The Royal Image "nsd0e487"

1. See Viard, ed., Grandes Chroniques ; Spiegel, Chronicle Tradition , 72.

2. See Joseph Strayer, "France: The Holy Land, the Chosen People, and the Most Christian King," in Medieval Statecraft and the Perspectives of History: Essays by Joseph R. Strayer , ed. John F. Benton and Thomas N. Bisson (Princeton, 1971), 299-314; John Baldwin, The Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power is the Middle Ages (Berkeley continue

and Los Angeles, 1986), 362-93; Andrew Lewis, Royal Succession in Capetian France: Studies on Familial Order and the State (Cambridge, Mass., 1981); Marc Bloch, The Royal Touch: Sacred Monarchy and Scrofula in England and France , trans. J. E. Anderson (Montreal, 1973); Frank Barlow, "The King's Evil," English Historical Review 95 (1980): 3-27; Richard A. Jackson, Vive le Roi! A History of the French Coronation from Charles V to Charles X (Chapel Hill, 1984); and William Chester Jordan, Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade: A Study in Rulership (Princeton, 1979).

3. See Jordan, Louis IX . Jordan believes that Louis's failure in the crusade of 1248-1254 shaped the rest of his reign. For Jordan, Louis's subsequent actions—his subjugation of the barons, his active role in bringing peace to the Christian West, and his public manifestations of royal charity and devotion—were motivated by a desire to become worthy to succeed in his next crusade. For further discussion and for support of the theory that Louis's actions were intended to demonstrate that the Capetians were legitimate kings because they merited kingship, see Robert J. Schneider, "Vincent of Beauvais on Political Legitimacy and the Capetian Dynasty: The Argument of the De Morali Principis Institutione ," forthcoming. More recent studies of Saint Louis are Jean Richard, Saint Louis, roi d'un France féodale, soutien de la Terre Sainte (Paris, 1983), and Gérard Sivéry, Saint Louis et son siècle (Paris, 1983).

4. For the following, see Jackson, Vive le Roi! , 31-33, 222-23.

5. For its use during Philip of Valois's coronation and probable use for earlier kings' ceremonies, see Jackson, Vive le Roi! , 223, 227 n. 3.

6. Bloch traces the origin of the belief that the French kings were able to cure disease back to the reign of Robert the Pious, the second Capetian king. He suggests that beginning with Robert's grandson, Philip I, the kings specialized in miraculous cures for scrofula. See Bloch, Royal Touch , 12-21, 74. Barlow reads the texts and documents more conservatively, concluding that evidence concerning the practice of touching for scrofula is more substantial from the mid-thirteenth century on. See Barlow, "King's Evil."

7. Barlow, "King's Evil," 21-22.

8. See Marcel Aubert et al., Les vitraux de Notre-Dame et de la Sainte-Chapelle de Paris , Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi (Paris, 1959), 1, pt. 1: 71-334; for a convenient summary, see Louis Grodecki, Sainte-Chapelle , Short Notes on Great Buildings, 6 (Paris, 1979).

9. See Harvey Stahl, "The Iconographic Sources of the Old Testament Miniatures, Pierpont Morgan Library M. 638" (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1974); and idem, "Old Testament Illustration during the Reign of Saint Louis: The Morgan Picture Book and the New Biblical Cycles," in Il Medio Oriente e l'Occidente Nell'arte del XIII Secolo (Atti del XXIV Congresso Internazionale di Storia dell'Arte) (Bologna, 1982), 79-93.

10. For the importance of royal coinage as an assertion of sovereignty over the French barons and as a reference both to Louis's crusader past and to his religious devotion, see Jordan, Louis IX , 206-12. See as well Ernst Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae: A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Medieval Ruler Worship , University of California Publications in History, no. 33 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1946), 4-5, 11-12, 222-30.

11. For the tomb program, see Georgia Sommers, "Royal Tombs of Saint-Denis in the Reign of Saint Louis" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1966); Georgia Sommers Wright, "A Royal Tomb Program in the Reign of Saint Louis," Art Bulletin 56 (1974): 224-43; and Alain Erlande-Brandenburg, Le roi est mort: Étude sur les funérailles, les sépultures, et les tombeaux des rois de France jusqu'à la fin du XIII^e siècle, Bibliothèque de la Société française d'archéologie, no. 7 (Geneva, 1975).

12. That visitors came to see the tombs is attested to by a guidebook, the Abbreviated Chronicle , written by Guillaume de Nangis in the late thirteenth century. See Spiegel, Chronicle Tradition , 103-5, and Chapter 1 of this book. break

13. For discussion of early vernacular histories, see Spiegel, Chronicle Tradition , 72-76; idem, "Genealogy: Form and Function"; idem, " Pseudo-Turpin "; and idem, "Social Change and Literary Language."

14. For an outline of the audience for historical accounts in the Middle Ages, see Guenée, Histoire et culture historique , 364. For a discussion of the audience for certain vernacular works, see Diane Tyson, "Patronage of French Vernacular History Writers in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries," Romania 100 (1971): 180-222; Bernard Guenée, "La culture historique des nobles: Le succès des Faits des Romains (XIII^e -XV^e siècles)" in La noblesse au Moyen-Âge XI^e -XV^e siècles: Éssais à la mémoire de Robert Boutruche, ed. Philippe Contamine (Paris, 1976), 261-88; idem, " Grandes Chroniques "; idem, "Histoire d'un succès"; Spiegel, " Pseudo-Turpin "; and idem, "Social Change and Literary Language."

15. For a discussion of how this works in the Johannes translation of the Pseudo-Turpin chronicle, one of the earliest translations of a Latin chronicle into French, see Walpole, ed., Old French Pseudo-Turpin , 1:94. For a study that considers a broad range of vernacular chronicles, see Spiegel, "Social Change and Literary Language."

16. See Spiegel, "Social Change and Literary Language."

17. Ibid., 148.

16. See Spiegel, "Social Change and Literary Language."

17. Ibid., 148.

18. On Primat's originality, see Guenée, " Grandes Chroniques ." For his Latin sources, see Viard, ed., Grandes Chroniques . Although studies have suggested that Primat drew from epics and earlier vernacular histories, no one has yet undertaken a systematic analysis of Primat's reliance on them. Mandach cites a few examples to show that Primat consulted epics, and Pierre Botineau has shown that Primat used the vernacular chronicle of the Anonymous of Chantilly as a reference when he had difficulty translating his Latin sources. For a limited discussion of French sources, see André Mandach, Chronique dite Saintongeaise , Beiheft zur Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie, no. 120 (Tübingen, 1970), 154. Spiegel cites Botineau's unpublished article, "Une source des Grandes Chroniques de France : L'histoire de France en prose française de Charlemagne à Philippe Auguste," in "Social Change and Literary Language," 142 n. 34.

The popularity of the Grandes Chroniques is demonstrated by the large number of surviving manuscripts. The Johannes translation of the Pseudo-Turpin chronicle survives in 32 copies, the chronicle of the Anonymous of Chantilly in 2 manuscripts, the Chronique des rois de France of the Anonymous of Béthune in one complete manuscript, and the Abrégé de l'histoire de France of the Ménestrel of Alphonse of Poitiers in 11 manuscripts. In contrast, the Grandes Chroniques survive in at least 130 copies. See Walpole, ed., Old French Pseudo-Turpin , 1:xv; Spiegel, "Social Change and Literary Language," 134-35; and the Catalogue of Manuscripts in this book. For comparable statistics for Latin and other French histories, see Guenée, Histoire et culture historique , 250-52.

19. For an interpretation of the vernacular translations of the Pseudo-Turpin chronicle as partisan texts that originated in northern France and Flanders among a group of nobles opposed to Philip Augustus's centralizing policies, see Spiegel, " Pseudo-Turpin ." She examines the motives for sponsoring translations as professed in the prologues of the six independent versions of the French Pseudo-Turpin chronicle and analyzes these motives in relation to the historical circumstances faced by the patrons of the translations in early thirteenth-century France and Flanders. Although the origins of the translations seem to be political on at least one level, the popularity of the French Pseudo-Turpin chronicle may have persisted because of the popularity of legends of Charlemagne. For this view, see Walpole, ed., Old French Pseudo-Turpin , 1:xv-xxii.

20. As early as the first quarter of the thirteenth century during the reign of Philip Augustus, the monks of Saint-Denis compiled a Latin volume that assembled texts tracing French history from the fall of Troy through the life of Louis VI. This volume (Vat. Reg. lat. 550) later served as a model for a second compilation (B.N. lat. 5925) made during Louis continue

IX's reign. B.N. lat. 5925 included the life of Philip Augustus as well and was probably the Latin basis for the translation of the Grandes Chroniques . Both these books remained in the abbey's library at least until the fourteenth century. For discussion of these manuscripts, see Spiegel, Chronicle Tradition , 72-89, 117-26; Bernd Schneidmüller, "Ein Geschichtskom-pendium des frühen 13. Jahrhunderts aus Saint-Denis (Vat. Reg. lat. 550) als Vorläufer der Grandes Chroniques ," Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 67 (1987): 447-61; and Donatella Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda, La bibliothèque de l'abbaye de Saint-Denis en France du IX^e au XVIII^e siècle (Paris, 1985), 216, no. 111, and 232, no. 165.

21. Little is known about Primat beyond the fact that he was a monk at Saint-Denis and a historian; he wrote at least one other history—a life of Saint Louis, which was continued through the life of Philip the Bold. For a summary of the literature on Primat, see Spiegel, Chronicle Tradition , 83-92.

Although Primat's chronicle, the original draft of the Grandes Chroniques , is of primary concern for the moment, it should be noted that the Grandes Chroniques was continued through the reign of Philip of Valois (1328-50), with a life of Louis VIII and translations from the Latin chronicle and continuations of Guillaume de Nangis (for the era to 1340), and an original French text (for 1340 to 1350). In the 1370s authorship of the Grandes Chroniques definitely shifted from monastery to court, when Pierre d'Orgement probably wrote the account of the reigns of John the Good and Charles V. Shortly after Charles V's death in 1380, two chapters describing the accession of Charles VI were added. This is the most common terminus for the Grandes Chroniques , although at least two other manuscripts (M. 536 and B.R. 4) have texts that continue past the traditional stopping point to end in 1384. See Spiegel, Chronicle Tradition , 117-26, and Chapters 3, 5-7, and 10 of this book.

22. Léopold Delisle, "Notes sur quelques manuscrits du Musée Britannique," Mémoires de la Société de l'histoire de Paris et de l'Ile-de-France 4 (1878): 206-7. This observation, and the fact that the earlier Dionysian compilation (Vat. Reg. lat. 550) did not contain the life of Philip Augustus that was in B.N. lat. 5925 and translated in Primat's Grandes Chroniques , makes it likely that Primat used B.N. lat. 5925 rather than Vat. Reg. lat. 550, the earlier Dionysian anthology, as a source for the Grandes Chroniques .

23. For a discussion of the ways in which Johannes, one of the earliest translators of the Pseudo-Turpin chronicle, modified his Latin source, see Walpole, who contends that Johannes "made the structure more orderly and clear, the style more natural and convincing." Walpole, ed., Old French Pseudo-Turpin , 1:xvi.

24. A few texts translated in the Grandes Chroniques were not included in the Latin compilation. One of these, the Descriptio qualiter , seems to have been copied from a manuscript of the same textual family as B.N. lat. 12710. See Viard, ed., Grandes Chroniques , 3:xii-xiii, 155, 160-61, 197. For a discussion of the popularity of the Descriptio qualiter and an analysis of a cycle of stained glass at Saint-Denis based upon the text, see Elizabeth A. R. Brown and Michael W. Cothren, "The Twelfth-Century Crusading Window of the Abbey of Saint-Denis: Praeteritorum Enim Recordatio Futurorum est Exhibitio," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 49 (1986): 11-40. A second text not present in B.N. lat. 5925 was the life of Louis VII, a copy of which was intercalated into B.N. lat. 5925 in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century (after the Grandes Chroniques was translated) by a second scribe who also continued the manuscript with the lives of Louis VIII, Saint Louis, and Philip III. See Delisle, "Notes sur quelques manuscrits," 206-10; and Spiegel, Chronicle Tradition , 68-71. Spiegel argues convincingly that this historical recueil was not compiled as a draft for the Grandes Chroniques , but was simply a copy of texts including "the best of what was known to deal with French history." Schneidmüller's demonstration that B.N. lat. 5925 depends on Vat. Reg. 550, a historical compendium from the first portion of the thirteenth century, supports her conclusion. See Schneidmüller's "Ein Geschichtskompendium." break

25. The differences between B.N. lat. 5925 and Ste.-Gen. 782 are most clearly expressed in tabular form. (Only texts distinguished by decoration [in B.N. lat. 5925] or chapter lists and rubrics [in Ste.-Gen. 782] are listed.)

B.N. lat. 5925 (textual hierarchy expressed through decorated initials in the manuscript as it was c. 1274)	Ste.-Gen. 782 (translations of many of the texts listed under lat. 5925 in which textual hierarchy is expressed through chapter lists and rubrics in the manuscript as it was when first written c. 1274)
Aimoin of Fleury, Epistula in librum de gestis francorum ad Abbonem abbatem
Aimoin of Fleury, Praefatio
	Prologue
Aimoin of Fleury, Historia Francorum divided into 4 books	Lives of Merovingians divided into 5 books
Einhard, Vita Caroli Magni	Life of Charlemagne
Pseudo-Turpin, Chronicon	5 books (includes translation of the Descriptio not present in B.N. lat. 5925)
Gesta Ludovici pii imperatoris	Life of Louis the Pious Life of Charles the Bald Life of Louis the Stammerer
Prologus
Suger, Vita Ludovici VI Grossi	Life of Louis VI Life of Louis VII (no chapter list) not present in B.N. lat. 5925 until later
Prologus
Rigord Gesta Philippi Augusti	Life of Philip Augustus divided into 3 books

26. For these sources, see Viard, ed., Grandes Chroniques , 1:1 n. 1; 4 n. 2; 5 n. 1. For discussion of the prologues of the Grandes Chroniques and of the Ménestrel's Chronique abrégée , see Spiegel, Chronicle Tradition , 81-83; and Natalis de Wailly, "Examen de quelques questions relatives à l'origine des chroniques de Saint-Denys," Mémoire de l'Académie royale des inscriptions et belles-lettres 17, pt. 1 (1847): 379-407. For the text of the prologue to the Grandes Chroniques , see Viard, ed., Grandes Chroniques , 1:1-6. For the text of the Ménestrel of Alphonse of Poitiers's prologue, see de Wailly, "Examen de quelques questions," 405-7; and for the dedicatory letter to Aimon's chronicle, see RHF , 3:28.

27. Compare de Wailly, "Examen de quelques questions," 406-7 with Viard, ed., Grandes Chroniques , 1:2.

28. Compare Primat's opening, "Pour ce que pluseurs genz doutoient de la genealogie des rois de France de quel origenal et de quel lignie ils ont descendu ," with the Ménestrel's, "Por ce que je véoie et ooie moult de gens douter, et presques toutes genz, des gestes des rois de France." (The italics are mine.) Andrew Lewis suggests that Primat's passage "reorders royalist historiography" to emphasize dynastic concerns in a way that parallels the contemporary rearrangement of royal tombs. See Lewis, Royal Succession , 115-16. The origin of this dynastic elaboration would seem to be Dionysian, since it was not included continue

in the book for Alphonse of Poitiers although Alphonse, the patron of the Ménestrel's work, had problems with legitimation and centralization of power in his territories in the south of France similar to those of his brother, Louis IX.

29. Compare the following passages from the Ménestrel's and Primat's texts in which I italicize Primat's changes.

Ménestrel: "Ceste parole et autres vilaines que je en oï dire me contraignent à faire ceste oeuvre * por faire conoistre as vaillanz genz la geste des rois de France et por monstrer à toz dont vient la hautèce du monde, et por ce que c'est essample de bone vie mener. Car i. vaillanz mestres dist que ceste estoire est mireor de vie. Ci porra chascuns trover et bien et mal et bel et let; et de toutes ces choses que l'en lira en cest livre, s'èles ne profitent pas toutes, totevoies la plus grant partie en peut aidier."

Primat: " Si peut chascuns savoir que ceste ouvre est profitable à fere pour fere cognoistre aus vaillanz genz la geste des rois et por mostrer à touz dont vient la hautece dou monde; car ce est examples de bone vie mener, meismement aus rois et aus princes qui ont terres à gouverner ; car I vaillans mestres dit que ceste estoire est mireors de vie. Ci pourra chascuns trover bien et mal, bel et lait, sens et folie, et fere son preu de tout par les examples de l'estoire ; et de toutes ces choses que on lira en ceste livre, se eles ne profitent toutes, toutevoies la plus grant partie en peut aider."

For these texts, see de Wailly, "Examen de quelques questions," 406; and Viard, ed., Grandes Chroniques , 1:2-3.

30. "Enprist il [Primat] ceste oeuvre à fere par le commandement de tel home [Louis IX? Abbot Matthew of Vendôme?] que il ne pout ne ne dut refuser. Mais pour ce que sa lettreure et la simplece de son engin ne souffist pas à tretier de ouvre de si haut estoire, il proie au commencement à touz ciaus qui cest livre liront que ce que il i troveront à blasmer que il le seuffrent pacianment sanz vileine reprehension, car, si com il a dit devant, li defaut de lettreure et de loquence qui en li sont et la simplece de son engine le doivent escuser par raison." Viard, ed., Grandes Chroniques , 1:1-2. For the literary topos, see Lusignan, Parler vulgairement , 131.

31. For these texts, see Aimoin de Fleury, De Gestis Regum Francorum , in RHF , ed. Dom Martin Bouquet, (Paris, 1741) 3:22-28.

32. Primat omitted the final section of the Proemium , which dealt specifically with Clovis's deeds, perhaps because, as the Proemium itself stated, "sed haec proprio digesta referentur in loco." For the Proemium , see ibid., 28-29.

31. For these texts, see Aimoin de Fleury, De Gestis Regum Francorum , in RHF , ed. Dom Martin Bouquet, (Paris, 1741) 3:22-28.

32. Primat omitted the final section of the Proemium , which dealt specifically with Clovis's deeds, perhaps because, as the Proemium itself stated, "sed haec proprio digesta referentur in loco." For the Proemium , see ibid., 28-29.

33. For the text, see the passage from "Certain chose" to "la seigneurie terriene" in Viard, ed., Grandes Chroniques , 1:4-5.

34. "Si li a Nostre Sires doné par sa grace une prerogative et une avantage seur toutes autres terres et seur toutes autres nations, car onques puis que ele fu convertie et ele commença à servir à son creatour, ne fu que la foi n'i fust plus fervemment et plus droitment tenue que en nule autre terre; par lie est moutepliée, par lie est soustenue, par lie est deffendue. Se nule autre nation fait à sainte Eglise force ne grief, en France en vient fere sa complainte, en France vient à refui et à secors; de France vient l'espée et li glaives par quoi ele est vengiée, et France comme loiaus fille secourt sa mere en touz besoinz; si a touz jors la sele mise pour li aidier et secorre." Ibid., 5.

35. "Se la foi i est donques plus fervenment et plus droitement tenue, ce n'est mie sanz raison. La premiere si est que messires sains Denis li glorieus martyrs et apostres de France, par cui mistere ele fu premierement convertie, la soustient et garentist come sa propre partie, qui pour entroduire en la foi li fu livrée. La seconde reson si puet estre tele, car la fonteine de clergie, par cui sainte Eglise est soustenue et enluminée, florist à Paris. Si com aucun veulent dire, clergie et chevalerie sont touz jors si d'un acort, que l'une ne peut continue

sanz l'autre; touz jors se sont ensemble tenues, et encores, Dieu merci, ne se departent eles mie. En III regions ont habité en divers tens: en Grece regnerent premierement, car en la cité d'Athenes fut jadis le puis de philosophie et en Grece la flors de chevalerie. De Grece vindrent puis à Rome. De Rome sont en France venues." Ibid., 5-6.

36. "Diex par sa grace vuelle que longuement i soient maintenues à la loenge et à la gloire de son nom, qui vit et regne par touz les siecles des siecles. Amen." Ibid., 6.