Politics and the Problem of Succession
The illustration to the prologue and the changes to its text establish the theme of succession as central to John the Good's Grandes Chroniques . The prologue's miniature (Plate 1) is a nonnarrative image showing the coronation of an enthroned pagan king of France flanked by a pagan duke and two Christian rulers. Their costumes identify them: the duke wears a circlet, and the kings wear crowns adorned with fleurons; checkered patterns mark the robes of pagan rulers, and the fleur-de-lis, given to the French during the reign of Clovis, the first Christian king, distinguishes Christian rulers.
The pagan duke stands on a pedestal to the left of the enthroned king, and the Christian kings stand on pedestals to the right. This arrangement suggests that they should be interpreted as the predecessor and successors of the king whose coronation is taking place. If this is the case, then the sequence of pagan duke to pagan king to Christian kings identifies the coronation as that of Pharamond, the first king of France.
To an audience familiar with the court, as readers of this royal manuscript would have been, this miniature must have recalled the sequence of sculpted kings, beginning with Pharamond, that decorated the Grande Salle of the royal palace. A change in the prologue reinforces the pictorial reference. Just after the description of the three lines of kings who governed France, John's chronicle modifies the phrase in the prologue, "The beginning of this history will be taken at the noble line of the Trojans from whom it [the French line] is descended by long succession," to read "is descended by succession of time."[27] Neither picture nor text places undue stress on the relationship of these rulers by blood. Both seem to celebrate instead the continuity of the office of king, to which the king is elected and in which he is supported by the barons who help place the crown on his head in the miniature.
These changes in image and text may have been timely responses to the difficulties created by the succession of the early Valois kings. In the late 1330s, when this Grandes Chroniques was produced, Edward III was the main threat to John the Good, claiming the French throne and waging campaigns against the French in propaganda and on the battlefield. Edward's claim, supported by his political and military maneuvers, helps to clarify the imagery of the introductory miniature and to reveal its relation to its text and perhaps to the rest of the cycle.
Edward's anti-Valois propaganda, which centered on John, the heir apparent, rather than his father, Philip, the first Valois king,[28] may well have begun before Edward claimed the kingship of France in 1337. As early as 1332 Philip anticipated a difficult succession and had his barons swear to support John should Philip die while on crusade. John's need for protection lasted through the 1340s; in 1347 his brother-in-law, Charles IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, promised to aid John if his succession were threatened.
In 1340 Edward's agents disseminated a poster containing a French translation of the Latin letter in which Edward claimed to be the legitimate heir to Charles IV, the last Capetian, who died in 1328, and assumed the royal style of King of France and England.[29] This translated letter, posted on church doors in northern France, was so inflammatory that Philip ordered all copies confiscated and all who posted it or permitted it to be posted imprisoned.
Edward's propaganda was so broadly disseminated that it affected the visions recorded in the late 1340s by Saint Bridget of Sweden,[30] an anti-French author often quoted by the English in their political writings. In one vision the Virgin Mary appeared to Bridget and contended that Philip was a legitimate king, since he had been selected by the barons of France and had not come to the throne by violence,[31] and should therefore rule France until his death. Many asserted, however, that Edward was closer to the inheritance of the throne than Philip and should be designated by Philip as his successor.[32]
Such threats to John's legitimacy may explain why the prologue and its miniature present succession to the throne as a "succession of time" rather than
a succession of blood. Such an argument could be used to defuse English claims. Other portions of the cycle focus on the same themes as Edward's propaganda, celebrating descent from Saint Louis and the idea of a crusade, while promoting France's holy kingship.