This study takes five examples of “French vernacular royal biography” from the long fourteenth century and sets out to discover “what these lives reveal about the history and development of late medieval political philosophy and theories of kingship” (18). Set against the emergence of Aristotelian political thought, the rising status of the French vernacular, and the dislocations of the Hundred Years' War, Daisy Delogu gives us close readings of Jean de Joinville's Vie de Saint Louis (finished 1305–09), the anonymous Chanson de Hugues Capet (ca. 1358–60), Guillaume de Machaut's Prise d'Alixandre (about Pierre I of Cyprus, written 1369–77), the Vie du prince noir by “the Herald Chandos” (ca. 1385), and Christine de Pizan's Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V (1404). The result is neither the discovery of a coherent strand of “theorizing” nor an argument about the “rise” of a new kind of royal biography, but instead a series of detailed textual analyses that highlight the tensions produced as these biographies try to present their subjects as ideal rulers.
Joinville, for example, sets up and then undermines a divide between the “holy words and good deeds” of Saint Louis, or between sanctity and kingship. Joinville's Louis was a king of justice and peace, but since the same episodes used to demonstrate these qualities also mark Louis's holiness, these categories bleed into each other and create a paradigm of kingship comprising both Christian perfection and political effectiveness. In the three lesser-known texts in the middle of the book, the tensions swirl around succession, loyalty, and legitimacy. In the Chanson de Hugues Capet Hugh is chosen as king after saving Paris, defeating rebellious nobles, and marrying the daughter of the widowed queen. Was it his election, his (half) nobility, or his marriage that legitimated his rule? This was a key question to the Valois dynasty, whose legitimacy rested on a shaky mix of lineage, election, and the recently made-up claim that the French throne could not be transmitted by a woman. The text supports Valois legitimacy, but in contradictory ways. On one hand, it suggests a seamless transmission of royal blood by making Hugh's fictional bride into Charlemagne's granddaughter. But it also insists that at this moment the French nobles swore that never again would a daughter have any right to the throne, thereby paradoxically using the moment of Capetian ascent to bolster Valois legitimacy. In the Prise d'Alixandre, Guillaume de Machaut lauds Pierre I of Cyprus as an old-fashioned crusader-king on the model of Louis IX, but then each of the many other kings who appear in the narrative turns out to be in some way a more effective ruler than Pierre, a rather vicious character ultimately murdered by his nobles. As Delogu shows, Guillaume actually seems to be playing with the very idea of truth here; what is a true account of a crusading hero who is also a tyrant and threat to his own kingdom? A similar issue drives the Vie du prince noir: what is the proper course of action when a legitimately born prince is not loved by his subjects? The Black Prince — Edward, the son of Edward III of England — is first presented as a just, pious, and chivalric knight through descriptions of his role in English victories at Crécy and Poitiers and his reign as lord of Aquitaine. But the second half of the text focuses on his 1366–67 attempt to help Pedro the Cruel of Castile win back his throne. The prince is again militarily victorious, but Pedro, though clearly the legitimate king by birth, does not have the support of his own nobles and richly merits his eventual assassination. Has the prince been chivalrous or self-interested in aiding him? Finally, in Christine de Pizan's life of Charles V, these tensions seem to melt away. Christine depicts Charles as “architect” of the intellectual and military achievements of his reign. The cornerstone of this architecture is prudence, aimed at realistic political goals. Charles wins back lands through wisdom and negotiation, rather than by personally leading troops on the battlefield or heading off on crusade — the ghost of Saint Louis is finally laid to rest.
The book brims with original connections and displays deep familiarity with the texts. Conceptually, however, there are questions: Is the subject kingship generally, or French kingship specifically? If the latter, why include one text about an English prince? Is it about royal biography broadly, or biographies of kings? If the latter, then the exclusion of Agnes of Harcourt's Vie d'Isabelle de France makes sense, but again the Vie du prince noir appears anomalous. The author is interested in texts by laypeople (4), but then argues that the Chanson de Hugues Capet was probably written by a cleric, raising the question of why there is no discussion of Guillaume de Saint-Pathus's Vie de Saint Louis of ca. 1303 (perhaps composed in Latin but certainly circulated in French)? In addition, glossing over how and when Joinville's work was composed (briefly at 197n42) weakens the analysis. It is unfortunate that the author could not use Cecilia Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis (2008), but less clear why Caroline Smith's Crusading in the Age of Joinville (2006) was not consulted. A discussion of dating would at least have clarified what is meant by the debatable claim (4, 23) that Joinville was the first layperson to write a saint's life (e.g., the vita of Margarita Colonna by her brother Giovanni ca. 1281–85). It is also disconcerting to see Giles of Rome's work referred to as De regimine principe (8, 294; though correctly principum elsewhere), and the reference to Louis IX coming home in a “body bag” (110) is neither felicitous nor accurate. More fundamentally, the recurring assertion that Joinville influenced later texts is not supported by evidence.
These questions aside, Delogu delivers an insightful, intimate reading of five fascinating texts. Scholars interested in the late medieval French monarchy and vernacular biography will have much to learn from this intelligent work.
