The French Kings and the Empire

One image in the first version of Charles V's Grandes Chroniques , given special prominence by its format, may express the desire of the French kings to assert their independence of and equality with the Holy Roman Emperor. The four-part miniature (Fig. 71) preceding Book I illustrates the Greeks landing in Troy, their assault on the city, Francion founding Sicambria, and the defeat of the armies of Emperor Theodosius by Trojan descendants. The emperor's defeat is strongly emphasized. As the imperial army flees the Trojan onslaught, the emperor tumbles from his horse to land prominently in the foreground. The miniature clearly celebrates the Trojan ancestry of French kings: in the final, triumphal scene, for example, the Trojan king wears a tunic strewn with fleurs-de-lis, and his horse is richly draped in material of the same pattern. The triumph of the Trojans over the Roman emperor is therefore emblematic of the independence of France from the empire, as stressed in contemporary political theory.

Such comparisons of royal and imperial status are restricted to royal manuscripts. The frontispiece to one of Charles VI's Grandes Chroniques (B.N. fr. 10135), which copies Charles V's manuscript (Fig. 72), is identical in composition

Figure 71
Greeks landing in Troy; Assault on a city; Francion founding Sicambria;
Trojans defeat imperial army.  Grandes Chroniques de France . Bibliothèque
Nationale, Ms. fr. 2813, fol. 4. Photograph: Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

Figure 72
Greeks landing in Troy; Assault on a city; Francion founding Sicambria;
Trojans defeat imperial army.  Grandes Chroniques de France . Bibliothèque
Nationale, Ms. fr. 10135, fol. 3. Photograph: Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

to this four-part miniature. It includes the image of the fallen emperor and signals the French presence by fleur-de-lis finials atop the towers of Troy. A third frontispiece from a contemporary, nonroyal Grandes Chroniques (B.N. fr. 17270, fol. 2v) also copies the four-part composition of Charles V's manuscript, but it suppresses the fleur-de-lis of France and the tumbling emperor. Although justified by the narrative, the careful equation of the Trojan and French kings and the inclusion of the fallen emperors in the two royal manuscripts elaborate upon their texts. The nonroyal manuscript omits any such elaboration, although the editor would have been familiar with the royal versions.