the fourteenthcentury counterpart of the heroic Hugh Capet. Moreover, the text’s articulation of the articles of Salic law further authorizes the selection of Philippe VI as king. Philippe de Valois is the distant descendant perceived by Hugh Capet and the ‘parlemens de le grant signourie’ (4601). When the far-sighted nobles in the Chanson look across the generations into France’s future, when they formulate Salic law in order to avoid conflicts such as the one through which they have suffered, it is the Valois succession that they see, and Philippe de Valois whom they designate as their successor, thus fully integrating the Valois into the ‘seamless web of legitimate rule.’98

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Conclusion Like the texts of the chanson de geste tradition to which it lays claim, the Chanson de Hugues Capet combines humour with serious political reflections. On the one hand, the Chanson responds to a very specific political situation, demonstrating the legal and theoretical basis for the legitimacy of the Valois dynasty. The parallels between Hugh Capet and Philippe de Valois elevate the prestige of the entire Valois dynasty, suggesting that the Valois too are an illustrious and powerful ruling family. Philippe VI’s election confirms his personal merit, while his status as the closest male heir to Charles IV sanctions his hereditary right to the throne. At the same time, the Chanson also addresses broader questions of social cohesion and the relationship between the king, his barons, and the increasingly powerful bourgeoisie. The text communicates the ideas proposed by John of Salisbury’s corporeal metaphor of the kingdom: the interdependence of each part, the dignity accorded to all members, and the devotion of each part to the well-being of the whole. The Chanson advances noble-bourgeois cooperation as well as unwavering dedication to the crown as solutions both to civil discord and to the exterior threats menacing France. Furthermore, it denounces the powerful nobles’ pursuit of their own ambitions to the detriment of the common good and their loyalty to family at the expense of the throne. The ideal noble, the count of Dammartin, remains faithful to Blanchefleur in spite of family allegiances and political and military reversals. As for the bourgeoisie, whatever their actual allegiances during the events of 1356–8, the Chanson depicts them as the crown’s most loyal subjects. The text posits a forward-looking vision of monarchy, in which loyalty is owed to the king as a matter not of personal allegiance, but of institutional commitment, and in which nobles are not quasi-independent lords with the right to challenge the king’s authority, but the king’s most worthy subjects. The Chanson demonstrates an awareness of a range of complex political issues. The debate concerning the relative merits of hereditary succession versus election was long-standing. The reditus, too, had been deployed, or denounced, since at least the twelfth century. However, the application of Salic law to royal succession was completely new, and such an idea could only be articulated by a person who not only was familiar with standard questions of political theory, but who also possessed a creative intellect, someone truly at the forefront of political

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thought. These particulars, as well as the author’s detailed knowledge of the events that shook Paris in the years 1356–8, all argue in favour of the Chanson’s composition by a cleric, probably someone residing in or near Paris. In addition to his sophisticated understanding of political philosophy, the Chanson’s author also evinces a practical and politically astute character. His ideas are not addressed (exclusively) to a public of fellow clerics and educated laypeople, but are inscribed in a form designed to appeal to a broad and diverse public. The chanson de geste format, with its elements of romance and adventure, wit and gore, permits the Chanson to communicate its serious political content to a much wider audience than the limited and largely clerkly elite who might consult political treatises in Latin, or the marginally larger group who might possess or have access to historical or political manuscripts in French. By inscribing its message in a popular form the author of the Chanson contributed to the dissemination of its progressive ideas in fourteenthcentury political thought. The text’s biographical framework also contributed in important ways to the successful advancement of its political messages. Exempla were routinely used in moral and didactic works to connect the abstract to the concrete, to illustrate how to enact the practices or behaviours that were advocated by a given text. Both positive and negative exempla from the Bible, from classical texts, and from French history were believed to be uniquely well suited to showing readers the proper way to act and, more important, inspiring in them the desire to imitate or avoid the examples adduced, as appropriate. Accordingly, the Chanson is replete with exempla for any type of reader, offering models of conduct for everyone from the king to the most modest bourgeois. By expressing its political ideas in a biographical form the Chanson makes Hugh Capet the spokesperson, as it were, for Philippe VI and the Valois dynasty, showing Philippe’s election to be modelled on his own, and demonstrating that Philippe’s hereditary right to the throne is unassailable, since it was determined centuries before by the barons of France. In imitation of the Chanson, I shall now turn my attention abruptly and briefly to the east. The final sequence of the Chanson recounts how, once peace is restored in Paris and throughout France, several of Hugh’s illegitimate sons at the head of a large army assist Drogue of Venice in his struggle against the Saracens, against whom they are, naturally, victorious. Scholars have routinely criticized this episode for appearing to be tacked on. I contend that this episode is in fact carefully integrated

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into the text, and that it plays a significant role within the body of political ideas advanced by the Chanson. Drogue of Venice temporarily abandons his struggle against the Saracens in order to come to Blanchefleur’s aid. Throughout the text he expresses the hope that his good deed will be returned in kind, as indeed it is. This model of mutual aid shows that faithful allies of the French will be well treated by them in return. More important, it depicts the Christian kings and princes united against the Saracen enemy. The fact that crusade represents the expected consequence of domestic peace offers a compelling insight into the kingly ideal of the mid-fourteenth century. The Chanson’s turn towards the east, like so many of its other episodes, parallels contemporary events. Both Philippe VI and Jean II had hoped to go on a crusade but were forced to abandon their plans because of the political and military troubles facing France. In the Chanson, the ideal sovereign is able to send forth his sons to combat the enemies of the faith, and this conclusion provides a directive for the Valois kings – the appropriate mission for a peaceful and united France is crusade. The ideal of crusade as a component of sovereignty, as well as the tensions and difficulties inherent in such an ideal, will be explored further in the next chapter, which focuses on Guillaume de Machaut’s biography of Pierre I of Cyprus and his crusading ambitions.

3 The Crusading Ideal in Guillaume de Machaut’s Prise d’Alixandre

By the fourteenth century the heroic age of crusading appeared to have long past. Historians have offered a range of explanations for changes in late medieval approaches to crusade. Norman Housley points to the cost of crusading, as well as to the rising influence of the kingdoms, whose needs increasingly took precedence over those of Christendom, and to the reluctance of rulers to commit their resources to a crusade led by someone else.1 Jonathan Riley-Smith argues that one should not view crusade in the fourteenth century as a period of decline, although the complexity of European politics, particularly those of the Italian peninsula, made it nearly impossible to present a united front.2 Alphonse Dupront has described how talking about and planning for crusade appeared to offer considerable satisfaction, and came to replace actual military actions over the course of the later Middle Ages.3 However, one has only to consider representations of crusade in a range of literary works, from Jean d’Arras’s Roman de Mélusine ou Histoire de Lusignan (1393), which celebrates the military victories of the Lusignan sons in the Near East and eastern Europe, to Christine de Pizan’s Ditié de Jehanne d’Arc (1430), which concludes with the triumphant promise that Charles VII and the Pucelle will reconquer the Holy Land, to Philippe de Mézières’s voluminous exhortations to crusade, to see what a powerful hold the ideal of crusade retained upon the imagination of later medieval writers and publics. Guillaume de Machaut’s Prise d’Alixandre inscribes itself squarely within this ambivalent atmosphere, characterized by both yearning for and rejection of crusade. In the Prise d’Alixandre, the final work of Guillaume de Machaut’s long and productive career, the poet recounts the heroic military career of Pierre I of Cyprus, equally famous for his short-lived conquest and

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sack of Alexandria and for his ignominious murder at the hands of his own nobles, including his brothers.4 Pierre I’s reign was brief and eventful. He was crowned in 1358, and during the early years of his rule he enjoyed several military victories in Satalia, in Asia Minor, and along the coast of Anatolia, before leaving for Europe in the fall of 1362 to raise support for a general passage to the Near East. His celebrated conquest of Alexandria on 10 October 1365 was followed by several minor victories against the sultan and the Turks. A second trip to the West in 1368 to raise support for additional crusading efforts was unsuccessful, and Pierre returned to his island kingdom in the fall of that year, only to be assassinated in January 1369. Machaut’s account of the Cypriot king’s life opens in a mythological setting in which the gods and goddesses ordain the creation of a new crusading hero – Pierre I.5 Machaut passes rapidly over Pierre’s childhood, focusing on his foundation of a new military order, the order of the sword, and the divine directive that instructed Pierre to recover his heritage, the kingdom of Jerusalem.6 He then recounts Pierre’s first trip to the West and the conquest of Alexandria. This eponymous event is concluded just over one third of the way through the text. Machaut subsequently dedicates a significant amount of textual space to the peace negotiations with the sultan and to Pierre’s additional military enterprises, both of which were slow moving, encountered many obstacles, and ultimately accomplished little. The final portion of the Prise describes a series of conflicts between Pierre and his barons, both foreign and Cypriot, and concludes with his assassination. Pierre I’s crusading zeal and astonishing military accomplishment, as well as his shocking death, struck the imagination of his contemporaries. References to him appear in the works of Christine de Pizan, Geoffroy Chaucer, and François Villon. Four manuscripts of the Prise survive from the fourteenth century, all high-quality copies on vellum with miniatures, and one manuscript on paper from the fifteenth century.7 This relatively high number of surviving manuscripts attests to the popularity of the work, especially given that it was composed late in Machaut’s lifetime, and there was little opportunity to recopy and distribute it under his direction. The Prise clearly spoke to the concerns and preoccupations of the late fourteenth century, while its historic dimension piqued the interest of eighteenth-century scholars and contributed to the rediscovery of Machaut’s corpus. In modern times the Prise has been valued largely as a historical document rather than as a literary work.8 It has received little attention

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from literary scholars, in striking contrast to the vast amount of commentary that Machaut’s musical compositions and other poetical works have generated. This is perhaps because while Machaut has long been acclaimed as a composer and poet, he has not, justly or otherwise, been regarded as a prominent political thinker.9 In the little criticism of the Prise that exists, Machaut is often depicted as bedazzled by his biographical subject. However, I believe that to interpret the Prise as a work of uncritical adulation is to underestimate the complexity of Machaut’s thought. Machaut was acquainted, in some cases intimately, with a number of kings, and he was interested in kingship throughout his career. His judgment poems, the Fonteinne amoureuse, and the Confort d’ami all feature and are dedicated to royal figures, and the Confort contains what is essentially a thousand-verse mirror for princes. It is not surprising that Machaut should have chosen to write a royal biography, and the career of Pierre I offered opportunities for reflection about a range of subjects, from the place of crusade in the roster of kingly duties to the appropriate responses to tyranny. Given that the Prise focuses so closely on issues of kingship, it is remarkable to note that, in contrast to the poet’s other works, the Prise has no named patron. The shifts in artistic allegiance that punctuated Machaut’s long literary career – his transfers from Jean de Luxembourg, the king of Bohemia, to Charles de Navarre, to Jean de Berry and Charles V – have been duly noted.10 Many of Machaut’s works contain passages that describe and celebrate ideal sovereigns, either specifically or in the abstract, and Machaut’s ideals of kingship are frequently related to his patron of the moment. For this reason, it would be interesting to know for whom Machaut composed his heroic biography. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV and Charles V of France, both of whom are positively depicted in the Prise, have been put forth as likely candidates. Be that as it may, the fact remains that no patron is named in the text itself. Was Machaut, advanced in age and economically secure, able to finance the writing of a text that particularly interested him? It is a tantalizing, though purely speculative, possibility. In this chapter I will consider the ways in which Machaut combines a biographical account of Pierre I and the specific events of his reign with more theoretical considerations of kingship and crusade. Although the Prise ostensibly (and perhaps self-consciously) exhibits nostalgia for the model of the heroic crusader-king illustrated by Pierre I, it simultaneously acknowledges the ineffectiveness of such a paradigm of kingship in the political landscape of late-fourteenth-century Europe. I will

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focus on Pierre’s crusading project, and how the notion of crusade had been transformed by the political events of the fourteenth century. I will look also at alternative paradigms of kingship proposed by the Prise. Although the biographical format places Pierre at the centre of the text, he is by no means the only contemporary sovereign to be depicted. The Prise also portrays Jean de Luxembourg, king of Bohemia, Jean II and Charles V of France, and the Emperor Charles IV, and the presentation of their various attitudes and actions invites comparison and evaluation. Finally, I will consider the last section of the Prise, which describes three conflicts between Pierre and his foreign and Cypriot barons and concludes with his murder. This final section has received little critical notice, principally, I believe, because Pierre’s erratic and merciless conduct towards the end of his life disrupts the idealized vision of him as a crusading hero. However, an interpretation of Pierre’s life and Machaut’s text cannot ignore this final section, and I believe that the ambiguous and apparently contradictory conclusion of the Prise is essential to any final determination of what constitutes – for Machaut – the ideal sovereign, and to what degree Pierre might illustrate such an ideal. The Transformation of the Crusading Ideal The Prise opens under the rubric of myth. Pierre I’s devotion to crusade precedes even his birth, for in the opening passage of the work the Roman gods and goddesses convene in order to provide the world with a military hero. Mars laments the passing of other great military figures, the Nine Worthies, who are grouped as follows: three classical figures – Alexander, Hector, and Julius Caesar; three biblical figures – Judas Machabeus, David, and Joshua; and three French figures – Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godefroy de Bouillon. Of these, Godefroy, the first king of Jerusalem and Pierre’s precursor, is described in the greatest detail and is most lavishly praised (55–62).11 The new hero’s destiny is clear from the start; the planned product of the divine union of Mars and Venus, Pierre is to carry on the efforts of Godefroy de Bouillon and, it is implied, to become the tenth Worthy.12 Machaut’s council of gods and goddesses may appear incongruous in light of the referentially verifiable, historical narrative that follows, but in fact it is entirely appropriate to invoke Pierre’s crusading career within such a framework, since crusade had, by the fourteenth century, itself taken on the aspect of a myth. Crusade had somehow retained all of its ideological signifi-

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cance, while slowly losing ground in the area of concrete commitment. If anything, an ever more elaborate and ostentatious show of appreciation for crusade was used to compensate in part for the lack of action.13 Machaut’s text has most often been read as a celebration both of crusade and of one of its greatest fourteenth-century proponents.14 Yet Machaut’s text contains much that contradicts these idealized images of crusade and king, and if he does not directly put into question the value of crusade or the merit of Pierre I, he supplies evidence of the shortcomings, difficulties, and failures of one and the other. Here, I would like to focus on how the Prise d’Alixandre testifies to the transformation undergone by the ideal of crusade since its glorious origins, represented in the text by Godefroy de Bouillon. Pierre’s crusading career unfolds in the shadow of the Hundred Years’ War, yet although Machaut alludes to this conflict, he never directly addresses its implications for the events he recounts.15 Likewise the Prise reveals, but does not confront, the ways in which Pierre transforms his own crusade mission, or the role that honour, advantage, and the promise of gain play in his military actions. Machaut and Pierre both take up their positions in the Hundred Years’ War long before the war itself is even mentioned. Machaut’s catalogue of modern Worthies – all French – inscribes Pierre’s crusade ambitions in a tradition of French military activity. Moreover, Pierre is aligned with the French simply by virtue of his lineage. The Lusignan were a French noble family who had come to power in Cyprus in the late twelfth century, over the course of the third crusade. As a youth Pierre absconds to the West to pursue his dreams of crusade, and his first thought is to go to France. He wishes to win honour in the French wars (the early stages of the Hundred Years’ War, though Machaut does not identify it as such), to become acquainted with the French knights who might help him in his undertaking, and to meet his French family who also might, he hopes, advance his cause. Pierre’s father forces him to return to Cyprus, but once he becomes king Pierre undertakes a voyage to the West with the intention of obtaining permission to lead a general passage to the Near East.16 The first stop on Pierre’s European tour is Avignon, where he arrives at the end of March 1363, and where he meets with Pope Urban V and the French king, Jean II. Machaut introduces the French king by means of a reference to the Hundred Years’ War: ‘maint anui, mainte souffrance / avoit receu pour la guerre / quil avoit au roy dangleterre / par le def-

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faut de maint couart / et li roys angles audouart / avoit a nom je nen doubt mie/plus nen di je suis de partie / mais ne vueil pas faire lonc conte’ [great hardship, great suffering he had received due to the war that he had with the king of England, on account of the defection of many cowards. And the English king was named Edward, I have no doubt. More I will not say of it, I have my own loyalties, but I do not wish to make too long a tale] (680–7).17 No sooner has Machaut alluded to the Hundred Years’ War and the trials of Jean II and the French than he closes the door on this topic, stating that ‘plus nen di je suis de partie.’ Machaut’s statement is at once an admission of bias, and an acknowledgment that bias has no place in a crusade context. The ideal of crusade dictated that the Western powers should put aside their differences in the interest of Christendom as a whole. The problem with such an ideal was that by the fourteenth century, indeed since the era of Saint Louis, crusade was always already a French endeavour. The descendants of Louis IX were especially entrusted with the obligation to liberate the holy land, and it was a responsibility that lay heavily upon the Capetians and their Valois descendants.18 The crusade of 1345, for instance, was entrusted to Humbert de Viennois provided that the French king or dauphin was not able to participate, for if they had, they would naturally have assumed leadership of the undertaking. The same held true for Pierre’s proposed crusade. Pierre’s responsibility was initially supposed to be limited to leadership of a passagium particulare that would precede and prepare the way for the passagium generale led by Jean II. It was only after Jean II’s untimely death that Pierre was entrusted with leadership of the entire operation. Curiously, Machaut’s version of these events allows the Eastern king to occupy centre stage from the start, thereby providing Pierre’s crusade with the opportunity to transcend the conflict that divided Europe. It is Pierre who proposes the crusade, which he presents so eloquently to the pope and to Jean II that both embrace his project.19 The pope does entrust Jean II with the command of the Western forces, but following this decision, Machaut’s text leaps ahead approximately a year to lament the deaths of Jean II and the papal legate, the cardinal Talleyrand de Périgord (who died in April and January of 1364, respectively). By means of this ellipsis the text glosses over the fact that Pierre started out as the second to Jean II, and that he was initially intended to lead an avant-garde to the Near East that would be rejoined by Jean II’s forces at a later date.20 The rapid narrative movement from the declaration of the crusade to Pierre’s assumption of its leadership allows Pierre

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to play the lead part, and thus to fulfil the role as leader and hero of the crusade that he was ordained to occupy from the mythological opening of Machaut’s text.21 By making an Eastern king the leader of the crusade, Machaut frees the undertaking from the context of the Hundred Years’ War. In other places, Machaut manipulates his account in order to minimize the effects of the war between France and England on Pierre’s efforts. He does not mention, for instance, Pierre’s failure to obtain the participation, or even the support, of Edward III of England. Machaut alludes to Pierre’s visit to England after the fact, and without providing any detail.22 The chronicler of the ‘Quatre premiers Valois’ provides an interesting counterpoint to Machaut’s silence, recounting the following conversation between the two kings: Et comme le roy d’Angleterre donna une foiz à disner au roy de Cyppre, il luy dit: ‘N’avez-vous pas emprins à conquerre la Saincte Terre? Quant vous l’aurez conquise, vous devres rendre le royaume de Cyppre que jadiz mon anceseur le roy Richart bailla à garder àvostre predecesseur.’ Le roy de Cyppre apperçut et entendi bien les paroles du roy d’Angleterre et parla d’autres paroles comme se il ne l’eust point entendu. Puis ne demoura guaires en Angleterre et prist congié du roy Edouart et retourna en France.23 [And as the king of England once gave a dinner for the king of Cyprus, he said to him: ‘Have you not undertaken the conquest of the Holy Land? When you have conquered it, you should return the kingdom of Cyprus which formerly my ancestor king Richard entrusted to your predecessor for safekeeping.’ The king of Cyprus perceived and understood the words of the king of England and spoke of other things as though he had not understood. Then he stayed no longer in England, and took leave of king Edward and returned to France.]

Edward insults Pierre by implying that the kingdom he seeks to recover is not rightfully his, and by reminding him that even the kingdom he occupies he owes to the English.24 Edward’s allusion to the third crusade, over the course of which the English king Richard I achieved a number of military victories, including the conquest of Cyprus, constitutes a pointed affirmation of the military might and the crusading dedication of the English. At the same time, Edward’s remark recalls an era whose events paralleled in many respects those of the fourteenth cen-

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tury. The twelfth, like the fourteenth century, was characterized by conflict between the French and English kings over sovereignty of the English possessions on the continent.25 The 1259 Treaty of Paris required the English to perform homage for their continental possessions, but by the fourteenth century the balance of power between France and England had shifted drastically and the English king claimed not just land, but the very throne of France. The young Valois dynasty lacked the authority of their Capetian predecessors, and Jean II was neither as capable nor as militarily adept as his English counterpart. Edward, having defeated and captured his would-be lord at the battle of Poitiers, flatly refused to participate in a French-led crusade.26 In his account of Pierre’s crusade preparations, Machaut mentions none of this. On the contrary, he regularly refers to the English origins of various participants in the conquest of Alexandria and subsequent military undertakings, thereby giving the impression that the English took part in the endeavour as extensively as befits a major European power.27 Machaut continues to describe in exhaustive detail and with great geographic precision Pierre’s visits to many European courts in search of support (843–1535). Pierre enjoys lavish welcomes; his hosts express their wholehearted support for his crusade ambitions, and admire his skill at tournamenting. The crusade itself is recounted with a great deal of joyful epic fervour, with much praise of God and admiration for individual feats of prowess.28 Pierre’s disparate forces function as one body, and despite their inferior numbers, they succeed in taking the city of Alexandria. Led by a divinely inspired king, Pierre’s international army achieves a victory that no one thought possible. However, despite this apparent adherence to an ideal of crusade, one that is achieved in part through the omission or transformation of some historical details, Machaut’s account of Pierre’s venture is not able to escape entirely the ways in which crusade is dominated by practical considerations. First, it must be recognized that Pierre’s approximately eighteenmonth European tour is something of a failure. Though many promise aid, Pierre waits in vain on the isle of Rhodes for his supporters to materialize. In the end Pierre’s army is indeed a trans-national one, as illustrated by the constant mention of the diverse origins of the crusade participants, but it is also a popular one.29 Unlike the two crusade armies led by Louis IX, which included the king’s own brothers, his sons and sons-in-law, and the principal peers of the realm, Pierre’s forces are made up largely of adventurers who, finding themselves with little to do during the lull in the fighting between France and

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England, are satisfied to seek their fortune elsewhere, while at the same time benefiting from the remission of their sins promised by the pope. Both the venality of Pierre’s troops as well as the vanity of Pierre himself become apparent over the course of the battle of Alexandria. After the initial assault in the harbour, Pierre’s army hesitates to attack the city, and indeed Pierre’s own war council argues against the attempt. In reply, Pierre affirms that to leave without trying to take the city ‘seroit chose trop ville / a moy’ [would be a thing too degrading for me] (2710–11) and that ‘a tous jours mais honnis seroie / et si me seroit reprouve / toudis com recreant prouve’ [forevermore I would be shamed, and it would be reproached to me always, as though I were a proven coward] (2722–4). This is not the first time that Pierre has framed his enterprise in terms of his own reputation.30 His concern for public opinion contrasts sharply with Louis’s IX’s famed humility, and suggests that crusade for Pierre is not so much a good in and of itself, but an opportunity to advance his own standing. Pierre’s appeal to honour, his own and that of his troops, is apparently effective, for they promise to follow him. Machaut adds, however, that ‘avec ce le crieur cria / que le premier qui montera / sus les murs, ara sans doubtance / mil petis florins de florence / le secons en ara Vc / Le tiers ccc et ce fu sans / car chascuns plus sen avensoit / pour ce que gaaingnier pensoit’ [with this, the herald cried that the first man to climb onto the walls would have, without doubt, a thousand small florins of Florence, the second would have five hundred, the third three hundred, and this was wise, for each man pressed more to the front because he thought of winning] (2752–9). The promise of financial gain is at least as motivating, if not more so, than the desire to acquire honour, and seems to ensure, for the moment at least, the continued allegiance of Pierre’s troops. The hasty departure of the Christian troops once the city had been conquered and sacked further demonstrates that many of the knights recruited by Pierre were more attracted by the famed riches of the Near East than by the desire to risk their lives trying to hold a city against the infidels. During the war council convened to determine what to do with Alexandria, the Viscount of Touraine advances a series of reasons for leaving immediately: they do not have enough men, artillery, or food supplies to hold the city, the sultan will be coming to relieve the city, and there is no hope of help forthcoming from the Christian forces in the near future, ‘fors dou ciel’ [except from God] (3360). The Viscount’s reasons are all quite practical, while the manner in which he simultaneously invokes and dismisses the aid of God strikingly reveals

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the degree to which crusade has been secularized. This is not a divine mission in which God will protect his own despite the odds against them. Instead, the Viscount assesses the situation from a purely strategic perspective, one in which the help of God is of no account. The support of the assembled troops shows that his outlook is the accepted one: ‘avec ce tuit li estrangier / en tout sans muer ne changier / lavouerent et lensuirent’ [with this all the foreigners, all told, without altering or changing a word, agreed with him and supported him] (3377–9, emphasis added). Pierre tries to encourage his troops to stay and hold the city, but ‘les estranges dont je parole / respondirent quil sen iroient / et que tenir ne la porroient’ [the foreigners, of whom I am speaking, replied that they would leave and that they could not hold the city] (3504–6, emphasis added). In a trans-national campaign like the one in question, who are ‘li estrangier,’ ‘les estranges’? Is Machaut referring to the nonCypriots? or, in what would constitute a confusion of points of reference (substituting his own for Pierre’s), to the non-French?31 or are those who fail to support Pierre’s crusade foreigners from a Christian perspective, estranged from their Christian homeland? In either case, Machaut’s depiction of this scene introduces division and discord into Pierre’s previously unified Christian army. Pierre’s crusading ambitions are eventually brought to a halt by European politics. As in the case of Edward III’s refusal to participate, Machaut glosses over the political machinations that in reality followed the conquest of Alexandria, allowing the surprise, admiration, and enthusiasm elicited by Pierre’s victory to dominate his narrative. Machaut does not describe, for instance, Venice and Genoa’s utter horror at the sack of Alexandria, with its deleterious effects on their commerce, but presents them as interested only in securing an advantageous peace for Pierre and for Christendom.32 Because Machaut focuses on the positive reactions to the conquest of Alexandria, the pope’s change of attitude towards Pierre and his ongoing crusading aspirations comes as something of a surprise. In March 1368, when Pierre returns to Europe, he finds the pope considerably less favourable towards the idea of continued fighting in the Near East than he had previously been. To Pierre’s request to announce another crusade, the pope replies: ... tribulations mortalitez occisions compaingnes regnent et pechiez

102 Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign dont li mondes est entechies si que bon ne me samble mie que le passage vous ottrie quant a present, car ce seroit tres grans peris que le feroit car pechiez nuit et sest po gent et tuit seigneur ont a present trop de riotes et de plais mais qui les porroit mettre en pais moult volentiers acorderoie le pelerinage et si yroie quen verite je le desir tant que cest mon plus grant desir. mais ce ne seroit pas profit. (7225–41) [trials, pestilence, murder, the companies rule, and sin, with which the world is stained, such that it does not seem at all good to me to grant you the passage at present, for it would be a very great peril to he who would do it. For sin harms and is hardly noble, and all lords have at present too many conflicts and wounds. But he who could put them at peace, very willingly would I accord him the pilgrimage, and I would even go myself, for verily I wish to, so much, that it is my greatest desire. But it would not be profitable.]

The pope himself then advises Pierre to seek peace with the sultan. In 1363, with the English and French at peace, a crusade seemed to be a viable possibility, but by 1368, with a new king on the French throne and a return to war seemingly inevitable, the pope makes peace in Europe a precondition of crusade.33 We shall see that many of the rulers of Europe echo the pope’s reasoning, alleging care of their kingdoms as their primary duty. The pope, however, has no other kingdom. His unique obligation is to Christendom, and responsibility for the crusade lies first and foremost with him. For this reason it is all the more surprising that the pope should turn away a willing crusader. For all its apparent celebration of crusade, Machaut’s account is unable to completely dissimulate the practical, economic, and political influences that shaped Pierre’s enterprise. The Hundred Years’ War played a significant role in determining who was available to participate. In addition, Pierre’s crusade was affected by a new spirit of pragmatism that governed approaches to crusade. No longer willing to

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throw caution to the wind, as Saint Louis had done – twice – Pierre and his potential followers and allies consulted their personal goals, political loyalties, and economic prospects before dedicating themselves to a dangerous project with uncertain rewards. Kingdom versus Christendom Alphonse Dupront has observed that in the fourteenth century a rival appeared who competed – successfully – for the resources and attention of the Western monarchs: the kingdom. Without abandoning their will to crusade, kings from Philippe le Bel to Philippe de Valois somehow found that the right time to actually leave never materialized.34 What Machaut seems most to admire in Pierre I is precisely his material commitment to crusade. Indeed throughout the text, and particularly in the elegiac ending, Pierre’s crusading zeal is explicitly and extravagantly extolled. However, I would contend that Machaut’s view of crusade is not so straightforward. By portraying a number of other European sovereigns – Jean de Luxembourg, king of Bohemia, Jean II and Charles V of France, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV – he is able to depict and evaluate a range of responses to Pierre’s call to arms. Jean II embraces the crusade project, but dies before it begins, Charles V refuses to take part in the crusade, while the emperor Charles, though outwardly very supportive of Pierre’s undertaking, does not choose to participate personally. In what follows I will investigate both the portraits of these kings as well as the duties of kings as articulated more broadly by Machaut. In this way I hope to arrive at a more nuanced and accurate image of what constituted, for Machaut, the place of crusade in his ideal of kingship. The first Western king whom Pierre meets is Jean II, who, as we have seen, is introduced in the context of his war with England and his recent catastrophic loss at Poitiers. Although Jean II himself is exonerated for his defeat, which is attributed to the cowardice of his troops, he nonetheless figures as the victim of another king’s aggression. Machaut presents Pierre’s encounter with the French king in Avignon as a stroke of good fortune orchestrated by God to advance his crusade, ‘car on tient que li rois de france / ha plus quautres roys de puissance’ [for it is held that the king of France has more power than other kings] (729–30). This seemingly categorical statement is in fact rather problematic. It expresses the belief, largely based on nostalgia and tradition at the time of Machaut’s writing, that the king of France was the most powerful

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sovereign in Europe. It also illustrates the dominant role of the French in the organization and leadership of crusades to the Near East. However, the verb ‘tient’ suggests that Machaut’s pronouncement belongs to the category of belief or opinion, but not necessarily of fact. Indeed, the French defeat at Poitiers, evoked in the initial presentation of Jean II, effectively undermines the image of the French king as the most powerful in Europe. This ambivalent statement about the power of French kings is followed by a reflection on Fortune, ‘qui tost deffait / quant il li plaist ce quelle a fait’ [who quickly undoes, when it pleases her, what she has done] (731–2). This observation is putatively intended to introduce the untimely deaths of Jean II and the cardinal Talleyrand, but it applies equally well to the contradictory depictions of the king of France as the most powerful ruler in the world, yet recently defeated by his supposed vassal.35 Machaut never says that Jean II’s decision to lead a crusade was at best ill advised, yet his commentary relative to Charles V’s refusal to take over leadership of the crusade after his father’s death permits the reader to make such an inference. At the time of Charles’s coronation Pierre made the case for his crusade before the new king and the other nobles assembled there. Many promised their help, but Charles ‘qui avoit grant guerre / ne pooit issir de sa terre / quil ne heust trop grant damage / pour ce le saint pelerinage / naccorda pas, car trop eust / mespris sacorde li eust’ [who had a great war, could not leave his lands without incurring great misfortune. For this reason he did not agree to the Holy Passage, for too much would he have erred if he had done so] (825–30). Machaut emphasizes the grant damage that would have befallen France if Charles had left, and says that he would have mespris had he decided to go. Since France’s political situation had not drastically changed in the six weeks that had elapsed between Jean II’s death and Charles’s coronation, it is difficult to reconcile these two very different estimations of their respective decisions. The narrator’s approbation of Charles’s decision implicitly undermines Jean’s wisdom in deciding to undertake a crusade.36 The text’s praise for Charles V’s refusal suggests that crusade, while a laudable goal, must be reconciled with the political and economic reality of the countries, kings, and knights undertaking it. Instead of allowing crusade to transcend the political situation in Europe, prompting kings to put aside their differences in order to fight the holy war, this increasingly practical vision of crusade subordinates it to politics and economics, and in particular to the needs of the emerging

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kingdoms. Norman Housley has described the growing power in the fourteenth century of the European monarchies, whose royal policies sometimes forbade subjects to leave for crusade, banned the export of crusade taxes, or appropriated crusade tenths for their own treasuries. ‘[I]n essence, the belief that national needs enjoyed priority ... was as old as the crusade itself, but their acceleration and refinement proved to be a dominant feature of the crusading movement in the fourteenth century.’37 Charles V’s decision not to take part in Pierre’s crusade, and his justification thereof, precisely illustrate how the interests of the kingdom came to dominate those of Christendom. Although the ascendancy of the kingdom may not be new, as Housley points out, the straightforward and unapologetic presentation of Charles’s decision, as well as the conclusion that it was both wise and necessary, reflects a widespread evolution in attitudes towards crusade. In light of these changed ideas, Pierre’s single-minded dedication to his crusade seems almost touchingly idealistic and anachronistic, though at the same time impractical and, perhaps, unwise. Machaut further reinforces the justice of Charles’s decision by citing Jean de Luxembourg, the king of Bohemia, who believed that the defence of one’s heritage was a responsibility to put before all others. Jean de Luxembourg was famous for his knightly career, which was crowned by his exemplary death at the battle of Crécy in 1346.38 Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet has observed that Jean de Luxembourg functioned as a chivalric ideal for the fourteenth century, a model and point of reference regarding questions of knightly conduct.39 Machaut had previously described Jean de Luxembourg before quoting him in support of Charles V. In his initial portrait, Jean figures as a wily and powerful sovereign who ‘fist son fil roy dalemaingne / et empereur par sa vaillance / et par son scens et sa prudence / tout maugre loys de baiviere / qui adont empereres yere / car de lempire la desmis / par force darmes et damis’ [made his son king of Germany and emperor too by his valour and his sense and his prudence, all in spite of Louis of Bavaria who was then emperor, for he deprived him of the empire by force of arms and allies] (772–8).40 Regardless of the historical accuracy of this statement, Machaut’s claims about Jean de Luxembourg establish him as a competent and successful king, both militarily (he succeeds by vaillance and armes) and in the realm of negotiations and politics (he has scens and prudence, and he uses his amis).41 Machaut affirms that Jean de Luxembourg had no peer since the time of Charlemagne,42 and what might seem to be the extravagance of his praise is

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legitimated by his long-term personal relationship with the king.43 Machaut twice reiterates the intimate nature of his functions within the king’s household, thereby establishing himself as an authority to be absolutely trusted with regard to Jean de Luxembourg’s actions, character, and habits. Thus, when Machaut later invokes the deceased king’s words in support of Charles V, the reader knows already that Jean is an exemplary sovereign and that Machaut is able to provide a singularly accurate portrait of him.44 According to Machaut, Jean ‘disoit et recordoit toudis / que li homs fait grant vasselage / qui bien deffent son heritage / et quil nest assaus ne bataille / son li vuet tollir qui le vaille’ [said and affirmed always that the man does a great deed who defends well his heritage, and that no assault or battle, if another wishes to take his land from him, should prevail] (834–8). The use of the imperfect with the adverbial reinforcement of toudis indicate that this is an oft-repeated sentence intended to communicate an enduring and absolute truth regarding the priorities of kingship. The emphasis on heritage likewise appears in an earlier Machaut text, the Confort d’ami. Machaut composed the Confort in 1357 for Charles de Navarre, who became the focus, in the wake of Jean II’s imprisonment by the English, of the ambitions of the reform movement, with which Machaut was aligned.45 In the final fourth of this text, the narrator offers comprehensive advice to the Ami on how to properly conduct himself as sovereign, a kind of reformist miroir du prince, as well as an implied critique of Jean II’s model of kingship. This passage is introduced by a discussion of the virtues and accomplishments of none other than Jean de Luxembourg, who is held up as an example for the Ami. The narrator cautions the Ami: ‘Ne te laisse desheriter / Pour riens qu’on te puist enditer, / Car par may foy, mieus ameroie, / S’empereres ou rois estoie, / Despendre tout en bonne guerre / Qu’on me tollist un piet de terre, / Car tout prince desherité / Vit a honte et a grant vilté’ [do not allow yourself to be disinherited for anything that one might say to you about it, for by my faith, I would like better, if I were emperor or king, to spend all on a good war than to allow anyone to take from me one foot of earth, for every disinherited prince lives in shame and in great vileness] (3545–52).46 Here again, a sovereign’s primary responsibility is to his own lands. Thus, Charles V’s refusal does not constitute an example of changed, much less degraded, values, for it receives the sanction of that icon of chivalry, Jean de Luxembourg. Machaut’s approval of Charles’s position, and its accord with one of the dictums of the renowned Jean de Luxembourg, illustrate the shift-

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ing relationship between the demands of the kingdom versus those of Christendom, as well as the increasing importance of the notion of inalienability to the French. The idea that the king’s domain was indivisible and should be transmitted whole to his heir was articulated as early as the 1328 succession of Philippe VI de Valois. The inalienability of the kingdom was re-articulated in October 1356 as part of the meeting of the Estates General, and formed an important part of the reform movement of 1356–8.47 Inalienability also played a role in the emerging distinction between the king and the crown, which was used to limit the power of the king by subordinating it to some extent to his obligations to the crown. In essence, the kingdom was not the king’s to alienate; rather, the king served as the custodian of the kingdom, which he was to pass on, in its entirety, to his heir.48 The integrity of the kingdom took on new resonance following the peace of Brétigny (1360) with the economically crushing ransom to be paid for Jean and the humiliating loss of one-third of the territory of the kingdom. By the mid-1360s new priorities for kingship had emerged, and chief among them was preservation of the kingdom. The importance of the unity and organic integrity of the kingdom was recognized in Charles V’s 1364 ordre du sacre, which included in the oath sworn by the king the obligation to preserve the totality of the kingdom. For all these reasons, the idea of a crusade, which would divert money and men to the Near East, while impoverishing and endangering the kingdom, offering assistance to Christians in foreign parts while one’s own Christian subjects suffered, would have seemed a travesty rather than a duty to the war-ravaged French, and so it seemed to their king.49 The question of heritage and of the potentially conflicting duties of a sovereign towards his kingdom and towards Christianity as a whole become ambiguous with respect to Pierre I. Cyprus constitutes the only part of his heritage that Pierre actually holds, and accordingly he safeguards the island during his expedition to Alexandria. The narrator approves of Pierre’s solicitude with an expression that closely resembles the bon mot of Jean de Luxembourg that we have already examined: ‘car honte est de perdre sa terre / pour aler une autre conquerre / et se fait cils biaus vasselage / qui bien deffent son heritage’ [for it is a shame to lose one’s land by going to conquer another, and he does a great deed of prowess who well defends his heritage] (1917–20). Although the narrator uses the word heritage to indicate Cyprus, Pierre himself never uses this term to refer to Cyprus, but rather to (unspecified) lands wrongly held by the sultan. Historically speaking, the king

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of Cyprus was also the titular king of Jerusalem,50 and Pierre’s declared objective in undertaking the crusade was the recovery of the kingdom of Jerusalem.51 At the start of the Prise a divine voice instructs Pierre to recover his rightful heritage,52 and over the course of the conflict with the sultan and subsequent negotiations, Pierre frequently refers to ‘mon heritage’ or ‘nostre heritage,’ but without ever specifying exactly what that is.53 One might presume that Pierre is referring to Jerusalem, but the fact that Alexandria (a land also held by the sultan and the primary economic rival of Cyprus) was the target of his aggression renders Pierre’s true objective uncertain. Pierre justifies his refusal to sign a peace treaty with the sultan on the basis that the latter continues to hold his heritage, yet the terms of the proposed treaty, as summarized by Machaut, do not mention Jerusalem being returned to Pierre.54 Indeed, most of the terms – a share in the sultan’s profits from the trade taxes levied throughout his lands, free passage for pilgrims equipped with a letter from Pierre, the gift of the Holy Column – are economic in nature.55 Machaut does not dwell on the economic nature of Pierre’s proposed terms; on the contrary, he presents them as advantages pursued by Pierre for the benefit of all Christians. Yet the proposed terms of the treaty nonetheless point to a concern for Cyprus, not for Jerusalem. Peter Edbury has convincingly argued that Pierre’s primary motive was not the conquest of Alexandria per se, much less the recovery of the kingdom of Jerusalem, but rather the protection of Cyprus’s value as a port and centre of trade for the eastern Mediterranean, a role on which Cyprus depended for its economic well-being, and also as a means of maintaining Western interest in protecting it from the encroachments of the Muslims.56 Edbury maintains that the attack on Alexandria was intended to conquer or destroy the city, or to intimidate the sultan into granting Cyprus economically advantageous terms. Since Pierre was unable to hold the city, and could only partly destroy it, he adopts the latter strategy.57 Thus, historically speaking, Pierre does appear to have been primarily concerned with the prosperity of his own heritage, that is, Cyprus. In the Prise, however, his ambitions for Cyprus are not readily apparent. In order for Pierre to function as a crusading hero his motives had to be directed towards recovery of the holy land; his crusade could not be depicted simply as a means of advancing his objectives in Cyprus. Paradoxically, by portraying Pierre as the ideal crusader, Machaut also presents him as a less than ideal sovereign, one who disregards the needs of his own country in order to pursue his dream of crusade.

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The final sovereign to be evoked in the Prise is the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV, son of Jean de Luxembourg and maternal uncle of Charles V, whom Pierre visits in Prague as part of his European propagandizing tour. Machaut describes Charles IV in a long and detailed passage (987–1059). Unlike Pierre, who is compared to biblical military heroes, Charles IV is compared to Solomon, the biblical emblem of wisdom (991–2). Like Solomon, Charles is known for his justice. He is humble, and an exemplary Christian who has founded many churches. While Pierre seeks to strengthen Christianity by means of crusade, Charles has fortified Christianity within his own lands by fostering religious communities. Militarily, Charles has also been successful, having established peace and an atmosphere of safety throughout his lands, which he has considerably enlarged. Charles IV lives modestly, like his father, rewarding service fairly, but avoiding ‘fole largesse’ [foolish generosity] (1021). The image of Charles IV that emerges is one of a shrewd, hard-headed sovereign who has achieved practical and concrete success. Machaut describes the emperor’s reception of Pierre and his reaction to Pierre’s crusade proposal in the most comprehensively narrated portion of Pierre’s European tour, yet one that is curiously lacking in substance (1060–1379). Charles praises Pierre’s resolution to undertake such a difficult task, and offers to convoke a meeting between himself, Pierre, and the kings of Hungary and Poland to be held in Krakow, where they will discuss this weighty issue. In this manner, Charles demonstrates his appreciation of crusade and of Pierre’s efforts, yet the action that he takes does not oblige him in any specific way, or commit his resources or his person. Following yet more festivities in Krakow, the emperor ‘promist aide et confort / et faveur de tout son effort / a ce saint voiage parfaire’ [promised help and comfort and favor with all his might, to conclude this holy voyage] (1297–9). Like his initial reply, this decision illustrates the emperor’s support, yet on a purely theoretical level – his knights, his money, his resources, are not offered. Lest the reader find this response wanting, the emperor ‘encor vorra il plus faire’ [wishes to do even more] (1300): he promises to encourage his vassals to participate in and support Pierre’s great venture. Indeed, he writes to them without delay, for ‘parfaite devotion / avoit a lexaltation / dou voiage et tant le desire / que bouche ne le porroit dire’ [he had perfect devotion to the exalted mission of the voyage, and so much desires it, that no mouth could say it] (1317–20). What the emperor offers in effect is a great deal of fine rhetoric, but nothing tangible; how-

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ever, within the text his response is deemed wise and just.58 The distance that separates Charles’s words from his actions illustrates the ability to combine total support for crusade on a theoretical level with a complete lack of assistance on a practical one. The emperor’s response is echoed by the kings of Hungary and Poland, who both offer aid yet who fail to materialize when the time comes to convene on the island of Rhodes. According to Alphonse Dupront, the widespread and apparently sincere support for crusade in the abstract, coupled with a lack of political and economic commitment, was characteristic of the fourteenth century, which witnessed much discussion of and preparation for crusade, but little actual activity.59 There is one final sovereign whose example is evoked in the Prise, though in filigree, as it were, his presence signalled by his near, but not total, absence. Louis IX occupies an ambiguous position in the Prise. Although Pierre’s crusade cannot help but recall those of Louis IX, the king-saint is never invoked as an exemplum or an inspiration. The crusading figure of reference is instead Godefroy de Bouillon, who appears in both the prologue and the epilogue. This is not to say, however, that Louis is absent from the text. Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, for example, argues that Pierre’s sorrow at his forced abandonment of Alexandria recalls Louis’s sorrow when finally he sailed for France.60 Louis himself is mentioned twice by name. At the meeting of Pierre and the emperor Charles IV the text affirms that ‘depuis le temps s. loys / quant en france revint de tunes / et quil ot trespasse les dunes / de la mer ne fu telement / roys veus, ne si richement’ [since the time of Saint Louis, when he returned to France from Tunis, and he had traversed the dunes of the sea, no king had been received so sumptuously] (1116–20). While Louis IX’s return to France may well have been an occasion for splendid display, the king himself returned in a body bag, as Machaut would surely have known.61 The second mention of Louis IX occurs at the time of Pierre’s negotiations with the sultan, when his embassy passes by the place where Louis was captured during his first crusade.62 It is striking that Saint Louis is evoked only in ways that recall his failures – his capture during his first crusade and his death during his second. In this manner Saint Louis functions as a sort of anti-model. By evoking Louis IX in terms of his crusading failures, Machaut points to the negative consequences of Louis’s decision to place crusade before the good of his own kingdom, thereby further reinforcing the wisdom of staying at home and cultivating one’s garden. The presence of a number of sovereigns in the Prise invites an evalu-

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ation of their individual conduct. The ideal of sovereignty is exemplified by Charles IV and Charles V, practical men who put the needs of their countries before all others. While it is quite understandable that Charles V might refuse to participate in Pierre’s crusade in order to concentrate his energy, finances, and armies on France, the fact that the emperor Charles IV refuses to commit any of his resources to the crusade despite his empire’s wealth and stability highlights the increasing marginality of crusade. In the late fourteenth century crusade is no longer a duty to put before all others, nor even a duty to be accomplished when possible, given one’s political and economic circumstances. Instead, dedication to crusade is presented as a luxury, almost an indulgence.63 Pierre – wholly committed to his dream of crusade – is perhaps a crusading hero, but he is not an ideal sovereign. He spends barely any time in Cyprus, consumes his financial and military resources pursuing military aims abroad, and, as we shall see, is ultimately killed by his own subjects. Hero or Tyrant? The comparisons between Pierre and his contemporaries are implicit, only indirectly suggesting his shortcomings. However, the actions that Pierre takes in the period leading up to his murder seriously undermine his idealized image. The final 1500 lines of Machaut’s nearly 9000line text differ markedly from what has come before, depicting Pierre for the first time in a context other than that of crusade. This section of the Prise may be divided into five parts: three conflicts, a murder, and an elegiac conclusion. The conflicts reveal aspects of Pierre’s character that had not previously been in evidence, while the murder and the elegy represent two contrasting ways of coming to terms with Pierre’s life and deeds. Machaut first recounts Pierre’s quarrel with the Gascon knight Florimond de Lesparre, then the dispute at court surrounding the accusations of Jean le Viscount, and finally Pierre’s argument with and punishment of the Gibelet family. This last event immediately precedes Pierre’s death at the hands of his own nobles. The disagreement with Lesparre sheds light on Pierre’s relationship with a foreign knight, while the other incidents expose various aspects of his relationship with his own Cypriot nobles. In what follows I will examine the final events of the Prise and the murder of Pierre to see how the various episodes inform one another, and how they relate to the rest of the text. How is the reader to reconcile the very different depictions of Pierre as

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a crusading hero and as an unreasonable and unstable tyrant? How can Machaut pass so rapidly from an account of Pierre’s cruelty and misdeeds to a bitter condemnation of the king’s assassins, and expressions of grief for Pierre’s murder? Finally, what conclusions are we to draw from this account of Pierre I and his life as they relate to notions of good kingship? That the final events of the Prise are meant to be read as a group, and in contrast to Pierre’s crusading activities, is demonstrated not only by the change in subject matter, but also by the breach in chronology that introduces this final section of the text. Machaut does not recount, or even allude to, Pierre’s quarrel with Lesparre at the time it takes place, during the late summer and early fall of 1367. Instead, he presents it, almost as an afterthought, at the conclusion to his account of Pierre’s final trip to the West in the spring of 1368. From this point on, Machaut’s text no longer proceeds chronologically, thereby making the juxtaposition of certain events and details more significant, as their temporality no longer determines their narrative order. The quarrel with Florimond de Lesparre, a Gascon knight, over the terms and quality of his service to Pierre initially appears to be an affair of little consequence. As in the case of Pierre’s first trip to the West, his crusading interests are presented as the sole motivation for his voyage, while the proposed duel with Lesparre is not discussed. It is only at the end of his account of Pierre’s trip that Machaut mentions, in an almost offhand manner, that the king ‘a nostre saint pere parla / dune autre besongne, car la / estoit le signeur de lesparre’ [spoke to our Holy Father of another matter, since the lord of Lesparre was there] (7359– 61). Lesparre’s presence is presented as fortuitous and convenient,64 and the quarrel as a trifle to be addressed since the more important issues had been resolved. Despite the apparently casual circumstances of its narration, certain details of Machaut’s account reveal the significance of Pierre’s argument with Lesparre. For the first time, Machaut justifies his narration of a certain incident; he wants to publish the truth of these strange and somewhat surprising events.65 The implication that he will present a definitive version of the quarrel suggests that it had previously been the subject of rumour and speculation. The importance of this episode is also demonstrated by the narrative space it occupies (approximately 500 lines) and by the inclusion of three prose letters that are presented as evidence of the authenticity of Machaut’s account.66 The prose letters present a striking formal departure from the rhyming octosyllabic cou-

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plets of the rest of the Prise, and focus additional attention on this incident. Moreover, as Angela Hurworth has compellingly argued, the inclusion of Lesparre’s letter and also of his reaction to Pierre’s reply, rendered in direct discourse (7544–56), introduces an alternative – and discordant – voice into Machaut’s text. By providing different perspectives on the same event Machaut highlights the problem of truth and interpretation, an issue that will become increasingly prominent in the final third of the Prise.67 When all is said and done, are we supposed to understand Machaut’s truthful version of the dispute with Lesparre as an exoneration of Pierre, or as a revelation of his failings? The events preceding the resolution of the disagreement depict Pierre at his most personally triumphant, describing his recent military victories, his advantageous peace with the sultan, and his election as king of Armenia. Machaut insists that Florimond’s foolhardy and rude speech led to the quarrel.68 In an elaborately staged scene of humiliated penitence and ostentatious mercy, the dispute is resolved entirely to the advantage of Pierre, who pardons Florimond out of respect for the pope and in recognition of the importance of forgiveness for a Christian, especially at Easter. This resolution, orchestrated by the pope, obviates the necessity for the duel with Lesparre to which Pierre had previously consented. Modern historians interpret Pierre’s acceptance of Florimond’s challenge as a precursor to the former’s mental unhinging, which becomes ever more apparent in the period leading up to his death.69 It appears that the pope took a similar attitude, viewing Pierre’s acceptance of Florimond’s challenge as an absurd and embarrassing derogation of his authority and dignity as king.70 In the Prise Machaut does not present the conflict with Lesparre as a reason for Pierre’s voyage to the West nor as evidence of the king’s mental instability. Machaut’s nonchalant introduction of the dispute and its resolution appears to minimize its significance. However, we have seen that his concern with setting the record straight and his elaborate account of these happenings, complete with documentary support, reveals their importance. In addition, his reordering of events, such that the argument with Lesparre precedes Pierre’s quarrels with his own nobles, suggests links or similarities between these episodes. The possibility of such a connection is reinforced by Pierre’s thoughts on the nature of Fortune, which prompt him to accept the pope’s intervention and to publicly forgive Florimond. The pope had spoken to Pierre of the beauty of clemency, and Pierre reflects that ‘nest pas raisons quil oublie / que bons drois a mestier

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daye / et sest fortune perilleuse / moult souvent et si mervilleuse / que le plus haut en bas retourne / souventes fois quant elle tourne’ [it is not right to forget that justice has need of help, and Fortune is very often perilous, and so marvellous, that she returns the highest to the lowest many a time, when she turns] (7729–34). The image of Fortune’s wheel was a mainstay of medieval philosophical reflection, but its placement here, heralding the drastic change in Pierre’s own fortunes, suggests that the quarrel with Lesparre functions as a turning point, or a point of departure, leading inexorably to the later – more serious and more tragic – disputes to come.71 Upon Pierre’s return to Cyprus Machaut summarizes his life and exemplary virtues in a sort of mini-conclusion,72 and announces that he will now describe ‘sa fin et sa piteuse mort’ [his end and his piteous death] (7963). Like the shift in topic and chronology that preceded the quarrel with Lesparre, this mini-conclusion gives the impression that the first part of Pierre’s life, and Machaut’s text, is somehow distinct from what is to follow. As in the previous episode, Machaut again insists upon the truth of his account,73 and also on his complete disinterestedness in telling it. His motivation is to provide the truth for truth’s sake: ‘je ne le di pas par envie / par haine, ne par lingnie / car pas ne sui de son linage / ne ne le di pour avantage / pour promesse ne pour avoir / que je nautres en doie avoir / einsois le di pour verite’ [I do not say it because of envy, or hate, or descent, for I am not of his lineage. Nor do I say it for profit, for promise, nor for money, that I, nor another, might derive from it. On the contrary, I say it for truth] (7987– 93). Here the truth appears to possess an inherent value, distinct from any end that it might serve, but the suggestion that telling the truth can be a neutral act is put into question by the events that follow. Once again, Machaut departs from a strictly chronological order. He first reveals his conclusion – that Pierre was murdered by his vassals – and provides the date of the murder and some details. He then returns to the origins of the murder, which in fact predate Pierre’s trip to the West and the resolution of the dispute with Lesparre.74 These details provided after the fact create the disconcerting impression that neither Pierre’s life nor Machaut’s narration of it were what they had initially seemed. Beneath the glorious account of Pierre’s chivalry and crusading zeal, and his touted military endeavours, festered dissatisfaction and hostility strong enough to prompt his nobles to plot his demise.75 Upon his return to Cyprus Pierre is advised by Jean le Viscount both of his nobles’ discontent and of his wife’s reputed infidelity. Pierre

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refuses to credit either rumour, but mentions them to his brother, the prince of Antioch. The prince later repeats Jean le Viscount’s accusations to the nobles, who vehemently protest their innocence. Without examining the substance of these accusations, I would like to focus on two aspects of this incident. First, Pierre turns Jean – now accused of slander because of his warnings to Pierre – completely over to the justice of his nobles. The nobles’ ‘justice’ results in Jean’s imprisonment and death, but Machaut absolves Pierre of any responsibility for these consequences by affirming that the king was not legally in a position to intervene.76 This episode depicts Pierre’s prompt and total compliance with the laws of Cyprus, which require him to defer to the Cypriot high court in matters related to the Cypriot nobility. Second, this episode becomes the occasion for a rather surprising discourse on the subject of truth. As we have seen, Machaut had previously highlighted the value of the truth, prefacing his accounts of the quarrel with Florimond de Lesparre and Pierre’s murder with affirmations of his account’s authenticity and the purity of his narrative motives. With respect to Jean le Viscount, however, Machaut concludes that ‘Mieus vausist quil se fust teus / car cils est fols et deceus / qui des signeurs trop sentremet / ou qui a leur conseil se met / pour dire chose qui desplaise’ [He would have done better to remain silent, for he is foolish and deceived who meddles too much in the affairs of lords, or who makes himself their adviser by saying a thing that does not please] (8163–7). This statement recalls two passages from Machaut’s Voir dit, the moral of which in each case is ‘Tous voirs ne sont pas biaus a dire’ [Not all truths are good to say].77 It would seem that the truth possesses a certain instability that Machaut’s text had not previously acknowledged. Angela Hurworth has insightfully discussed truth and interpretation in Machaut’s Prise. She uses Machaut’s anagram as a point of entry into these issues, showing how the three appearances of the anagram progressively reveal the identity of the Prise’s author and subject, and how one message hides another, one that must be decoded and interpreted by the reader.78 Machaut’s anagrams highlight the thematization of reading, decoding, and interpreting that is in evidence throughout his work, and nowhere more than in the Prise’s surprising and contradictory final episodes. Machaut’s insistence on the truth of his own account coupled with his condemnation of Jean le Viscount’s revelation of the truth seems to indicate that the truth in fact possesses no transcendental significance, but only circumstantial value. Or perhaps, like crusade, the truth is always good in the abstract, but in prac-

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tice must be deployed with care, as circumstances permit. Machaut subsequently modifies his censure of Jean le Viscount, acknowledging that some rulers appreciate the honesty of their barons, even when the truths they tell are not agreeable to hear.79 This distinction constitutes a subtle criticism of Pierre I, who is clearly not of this order. On the contrary, Pierre first disregarded the warnings of Jean le Viscount, then exposed Jean to the very parties he had accused. Clearly, telling the truth requires discretion and good judgment on the part of the speaker, as well as a certain heroism.80 Machaut once again insists upon the truth of his account of the final conflict preceding Pierre’s death, which involves the Gibelets, a Cypriot noble family. The argument, over hunting dogs, begins between Pierre’s son and young Jacques de Gibelet, who insults and complains of Pierre’s son. Machaut characterizes Jacques’s words as ‘rudes et foles’ [ignorant and foolish] (8280), an expression that recalls Florimond’s words to Pierre, which were ‘nices et ... foles’ [silly and foolish] (7366), as well as Jean le Viscount’s intervention in the private affairs of his lord, described as ‘fols et deceus’ [foolish and deceived]. It becomes clear that the apparently disparate episodes recounted in the final portion of the text form part of a larger reflection on the nature, function, and power of truth. Machaut does not denounce the speech of Florimond de Lesparre, Jean le Viscount, or Jacques de Gibelet on the basis of its falsity. Instead, he condemns the folly of their words, which derives from the context in which they are pronounced. Florimond spoke rudely to the king of Cyprus, Jean le Viscount revealed an unpleasant truth to his king, while Jacques de Gibelet failed to recognize ‘qua fil de roy on ne doit mie / dire pour chose si petite / chose de quoy on le despite’ [that to the son of a king one should never say, regarding such a trifle, words for which one might hate him] (8283–5). All three paid dearly for their inappropriate speech and, what is more, their communications were ineffective. All of this stands in implicit contrast to Machaut’s own text, which is not only truthful, as he never tires of reminding us, but also wise. Machaut is a professional writer, unlike the three speakers he condemns, and he does not address his discourse to a particular individual whom he might offend. Finally, Machaut’s truths, like his anagrams, demand the interpretation of his readers, who thereby become implicated in his text. Like beauty, the truths Machaut tells are in the eye of the beholder. As a result of the quarrel between Jacques de Gibelet and Pierre’s son, Pierre condemns the former to forced labour, and takes further

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revenge upon Marie de Gibelet, Jacques’s widowed sister. Before describing this secondary vengeance, Machaut boldly proclaims: ‘Encor y a un autre point / que je ne vous celeray point / car ci doy dire verite, / quamour haine namite / ne me puissent ad ce mouvoir / que mensonge face dou voir’ [there is yet another point that I will not hide from you, for here I must speak the truth, for love, hate, nor friendship can move me to make a lie of the truth] (8381–6). The truth that Machaut now reveals concerns Pierre’s unkingly behaviour, his torture of a noblewoman. Pierre’s treatment of Marie de Gibelet, who wishes to become a nun rather than marry one of Pierre’s servants, is a ‘chose trop deshonneste / laide villeinne et scens de beste / ne tel chose a roy napartient / en nulle maniere’ [a thing too dishonest, ugly, vilanous and beastly, nor does such an action befit a king, in any manner] (8475– 8). Machaut’s condemnation applies to all kings, in all circumstances. He further affirms that the ruler who treats women poorly ‘met sa vie en aventure / same, sonneur; et cest laidure / et pechie fait et mal aussi / tous princes qui le fait einsi’ [puts his life in danger, his soul, his honour, and it is ugliness and a sinful deed and evil also, for all princes who act thus] (8485–8). Machaut’s assertion regarding the riskiness of Pierre’s behaviour is borne out by the events that follow, for Pierre’s torture of Marie seems to have led directly to his murder. That very night ‘fu la traison mortel / tout de nouvel recommenie / traitie, juree et plevie’ [the mortel treason was again begun, planned, sworn, and pledged] (8496–8). Pierre take justice into his own hands by personally punishing the Gibelet family, in blatant contradiction to Cypriot law, and in a manner that is unjust and inconsistent with their social status, thereby demonstrating his disrespect for Cypriot law and for the Cypriot nobles themselves.81 Pierre’s apparent respect for Cypriot law and the rights of the high court in the case of Jean le Viscount was merely the effect of his own, and the nobles’, shared desire for vengeance. Pierre’s failure to administer justice systematically represents a lapse in the most fundamental duty of kings, while his abuse of the power he holds over those subject to him suggests that Pierre has become a tyrant.82 Machaut does not spare Pierre or make any excuses for his behaviour; his condemnation of Pierre’s unkingly behaviour is forthright and categorical. His subsequent condemnation of the king’s assassins will be just as absolute.83 The murder of Pierre is extraordinary for its savagery and passion. Angela Hurworth has noted that the physical violence enacted upon

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Pierre is paralleled by the linguistic violence of the nobles,84 who, as they stabbed Pierre, cried: or va va si fay tes armees en france, et tes grans assamblees va en prusse va en surie pren nos filles si les marie et meinne nos femmes treschier avec les francois quas tres chier apris tavons une autre dance que ne sont les dances de france (8747–54) [Now go, go make your armies in France, and your great assemblies, go to Prussia, go to Syria, take our daughters, then marry them, and lead off our very dear wives with the French whom you hold so dear. We have taught you another dance, other than the dances of France.]

These invectives are attributed to the collectivity of assassins and their diatribe is remarkably bitter and vivid, since the reader can well imagine what sort of dance Pierre might be learning as the nobles stab him repeatedly.85 The nobles’ reproaches fall into three main categories: Pierre’s neglect of Cyprus, the money that Pierre has spent on his military efforts, and his disrespect for Cypriot noblewomen. Since his coronation in 1358, Pierre had spent approximately four years abroad, largely in Western Europe, raising money and support for his crusade.86 During this time, his political and affective ties to Europe, particularly to the French, were strengthened, while his ties to the Cypriot nobility suffered. The nobles criticize not only Pierre’s armées, but also his assamblées, an implicit reference to the financial burden caused by Pierre’s travels and crusading ambitions.87 Although the Cypriot nobles were sensitive to the glory of the crusading enterprise, it must have seemed that Pierre was depleting the Cypriot treasury not simply on military preparations, but on frivolous entertainment across Europe. The Prise enumerates the many jousts, feasts, and gifts that accompanied Pierre’s travels, though without commenting on this use of his time and money. According to other contemporary historical accounts, some apparently felt that Pierre loitered a little too long in Europe, enjoying the festivities that accompanied his arrival in every new court, to the point that he endangered the success of his own crusade.88 The nobles also complained of Pierre’s favouritism towards foreigners, and

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in particular the French. The papal legate to Alexandria, Pierre Thomas, and Pierre I’s chancellor, Philippe de Mézières, were both French, as were many of his most loyal and trusted crusade supporters and advisers, including Brémond de la Voulte and Perceval de Coulange.89 Following the conquest of Alexandria, Pierre rewarded his faithful followers to the best of his ability, and many beneficiaries of his generosity were French.90 Philippe de Mézières later attributed Pierre’s murder to Cypriot jealousy of the French, and modern historians find that Pierre’s foreign favourites did indeed suffer after Pierre’s murder.91 Overall, the Cypriot nobles’ invectives against Pierre point to the king’s economic and affective neglect of his own country and its nobles to the benefit of the French.92 The physical and linguistic violence noted by Hurworth is further paralleled by the violence enacted by the nobles within the symbolic realm. Not content to mutilate the king’s body, which, according to Machaut, was stabbed over sixty times, the killers then staged a parody of a royal interment. The body of the king was dressed in ragged clothes and worn shoes, through which his feet showed. A worn and dirty covering hid the king’s disfigured face, while a painted parchment crown was placed upon his bloody head. A sceptre and orb constructed from odds and ends were put into his hands. The body of the king, thus adorned with perverted versions of the objects that signified his office – which he was perceived to have degraded – was paraded through Nicosia to the Church of the Jacobins, where he was buried next to his father. The nobles followed this up by burning the charters of Cyprus that contained the customs and laws, including the rights of kings, instituting instead a sort of oligarchy. The murder of the king himself was thus coupled by an attempt to annihilate the institution of kingship. Although Machaut’s account of this symbolic violence, including the burning of the Cypriot charters, is not supported by modern historiography, it is precisely this violence that forms the basis for his condemnation of the Cypriot nobility. While Machaut is prepared to concede that Pierre acted badly, his barons went too far in the violence of their reaction. The murder of Pierre by his own liege men, as Machaut repeatedly remarks (8010–11, 8244, 8683–4, 8755–6, 8829), can in no way be explained or justified by Pierre’s previous behaviour, however appalling, and the reader is called upon to lament the king’s death. Machaut’s conclusions constitute a categorical condemnation of tyrannicide, and articulate the power of the institution of kingship, which is abstracted

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from the person of the king and the specifics of his actions. Just as in his discussion of Pierre’s quarrels with Florimond de Lesparre, Jean le Viscount, and Jacques de Gibelet the substance of the accusations brought against Pierre was immaterial, so too the actions that form the basis of the nobles’ discontent are beside the point. Previously Machaut focused on the inappropriateness – the folly – of speaking in a certain way to kings. Likewise here, although Pierre’s actions were totally condemnable, it is nonetheless completely illicit to murder one’s liege lord.93 Immediately following his account of Pierre’s assassination, Machaut transitions abruptly to his elegiac conclusion: ‘ploures honneurs et vasselages / plourez enfans plourez pucelles / plourez dames et damoiselles / plourez aussi toutes gens darmes / plourez sa mort a chaudes larmes’ [weep, honour and deeds of courage, weep young men, weep young girls, weep ladies and maidens, weep too men of arms, weep his death with hot tears] (8834–8). The existing scholarship has not, to my mind, adequately addressed the conclusion of Machaut’s heroic biography. Many scholars gloss over the problematic ending, while others see Pierre as a Christ-figure, betrayed by his own nobles, including his brothers.94 This reading does not take into account the episodes that precede Pierre’s murder, the way they contributed to his assassination, or the role they should play in our judgment of Pierre. It is not easy to see how one can classify as a Christ-figure an individual who only two hundred lines previously tortured a young noblewoman for wanting to become a nun. It is perhaps the difficulty of reconciling Machaut’s apparently contradictory judgments of Pierre (and of course Pierre’s own inconsistent conduct) that makes one wish to disregard these episodes of the Prise. Yet Machaut himself did not shy away from these incidents; on the contrary, he recounts them at length and in detail, insisting at every turn on the truth and objectivity of his account. He is forthright in both his praise and his condemnation of Pierre. In turn, we as readers should not ignore the narration of these events in our attempts to understand this life or this text. The elegiac final passage of the Prise parallels in many respects the text’s mythological opening. Pierre is lauded in the heroic crusading terms of the prologue, which is recalled by means of references to Godefroy de Bouillon and to the Nine Worthies, and Machaut confirms his earlier prediction that Pierre would become the tenth Worthy (8852– 3).95 These evocations of the prologue highlight the degeneration suffered by the crusade ideal since the start of the text. At the beginning of the Prise the gods and goddesses posit a perfect military hero – perfect

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because he is a crusader – and bring him to life in the person of Pierre. Yet over the course of the text both crusade and the crusader fall grievously short of the ideal they are meant to illustrate. In some respects the deplorable actions of Pierre-the-king kill Pierre-the-ideal-crusadinghero long before his actual murder. It is perhaps for this reason that Machaut announces the king’s death so many times over the final third of the text, repeating it over and over like a death knell (7962–3, 7975, 8010–16, 8027, 8242–4), long before he recounts the event itself. Machaut’s text concludes with a lament for the end of Pierre’s life, but gone as well are many cherished notions surrounding the vision of crusade: that the Holy Land might be recovered, that a unified Christian effort was possible, that the crusade could and would unite Christians in a holy war, that the countries of Western Europe were willing and able to put aside their differences in the interest of a higher cause. The stylized mythological opening of the Prise has often been viewed as an incongruity, contrasting as it does with the historical realism of the narration that follows, but in fact the ideal visions of crusade and of Pierre I belong perhaps as much to the realm of myth as the convocation of the gods and goddesses. Machaut remarks at the end of his text, ‘oncques mais certeinnement / de si tres bon commencement / je ne vi si piteuse fin’ [surely never from such a fine beginning have I seen such a piteous ending] (8867–9), a remark that could apply equally well to Pierre’s life, and to a certain vision of crusade. Conclusion It is not surprising that the Prise is the text of Machaut’s old age, nostalgic and sorrowful for a lost era and a lost ideal, recalled fleetingly in the person of Pierre I, who seemed that he might revive the ideal of the crusading king, but who in fact degraded it. For all its hopeful beginnings, Machaut’s Prise d’Alixandre is ultimately about loss and regret, loss that is inscribed within the text from its very inception. After all, the gods and goddesses convene precisely because they desire something they no longer have – a crusading hero. Moreover, Machaut knows, as does the reader, that despite Pierre’s divine creation his crusading efforts will fail, and he himself will meet a tragic and untimely death. In the Prise Machaut stages the problematization of various ideals, of crusade, of kingship, and of truth. The idea of a general crusade is appreciated by the rulers and nobility of Europe; Pierre’s crusading proposal is greeted with enthusiasm and many pledges of material sup-

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port. However, some rulers, such as Charles V, are forced to refuse Pierre’s invitation on practical grounds. Many promises of aid fail to materialize, as evidenced by the fact that Pierre waits in vain on the island of Rhodes for the arrival of troops that were supposed to join his forces. Those who do participate in his crusade are motivated largely by the prospect of financial gain rather than the desire to reclaim the Christian holy lands, and are unwilling to risk their lives trying to hold Alexandria. The discord that arises in Pierre’s army as soon as the city has been won demonstrates the incapacity of the crusading enterprise to unite Christians for more than a fleeting moment. While it celebrates crusade, the Prise also reveals its many shortcomings and limitations. The ideal of kingship is likewise put into question by the Prise. Pierre is created in the opening scene of the Prise as the fulfilment of the gods’ and goddesses’ desires; the child of Mars and Venus, reared by four goddesses and armed by Vulcan, Pierre is to be a crusading hero. Yet, however consummate a crusader Pierre may be, an ideal sovereign he is not. The very quality that is supposed to make Pierre I a model warrior-king – his dedication to crusade – is precisely the characteristic that makes him unfit for ruling and surviving in his time. His singleminded devotion to crusade causes Pierre to distance himself geographically and affectively from his island kingdom and his Cypriot nobles, and to neglect the only part of his heritage that he actually possesses. His character and his goals appear anachronistic alongside the more practical rulers of Europe, who tend to their own affairs before dedicating themselves to crusade, if indeed they ever do. The ideal sovereign is better represented by the emperor Charles, who reigns over a contented, prosperous, and safe country, or Charles V, who renounces crusade in favour of reconquering and protecting his own country. Finally, the Prise d’Alixandre puts into question the notion that the truth possesses an inherent value, and even the idea that the truth exists as a static or stable entity. Machaut’s text shows its readers that truth cannot exist independently of interpretation, which itself is relative and subject to change. Machaut’s account of Pierre I’s life, which he claims is truthful and definitive, nonetheless remains inexplicable, full of contradictions, resistant to explanation or understanding. The only truths that exist are fleeting and fragmented. What, after all, is the truth of a story whose principal figure is both a hero and a tyrant? in which crusade constitutes the loftiest aim of Christendom while posing a threat to the greatest Christian kingdoms? in which a king and his killers can both be condemned? The very ideals that may once have appeared to

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be unassailable have come unmoored, their worth contingent upon given sets of conditions. In the end, it is perhaps not simply for the loss of ideals, but for the loss of faith in their value, that Machaut exhorts his readers to plourez, plourez, plourez.

4 The Herald Chandos’s Vie du Prince Noir: A prince très chrétien

Composed in approximately 1385, roughly a decade after the death of Edward, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine, by the herald of the renowned English knight Sir John Chandos, the Vie du Prince Noir records ‘la vie / De le plus vaillant prince du mounde’ [the life of the most valiant prince in the world] (48–9).1 The Herald Chandos was a witness to many of the events he describes, and was in a position to discuss others with those who had participated in them. For this reason, the Vie has been prized as a historical document, in particular as one of the most important sources of information regarding the Spanish campaign of 1366–7, in which the Black Prince helped to restore to the throne of Castile Pedro the Cruel, who had been overthrown by his illegitimate half-brother, Henry of Trastamara.2 Despite the text’s near-total neglect by modern literary scholars, the Herald himself was clearly aware of his literary antecedents, and he inscribes his text within established literary conventions. On the one hand, the Vie du Prince Noir bears a strong resemblance to Guillaume de Machaut’s Prise d’Alixandre.3 Both works are written in rhyming octosyllabic couplets, with strong ties to the epic tradition. Both are military and political histories structured as biographies of exemplary and recently deceased rulers, which focus principally on one remarkable military engagement. Moreover, as we shall see, the Vie, like the Prise, struggles to reconcile an ideal of sovereignty with the demands of political reality. The other textual model most clearly in evidence is that of the Herald’s fellow Hainaulter4 and literary predecessor, Jean Froissart.5 The Herald’s glowing praise of Philippa of Hainault (59–62) places him figuratively in a literary genealogy of writers patronized by the queen of

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letters, making him a literary descendant of Froissart.6 Jean Devaux has noted that the Herald uses autobiographical details, particularly his status as an eyewitness, in a manner similar to Froissart in order to assure the reader of the dependability of his account.7 In addition, the Herald refers to himself by a title – the Herald Chandos – that he had not held since the death of John Chandos in 1370. His former title associates him with his material, and is more effective as a measure of his reliability than his status as English King of Arms, a title he had held since 1377. By composing his text in the lingua franca of Western Europe,8 and by inscribing it in the literary tradition of his more famous contemporaries, the Herald might well have hoped to engage a similarly wide audience.9 However, the question of the Herald’s intended public is a tricky one, for like the Prise d’Alixandre and the Chanson de Hugues Capet, the Vie du Prince Noir has no named patron. There are a number of possible candidates, for the Black Prince’s legacy was a powerful instrument that could be exploited to advance a variety of political objectives. Alternatively, it is possible that the Herald wrote his text without a patron, though it has been convincingly argued that at some point a copy of the text was presented to King Richard.10 Diana Tyson proposes Richard II himself as the probable patron, citing in support of her argument Richard’s interest in literature and his family’s tradition of literary patronage.11 Richard may have wished to honour his father and to record for posterity the details of his life. Tyson recognizes the uncertainty of her claim, for the text does not actually name Richard as a patron, nor, according to Tyson, does it emphasize in particular the moment of his birth, as might be expected had he commissioned the work.12 She attributes this lack of prominence to ‘the Herald’s lack of poetical talents and imagination’ and affirms that ‘in the absence of a better solution to the problem of the identity of the Herald’s patron, the theory that it was Richard II may be tentatively accepted.’13 Patricia Eberle likewise believes Richard to be the text’s patron, a theory supported in part by the fact that, in her view, ‘Richard’s own birth is recounted in highly coloured, romantic terms.’14 Peter Ainsworth believes that the Vie was intended to influence the young Richard II, who was eighteen years old and just embarking on his personal rule at the time of the text’s composition. Otherwise, he asks, why wait ten years after the prince’s death to celebrate his life and deeds?15 A text that sought simply to honour the prince could have been composed shortly after his death. This theory is certainly plausible, but it does not explain to what purpose or in what way the Vie was

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to shape Richard’s conduct. And as we shall see, the exemplum provided by the Black Prince is a highly ambiguous one. The most fully developed theory of patronage and of purpose is that of J.J.N. Palmer, who has proposed John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, as the text’s patron. At the time of the Vie’s composition, some twenty years had passed since the prince’s Spanish campaign and his rule in Aquitaine, yet the events of the text were still pertinent to English foreign affairs. Two new kings, Richard II and Charles VI, were in power in England and France, but the Hundred Years’ War had not been concluded, though it was punctuated by moments of decreased tension and attempts to conclude a peace. In addition, despite the deaths of Pedro, the Black Prince, and Henry of Trastamara in the intervening years, the dynastic dispute in Castile was ongoing, and English involvement in peninsular affairs was far from over. In 1379 Henry’s son, John, succeeded him to the throne of Castile. Meanwhile the prince’s brother, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, had a personal stake in the Castilian dynastic dispute. At the start of the Spanish campaign Pedro had left his daughters in Bordeaux as hostages and they remained there for many years. In 1371 the eldest, Constance, married John of Gaunt. By virtue of this marriage John of Gaunt claimed the throne of Castile.16 In 1386 John of Gaunt made his first and only serious bid for the throne of Castile by invading Galicia. The following year, his military invasion a failure, John of Gaunt concluded a peace with John of Castile, sealed by the marriage of Catalina – John of Gaunt’s eldest daughter by Constance – and John’s heir, Henry. Palmer affirms that the Vie is a political treatise written in the interest of the Duke of Lancaster and disguised as a biography. In fact, he says, the work constitutes a call to arms addressed to the political and military elites, even to the king himself, to support the ambitions of the Duke of Lancaster for the throne of Castile.17 In support of this theory Palmer cites what he sees as the overwhelming pre-eminence of the Duke of Lancaster in part two of the Vie,18 as well as his historical conviction that Lancaster sought to prolong the war with France in order to advance his aspirations to occupy the throne of Castile.19 Palmer enumerates the many appearances of John of Gaunt, who brings reinforcements from England, negotiates the passage of the prince’s army through Roncevalles, and leads the army’s avant-garde. These frequent mentions of the prince’s brother, as well as the praise that accompanies his every appearance, lead Palmer to the conclusion that the text depicts the prince’s success as a product of his brother’s efforts.20

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The admiration of Lancaster does not strike me as exceptional, nor does it distinguish itself from the praise offered to other English knights. Indeed, the Vie celebrates English chivalry and unity in a broad sense.21 As one might expect in the work of a person whose profession required him to record the names of political and military actors and their activities and fates, to give credit where credit was due,22 the Herald includes numerous lists of the English knights who accompanied and supported the prince, and applauds their participation in the English campaigns. For instance, Sir John Chandos is named twentyeight times over the course of the Vie and is featured in a number of detailed and colourful scenes.23 Moreover, the death of Chandos (3949– 54) is depicted as a catastrophe that inspires much rejoicing among the French.24 His loss is given as one of the direct causes of du Guesclin’s return to France, the string of French victories that followed, and the ultimate defeat of the prince in Aquitaine. In my view, a more convincing argument for interpreting the Vie as a work of propaganda designed to promote the ambitions of the Duke of Lancaster is the text’s insistence on legitimacy. The Vie affirms the legitimacy of English claims to the French throne, some fifty years after they were first made.25 In addition, we shall see that Pedro of Castile’s status as the legitimate ruler is presented as an unassailable reason for assisting him, in spite of Pedro’s dubious character. The Duke of Lancaster, as the spouse of Pedro’s eldest daughter and heir, Constance, was the focus of legitimist claims to the throne of Castile throughout the 1370s and 1380s. The Vie depicts the Black Prince sparing no cost or effort to reinstate the legitimate ruler of Castile, and this powerful example could have been brought to bear on Richard II and the recalcitrant parliaments, who were reluctant to accord John of Gaunt the funds he needed for an expedition to Castile. In addition to its specific statements concerning legitimate rule, the Vie also reflects in the abstract on the foundations of kingship. On the one hand the text posits legitimate birth as a necessary prerequisite for the exercise of kingship, while on the other it advances the (potentially conflicting) claim that no lord merits the name who is not loved by his men. The Vie thus invites its readers to consider the basis of kingship. Is kingship founded on law, or on the character of the king? And if the latter, what qualities does kingship demand? In what follows I will examine the ways in which the prince incarnates – and, more importantly, problematizes – an ideal of kingship. To date, the Vie’s readers have presented this text as a straightforward work of eulogy or panegyric.26

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However, the Black Prince is not just a military genius or a chivalric hero, nor, in fact, is he always successful. His territorial acquisitions in France were largely lost by the end of his life. I contend that despite the Herald’s best efforts to preserve his idealized vision of the prince, he is ultimately unable to reconcile the biography of his model sovereign with certain historical facts. While the first part of the Vie establishes the prince as the illustration of a knightly ideal, the second part simultaneously expands upon, and undercuts, this design. By means of chronological breaks, the narrative juxtaposition of key events, internal parallels, and comparisons to other kings, the text puts into question the viability of a chivalric ideal of kingship. Yet as flawed as the prince may be in terms of a chivalric ideal – or as inadequate as the chivalric ideal itself may be – the prince is represented as an ideal Christian king in the tradition, I will argue, of Saint Louis, thereby making him both by birth and by worth the rightful successor to the French throne. Portrait of an Ideal Prince The Vie du Prince Noir is a relatively short text of just over four thousand lines that may be readily divided into two parts.27 The first 1648 lines provide an overview of the prince’s military career, with special emphasis on the battles of Crécy (1346) and Poitiers (1356), and concludes with a summary of his reign in Aquitaine. It covers approximately thirty years, and occupies just under half of the text of the Vie. The second part focuses almost exclusively upon the prince’s Spanish expedition of 1366–7, the account of which occupies just under two thousand lines, in which the prince came to the assistance of Pedro the Cruel, king of Castile, who had been overthrown in March 1366 by his illegitimate half-brother, Henry of Trastamara, backed by the French. The Vie describes how the prince helped Pedro to defeat Henry’s forces at the battle of Najera, and reinstated him as king. However, the text does not discuss subsequent developments in Castile, in particular Pedro’s 1369 assassination by Henry, who then reclaimed the crown of Castile. By that point the prince was too preoccupied with the renewed war in Aquitaine to intervene a second time in Castilian affairs. Part two concludes with a rapid account of the prince’s final years, including the renewal of the war with France, the prince’s illness, his return to England, and his death. The two parts of the Vie must be read against one another in order to arrive at some notion of the significance of the text as a whole.28

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In the prologue to the Vie du Prince Noir, amidst more conventional reflections on the poor esteem in which good authors are nowadays held, and the imperative for those with knowledge to share it, is the statement ‘il n’est chose que ne delzeche / Ne qu’il n’est arbres que ne seche / Q’un soul, c’est lui arbres de vie. / Mais cils arbres en ceste vie / Florist et botonne en touz champs’ [there is nothing that does not wither, nor is there a tree which does not dry out, but one alone, which is the tree of life. But this tree in this life flowers and blooms in all fields] (9–13). The first part of this passage prefigures the text’s conclusion, in which the dying prince reminds his followers that death awaits all men, from the glorious and high-born to the humble. The tree of life could refer to Christ or to the Christian faith, which ensures eternal life. However, the tree of life also suggests the life that is preserved through writing, and the memory of good deeds made possible by texts such as the one the Herald proposes to write, which continue to bloom in the hearts and minds of their readers, who are able to profit from the examples therein. And, indeed, the moral portrait of the prince that follows serves to explain and justify the Herald’s text and also to entice his readers; such an exemplary figure is eminently worth writing and reading about. The prince’s virtues fall into three main categories. First, he exhibits the full range of chivalric qualities: prowess, loyalty, kindness, and generosity.29 In addition, the prince possesses the most important of kingly virtues, a respect for justice.30 Finally, the prince is an exemplary Christian.31 There is nothing surprising about the narrator’s characterization of the prince; on the contrary, the virtues he mentions are standard fare in literary portraits of kings, as well as in theoretical treatises such as miroirs du prince. This idealized presentation of the prince will be expanded upon and illustrated over the course of part one of the Vie, with special emphasis on ‘ce dount homme doit faire accompte, / C’est du fait de chivalrie’ [that which men must most take into account, that is, deeds of chivalry] (96–7). As in many chivalric biographies, the prince’s childhood receives only the briefest of mentions.32 For all intents and purposes, the prince’s life begins when he is knighted by his father before the battle of Crécy (147), and thereby is born into chivalry. Despite the prince’s relative youth and inexperience, the narrator emphasizes his initiative and prominence in the early campaigns. In his account of the battle of Crécy the narrator notes three times that the prince led the avant-garde (294, 325, 353), and he gives the prince credit for the defeat of the French

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army.33 At the siege of Calais the prince surpasses his own father in chivalric skill and virtue, actually rescuing him over the course of the engagement.34 Upon his return to England, Edward himself tells his wife, Philippa, of their son’s extraordinary prowess and accomplishments (464–7). The text is careful to justify morally the warfare in which the prince is almost constantly engaged. This is achieved first by affirming the legitimacy of the English claim to the French throne and the justice, therefore, of England’s war on France. In an address to the reader at the start of the Vie the narrator says: ‘Bien savez qe lui noble roi/Son piere, a tres grant arroi, / Per sa haute noble puissance / Fist guerre au roialme de Fraunce / En disant q’il devoit avoir / La corone, sachez pur voir, / Dount en sustenant la querelle / Il maintient guerre moult cruelle’ [You know well that the noble king, his father, with a very great retinue, by means of his lofty, noble power, made war on the kingdom of France saying that he should have had the crown, know in truth, whence in order to uphold the quarrel he maintained a very cruel war] (107–14). The reader is presumed to know of Edward’s claim to the French throne, which is at the origin of the (then) fifty-year-old war with France. This dynastic dispute, and the justice of the English position, is evoked again before the battle of Poitiers. Addressing the cardinal of Périgord, the would-be architect of an eleventh-hour peace, the prince steadfastly maintains his father’s right to the French throne: ‘nous voillons bien sustenir / Qe nostre querelle, sanz mentir, / Est juste, verrai et veritable. / Bien savez qe ce n’est pas fable / Qe mon piere, roi Edwardz, / Certes estoit le pluis droitz heirs / Pur tenir et pur possesser / France, qe chescuns doit amer, / Au temps q’il fuist coronez rois, / Lui roi Philippes de Valois’ [we want indeed to maintain that our quarrel, without lying, is just, true, and truthful. You know well that it is not a tale that my father, king Edward, certainly was the most rightful heir to hold and to possess France, which all should love, at the time that king Philip of Valois was crowned king] (825–34, emphasis added). Here, the prince’s ‘Bien savez’ presumes not only the cardinal’s knowledge of the political situation, but also his concurrence with the legitimacy of Edward’s claim. The repetition of ‘Bien savez’ recalls the earlier mention of Edward’s war with France, in which the reader was the narratee, and thereby inscribes the reader as a second, implied narratee of the prince’s remarks to the cardinal. In this manner, the reader is implicated, like the cardinal, in an acknowledgment of the validity of Edward’s claims to the French throne.

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Having established the legal and moral right of the English, the narrator is also careful to emphasize at every opportunity the prince’s piety, which is often manifested in military situations. As a Christian knight, the prince is concerned about the lives of his own men and those of Jean II. He tells the cardinal of Périgord, ‘pas ne voille / Qe homme die que par mon orgoille / Moerge tant bele juvente’ [I do not wish men to say that so many beautiful youth died on account of my pride] (835–7), and so he agrees to call a truce, though he is not authorized to conclude a peace agreement. The prince particularly wishes to avoid the charge of pride, as this is a sin with which the French kings will be associated. The prince prays before the battle (1263–73), and following the battle he gives the credit for his victory to God, while recognizing the moral dilemma faced by all knights: their vocation calls upon them to perform acts that are condemned by the Church. The prince tells his troops, ‘Si lui ent devons remercier / Et de bon coer vers lui prier / Q’il nous voille ottroier sa glorie / Et perdoner ceste victorie’ [We should thank Him, and with a good heart pray to Him that He might grant us his glory and pardon us for this victory] (1429–32). The narrator also points to the prince’s generous and merciful treatment of Jean II. Although the prince has won the battle and taken the French king prisoner, he shows deference towards Jean II, helping him to disarm ‘pur le roi pluis honourer’ [in order to honour the king more] (1419). Thus, in addition to his military genius, which enabled him to defeat the French forces despite their superior numbers, the prince exhibits the qualities of a model Christian. When they hear of his victory, Edward III thanks God, and Philippa thanks the Virgin Mary for granting her a son ‘qui tant fuist hardiz’ [who was so brave] (1478). The narrative accounts of the battles of Crécy and Poitiers are based on the principle of amplificatio, a technique that draws attention to the similarity of the two events, while providing an ever greater level of detail. The battle of Crécy occupies approximately two hundred and fifty lines of text.35 The narrator names some of the principal participants in the battle, describes the battle itself in traditional epic terms, and provides a short list of the most illustrious dead. The narrator also describes Edward III’s honourable burial of the renowned Jean de Luxembourg, king of Bohemia, who had fought for the French, a detail that emphasizes Edward’s chivalric generosity. The full account of Poitiers – from the start of the English chevauchée in the fall of 1355 to the prince’s return to England with his royal captive – occupies some eight hundred and fifty lines (642–1492), of which the battle itself constitutes just over

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three hundred lines (1100–1408). When recounting this episode the narrator adds an account of the peace negotiations attempted by the cardinal of Périgord and a description of the composition and disposition of the various companies of the two armies. Like the battle of Crécy, the battle itself is evoked in standard epic terms. To the list of illustrious dead is added a list of the illustrious prisoners. An event that parallels Edward III’s respectful treatment of the body of Jean de Luxembourg is the prince’s respectful treatment of the captured Jean II. The similarities between the battles of Crécy and Poitiers were evident even to contemporaries of the events. In both, an enormous French army, led by the king, was ignominiously and overwhelmingly defeated by the English. Outdated military equipment and tactics, discord among the divisions of the army, and unfortunate decisions on the part of the military commanders all played a role in the losses. Furthermore, the narrator of the Vie establishes a series of repeated citations that create parallels between the two battles and their respective leaders, and that measure the distance that separates the French kings from the ideal represented by the Black Prince. Like the Prise d’Alixandre, the Vie du Prince Noir portrays a large number of contemporary sovereigns in addition to its biographical subject. These include Edward III of England, the French kings Philippe VI, Jean II, and Charles V, Pedro the Cruel, king of Castile, Henry of Trastamara, and Charles, king of Navarre. Unlike the Prise, however, in which other sovereigns were depicted favourably and were able to offer alternative – even superior – models of kingship than that furnished by Pierre I, in the Vie du Prince Noir the other sovereigns provide counter-examples to the ideal apparently represented by the prince. The French kings are characterized primarily by their pride, which leads them to underestimate the English forces. When Philippe VI hears of the English invasion of France, ‘[t]iel mervaille ot, c’este chose voire, / Qe au paines le pooit croire, / Car pas ne quidoit qe tiel gent / Eussent tant de hardiement’ [he experienced such marvel, it is a true thing, that he barely could believe it, for he did not think that such people had so much boldness] (185–8). Philippe’s disbelief and his scornful reference to the English as ‘tiel gent,’ are sorely misplaced, as the verb ‘quidoit’ indicates.36 After hearing of the destruction wrought by the English, Philippe assembles his forces, and ‘[b]ien quidoit sa terre defendre / Au roi englois, a voir entendre, / Et assez petit le prisoit’ [well thought to defend his land from the English king, to tell the truth, and he esteemed him quite little] (203–5). The English inflict great damage on the French countryside, but

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Philippe ‘bien quidoit avoir enclos / Les Englois, solonc mon purpos, / Droit entre le Sayne et la Somme / Et la endroit, ce est la somme, / Les quidoit il trop bien combatre’ [thought well to have enclosed the English, according to my account, right between the Seine and the Somme, and in that place, that is the long and the short of it, he thought he would fight them very well indeed] (231–5). The repetition of ‘quidoit’ signals the hubris of Philippe VI. The same overconfidence is evidenced by the French before the battle of Poitiers. After an initial skirmish in which several English lords were captured, the French forces affirmed that ‘[t]ouz les autres viendront aprés’ [all the others will come afterwards] (1120). The presumptuousness of the French kings and their forces only highlights the embarrassment of their repeated defeats. Philippe VI’s and Jean II’s repetition of the same phrase indicates that they are virtually interchangeable, as are their respective situations. Following the English chevauchée through Normandy, Philippe ‘dist qe poi se priseroit / Si graunt vengeaunce n’en prenderoit’ [said that he would esteem himself little if he did not take great vengeance for it] (229–30). Similarly, when Jean II hears of the English chevauchée through Aquitaine all the way to Carcassonne, he also ‘dist qe poi se priseroit / Si grant vengeance n’en prendoit’ [said that he would esteem himself little if he did not take great vengeance for it] (727–8). Their equivalence is further highlighted by the fact that Philippe’s death and Jean’s accession are nowhere mentioned. At a certain point the text simply names Jean instead of Philippe.37 Jean’s replacement of his father is completely immaterial, since they react in the same manner to the English threat, habitually underestimating their foe and suffering considerable losses as a result. The French kings’ empty threats of vengeance and their ill-founded pride highlight the prince’s military prowess and Christian humility. Before his military encounters, the prince does not presume that he will be victorious. Moreover, he does not rely on his own human resources and power, but prays to God for help. Before encountering Jean II’s division, for example, the prince asks God: ‘Voillez, pur vostre seintisme nomme, / Moi et ma gent garder de mal, / Ensi, verrai Dieux celestial, / Qe vous savez qe j’ai bon droit’ [Would that, by your very holy name, I and my people might be protected from harm, for, true heavenly God, you know that I have good cause] (1270–3). Such moments reinforce the prince’s piety, and also justify England’s position in the war, since the prince’s victories appear to confirm God’s sup-

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port for his cause. The prince credits God for his success; after the battle of Poitiers when Jean II observes that the prince has had more honour that day than he, the prince replies, ‘Dieux l’ad fait et noun mie nous’ [God did it and not at all me] (1428).38 Even more striking than the differences between the prince and Philippe VI and Jean II are those between the prince and Charles V. Philippe VI and Jean II, though flawed, share the same chivalric ethos as the prince. Indeed, Jean II’s bravery at Poitiers is admired by the narrator, who remarks that the French king ‘vaillantement se combatoit’ [fought bravely] (1348), as well as by the prince, who seeks to honour the French king by helping him to remove his armour (1420). Charles, however, seems to be cut from different cloth. The dauphin’s first military experience comes at the battle of Poitiers. At the time he was eighteen, only slightly older than the prince when he fought his first battles at Crécy and Calais. However, in marked contrast to the prince, who helped to win the battle of Crécy and who rescued his father at Calais, at Poitiers Charles leaves the battlefield before the end of the confrontation.39 The narrator does not overtly condemn Charles’s behaviour, or even comment on it, but the news of his departure is immediately followed by praise of the prince’s actions (1240–1), thereby creating an implicit comparison between the two that is not favourable to Charles. In this manner Charles, the great enemy of the Black Prince, represents a sort of anti-prince from his earliest youth. His retreat, abandoning the battlefield and his own father, though strategically and politically wise, was most unchivalric.40 This disparity between the behaviour of the two sovereigns serves to highlight the exceptional virtue of the prince. Part one of the Vie is composed of a series of English successes. The narrator emphasizes the prince’s triumphs despite odds that do not always favour the English. The only military failure that is even hinted at in part one is the unsuccessful siege of Rheims and march on Paris, led by Edward III and his sons in 1360. The English had, in a rare miscalculation, overstepped their bounds. Unable to deliver the final blow to the French and to capture either Rheims – the city of the royal anointing – or the French capital, the English proceeded to finalize the peace and to release Jean II. However, the narrator does not present these events in terms of a failed endeavour. Rather, he says that the English ‘feurent logiez sur les champs / Et embataillez pur combatre, / De cella ne poet homme debatre. / Mais, ils ne combatirent mie’ [were encamped in the fields and arranged in battalions to fight. This, no one can contest. But, they did not fight at all] (1532–5). No explanation is

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offered for the fact that the English do not fight; it is simply stated. ‘Puis tournerent lour chivachie / Devant Chartres; la accordée / Fuist le paix qui puis fuist jurée’ [then they turned their troops towards Chartres. There was agreed the peace that later was sworn] (1536–8). The narrator establishes a temporal, but not a logical or causal, connection between the decision to proceed with the peace and the fact that the English did not engage the French. In fact, the peace came about in part as a result of the English failure to defeat the French and occupy Paris.41 Not only does the narrator elide the prince’s military failure, but he actually transforms this unsuccessful military enterprise into a successful diplomatic one: ‘par lui [the prince] et par son enhort / Feurent les nobles rois d’accort’ [by him {the Prince} and by his counsel the noble kings were brought into agreement] (1541–2). This transformation of a military loss into a diplomatic triumph prefigures the manner in which the Herald, in part two of his text, will try ever more energetically to recuperate the failures that punctuate the prince’s final years. The strain of these efforts, and the distance that separates the prince’s actions from the ideal of sovereignty posited by the text, will become ever more apparent. But for now, the narrator solemnly notes the date of the peace. It is only the third date given in the text, the first two being those of the battles of Crécy and Poitiers. Thus, the peace provides a logical and textual conclusion to years of warfare, and ushers in the account of the prince’s joyous return to England, his marriage, and the triumphant, if vague, evocation of the prince’s rule in Aquitaine that concludes part one of the Vie. The conclusion to part one is remarkable for the things that it leaves unsaid, or that it blatantly transforms. Having ostensibly completed his account of the prince’s deeds of chivalry, the narrator summarizes the rest of the prince’s career in a series of glowing superlatives that describe his happy marriage that has produced two heirs, the lavish wealth of his court, the love that his subjects and vassals bore him, and the fear and respect he inspired in his neighbours and enemies (1596– 1628). The narrator chooses not to mention the death of the prince’s eldest son in childhood, the rebellion of the Gascon nobles, the crushing lack of resources, or the renewal of hostilities with France. Instead, the narrator triumphantly declares that at the Prince’s court at Bordeaux ‘demurroit tut noblesse, / Tut joie et tut léesce, / Largesce, franchise et honour’ [resided all nobility, all joy and all happiness, generosity, noble conduct and honour] (1617–19). This portion of the text exhibits all the signs of a conclusion; the nar-

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rator has described the prince’s virtues, illustrated them with accounts of his deeds, and summarized and evaluated events and relationships. In a passage that recalls his prologue, the narrator repeats his reason for writing: ‘homme ne doit mie ses faitz / Oblier en ditz n’en faitz’ [men should not at all forget his deeds, in words nor in acts] (1637–8). At this point, it would seem that the Herald’s literary undertaking should come to an end. However, inscribed within this apparent conclusion is a new beginning: ‘Ore n’est pas raisoun qe je faigne / D’un noble voiage d’Espaigne, / Mais bien est raisons qe homme l’em prise / Car ceo fuist le plus noble emprise / Q’onqes cristiens emprist’ [now it is not right that I should neglect a noble voyage to Spain, but it is right that men esteem him for it, for this was the most noble enterprise that ever a Christian undertook] (1639–43). Not only has the Herald neglected to recount one of the prince’s noble deeds of chivalry in the first part of his text, but it is actually the ‘most noble enterprise that ever a Christian undertook.’ This superlative noble enterprise will form the subject of part two of the Vie. This internal conclusion and new introduction set apart and draw attention to the prince’s Spanish expedition. In addition, this moment marks a breach in the chronological progression of events that had heretofore governed the text. In part two, the text returns to the years 1366–7 to recount events that the narrator had not mentioned at the time at which they had occurred. In the introduction to his new subject matter the narrator provides, in yet another chronological break, a proleptic account of the events to come: the prince ‘par force en son lieu remist / Un roi q’avoit desheritée / Son friere bastard et maisné’ [by force put back in his place a king whom his younger illegitimate brother had disinherited] (1644–6). In addition to returning to a previous point in time, the events narrated in part two also continue past the point at which part one had ended, concluding with the prince’s death. These chronological irregularities, following what had been a strictly chronological text, set apart and call attention to the Spanish expedition. At the start of part two the narrator says to his readers: ‘Ore est bien temps de comencer / Ma matiere, et moi adresser / Au purpos ou je voille venir’ [Now it is high time to take up my subject, and to turn my attention to the purpose to which I wish to come] (1649–51). These lines constitute an almost exact citation of lines 43–5,42 thereby recalling the prologue to part one and creating a parallel between the two parts of the text. At the same time, the narrator’s use of nearly equivalent language to introduce different topics effectively redefines his ‘matiere’ or

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subject. The Spanish expedition is thus triply set apart from the first part of the text: by means of textual rupture, by the advent of chronological discontinuity, and by the self-conscious introduction of a new ‘matiere.’ If, as the narrator suggests, the events he describes in part two are of the same order as those narrated in part one, why not recount the prince’s military exploits chronologically? Jean Devaux attributes this rupture to the fact that the Herald was present during the Spanish campaign, whereas he relied upon oral and written accounts for his redaction of part one of the Vie. While this is certainly true, I believe that the differences between the narration of parts one and two go beyond their disparate levels of detail and accuracy, and are qualitative in nature. The Herald’s very status as an eyewitness to the events of part two – while making possible his comprehensive and precise account – appears to have constituted something of a dilemma. Increasingly he seems caught between the ideal he has posited and which the prince is supposed to illustrate, and the facts that he knew to be true. The result is a strange narration that undercuts as much as it continues part one of the text, and in which the events depicted and the interpretations thereof seem frequently at odds. Part Two – Parallels and Reversals Part two of the Vie seems initially to fulfil the promise of the internal conclusion and new introduction. The battle of Najera can be seen as a further amplificatio of the battles of Crécy and Poitiers. In the latter episodes, an English invasion and a destructive chevauchée aroused the ire of the French king, who, to avenge his honour and soothe his wounded pride allowed himself to be drawn into a pitched battle. The two French kings involved in the respective battles are nearly identical in their behaviour and reactions towards the English. The battle of Najera constitutes yet another great military victory for the Black Prince. The entire Spanish campaign, from the planning stages to the prince’s return to France, occupies almost two thousand lines, or nearly all of part two, and the battle itself is described in over three hundred lines. Although the stage of the confrontation has moved from France to Spain, Henry of Trastamara, the prince’s opponent in the battle of Najera, was closely allied with the Valois kings, and a defeat for him was tantamount to a defeat for France.43 Moreover, the text links the battle of Najera and Henry to the battles and kings of part one using the

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same network of citations that first linked Crécy and Poitiers, Philippe and Jean. Like the French kings, Henry exhibits an ill-founded confidence in his military capacities. Following a skirmish between the prince’s forces and those of Henry in which several English were taken prisoner, Henry declares, ‘Touz les autres viendront aprés’ [All the others will come afterwards] (2832), thereby repeating the words of the overconfident French before the battle of Poitiers. The military situations of the French and Henry are also similar. Henry is advised by his experienced French mercenaries to avoid a pitched battle, and instead to guard the mountain passes against the English and to allow hunger and cold to drive them from Castile. Henry does not accept this sound advice but, like Philippe VI and Jean II, goes forth to meet the English in battle and, like them, is utterly defeated by the Black Prince. The prince’s humble piety remains in evidence; after the battle of Najera Pedro thanks the prince for restoring him to his throne, but the prince insists that Pedro’s gratitude should be directed towards God, for ‘Dieux l’ad fait et noun mie nous’ [God did it and not at all me] (3505). These words, the same as he spoke to Jean II after the battle of Poitiers, reinforce the parallel between the battle of Najera and those recounted in part one of the Vie. Another apparent instance of amplificatio between parts one and two concerns the accounts of the prince’s rule in Aquitaine. In the conclusion to part one the prince’s seven-year rule in Aquitaine is summarized in fewer than fifty lines, whereas in part two these years occupy over three hundred lines. In fact, the second conclusion is not a simple expansion of the first, but contains qualitatively different information. The first conclusion, as we have seen, focuses on the positive aspects of this period – the prince’s heirs, the homage of his subjects, and the contentedness of his court. The second conclusion includes details about the prince’s illness, the rebellion and defection of many of his Gascon vassals, the resumption of hostilities with the French, and the loss of much of the prince’s hard-won territory. A closer look at the account of the Spanish expedition reveals that it too does not simply elaborate upon, but in many respects undermines, the portrait of the prince drawn in part one of the text. The second half of the Vie focuses on the prince’s involvement in Castilian affairs, in particular his participation in the expedition that culminated in the battle of Najera, and which had as its declared goal the reinstatement of Pedro as king of Castile. As in part one, the narrator seeks to justify the prince’s military activity, but the dubious character of Pedro of Castile,

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known as the Cruel, as well as the prince’s ambiguous motives for helping him, render this undertaking morally uncertain at best. Though a military success that achieved its political objective, the Spanish expedition also had unforeseen negative consequences for the prince’s finances and health. A careful reading of part two thus forces a reexamination of part one, as well as a reconsideration of the effectiveness of the ideal of kingship it had posited. In part two of the Vie the network of associations and parallels between kings and battles so carefully established in the first part of the text are disrupted and realigned. The narrator explains to us that Henry of Trastamara, with the help of du Guesclin and the Companies, had usurped the throne of Castile and sent Pedro into exile.44 Other contemporary sources indicate that Henry’s takeover was accomplished with a rapidity and ease that astonished observers,45 and was facilitated by the fact that Pedro did not enjoy the support of his nobles. Indeed, the narrator depicts Pedro quite negatively, insisting first and foremost upon his pride: he is ‘orgoillous et fiers’ [haughty and proud] (1721).46 When the Companies ask for his permission to cross Castile into Granada,47 Pedro, like the kings of France, declares that ‘poi se priseroit / Si envers ceux gentz obeissoit’ [he would esteem himself little if he obeyed those people] (1725–6). Accordingly, Pedro assembles his forces, and ‘bien quidoit estre certeins / D’encontre eux sa terre defendre’ [well thought himself certain to defend his land against them] (1732–3). The verb ‘quidoit’ associates Pedro with the hapless kings of France, who wrongly believed that they could defend their territory against the prince. The analogy between Pedro and the French kings is further reinforced when, after Henry’s conquest of Castile, Pedro says to himself that ‘il ne [se] prise un nois / Si de tout ce n’en prist vengeance’ [he would not show any respect for himself if he didn’t take vengeance for this] (1748–9), lines that recall both Philippe VI and Jean II’s empty threats of vengeance (229–30, 727–8). The association between Pedro and the French kings prefigures the former’s eventual betrayal of the prince, and points to the enormous differences of character that separate Pedro from his ally and benefactor. Unlike the French kings, who enjoy the support of their subjects and allies and are able to form great armies to fight, however unsuccessfully, their English enemies, Pedro is defeated from within, by the betrayal of his own relatives and vassals: ‘il n’avoit amis ne parentz, / Cosin germain, uncle ne friere, / Qe de li ne se dessepere. / Son friere bastard coronerent / Tut la terre lui donerent, / Et toutz lui tiendrent a seig-

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nour / En Castille, grant et meinour’ [he had neither friend nor relative, first cousin, uncle, nor brother, who did not disassociate himself from him. They crowned his illegitimate brother, they gave him all the land, and, great and small, they held him for their lord in Castile] (1768–74). In fact, ‘touz lui feurent desloial / Cil qui lui devoient amer’ [all were disloyal to him, those who were supposed to love him] (1756–7). The betrayal of Pedro by his own nobles leads the narrator to formulate a precept of kingship: ‘Ne doit estre sires clamés / Qui de ses hommes n’est amez. / Apparent est par celui roi’ [He should not be called lord who is not loved by his men, as is apparent by the example of this king] (1759–61). This pronouncement, which is articulated as a piece of accepted wisdom, had attained proverbial status in the late fourteenth century. In Guillaume de Machaut’s Confort d’ami the narrator asks rhetorically, as part of a discourse on the ideal sovereign, ‘Cuides tu par grant assamblee / Avoir d’armes haute journee / Se de tes hommes n’iès amez? / Nennil! Tels est sires clamez / Qui ne l’est pas de son païs / Car de ses hommes est haïs’ [Do you think, with a large company, to gain the upper hand at arms if you are not loved by your men? Fie! Such a one is called lord of his country who is not, for he is hated by his men] (3213–18).48 A similar verse appears in Cuvelier’s Chronique de Bertrand du Guesclin and in Christine de Pizan’s Livre des trois vertus and her Livre de la mutacion de Fortune.49 Pedro is held up as a negative example that proves the truth of this precept; despite his legitimate succession, having lost (or never had) the love and respect of his nobles, he was undeserving of his throne, and was easily ousted from it. If Pedro is an unworthy king, overthrown with the accord of his own nobles, why then does the prince consent to help him? The text offers two justifications, one that applies to the prince’s particular situation, and another that functions as a theoretical principle. First of all, the exiled Pedro is allied with Edward III, and accordingly he hopes that ‘pur ycelle alliance,’ as well as ‘pur amour et pur linage / Et pur Dieux et pur vassellage’ [for this alliance, and for love and for kinship and for God and for prowess] (1842–4) Edward will come to his rescue. Since any aid would likely come from Aquitaine, Pedro is advised to approach the prince directly rather than Edward III. Although Pedro turns to the prince because of their alliance, when addressing him he begs for help ‘pur Dieu tut primerement, / Et pur amour et pur pitée, / Pur alliance et pur amistée, / Et pur cas de linage auxi / Et pur droit qu’il ad, sanz nulle si’ [for God first of all and for love and for pity, for alliance and for friendship, and for kinship also, and for the right that

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he had, without any doubt] (1870–5). Thus, when writing to the prince, Pedro first invokes the demands of God, love and pity, and only subsequently mentions his alliance with England and his own political rights. This reordering of motives suggests that Pedro deems Christian charity the most likely to move the prince. And indeed, the prince, his vassals, and king Charles of Navarre (whose participation is necessary since his country lies between Aquitaine and Castile) agree that ‘[p]uis qe, pur Dieu et pur pitée / Et pur droiture et amistée, / Si humblement le requeroit, / Bien socourez estre devoit’ [since, for God and for pity and for justice and for friendship, so humbly he had requested, he well should be helped] (1959–62), thereby confirming Christian charity as the primary reason to assist Pedro, followed by justice and friendship. Later, in a letter to Henry of Trastamara, the prince explains that he is helping Pedro both as a matter of personal obligation (‘Sachez qe nous le devons faire / Pur les alliances parfaire / Queux ont estée du temps passée’ [Know that we should do it in order to fulfil the alliances that were formed in the past] [2923–5]) and out of consideration for justice in the abstract (‘Et pur droiture sustenir’ [and to uphold justice] [2927]). The word ‘droiture’ does not refer to Pedro’s personal or specific rights to the throne of Castile, but of rights, or rightness, in a broad and academic sense, and specifically to the legal foundations of sovereignty. In this manner the prince introduces a theoretical basis for assisting Pedro. The prince then affirms to Henry, ‘vous deveroiez bien sentir / En vostre coer qe ceo n’est pas droitz / Q’un bastard deust estre rois. / Pur un droit heir desheriter / Nulle homme ne se doit accorder / Qe soit de loial mariage’ [you must well feel in your heart that it is not right that a bastard should be king. No man who is born of loyal marriage should agree to disinherit a rightful heir] (2928–33). The prince appeals to Henry as a reasonable person, who must feel in his heart what the prince tells him in his letter – that an illegitimate son cannot ascend to the throne. The prince articulates a legal principle of sovereignty that underlies all royal successions. Admitting an illegitimate son to the throne threatens all legitimate kings, and jeopardizes the institution of monarchical rule by hereditary succession. The prince is categorical in his expression of this principle. The relative virtues of the two claimants are immaterial; what matters is Pedro’s legitimate right. Indeed, Pedro is the rightful king of Castile in spite of his personal unworthiness. The prince recognizes the esteem in which the Castilian nobles hold Henry,50 and offers to broker an advantageous peace for him, but insists that Henry cannot be king.

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The same respect for legitimacy is articulated by Fernandez de Castro, the governor of Galicia and the only Castilian noble to remain faithful to Pedro. De Castro swears ‘[q]e ja jour ne relinqueroit / Celui qi estoit roi de droit, / Et si tut faire le voilloient / Cils qui le paour en avoient, / Si ne purroit il consentir / Un bastard roialme tenir’ [that on no day would he relinquish he who was king by right/law, and if all others wished to do it, those who feared him, nonetheless he could not allow a bastard to hold the kingdom] (1799–1804). Thus, de Castro does not base his allegiance to Pedro on esteem, or the latter’s qualities as a sovereign, but on an abstract legal tenet that precludes rule by illegitimate offspring. The principle of legitimacy is presented as a transcendent one, invoked by the Vie to justify the prince’s assistance to an otherwise unworthy monarch. However, rather than satisfactorily explaining the prince’s participation in the Spanish campaign, the legal and theoretical considerations that are introduced to justify the prince’s action in fact problematize the very ideal that the prince is supposed to represent. Pedro the Cruel actually typifies the kind of sovereign who ‘[n]e doit estre sires clamés’ [should not be called lord] (1759), while no matter how fine a king Henry of Trastamara might be, the principles of legitimacy articulated in the Vie pronounce him unsuited to rule. Legitimate birth is not only a prerequisite for kingship, but, seconded by adequate military might, it suffices to keep one on the throne regardless of one’s other characteristics. In this manner the Vie points to the chasm that separates the ideal of kingship from its practice, and the inadequacy of the ideal it has posited to negotiate complex political realities. If the prince’s alleged motivations – Christian charity, political alliance, respect for legitimate rule – are uneasily reconciled with the character of his beneficiary, thereby problematizing the functionality of chivalric ideals of kingship, the prince also reveals motivations of another order that put into question his capacity to represent such an ideal in the first place. The narrator is circumspect about the prince’s other reasons for helping Pedro, but they may be deduced from an understanding of historical circumstances and from certain textual details. The first is the political interests of the English. Henry of Trastamara’s takeover of the Castilian throne essentially transformed the kingdom of Castile into a French satellite, at least from a foreign-policy standpoint. Henry remained steadfastly loyal to those who had helped him win his crown, and the Castilian navy was a force to be reckoned with in the Hundred Years’ War.51 Aquitaine’s geographical position,

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directly between France and French-influenced Castile, was not a comfortable one for the English. It was therefore in the prince’s own interests to reinstate a king who was not only allied with England, but who would then be indebted to the prince in the same way that Henry was to the French, thereby turning the Castilian fleet to English advantage and rendering Aquitaine’s south-western borders secure. The Spanish expedition also appealed to the prince’s sense of adventure and his desire to add to his own glorious and fearsome reputation, as well as that of the English knights. When the prince first receives Pedro’s letter requesting aid, he alludes to a prophecy that the English would fight in Spain: ‘Et auxi ai je oy contier / Qe li leopardz et lour compaigne / Se desployeront en Espaigne, / Et si estre pooit en nostre temps / Homme [nous] en tiendroit plus vaillantz’ [and also I have heard it said that the leopards and their company would be deployed in Spain, and if it could be in our time, men would hold us to be more courageous because of it] (1902–6).52 The prince’s words betray, perhaps for the first time, his desire for glory and renown. Finally, the Spanish expedition appeared to offer financial incentives. The narrator alludes to the financial arrangement between Pedro and the prince as it concerns the payment of the English troops, but he does not say what later historians would allege – that the prince expected to profit enormously from his involvement in Castilian affairs. Fiscal considerations come to the fore following the disclosure of Charles of Navarre’s uncertain loyalty.53 At Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, Pedro, the prince, and Charles of Navarre confirm their alliance. There, ‘fuist sur le corps Jesus / Touz lour serementz renovellés, / Et la fuist chescun accordez / De tout ceo q’il devoit avoir’ [on the body of Jesus the serments were renewed, and there was each one in agreement about all that he would have] (2220–3).54 The three allies do not renew the promises of what actions they will perform, but of what they will have. This is the clearest indication in the Vie that Pedro had made specific concessions (financial and/or territorial) to the prince and to Charles of Navarre in exchange for their support. These reasons, which are not overtly provided to explain the prince’s participation in the Spanish campaign, further problematize the idealized vision of the prince. Not only has he embarked upon a mission of uncertain moral standing, but he has done so in part for reasons of vainglory and financial gain.55 Militarily speaking, the Vie presents the prince’s victory at Najera as yet another triumph. Coming ten years after Poitiers and twenty years after Crécy, Najera apparently rounds out the triad of continental victo-

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ries won by the prince and his English forces. However, despite his military success at Najera, and the positive depiction of the Spanish campaign in the Vie, the expedition as a whole had disastrous financial, personal, and long-term political consequences. The most obvious disappointment of the Spanish campaign is financial. Once reinstated as king, Pedro finds himself unwilling or unable to pay the prince’s troops, much less to reward the prince. After the victory at Najera the prince took his army to Valladolid where he was to await the arrival of Pedro with his money. The latter, meanwhile, was to travel throughout his newly regained kingdom raising funds. After six months,56 Pedro writes to the prince proclaiming his appreciation, but affirming that his subjects have refused to give him any money until the English troops leave Castile: ‘Et pur tant li Prince prioit, / A plus amiablement q’il pooit, / Q’il li pleust a repairer / Car pluis n’avoit de li mestier’ [and for this reason he begged the Prince, as nicely as he could, that it please him to return home, for he no longer needed him] (3687–90). The expression ‘avoir mestier de’ points to the self-interested nature of the relations between Pedro and the prince. Following Pedro’s admission that he cannot pay the prince or his troops at present, and the prince’s own realization that in fact he may never be paid, ‘[l]ui Prince ad bien aperceu / Qe le roi Petro ne fu / Pas si foiaux come il quidoit’ [the Prince understood well that king Pedro was not so faithful as he thought] (3703–5). The verb ‘quidoit’ places the prince in a surprising parallel with his former opponents, the kings of France and Henry of Trastamara. Here the prince joins their ranks, having placed too much confidence not in his military abilities, which remain as impressive as ever, but in his political acumen. The prince failed to consider the very real possibility that Pedro would be incapable (or indisposed) to keep his side of the bargain,57 and that he would be forced to finance the Spanish expedition himself, a venture that he could ill afford. The narrator seeks to mitigate the effects of this disappointment by affirming that the prince nevertheless managed to pay his troops and vassals richly, both those who went to Spain and those who stayed behind to guard Aquitaine.58 In reality, this was not the case. The prince returned home impoverished and unable to pay his own army, much less to profit from his Spanish dalliance, a sorry state of affairs that would lead to further difficulties. This obfuscation of the truth points to what I see as the narrator’s growing discomfort in part two of the text. He wishes to provide a truthful account, but seems unwilling to admit to failure on the part of the prince.59 These opposing narrative goals will lead to

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some surprising justifications of the prince’s conduct in the final part of the Vie. The Spanish campaign had deleterious effects on the prince’s health as well as his finances, for it was in Castile that he contracted the debilitating illness60 that plagued him for the rest of his life. Although he mentions the prince’s illness, the narrator very explicitly disassociates it from the Spanish expedition, specifically stating that the prince fell ill in Aquitaine: ‘Assetz tost aprés ce avient / Qe a Anguyleme logier vient / Lui noble Prince d’Acquitaine, / Et la, c’este bien chose certaine, / Li comencea la maladie / Qe puis dura tut sa vie’ [rather soon after it happened that he came to lodge in Angoulême, the noble Prince of Aquitaine, and there, it is a very certain thing, began the illness that then lasted all his life] (3815–20, emphasis added). Like his affirmation that the prince had not suffered financially from his expedition, here the narrator’s insistence that the prince’s illness did not result from the long and difficult Spanish expedition seeks to minimize the negative results of this campaign.61 Following his return from Spain, the prince’s affairs go from bad to worse, for ‘[a]donqes comencea fauxetée / Et traisons a governer / Ceux qui le devoient aymer; / Car cils q’il tenoit pur amis / Adonqes feurent ces enemis’ [then falseness and treachery began to govern those who were supposed to love him, for those whom he held for friends then were his enemies] (3822–6). In part one the Vie had presented the allegiance sworn by the prince’s Gascon nobles as completely unproblematic; shortly after his arrival in Aquitaine, ‘tut li prince et lui baroun / De tut la pais enviroun / Viendrent a lui pur faire hommage’ [all the princes and the barons from all the surrounding country came to pay him homage] (1603–5). In reality, the prince had won the support of certain powerful nobles through his calculated generosity.62 Following his return from Spain the prince was forced to call in some debts and to impose new taxes to meet his expenses. The most controversial of these was the fouage, or hearth tax. Although Richard Barber affirms that the fouages were more likely a pretext than a reason for the Gascon rebellion,63 the fact remains that they played a crucial role in the Gascon barons’ appeals to Charles V of France.64 None of these details is mentioned in the Vie, which assiduously avoids all mention of the prince’s financial distress, and certainly does not present the vassals’ disloyalty as the result of pecuniary disagreements. The betrayal of the prince by those who ‘le devoient aymer’ is not attributed to any shortcomings on the part of the prince, or to discord between the prince and his nobles,

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but rather, to the Devil. We should not be surprised at these betrayals, the narrator tells us, ‘[c]ar l’Enemy, qui toutz jours veille, / Plus tost grevera un prodhomme / Q’un mauveis, c’est la somme’ [for the Enemy, who is always watchful, will more willingly harm a worthy man than a bad one, that’s the plain truth] (3828–30). The language that describes the infidelity of the prince’s friends and allies (‘Ceux qui le devoient aymer’ [3824]) very clearly recalls the betrayal of Pedro by his relatives and friends (‘Cil qui lui devoient amer’ [1757]), and invites a comparison of the two men. The narrator, however, draws strikingly contradictory conclusions from their analogous circumstances: the Spanish king’s betrayal is attributed to his own personal failings, especially his excessive pride, and he is declared an example of the type of ruler who ‘Ne doit estre sires clamés’ [should not be called lord] (1759). Yet in the prince’s case his virtue and success attracted the attention of the Devil, who inspired the defections among the prince’s allies. The betrayals actually reinforce the prince’s status as a ‘prodhomme,’ since the Devil is not interested in ‘un mauveis.’ Here, the narrator initiates his recuperation of the prince’s political failures by reinscribing him in a new paradigm of ideal sovereignty, one that is not chivalric, but Christian. As in the case of Saint Edmund of England and other holy martyr kings, the prince’s betrayal by those close to him is an indication of his exalted status.65 Once his own allies have abandoned him, it comes as no surprise that the prince’s enemies take advantage of his illness to pursue their own ends: ‘si tost qe homme savoit / Qe li noble Prince estoit / Malades, en peril de mort, / Ses enemies feurent d’acort / De la guere recomencier’ [as soon as men knew that the noble Prince was sick, in danger of dying, his enemies were in agreement to restart the war] (3831–5). The prince’s illness emboldens his enemies, and inspires a new round of defections from among his supposed vassals and allies: ‘Arminak, Lisle et Peregos, / Labret, Commignes, de briefs motz / Touz relinquerent a un jour / Le Prince, lour liege seigniour, / Pur ceo qe malades estoit / Et qe aider plus ne se pooit’ [Armagnac, Lille, Périgord, d’Albert, Comminges, in a word, all in one day relinquished the Prince, their liege lord, since he was sick, and could no longer help himself] (3845–50). The narrator then describes the appeals brought to Charles V and the summons to the prince to appear in French court to answer them. The narrator provides the prince’s defiant response in direct discourse,66 and then again in indirect discourse.67 However, this double response merely emphasizes the helplessness of the Prince, who now has only

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words at his disposal. The Prince’s inability to translate his words into action creates yet another parallel between him and the kings of France. It is a poignant reversal for the once undefeatable Prince, one that points to the larger reversals at work in the text. In the final portion of the Vie, having elaborated upon and revised his account of the prince’s rule in Aquitaine, the narrator goes beyond the point where part one had ended to recount the war with France, the prince’s return to England, the continued English losses in France, and the prince’s final moments and death. The narrator briefly summarizes the English losses in the early years of the renewed war, the ineffective help provided by the prince’s brother, Edmond, and the devastating deaths of Sir James Audley and Sir John Chandos, two of the prince’s closest companions and most skilled commanders.68 The narrator slows his pace to recount in more detail the loss and the retaking of Limoges, along with the terrible vengeance exacted by the prince for the town’s betrayal: ‘touz y feurent mortz ou pris / Par le noble Prince de pris’ [all were killed there or taken prisoner by the noble, worthy Prince] (4049–50).69 Some readers might find it surprising that the narrator places any emphasis at all on this episode, since the prince’s behaviour could be seen as brutal and vindictive. The narrator, however, presents the prince’s treatment of the town in a positive light, affirming that his allies were joyful and his enemies fearful, ‘et se repentoient / Qe la guerre recomencié / Avoient’ [and repented of having restarted the war] (4054–6). This scene recalls, yet contrasts with, the aftermath of Najera. Following their victory the prince urged Pedro to spare and pardon his prisoners, whom the Castilian king wished to execute for their betrayal of him (3521–33). Yet after retaking Limoges, which had ‘turned French,’ the prince does not exhibit clemency. As in the parallel between Pedro and the prince’s betrayals at the hands of their allies, here too the narrator draws contrasting conclusions from comparable circumstances. What is described as vengefulness with respect to Pedro is characterized as justice with regard to the prince. The narrator’s lack of consistency shows that circumstances do not always lend themselves to the solutions proposed by normative models of conduct, and it also points to his determination to preserve at all cost the positive image he has created of the prince. Upon his return to Angoulême from Limoges, the prince learns of the death of his eldest son, Edward. This death was not mentioned in the first conclusion, which spoke only of the birth of the prince’s two children. Young Edward’s death, which greatly afflicted the prince,70 seems

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to have deprived him of the last of his energy and force for staying in Aquitaine and continuing the increasingly depressing war against the French, for ‘[a]prés gaires ne demora / Qe tut son arrai appresta / Et en Engleterre se vient / Pur la maladie qui li tient’ [afterwards he remained little, but prepared his retinue and returned to England, on account of the illness that held him] (4067–70). This vision of the prince – ill, mourning the loss of his child, and having suffered numerous humiliating defeats at the hands of the French – could not differ more from the beloved, acclaimed, and successful sovereign described in the conclusion to part one. The narrator recounts in a dozen lines the prince’s final attempt to return to France at the head of a new invasion force. Contrary winds prevent a landing, and after nine weeks at sea, the English forces return home. On this mortifying and anticlimatic note, the account of the prince’s ‘fait de chivalrie’ comes to an end. The prince’s final defeat comes not on the battlefield, but at the hands of an uncooperative Mother Nature. Following his account of this failed invasion attempt, the narrator begins the second conclusion to his text: ‘Ore vous ai tout counté / La vie du Prince et rymée’ [now I have recounted and rhymed all the life of the Prince] (4093–4). The narrator recalls the aims of his text, which were ‘pur doner en remembrance / De son fait et reconissance / Et de sa tres haute proesse / Et de sa tres noble largesse / Et auxi de sa prodhommie, / Coment il fu tut sa vie / Prodhomme loialx et catholiqes’ [to remember and recognize his deeds and his very lofty prowess and his very noble generosity and also his worthiness, how all his life he was a worthy man, faithful and catholic] (4101–7), and then he recounts the prince’s ‘tres noble fin’ [very noble end] (4109). In marked contrast to a figure like Jean de Luxembourg, who died in an exemplary chivalric manner at the battle of Crécy, the prince dies of illness, having lost much of the territory that he had spent his career acquiring and defending. Despite these failures, the Vie shows how the final events of the prince’s life signify positively when inscribed in an alternative context. The final conclusion to the Vie effectively recuperates the prince as an ideal Christian. The prince’s very pious death takes places in several stages. First, (4101–38) the narrator describes the prince’s end in general terms and depicts his farewell to his household. The prince’s humility towards his followers is highlighted. He does not put himself above them, but stresses their common humanity. Using himself as an example, the prince emphasizes that all men, however they may be divided in life by

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fortune or rank, are doomed to die: ‘Beau seigniour, / Regardez ci, pur Dieu mercy, / Nous ne sumes pas seigniour cy. / Tut coviendra par ci passer, / Nulle homme ne s’en poet destourner. / Pur ceo tres humblement vous pri / Qe vous voillez prier pur my’ [Good lords, look here, for God’s mercy. We are not lords here. It is necessary that all pass by here, no man can turn himself away. For this I very humbly beg you that you might pray for me] (4112–18). The prince’s meditation on the inevitability of death and his plea that his household pray for him echo the narrator’s prologue, and prefigure the inscription that appears on his tomb, which is copied at the end of the text.71 The prince asks his followers for their pardon, and regrets that he is not able to adequately recompense them all for their services, but promises that God will do so. Finally, the prince conveys his hope that those who have so well served him will continue to serve his son. Having addressed his household, the prince then bids farewell to his father and to his brother, the Duke of Lancaster, and recommends to them his wife and young son (4139–52). They promise to maintain his son’s legal right to the throne (4148).72 This is followed by the lamentations of the prince’s wife (4153–64), by the prince’s ‘noble repentance’ (4165) and final moments, and the date of his death. The narrator expresses his absolute confidence in the prince’s salvation by his use of the future tense: ‘Dieux, par sa haute puissance, / Avera de s’alme mercy’ [God, by his high power, will have mercy on his soul] (4166–7, emphasis added). This depiction of the prince as an exemplary Christian had already been prepared well before his death. As we have seen, the prince’s piety forms part of his character as an ideal sovereign as traced in part one of the Vie, and is continued into part two. What makes the prince exceptional as a Christian is that he maintains his humility and faith in the face of great misfortune, not only in times of victory and joy. Following the first round of losses in the renewed Franco-English war, and the death of his friends Audley and Chandos, the narrator remarks that ‘quant il doit mysavenir, / Li meschief aprés l’autre vient’ [when things go badly, one misfortune comes after another] (3956–7). However, the prince, from where he lay sick in his bed, ‘de tut ce gracioit Dieu’ [for all this thanked God] (3963). He hopes for his own recovery, but accepts his continued illness and eventual death with humility. In this manner, the prince’s death, as recounted in the final conclusion of the Vie, recuperates the idealized vision of him that had been put into question by the second half of the Vie. In worldly and chivalric terms the prince falls

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short of the ideal; he is tempted by pride and a desire for gain, he suffers military and political setbacks. However, his final moments allow him to transcend these difficulties and reveal him to be a model Christian. If anything, the trials that the prince undergoes at the end of the text – his illness, his betrayal by those who should have loved and served him, the death of his son – make him analogous to those biblical figures who were tested by God in order to prove their ultimate worth. The vision of the prince presented in the Vie’s conclusion – militarily unsuccessful, but a consummate Christian – recalls another famous sovereign who is nowhere mentioned, yet whose presence may be felt in these final scenes: Saint Louis. Louis IX offers the perfect exemplum for the Black Prince. Although both of his crusades were military failures, he lived and died as an exemplary Christian. By recalling and adhering to the model of the greatest Capetian monarch, the prince shows himself to be the rightful successor to the Capetian dynasty. In this manner the conclusion to the Vie, while transforming political and military failure into a Christian success, also reaffirms the legitimacy of the English claim to the French throne. Conclusion The Vie du Prince Noir’s odd bipartite structure provides the key to understanding its two competing currents: its desire to represent an ideal prince while recounting historical deeds and events. The division of the text into two parts, the retelling of some events with added detail, the parallels created through repeated phrases or situations all invite the reader to make comparisons and evaluate accounts in a way that puts into question the notion of the prince as a representative of an unproblematic ideal of sovereignty. In part one of the text the prince illustrates a catalogue of virtues, and historical detail is subordinated to exemplarity. If only the Herald had stopped writing at line 1638, the Vie would indeed be the straightforward, unproblematic, heroic biography that some claim that it is. Instead, he continued, filling in gaps, recounting the prince’s failings and failures. It becomes apparent by the end of the work that all the negative or questionable aspects of the prince’s character and deeds, all his sorrows and failings, have been broken out and segregated into part two. The Vie du Prince Noir reveals both the advantages and the difficulties of using royal biography to explore the concept of the ideal sovereign. Historical texts and miroirs du prince were important pedagogical tools

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for young princes and other nobles, and stories of previous rulers were often used to illustrate the various traits of the ideal prince. Such historical exempla were more vivid and memorable than simple catalogues of kingly virtue. However, such texts were able to pick and choose the most exemplary moments in the lives of different sovereigns, such that the ideal was actually an amalgamation illustrated by a variety of kings. Royal biography, in contrast, is called upon to reconcile the supposedly ideal nature of its subject with the events and deeds of that subject’s life. Thus, on the one hand royal biographies function as powerful models, yet at the same time they are more troubling than miroirs, for they introduce realities of politics and warfare that challenge and undermine many aspects of the ideal they are supposed to illustrate. The Vie juxtaposes two different, and sometimes contradictory, versions of the prince’s life in a manner that points to the fundamental inadequacy of the chivalric ideal. The theoretical construct of the ideal sovereign as posited in part one of the text is not prepared to deal with the moral ambiguity of real-life political situations, such as the Castilian dynastic crisis, and despite his many qualities the prince’s individual virtue is not adequate to resolve the complex intellectual, moral, and legal issues that confront him. The early miroir du prince tradition focused on the character of the sovereign as the basis for sound and beneficial government. Yet the Vie shows that no response to the Castilian problem could have entirely conformed to the qualities and behaviour demanded of an ideal sovereign. We have seen the ambiguous motives that led the prince to assist Pedro, as well as the negative results of his decision. Yet refusing to help Pedro – the prince’s ally and a legally legitimate ruler – would also have reflected poorly on the prince, showing him to be selfish, unchivalric, and ungenerous, and may have had harmful political repercussions as well. In this manner the Vie puts into question the notion that an abstract ideal can be implemented as a functional possibility. In this respect, the Vie rejoins Machaut’s Prise d’Alixandre, another text that struggles to reconcile the ideal with the real. Both texts present contrasting and often contradictory views of their respective heroes, yet neither text comments explicitly on – or even acknowledges – the disjunctions and inconsistencies they display. The ending of the Vie seems to resolve the tensions it had revealed between the ideal and the real by redefining the terms of the ideal such that the prince’s failures as a knight and ruler are compensated for by his success as a Christian; indeed, they make possible, on some level, his Christian triumph. The

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prince’s exemplary piety and humility, qualities that had formed part of his portrait from the start, are brought to the fore at his death on Trinity Sunday. Thus, on some level the Herald is able to have his cake, and eat it too. The Black Prince is at once a chivalric hero on the order of Jean de Luxembourg and a model Christian ruler in imitation of Saint Louis, a worthy example for Richard II and the Vie’s other readers.

5 Reinventing Kingship: Christine de Pizan’s Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V

If Guillaume de Machaut and the Herald Chandos struggled, with varying results, to map the lives of their biographical subjects onto conventional ideals of monarchy, Christine de Pizan took another route: she rewrote the book. Her 1404 biography of King Charles V takes the life of the wise king as a conceptual point of departure from which she is then able to trace the contours of a new paradigm of kingship. There is no doubt that Charles V provides an exemplum for his readers and successors, and that is because his life is used to forge and promote a new ideal of kingship, one intended to carry the French monarchy triumphantly into the fifteenth century and beyond. Composed some twenty-five years after the death of its subject, Christine de Pizan’s Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V was written during a period of considerable political instability.1 The reigning king, Charles VI, had suffered for over a decade from intermittent bouts of insanity. Referred to as ‘absences,’ the king’s episodes became longer and more frequent over time, undermining almost completely his effectiveness as a ruler. The king’s inability to direct the kingdom resulted in a struggle for control between factions led by his brother, Louis d’Orléans, and his uncle, Philippe, Duke of Burgundy.2 At the same time, the peace talks with England that had been ongoing throughout much of the 1390s had come to an end with the deposition and death of Richard II, the succession of Henry IV, and the return to power of the war party. Finally, the Great Schism of the West was in its twenty-sixth year. Christine’s glowing portrait of the previous king, Charles V, the Wise, forms a striking contrast against this tumultuous backdrop. From the vantage point of the early fifteenth century, the toobrief reign of Charles V, from 1364 to 1380, represented a lost golden age of reconquest and recovery.3

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Unlike most of the texts examined in this study that have no named patron, Christine’s biography was commissioned by Philippe, the Duke of Burgundy and Charles VI’s uncle. Philippe’s granddaughter4 was engaged to the dauphin, Louis de Guyenne, and the duke may have wished to help guide his future king and grandson-in-law on the path of virtue, both for his own benefit and for that of France.5 The duke’s commission may also have been intended to reinforce his own political influence; by further associating himself with the successful reign of his beloved and regretted brother, Philippe established himself as the most fitting person to direct the kingdom’s future. Unfortunately for France, Philippe died in April 1404 at the age of sixty-two. He had been a stalwart supporter of his brother and nephew, an effective diplomat as well as a sound military adviser. More important, Philippe had functioned as a moderating force in the polemical atmosphere of the court, and he represented virtually the final link to the era of Charles V.6 At the opening of book 2 of the Livre des fais, in a striking intrusion of contemporary events into her text, Christine mourns Philippe’s death, recognizing it to be ‘à grant prejudice du bien propre de la couronne de France, et grief et perte de la publique utilité commune’ [to the great detriment of the good of the French crown, and to the sorrow and loss of the public and common utility] (1: 110). Christine did well to lament the passing of Philippe de Bourgogne, for following his death the rivalry between the king’s younger brother, Louis d’Orléans, and his cousin, Philippe’s son Jean sans Peur, devolved into a bitter and intense struggle for political dominance that eventually irrupted in civil war. Modern critics have had much to say about Christine’s aims and achievements in the Livre des fais, which many scholars perceive primarily as a combination of biography and miroir du prince.7 Some view it as a historical work, while others put into question its historical value on the basis of its supposed tendency towards panegyric.8 But what were Christine’s own textual goals? How did she perceive and present her work? First, Christine clearly recognizes the originality of her literary achievement. In the prologue to the Livre des fais she characterizes her new work as a ‘nouvelle compilacion menée en stille prosal et hors le commun ordre de mes autres choses passées’ [a new compilation carried out in a prose style and out of the common order of my other past things] (1: 5).9 As Philippe must surely have wished, Christine commemorates and celebrates the reign of Charles V. She characterizes her undertaking as one ‘de la louenge du sage roy Charles’ [of the praise of

Christine de Pizan’s Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V 155

the wise king, Charles] (1: 181). Similarly, in the final chapter of book 1 Christine prays that God will grant her the power to complete her work ‘en tel maniere que ce soit à la louenge et gloire perpetuele de cellui, de qui principaument il traitte, et à l’augmentacion de vertu et destruisement de vice’ [in such a way that it might redound to the praise and the perpetual glory of he of whom principally it speaks, and to the increase of virtue and the destruction of vice] (1: 104). Here Christine underscores the celebratory aspect of her project while at the same time articulating a second goal: the edification of her readers. Christine clearly believed that narratives depicting good conduct had the power to incite virtue in their readers or listeners.10 Accordingly, what better way to improve the moral fibre of Louis de Guyenne and the other princes of the blood than by detailing the virtuous character and conduct of their forefather? The model of Charles is explicitly and repeatedly held up as an example to be followed. When as a young man Charles dismisses his bad counsellors, ‘lequel exemple noter seroit expedient aux princes et nobles’ [it would be expedient for the princes and nobles to take note of this example] (1: 37); the spectacle of the royal chevauchée is intended, among other things, to ‘donner exemple à ses successeurs à venir’ [to provide an example for his future successors] (1: 51); and Charles’s organization of the emperor’s visit provides an ‘exemplaire nottoire aux princes à venir’ [noteworthy example for princes yet to come] (2: 132). Thus, Christine perceives her book as one intended both to praise and to teach. The Livre des fais differs in this respect from works such as the Prise d’Alixandre or the Vie du Prince Noir. While those works provided models of sovereignty (however problematic), they were not explicitly offered as examples for contemporary kings. Christine’s overtly didactic objectives link her Livre des fais to the tradition of the miroir du prince, works intended to guide the intellectual, moral, and spiritual development of rulers by presenting a princely ideal. The other biographies considered in this study tend to follow a chronological order based on the life of their subjects. This is the case even for the pseudo-biography of Hugh Capet, and for Machaut’s biography of Pierre I, despite its mythological opening. Although the Livre des fais does follow a very general temporal order – Charles’s birth is recounted in book 1 and his death in book 3 – it is structured mainly around thematic considerations. Following her introductory chapter11 Christine proceeds not to the origins of Charles V, but those of Charles V, by describing the conditions under which the work was commissioned, and from there to a justification of her structure, and an explanation of

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the first of her three parts – noblece de courage. Christine finally recounts Charles’s birth in chapter 6. However, she rarely provides dates, and, in a Suetonian mode that also recalls part one of Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis, she uses anecdotes and bons mots from different periods of Charles’s life without regard to chronology in order to illustrate various virtues and qualities. Christine has little to say about Charles’s youth, and her depiction of the king is based almost exclusively on the sixteen years of his reign. This choice highlights her interest in Charles as king, and further underscores her text’s allegiance to the miroir du prince tradition. Like the conventional miroir du prince, the Livre des fais is, among other things, a treatise on kingly virtue. The Livre des fais follows the tripartite structure favoured by Christine, with each part focusing on a quality – nobility, chivalry, wisdom – as incarnated by Charles V. ‘Ainsi sera mon dit volume contenu en III parties, qui toutes s’assembleront à une seule chose, c’est assavoir: en la singuliere personne du tres illustre, hault et tres loué prince, feu le sage roy Charles’ [Thus my aforesaid volume will comprise three parts, which all will come together in one single thing, that is, in the unique person of the very illustrious, lofty, and very praised prince, the deceased wise king, Charles] (1: 6). Christine’s trinitarian structure is at once single and triple, about Charles and about the virtues selected by Christine. The three-part structure creates a formal association between her work and mirrors such as Giles of Rome’s tripartite De regimine principum, which was one of Christine’s primary sources for the Livre des fais.12 Unlike Giles of Rome or other authors of moral and political treatises, Christine invests her mirror with the characteristics of a biography. While conventional mirrors may have employed examples – especially biblical – to illustrate particular qualities, Christine makes the character and deeds of a single person completely representative of an ideal. There is nary a virtue that does not find its realization in some aspect of Charles’s character or some event in his life. Christine was a skilled practitioner of what today we call ‘spin,’ and she goes to considerable lengths to justify – and even glorify – what otherwise might be perceived as Charles’s shortcomings, such as the physical frailty that precluded his physical participation in military campaigns, or his role in the Great Schism of the West. Moreover, Christine introduces a figure from France’s very recent past into the hallowed gallery of exempla, which was traditionally peopled by biblical and classical figures, or, à la limite, by kings of times gone by, such as Charlemagne. Charles had not even been dead for a quarter-century when Christine memorialized

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him in the Livre des fais, making him the new paradigm of royal perfection, the model for the princes of her generation.13 Christine’s dual project of biography and mirror, her historical and didactic aims, lead her to combine theoretical considerations of kingship with the specific details of the life and reign of Charles V. Her compositional techniques likewise reflect these multiple goals. The Livre des fais is a patchwork of philosophical explanations and reflections compiled from a range of medieval sources,14 technical explanations, such as those of siege engines or other military matters, likewise derived from Christine’s extensive reading, and orally transmitted anecdotes gleaned from the defunct king’s contemporaries and from Christine’s own memories.15 These disparate goals and strategies make Christine’s work notably original, and also far more self-consciously theoretical than the other texts examined in this study.16 Jacques Krynen has characterized Christine’s unique combination of biography and moral treatise as a miroir du prince adorned with a vita.17 However, I would argue that in fact Christine’s text is precisely the opposite. It is a vita endowed with the rhetorical force of a miroir, the life of a single, exemplary ruler transformed into a blueprint for kingship. Christine is conscious of the newness of her project, not only in relation to her own past literary production, but also with respect to other discursive modes. When explaining why she does not linger over the military details of the reconquest Christine writes: à quoy feroy plus long conte, qui ne seroit au propos de ma matiere, [et] fors prolixité dire, lesquelx chastiaulx, comment et quelz besoignes ot celle année aux Anglois le dit conestable, lesquelles choses sont coustumes et manieres de polir gestes et romans, qui n’est selon l’ordre de mon entente, qui singulierement est louer ce qui fait à louer, en prouvant la verité par les fais particuliers touchier en bref. (1: 98) [to what end would I make a longer tale (which would not be related to my subject, besides for the sake of speaking with prolixity) of which castles, how and what tasks the constable undertook that year with respect to the English. Such things belong to the customs and ways of embellishing epics and romances, which is not my intent, which is uniquely to praise that which is praiseworthy, by proving the truth by touching briefly on particular facts.]

Christine associates the details she omits – the which and how of the castles conquered by Bertrand du Guesclin – not with chronicles or his-

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tories, as might be expected, but with chansons de geste and romances, genres often considered fictive.18 Her use of the word prolixité suggests that such details would be superfluous, while polir implies that such details are used simply to embellish stories, and may consist of exaggerations or even untruths. Her own brevity, in contrast, is associated with truthfulness. Christine’s project is not to glorify the participants in the reconquest, but, as she says, to ‘praise that which is praiseworthy.’ There is no need to linger over the particulars of du Guesclin’s military successes, for such information is not only irrelevant, but of dubious authenticity. It is perhaps to be expected that Christine should wish to distinguish her own – truthful – account of Charles V’s life and virtues from the types of accounts provided by romances and chansons de geste, but it is more surprising to see that she also distinguishes her text from historical works. Christine often knowingly excludes certain historical details, and then refers her readers elsewhere if they wish to obtain more information. In the example cited above, Christine directs those curious about du Guesclin’s military exploits to Cuvelier’s Livre des fais de Bertrand du Guesclin. Similarly, readers seeking additional information concerning the emperor’s visit to France may consult the Grandes Chroniques de France.19 Christine’s project is not to provide an account of the wise king’s reign, but to capture the essence of his character.20 Christine’s multiple and shifting characterizations of her text underscore her ambition and the wide scope of what she wishes to accomplish in her Livre des fais. Memorialize Charles, provide an example to the dauphin and to the other princes of the blood, write a taxonomy of royal virtue, and at the same time establish herself as an author of important philosophical and moral works, demonstrate the extent of her own erudition, and prove herself as a fifteenth-century Ciceronian orator figure, able to guide and advise the powerful for the greater good of France – these are the many objectives of Christine’s complex and multi-faceted Livre des fais. In this chapter I shall show how Christine’s innovative combination of historically specific detail and scholarly theoretical reflection allows her to create a privileged space in which to examine the person, image, and function not just of Charles V, but of kingship in general, and to reinvent the notion of the ideal sovereign. In her literary undertaking, Christine positions herself as a double, partner, and continuator of Charles V.21 Her Livre des fais builds upon the efforts of Charles himself, who sought to incarnate in his reign an ideal of kingship founded upon

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an alliance – indeed a near equivalence – of wisdom and power that would provide an example for his successors. Charles was remarkable not just for his own considerable intelligence, but for his understanding of how best to apply the intellectual qualities of others, their particular genius, to the advancement of his own political aims. This skill is expressed through the striking and complex metaphor of the architect, which is employed to illuminate Charles’s intellectual gifts, showing him to be the person responsible for all the accomplishments of his reign, from the reconquest to his vast translation project. Here again, Charles’s enactment of kingship parallels Christine’s method of writing, for she too applies the insights of her sources to her own intellectual ends. The cornerstone of Charles’s and Christine’s new ideal of sovereignty is not exactly wisdom, however, but prudence, which may be conceived of as a kind of applied wisdom. Charles’s prudence, like Christine’s book, seeks to achieve concrete political ends – the restoration and preservation of the kingdom of France, the glorification of the Valois, the protection of the king’s subjects. While Christine certainly does not neglect the moral component of kingship, its obligation to advance and protect the spiritual well-being of the king and his subjects with an eye towards their salvation, Christine’s emphasis on material and this-worldly concerns situates her work at the forefront of developments in political theory. Christine and Charles, or, the King and I At first glance the author of the Livre des fais and her biographical subject could not seem more dissimilar; differences of sex, age, nationality, and rank separate them. Born in 1364, Christine was of Italian descent. Her father, Thomas, was invited to the French court by Charles V to serve as the king’s astrologer, counsellor, and physician. Christine and her family rejoined Thomas in Paris in December 1368, and her happy youth coincided with the wise king’s glorious reign. In approximately 1379 Christine married the royal secretary Étienne Castel, but was widowed in 1389. She consoled herself with reading and studies, and began to write poetry to support her mother, three children, and a niece. In the early years of the fifteenth century Christine played a prominent role in the literary quarrel surrounding the thirteenth-century Roman de la rose, focusing in particular on the moral obligations of literary works and on the place of women in society, and from this point on Christine used her writing as a means to engage with ethical and political questions.22

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Despite these disparities, Christine establishes herself as a fitting biographer of the wise king. The Livre des fais opens with a description of Christine’s interview with Philippe, Duke of Burgundy, which authorizes her literary enterprise. Christine presents herself as a veteran writer; indeed, Philippe chooses her to compose a life of his brother because he had been so impressed by her Mutaction de Fortune.23 Despite her displays of humility and pretences of inadequacy, Christine makes it abundantly clear that she is a skilled and respected author, one worthy to write the life of so illustrious a king.24 Over the course of her text, Christine institutes a more complex relationship between herself and her subject, one in which she is uniquely and intimately associated with Charles, at once his double, partner, and successor. The shared purpose of king and writer is illustrated by Christine’s discussions of Charles’s order. Like his predecessor, Louis IX, Charles was self-conscious in his exercise of kingship, which he perceived as a kind of text or performance that was meant to be legible to observers of his reign. His displays of authority were intended to convey a message, and that message was clearly understood by those who witnessed and commented upon the event. Christine concretizes Charles’s metaphorical goal by transforming his kingship, quite literally, into a text. By narrating in great detail episodes such as the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV’s 1378 visit to France, and especially by interpreting its significance for her readers, Christine continues and builds upon the lifelong project of Charles V. Christine and Charles share a vision of kingship as well as ideas about how to project that theoretical vision into a concrete political space. The Augustinian ideal of order projected and ensured by the king was a traditional component of mirrors, though one that was little in evidence among the nobility of Christine’s time.25 Order in the Livre des fais is not a question of tidiness or aesthetics, but is a moral order, associated with notions of justice, moderation, propriety, and rectitude, and is related to, indeed illustrative of, the authority immanent in the office of the king. In Charles V’s outings on horseback all these elements are brought to bear in a display that clearly communicates a message about the French king. Christine writes that L’acoustumée maniere de son chevauchier estoit de notable ordre à tres grant compagnie de barons et gentilzhommes bien montez et en riches habiz, lui assis sus paleffroy de grant eslite, tout temps vestu en habit royal, chevauchant entre ses gens, si loings de lui et par tel et si honnorable

Christine de Pizan’s Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V 161 ordennance, que, à l’aourné maintien de son bel ordre, bien peust savoir et cognoistre tout homme, estrangier ou autre, lequel de tous estoit le roy. (1: 50) [the customary manner of his outings on horseback was noteworthy for the order of a great company of nobles and gentlemen well mounted and richly dressed, he seated on a choice palfrey, at all times clothed in royal garb, riding amongst his men, who were far enough from him and in such honourable order, that, from the magnificent aspect of his fine order, well might any man, foreign or otherwise, know and recognize which of them was the king.]

The king’s excursions on horseback constitute a visual discourse in which the pre-eminence of the king is highlighted by several factors: his distinctive royal garb, the quality of his horse, and the physical distance between the king and his retinue, which reflects the moral and political distance that separates the king from the rest of the nobility. Anyone, even a foreigner, could recognize the king, says Christine.26 This is not because the features of Charles V were known far and wide, but because the display of Charles V’s authority made clear to all onlookers who occupied the office of the king. Thus, the king’s outings are designed to inspire the proper combination of respect, honour, admiration, love, and even fear in his subjects that Charles recognized was one of the exigencies of kingship. Charles appreciated, as did Christine, that authority is part spectacle.27 Christine further observes that Charles’s outings on horseback were not designed for his personal pleasure or simply to impress those who witnessed them, but to ‘donner exemple à ses successeurs à venir que par solemnel ordre se doit tenir et mener le tres digne degré de la haulte couronne de France’ [provide the example for his future successors that by solemn order must the very worthy rank of the lofty crown of France maintain and conduct itself] (1: 51). In this manner Charles’s exemplarity is projected into the future and displayed for the benefit of an entirely new public, the future generations of readers who will be able to ‘witness,’ via Christine’s text, the king’s chevauchées. At the same time, Charles’s order, and Christine’s account of it, are also directed to the very privileged public that made up the king’s successors, those who will themselves one day represent the ‘haulte couronne de France.’ When Christine speaks of ‘le tres digne degré de la haulte couronne de France,’ she is referring to a dignity that transcends the individual king,

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and which it is the king’s duty to preserve and uphold. Ernst Kantorowicz has traced in detail the evolution of the juridical notion that the king was possessed of two bodies: one natural and mortal, the other political and immortal. As part of this discussion he examines the emergence of the crown as a notion distinct from both king and kingdom.28 The weakness and inadequacy of Charles VI made this distinction particularly useful at the time of the Livre’s composition. While the reigning French king may be manipulated from within and threatened from without, by constructing authority such that it resides in the office rather than the person of the king, Christine safeguards the integrity of royal power. The king’s order or orderliness occupies an equally prominent place in the account of the emperor Charles IV’s visit to Paris in 1378, where it is used once again to communicate the authority of the king of France, this time with respect to the emperor. The many entrances, processions, gift-giving ceremonies, dinners, and entertainments – of which Christine highlights the exemplary organization – illustrate Charles’s power, graciousness, wealth, and generosity.29 The emperor’s visit provided Charles with an opportunity to impress his authority upon his own nobles and subjects, and also to demonstrate the authority of the king in his kingdom, which was in no way subordinate to that of the emperor. A legal formula developed in the late twelfth century affirmed that rex in regno suo est imperator regni sui, the king is emperor in his kingdom. This formula was invoked by the French in the fourteenth century as part of a theory of royal territorial sovereignty intended to maintain French freedom from both papal and imperial claims of political and juridical dominance.30 Christine summarizes the French position in her conclusion to the famous story of the black horse sent by Charles to the emperor for the latter’s entrance into Paris: ‘ne fu mie sanz avis envoié de cellui poil, car les empereurs, de leur droit, quant ilz entrent es bonnes villes de leur seigneurie et de l’Empire, ont acoustumé estre sus chevaulx blans, si ne voult le roy qu’en son royaume le feist, affin qu’il n’y peust estre notté aucun signe de dominacion’ [nor was a horse of that colour sent unadvisedly, for the emperors, by right, when they enter the good towns of their sovereignty and of the Empire have a custom of riding white horses, which the king did not wish the emperor to do in his kingdom, so that no sign of domination might be observed] (2: 97). The image of Charles V entering his capital mounted on a white horse, accompanied by the emperor on a black one, evidently struck the medieval imagination. Françoise Autrand has

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remarked that despite the vast quantity of detail concerning the imperial visit provided by both the Grandes Chroniques de France and by the Livre des fais, later historians and chroniclers seem to have retained principally this image as the one that emblematized the entire imperial visit.31 Moreover, as Claire Richter Sherman has observed, the entry into Paris formed the subject of one of the illuminations of the Grandes Chroniques, thereby further impressing this scene onto the imagination and memory of medieval readers.32 It is likely that Charles’s careful organization of the emperor’s visit, which highlighted so effectively the sovereignty of France vis-à-vis the empire, had another intended audience besides the Emperor: the English.33 By staging a formidable demonstration of French sovereignty Charles was able to convey a message about the inviolability of the king’s sovereignty throughout his lands, including the disputed regions of Gascony and Aquitaine.34 In turn, by re-narrating and interpreting this episode for her readers, Christine is able to direct Charles’s message about the sovereignty of the French king and the inviolability of the French kingdom to yet another public: Charles VI and his advisers, and also Henry IV of England and the other English nobility. Christine’s forceful affirmation of the authority and sovereignty of the French king builds upon and renews the efforts of Charles V himself at a time when the kingdom of France was sorely tested both by internal divisions and by exterior threats. The Metaphor of the Architect Christine and her biographical subject are further united by means of a metaphor that Christine first elaborates as part of her own self-defence. As a layperson and a woman, Christine is well aware of the criticisms her work may encounter, and in a pre-emptive literary strike, she anticipates and addresses them. She first takes up the question of her competence by emphasizing the care with which she researched her subject matter. Christine interviewed many of Charles’s household members who were still living in order to obtain first-hand information about his character and daily life.35 However, some people, ‘par adventure pour ce que il leur sembloit non apertenir à ma petite faculté, qui femme suis, enregistrer les noms de si haultes personnes, ne m’en daignoient tenir regne’ [perhaps because it seemed to them not to belong to my small abilities, I, a woman, to record the names of such lofty persons, they did not deign to speak to me] (1: 182). Certain subjects, such as chivalry, are

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considered particularly inappropriate for women to address. Christine envisions the readers who believe that ‘[p]resompcion meut ceste ignorant femme oser dilater de si haulte chose comme est chevalerie aussi comme se elle tendist à de ce donner discipline ou doctrine’ [presumption moves this ignorant woman to dare to expound upon so lofty a thing as chivalry as though she intended to provide instruction or learning about it] (191). She responds to this objection with a quote from Hugh of Saint Victor, who said that the wise man does not look at the identity of the teacher, but at the quality of what is being taught. In this spirit, Christine recommends a results-oriented approach to her text; the fact that she is a woman should not matter if the quality of her work is sound. It is important to note that Christine quotes another author to counter the critique of her writing, re-deploying her source’s words in such a way that they precisely suit her own ends. This illustrates Christine’s ingenious use of compilation, a literary technique that will form the basis of the second criticism of Christine. In chapter 21 of book 2 Christine imagines another set of detractors, those who will disparage her writing by affirming that ‘Ceste femme-cy ne dit mie de soy ce que elle explique en son livre, ains fait son traittié par procès de ce que autres auteurs on[t] dit à la lettre’ [this woman here does not say on her own that which she explains in her book. Rather, she makes her treatise by means of what other authors have said] (1: 190–1). Christine responds to this critique with her famous metaphor of the architect.36 [T]out ainsi comme l’ovrier de architecture ou maçonnage n’a mie fait les pierres et les estoffes, dont il bastist et ediffie le chastel ou maison, qu’il tent à perfaire et où il labeure, non obstant assemble les matieres ensemble, chascune où elle doit servir, selon la fin de l’entencion où il tent ... tout ainsi vrayement n’ay je mie fait toutes les matieres, de quoy le traittié de ma compilacion est composé; il me souffist seulement que les sache appliquer à propos, si que bien puissent servir à la fin de l’ymaginacion, à laquelle je tends à perfaire. (1: 191, emphasis added) [Just as the architect or mason has not made the rocks or the materials from which he builds and constructs the castle or the house, which he strives to bring to completion and on which he works, nevertheless he assembles the materials together, each piece where it should serve, according to the purpose to which he directs himself ... in such a manner, truly I have not made all the materials from which the substance of my compilation is

Christine de Pizan’s Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V 165 composed. It is enough for me that I know how to apply them appropriately, so that they might well serve the intellectual purpose which I endeavour to achieve.]

For the architect, like the author, the raw materials serve the purposes of the creator. The genius of the construction (of building or text) lies in having the global vision of the end product, in knowing how things are intended to fit together to create a harmonious whole. It is the intervention of the architect/author and the assembly of the materials into an original whole that endows the materials with meaning. The works of other authors occupy in Christine’s metaphor the status of raw materials, which require her own authorial genius to achieve their greatest worth, as elements of her compilation. The metaphor of the architect, which Christine articulates at the midpoint of the Livre des fais, traditionally a locus of change or transformation in medieval works, becomes the text’s governing concept.37 In book 3 Christine revisits and elaborates upon her theory of the architect, which is used to further associate Christine with her biographical subject, to link her own writerly authority to Charles’s exercise of kingship, and to define Charles as a ‘vray chevalereux’ [true knightly one] (1: 243), one of the foremost intellectuals of his day, and the ‘prudent ordeneur’ [prudent organizer] (2: 37) of the kingdom. The reason for Christine’s return to the topic of architecture is ostensibly to demonstrate that Charles was a ‘droit artiste’ [true artist] (33), ‘tout n’eust il l’experience ou exercite de la main’ [although he did not have physical experience or practice] (35). To explain this paradox Christine employs the Aristotelian distinction between the artist (artiste) and the craftsperson (expert), which is based on their relative positions in series of operations. She notes that ‘l’art ou la science est ditte principal, laquelle a plus principal operacion’ [that art or science is called principal, which has the principal operation] (35), that is to say, which governs or determines the requirements or actions of a lesser operation. To illustrate this principle, she uses the example of masons or carpenters who prepare stone and wood for the construction of a building or a ship. Other people assemble the materials into the actual product, the building or the ship, while still others use the final product. The use of the product is ‘la plus principal [operation], car elle ordenne et gouverne les autres, et est la fin de toutes’ [the most principal (operation), for it orders and governs the others, and is the objective of them all] (35). Thus, ‘comme le principal maistre soit cellui, qui use de la chose ... si s’ensuit que les

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architecteurs, c’est assavoir les disposeurs de l’œuvre, scevent les causes des besoignes, et que on les doit reputer les plus sages’ [since the principal master is he who uses the thing ... so it follows that the architects, that is to say, those who dispose of the work, know the reasons for the requirements, and one should consider them to be the wisest] (35–6, emphasis added). By this reasoning, despite Charles’s lack of personal expertise in building, he ‘se demoustra vray architecteur et deviseur certain et prudent ordeneur, lorsque les belles fondacions fist faire en maintes places, notables edifices beaulx et nobles’ [showed himself to be a true architect and a sure director and a prudent organizer, when he had built the beautiful foundations in many places, remarkable, beautiful, and noble structures] (37).38 In the two quotes above Christine plays on the word architecteur. In the first quote, concerning the superiority of the artist to the craftsperson, Christine uses the word architecteur in a broad sense – he is the disposeur de l’oeuvre. Yet Christine takes the same term and applies it specifically to the field of architecture when asserting that Charles is a vray architecteur because of the buildings that he has had repaired, renovated, and constructed. Christine innovates with respect to her textual model (Aristotle via Thomas Aquinas) by endowing the term architecteur with two meanings, one that relates to the field of architecture and one that signifies, in a more general sense, he or she who disposes, creates, orders.39 Christine’s present argument concerning the superiority of the artist or the architecteur recalls her previous metaphor of the writer as architect. If the achitecteur (architect) is also an architecteur (organizer-planner-visionary), then Christine, who has already been compared to an architect, is also, like Charles, an architecteur or an artist.40 The parallel established in book 2 between writing and architecture is extended here, as the writer is put into parallel with the king, both of whom are artists and architecteurs. The play on the word architecteur allows Christine’s initial passage from writer and metaphorical architect, in book 2, to the artist as architecteur, that is, disposeur de l’oeuvre, one who knows and understands ‘les causes des besoignes’ [the reasons for the requirements] (2: 36). Once established, the concept of the artist permits Christine to emphasize the importance of wisdom and its supremacy over physical acts. At the end of her Aristotelian analysis of the artist and the craftsperson, Christine concludes that ‘[a]ssez ay prouvé que l’artiste a plus grant science que l’expert, qui œuvre de la main’ [I have sufficiently shown that the artist has greater wisdom than the craftsperson, who

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works with his hands] (2: 36), thereby opposing intellectual and physical labour, and privileging the former. The opposition between intellectual and physical effort and the concept of the artist permit a better understanding of how Christine effects her reformulation of chivalry, in which she distinguishes between the physical aspect of warfare (in which Charles did not participate) and the intellectual aspect (which he governed). Christine’s transformation of the conventional vision of chivalry is an essential component of her new monarchical ideal. Traditional notions of the royal ideal demanded that the king be militarily adept, an exemplary knight at the head of his army.41 Showing the bookish and frail Charles V to be a model of chivalry, a ‘vray chevalereux’ (1: 243) [true knightly one], was a tall order; Christine does so by redefining the very notion of chivalry, which she depicts as an intellectual, rather than a physical, endeavour. She distinguishes the person of the king, which ‘apparust le plus du temps estre à recoy en ses riches palais’ [appeared most of the time to be sheltered in his rich palaces] (1: 120), from his intellect, which was hard at work throughout the reconquest, ordering, planning, and negotiating, thereby making possible the French victories. Since Christine realizes that such a perspective is completely at odds with the knightly tradition, she pre-empts possible criticisms of her characterization of Charles’s chivalry. She first refutes the potential accusation of cowardice, which some might claim had prevented Charles from personally participating in his battles, as his father and grandfather had. Christine observes that Charles did participate successfully in military campaigns before his coronation. Thereafter, illness precluded his physical involvement. She then affirms that prudence and wisdom are more essential to chivalry than physical performance, and cites the military historian and theoretician Vegetius in support of her assertion.42 Her mention of Charles’s Valois predecessors, Jean II and Philippe VI, further supports her argument, for although they led their armies into battle, their lack of prudence and tactical acumen caused them to suffer what at the time were the two greatest losses of the Hundred Years’ War.43 Christine makes intellect the basis for chivalry by focusing not on military activity, but on end results.44 Thus, we can see that Charles was a model of chivalry ‘par la fin de ses glorieuses conquestes’ [from the result of his glorious conquests] (1: 118). Christine’s relative disinterest in the means of success is reflected in her narration of the reconquest. She provides almost no detail concerning the various military cam-

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paigns, for what matters is that towns and castles were won and that subjects ‘turned French.’ At one point she remarks that ‘comme tout dire et narrer seroit longue chose, qui mielx y fist, qui fu capitaine, et qui y ala, et par qui ce vint, à tout dire en brief, tant sagement et prudement y pourvey nostre sage roy’ [since to tell and narrate everything would be a long affair – who fought best, who was captain, who went there, by whom it was done – to tell all briefly, so wisely and prudently did our king attend to matters] (129) that the city and castle of Crotoy were taken. The fact of the victory, and Charles’s role as the directing force thereof, are the essential points, not the individuals who participated in the campaign or the deeds they performed. Christine goes on to compare Charles’s successes to those of the Romans, models of military achievement, and in so doing she effects the second significant reformulation of the notion of chivalry. The Romans, Christine writes, plus acqueissent seigneuries et terres par leur sens que par force, semblablement le fist nostre roy, lequel plus conquesta, enrichi, fist aliences, plus grans armées, mieulx gens d’armes paiez et toute gent, plus fist bastir edifices, donna grans dons, tint plus magnificent estat, ot plus grant despense, moins fist de grief au peuple et plus sagement se gouverna en toute policie, et plus largement [fu] furnie toute despense que n’avoit fait roy de France ... depuis le temps Charlemaine. (1: 133) [acquired more sovereign territories and lands by their wisdom than by force; similarly acted our king, who conquered more, enriched, made alliances and great armies, better paid his men at arms and all people, had more edifices constructed, gave great gifts, maintained a more magnificent rank, had greater financial obligation yet burdened his people less and more wisely governed himself in all public affairs, and more generously provided for all expenses than had any other king of France ... since the time of Charlemagne.]

Here, Christine vastly expands and essentially transforms the idea of chivalry, which is not restricted to military undertakings, but embraces all successful and effective government. This reformulation is illustrated by Charles’s ability not only to raise and pay great armies and to (re)conquer lands, but also to construct public works, maintain an impressive household, and avoid burdening his people with taxes. Kate Forhan has remarked that in the Livre des fais Christine creates ‘a

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revitalized notion of chivalry that reconstructs the fundamental duty of kings, and focuses on peace. Christine inverts or subverts the traditional image of the king as warrior by uncoupling chivalry ... from warfare entirely.’45 Though perhaps not entirely divorced, warfare is certainly relegated to a small corner of chivalry, which is more akin to what we might call the essence of sound and beneficial government. The chivalrous king is not the one who successfully leads his armies in battle, but the one who uses negotiation and diplomacy to achieve his ends, who establishes and maintains peace, and whose primary concern is the res publica – the prosperity of the state and its people. In establishing Charles V as the model for a new kind of chivalry, Christine relies upon a traditional paradigm of chivalry – the emperor Charlemagne. In the quote above, Charles V is presented as the equal and fourteenth-century version of his namesake, Charlemagne, the warrior-king par excellence. Christine was certainly not the first one to draw a parallel between Charlemagne and Charles V. Indeed here, as elsewhere, she continues a program established by the king himself. Many of the scholars who executed translations for Charles V also likened their wise patron to Charlemagne,46 and Charles had a special veneration for the ancestor whose cult he celebrated, in spite of the fact that he was not an officially recognized saint.47 The medieval image of Charlemagne was so rich and multifaceted that it could be used to advance various – even conflicting – aims.48 For her part, Christine chooses to emphasize the aspect of Charlemagne’s legacy that will most effectively legitimize Charles V: the emperor’s intellect, and his role in promoting France in general, and Paris in particular, as centres of learning. In the Livre des fais Charlemagne is not only a famous knight, but also an intellectual, a sort of double and soulmate of Charles V. This parallel is made most explicit in chapter 13 of book 3, in which Christine speaks of ‘comment le roy Charles amoit l’Université des clers, et comment elle vint à Paris’ [how the king Charles loved the University of clerics, and how the University came to Paris] (2: 46). Her discussion of Charles V’s love for the university, the ‘fille du roi’ [daughter of the king], and the respect and privileges he accorded it, lead naturally to an account of the history of its foundation, under none other than Charlemagne. According to Christine, the University of Paris was founded by Alcuin under the aegis of Charlemagne, a cultured sovereign who ‘fist translater les estudes des sciences de Romme à Paris, tout ainsi comme jadis vindrent de Grece à Romme’ [transferred the seats of learning from Rome to Paris, just as formerly

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they came from Greece to Rome] (47).49 His close resemblance to Charlemagne allows Charles V to carry on, while revitalizing, the tradition of the wise and successful French monarch. By foregrounding the intellectual aspects of sovereignty and the necessity of all types of knowledge for effective governing, Christine creates a new vision of the ideal sovereign, illustrated by both Charles V and Charlemagne, in which, as Jacques Krynen writes, ‘the courageous knight cedes his place to the tactician.’50 Just as Charles was an architecteur (in both senses of the term) with respect to the building projects that he planned and oversaw, so too was he the architecteur of the reconquest. Those who actually fought the battles performed necessary and important work, but they were governed and directed by Charles, who represented the principal operation, and thus bore the responsibility (and received the credit) for all military victories. The importance of the hierarchy of operations and the primacy of Charles’s intellectual role with respect to warfare is best illustrated by Christine’s account of the death of Bertrand du Guesclin, Charles’s famous and beloved constable, which preceded Charles’s own death by a matter of weeks. The constable’s death was retrospectively interpreted to presage that of Charles, and signalled a sad end to a glorious period for France. Christine writes that ‘tout ainsi comme avant la mort du preux Alixandre moru son bon cheval Bucifal ... ainsi le bon conestable Bertran de Clequin, lequel estoit porteur des fais de la chevalerie du dit roy, trespassa pou avant’ [just as before the death of the courageous Alexander his good horse Bucephalus died ... so too the good constable Bertrand du Guesclin, who bore the chivalrous deeds of the said king, died shortly before] (2: 181). It is remarkable to observe that du Guesclin is compared not to Alexander the Great’s second in command, or even to his squire, but to his horse. The comparison reduces du Guesclin to a loyal, brave, but dumb service animal who facilitated the physical aspect of warfare, but played no role in its intellectual intricacies. Just as Bucephalus physically carried Alexander the Great into battle, du Guesclin likewise carried, in a metaphorical sense, the chivalric deeds of the king. The chivalric deeds do not belong to du Guesclin himself, but to Charles; the constable merely performed them on his behalf. Christine, though she admires du Guesclin, very clearly relegates him to the background of the reconquest. He is a tool or executor of Charles’s will, and receives no credit from Christine for his own considerable military genius. The concept of the artist can also be applied to Charles’s bibliophilia.

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In the chapter that follows the one on Charles’s building projects, in which the concept of the artist is first elaborated, Christine discusses ‘comment le roy Charles amoit livres, [et des belles translacions, qu’il fist faire]’ [how king Charles loved books, and of the beautiful translations that he had carried out] (2: 42, brackets in text). Christine describes Charles’s great wisdom and love of learning, ‘et qu’il soit ainsi bien le demoustroit par la belle assemblée des notables livres et belle librarie’ [and he well demonstrated that it is so by the beautiful collection of remarkable books and the beautiful library] (42). She highlights the importance of books not as artefacts or artistic objects, but as sources and symbols of knowledge. Charles V collected books into one of the most extensive libraries of his day, which he established in the Louvre, and made available to his counsellors. He also commissioned political treatises such as the Songe du vergier, as well as the translation into French of medieval and classical texts composed in Latin.51 Christine writes that despite the king’s own competence in Latin he had many works translated ‘pour la grant amour qu’il avoit à ses successeurs, que, au temps à venir, les voult pourveoir d’enseignemens et sciences introduisables à toutes vertus ’ [because of the love that he bore his successors to whom, in times to come, he wished to provide instruction and knowledge that might lead to all virtues] (43). Christine’s claims about the king’s understanding of Latin are perhaps overstated.52 In fact, while he may well have understood the Latin of his breviary, deciphering the Latin of philosophers and historians was another matter, and was almost certainly beyond the king’s abilities.53 In any event, by claiming that Charles read Latin Christine places him in exclusive company, among the intellectuals of his day. Moreover, she creates an association between the learned king, who knew Latin despite expectations to the contrary, and herself, another unlikely Latin reader. In addition, Christine highlights Charles’s concern for his successors, which mirrors her own.54 In the Livre des fais Christine carries on Charles’s lifetime goal of providing an example for and helping his descendants. As Christine tells us, Charles believed that by furnishing his heirs with intellectual tools, he was also providing them with a means to lead a moral life. This conviction highlights the influence of scholarship, and thereby of Christine’s present literary undertaking, which, like the books in Charles’s library, can provide knowledge and incite its readers to virtue. Christine then enumerates some dozen of the translations commissioned by the king, including the Bible, the City of God and other works

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by Augustine, Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics, and John of Salisbury’s Policraticus.55 Jacques Krynen has remarked on the practical nature of the books selected by Charles V for translation, which included scientific and philosophical treatises, works of political theory, and military and technical guides.56 A number of texts composed in Latin during Philippe le Bel’s conflict with Boniface VIII, works that affirmed the authority of the king in France, were translated into French during Charles’s reign, when they could serve him in his struggle with England, upholding his claim to French sovereignty over the disputed areas of Gascony and Aquitaine. Many of the works he had translated were of immediate utility. Charles was anxious for Nicole Oresme to complete his translation and commentary of Aristotle’s Politics so that he could begin to implement its precepts, such as the election of royal officers.57 Moreover, in addition to the utility of each individual book, the ensemble of Charles’s translation project served to enhance the prestige and authority of the Valois dynasty.58 Despite the importance of the translation project as a whole, and of each text chosen for translation, Sylvie Lefèvre has perceptively observed that none of the translators are named, perhaps, she suggests, because Christine did not wish to diminish the king’s role by listing the names of his translators.59 Just as Christine did not name the participants in Charles’s military campaigns, so too she elides the names of those who performed his translations because in both cases the identity of these individuals is immaterial. The person responsible for both military and intellectual achievements is Charles. The chapter on Charles’s translations immediately follows the one on the buildings that he had had constructed and renovated, in which Christine elaborated the notion of the artist and showed Charles to be an architecteur in both senses of the word. The juxtaposition of building and writing recalls Christine’s writer-as-architect metaphor from book 2, and further strengthens the association between the two enterprises, and between author and king. The concept of the artist, which has already shown Charles to be an architect and the architecteur of the reconquest, may be applied here to demonstrate that Charles was also the architecteur of his translation project. From the perspective of the Aristotelian idea of the artist and the series of dependent operations, Charles, who created and carried out his vision of a vast translation project, is in fact superior to the individual translators who laboured under his patronage. Joël Blanchard has called the translators the instruments of Charles’s cultural enterprise.60 The idea of the transla-

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tors as tools or instruments underscores Charles’s pre-eminent role in the translation project, and recalls Christine’s image of du Guesclin as the bearer of Charles’s chivalric deeds. In both cases the results are attributed to Charles, while those who physically carried out the deeds are simply executing Charles’s will. Towards the end of the Livre des fais, Charles becomes more closely than ever associated with his biographer when he himself plays, like Christine, the roles of historian and orator. On the occasion of the Holy Roman Emperor’s visit to Paris, the king assembles at the Louvre the emperor and his son, as well as a great many nobles and advisers from the emperor’s court and his own in order to explain to them the history of France’s quarrel with England, and the justice of France’s position in the war. Charles’s care in bringing together such a large and prestigious audience highlights the critical role of propaganda at this stage of the war. He understood that garnering support among the other European powers was critical in his struggle with England. Christine highlights the renowned rhetorical abilities of the king, who ‘commença son parler par une preambule si belle et si nottable que grant beauté estoit à ouir’ [began his speech with an introduction so beautiful and so remarkable that it was of great beauty to hear] (2: 116–7).61 Charles traces the origins of the conflict with England to the founding of the kingdom of France and the conquest and conversion of Gascony by Charlemagne. He also produces and reads aloud documentary evidence, letters that demonstrate that past English kings had sworn homage to previous French kings for the lands under debate. In addition, Charles catalogues the English infractions of the terms of the treaty of Brétigny. His carefully crafted and presented speech, the written evidence he produces, and his detail about the various clauses of the treaty with England reveal to what degree the war with England was a war of words, fought on the battleground of public opinion. Charles had not only to win back the territories lost by his father and grandfather, but he had to convince his own sometimes English–sometimes French nobles, his other European allies, and any current or potential allies of England of the legitimacy of France’s position in the war. Charles’s speech to the emperor is emblematic of his status as the representation of a new ideal of sovereignty, one in which intellect plays a predominant role in government, in which knowledge is power.62 The pre-eminence of wisdom in the roster of kingly virtues is underscored by the very structure of the Livre des fais, for book 3, which discusses wisdom, is as long as books 1 and 2 combined. During his lifetime Charles self-

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consciously sought to project the image of a wise and competent king, and Christine, who gave him his sobriquet – the Wise – expands upon the myth of Charles’s legendary wisdom. The ‘prudent ordeneur’ By the end of the Livre des fais it is abundantly clear that wisdom is the foremost of a ruler’s virtues. Once again, the Aristotelian concept of the artist is illuminating, this time with respect to the relationship between wisdom and royal authority. Christine’s claim that Charles is a ‘vray architecteur et deviseur certain et prudent ordeneur’ [true architect and a sure director and a prudent organizer] (2: 37) with regard to architecture applies equally well to her vision of Charles as a sovereign. As he who orders and governs the operations of the kingdom – fiscal, diplomatic, military – and the individual who knows and understands ‘les causes des besoignes’ [the reasons for the requirements] (36), Charles is the ‘prudent ordeneur’ or the architecteur of French government and politics. The union of knowledge and power within the figure of Charles V, as depicted by Christine, highlights her fundamentally pragmatic view of sovereignty, one that parallels Charles’s own pragmatism.63 Christine’s practical perspective of wisdom is illustrated by her results-oriented judgment of Charles. We can see that Charles was wise, Christine concludes, ‘par ce que prouvé avons des experiences de son sçavoir’ [because we have proven experiences of his wisdom] (2: 162). Thus, wisdom is not simply an internal, intellectual quality; it has outward manifestations. This evaluation of Charles’s wisdom based on the evidence of his actions recalls Christine’s defence of her status as a woman writing about chivalry, which was also based on end-results – the quality of her text. Both Christine and Charles possess knowledge and wisdom that are manifested in the excellence of their works, literary and political, respectively. In the Livre des fais Christine identifies prudence as one of the elements of wisdom, and situates it ‘es parties de l’ame, là où advient prattique, qui apertient aux choses ouvrables’ [in the parts of the soul, there whence comes practice, which belongs to workable things] (2: 21). She then separates the quality of prudence into its constitutive parts: ‘prudence par memoire des choses passées porvoie aux futures, car, selon Tulle [i.e., Marcus Tullius Cicero] ou IIe des siennes Rethoriques, “les parties d’elle sont mises: memoire, intelligence et pourveance”’ [prudence,

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by the memory of past things, provides for future ones, for, according to Tullius in II of his Rhetoric, ‘the parts of {prudence} are: memory, intelligence, and foresight’] (21). In order to appreciate the significance of the prudence ascribed to Charles, it is necessary to separate the Middle French connotations associated with prudence from those that colour our understanding of the word today. In modern English prudence can suggest narrow-mindedness or Puritanism, and can also imply care with regard to small matters. The Middle French idea of prudence was at once broader and more vital. Liliane Dulac relates prudence to practical activities,64 while Kate Forhan first identifies prudence as ‘moral wisdom’ and later expands her explanation to include ‘foresight, expertise, shrewdness and ... even ... deceit.’65 Both authors emphasize the practical nature of prudence, making it something like applied wisdom, or as Michael Richarz says, wisdom in action.66 While today prudence and morality are not necessarily associated, for Christine they were inseparable. Indeed, in some of her works Christine characterizes prudence as the mother of virtue. Some medieval authors distinguish wisdom, which is directed towards spiritual matters, from prudence, which is directed towards worldly ones. For Christine, however, both wisdom and prudence can be directed towards divine or secular aims, the difference being that prudence is more active.67 Christine offers three examples of Charles V’s prudence. The first illustrates the role of memory and foresight, and in particular how the memory of past events allows the prudent person to amend the course of future ones. ‘[P]our le bien de la couronne de France et de la commune utilité’ [For the good of the crown of France and the common utility] (2: 22), Charles codified the laws of succession, stipulating that the eldest son of the king was to succeed to the throne, that women could neither rule nor transmit the throne, and that a king’s personal rule would begin at thirteen. These laws addressed and clarified questions of succession that had arisen during the final years of Capetian rule, and that had furnished the pretext for the Hundred Years’ War.68 Christine next discusses a major public-works project that was planned but never carried out: the construction of a canal between the Loire and Seine rivers, which would have allowed merchandise to be transported by boat from Paris to the Loire valley. Though the king’s untimely death precluded the execution of this project, its planning shows Charles to be ‘tres ameur et desireux du bien et proffit commun’ [very loving and desirous of the common good and profit] (2: 25). It is important to note that Charles’s concern for his subjects was not con-

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fined to their moral and spiritual well-being, as in the earlier mirror tradition, but embraced also their physical and material welfare. In this respect Christine’s thinking is in step with that of some of the leading figures in post-Aristotelian thought, including Brunetto Latini and Giles of Rome, who both argued that one of the duties of rulers was to preserve and enhance the economic security of their subjects.69 Finally, Christine shows how Charles sought to assure his subjects’ love and loyalty, and how this strengthened his own position: ‘comme il fust perfait ameur de ses subgiez, avisoit en toutes manieres de les tenir en amour et dilection vers lui, pour ce voult vers eulx tenir tel maniere que de touz estas se tenissent pour contens des ordenances’ [as he loved his subjects perfectly, he sought in all manners to maintain their love and happiness towards him, for this reason he wished to conduct himself such that those of all ranks esteemed themselves satisfied with his edicts] (2: 28).70 Here Christine is alluding to an issue that occupied many late medieval political thinkers – the relationship of the community to their ruler. Most theorists, including Thomas Aquinas, Peter of Auvergne, Giles of Rome, and Brunetto Latini, believed that the king should seek counsel from the wise few,71 and most agreed also that the multitude was not intellectually or morally equipped to play a role in government. Others, however, such as Peter of Auvergne, Marsiglio of Padua, and Nicole Oresme, argued that the non-vile multitude had rights that could not be ignored, while Jean of Paris went so far as to claim that the people had the right to choose and to remove a ruler.72 Christine presents Charles’s concern for his subjects’ contentment as the result of his benevolence and love; his consultation of them in no way represents an obligation of kingship. At the same time, however, Christine recognizes, as did Charles, that the most successful kings are those who seek to obtain and retain the consent of all their subjects – not simply the most powerful – with respect to important directives of the kingdom. Charles achieved this consent through calculated consultation. Christine’s subtle acknowledgment of the role of self-interest in governing, the awareness that consideration for the prosperity and happiness of the people assures the power and authority of the ruler, aligns her with other prominent thinkers of the late Middle Ages.73 Condemnations of self-interest, such as those contained in the works of John of Salisbury and Giles of Rome, both view self-interest as a privileging of private advantage over the common good. In another sense, however, as John of Salisbury acknowledged already in the twelfth century, and as later writers would more readily explain, there was a very

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real advantage to the ruler in safeguarding the prosperity and security of his people and ensuring the administration of justice.74 Private advantage and the common good are not necessarily at odds, but can happily coincide, and can even be mutually reinforcing. Contented subjects make for a stable and orderly community, which in turns profits the ruler. Accordingly, the hallmark of Charles’s prudence, and one of the secrets to his success as a king, is his clear understanding that in serving his subjects he is serving his own political ends.75 With respect to the relationship of the king to his counsellors, Christine theorizes a remarkably absolutist vision of monarchy, but her depiction of Charles’s actual exercise of kingship accords with Kate Forhan’s ‘mediated monarchy’ or James Blythe’s ‘mixed constitution.’76 We have seen that most theorists required the king to seek counsel from the wise few. However, was this a moral or a legal obligation? Did such counsel restrict the king’s freedom of action? And who were the wise few – nobles or intellectuals?77 In Christine’s text, the importance of seeking and accepting counsel is best illustrated by two episodes: the Gascon appeals and the Schism. At the heart of the so-called Gascon appeals was the issue of the disputed sovereignty over Gascony and Aquitaine. The treaty of Brétigny (1360), which followed the French defeat at Poitiers (1356) and the imprisonment of Jean II by the English, required the French to relinquish their claim to sovereignty of Gascony and Aquitaine in return for Edward III’s renouncement of his claim to the French throne. However, formal renunciations on both parts had never been made. In May of 1368, when the count of Armagnac appealed certain actions of Prince Edward of Aquitaine to Charles V of France, the issue of sovereignty was brought to the forefront. By appealing to Charles V of France, the Gascon lord acknowledged the French king’s continued sovereignty over the disputed regions. In turn, accepting the appeals in the French court was tantamount to a declaration of war with England.78 Before taking such action, Charles sought advice from all quarters. He received the Gascon lord d’Albret honourably ‘par le conseil de ses sages, sanz lequel ne faisoit aucune chose’ [upon the advice of his wise men, without whom he did nothing] (1: 125). With regard to the legal basis for accepting the appeals, Charles consulted scholars from the law schools of Bologna, Montpellier, Toulouse, and Orléans, as well as the most noted clerks from the court at Rome.79 Charles did not limit his advisers to members of his family, or even to members of the nobility, but consulted legal specialists on a question of legal interpretation. Though this

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may seem like an obvious approach, in fact Charles’s selection of counsellors based on their knowledge and capabilities regardless of their rank is one of the features of his genius as a ruler, and one that is especially appreciated by Christine.80 As she twice observes in her Livre du corps de policie, ‘un chascun expert en son art on doit croire’ [one should believe he who is expert in his art] (37, 69).81 Having established his legal rights with the help of his learned advisers, Charles reaches out to a broader and more representative community of his subjects before taking the final step towards war, and ‘par le conseil des nobles, clers et bourgois renvoya deffier le roy Edouart d’Angleterre’ [upon the advice of nobles, clerics, and bourgeois sent his challenge to king Edward of England] (1: 127–8).82 Thus, Charles includes all three estates in a decision that would affect them all – the resumption of hostilities.83 Similar care is taken by Charles, and highlighted by Christine, in making the decision that contributed to the Great Schism. In April 1378, following the death of Pope Gregory XI, the cardinals assembled in Rome to elect a new pope. At that time, they chose the bishop of Bari, Bartolomeo Prignano, who became pope as Urban VI. However in September of that year, claiming that the election had been performed under duress (since it was conducted as the rioting Romans chanted romano lo vogliamo), a group of thirteen cardinals who were assembled at Fondi repudiated the election of Urban VI and proceeded to elect Robert of Geneva, who took the name Clement VII. Thus was born the schism that would last for two generations. Before rejecting the election of Pope Urban VI and accepting that of Clement VII, Charles, who ‘ne voult en aucune maniere y proceder de sa propre voulenté, mais tousjours, en toutes choses, par deliberacion des plus sages’ [did not wish in any way to proceed of his own volition, but always, in all things, by deliberation of the wisest] (2: 141), sought the opinions of clerics and scholars from throughout France and abroad. Upon consideration of the evidence presented, Charles declared his adherence to the papacy of Clement VII, and he urged his allies to do the same. Not surprisingly, given the context of the Hundred Years’ War, papal loyalties broke down largely along the lines of political allegiance, and for decades prohibited a successful conclusion to the papal schism.84 Since Charles was subsequently accused of contributing to the schism by his actions, Christine is especially mindful to point out that he did not act rashly or unilaterally, but only after due consideration of the issues and upon the advice of his clergy and council.85 It is important to note that in no case does Christine present Charles’s

Christine de Pizan’s Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V 179

consultations – either of experts or of his subjects – as legally mandated. Indeed, she articulates an absolutist view of Charles’s authority as king, affirming that ‘de sa seigneurie et autorité peust faire et ordener de tout à son bon plaisir’ [of his own sovereignty and authority he could do and order all at his pleasure] (2: 28). The king’s power exceeds that of the people and of the wise few. At the same time, Christine draws a distinction between the theoretical and the actual exercise of power. She praises Charles’s practice of consulting the appropriate individuals and bodies, as well as his consideration of his subjects’ views. Both proceeded from the king’s own careful decision-making and concern for his people, matters therefore not of law, but of the king’s own personal virtue (not to mention his shrewdness). The king’s reliance on his wise counsellors, experts in their domains, underscores his own wisdom, while his studied consideration of his subjects’ views allowed him to implicate them in his important decisions, making it all the more difficult for them to oppose his actions or lament their results.86 In this way Charles projects the impression that his power and legitimacy are founded upon the consent of the people and that he shared his authority with his council, although in reality he sought to consolidate and strengthen the authority of the king ever more over the course of his reign. If Charles’s consultations are not legally required, they are useful. Christine takes a similarly pragmatic view of the other virtues she discusses. She catalogues the practical applications of each of the qualities she has focused on over the course of her text, enumerating the advantages to be gained from each. Thus, virtue is not – or not only – its own reward, but is a means to an end, and a political end at that. Charles’s example proves her claims regarding the value of morality. Christine’s appeal to self-interest and her presentation of the practice of virtue as a means to achieve political ends situate her within a stream of political thought that showed how self-interest and the common good – understood increasingly in a material and economic sense – could be pursued simultaneously.87 Christine’s emphasis on self-interest is also, as Kate Forhan suggests, a nod to realpolitik, the result of years of living at the French court.88 At the time of the Livre des fais’s composition Christine was no longer a young woman, and she must have had few illusions about the success of appealing only to the princes’ good character. By demonstrating the concrete and practical advantages of virtue, she sought to influence her readers by means of a more reliable route – their own private advantage.

180 Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign

Thus, in chivalry as in statecraft, the Aristotelian notion of the artist allows Christine to redefine the ideal of kingship, placing Charles’s brand of pragmatically oriented wisdom at the heart of this new paradigm. Christine calls Charles a ‘vray architecteur et deviseur certain et prudent ordeneur’ [true architect and a sure director and a prudent organizer] (2: 37), a claim that applies as well to his skills as an architect as to his genius as a sovereign. As he who ‘orders and governs’ (2: 35) the operations in the kingdom, Charles is the ‘prudent ordeneur’ or the architecteur of France as a whole. Conclusions Following her account of the schism Christine announces that it is time to conclude her text. The Livre des fais is a biography of Charles V, but also, as we have seen, a moral and philosophical treatise on the nature and effects of kingly virtue, and these two threads arrive at separate conclusions in the final pages of Christine’s text.89 Her final reflections on wisdom, a discussion of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, constitute an ultimate manifestation of her own erudition. Christine is able to understand and appreciate Aristotle herself, and she is also able to impart her wisdom to laypeople, thereby opening her readers’ minds to Aristotle’s ideas. The ability to communicate one’s knowledge and share it with others is, according to the Philosopher himself, as quoted by Christine, the hallmark of the truly wise.90 Thus, Christine concludes her biography with final thoughts on the nature of wisdom and its manifestation in Charles, while at the same time illustrating her own erudition. Once she has concluded her discussion of wisdom, Christine provides an account of Charles V’s death that is, Christine tells us, based exclusively on ‘la relacion que j’en ouys de mon dit pere naturel’ [the account that I heard from my natural father] (2: 180). She emphasizes her father’s intellectual achievements, personal worth, and intimacy with the late king. This personal connection to her subject valorizes Christine as a biographer. Unlike other authors, who might be forced to rely upon written sources, or upon second-, third-, even fourth-hand oral accounts, Christine is able to provide a personal, intimate, and completely authentic relation of the king’s final moments. Despite Christine’s claims to the contrary, she did not actually rely solely on her father’s account, but by citing her father as her only source, she reduces to only one the degrees of mediation between herself and the events she describes.91 In her narration of the king’s final days and moments,

Christine de Pizan’s Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V 181

Christine effaces even this small distance. Her description, including quotes in direct discourse, is presented as that of a witness, and no further mention of her father or any other source is made.92 Significantly, the Livre des fais does not conclude with Christine’s moving account of Charles V’s death, but with a discussion of Charles V. In her final chapter Christine thanks God for being able to complete her ‘petite compillacion’ [little compilation] (2: 193), and expresses the hope that her noble public and their descendents will treat her work with benevolence. Then she affirms that even though the Livre des fais was a commissioned work, she was particularly pleased to write it for two reasons: ‘l’une, pour cause de l’excellence de ses [i.e., Charles’s] vertus; l’autre, que, comme, en ma jeunesce et enfance, avec mes parens, je fusse nourrie de son pain, m’y repute si comme tenue’ [one, for the excellence of his virtues, the other, that since in my youth and childhood, with my parents, I was nourished by his bread, I esteem myself to be obliged to it] (193). Here again, Christine highlights her special attachment to and association with the wise king, underscoring her appropriateness as his biographer.93 Yet all the while praising Charles’s unique virtue, Christine moves away from her discussion of the king to one of herself. By returning to the topic of her text, citing her reasons for writing it and her hopes for its future, Christine diverts her readers’ attention from her biographical subject to the subject of her own act of writing. The pre-eminence of text over subject is illustrated by another passage found towards the conclusion of the Livre des fais: ‘Ainsi comme clerement est sceu et cogneu toutes choses creées avoir fin ... en aprestant la fin de nostre oeuvre, dirons du desrenier terme d’ycellui sage, ouquel avons prise la matiere et contenu de ce livre’ [Just as it is clearly known and recognized that all created things have an end ... in preparing the end of our work, we will speak of the final time of this wise man, from whom we have taken the matter and content of this book] (2: 180). As expected in the case of a biography, the conclusions of the book and the subject’s life are coterminus. However, just as the Livre des fais did not begin with the birth of Charles, neither does it end with his death. Christine remarks that since she is approaching the end of her work she will recount the death of the wise king. Thus, it is Christine’s book that determines the narration of Charles’s death, and not the king’s demise that determines the end of the book. In some ways, Christine treats Charles’s life as another text, like the works of Aristotle, Giles of Rome, and Vegetius from which she draws examples to illus-

182 Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign

trate points that are her own. The reference to Charles’s life as matiere recalls the architect’s matiere, which served in the construction of his edifice. By the end of the Livre des fais, Charles V has become an element – illustrious and prominent certainly – of Christine’s ‘little compilation,’ his life a point of departure from which Christine can expound her own theories of kingly virtue, the ideal sovereign, and the nature of wisdom. In this respect Charles is not only the biographical subject, but also subject matter. Christine’s remarkable conclusion to the Livre des fais shows that her text is not simply a mirror or a biography (or a history, a panegyric, or a secular hagiography), but is also an autobiographical text. This is true not only in the sense that the Livre discusses its author’s life – which it does – but also because one of the Livre’s topics is its own creation; the Livre opens and closes with the story of itself. In this respect, it prefigures Christine’s Cité des dames, a book about its own creation and the transformation of its writer from woman to author. The intellectual superiority demonstrated by Charles V in the Livre is reproduced on the level of the text itself, in which Christine’s authorial intellect subordinates and delimits all the subjects that she treats. For all the wise king’s virtue and power, posterity’s vision of Charles V is nevertheless both created and contained by Christine’s Charles V. Like Charles himself, Christine was involved in a re-imagining of kingship. Her manipulation of the ideal of sovereignty, and her premise that pragmatism constitutes a royal virtue, allow her to transcend the conflict between the ideal and the real that haunted the Prise d’Alixandre and the Vie du Prince Noir. Charles V’s common sense was already in evidence in the Prise; however, there his practical good sense and concern for his subjects were made to contrast with the ideals represented by Pierre I. In the Vie du Prince Noir the prince’s personal virtue, his embodiment of a certain ideal, still did not enable him to resolve the political and moral problems he encountered. In the Livre des fais Christine posits the ability to deal successfully with one’s circumstances, to confront and resolve issues, as itself a royal virtue. One of the most interesting aspects of Christine’s portrait of the ideal sovereign is that certain details of her vision do not cohere. The Livre des fais provides a snapshot of an unfolding transformation in the understanding of kingship, the nature and extent of the king’s authority, and his relationship to his subjects. On the one hand, Christine continues to couch Charles’s relationship to his people in terms of individuals rather than offices or institutions, as an affective rather than a political rap-

Christine de Pizan’s Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V 183

port. All her examples of the king’s prudence insist upon his concern for his subjects and present Charles as ‘perfait ameur de ses subgiez’ [perfect lover of his subjects] (2: 28). His benevolent conduct is depicted as the result of personal virtue, in accordance with the miroir du prince tradition, which requires the ideal sovereign to love and protect the people entrusted to his care. Yet at the same time, Christine’s vocabulary – which includes terms such as la couronne, l’utilité commune, le bien et proffit commun, l’estat du royaume – points to a certain understanding of the state as a concept and, in accordance with newly popularized Aristotelian notions of good government, identifies care of the res publica as the primary obligation of kingship. In the Livre des fais Christine both continues and revitalizes traditional ideas concerning the character, actions, and function of the king. She integrates Charles V and the Valois dynasty into the Capetian and Carolingian past, while at the same time postulating a new ideal of kingship that emphasizes the duties of the king towards his subjects and the common good – construed in a material and physical, as well as spiritual, sense – the establishment and maintenance of peace as an element of chivalry, and the importance of wisdom and prudence both for the king and for his advisers. Equally as significant, Christine’s work responds to the political demands of her day by highlighting the legitimacy, indeed the glory, of the Valois. The Livre des fais makes the Valois dynasty newly canonical; with the advent of Charles V, the Valois can boast their own model sovereign, one fit to join the ranks of Saint Louis, Philippe Auguste, and Charlemagne. After the Livre des fais, the royal example to aspire to will no longer be Carolingian or Capetian, but Valois.

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Notes

Introduction 1 For a brief but comprehensive overview of medieval kingship see Jacques Le Goff, ‘Le roi dans l’Occident médiéval: Caractères originaux,’ in Kings and Kingship in Medieval Europe, ed. Anne Duggan (London: Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies, 1993) 1–40. 2 On sacred kingship see Francis Oakley, Kingship: The Politics of Enchantment (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006). 3 At the same time, however, anointing suggested that territorial kings might be subject to the sacerdotium, thereby laying the groundwork for one of the main areas of tension and debate throughout the Middle Ages: the relationship of papal to secular power. See the examination of this ongoing question in Joseph Canning, A History of Medieval Political Thought, 300–1450 (London and New York: Routledge, 1996). 4 On the healing powers of kings see Marc Bloch, Les rois thaumaturges: Étude sur le caractère surnaturel attribué à la puissance royale particulièrement en France et en Angleterre (Strasbourg: Publications de la faculté des lettres de l’Université de Strasbourg, 1924). On royal sanctity and sacral kingship see Robert Folz, Les saints rois du Moyen Âge en Occident (VIe–XIIIe siècles) (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1984); Gabor Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses: Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); and André Vauchez, La sainteté en Occident aux derniers siècles du Moyen Âge (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1981). Ernst Kantorowicz discusses the ways in which ideas about kingship and government were modelled on Church structures. See The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957).

186 Notes to pages 3–4 5 On these two ideals of kingship, the Christian/monastic and the knightly, see Colette Beaune, Naissance de la nation France (Paris: Gallimard, 1985), especially chapter 2, ‘Saint Clovis.’ Alyce Jordan has written about depictions of biblical warrior kings as part of the visual program of the SainteChapelle. See Visualizing Kingship in the Windows of the Sainte-Chapelle (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002). 6 Charlemagne also figured in lists of the nine worthies, in which he was one of the three medieval worthies, along with the legendary model of chivalry, King Arthur, and the crusading hero, Godefroy de Bouillon. 7 See Le Goff, ‘Le roi dans l’Occident médiéval’ 13–15. Dumézil first outlined his theory of trifunctionality in Flamen Brahman (Paris: Geuthner, 1935). See also his L’idéologie tripartite des Indo-Européens (Brussels: Latomus, 1958) and, on kingship, Les dieux souverains des indo-européens (Paris: Gallimard, 1977). 8 In addition to those already mentioned, classic studies of medieval kingship include those of Fritz Kern, Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages, trans. S.B. Chrimes (Oxford: Blackwell, 1939) and Walter Ullman, The Carolingian Renaissance and the Idea of Kingship (London: Methuen, 1969), while more recent treatments include those of Carra Ferguson O’Meara, Monarchy and Consent: The Coronation Book of Charles V of France (London and Turnhout: Brepols, 2001) and Simon MacLean, Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 9 See, for instance, Gerd Althoff, Otto III, trans. Phyllis G. Jestice (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003); Samantha Kelly, The New Solomon: Robert of Naples (1309–1343) and Fourteenth-Century Kingship (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003); and Jacques Le Goff, Saint Louis (Paris: Gallimard, 1996). 10 On kingship and literature see Dominique Boutet, Charlemagne et Arthur ou le roi imaginaire (Paris: Champion, 1992). On kingship, art, and literary patronage see Anne D. Hedeman, The Royal Image: Illustrations of the ‘Grandes Chroniques de France,’ 1274–1422 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991); Sandra Hindman, Christine de Pizan’s Epistre d’Othea: Painting and Politics at the Court of Charles VI (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1986); Jordan, Visualizing Kingship; and Claire Richter Sherman, The Portraits of Charles V of France (1338–1380) (New York: New York University Press for the College Art Association of America, 1969). On kingship and music see Anne Robertson, Guillaume de Machaut and Reims: Context and Meaning in His Musical Works (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). On kingship and sanctity see the works cited in note 2. On crusade see Peter Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus and the

Notes to pages 4–6

11 12

13

14

15

16

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Crusades (1191–1374) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) and Kingdoms of the Crusaders: From Jerusalem to Cyprus (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), as well as William Chester Jordan, Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade: A Study in Rulership (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). On genealogy see Constance Brittain Bouchard, ‘Those of My Blood’: Constructing Noble Families in Medieval Francia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000); Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, L’ombre des ancêtres: Essai sur l’imaginaire médiéval de la parenté (Paris: Fayard, 2000); and A.W. Lewis, Royal Succession in Capetian France, Studies on Familial Order and the State (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1981). See Bernard Guenée, Histoire et culture historique dans l’occident médiéval (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1980) 22–3. See, for instance, the recommendations of Philippe de Mézières to Charles VI in his allegorical miroir du prince, the Songe du vieil pelerin, ed. G.W. Coopland, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969) 2: 220–4. Indeed, there has been almost no work at all done on medieval secular biography, although interest in this long-neglected topic seems to be increasing. See Daniel Madelénat, La biographie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1984); Élisabeth Gaucher, La biographie chevaleresque: Typologie d’un genre (XIIIe–XVe siècle) (Paris: Champion, 1994); and the special issue (20) of Bien dire et bien aprandre: Revue de médiévistique (2002) edited by Élisabeth Gaucher. In her detailed study Gaucher nevertheless explicitly excludes royal biography from her field of inquiry, choosing to focus instead on lives of those whose knightly prowess, rather than rank, formed the basis of their interest for medieval audiences. Actually, it is interesting to note that for centuries Christine’s literary reputation was based upon her biography of Charles V. However, at the time of the academy’s ‘rediscovery’ of Christine, which began in approximately the 1970s and has only accelerated since, it was initially her poetic works that attracted attention. It is only in the last several years that more scholarship has focused on her prose political works, including the Livre des fais. As a number of scholars have shown, these genres were never all that clearly demarcated, even from their inception. See, for instance, Guenée, Histoire et culture historique; Sarah Kay, The Chansons de geste in the Age of Romance: Political Fictions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995); and Gabrielle Spiegel, Romancing the Past: The Rise of Vernacular Prose Historiography in Thirteenth Century France (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993). See Jacques Krynen, Idéal du prince et pouvoir royal en France à la fin du Moyen Âge (Paris: Picard, 1981): ‘le portrait de Charles V est modelé sur l’arché-

188 Notes to pages 7–9

17

18

19

20

21 22 23

24

25 26

type du souverain idéal. Pour être extrêmement vivant, la description du sage roi se fond néanmoins sur des critères objectifs et stéréotypés. En définitive, le Livre des fais est un miroir du prince orné d’une vita’ (65). On these problematic successions see Philippe Contamine, ‘“Le royaume de France ne peut tomber en fille”: Fondement, formulation et implication d’une théorie politique à la fin du Moyen-Âge,’ Perspectives Médiévales, June 1987: 67–81; Lewis, Royal Succession in Capetian France, 149–54; and Charles Wood, ‘Queens, Queans, and Kingship: An Inquiry into Theories of Royal Legitimacy in Late Medieval England and France,’ in Order and Innovation in the Middle Ages, ed. William Chester Jordan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976) 385–400. Relatively speaking, that is. On the increasing popularity of historical texts written in the vernacular and the growing public for these texts, see Gabrielle Spiegel, The Chronicle Tradition of Saint-Denis: A Survey (Brookline, MA: Medieval Classics, 1978) 72–3. The Salic law was codified by the Salian Franks during the sixth-century reign of Clovis I. On the late medieval use of Salic law see Beaune, Naissance de la nation France 264–80; Contamine, ‘“Le royaume de France ne peut tomber en fille”’; and Jacques Krynen, L’Empire du roi: Idées et croyances politiques en France, XIIIe–XVe siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 1993) 133–35. On the distinction between Augustinian and Aristotelian thought, see Cary Nederman, ‘Nature, Sin, and the Origins of Society,’ Journal of the History of Ideas 49 (1988): 3–26. Cary Nederman, ‘Aristotelianism and the Origins of Political Science in the Twelfth Century,’ Journal of the History of Ideas 52.1 (1991): 179–94. See Antony Black, Political Thought in Europe, 1250–1450 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), especially the introduction. On the late medieval legacy of Aristotle see James Blythe, Ideal Government and the Mixed Constitution in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). The first conflict (1296–7) involved the French king’s right to tax the clergy in France without the consent of the pope. The second conflict (1301–2) involved the right of the French king to try a bishop for treason in a lay court. For an overview of these struggles, and their literary and political effects, see Joseph Canning, A History of Medieval Political Thought, 300–1450 (London and New York: Routledge, 1996) 137–45. Black, Political Thought in Europe 71. On the mirror for princes tradition see chapter 1 of Joël Blanchard and JeanClaude Mühlethaler, Écriture et pouvoir à l’aube des temps modernes (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2002); Kate Langdon Forhan, ‘Reflecting

Notes to pages 10–12

27

28 29

30

31 32

33 34

35

36 37 38

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Heroes: Christine de Pizan and the Mirror Tradition,’ in The City of Scholars: New Approaches to Christine de Pizan, ed. Margarete Zimmermann and Dina De Rentiis (New York and Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1994) 189–96; Krynen, L’empire du roi 167–202; and Cary Nederman, ‘The Mirror Crack’d: The Speculum Principum as Political and Social Criticism in the Late Middle Ages,’ The European Legacy 3.3 (1998): 18–38. See John of Salisbury, Policraticus, ed. and trans. Cary Nederman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) 44. The expression was first used by William of Malmesbury c. 1125, but was vastly more diffused by John of Salisbury. See Blanchard and Mühlethaler, Écriture et pouvoir à l’aube des temps modernes 11. There are approximately 350 extant manuscripts of the Latin version of the text, as well as 31 manuscripts of Henri de Gauchy’s French translation. Other French translations were later executed as well. See Charles Briggs, Giles of Rome’s ‘De regimine principum’: Reading and Writing Politics at Court and University, c. 1275–1525 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). The text of the Enseignements is found in David O’Connell, The Teachings of Saint Louis, a Critical Text (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972). On Louis IX’s patronage of Primat see the introduction to Hedeman, The Royal Image. On the emergence of the vernacular as the language of politics and law see Serge Lusignan, La langue des rois au Moyen Âge: Le français en France et en Angleterre (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2004). Lusignan, La langue des rois 23–55. Jean de Meun also translated into French Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, one of the most important sources of classical philosophy for the Middle Ages. On Nicole Oresme see Susan Babbitt, Oresme’s Livre de Politiques and the France of Charles V (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1985) and Claire Richter Sherman, Imaging Aristotle: Verbal and Visual Representation in Fourteenth-Century France (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995). See Léopold Delisle, Recherches sur la librairie de Charles V (Paris, 1907; Amsterdam: G. Th. van Heusden, 1967). Nicole Oresme, Le Livre d’Ethiques d’Aristote, ed. A.D. Menut (New York: Stechert & Co., 1940) 100–1. Over a thousand according to Albert Menut (though about half that,

190 Notes to pages 12–14

39 40 41

42

43

44

45 46

according to Claire Richter Sherman), of which approximately 30% remain in use today. See Menut, introduction, Commentaire de Nicole Oresme sur le livre de Politiques d’Aristote, ed. A.D. Menut (Philadelphia: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 1970) 11 and Sherman, Imaging Aristotle 26. On late medieval French reading publics see Sherman, Imaging Aristotle 3–7 and Spiegel, The Chronicle Tradition of Saint-Denis 72–3. On the late medieval climate of debate see Emma Cayley, Debate and Dialogue: Alain Chartier in His Cultural Context (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006). Christine de Pizan, Le Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V, ed. Suzanne Solente, 2 vols. (Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1977) 2: 116–19. Here and henceforth the volume numbers provided refer to Solente’s publication of the text, and do not reflect Christine’s tri-partite division of her work. On the Great Schism of the West see Edouard Perroy, L’Angleterre et le Grand Schisme d’Occident (Paris: J. Monnier, 1933) and Jean Favier, ed., Genèse et débuts du Grand Schisme d’Occident (1362–1394) (Paris: Éditions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1980). In brief, following the death of Pope Gregory XI in 1378, the cardinals, assembled in Rome, elected Bartolomeo Prignano, who became pope as Urban VI. However, in September of that year a group of cardinals assembled at Fondi declared this election to be invalid and proceeded to elect Robert of Geneva, who became pope as Clement VII. Before his death in 1380 the French king Charles V declared his allegiance to Pope Clement VII, and, predictably, the other papal allegiances fell into line largely according to political loyalties, themselves determined by the Hundred Years’ War. On literary representations of the schism, see Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Poets, Saints, and Visionaries of the Great Schism, 1378–1417 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006). See Lusignan, La langue des rois au Moyen Âge, especially chapter 4, ‘Le français du roi en Angleterre’ and Lori Walters, ‘Christine de Pizan, France’s memorialist: Persona, Performance, Memory,’ Journal of European Studies 35.1 (2005): 29–45. These chapter headings come from Nicole Oresme’s translation and commentary of Aristotle’s Politics, which he completed in the early 1370s. See the edition of Menut, Commentaire de Nicole Oresme sur le livre de Politiques d’Aristote. Monarchy was thought to best reproduce the hierarchical model of the Christian universe, as affirmed by Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae. Antony Black points out that most thinkers preferred election, at least in theory. Advocates of election include Thomas Aquinas, the jurist Bartolus,

Notes to pages 15–17

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48

49

50 51

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and Marsiglio of Padua. Nicole Oresme proposed the election of a lineage, while Giles of Rome believed that although argument favoured election, experience pointed to hereditary succession as the most effective. See Black, Political Thought in Europe 141–8. John of Gaunt, Edward III’s second son and the Black Prince’s brother, famously declared Charles V to be ‘nothing but a lawyer’ [que un advocat] (Livre des fais 2: 80, translation mine), an allusion to Charles’s extreme subtlety. As Françoise Autrand has written, ‘the English were not wrong to call Charles the king of lawyers, but they would have done even better to name him the king of the library, the king of political science’ [les Anglais n’avaient pas tort d’appeler Charles le roi des avocats, mais ils auraient mieux fait encore de le nommer roi de bibliothèque, roi de science politique] (Charles V: Le Sage [Paris: Fayard, 1994] 560). ‘les circonstances font les choses bonnes ou mauvaises, car en tel maniere peut estre dissimulé, que c’est vertu, et en tel maniere, vice’ (Livre des fais 2: 74, translation mine). Cary Nederman and Tsae Lan Lee Dow discuss the status of truthful language in the Middle Ages, contrasting the Augustinian view, in which truth was an ontological good and a moral necessity in all circumstances, with the views expressed by John of Salisbury and Christine de Pizan, who argue that deception or dissimulation were sometimes advisable, even necessary, in the interest of achieving a greater moral good. See ‘The Road to Heaven Is Paved with Pious Deceptions: Medieval Speech Ethics and Deliberative Democracy,’ in Talking Democracy: Historical Perspectives on Rhetoric and Democracy, ed. Benedetto Fontana, Cary Nederman, and Gary Remer (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004) 187–211. The origins of medieval secular biography will be examined in chapter 1. Laisses are the groupings of verses, thematically unified but of variable length, into which chansons de geste are divided. Assonance is a poetic structure in which the final vocalic sounds of each verse are identical, rather than the final consonant sounds. For the most part assonance had been replaced by rhyme by the fourteenth century, so the Chanson de Hugues Capet’s use of this formal feature signals its allegiance to the chanson de geste tradition. The intervention of the authors in their works raises issues concerning medieval subjectivity such as those analysed by Michel Zink in La subjectivité littéraire (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1985). ‘prince tout bon et si noblement condicioné qu’il n’y a nul deffault’ (1: 164). See the Livre des fais 1: 182–3. Christine affirms that it is not for her to reprove people for their vices, but for their friends to do so in private.

192 Notes to pages 17–22 55 Dagenais, preface, The Ethics of Reading in Manuscript Culture: Glossing the Libro de buen amor (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), xvii. Dagenais’s insights about the role of the reader and the creation of meaning in texts conventionally viewed as platitudinous are useful. His Ethics of Reading forms an interesting counterpoint to Judith Ferster’s Fictions of Advice: The Literature and Politics of Counsel in Late Medieval England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996). Ferster also writes about political literature of the late Middle Ages, but, in contrast to Dagenais, she posits the role of the author in the creation of the text’s meaning as fundamental. In her discussion of covert or camouflaged texts, she affirms that a meaning is suffused into the text by the author, there to be discovered by those in the know (or by modern scholars). There is no reason to presume that these two types of reading and writing could not coexist, but they suppose very different relationships between author, text, and reading public. 56 See Evelyn Birge Vitz, Medieval Narrative and Modern Narratology: Subjects and Objects of Desire (New York and London: New York University Press, 1989), especially chapter 4, ‘Story, Chronicle, History: “La fille du comte de Pontieu.”’ 57 On medieval readers and reading see Rita Copeland, Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translations in the Middle Ages: Academic Traditions and Vernacular Texts (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991) as well as Brian Stock, Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics of Interpretation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996) and After Augustine: The Meditative Reader and the Text (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001). 58 The difference between the tyrant and the ruler, and the place of tyrannicide, were considered by John of Salisbury in the Policraticus. These issues were further examined by Brunetto Latini, Thomas Aquinas, Giles of Rome, John of Paris, and Marsiglio of Padua among others. 59 On Christine de Pizan’s notion of prudence see Karen Green, ‘On Translating Christine de Pizan as a Philosopher,’ in Healing the Body Politic: The Political Thought of Christine de Pizan, ed. Karen Green and Constant Mews (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005) 117–38. 1. Models of Sanctity and Kingship in Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis 1 Primat’s text is not a biography, but the first vernacular history of the kings of France, commissioned by Louis IX and completed in 1274. This text formed the basis of the Grandes Chroniques de France, and was updated by other writers, also monks at Saint-Denis. Other biographies or biographical

Notes to pages 23–7

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sketches of Louis IX were included in the ‘miroir historial’ of Vincent de Beauvais, as well as the Légende dorée of Jacques de Voragine. Saint Louis was a spiritual point of reference for the later Middle Ages, the ‘modèle aristocratique de chrétien’ (Colette Beaune, Naissance de la nation France [Paris: Gallimard, 1985] 128). For an overview of the various biographies of the king see part II, ‘La Production de la Mémoire Royale,’ of Jacques Le Goff’s magisterial study, Saint Louis (Paris: Gallimard, 1996). Jeanne de Navarre was not only the wife of the ruling king, but also the countess of Champagne, and therefore Joinville’s feudal lady. Nicole Leapley has remarked that for Joinville writing constituted a type of feudal service. See ‘The New Thirteenth-Century Hagiography: Royalty, Sainthood, and Writing,’ PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2003, 177. On autobiographical writing see Michel Zink’s La subjectivité littéraire: Autour du siècle de saint Louis (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1985). See E.I. McQueen, ‘Quintus Curtius Rufus,’ in Latin Biography, ed. T.A. Dorey (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967) 17–43; A.J. Gossage, ‘Plutarch,’ in Latin Biography 45–77; and Philip Stadter, introduction, Greek Lives: A Selection of Nine Greek Lives (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1989) viii–xxvi. On the Suetonian influence on the Vita Karoli see G.B. Townsend, ‘Suetonius and His Influence,’ in Latin Biography 79–111. Some eighty copies of the Vita Karoli survive, testifying to its popularity and wide diffusion. Sextus Aurelius Victor (c. 320–c. 390) was a Roman politician and historian, to whom have been attributed a book of lives of the emperors, as well as a history of Rome from Augustus to Julian. See his Liber de Caesaribus, trans. H.W. Bird (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1994). See Robert-Henri Bautier and Gillette Labory, introduction, Vie de Robert le Pieux, by Helgaud (Paris: CNRS, 1965) 50–2 for a discussion of the fate of Helgaud’s work in the Middle Ages and later. See Felice Lifshitz, ‘Beyond Positivism and Genre: “Hagiographical” Texts as Historical Narrative,’ Viator 25 (1994): 95–113 as well as Bernard Guenée, Histoire et culture historique dans l’occident médiéval (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1980) 22ff. Bautier and Labory, Vie de Robert le Pieux 35. ‘Cetera, quae sunt de seculi militiis, hostibus devictis, honoribus virtute et ingenio adquistis, istoriographis scribenda relinquimus.’ Helgaud de Fleury, Vie de Robert le Pieux, ed. and trans. Bautier and Labory, 138. See the introduction, ‘Histoire de Louis VII,’ by Abbot Suger in Oeuvres, ed. and trans. Françoise Gasparri, vol. 1 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1996) xxvi and Richard Cusimano and John Moorhead, introduction, The Deeds of

194 Notes to pages 27–30

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13

14 15

16

17 18 19 20 21

Louis the Fat, by Abbot Suger (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1992) 6–7. Gabrielle Spiegel also affirms that Suger’s lives were ‘king-centered histories rather than royal biographies.’ See The Chronicle Tradition of Saint-Denis: A Survey (Brookline, MA: Medieval Classics, Texts and Studies, 1978) 47. See Lifshitz, ‘Beyond Positivism and Genre’ 109 and Thomas Heffernan, Sacred Biography: Saints and Their Biographers in the Middle Ages (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) 16. Felice Lifshitz believes that the distinction between hagiography and history involves content as well as methodology, noting that ‘the historiography against which “hagiography” has been defined is scientistic in its methodology, ... but it has also been secular and nationalistic in its content’ (‘Beyond Positivism and Genre’ 98). Hayden White, The Content of the Form (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987) 24, 43. On the distinction between hagiography and history, and the perception of Joinville’s text as resembling more the latter, see Marcus Billson III, ‘Joinville’s Histoire de Saint Louis: Hagiography, History and Memoir,’ American Benedictine Review 31 (1980): 418–42; Dominique Boutet, ‘Hagiographie et historiographie: La Vie de saint Thomas Becket de Guernes de Pont-SainteMaxence et la Vie de saint Louis de Joinville,’ Le Moyen Âge 106.2 (2000): 277– 93; Elisabeth Gaucher, ‘Joinville et l’écriture biographique,’ in Le prince et son historien: La Vie de Saint Louis de Joinville, ed. Jean Dufournet and Laurence Harf-Lancner (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1997) 101–22; and Le Goff, Saint Louis, especially the chapters ‘Le roi des hagiographes mendiants’ and ‘Le “vrai” Louis IX de Joinville.’ In part II of Saint Louis, Jacques Le Goff discusses how writers from various milieux created an image of Saint Louis that responded to their own desires and aims. Although his analysis is very comprehensive, Jean-Philippe Genet believes that Le Goff did not adequately take into account the significance of Dominican representations of the king, and focuses too much on the Franciscan image of him. See ‘Saint Louis: Le roi politique’ Médiévales 34 (1998): 25–34. Boutet, ‘Hagiographie et historiographie.’ Birge Vitz, ‘Type et individu dans l’“autobiographie” médiévale. Étude d’Historia Calamitatum,’ Poétique 24 (1975): 426–45. Such proceedings are common to historical writing as well, as Bernard Guenée has discussed in Histoire et culture historique. On sacral kingship see the introduction, notes 2, 3, and 4. Sacred Biography 6.

Notes to pages 30–3

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22 Walter Daniel, The Life of Aelred of Rievaulx, trans. F.M. Powicke (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1994). 23 Sacred Biography 75. Heffernan himself deems this expression infelicitous, though I find it rather wonderful, and equally applicable to Joinville’s text. I would observe, in passing, that Walter’s text fulfils many of the criteria – historical and geographical precision, eyewitness testimony, personal acquaintance with the subject – that have led scholars to characterize Joinville’s text as biographical/historical rather than hagiographical, and yet no one, to my knowledge, has manifested such an impulse with respect to Walter’s text. 24 On biblical influence on representations of Louis IX see the chapter ‘Préfiguration dans l’Ancien Testament’ in Le Goff’s Saint Louis. Le Goff sees Josias as another key biblical model for Louis, particularly in Geoffroy de Beaulieu’s life of the king. 25 See in particular the City of God, book 5, chap. 24. 26 On Saint Louis as an Augustinian king see Le Goff, Saint Louis, as well as Dominique Boutet, ‘Y a-t-il une idéologie royale dans la Vie de saint Louis de Joinville?’ in Le prince et son historien 71–99. On the development of the royal ideal see also Dora Bell, L’idéal éthique de la royauté en France au Moyen Âge d’après quelques moralistes de ce temps (Genève: Droz, 1962). 27 In chapter 2 of Écriture et pouvoir à l’aube des temps modernes (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2002) Joël Blanchard and Jean-Claude Mühlethaler offer an excellent overview of the genre and its development over the course of the later Middle Ages. Kate Forhan discusses the dynamic nature of the miroir in The Political Theory of Christine de Pizan (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002). 28 The approximately 65 complete manuscripts of the Policraticus and approximately 350 extant manuscripts of the De regimine principum attest to both works’ enormous popularity and vast diffusion. 29 Indeed, John of Salisbury’s theories concerning the tyrant and the place of tyrannicide would find new significance in the early fifteenth century following the assassination of Louis d’Orléans by his cousin, Jean sans Peur. 30 Briggs, Giles of Rome’s ‘De regimine principum’: Reading and Writing Politics at Court and University, c. 1275–1525 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) 16. 31 The text of the Enseignements is found in David O’Connell, The Teachings of Saint Louis, A Critical Text (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972). 32 Micheline de Combarieu du Grès undertakes a comparison of Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis to the chanson de geste tradition in ‘La chanson du roi Louis

196 Notes to pages 33–6

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34 35

36 37 38

39

40

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(de Joinville et de la chanson de geste),’ in Jean de Joinville: De la Champagne aux royaumes d’Outre-mer, ed. Danielle Quéruel (Paris: Klincksieck, 1998) 109–29. In the Prose Lancelot, for instance, Arthur receives instruction on how to employ generosity to secure the allegiance of his men and to enhance his own reputation. This same text depicts Arthur failing to uphold justice, as well as the effects of this failure. His defeat by Galehaut at the start of the text is directly attributed to the fact that he did not provide justice for his vassal, Ban de Benoïc, and Ban’s son, Lancelot. On the image of Arthur and Charlemagne in the Middle Ages see Dominique Boutet, Charlemagne et Arthur ou le roi imaginaire (Paris: Champion, 1992). On the legacy of Charlemagne see Robert Morrissey, L’empereur à la barbe fleurie: Charlemagne dans la mythologie et l’histoire de la France (Paris: Gallimard, 1997). In Saint Louis Jacques Le Goff makes many interesting remarks on the naming practices of Louis IX and other late Capetians. Jacques Le Goff discusses Louis IX’s reordering of the tombs in Saint Denis, while Elizabeth Brown examines this practice in a wider historical context in her article ‘Burying and Unburying the Kings of France,’ in Persons in Groups: Social Behavior as Identity Formation in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, ed. Richard Trexler (Binghamton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1985) 241–66. Or at least the appearance thereof. Innovation could be clothed as tradition in order to render it palatable. Heffernan, Sacred Biography 7. See Beaune, Naissance de la nation France 216ff., and Gabrielle Spiegel, ‘The reditus regni ad stirpem Karoli Magni: A New Look,’ French Historical Studies 7 (1971): 145–74. Helgaud presents Robert as a saintly figure, even describing miracles that he supposedly performed. Marc Bloch discusses his importance as one of the first thaumaturgic kings. See Les rois thaumaturges: Étude sur le caractère surnaturel attribué à la puissance royale particulièrement en France et en Angleterre (Strasbourg: Publications de la faculté des lettres de l’Université de Strasbourg, 1924) 32. All citations come from the Vie de saint Louis, ed. Jacques Monfrin (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 1995). Translations are my own unless otherwise noted. Since Joinville did not name his text, and modern editors have employed a variety of different titles, I have adopted Monfrin’s title, and when citing the work will adhere to the French convention of leaving ‘saint’ uncapitalized. On Joinville’s use of the Grandes Chroniques see Dominique Boutet, ‘La

Notes to pages 36–7

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méthode historique de Joinville et la réécriture des Grandes Chroniques de France,’ in Jean de Joinville: De la Champagne aux royaumes d’Outre-mer 93– 108. At the end of the nineteenth century Gaston Paris, struck by these disparities, opined that Joinville had composed the central narrative for his own interest and pleasure shortly after the king’s death, and that he added the frame only later, when requested by Jeanne de Navarre to compose a work in honour of Saint Louis. Although this theory was subsequently contested by Joseph Bédier and Alfred Foulet, among others, the differences in tone, subject matter, and narrative stance continue to attract critical attention. For an overview of the details of their various arguments, and an evaluation of each, see part III of Monfrin’s introduction, ‘La composition et la date.’ Much recent scholarship has highlighted the underlying coherence of Joinville’s text. See, for example, Françoise Laurent, ‘La Vie de saint Louis ou le miroir des saints,’ in Le prince et son historien 149–82, and Jean-Pierre Perrot, ‘Le “péché” de Joinville: Écriture du souvenir et imaginaire hagiographique,’ ibid., 183–207. Laurent shows how the words of part one are related to the deeds of part two, while Perrot takes a psychoanalytic approach to demonstrate textual unity. It is interesting to observe that in his two parts Joinville combines the previously discussed methodological approaches to biographical writing, praexis and •thos, or chronologie and eidologie, the former a chronological account of a person’s actions and deeds and the latter a depiction of their character organized by topic. Louis ‘se gouverna tout son tens selonc Dieu et selonc l’Eglise et au profit de son regne’ [conducted himself throughout his life according to God and the Church and for the good of his kingdom] (§2). Joinville repeats his reasoning in §68: ‘pour ce que cil qui les orront les truissent les unes aprés les autres, que cil qui les orront en puissent miex faire leur profiz que ce que elles feussent escriptes entre ces faiz’ [so that those who will hear them might find them one after the other, so that those who will hear them might better profit from them than if they had been written in between his deeds]. Jacques Monfrin attempts to outline the somewhat haphazard ordering of this section in his introduction, xxx–xxxiii. Guillaume de Saint-Pathus, Vie de saint Louis, ed. H.-Fr. Delaborde (Paris: Picard, 1899). See Jacques Le Goff’s analysis of the life of Guillaume de Saint-Pathus in the chapter of Saint Louis entitled ‘Le roi des hagiographes mendiants.’ See the City of God, book 5, chap. 24.

198 Notes to pages 37–9 49 On the unique combination of Louis’s sanctity and his kingship see Darla Rudy-Gervais, ‘Worldly Saintliness: A Study of Jean de Joinville’s Vie de Saint Louis,’ PhD diss., Princeton University, 2005. 50 Scholars are also in disagreement regarding Louis’s degree of success in reconciling kingship and sanctity. Jacques Le Goff, perhaps because of his fondness for and confidence in Joinville’s text, believes that Louis was effectively able to perform as king and saint, while William Chester Jordan argues that the impossibility of giving himself totally to one or the other was a constant source of frustration and sadness for the king. See his Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade: A Study in Rulership (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). 51 ‘Joinville’s Histoire de Saint Louis: Hagiography, History and Memoir.’ See also Leapley, ‘The New Thirteenth-Century Hagiography,’ in particular chapter 3, ‘Jean de Joinville’s Vie nostre saint roy Looys: Chivalry and Salvation.’ 52 Laurent, ‘La Vie de saint Louis’ 158. In this article Laurent provides a perceptive and subtle analysis of the relationship of the two parts of Joinville’s text, and how they in turn illuminate the relationship between sanctity and chivalric action. 53 Christopher Lucken points out the profound connection between chivalric action and service to God in Joinville’s thinking. Joinville’s Credo concludes with the image of Jacob struggling with the angel. ‘[P]ar chevalerie covient conquerre lou regne des ciex,’ Joinville comments, for ‘la vie dou preudome est chevalerie sor terre’ [It is by chivalry that one may conquer the Kingdom of the heavens, for the life of a worthy man is chivalry on earth]. See Christopher Lucken, ‘L’évangile du roi: Joinville, témoin et auteur de la Vie de saint Louis,’ Annales, Histoire, Sciences Sociales 56.2 (2001): 464 and Lionel Friedman, Text and Iconography for Joinville’s Credo (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1958) 50. 54 André Vauchez, when discussing the relationship between sanctity and nobility, remarks that the renunciations of the rich and powerful were all the more remarkable precisely because they had more to give up. See La sainteté en Occident aux derniers siècles du Moyen Âge (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1981) 206. 55 William Chester Jordan discusses this scene, and Louis’s exaggerated humility following his defeat, in chapter 5, ‘The Regency,’ of Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade. 56 Jacques Monfrin discusses Joinville’s Credo in his introduction, xxiii–xxvi. Françoise Laurent remarks that Joinville’s redaction of the Credo ‘atteste une réelle culture religieuse. Il prouve que le sénéchal de Champagne est

Notes to pages 39–45

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59

60 61

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familiarisé avec les textes sacrés, comme il l’est certainement avec toute la littérature hagiographique’ (151) [attests to a real religious culture. It proves that the senechal of Champagne is familiar with sacred texts, as he certainly is with all hagiographic literature]. See §§27–8. On the significance of Joinville’s narrative presence see also Christine Ferlampin-Acher, ‘Joinville, de l’hagiographie à l’autobiographie: Approche de La vie de saint Louis,’ in Jean de Joinville: De la Champagne aux royaumes d’Outre-mer 73–91. See the previously cited articles of Marcus Billson III and Dominique Boutet, ‘Hagiographie et historiographie’ as well as Jacques Le Goff’s Saint Louis. Sacred Biography 7. In the Old French octosyllabic version of the legend of Mary the Egyptian, for example, Mary’s career as a prostitute is discussed at great length, but this only renders the narration of her conversion more forceful, and therefore more successful as an exemplum for the text’s readers and listeners. When Joinville decides to remain in the Holy Land following the return of the king’s brothers to France, he refuses a fixed salary and proposes to the king an alternative arrangement, which he justifies as follows: ‘«Pour ce, fis je, que vous vous couroucies quant l’en vous requiert aucune chose, si weil je que vous m’aiés couvenant que se je vous requier aucune chose toute ceste annee, que vous ne vous courrouciés pas; et se vous me refusés, je ne me courroucerai pas». Quant il oÿ ce, si commença a rire moult clerement’ [«Because, I said, you become angry when people ask you for things, I desire that you promise me that if I ask you for something during this whole year, you will not become angry, and if you refuse me, I will not become angry.» When he heard this, he began to laugh most joyfully] (§500). See Christopher Lucken’s reading of this series of incidents in ‘L’évangile du roi.’ When negotiating with the Saracens the king says that he will return Damiette ‘pour la delivrance de son cors, car il n’estoit pas tel que il se deust desraimbre a deniers’ [for the deliverance of his person, for he was not such that he should ransom himself for money] (§343). See Dominique Boutet, ‘Y a-t-il une idéologie royale dans la Vie de saint Louis de Joinville?’ as well as Jacques Le Goff, Saint Louis. Joinville, who was born c. 1225, was some eleven years the king’s junior. William Chester Jordan has discussed the intimacy of Louis’s justice, which provides another example of how Louis’s conduct challenged traditional

200 Notes to pages 45–50

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74

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paradigms of kingship, in ‘Persona et Gesta: The Image and Deeds of the Thirteenth-Century Capetians. The Case of Saint Louis,’ Viator 19 (1988): 209–18. On Louis’s judicial reforms see Jordan, Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade, especially chap. 6. According to the terms of this treaty Henry renounced Normandy (except for the Channel islands), Touraine, Maine, Anjou, and Poitou, and retained control of Gascony and parts of Aquitaine, but as the vassal of Louis IX. The French peers had passed a sentence depriving John Lackland of his French fiefs. The king of England recognized the validity of this sentence following his defeat at La Roche-aux-Moines, in 1214, with the treaty of Chinon. See Jean Richard, Saint Louis, roi d’une France féodale, soutien de la Terre Sainte (Paris: Fayard, 1983) 348. Marguerite and Aliénor de Provence. For instance, between the heirs of Thibaut IV de Champagne (1253–4) and between Jean de Chalon and his son, Hugh (1251–6). Thibaut de Bar and Henri de Luxembourg (1267–8). Louis also intervened in an incident that opposed the canons and the citizens of Lyon in 1267. On Louis’s various peacemaking efforts, see Richard, Saint Louis 339–60. It is interesting to note that here Joinville conveys the nobles’ opposition in indirect discourse, but the king’s reply in direct discourse. It is as though, by allowing the nobles to speak in their own voice in the previous version of the episode concerning the treaty of Paris, addressing the reader directly as it were, Joinville lends a certain validity to their point. Although their reasoning is limited, it is correct as far as it goes. Here, in contrast, the nobles’ objections to Louis’s peace-making efforts are not based on any human law or justice, but articulate a kind of Machiavellianism avant la lettre. See page 513 and following. Geoffroy de Beaulieu in particular claims that he reproached the king for his public displays of humility, as they were inappropriate for someone of his rank. Michel Zink offers a very suggestive reading of this episode, and others involving dress and fabric, in ‘Joinville ne pleure pas, mais il rêve,’ Poétique 33 (1978): 28–45. William Chester Jordan believes that the king’s rejoinder is not to be taken at face value, arguing that Joinville presented as sincere a remark that Louis intended to be ironic. See ‘Persona et Gesta,’ 216. On the ways in which Joinville’s portrait of Saint Louis constitutes an implicit critique of Philippe le Bel (and to a lesser degree Philippe III) see

Notes to pages 50–4

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83 84

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Franck Collard, ‘Quand l’apologie nourrit le réquisitoire: Une lecture en négatif des Mémoires de Joinville,’ in Jean de Joinville: De la Champagne aux royaumes d’Outre-mer 131–42. Or so he believed. The relative feudalism or modernity of Louis IX’s kingship is a matter of debate. In Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade William Chester Jordan shows the myriad ways in which Louis’s overwhelming commitment to crusade prompted him to make improvements in the administration of the kingdom that made France a more modern state. In Saint Louis Jacques Le Goff has pointed out the use that Louis IX frequently made of the structures and conceptions of feudalism in order to advance the monarchy. Jean-Philippe Genet, in contrast, seems to view Louis IX as fundamentally feudal in his outlook, citing the Treaty of Paris as an example of his traditional approach to politics. See ‘Saint Louis: Le roi politique,’ Médiévales 34 (1998): 25–34. Dominique Boutet discusses the importance of continuity in his article ‘Y a-t-il une idéologie royale dans la Vie de saint Louis de Joinville?’ Louis called for another crusade in 1267, more than a decade after his return from his first crusade, and he embarked for Tunis in the early summer of 1270. Thibaut, the king of Navarre, was Louis’s son-in-law and also the count of Champagne, and thus Joinville’s feudal overlord. In two consecutive paragraphs Joinville claims that ‘touz ceulz firent peché mortel qui li loerent l’alee’ [those who counselled the voyage committed a mortal sin] (§736) because of the negative effects on the kingdom, and also that ‘[g]rant peché firent cil qui li loerent l’alee’ [those who counselled the voyage committed a great sin] (§737) because of the physical frailty of the king himself. While peché can also mean ‘mistake’ or ‘error,’ the presence of the adjective mortel suggests ‘sin’ as the primary meaning. Louis died on 25 August 1270. Jean-Pierre Perrot provides an interesting reading of Joinville’s ‘sin’ against the king and their reconciliation in his article ‘Le “péché” de Joinville.’ On the idea of Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis as a reliquary see Laurence Hélix, ‘Démembrements et remembrance dans la Vie de saint Louis de Joinville: Le livre reliquaire,’ in Jean de Joinville: De la Champagne aux royaumes d’Outremer 219–32. Michel Zink offers a subtle and moving interpretation of the conclusion to Joinville’s text in ‘Joinville ne pleure pas, mais il rêve.’ Some efforts had been made, though without success, to have previous Capetians canonized, including Robert the Pious, Louis VII, and PhilippeAuguste.

202 Notes to pages 54–9 90 See Colette Beaune, Naissance de la nation France, especially chap. 2, ‘Saint Clovis.’ 91 See §§39–42. 92 See his chapter entitled ‘Le roi des trois fonctions in Saint Louis.’ 93 See William Chester Jordan’s remarks at the end of chapter 6, ‘The New Spirit of Reform,’ of Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade. Jordan also discusses the specifics of Louis’s legacy in the conclusion to his book. 94 During the political unrest of the late 1350s, at the time of Jean II’s captivity, those associated with the reform movement held up the example of Louis IX, especially with regard to fiscal matters. Nicole Oresme, in his Traité sur les monnaies, called for a return to the monetary stability of Louis IX’s reign, and declared that the king did not have the right to manipulate the value of the currency. Many of the fiscal measures instituted by Louis IX and called for by the reformists were later adopted by Charles V. 95 The direct influence of Joinville’s Vie on subsequent literary production is uncertain. Jacques Monfrin argues in his introduction that the text did not circulate widely (see pages xc–cxiii). Monfrin notes that other catalogues, writers, and chronicles do not mention the Vie. However, Charles V possessed at least one copy of the text, probably more, and these would have been available to Christine de Pizan when she composed her life of Charles V. See Léopold Delisle, Recherches sur la librairie de Charles V, 2 vols. (Paris, 1907; Amsterdam: G. Th. van Heusden, 1967). In contrast to Monfrin, Colette Beaune affirms that Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis ‘connut une grande popularité’ (Naissance de la nation France 140). 96 Joinville swore homage to Louis over the course of the crusade, but before his departure he is careful to point out that he was not the vassal of the king of France. See §114. 2. Lineage, Election, and Succession in the Chanson de Hugues Capet 1 For general historical background on this period see Christopher Allmand, The Hundred Years War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) and Jean Favier, La Guerre de Cent Ans (Paris: Fayard, 1980). 2 All textual references are from Hugues Capet, Chanson de geste du XIVe siècle, ed. Noëlle Laborderie (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1997). Translations are my own. 3 On Hugh’s shameful ‘epic’ service against the irate fathers of the women he impregnates, see Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, ‘Rewriting History in the Chanson de Hugues Capet,’ Olifant 15.1 (Spring 1990): 40. 4 See Blumenfeld-Kosinski, ‘Rewriting History in the Chanson de Hugues

Notes to pages 59–60

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Capet.’ She also examines the text’s relationship to the Voeux du paon and other voeux texts. On the Chanson’s relationship to the chanson de geste tradition see also Robert Bossuat, ‘La Chanson de “Hugues Capet,”’ Romania 71 (1950): 450–81; Noëlle Laborderie, introduction, in Hugues Capet, Chanson de geste du XIVe siècle, 7–67; François Suard, ‘Hugues Capet dans la chanson de geste au XIVe siècle,’ in Chanson de geste et tradition épique en France et au Moyen Âge (Paradigme: Paris, 1994) 285–311; Jean Subrenat, ‘Richier Émule de Rainouart: Le Burlesque dans la Chanson de Hugues Capet,’ in Burlesque et dérision dans les éposées de l’occident médiéval, ed. Bernard Guidot (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1995) 151–63; and Subrenat, introduction, Le Roman de Hugues Capet au XIVe siècle (Laferté-Milon: Corps 9 Éditions, 1987) 7–19. As David Ganz has shown with respect to Notker’s ninth-century biography of Charlemagne, humour and serious political or moral aims were certainly not mutually exclusive in medieval texts. See his ‘Humour as History in Notker’s Gesta Karoli Magni,’ in Monks, Nuns and Friars in Mediaeval Society, ed. E. King, J. Schaefer, and W. Wadley (Sewanee, TN: Press of the University of the South, 1989) 171–83. The manuscript is conserved at the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, cote Ars. 3145 (186 B.F.). It is of good quality, on paper, dating from the first half of the fifteenth century. See Noëlle Laborderie, intro., Hughes Capet, 7–9. According to Bossuat, the text ‘n’atteignit guère la société cultivée.’ ‘La Légende de Hugues Capet au XVIe siècle,’ in Mélanges d’histoire littéraire de la Renaissance offerts à Henri Chamard (Paris: Librairie Nizet, 1951) 30. See Bernard Guenée, Histoire et culture historique dans l’occident médiéval (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1980). As Bernard Guenée writes, ‘Le fossé était profond entre l’infime élite des historiens et des amateurs éclairés, et tous ceux pour lesquels le passé n’était qu’obscurité. La grande faiblesse du Moyen Âge ne résidait pas dans la recherche historique, qui pouvait être de haut niveau, mais dans la diffusion de la connaissance historique qui était, faute d’enseignement de l’histoire, misérable’ [The gap between the minute elite of historians and enlightened amateurs, and all those for whom the past was but darkness, was profound. The great weakness of the Middle Ages did not reside in historical research, which could be of high quality, but in the diffusion of historical knowledge, which was, in the absence of the teaching of history, miserable]. Ibid. 328. For example, the narrator refers to ‘ly vraye cronicque ou ly fait furent mis’ [the true chronicle where the deeds were put] (48), and says that ‘nous va la cronicque pour vray certefiant’ [the chronicle certifies this to be true] (240) and ‘ce nous dist ly escris’ [so the writing tells us] (472, 521, 2769).

204 Notes to pages 61–4 11 This range was proposed by the Marquis de la Grange as part of his 1864 edition of the Chanson. Noëlle Laborderie summarizes and evaluates La Grange’s argument in her introduction, 9–11. 12 See Suard, ‘Hugues Capet dans la chanson de geste’; Subrenat, intro., Le Roman de Hugues Capet; and Laborderie, intro., Hugues Capet. Despite the Chanson’s literary and political interest, and the publication of Laborderie’s excellent new edition, it remains distinctly understudied. BlumenfeldKosinski (‘Rewriting History’) and Albert Gier (‘Hugues Capet, le poème de l’harmonie sociale,’ in Essor et fortune de la chanson de geste dans l’Europe et l’Orient latin, 2 vols. [Modena: Mucchi Editore, 1984] 1: 69–75) have examined the role of the bourgeoisie in the text, while Ferdinand Lot (Études sur le règne d’Hugues Capet et la fin du Xe siècle [Paris: Librairie Émile Bouillon, 1903]) and Bernard Ribémont and Michel Salvat have discussed the origins and purposes of the so-called butcher legend (‘De Francion à Hugues Capet, descendant d’un boucher: Légende des origines et encyclopédisme,’ Le Moyen Âge [1993]: fasc. 2, 249–62). Scholars have also approached the Chanson as an example of late chanson de geste, focusing on its place in literary history. See Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Lot, Suard, and Subrenat. 13 See Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Gier, Suard, and Laborderie (note 12). 14 Throughout this chapter, my use of the word ‘bourgeoisie’ is intended to bear no Marxist or otherwise modern connotation, but rather to serve as an (albeit approximate) modern English equivalent of the Old French ‘bourgois’ which refers, in this text, to an elite and wealthy segment of the Parisian, non-noble population. 15 See Lot, Études sur le règne d'Hugues Capet 337. Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Bossuat, and Gier all take the latter position. 16 Laborderie, intro., Hugues Capet 52. 17 Autrand, Charles V: Le Sage (Paris: Fayard, 1994) 229. 18 ‘«Bourgeois de Paris» est, en effet, le titre porté par les plus riches des marchands de Paris, ceux qui jouissent de nombreux privilèges accordés par le roi au commerce parisien. C’est un titre recherché’ (Autrand, Charles V 230). For more details on the Hanse, the rising power of the bourgeoisie in Paris, or Étienne Marcel, see chap. 11, ‘Étienne Marcel,’ of Autrand’s Charles V, as well as chap. 8, ‘Paris avant la bourrasque,’ of Claude Poulain, Étienne Marcel (Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1994). 19 The noble who advised Blanchefleur declares, ‘Je croy bien que par yaux secourue serez’ [I truly believe that by them you will be saved] (771). Bossuat, Gier, Laborderie, Lot, and Suard all remark on the loyalty of the bourgeoisie to the monarchy. 20 See chapter 2 of Guillaume de Nangis, Vie et vertus de Saint Louis, ed. René

Notes to pages 64–6

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de Lespinasse (Paris: Librairie de la Société Bibliographique, 1877). See also the account of Jean Richard, Saint Louis, roi d’une France féodale, soutien de la Terre Sainte (Paris: Fayard, 1983) 42–4. ‘Ly roiaume seroit en moult grant povreté, / Car tous mauvais usaigez aroit il ellevez / Et ly corps de me fille seroit moult avillez’ [The kingdom would be in great poverty, for he would revive all bad customs, and the person of my daughter would be greatly defiled] (786–8). As Laborderie and Suard have pointed out, many chansons de geste represent Hugh Capet as a usurper and an enemy of Charlemagne’s descendants. The Chanson therefore needed to counter this tradition. From a historical perspective, although the direct Capetian line ruled for over three hundred years, activities such as the reordering of the tombs at Saint-Denis or Philippe le Bel’s patronage of historical texts show that the Capetian kings were still busy demonstrating the legitimacy of their rule even into the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. See Elizabeth Brown, ‘La généalogie capétienne dans l’historiographie du Moyen Âge: Philippe le Bel, le reniement du reditus et la création d’une ascendance carolingienne pour Hugues Capet,’ in Religion et culture autour de l’an mil: Royaume capétien et Lotharingie, ed. Dominique Iogna-Prat and Jean-Charles Picard (Paris: Picard, 1990) 199–214: Elizabeth Brown, ‘Burying and Unburying the Kings of France,’ in Persons in Groups: Social Behavior as Identity Formation in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, ed. Richard Trexler (Binghamton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 1985) 241–66; and Bernard Guenée, ‘Les généalogies entre l’histoire et la politique: La fierté d’être capétien, en France, au Moyen Âge,’ in Politique et histoire au Moyen Âge: Recueil d’articles sur l’histoire politique et l’historiographie médiévale (1956– 1981) (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1981) 341–68. It is important to emphasize, as Bossuat (‘La chanson de “Hugues Capet”’), Gier, and others have, that the military participation of the bourgeoisie is presented as an advantage to be exploited, but in no way as a replacement for the military leadership of the nobility. According to Claude Poulain, the ‘bonnes villes’ withdrew their troops of their own accord because Jean II had recalled advisers expelled by the Estates, and had manipulated once again the currency, in violation of his agreement with the Estates (Étienne Marcel 120–1). Whether Jean II drove the bourgeois troops away by his actions or by his words, the net result was the same. The nobility was frequently perceived, as illustrated by the Complainte sur la bataille de Poitiers (ed. Charles de Beaurepaire, Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 12 [1851]: 257–63), as more concerned about their own well-being

206 Notes to pages 66–70

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32 33 34

35

than that of the king and of France, and as most unwilling to leave their lives on the battlefield. The bourgeoisie, in contrast, are depicted in the Complainte, as in the Chanson de Hugues Capet, as loyal servants of the crown. Chronique des quatre premiers Valois (1327–93), ed. Siméon Luce (Paris: Société de l’Histoire de France, 1861). The people of Paris would play a prominent role in later stages of the Hundred Years’ War, notably in the fifteenth century, but ironically it would be the Bourguignons, and not the Valois, who would most effectively exploit their power. In ‘La Chanson de “Hugues Capet”’ Bossuat notes that it was a loyal faction of the bourgeoisie that put an end to the Anglo-Navarrese intrigues of 1358. Although currency manipulations had long been used to increase royal revenue, their number drastically increased under Philippe VI, with a total of 24 manipulations from 1337 to 1350. Jean II, for his part, certainly kept pace with his father (Poulain, Étienne Marcel 67). In the treatise De Moneta, composed at approximately the same time as the Chanson, Nicole Oresme denounced currency manipulations as contrary to the public good. See Cary Nederman, ‘Community and the Rise of Commercial Society: Political Economy and Political Theory in Nicholas Oresme’s De Moneta,’ History of Political Thought 21 (Spring 2000): 1–15. This provides a clear indication that Hugh has been raised as a noble, for in the romance and chanson de geste traditions the maternal uncle–nephew relationship is a close one. See the prominent role of Gauvain at the court of Arthur, or of Roland at that of Charlemagne. ‘Point ne tenez l’estat vo pere le baron, / Car quant il me venoit veïr en me maison, / Il maintenoit estat et gracïeus et bon’ [You do not maintain the status of your noble father, for when he came to see me in my house, he came in a gracious and a good manner] (100–2). ‘Car j’ay apris mestier plus faitis et plus bel’ [For I have learned a more handsome and artful occupation] (133). Chronique des quatre premiers Valois 60. For more information about the period 1356–8, see Claude Poulain’s Étienne Marcel for an account that is strongly sympathetic to the provost and critical of the dauphin, and Autrand’s Charles V for one that is more sympathetic to the dauphin. The Chronique des quatre premiers Valois offers a fascinating contemporary version of these events. Charles eventually declared himself regent. Before this he was the lieutenant of the king and his acts were not binding. In the Chronique des quatre pre-

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miers Valois, he is elaborately identified as ‘Charles, l’ainsné filz du roy Jehan de France, duc de Normendie et dalphin de Vienne’ [Charles, the eldest son of king Jean of France, duke of Normandy and dauphin of Viennois] (65), a manner of naming that highlights his relation to the king, as well as his own positions of political authority. On the ways in which Charles’s official acts were signed by the chancery during this period see Serge Lusignan, La langue des rois au Moyen Âge: Le français en France et en Angleterre (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2004) 117–19. 36 In particular, it is often unclear where Étienne Marcel stood with relation to Charles de Navarre and Charles de France. It seems fairly certain that at a certain point he despaired of getting the dauphin to agree to his reforms, and cast his lot with the former. On this subject, see Étienne Marcel, chapters 24–31. Also, although the Estates of March 1357 enjoyed considerable participation and support by the nobility, the nobles and high-level prelates seem gradually to have distanced themselves from the actions of the Estates, which came increasingly to be dominated by the bourgeoisie, and especially those of Paris. Jacques Krynen observes that while the Estates of 1357 included many nobles, those of February 1358 included significantly fewer, and affirms that the murders of the marechals of Champagne and Normandy caused the definitive rupture between the bourgeoisie and the nobility. See ‘Entre la réforme et la révolution: Paris, 1356–1358,’ in Les révolutions françaises, ed. Frédéric Bluche and Stéphane Rials (Paris: Fayard, 1989) 87–112. 37 The chronicler of the quatre premiers Valois writes that ‘Par la voulenté de Nostre Seigneur Jhesu Crist et par droicte inspiracion divine, aucuns bons preudommes notables bourgoiz de Paris ourent regret et recours à leur droit seigneur, monseigneur le regent le royaume de France, Charles, duc de Normendie et dalphin de Vienne, ainsné filz de Jehan roi de France, c’est assavoir, sire Jehan Maillart et sire Pepin des Essarts’ [By the will of our lord Jesus Christ and by direct divine inspiration, some good and worthy men and important bourgeois of Paris had right of recourse to their rightful lord, my lord the regent of the kingdom of France, Charles, duke of Normandy and dauphin of Viennois, the eldest son of Jean, king of France, that is to say, lord Jean Maillart and lord Pepin des Essarts] (83, emphasis added). Indeed, as the chronicler continues to provide more detail concerning the Parisians’ sudden change of heart, the picture becomes no more flattering for Charles de France. The chronicler cites as reasons for the dauphin’s eventual victory his successful embargo of Paris, which had made food and supplies scarce, Charles de Navarre’s tactical error in bringing English mercenaries, who inspired fear and hostility, into Paris, and the Parisians’

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overall impression that Charles de France might feel more kindly towards the city of Paris, since it constituted his rightful heritage, than Charles de Navarre. In short, Charles de France represented the lesser of two evils: ‘Si vault mieux et si est raison et droit que nous recevons et appellons avec nous en suppliant nostre dit seigneur le duc de Normendie’ [It would be better and it is reasonable and rightful that we receive and call to us, in pleading, our aforementioned lord the duke of Normandy] (84). Curiously, Étienne Marcel himself claims just such unwavering loyalty to the dauphin and the Valois monarchy. In his famous letter to the dauphin of 18 April 1358 he protests his fidelity to Charles de France and the Valois, even as he announces his definitive rupture with the dauphin: ‘Si vous plaise savoir,’ Marcel writes, ‘très redoubté seigneur, que les bonnes gens de Paris ne se tiennent pas pour villains [as they had been called by someone in the entourage of the dauphin], mais sont prudes hommes et loiaulx, et tels les avés trouvé et trouverés’ [May it please you to know, very feared lord, that the good people of Paris do not believe themselves to be vile or lowborn, but are worthy men, and loyal, and so you have found them, and will find them] (Poulain, Étienne Marcel 290, emphasis added). On the continued appeal and the political applications of John of Salisbury’s corporeal metaphor well into the fourteenth century and beyond see Jacques Krynen, ‘Naturel: Essai sur l’argumentation de la nature dans la pensée politique à la fin du Moyen Âge,’ Journal des Savants (April–June 1982) 169–90. On the ambivalence and polyvalence of this metaphor, see Gianluca Briguglia, Il corpo vivente dello State: Una metafora politica (Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2006). ‘Chiamato fui di là Ugo Ciappetta; / di me son nati i Filippi et i Luigi / per cui novellamente è Francia retta. / Figliuol fu’io d’un beccaio di Parigi’ [I was called Hugh Capet yonder: of me were born the Philips and the Louises, by whom of late France is ruled. I was the son of a butcher of Paris] (49–52). Purgatorio, ed., trans., and with commentary by Charles Singleton (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973). Singleton ascribes the characterization of Hugh Capet as the son of a butcher to a confusion on Dante’s part between Hugh Capet and his father, Hugh the Great. He writes that ‘the tradition that Hugh the Great, who in reality was descended from the counts of Paris, was the son (or nephew) of a butcher was commonly believed in the Middle Ages and was, as Villani (IV, 4) records, accepted as true by most people in Dante’s time’ (Singleton commentary vol., Purgatorio 477). Petrarch disseminated an equally unflattering legend concerning Charlemagne, and his supposed morbid fascina-

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tion with his dead mistress that led to his founding of Aix-la-Chapelle. I thank Robert Morrissey for bringing this suggestive parallel to my attention. See his L’empereur à la barbe fleurie: Charlemagne dans la mythologie et l’histoire de la France (Paris: Gallimard, 1997), chap. 4, ‘Exigence du vrai, besoin du mythe.’ To complete this curious series of connections, I note that in the Chanson de Hugues Capet Aix-la-Chapelle is cited as the source of the Latin documents that form the basis for the text. 42 See part 3 of appendix VII of Ferdinand Lot’s Études sur le règne de Hugues Capet for a discussion of the butcher legend and how it relates to the Chanson, as well as Robert Bossuat, ‘La chanson de “Hugues Capet”’ 454; Gianni Mombello, ‘Une hypothèse sur l’origine d’une légende: Hugues Capet fils d’un boucher,’ in Pratiques de la culture écrite en France au XVe siècle, ed. Monique Ornato and Nicole Pons (Louvain-la-neuve: Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales, 1995) 179–90; and Ribémont and Salvat, ‘De Francion à Hugues Capet’ for a detailed account of the origins of the butcher legend, and the manner in which it was sometimes combined with other myths of national origin, especially that of Francion. 43 As Albert Gier has pointed out (‘Hugues Capet’), a son born to a noble father and a non-noble mother could be dubbed a knight, presuming his mother was not a servant or a slave (‘serve’ can refer to either, though in this context the former seems more likely). See note 12 of Gier’s article, in which he cites Philippe de Beaumanoir’s Coutumes de Beauvaisis, ed. Am. Salmon (Paris: 1970) vol. 2, para 1434: ‘c’est coustume ou reiaume de France que cil qui sont gentil homme de par le pere, tout soit leur mere vilaine, pueent estre chevalier, ce excepté qu’ele ne soit serve, car adonc ne le pourroient il estre’ [It is the custom in the kingdom of France that those who are born noblemen by their father, even if their mother is lowborn, can be knights, provided that she not be a servant, for then they cannot be one]. 44 The idea that Hugh’s nickname has as much to do with warfare as with trade is reinforced by the text’s use of butchery as a metaphor for battle. When Blanchefleur asks who killed Savary and his allies she is told that ‘C’est Huëz ly bouchiers, il cuide estre o maissel, / Car il lez fent ensi con bacon ou pourchel.’ [It is Hugh the butcher, who thinks he’s in a slaughterhouse, for he strikes them like bacon or pork] (951–2). Elsewhere, the soldiers ‘Ne s’espargnent nient plus qu’il fusissent bouchier / Qui tu[ass]ent leur beus qui sont bon a mengier’ [spared themselves no more than if they had been butchers, who kill their cattle which are good to eat] (3512–13), and in another skirmish, ‘La veÿsiez bataille et fiere caplison, / Copper testez et bras a guise de bacon’ [there you would have seen battle and fierce combat, heads and arms cut up like bacon] (4020–1).

210 Notes to pages 73–4 45 ‘Ung bouchier est cez onclez qui maint dedens Paris, / D’un costé jentieux hons’ [His uncle is a butcher who resides in Paris, on the other side a nobleman] (3354–5). 46 The brothers’ relationship further maintains the division between bourgeoisie and nobles proposed by the text. The band is led by the nobly born Henri, and the buffoon of the lot is the bourgeois Richier. 47 Savary reminds Blanchefleur, ‘je suis ly plus riche de ceste terre cha / Et du plus grant lynaige de cant qu’il en y a’ [I am the most powerful of this land, and of the greatest lineage that there is here] (658–9). Moreover, he has ‘maint bon amy’ [many a good friend] (688) and ‘maint hault prinche a sen commandement’ [many a lofty prince at his command] (846); he is ‘dez barons de France le plus enparentez’ [of the nobles of France the best endowed with relations] (760). 48 Fedry says, ‘Mandons no grant lynaige tout parmy Alemaingne, / Le bon duc d’Ott[e]risse et le roy de Behaingne, / Hugon de Vauvenisse qui porte noble ensaingne, / Le duc de Normendie et celui de Bertaingne / Et le conte d’Anjo, de Poeto et d’Auvergne; / Lez princhez manderons entresi qu’en Espaingne, / A Paris lez menrons affin que chescun waingne, / .C. mil ommez menrons au siegë en le plaingne’ [Let us send for our great lineage from across Germany, the good duke of Austria and the king of Bohemia, Hugon of Vauvenisse who bears a noble banner, the duke of Normandy and that of Brittany, and the count of Anjou, of Poitou and of Auvergne, we will send for princes from Spain as well, to Paris we will lead them so that each one might share in the spoils. One hundred thousand men we will lead to the siege on the plain] (1031–8). 49 Indeed, Blanchefleur’s counsellors recommend, ‘entreus mander porez / Le gent de vo lynaige dont vous avez assez’ [Meanwhile you can send for the people of your lineage, of which you have enough] (773–4). Many of Blanchefleur’s family members died at Narbonne, a detail that links Blanchefleur and the Chanson to another, literary family. She is the sister of Guillaume d’Orange, the defender of King Louis in the Couronnement de Louis, and the conqueror of the pagans in the Charroi de Nîmes and the Prise d’Orange. Savary likewise belongs to a literary family network. Hugh says to him: ‘Bien venez de l’estrasse de faire villain tour, / Car de Guennellon furent vo millour anchessour’ [Indeed, you come from a family that performs villainous deeds, for your greatest ancestors were from Ganelon] (903–4), thereby associating Savary with the most infamous epic traitor. Blanchefleur and Drogue thus belong to a family made up of epic heroes, just as Savary is related to an epic villain. Passing allusions are also made to Gormont et Isembart, Floovent, Otinel, Florent et Octavien, the Voeux du paon,

Notes to pages 74–7

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Auberi le Bourgoing, Lohier et Maillart, and Baudouin de Sebourc, thereby inscribing the Chanson de Hugues Capet within a vast literary network. See Laborderie, intro., Hughes Capet 59–67, as well as Suard, ‘Hugues Capet dans la chanson de geste’ 291–4, for a discussion of the relationship between the Chanson and the chanson de geste tradition, especially the cycle of Guillaume d’Orange. On the political importance of kinship see Gerd Althoff, Family, Friends, and Followers: Political and Social Bonds in Early Medieval Europe, trans. Christopher Carroll (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Anita Guerreau-Jalabert, ‘Sur les structures de parenté dans l’Europe médiévale,’ Annales ESC 36.6 (1981): 1028–49; and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, L’ombre des ancêtres: Essai sur l’imaginaire médiéval de la parenté (Paris: Fayard, 2000). One hesitates to use the word ‘feudal,’ since Susan Reynolds has detailed the pitfalls of this term. See Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). The prominence of the princes of the blood is itself relatively new at this time. See A.W. Lewis, Royal Succession in Capetian France: Studies on Familial Order and the State (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1981) especially chap. 5, ‘A Corollary of the Royal Race: The Princes of the Blood.’ As noted in chapter 1, Jean de Joinville, in the mid-thirteenth century, refused to swear fidelity to Louis IX before embarking on the crusade because the king was not his liege lord. Drogue marvels that ‘Onquez mais en me vie tant de peuple ne vy, / Il sont de ce royaulme dont j’ay mervelle en my / Pour coy a le roïne pourcachent tel anuy, / Car il deuïsse[nt] estre sy homme et sy amy, / Mais je ne say point bien s’elle l’a deservy’ [Never before in my life have I seen so many people, they are of this kingdom, which makes me wonder, Why do they wish the queen such ill? for they should be her men and her friends, but I do not know for certain whether she has deserved it] (2892–6). The counts of Touraine and Soissons, also relatives of Fedry, are among the few nobles who remain faithful to Blanchefleur, but they play a much smaller role in the Chanson than the constable, who epitomizes noble allegiance to the throne. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957). He is called Hugh the butcher by one of Blanchefleur’s followers in line 951, by the cheering Parisians in line 1472, by the constable in line 2085, and by Blanchefleur in line 2412. This evolution in the references to Hugh reflects his social and political

212 Notes to pages 77–8

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60 61

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ascent, and indicates that however affectionately his nickname was used, the socially sanctioned noble titles of duke and king are to be preferred. This shift mirrors the depiction of the bourgeoisie as a group, who, though respected and appreciated in the Chanson, remain subordinated to the nobility. Fedry’s nephew Asselin writes to his uncle that ‘N’affiert point a bouchier si haute signourie’ [such elevated lordship is not suited to a butcher] (4890), and Fedry later repeats this formula, telling the imprisoned Blanchefleur that ‘N’affiert a ung bouchier de tenir tel honour’ [it is not suitable that a butcher should hold such a high honour] (5000). As was, indeed, the whole Hundred Years’ War. The two Charles were closely related, and a number of marriages joined their families. Charles de Navarre was married to the dauphin’s sister, Jeanne. Charles de Navarre’s aunt had married Charles IV, and his sister, Blanche, the belle sagesse, had married Philippe VI. Charles de Navarre, like the dauphin, was a great-great-great grandson of Saint Louis. However, Charles de Navarre affirmed that his right to the French throne was more justified than the dauphin’s, for he was a direct descendent of Philippe le Bel, and not of a younger branch of the family. Charles de Navarre had been imprisoned by Jean II in April 1356, allegedly for his murder of the French constable Charles d’Espagne. For a discussion of the origins of the Évreux-Navarre/Valois rivalry, see Poulain, Étienne Marcel, especially chaps. 9 and 12, and chap. 5, ‘Les rivalités du sang,’ of Autrand, Charles V. For an account of the intense struggle between the two Charleses that took place in 1358, see chaps. 13–15 of Charles V and the third part of Étienne Marcel. In ‘La chanson de “Hugues Capet,”’ Robert Bossuat traces parallels between the specific military and geographic details of the stand-off between the two Charleses and the siege of Paris as depicted in the Chanson. As noted in the previous section, despite the bourgeoisie’s actions of the years 1356–8, in the Chanson they are presented as unwaveringly faithful to Blanchefleur and the kingdom of France. As evidenced by the necessity of finding her a husband who will govern and defend France. On this topic, everyone from Savary to Drogue of Venice seems to be in agreement. Savary observes to Blanchefleur, ‘C’est Marie le belle qui grant terre tenra, / Ly roiaulme de France a ly apendera: / Or ly couvient baron qui le gouvernera’ [It is Marie the Beautiful who will hold a great land, the kingdom of France will belong to her. Now it is necessary to find a noble who will govern it/her] (653–5). In an interesting instance of pronominal uncertainty, it could be either Marie or la terre that needs gov-

Notes to pages 79–80

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erning; they are, in a way, interchangeable. A group of unnamed nobles exclaims, ‘«Huëz est moult preudon, / Il seroit moult bien dignez de tenir regïon, / Pleuïst a Jhesu Crist qui souffry passïon / Qu’il eüst espousee le pucelle au crin blon / Et s’euïst dou roiaume le dominacïon; / Bien le deffenderoit encontre le glouton / Qui nous cuide tenir en se subgessïon!»’ [Hugh is very brave man, he is very worthy to hold lands. May it please Jesus Christ who suffered the passion that he marry the maiden of the blond hair, and that he have the kingdom under his domination. He would defend it well against the glutton who thinks he holds us in his power] (2204–10). Drogue swears to himself, ‘De Marie me niece qu(i) est blance qu’aubespin / Et oussy coullouree que rose de gardin / Feray le marïage ainchois le mois de juin’ [Of Marie, my niece, who is white as hawthorn, and as coloured as a garden rose, I will arrange the marriage before the month of June] (3288–90). The figurative meaning of this expression is ‘little, or not anything at all’ (see Giuseppe Di Stefano and Rose Bidler, Toutes les herbes de la Saint-Jean: Les locutions en Moyen Français ([Montreal: CERES, 1992] 486), but I have chosen to retain the literal translation, which I find wonderfully evocative. The incompatibility of these two doctrines has not escaped scholars. Bernard Guenée observes that ‘tout l’édifice [of the reditus] reposait sur le postulat de l’hérédité féminine. A partir du moment où, au XIVe siècle, les femmes furent exclues de la succession à la couronne et où cette exclusion fut justifiée par une loi salique surgie du plus lointain passé, que pouvait-il rester, en bonne logique, de la prestigieuse continuité royale française?’ [the entire edifice rested upon the premise of female heredity. From the moment where, in the fourteenth century, women were excluded from succession to the crown and where this exclusion was justified by a Salic law that loomed up from the most distant past, what could remain, logically speaking, of the prestigious French royal continuity?] (‘Les Généalogies entre l’histoire et la politique’ 356), while Colette Beaune notes that ‘si l’invention de la loi salique servit à dissimuler les hiatus de 1316 et 1328, rétroactivement elle mettait en question la filiation entre Carolingians et Capétiens’ [if the invention of Salic law served to dissimulate the hiatuses of 1316 and 1328, retroactively it put into question the kinship between Carolingians and Capetians] (Naissance de la nation France 217). Historically, Hugh Capet was indeed succeeded by his son, Robert II the Pious, who reigned from 996 to 1031. See Philippe Contamine, ‘“Le royaume de France ne peut tomber en fille”: Fondement, formulation et implication d’une théorie politique à la fin du Moyen-Âge,’ Perspectives Médiévales, June 1987: 67–81 for a general over-

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view of the theoretical underpinnings of these two lines of thought. Marsiglio of Padua does not preclude hereditary succession, but felt that it should not be automatic. In ‘The Perfect Prince: A Study in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Ideals,’ Speculum 3 (1928): 470–504, Lester Born provides an overview of the political views of the principal thinkers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries with regard to the qualities of the ideal monarch, including the manner of his selection. James Blythe, Ideal Government and the Mixed Constitution in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992) summarizes the political theories of several Aristotelian thinkers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, such as Thomas Aquinas, Giles of Rome, Peter of Auvergne, Ptolemy of Lucca, John of Paris, and Nicole Oresme, including their views on modes of succession. In Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages (trans. S.B. Chrimes [Oxford: Blackwell, 1939]) Fritz Kern traces the origins and development of these two modes of succession in the early Middle Ages. See Contamine, ‘“Le royaume de France’” 75, as well as Nicole Oresme, Commentaire sur le livre de Politiques d’Aristote, ed. A.C. Menut (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1970). It should be noted that although Hugues Capet reflects a principle later articulated by Nicole Oresme, Oresme was not in fact a partisan of the dauphin in the late 1350s, but of Charles de Navarre. He probably did not rally to the royal cause until 1360–1. François Suard points to the importance of election in the Chanson, and the fact that the election of Hugh Capet creates an unmistakable parallel between the Capetian and the Valois dynastic founding fathers. In May 1314 Marguerite de Bourgogne, the first wife of Louis X and mother of Jeanne, was accused of adultery with Gautier d’Aunay. The liaison was rumoured to date back to 1311–12, placing Jeanne’s birth under a cloud of suspicion. Marguerite died in prison in early 1315, and Louis subsequently married Clemence of Hungary. See Contamine, ‘“Le royaume de France”’ 68; the conclusion to Peggy McCracken, The Romance of Adultery: Queenship and Sexual Transgression in Old French Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998); and Charles Wood, ‘Queens, Queans, and Kingship: An Inquiry into Theories of Royal Legitimacy in Late Medieval England and France,’ in Order and Innovation in the Middle Ages, ed. William Jordan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976) 385–400. That is, Charles de Valois and Charles de la Marche. In an attempt to pacify Agnès and Eudes de Bourgogne, Philippe promised the kingdom of Navarre to the young Jeanne, although this concession was not actually made until 1328, at the time of Philippe de Valois’s succession. On the

Notes to pages 80–2

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wrangling that took place during and following Philippe’s regency, see A.W. Lewis, Royal Succession in Capetian France: Studies on Familial Order and the State (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1981). As Philippe Contamine writes: ‘Philippe de Valois l’emporta [i.e., the crown] sans peine, avec l’appui de la plupart des grands et, peut-on presque dire, le consentement de l’«opinion publique française»’ (‘“Le royaume de France”’ 69). Jeanne de France was finally given the kingdom of Navarre, which had been promised to her a decade earlier, when her uncle succeeded to the French throne. She also received the counties of Angoulême and Nortain, and relinquished that of Champagne. Philippe Contamine has suggested that Edward III may initially have sought territorial or political concessions in Aquitaine, rather than the crown itself. See ‘“Le Royaume de France”’ 69. Claude Poulain has suggested that in addition to their distaste for an English king, the influential French nobles, grown restless under the brief rules of the sons of Philippe le Bel, were content to have a less powerful king, one who had risen from among their own ranks, and who could be prevailed upon to grant concessions (Étienne Marcel 23). As in the Chanson, military success combined with the approbation of the nobility sealed the selection of the new king. On the threat posed by Charles II, and opposition to his efforts to effect a Capetian restoration, see Stephen Nichols, ‘The Narrative of Nation: Political Allegory in 14th-Century France,’ Romanistisches Jahrbuch 51 (2000): 153– 78. Jean II summarily executed Raoul de Brienne, the constable of France, who was suspected of infidelity with Jean’s wife, and confiscated his lands. See ‘Les généalogies’ 342–3. See Gabrielle Spiegel, ‘The reditus regni ad stirpem Karoli Magni: A New Look,’ French Historical Studies 7 (1971): 147 for an account of the Valerian prophecy and its origins. See ‘La généalogie capétienne dans l’historiographie du Moyen Âge,’ wherein she also makes the fascinating remark that ‘grâce à son inclusion dans les Grandes Chroniques de France, la notion du reditus était beaucoup plus connue, même s’il ne plaisait pas à tout le monde. Il n’est peut-être pas surprenant que la copie des Grandes Chroniques possédée par Charles V omette le chapitre sur Hugues Capet qui fait allusion à cette notion, que le chapitre traitant du reditus manque dans la copie faite pour Philippe le Bon de Bourgogne entre 1449 et 1460, et que, en au moins deux copies tardives de l’ouvrage, les folios sur lesquels étaient racontés la prophétie valérienne et le reditus sous Louis VIII aient été coupés’ [thanks to its inclusion in the

216 Notes to pages 82–5

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85 86 87

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Grandes Chroniques de France, the notion of the reditus was much better known, even if it didn’t please everyone. It is perhaps not surprising that the copy of the Grandes Chroniques possessed by Charles V omits the chapter on Hugh Capet that alludes to this notion, that the chapter which discusses the reditus is missing in the copy made for Phillip the Good of Burgundy between 1449 and 1460, and that, in at least two late copies of the work, the folios on which were recounted the Valerian prophecy and the reditus under Louis VII were excised] (208). See again Guenée, ‘Les généalogies.’ In fact, as Gabrielle Spiegel has pointed out, Hugh Capet’s wife possessed Carolingian blood (‘The reditus regni’ 152). Moreover, previous Capetian marriages to Carolingian descendents, including Louis VII’s marriage to Adèle of Champagne, would already have achieved the aim of dynastic unity well before the marriage of Philippe Auguste. Elizabeth Brown suggests that the notion of the reditus was first proposed by Baldwin of Hainault, Elisabeth’s father, in order to enhance the prestige of his family. See ‘La généalogie capétienne.’ As Noëlle Laborderie points out in her introduction (Hugues Capet 59), the author has more or less combined Louis the Pious, Louis the Debonair, from the Couronnement de Louis, and Louis III, the victor of Ponthieu. It is interesting to observe that the Chanson rewrites not only history, but also the previous epic tradition. François Suard has pointed out that twelfth-century epic texts such as the Mort Aymeri de Narbonne and the Guibert d’Andrenas depict Hugh as the rival of Charlemagne’s son, Louis, and as wanting to usurp the throne (‘Hugues Capet dans la chanson de geste’ 285–6). Spiegel, ‘The reditus regni’ 146. See ibid. 145–6. Jacques Krynen makes a similar point in his Idéal du prince 245. Noëlle Laborderie highlights the very deliberate and solemn nature of this decision and the language that accompanies it. She also observes that although Philippe VI was indeed related to Charles IV within ‘five degrees,’ this was only according to civil law, and not according to canon law. See her introduction, Hugues Capet, 55–6. On the origins, and subsequent deformations, of Salic law, see Sarah Hanley, introduction, Les droits des femmes et la loi salique (Paris: Indigo & Côtéfemmes Éditions, 1994) 7–20. de terra vero salica, nulla in muliere portio hereditatis est, sed ad virilem sexum qui fratres gerunt, tota terra pertineat; de terra salica, nulla portio hereditatis mulieri veniat, sed ad virilem sexum tota terrae hereditatis perveniat [1 – But of the Salic land, the woman has no part of the heritage; the totality of the land belongs

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to the masculine sex, it is the brothers who govern/manage it. 2 – That no part of the Salic land come in heritage to a woman, but that the totality of the inherited land return to the masculine sex]. The ‘Salic land’ refers to the lands occupied by the Salian Franks. 90 The success of Valois propagandists in this undertaking is illustrated by the fact that later historians such as Froissart and the chronicler of the Quatre premiers Valois, by no means zealous partisans of the Valois, agree that Philippe de Valois was chosen or elected by some representative group of nobles (according to Froissart) or nobles, prelates, and bourgeoisie (according to the chronicler), and that his ascension did not in any way resemble an usurpation. The chronicler of the Quatre premiers Valois writes that ‘Philippe de Valloiz par les barons de France, par les prelas et par les frans bourgoiz des bonnes villes fut fait roy de France’ [Philippe de Valois was made king of France by the nobles, by the prelates, and by the free bourgeois of the good towns] (225). Similarly, Froissart writes, ‘Li douze per et li baron de France donnerent, de commun acort, le royaume de France a monsigneur Phelippe de Valois, fil jadis a monsigneur Charle le conte de Valois’ [The twelve peers and the nobles of France gave, of common accord, the kingdom of France to my lord Philippe de Valois, the son formerly of my lord Charles, the count of Valois] (cited in Suard, ‘Hugues Capet’ 302). 91 Instead, they were used to counter the claims of Charles II de Navarre. See Stephen Nichols’s fascinating analysis of Richard Lescot’s Geneologia aliquorum regum Francie per quam apparet quantum attinere potest regi Francie rex Navarre, or Genealogy of some French kings through which it appears how much the king of Navarre owes allegiance to the king of France. Nichols notes that, although he had the text of the laws before him, Lescot does not cite, but instead summarizes them in a way that modifies their origins and emphasis to suit his needs. See ‘The Narrative of Nation’ 160–4. For a more detailed history of Salic law and its applications, see Beaune, Naissance de la nation France 264–80. 92 The difficulty of limiting the application of Salic law to royal successions is illustrated by the war over the duchy of Bretagne, which lasted for more than twenty years. Upon the death of Jean de Montfort, in 1341, there were two claimants to the throne: Charles de Blois, who was married to Jeanne de Penthièvre, the granddaughter of Jean de Montfort by his eldest son, Guy, and Jean, the younger son of Jean de Montfort. Jean the younger, imitating the Valois, based his claim on Salic law, stating that the duchy could not be passed to a woman or to her husband. Philippe VI, however, supported Charles de Blois (who was also his nephew). See Poulain 25–6 for more details on the war of succession in Bretagne.

218 Notes to pages 86–8 93 By Jean de Montreuil. Contamine concludes that ‘[c]’est donc depuis 1409– 1413 que la loi salique fit clairement partie de la culture politique des dirigeants français, et qu’ils purent remplacer la notion de coutume (orale) par celle de loi (écrite)’ [it is thus from 1409–1413 that the Salic law had clearly become part of the political culture of the French leadership, and that they were able to replace the idea of custom (oral) with that of law (written)]. See ‘“Le royaume de France”’ 71–2. 94 Beaune, Naissance de la nation France 267. 95 According to its editor, Siméon Luce, the Chronique was composed between 1377 and 1397. The last year for which events are recounted is 1393. However, the events following the death of Charles V in 1380 are recounted more rapidly and in far less detail than those that took place during the regency and reign of Charles V. 96 Alessandra Maccioni believes that the text was composed in the wake of the battle of Crécy (1346), and uses this dating to argue for an earlier date of composition for the Chanson de Hugues Capet. See ‘Une note sur Hugues Capet: Sa chanson de geste et l’historiographie médiévale anglaise,’ in Religion et Culture autour de l’an mil: Royaume capétien et Lotharingie, ed. Dominique Iogna-Prat and Jean-Charles Picard (Paris: Picard, 1990) 227–9. A.G. Rigg dates the text to 1347–9. See ‘The Legend of Hugh Capet: The English Tradition,’ in The Centre and Its Compass: Studies in Medieval Literature in Honor of Professor John Leyerle, ed. Robert Taylor et al. (Kalamazoo, MI: Studies in Medieval Culture, 1993) 389–406. The ‘Invective’ is found in Political Poems and Songs Relating to English History, from the Accession of Edward III to That of Richard II, ed. T. Wright, 2 vols. (London, 1859–61) 1: 26–40. 97 A final addendum concerning the fascinating origins of the butcher legend: A.G. Rigg notes that the author of the ‘Invective’ says that Hugh Capet adopted the name Pippin (‘Nomen mutauit: dictus fuit ipse Pipinus’ [He changed his name: he was called Pippin]), a detail that Rigg finds inexplicable, and which does not appear in the other Anglo-Latin texts he discusses. The explanation for this detail may well be found in Gianni Mombello’s own analysis of the butcher legend, which, he argues, arose from a complex process of confusion and conflation of a number of different historical figures, including Pepin le Bref, the first Carolingian king, elected in 751. However, Gianni Mombello claims that the butcher legend was born in France, and in a cultivated milieu, so how and when it crossed the Channel remains a mystery. See ‘Une hypothèse sur l’origine d’une légende.’ 98 Spiegel, ‘The reditus regni’ 146.

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3. The Crusading Ideal in Guillaume de Machaut’s Prise d’Alixandre 1 See Housley, ‘Costing the Crusade: Budgeting for Crusading Activity in the Fourteenth Century,’ in The Experience of Crusading, vol. 1, Western Approaches, ed. Marcus Bull and Norman Housley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 45–59. 2 Riley-Smith, The Crusades, a Short History (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1987) 208–40. 3 Dupront, Le mythe de croisade, 2 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1997) 1: 46–60. On crusading efforts in the first half of the fourteenth century see also Christiane Deluz, ‘Croisade et paix en Europe au XIVe siècle. Le rôle du cardinal Hélie de Talleyrand,’ Cahiers de Recherches Médiévales (XIIIe–XVe s.) 1 (1996): 53–64. 4 The Prise was composed sometime between 1369, the year of Pierre I’s death, and 1377, the year of Machaut’s death. In his introduction to Janet Shirley’s translation of Machaut’s text (The Capture of Alexandria [Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001] 1–16) Peter Edbury suggests that since the text contains no allusions to the war of 1373–4 between Cyprus and Genoa, it was most likely completed before that time. 5 Angela Hurworth and R. Barton Palmer claim that this scene is based upon the opening of Alain de Lille’s Anticlaudianus. See Hurworth, ‘Le corps “remembré”: Historiographie et hagiographie dans la Prise d’Alixandre,’ in Guillaume de Machaut (Paris: Presses Universitaires de Paris-Sorbonne, 2002) 109; and Palmer, introduction, La Prise d’Alixandre by Guillaume de Machaut (New York and London: Routledge, 2002) 12. 6 Following the fall of Acre in 1291 the kingdom of Jerusalem ceased to exist, though titular kingship was claimed by the rulers of Cyprus. 7 As R. Barton Palmer notes, Machaut preferred to present his works as a unified oeuvre, and so his works are rarely found individually, or bound with the works of other authors (intro. La Prise d’Alexandre 33). The five manuscripts that contain the Prise d’Alixandre are as follows: A – Paris, BNF, fonds français MS 1584; B – Paris, BNF, fonds français MS 1585; E – Paris, BNF, fonds français MS 9221; F–G – Paris, BNF, fonds français MS 22545; Vg – New York, Wildenstein Family, no number. On Machaut manuscripts and scholarship, see the indispensable Lawrence Earp, Guillaume de Machaut: A Guide to Research (New York and London: Garland, 1995). 8 The Prise is one of the principal primary sources for histories of the later crusades, of Cyprus, and of Pierre I. 9 I note by way of exception R. Barton Palmer and Claude Gauvard, who have examined Machaut’s political ideas, the former in the introduction to

220 Notes to pages 94–6

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his edition and translation of Machaut’s Confort d’ami (New York and London: Garland, 1992) xi–xci, and the latter in her article ‘Portrait du prince d’après l’oeuvre de Guillaume de Machaut: Étude sur les idées politiques du poète,’ in Guillaume de Machaut, poète et compositeur (Paris: Klincksieck, 1982) 23–39. Anne Robertson has discussed the political framework of some of Machaut’s musical compositions. See Guillaume de Machaut and Reims: Context and Meaning in His Musical Works (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). See Earp, Guillaume de Machaut chap. 1. Actually, Godefroy refused the title of king and it was his brother Baldwin who became the first king of Jerusalem. However, Godefroy is given credit for the conquest of the holy city. Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas has remarked that Pierre’s descent from Venus aligns him with Aeneus, thereby establishing him as one who will likewise found a new Christian space. See ‘Images littéraires de Chypre et évolution de l’esprit de croisade au XIVe siècle,’ in Progrès, réaction, décadence dans l’occident médiéval, ed. E. Baumgartner and L. Harf-Lancner (Geneva: Droz, 2003) 123–35. In Guillaume de Machaut and Reims Anne Robertson discusses the importance of Reims’s dual Roman and Christian heritage on Machaut’s artistic sensibilities and development. See Dupront, Le mythe de croisade. The Prise d’Alixandre has been perceived by many as little more than a vehicle for expounding upon the virtues of its hero. Derek Brewer characterizes the text as ‘an exercise in fulsome uncritical praise’ (see ‘Chaucer’s Knight as Hero, and Machaut’s Prise d’Alexandrie,’ in Heroes and Heroines in Medieval English Literature, ed. Leo Carruthers [Cambridge: St Edmundsbury Press, 1994] 88) while William Calin observes that ‘Guillaume de Machaut displays the most intense personal admiration for his protagonist’ (see A Poet at the Fountain: Essays on the Narrative Verse of Guillaume de Machaut [Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1974] 213), de Mas Latrie affirms that Machaut exhibits ‘an exaggerated and continuous admiration for king Pierre of Lusignan’ (translation mine; see introduction, La Prise d’Alexandrie ou Chronique du roi Pierre I de Lusignan, ed. M.L. de Mas Latrie [Genève: Imprimerie Jules-Guillaume Fick, 1877] xviii), and Bernard Ribémont declares that ‘the goal towards which the entire text is oriented is the praise of Pierre I of Lusignan’ (translation mine; see ‘Dire le vrai et chanter des louanges: La Prise d’Alexandrie de Guillaume de Machaut,’ Cahiers de Recherches Médiévales (XIIIe–XVe s) 10 [2003]: 172). Although France and England were technically at peace throughout most of the 1360s, from a practical standpoint the effects of the war could still be

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felt. As the decade progressed, tensions increased between the two kingdoms, and by the time of the Prise’s composition they were once again at war. On 15 June 1362 Pierre sent a letter to the kingdoms of the West announcing his intention to lead a crusade to reconquer Jerusalem and the Holy Land. See Norman Housley, The Avignon Papacy and the Crusades, 1305–1378 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986) 40. Pierre’s interest in crusade may have had other motives. His succession had been challenged by his nephew, Hugh de Lusignan, the son of Pierre’s elder half-brother, Guy, and Anne de Bourbon. Although Guy died before his father, Hugh IV, Hugh de Lusignan claimed that the throne should pass to him rather than to Guy’s younger half-brother. This claim was supported both by Jean II and by Innocent VI. In April of 1360 Pierre first sent envoys to the Pope, who apparently satisfied Jean II (though not Innocent VI) by granting Hugh financial compensation. The terms of this allowance were in question at the time of Pierre’s later journey to Avignon. Peter Edbury and George Hill both affirm that Pierre left for the West partly, if not primarily, to address the protests of Jean II concerning the specific terms of the allowance allotted Hugh de Lusignan. See Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades (1191–1374) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) 149 and Hill, A History of Cyprus, The Frankish period (1192–1432), 4 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948) 2: 324. All citations come from La Prise d’Alixandre, ed. and trans. Palmer. Translations are my own unless otherwise noted. See Dupront’s discussion of early-fourteenth-century crusade projects. Jean II and Urban V had been discussing the idea of a crusade before Pierre’s arrival in Avignon. The crusade was intended, in part, to divert the Free Companies from their rampages in France and Italy. See Norman Housley, ‘The Mercenary Companies, the Papacy, and the Crusades, 1356–1378,’ Traditio 38 (1982): 253–80 on Urban V’s efforts to use crusade to rid Western Europe of the scourge of the Free Companies. Nicolas Jorga likewise suggests that one of Jean II’s motivations to go on a crusade was the hope of redirecting the energies of the Free Companies. See Philippe de Mézières (1327–1405) et la croisade au XIVe siècle (Paris: Librairie Émile Bouillon, 1896) 161. Urban V proclaimed the crusade on Good Friday, 31 March 1363. The passagium generale to be led by Jean II was to set forth starting 1 March 1365. In May 1363 Urban V authorized Pierre to lead a passagium particulare, which would leave in the spring of 1364, and would later be rejoined by the main Christian forces (Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades 165; Housley, ‘The Mercenary Companies, the Papacy, and the Crusades’ 271).

222 Notes to pages 98–9 21 On Holy Friday at Mount St Croix Pierre heard a voice that repeated to him the directive to ‘entrepren le saint passage, / Et conqueste ton heritage’ [undertake the holy passage, and conquer your heritage] (307–8). From this moment on Pierre’s ambitions focused on crusade. He founded the Order of the Sword, which welcomed knights from across Europe, to support his enterprise. 22 Pierre arrived in London on 6 November 1363, and was back in Paris by Christmas of that year. Machaut does allude at a later point to Pierre’s trip to the island, but no mention is made of his meeting with Edward III. 23 Chronique des quatre premiers Valois (1327–93), ed. Siméon Luce (Paris: Société de l’Histoire de France, 1861) 128. 24 It is not clear whether Guy de Lusignan bought Cyprus, or was granted the island by Richard in compensation for the throne of Jerusalem. In any event, Richard conquered Cyprus in June 1191, and control of the island had passed to Guy de Lusignan by 1192. See Jonathan Phillips, ‘The Latin East,’ in The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, ed. Jonathan RileySmith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) 112–40 and Riley-Smith, The Crusades 117. 25 In November 1188 Richard I, then Duke of Aquitaine, did homage to the French king, Philippe II, for all of his Angevin fiefs. However, in the Near East the personal and political rivalry between Richard and Philippe, directed towards the question of who should assume the vacant throne of Jerusalem, undermined the military achievements of the Christian forces, led, after Philippe’s return to France, by Richard. Richard supported Guy de Lusignan, while Philippe supported Conrad of Montferrat. A compromise was reached that allowed Guy to govern during his lifetime, with the kingdom then passing to Conrad. Despite Richard’s considerable military skill and many victories, continued French support for Conrad undermined his military efforts, and he eventually agreed to abandon the cause of the hapless Guy. When Conrad was assassinated in the spring of 1192, Richard was believed by many to be responsible. See Riley-Smith, The Crusades 109–18 for a brief overview of the third crusade, as well as Phillips, ‘The Latin East.’ 26 Another event foreclosed any possibility that the English would participate in the crusade, at least at anything above the level of individual knights. In December 1364 Urban V refused to grant the dispensation necessary for Edward’s son Edmund to marry Margaret of Flanders. Edward subsequently forbade men or money to leave England without royal licence, and proceeded to marry Edmund to Violante Visconti, the niece of Bernabo Visconti of Milan, one of the great enemies of the pope. See Anthony Luttrell,

Notes to pages 99–101

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‘English Levantine Crusaders, 1363–1367,’ Renaissance Studies 2 (1988): 143– 53. As Luttrell points out in ‘English Levantine Crusaders,’ the English who participated in Pierre’s campaign were for the most part of modest means and rank, and they took part in the endeavour of their own initiative. On the Prise’s relationship to the chanson de geste tradition see Bernard Ribémont, ‘“Couleur épique” dans La Prise d’Alexandrie de Guillaume de Machaut,’ in L’Épique médiéval et le mélange des genres, ed. Caroline Cazanave (Franche-Comté: Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté, 2005) 135– 52. The individuals who accompanied Pierre hailed from many countries, even though certain of the countries themselves, like England, had not offered support to the crusade. When consulting Percival de Coulanges about where his troops would have the greatest likelihood of success Pierre says that ‘tous desesperez seroie / sen vain la haute mer passoie / et tous li mondes le saroit / si que chascuns se moqueroit / de mon armee et de mon fait / que jay a si grant peinne fait’ [I would be in despair if in vain I had traversed the high seas, and everyone would know, such that each one would mock my army and my undertaking, which I accomplished with such great effort] (1981–6). Later the text mentions ‘li bons roys qui ne chace / seulement qua honneur venir’ [the good king who sought only honour] (2564–5). Edbury attributes this defection to the ‘Westerners’ (Kingdom of Cyprus 167), while Hill affirms that many English, led by the Viscount of Touraine, wished to leave (A History of Cyprus 2: 333). Among contemporary accounts, the (French) legate, Pierre Thomas, clearly blames the English, who, he writes, though they seemed the most ‘fortiores’ (enthusiastic, or perhaps strong in numbers), nevertheless refused to spend the night in the fort and insisted upon retreat (cited in Luttrell, ‘English Levantine Crusaders’ 149). A rumour blaming the English, who took their booty and fled, also reached Germany (Luttrell, ‘English Levantine Crusaders’ 149). The chronicler of the Quatre premiers Valois does not hold the troops of a particular nation responsible, but merely observes that, outnumbered, the Christian forces were obliged to leave the island (165). Petrarch, writing to Bocaccio, passes on the rumour that Pierre’s troops, ‘recruited from transalpine nations, which are always better at starting things than ending them, deserted him in the midst of this outstanding operation, so that those who followed the pious king not out of piety but out of greed, departed once they had collected the booty, and, fulfilling their selfish vow, made him incapable of fulfilling his pious vow.’ See Letters of Old Age (Rerum senilium

224 Notes to pages 101–5

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33 34 35

36

37 38

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libri), ed. and trans. Aldo S. Bernardo et al., 2 vols. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992) Sen. 8.8. In fact, Venice did its best to put an end to Pierre’s crusading efforts, at least those directed against the sultan. By spreading the false rumour that a peace had been signed between the sultan and Pierre I, the Venetians discouraged further military action in the area. Famous and skilled knights, including du Guesclin, inspired by Pierre’s victory, had been ready to embark for the Near East. Instead, many of them were diverted to Spain, where they took part in a crusade to Granada, along the way placing Henry of Trastamara on the throne of Castile (Jorga, Philippe de Mézières 305–7; Hill, A History of Cyprus 335–5; Housley, ‘The Mercenary Companies, the Papacy, and the Crusades,’ 275–6). Norman Housley discusses the idea of the tempus acceptabile in The Avignon Papacy and the Crusades 115. See Dupront, Le mythe de croisade. Machaut does not mention what all contemporary readers knew – that Jean died in England, a prisoner of Edward III. These circumstances illustrate another ironic turn of Fortune’s wheel. Alternatively, it suggests that Jean II was such an inept king that his absence would not have adversely affected the course of events in France. Neither interpretation places Jean II in the best light. Housley, The Avignon Papacy and the Crusades 297–8. Housley further examines the economic factors that governed crusade in ‘Costing the Crusade.’ Though he had been blind for many years, he had himself led onto the battlefield by several of his men and died fighting the English in the first great confrontation (and, as it happened, French loss) of the Hundred Years’ War. Cerquiglini-Toulet has written: ‘Jean de Luxembourg knew how to make of an infirmity that was traumatizing and degrading for a medieval man the emblem of his courage, a blind courage. He becomes the ideal and vanished prince ... His idealized figure traverses the fourteenth century as a point of reference and a nostalgic model’ (translation mine; emphasis in original. See La couleur de la mélancolie: La fréquentation des livres au XIVe siècle (1300– 1415) [Paris: Hatier, 1993] 31, 33). This image contrasts sharply with that of Jean II, who, though personally courageous, nonetheless failed militarily, due in part to the desertion of many of his supporters. Godfried Croenen has shown that the illustrative programs of Froissart’s Chroniques reveal the increasing importance of scenes of counsel, and not just of combat, when representing the kings and nobles of the late fourteenth century. See ‘Exemplary Figures in the Chronicles of Jean Froissart:

Notes to pages 105–7

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The Illustrative Programmes,’ paper presented at Mythes à la cour, mythes pour la cour, XIIe Congrès de la Société Internationale de littérature courtoise, Lausanne-Geneva, 29 July–4 August 2007. ‘cils behaingnons dont je vous conte / not pareil duc, ne roy, ne conte / ne depuis le temps charlemeinne / ne fu homs cest chose certeinne / qui fust en tous cas plus parfais/en honneurs en dis et en fais’ [These Bohemians, of whom I speak, had no duke, or king, or count his equal, nor, since the time of Charlemagne, was there a man, it is certain, who was in all situations more perfect in honour, in words, or in deeds] (779–84). Machaut affirms, ‘je fu ses clers ans plus de xxx / si congnui ses meurs et sentente / sonneur son bien sa gentillesse / son hardement et sa largesse / car jestoie ses secretaires / en trestous ses plus gros affaires / sen puis parler plus clerement / que maint autre, et plus proprement’ [I was his cleric for more than thirty years, and so I knew his ways and his intentions, his honour, his goodness, his nobility, his courage and his generosity, for I was his secretary in all of his greatest affairs. So I can speak more clearly than many another, and more properly] (785–92). When Machaut quotes Jean de Luxembourg in support of Charles, he does not name Jean, but refers to him in terms of their past relationship, thereby reminding the reader of his intimacy with the king, and thus of the reliability of his remarks. Jean is ‘li bons roys qui me norri / dont li os sont piessa pourry / et dont lame est en paradis’ [the good king who raised me, whose bones have long since rotted and whose soul is in heaven] (831–3). Bernard Ribémont has discussed Machaut’s techniques for establishing the authenticity of his text, such as the narrator’s inscription in the text, his frequent mention of sources, and his historical digressions. See ‘Dire le vrai et chanter des louanges.’ On the political framework and content of the Confort see Gauvard, ‘Portrait du prince d’après l’oeuvre de Guillaume de Machaut’ 23–39 and R. Barton Palmer, introduction, Le Confort d’ami, by Guillaume de Machaut (New York and London: Garland, 1992) xi–xci. On Machaut’s place within the reform movement see Earp, Guillaume de Machaut 33–8. The theme of protecting one’s own lands recalls that of the ballade Donnez seigneurs, which was composed at approximately the same time. See Guillaume de Machaut: Poésies lyriques. Édition complète en deux parties, avec introduction, glossaire et facsimilés publiée sous les auspices de la Faculté d’Histoire et de Philologie de Saint-Pétersbourg, ed. Vladimir Chichmaref, 2 vols. (Paris: Champion, 1909). At this time it was related largely to questions of finance. The fiscal policies of Jean II, especially his frequent manipulations of the currency, had

226 Notes to pages 107–8

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49 50 51

52 53

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received censure. See Raymond Cazelles, ‘Quelques réflexions à propos des mutations de la monnaie royale française (1295–1360),’ Le Moyen Âge 72 (1966): 83–105 and 251–78. Nicole Oresme, in his Traictie des monnaies, ed. L. Wolowski (Paris: Guillaumin, 1864), put forth the idea that the king should vivre du sien, live on his own income, and that in order for this to be possible, he should not be permitted to alienate any part of the kingdom for any reason. See also Raymond Cazelles, Société, politique, noblesse et couronne sous Jean le Bon et Charles V (Geneva and Paris: Droz, 1982) 30ff. Jacques Krynen, building on the work of Ernst Kantorowicz, discusses the distinction between king and crown in Idéal du prince et pouvoir royal en France à la fin du Moyen Âge (Paris: Picard, 1981), esp. p. 305–9, as well as in L’empire du roi: Idées et croyances politiques en France, XIIIe–XVe siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 1993) 67–9. This is basically Jean de Joinville’s position with respect to Louis IX’s second crusade. See §735 of his Vie de saint Louis. Pierre Thomas crowned Pierre king of Jerusalem on Easter Day 1360. See Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus 148. On 15 June 1362 Pierre wrote a letter to the Western governments declaring his intention to lead a crusade to retake Jerusalem and the Holy Lands (Housley, The Avignon Papacy 40). On the sincerity, and the viability, of Jerusalem as a crusade object, see Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus 162–3, 171, and ‘The Crusading Policy of King Peter I of Cyprus, 1359–1369,’ in The Eastern Mediterranean Lands in the Period of the Crusades, ed. P.M. Holt (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1977) 94–5. On the theory that Urban V knew that Pierre’s destination was in fact Alexandria (or at least was not Jerusalem) see Housley, The Avignon Papacy 249. The voice that instructs Pierre to undertake the crusade says to him: ‘conqueste ton heritage’ [conquer your heritage] (308). Pierre says to Brémond de la Voulte before sending him to Syria, ‘il [i.e., our enemies, the Muslims] tiennent nostre heritage’ [they hold our heritage] (3681). Pierre tells the sultan’s envoys, ‘Li soudans tient mon heritage’ [the sultan holds my heritage] (4108), and says to his own emissary to Cairo, Antoine, that the sultan holds ‘[n]ostre hiretage et nostre terre; / Et pour ce avons nous à lui guerre’ [our heritage and our land, and for this reason we are at war with him] (4188–9). The narrator, to explain why Pierre restarted the war with the sultan, affirms, ‘Car il rara son heritage, / Par traitié ou par vasselage’ [for he will regain his heritage, by treaty or by force] (7954–5). In actuality, the return of the kingdom of Jerusalem was one of the terms of the early proposed treaties. Pierre eventually gave up on this demand, though he remained insistent with regard to his other, economic, demands.

Notes to pages 108–12

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59 60 61

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With regard to Pierre’s economic motivations, see Edbury, ‘The Crusading Policy of King Peter’ 171, and ‘The Murder of King Peter I of Cyprus (1359– 1369),’ Journal of Medieval History 6 (1980): 220. In particular, Pierre’s desire for the Holy Column seems to be oriented as much towards the establishment of a pilgrimage site as towards appreciation of a holy relic, for he anticipates the arrival of many pilgrims and hopes to obtain from the pope a decree that would allow pilgrims to fulfil the vow of a pilgrimage to the Holy Tomb with a trip to the Holy Column. Edbury has discussed Pierre’s financial motives and strategies in The Kingdom of Cyprus 171 and in ‘The Crusading Policy of King Peter I.’ Pierre’s desire to maintain pressure on the sultan explains his continued military efforts, which, in the Prise, are presented as evidence of his unflagging crusading zeal. Following his initial proposal to call a meeting, ‘chascuns dit sagement parole’ [each one said ‘he speaks wisely’] (1254), and after his response at the conference, those present feel that ‘vaillanment / a respondu et noblement’ [he has replied bravely and nobly] (1325–6). See Dupront, Le mythe de croisade. See Gaullier-Bougassas, ‘Images littéraires de Chypre’ 128. Peter Edbury observes in his footnote to this passage that ‘Machaut is confused. King Louis IX (Saint Louis) of France (1226–70) died at Tunis in 1270 while on crusade’ (The Capture of Alexandria 41). It strikes me as unlikely that someone of Machaut’s erudition would have made such an error. ‘par dales lille de rousset / passerent a un matinet / ou li roys s. loys fu pris / de sarrazins et entrepris’ [alongside the island of Rosetta they passed one morning, there where Saint Louis was taken by the Saracens and made prisoner] (6327–30). Regarding the place names, Edbury says: ‘This statement is clearly mistaken. In 1250 the sick Louis IX was captured near Sharimshah on the eastern branch of the Nile Delta that reached the sea at Damietta. The embassy’s route from Alexandria to Cairo is hardly likely to have passed that place. “Rousset” sounds as if Rosetta, on the coast to east [sic] of Alexandria, is intended.’ The Capture of Alexandria 138 n. 19. In his discussion of Nicopolis Alphonse Dupront observes that preparing for crusade was a way of exhibiting one’s temporal power. See Le mythe de croisade 115–20. This supposedly coincidental presence of Lesparre recalls the chance presence of Jean II in Avignon at the time of Pierre’s first trip to the West. ‘Vesa pour quoy je le diray / et ja ne vous en mentiray / car verite ne quiert nuls angles / nelle na que faire de jangles’ [Here is why I will speak of it, and never will I lie to you about it, for truth seeks no angle, nor does it have

228 Notes to pages 112–13

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to do with slander] (7375–8). In ‘Dire le vrai et chanter des louanges’ Bernard Ribémont discusses Machaut’s insistence on truth throughout his text, particularly, Ribémont says, in what he calls the ‘chronicle part’ of the text. I tend to believe, with Angela Hurworth, that in the final section of the text Machaut becomes truly obsessed with questions of truth, more so than in the epic/chronicle portion of the work. See Hurworth, ‘Le corps “remembré”’ 111. In ‘Un engin si soutil’: Guillaume de Machaut et l’écriture au XIVe siècle (Paris: Champion, 1985), Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet remarks that historical texts were the first to incorporate prose letters, and that such letters were intended to serve as evidence. She observes further that authors who insert letters take care to insist on their completeness and accuracy, and that they use formulaic language to attest to their fidelity to their source (47–8). Indeed, Machaut says of the first letter: ‘vesci la teneur de la lettre / car je ni vueil oster ne mettre’ [here is the substance of the letter, for I do not wish to take away from nor to add to it] (7489–90), and of the third: ‘vesci la lettre toute entiere / qui commence en tele maniere’ [here is the entire letter, which begins in this manner] (7527–8). See Hurworth, ‘Le corps “remembré.”’ Machaut introduces Lesparre as he ‘qui sa bouche pas bien ne barre / car sil leust tres bien barree / et de sylence seelee / il neust pas dit les paroles / quon tint pour nices et pour foles / quil avoit parle rudement / au roy de chypre, et folement / et en champ lavoit appelle / qui ne doit pas estre cele’ [who did not well close his mouth, for if he had closed it well, and sealed it with silence, he would not have pronounced the words that were esteemed silly and foolish. For he spoke rudely to the king of Cyprus, and foolishly, and called him onto the field of battle, which should not be concealed] (7362–70). As Peter Edbury writes, ‘Even in the context of the exaggerated chivalric ideals of the fourteenth century, for a king to travel far from his kingdom with the intention of fighting a duel with a foreign nobleman indicates a complete lack of any sense of proportion. Yet the narrative accounts of the reign present this duel as the principal reason for the king’s journey to Europe in 1367, and, although they may be accused of highlighting only the most sensational aspect of his visit, their perspective on this episode finds support in a contemporary papal letter in which the king was ordered to desist and told that the engagement would be a derogation of his royal dignity’ (The Kingdom of Cyprus 172). In ‘The Murder of King Peter I’ Edbury remarks on Pierre’s increasing frustration and sense of failure. He cites the episode with Florimond de Lesparre, as well as a similar episode involving

Notes to pages 113–15

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the lord of Rochefort, which Machaut does not mention, as evidence of the king’s growing mental instability (220). Hill likewise notes that ‘Urban V highly disapproved of the affair, as derogatory to the royal dignity, and wrote on 2 December 1367 to the Archbishop of Nicosia that he should deter Peter from coming to the West for the purpose of this duel’ (351). A reference to Fortune also preceded the announcement of Jean II’s death (731). ‘Or vous ay dit et raconte / le scens, lonneur et la bonte / le hardement la grant vaillance / les grans emprises, la prudence / la gentillesse, la noblesse / dou roy chypre, et la largesse / et comment il usa sa vie’ [Now I have told and recounted to you the wisdom, the honour, and the goodness, the bravery, the great courage, the great undertakings, the prudence, the gentility, the nobility of the king of Cyprus, and his generosity, and how he employed his life] (7955–61). ‘sa mort vous conteray / ne ja ne vous en mentiray’ [his death I will recount to you, nor ever will I lie to you about it] (7975–6). ‘Sa mort estoit ja pourparlee / de ses annemis et juree / qui estoient dune aliance / einsois quonques alast en france’ [his death had already been spoken of and sworn by his enemies, who were of one alliance, even before he went to France] (8029–32). In yet another analepsis, we learn that Pierre had been warned of the nobles’ discontent and their machinations against him before he ever left for the West, and before Jean le Viscount made the same accusations: ‘et autrefoys li devisa / li princes, et si lavisa / et li dist les mauvais couvines / et fu quant il fu aus salinnes / quil fist la darreniere armee / qui par li fu onques armee’ [and another time the prince described and advised and told him of the bad plots, and this was when he was at the salt lakes where he raised the last army that ever was armed by him] (8221–6). The revelation of this early warning invites the question of why Pierre had not attempted to address his nobles’ concerns, and why he refused to believe the accusations of Jean le Viscount, which in fact confirmed a rumour he had already heard many months before. ‘le bon roy vueil excuser / sans flaterie et sans ruser / de ce que si tost pour jugier / leur delivra le chevalier / ja soit ce que leur loy deist / que li roys einsi le feist / car li roys ne fait jugement / daucun chevalier nullement / einsois les chevaliers le font / et les signeurs quant il y sont’ [I wish to excuse the good king, without flattery or ruse, for the fact that he so quickly delivered the knight to them for judgment, for this was what their law called for, that the king act thusly. For the king does not pass judgment on

230 Notes to pages 115–16

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any knight ever. On the contrary, the other knights do it, and the lords when they are there] (8187–96). Peter Edbury points out that Cypriot nobles who had been defeated in judicial duels lost the right to testify under oath in court. However, it would seem that in reality Jean le Viscount had been defeated in a tournament, not a duel. See The Capture of Alexandria 176 n. 8. In the first passage the crow advises the raven not to reveal to Apollo his mistress’s infidelity, and, by way of warning, tells the raven his own story of how he was chased from the house of Pallas for revealing an unpleasant truth (7773–914). The crow affirms that ‘Tous voirs ne sont pas biaus a dire’ [not all truths are good to say] (7779) and that ‘Souvent meschiét de dire voir’ [often it ends badly to tell the truth] (7793). In the second, the raven disregards the crow’s advice and, imagining that Apollo will be appreciative, tells him of Coronice’s infidelity. To punish his ‘mauvaise jenglerie’ [wicked slander] (8043), Apollo transforms the raven’s plumage from white to black, and banishes him from his court. See Le livre du voir dit, ed. and trans. Paul Imbs, introduction, coordination, and revision Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet (Paris: Livre de Poche 1999). Cerquiglini-Toulet discusses the danger of the truth in the context of the Voir dit and the Prise in ‘Un engin si soutil’ 152–3. Similarly, Kevin Brownlee notes that ‘the codicological juxtaposition of the Voir dit and the Prise d’Alexandrie raises questions concerning the relation between poetic and historical truth as well as the status of the poet as truth teller.’ See Poetic Identity in Guillaume de Machaut (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984) 226 n. 41. See Hurworth, ‘Le corps “remembré.”’ Machaut’s verse anagram reveals the names of author and biographical subject, but in the form of a puzzle or word game, which the reader must decode according to the instructions provided by the poet. On Machaut’s use of anagrams more generally see Laurence de Looze, ‘“Mon nom trouveras”: A New Look at the Anagrams of Guillaume de Machaut – the Enigmas, Responses, and Solutions,’ Romanic Review 79 (1988): 537–57. ‘or en y a dune autre guise / car cils qui son signeur avise / et li dit ce que faire faut / ou quil li moustre son deffaut / en son conseil toute pleinnement / ou hors conseil priveement / maint sont qui en scevent bon gre / et qui mettent en haut degre / ceuls qui leur dient tels paroles / quant bourdes ne sont ne frivoles’ [Now, there are some of another sort, for he who advises his lord, and tells him what he ought to do, or who shows him his flaw either during a full council or privately, out of council, there are many who are grateful for this, and who put in powerful positions those who tell them words that are not lying nor frivolous] (8177–86). Bernard Ribémont also discusses the bravery involved in telling the truth,

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though he does not address this particular passage. See ‘Dire le vrai et chanter des louanges.’ As Peter Edbury writes, ‘Not only had the king set about destroying an old and distinguished family on the most trivial of pretexts, he had acted illegally by imprisoning a liegeman without the judgment of his peers, and by disparaging his daughter [Gibelet’s sister] in attempting to force her to marry below her station’ (‘The Murder of King Peter I’ 222). See John of Salisbury’s discussion of tyranny in the Policraticus, book 3, chap. 15; book 4, chap. 1; book 7, chap. 17; book 8, chaps. 17–18. Policraticus, ed. and trans. Cary Nederman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). That Machaut recounts this unflattering episode in Pierre’s life and passes judgment on his conduct reveals his lucidity with regard to the Cypriot king, a lucidity that few critics have recognized, deeming him instead dazzled by the splendour of his biographical subject. Hurworth, ‘Le corps “remembré”’ 112. In his analysis of Machaut’s use of epic conventions in the Prise d’Alixandre, Bernard Ribémont notes the absence of brains and intestines spilling out during the combat scenes. However, he remarks, these elements are present in the murder scene, which reinforces Pierre’s status as an epic hero. While I find Ribémont’s observation suggestive, I see this detail of Pierre’s shameful death as a parody, rather than an imitation, of a heroic epic death scene. Ribémont ‘“Couleur épique” dans La Prise d’Alexandrie’ 149. He typically left his brother, Jean, prince of Antioch, in charge of the island in his absence. That Pierre was out of touch with his own nobility as compared to his brothers is acknowledged by Pierre himself when he says to his brothers that the Cypriot nobles ‘ne puelent faire rien / que tous ii ne le sachies bien’ [can do nothing but that the two of you do not know of it] (8533–4). Modern historians have pointed out the tremendous expenses incurred by Pierre in his Western European campaigns and the crusade to Alexandria, to the detriment of the already faltering economy of Cyprus. See Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus 177 as well as ‘The Crusading Policy of King Peter I’ 99. Pierre did not arrive in Venice in the spring of 1364 to lead the promised preliminary expedition, with the result that some of the already assembled troops had left. See Jorga, Philippe de Mézières 239–41. Pierre’s predilection for the French is also revealed at the time of his quarrel with Florimond de Lesparre. When Lesparre challenges Pierre, he offers Edward III, the Black Prince, and Charles V as possible arbiters. Pierre selects Charles V.

232 Notes to pages 119–24 90 Pierre’s gifts to his closest supporters are enumerated in lines 3653–8. 91 See Edbury, ‘The Murder of King Peter I’ 229 and Kingdom of Cyprus 197–8. See also Jorga, Philippe de Mézières 387, with regard to Cypriot resentment of Pierre’s favouritism towards foreigners. 92 In a passage that further underscores the hostility and distrust between Pierre and the Cypriot nobility, the king says to his brothers that ‘en ce monde na gent si fausse / si traitre ne qui tant fausse / comme la gent de ce pais / si doubt que ne soie trais / car vraiement si fort me heent / qua moy destuire et honnir beent’ [In this world there is no people so false, so treacherous, nor who so much deceives, as the people of this country. So I fear that I have been betrayed, for truly they hate me so much that they seek to destroy and shame me] (8527–32). Pierre speaks of the Cypriot nobles as though he were not one of them, even creating a grammatical distinction between himself and them. Having spent much of his reign abroad, first campaigning for his crusade, and then fighting it, Pierre had developed close relationships with many foreign dignitaries and knights, and apparently felt closer to some Europeans, especially French, than he did to the knights of his own realm. 93 John of Salisbury affirms in book 8, chap. 18 that people should not kill tyrants to whom they are bound by the obligation of fealty or by sacred oath. By insisting on the relationship of fealty between Pierre and his nobles, Machaut is able to condemn the latters’ actions regardless of what may have incited them. 94 See William Calin’s discussion of the conclusion to the Prise in The Poet at the Fountain 213–21. David Lanoue also views Pierre as a martyr, and likens his murder by his own relatives and countrymen to the betrayal of the crusading cause by the other Christian nations. See ‘La Prise d’Alexandrie: Guillaume de Machaut’s Epic,’ Nottingham Medieval Studies 29 (1985): 107. 95 After his assassination the loss of Pierre is bitterly mourned, for not ‘depuis le tans godefroy / de buillon qui fist maint effroy / aus sarrazins, fust home ne / par qui si mal fussent mene / ne qui tant leur feist contraire / quar de chypre jusques au quaire / les faisoit trambler et fremir’ [since the time of Godefroy of Bouillon, who caused much fear among the Saracens, was a man born by whom they were so badly treated, nor who so much opposed them. For from Cyprus to Cairo he made them tremble and fear] (8841–7). 4. The Herald Chandos’s Vie du Prince Noir 1 This dating is based on internal evidence. Line 1816 says that approximately twenty years have passed since Henry of Trastamara’s conquest of

Notes to pages 124–5

2

3

4 5

6

7

8

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Castile, which took place in 1366, while line 2142 refers to the Princess of Wales, who died at the end of 1385, in the present tense. All textual citations are to La Vie du Prince Noir by Chandos Herald, ed. Diana Tyson (Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 1975). Translations are my own. As for how the Herald was able to provide such minute detail concerning the Spanish campaign, Pope and Lodge surmise that he kept some sort of journal of these events that he used later to compose his text. (See Mildred Pope and Eleanor Lodge, introduction, Life of the Black Prince by the Herald of Sir John Chandos [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910] lvii–lviii). Peter Ainsworth is troubled by the idea of this hypothetical journal, and asks why, in 1385, the Herald would have had twenty–year-old notes at hand? Why would he have kept such a journal unless he intended some day to use his notes to write a longer text? And if he had such an intention, why then did he wait so long before doing so? See Ainsworth, ‘Collationnement, montage et jeu parti: Le début de la campagne espagnole du Prince Noir dans les Chroniques de Jean Froissart,’ Le Moyen Âge 100.3–4 (1994): 384. Diana Tyson points to the Prise as one of the Herald’s likely sources for his poem. See Tyson, introduction, La Vie du Prince Noir, 25–6, for her discussion of parallels between the two works. The linguistic analysis conducted by Pope and Lodge has convincingly shown that the Herald originated in Hainault (xxxi–xxxiii). Though for the battle of Najera, the Herald functioned as a source for the great chronicler. See Ainsworth, ‘Collationnement, montage et jeu parti’ 369–411. Tyson has suggested that the Herald’s choice of verse may have been influenced by Froissart’s supposed early verse version of his Chroniques (introduction 26–8). Since no such version exists today, and Froissart was using prose by the time of the Herald’s writing, I believe that a more probable literary influence for this choice was Machaut’s Prise d’Alixandre. Jean Devaux, ‘La Vie du Prince Noir et le modèle biographique,’ Bien dire et bien aprandre: Revue de médiévistique 20 (2002): 53–65. The Herald states in line 1652 that he was present at the events he is about to recount. V.J. Scattergood has noted the persistence of French as the preferred literary language among English elites at the end of the fourteenth century. See ‘Literary Culture at the Court of Richard II,’ in English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, ed. V.J. Scattergood and J.W. Sherborne (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1983) 29–43. Susan Crane has likewise insisted on the cultural and political significance of French at this stage of the Hundred Years’ War. See ‘French and Anglo-Norman during the Hundred Years War,’ in Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, ed. David Wallace (Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1999) 52–60.

234 Notes to page 125 9 It is difficult to evaluate the popularity or the diffusion of the Herald’s text. The Black Prince’s many military successes made him a popular figure in England and, for obvious reasons, less so in France. The Vie survives in two manuscripts, both from England and both from the late fourteenth century, one of quite good quality. Tyson based her edition on MS.1 of the University of London Library. The other is MS.1 of Worcester College Oxford. Both are in Anglo-Norman. See Tyson, introduction, La Vie du Prince Noir 1–4. 10 J.J.G. Alexander believes that the manuscript that forms the basis for Tyson’s edition, the London Library MS.1, was intended for presentation to Richard. He bases this belief on the fact that this manuscript contains what he calls the arms of England in the initial on folio 4r (in fact the arms, significantly, show the English leopards quartered with the fleur de lis, which is the arms displayed by the English at times when they were officially claiming the throne of France, which they did off and on throughout the Hundred Years’ War. Tyson says that these are the arms of Edward III, which is logical, since he was the first to claim the French throne). Alexander further affirms that the style of the illuminator relates to that found in English manuscripts of the 1380s and 1390s, and that the representation of the Black Prince in the illumination on folio 3v relates to that found in St Stephen’s Chapel. Above him is the Trinity in the iconography known as that of the Throne of Mercy, and this was similarly painted on the tester of the prince’s tomb at Canterbury. Although Tyson’s linguistic analysis shows that the London manuscript derives from an original via at least one, and possibly more, intermediaries (introduction 4–10), Alexander believes that this copy was made for Richard II. See ‘Painting and Manuscript Illumination for Royal Patrons in the Later Middle Ages,’ in English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages ed. Scattergood and Sherborne, 141–62. 11 Richard’s grandmother, Philippa, was a patron of the arts, most famously of the young Froissart. In addition, his wife, Anne de Bohème, came from a long line of literary patrons that included Wenceslas de Brabant, another of Froissart’s patrons and his sometime collaborator. See Tyson, introduction 31. 12 See ibid. 33. The future king’s birth, which was precipitated by the prince’s departure for Castile, is recorded in lines 2095–2102: ‘... de la dolour delivera / D’un beal filtz et enfaunta, / Le quel filtz Richard ot a noun, / Dount grant joye par tut fist homme, / Et lui Prince, si Dieux m’avoie, / En eust auxi a coer grant joye; / Et dient tut comunalment: / “Veez ci moult beal comencement.”’ [on account of her pain she was delivered of and bore a handsome son, who was named Richard, for which reason men everywhere displayed great joy. And the Prince, may God help me, also had in

Notes to pages 125–6

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15 16

17 18 19

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his heart great joy because of it, and everywhere people said, ‘Here is a very fine beginning’]. Thus, the birth of a son is seen, at the time, as an auspicious start to the Spanish campaign. Given the disasters that were to result from the campaign, its association with Richard is somewhat ironic. Ibid. Patricia Eberle, ‘Richard II and the Literary Arts,’ in Richard II, the Art of Kingship, ed. Anthony Goodman and James Gillespie (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999) 237. These diametrically opposed interpretations of the same short passage point to the subjectivity of literary readings, and their unreliability in determining questions of patronage in the absence of an articulated commission. Ainsworth, ‘Collationnement’ 384. Constance and the other hostages were the daughters of Pedro by his mistress, Maria de Padilla. In 1362 the Cortes of Castile declared the legitimacy of Pedro’s secret marriage to Maria, and thereby the legitimacy of his four children by her. Pedro’s will established the rights of his children to inherit his kingdom, including the stipulation that his heiress’s husband would be king. See P.E. Russell, The English Intervention in Spain and Portugal in the Time of Edward III and Richard II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955) 173 for further details. J.J.N. Palmer, ‘Froissart et le Heraut Chandos,’ Le Moyen Âge 88 (1982): 281. Ibid. 277. Palmer argues that because of the foreign-policy direction of Richard II, which tended increasingly towards peace, Lancaster risked losing his chance to obtain the throne of Castile. John of Gaunt needed the war to continue because France would not abandon their Castilian allies, and Castile would be included in any peace with France (ibid. 281–3). However, Richard Barber, for one, contends that the Duke of Lancaster’s Castilian ambitions inclined him not towards war, but towards peace with France. See Barber, Edward, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine: A Biography of the Black Prince (London: Allen Lane, 1978) 229. P.E. Russell also shows the Duke of Lancaster working towards peace with France (The English Intervention 222–3). Palmer himself, in England, France and Christendom, 1377–99 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), shows John of Gaunt advocating peace with France, not war, as a prerequisite to pursuing his Castilian ambitions. He writes that ‘one of the reasons for Gaunt’s relative inactivity [in pursuing the throne of Castile] was his preoccupation with the war with France. Once this appeared to be nearing its end, therefore, he was bound to pursue his claim to Castile with more vigour’ (24). Palmer, ‘Froissart et le Héraut Chandos’ 279.

236 Notes to page 127 21 Jean Devaux likewise disputes Palmer’s literary reading and affirms the importance of the Vie as a celebration of English chivalry in a collective sense. 22 See Maurice Keen, ‘Chivalry, Heralds, and History,’ in The Writing of History in the Middle Ages, ed. R.H.C. Davis and J.M. Wallace-Hadrill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981) 393–414. 23 For example, over thirty lines (3121–56) are dedicated to the ceremonial unfurling of Chandos’s banner before the battle of Najera. Pope observes in her historical notes that Chandos had been a banneret since 1360, but that he displayed his banner in battle for the first time at Najera (213). During the battle itself, the narrator vividly describes (in twenty lines) Chandos’s near miss and close combat with one Martins Ferantz, while the duke’s performance in battle is praised in only ten lines. 24 The joy of the French is mentioned three times. First, ‘Quant François savoient qe Chaundos / Fuist mort, qui avoit grant los, / Moult grant joie firent par tout’ [When the French learned that Chandos, who had great praise, was dead, very great joy was manifested everywhere] (3967–9). Then, in a letter to du Guesclin requesting his return to France Charles V writes ‘qe Chaundos fut mort. / Voluntiers oy le recort / Bartrem, en France retourna / Bien tost, gaires ne demora’ [that Chandos was dead. Willingly Bertrand heard the news, he returned soon after to France, he tarried but little] (3979–82). Finally, when the Duke of Anjou welcomes du Guesclin back to France, he says to him, ‘Nous conquestrons Acquitaine, / Car ce est bien chose certaine: / Audelée et Chaundos sont mortz / Qui nous ont fait tant de discordz’ [We will conquer Aquitaine, for it is a very certain thing, Audley and Chandos, who caused us so much trouble, are dead] (3991–4). 25 This affirmation is reinforced by the quartered arms that appear on folio 4r of the London manuscript. 26 Diana Tyson, for instance, speaks of the Herald’s ‘eulogistic approach’ to his work (43) and his need ‘to speak well of his hero and omit any reference which might detract from the Prince’s glory or offend his patron’ (35). She cites the positive interpretation of the prince’s reprisals against the citizens of Limoges, the brief account of his marriage, the silence regarding the origins of the Gascon rebellion, and the narrator’s reticence concerning the prince’s lack of judgment in the Spanish affair as instances of his downplaying the prince’s unfavourable traits and actions. For similar assessments see Crane, ‘French and Anglo-Norman during the Hundred Years’ War’ 53; Pope and Lodge, Life of the Black Prince liv; David Hale, ‘The Crisis of Chivalry in La Vie du Prince Noir and L’histoire de Jason,’ The Fifteenth Century 12 (1985): 96; and Palmer, ‘Froissart et le Héraut Chandos’ 275.

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27 4190 lines, to be exact, excluding the list of the prince’s officers and the copy of the inscription that appears on his tomb, which Pope and Lodge and Tyson all agree were added by a scribe (cf. Tyson, introduction 8–10 and Pope and Lodge, Life of the Black Prince xxxvi). 28 The Vie’s twentieth-century readers have found its narrative imbalance displeasing from an aesthetic perspective. Diana Tyson notes that the text’s ‘lack of balance makes for an unsatisfactory impression of top-heaviness’ (introduction 43), while Palmer asks, ‘Qu’est-ce qui a pu pousser l’auteur à créer une oeuvre aussi difforme?’ (‘Froissart et le Héraut Chandos’ 276). 29 ‘Depuis le jour q’il fuist nasqui / Ne pensa forsqe loiautée / Fraunchise, valour et bountée. / Et si fuist garniz de proesce’ [Since the day he was born he thought of nothing but loyalty, nobility, courage and kindness, and he was endowed with prowess] (64–7), and from his very youth the Prince ‘[p]rist la doctrine de largesce’ [adopted the doctrine of generosity] (75). 30 He ‘voilleit toutz les jours de sa vie / Mettre tout son estudie / En tenir justice et droiture’ [wanted all the days of his life to place all his efforts in maintaining justice and equity] (69–71). 31 ‘Et si bien amoit seinte Esglise / De bon coer, et sur tut guise / La tres hauteine Trinitée’ [And he loved the holy Church so well with all his heart, and above all things, the very lofty Trinity] (85–7). 32 As in Machaut’s Prise d’Alixandre, for example, or Cuvelier’s Chronique de Bertrand Du Guesclin. Elisabeth Gaucher observes that ‘il s’agit de livrer des modèles de perfection individuelle à un public qui réclame non pas l’évocation bêtifiante des premières années et de leurs trébuchements, mais une image stimulante de la réussite sociale.’ See Gaucher, La biographie chevaleresque: Typologie d’un genre (XIIIe–XVe siècle) (Paris: Champion, 1994) 350. 33 ‘Car par lui et par sez vertus / Fuist lui champ gaignez et vaincus’ [For by him and by his virtues was the field won and conquered] (355–6). 34 The prince’s rescue of Edward III is also mentioned three times (432, 449, 453). 35 From line 116, when Edward III embarks for France, to line 384, when the account of the battle is concluded. 36 ‘Cuidier’ refers to a mistaken, false, or erroneous belief, and can carry a connotation of presumption on the part of the believer. A reading of the entries of cuidier in Godefroy shows that cuidier