Journal of Medieval History 35 (2009) 385–398

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The political significance of Christine de Pizan’s third estatein the Livre du corps de policie

Tracy AdamsSchool of European Languages and Literatures, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Keywords:Christine de PizanLivre du corps de policieArmagnac-Burgundian feud

E-mail address: t.adams@auckland.ac.nz1 An early exception to the neglect of Christine’s

sur les ecrits politiques de Christine de Pisan, suivi d

0304-4181/$ – see front matter � 2009 Elsevier Ltdoi:10.1016/j.jmedhist.2009.08.001

a b s t r a c t

Although the general historical context of Christine de Pizan’s Livre ducorps de policie (LCP), the Orleanist-Burgundian feud occasioned bythe periodic insanity of King Charles VI, has long been recognised, theprecise argument that the author wages through her unique config-uration of the third part of the body politic has not been explored. Thisessay reads the LCP as an intervention into the escalating struggle forpower between Charles VI’s brother, the duke of Orleans, and hiscousin, the duke of Burgundy. Christine’s purpose emerges mostclearly in her peculiar arrangement of the third part of her bodypolitic, le peuple, where two points bear particular consideration: herinclusion of the University and her division of the ‘merchants’ acrosstwo separate categories, a repartition which seems to refer to thecontemporary distinction between the highly-placed merchants ofParis and the butchers. Christine seems to be arguing that if theUniversity were to make common cause with the ruling burghers andwell-placed merchants, they could force into submission their morerestless brothers and sisters, the butchers and their thuggishfollowers, whom the duke of Burgundy would finally convince to riseup in 1413 in what has become known as the Cabochian Revolt.

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The bulk of the scholarship on Christine de Pizan following the late twentieth-century renewal ofinterest in her corpus focused upon the writer’s passionate defence of women. More recently, however,other of her writings, including her contributions to political thought, have attracted critical attentionand, over the past several years, her ideas on good government, laid out in a series of works that hadfailed to impress earlier generations of scholars, have been re-evaluated.1 Of particular interest to

politics works that until recently was the rule is Raymond Thomassy’s Essai’une notice litteraire et de pieces inedites (Paris, 1838).

d. All rights reserved.

T. Adams / Journal of Medieval History 35 (2009) 385–398386

recent scholars has been Christine’s practical approach to the urgent problems of her day, an approachthat distinguishes her and her contemporaries from earlier political writers who had tended to pass onwisdom from ancient authorities rather than deal with problems specific to their times.2 Indeed,Christine and her generation have been said to herald the entry of history into political discussion.3

With this essay I hope to contribute to the growing body of scholarship on Christine’s politicalwritings by considering the practical relevance of her analysis of the menu peuple in her Livre du corpsde policie (hereafter the LCP) of c.1406. In this work, Christine employs the metaphor of the human bodyin a discussion of the interdependency of the different parts of society.4 The poet’s vision of therelationships between the social levels of late medieval Paris as manifested in this work has beenexpertly treated by several scholars, and her emphasis upon ‘the primacy of the people in goodgovernment’ has been noted.5 Still, although the work’s general context, the feud between theArmagnacs or, as they were initially known, the Orleanists, and the Burgundians, occasioned by theperiodic insanity of King Charles VI, has long been recognised, the precise argument that she wagesthrough her unique configuration of the third part of the body politic has not been explored.6

I propose to read the LCP as an intervention into the escalating struggle for power between Charles VI’sbrother, Louis, the duke of Orleans, and his cousin, John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, and, specifi-cally, as a call to resist the duke of Burgundy (although Christine does not mention him by name),whose henchmen would assassinate the duke of Orleans in November 1407. Christine’s purposeemerges most clearly in her peculiar arrangement of the third part of her body politic, the peuple. Twopoints bear particular consideration in this regard. The first is her inclusion of the University, or theestat de clergie, at the head of this group. Kate Langdon Forhan notes in the introduction to hertranslation of the LCP that readers must have been shocked to discover that illustrious estate, whichJohn of Salisbury had made the soul of his own body politic, positioned so low on the corporealhierarchy, concluding that the ‘position of the clergy among the lower ‘‘limbs’’ by Christine reveals herview that the clergy’s role is a functional one. They provide masses and prayers in the way that a bakerprovides bread d important to society but not essential.’7 Although I agree with Forhan’s point that inChristine’s view the clergy was primarily functional, I will argue that the poet attributed it another,more special purpose, one significantly more important than prayer. For her, the clergy, which shedefines primarily as the University of Paris, possessed a potentially decisive influence over the rest ofthe peuple. This leads to the second point: Christine’s division of the ‘merchants’ across two separatecategories. In her schema, the ruling burghers and the highly-placed merchants succeed the clergy. But

2 See, for example, Claude Gauvard, ‘Christine de Pizan et ses contemporains: l’engagement politique des ecrivains dans leroyaume de France aux XIVe et XVe siecles’, in: Une femme de lettres au moyen age. Etudes autour de Christine de Pizan, ed. LilianeDulac and Bernard Ribemont (Orleans, 1995), 105–28; Berenice Carroll, ‘Christine de Pizan and the origins of peace theory’, in:Women writers and the early modern British political tradition, ed. Hilda L. Smith (Cambridge, 1998), 22–39, and ‘On the causes ofwar and the quest for peace: Christine de Pizan and early peace theory’, in: Au champ des ecritures. IIIe colloque international surChristine de Pizan, ed. Eric Hicks, Diego Gonzalez and Philippe Simon (Paris, 2000), 337–58; Kate Langdon Forhan, The politicaltheory of Christine de Pizan (Burlington, VT, 2002); and Tracy Adams, ‘‘‘Moyennerresse de traictie de paix’’: Christine de Pizan’smediators’, in: Healing the body politic. Christine de Pizan’s political thought, ed. Karen Green and Constant Mews (Turnhout,2005), 177–200.

3 See Gauvard, ‘Christine de Pizan’, 106. Christine and her contemporaries aimed ‘moins a la connaissance qu’a la reflexion surle reel immediat et, par consequent, a ce qu’on peut appeler l’histoire contemporaine’ (less for knowledge than for thinkingabout immediate reality, and consequently about what one can call contemporary history). Translations throughout are mine.

4 Christine de Pizan, Le Livre du corps de policie, ed. and intro. Angus J. Kennedy (Paris, 1998). On the history of the body politicmetaphor and its continuing relevance see A.D. Harvey, ‘The body politic: anatomy of a metaphor’, Contemporary Review(August, 1999), 85–93. On Christine’s use of the metaphor, see Erica Piedra, ‘The body politic in medieval France: Christine dePizan’s Le Livre du corps de policie’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Davis, 2007).

5 See Susan J. Dudash, ‘Christine de Pizan and the ‘‘menu people’’’, Speculum, 78 (2003), 788–831 and, by the same author,‘Christine de Pizan’s views of the third estate’, in: Contexts and continuities. Proceedings of the IVth international colloquium onChristine de Pizan, ed. Angus J. Kennedy, Rosalind Brown-Grant, James C. Laidlaw and Catherine M. Muller (Glasgow, 2002),315–30; and Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, ‘‘‘Enemies within/enemies without’’: threats to the body politic in Christine de Pizan’,Medievalia et Humanistica, 26 (1999), 1–15.

6 See Kennedy’s extremely useful introduction to his edition of the LCP.7 The book of the body politic, ed. and trans. Kate Langdon Forhan (Cambridge, 1994), xxii. See also Forhan’s ‘Polycracy,

obligation, and revolt: the body politic in John of Salisbury and Christine de Pizan’, in: Politics, gender and genre. The politicalthought of Christine de Pizan, ed. Margaret Brabant (Boulder, CO, 1992), 33–52.

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just behind the former pair, we find another group of merchants, followed closely by artisans andlabourers. This division of merchants into two groups suggests the social topography of early fifteenth-century Paris, with its powerful group of butchers, who spanned the social categories of merchant andartisan. Christine seems to be arguing that if the University were to make common cause with theruling burghers and well-placed merchants, they could force into submission their more restlessbrothers and sisters, the butchers and their thuggish followers, whom the Duke of Burgundy wouldfinally convince to rise up in 1413 in what has become known as the Cabochian Revolt.

The purpose of the LCP has been obscured by a long-standing misapprehension about Christine’sattitude towards the two leaders of the Orleanist-Burgundian feud: that Christine approved of the duke ofBurgundy and disapproved of Louis of Orleans. In what follows, I argue that Christine saw the duke ofBurgundy not as a financial reformer but as a dangerous rabble-rouser. After a discussion of the incendiarysituation that forms the context of the LCP and Christine’s attitude towards its instigators, I consider therelationship among the social groups that Christine interpellates, showing how precise her descriptionsare and suggesting that her imagining of the body politic constitutes an argument against Jean the Fearless.

Historical context 1405–7

The rivalry between the houses of Orleans and Burgundy took a critical turn in 1405, when the dukesnearly came to arms. Their confrontation, which has come to be known by historians as the‘Kidnapping of the dauphin’ and which culminated in Louis assassination in 1407, provoked JeanGerson’s famous discourse, Vivat rex, of November 1405.8 It also elicited the LCP.

As brother of the king, the duke of Orleans served as regent when the king was indisposed.9 Thisposition, however, earned him the jealousy first of Duke Philip of Burgundy, and, after his death in 1404,that of his son, John. When John inherited his father’s title, he attempted to assume Philip’s central role onthe royal council, as well, but as a first cousin of the king, his claim to a position of power was much lesscompelling than that of his father, son of the king Charles V. The chronicler Michel Pintoin, often referred toas the religieux, or monk, of St Denis, mentions that John was ranked only fifth in deliberations of the royalcouncil in 1405.10 The practical result of this was that John received far less funding for his lands than hisfather had. Even when John was promised funds, Louis could effectively block payment.11 The only way forJohn to increase his access to funds was to diminish Louis’s control.

Thus John made a decision to take action against Louis, departing from Arras for Paris on 15 August 1405,at the head of some 800 soldiers covertly bearing arms. Such a dramatic entrycan only have been intended asa strategy to raise the menace of revolt in hope of intimidating the king, always anxious to avoid conflict, into

8 For information on the history of the conflicts between the dukes see Michael Nordberg, Les Ducs et la royaute. Etude sur larivalite des ducs d’Orleans et de Bourgogne 1392–1407 (Studia historica Upsaliensia 12, Stockholm, 1964); Françoise Autrand,Charles VI. La Folie du roi (Paris, 1986); Bertrand Schnerb, Les Armagnacs et les bourguignons. La Maudite Guerre (Paris, 1988) andJean sans Peur. Le Prince meurtrier (Paris, 2005). The classic article on the confrontation of 1405 is Leon Mirot, ‘L’Enlevement dudauphin et le premier conflit entre Jean sans Peur et Louis d’Orleans (1405)’, Revue des questions historiques, 95 (1914), 329–55;and 96 (1914), 47–68 and 369–419. Vivat rex is published in Jean Gerson, Oeuvres completes, ed. Palemon Glorieux, 10 vols (Paris,1960–71), vol. 7, part 2, ‘L’Oeuvre française, sermons et discours’, 1135–85.

9 In 1393 the king granted Louis regency, should he, the king, die leaving a minor heir. See Ordonnances des rois de France de latroisieme race, ed. Denis-François Secousse, 21 vols (Paris, 1723–1849), vol. 7, 535–8. Although the ordinance does not explicitlyauthorise Louis to act as regent during the king’s ‘absences’, the duke based his claim upon it. Monstrelet reports that during thekidnapping crisis, the duke reminded delegates from the University of Paris that he was the son and brother of a king, who hadalso been given control (baille) of the realm when the king was unable to function, because of the youth of the dauphin.Enguerran de Monstrelet, La Chronique d’Enguerran de Monstrelet, 1400–1444, ed. Louis Claude Douet-d’Arcq, 6 vols (Paris,1857–62), vol. 1, 122. This ordinance of 1393 was overridden by one of 1403 that stipulated that a ruling college composed of thequeen, the dukes, princes of the blood and councillors would govern during a minority. See Ordonnances, vol. 8, 581–3.However, it seems that the king was confused by his mental illness when he revoked Louis status as regent, for he in turncancelled the latter ordinance, restoring Louis to his original position. See François Andre Isambert, Recueil general des ancienneslois françaises, depuis l’an 420 jusqu’a la Revolution de 1789, 29 vols (Paris, 1824–57), vol. 7, 59.

10 Michel Pintoin, Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys contenant le regne de Charles VI, de 1380–1422, ed. and trans. LouisBellaguet, 6 vols (Paris, 1839–52; repr. Paris, 1994), vol. 3, 230.

11 Philip had received about half of his total yearly revenues from the royal treasury in the form of ordinary pensions, gifts,along with aides for military ventures conducted in the interests of the French kingdom by soldiers from Burgundian territories.See Richard Vaughan, John the Fearless (Woodbridge, 2002), 41, and Schnerb, Jean sans Peur, 156–58.

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restoring the position of influence formerly enjoyed by the house of Burgundy within the government. Butevents did not progress as John planned, for on 16 or 17 August the king slipped into his habitual dementia.12

Debilitated, the king was of no immediate use to John, who then needed to lay hold of the dauphin, thephysical possession of whom symbolised the possession of royal authority when the king was mad.

Had he been sane at the time of John’s arrival, the king might have been frightened into forcing Louis tocede some power to his cousin. But with the king insane, Louis departed for Melun, one of the queen’sfortified chateaux, from where he called his men to arms to prevent a coup. Queen Isabeau accompaniedLouis to Melun, leaving orders that the dauphin, the eight-year-old Louis of Guyenne, of whom she was theguardian by ordinance of the king, and the other royal children be sent to her there.13 When John arrived inParis on 19 August and was informed that Louis and Isabeau had departed and that the royal children wereon their way to Melun, he continued on through Paris, intercepting the children along the road. He returnedto Paris with the entourage, where the king’s uncle, the duke of Berry, took possession of the dauphin.14

On 21 August, Jean attempted to rally the Parisians by calling for financial reform of the government. Hiscounsellor, Jean de Nielles, presented the programme before an assembly at the Louvre made up ofmembers of the Parlement, the Chambre des comptes, and a group from the University of Paris, presided overby the dauphin in the absence of his father. On behalf of the duke of Burgundy, Jean de Nielles announcedthat money from the tailles collected for the war with England was not going to support the war, but, byimplication, into the personal coffers of the duke of Orleans. He also denied that Johnwas looking for poweror government.15 The University responded positively to the discourse.16 Although he lost its supportbeginning in 1409, the year in which he gained effective control of the government, in 1405, the Universityfavoured John for various reasons, including his support of its privileges.17 It also appreciated John’ssupport of the voie de soustraction for Pope Benedict XIII; like much of the University (although notincluding Jean Gerson, chancellor of the University, who opposed the voie de soustraction), John favouredthe abdication of the pope of Avignon, in contrast with Louis, who supported Benedict XIII.18 However, theroyal council was not persuaded by Jean de Nielles’ oration. Its members met that very night, and, toprevent violence, forbade anyone joining with either Louis or John.19

12 Bernard Guenee, La Folie de Charles VI, roi bien-aime (Paris, 2004), 295. Guenee points out that unlike Monstrelet andJuvenal des Ursins, Pintoin mistakenly believed that the king remained in a state of mental incapacity throughout the entirecrisis of the ‘enlevement du dauphin’. Monstrelet reports that Charles enjoyed a brief recovery beginning 25 August when hereceived homage from the duke of Burgundy and his brothers and presided over some sessions of the royal council. Gueneenotes that the recovery lasted until September 23.

13 See Ordonnances, vol. 7, 530.14 In a letter to the Chambre des comptes of Dijon, Jean Chousat, treasurer and receiver general of finances for the Duke of

Burgundy, recounts that the king’s uncle, the duke of Berry, the second most powerful member of the council after Louis, hadimmediately demanded possession of the dauphin, ‘qui est moult petit commancement de nostre besoinge’ (which is a very badbeginning for our task). See Nordberg, Les Ducs, 195.

15 n’est converti en vostre guerre: Mirot, ‘L’Enlevement du dauphin’, 402–3.16 On the duke of Burgundy’s relationship with the University of Paris, see Laurent Tournier, ‘Jean sans Peur et l’Universite de

Paris’, in: Paris, capitale des ducs de Bourgogne, ed. Werner Paravicini and Bertrand Schnerb (Ostfildern, 2007), 299–318; AndreTuilier, Histoire de l’Universite de Paris et de la Sorbonne, 2 vols (Paris, 1994) and Charles Gross, ‘The political influence of theUniversity of Paris in the middle ages’, American Historical Review, 6:3 (1901), 440–5. Also on Jean’s popularity with theUniversity see Vaughan, John the Fearless, 32, 43, and Schnerb, Jean sans Peur, 553. On the political influence of the University ofParis during the early fifteenth century, see Alfred Coville, Les Cabochiens et l’ordonnance de 1413 (Paris, 1888), 114–35.

17 See Tournier, ‘Jean sans Peur’, 30–1.18 On the motivations behind support for different solutions to the schism on the parts of the University and the princes of the

blood, see Howard Kaminsky, ‘The politics of France’s subtraction of obedience from Pope Benedict XIII, 27 July, 1398’,Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 115 (1971), 366–97.

19 See Louis Claude Douet-d’Arcq, Choix de pieces inedites relatives au regne de Charles VI, 2 vols (Paris, 1863), vol. 1, 270, theletter of 25 August of Olivier de Mauny to the King of Castille. [M]ais je cuide que le Roy et son conseil y remedieront, telementqu’ils demourront bons amis, de Dieu plaist. Et a len defendu a mondit seigneur de Bourgongne et crie partout Paris de par leRoy, qu’il n’assemble ne tiengne nulles gens d’armes pour ceste cause. Et aussi mon tres redoubte seigneur vous plaise sçavoirque monseigneur de Bourbon et autres du conseil du Roy sont alez a Meleun pardevers mondit seigneur d’Orliens pour lui fairesemblable deffense que l’on a fait a mondit seigneur de Bougongne. (But I believe that the king and his council will take care ofit, so that they will remain friends, God willing. And it was forbidden my lord of Burgundy, and cried everywhere in Paris onbehalf of the king, that he assemble or keep any soldiers for any reason. And also, my mighty lord, I would like you to know thatmy lord of Bourbon and the other of the royal council went to Melun to my lord of Orleans to forbid him to do the same to mylord of Burgundy).

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On 25 August the king recovered partially from his illness. However, he was probably not fullycoherent and did not manage to defuse the tense situation. In a series of open letters, the duke ofBurgundy accused the duke of Orleans of diverting taxes into his own treasury; the duke of Orleans inturn accused his cousin of attempting to gain control over the mad king, ‘wanting to hold him incustody or in guardianship’ and fomenting rebellion.20 Throughout the first half of September, the twofactions waited in a stand-off. In mid-September John abruptly increased the size of his army. Inresponse, Louis prepared for attack. On 19 September, Jean discovered Louis movements, and readiedhis own men for attack.

At this point John attempted to incite the Parisians to rise up in arms against the duke of Orleans. Buttheir response was negative. Pintoin reports that on 24 September a group of the burghers (cives) of thecity announced to John that they would not bear arms against Louis: they answered only to the king orthe dauphin.21 The burghers’ refusal to follow John marked a turning point in the stand-off. Althoughthe duke of Burgundy’s situation had been favourable at the outset, it had deteriorated throughout themonth of September as the Parisians grew increasingly dissatisfied with the presence of his men in thestreets. When they did not gather behind him as he had hoped, the opportunity for a coup passed.

On 23 or 25 September, the king fell ill again.22 This left the way free for the queen to step in asmediator. On 27 September, she made a first move to restore peace, leaving Melun with Louis forCorbeil. In the meantime, the situation continued to degenerate for John. The same day, his treasurerand receiver general of finances, Jean Chousat, complained in a letter to the Chambre des comptes ofDijon that the duke was clinging tenaciously but futilely to his programme of reform and that the royalcouncil refused, equally tenaciously, to play his game.23 When the queen moved from Corbeil toVincennes sometime during the first days of October, Christine attempted to rally support for her asa negotiator in a letter of 5 October known as the Epistre a la Royne de France. In this letter, Christineappealed to Isabeau to mediate between the dukes and, through the use of Marian imagery andreferences to Queen Blanche of Castile, demonstrated her aptness for the position. Isabeau’s authoritywas further reinforced on 12 October by an ordinance promulgated by the royal council demandingthat the unruly dukes send their troops home and submit to the queen’s mediation.24 A peace treatywas signed on 16 October temporarily heading off disaster. John, unable to arouse the Parisians, wasfoiled in his attempt to assume leadership of the government.

In the LCP, composed after this confrontation of late 1405, but before Louis assassination inNovember 1407, Christine deplores revolt and offers a strategy for thwarting it. It has been suggestedthat the duke of Burgundy ‘proposed a programme of much needed social reforms that Christineappears to have favoured at least tacitly’.25 True, Christine warns the prince against excessive taxationin the LCP, which might hint at an affinity for John the Fearless’ position. However, a comparison ofChristine’s and John’s positions regarding taxation dispels any superficial impression of compatibility.In LCP I.11, Christine demonstrates her approval, in principle, of taxes, noting that it is normal that

20 le voulant tenir en bail ou en tutelle, qui ne leur loist ne appartient, toutes choses considerees, voulans donner occasion auxsubgiez, de monditseigneur de non estre si vrai obeissans envers lui comme ilz ont este tousjours et doivent estre [.] et par cemectre division et rebellion en ce royaume. (Wanting to hold him in custody or guardianship, which they have no right to do, allthings considered, wanting to cause the king’s subjects to be less obedient towards him than they always have been and shouldbe [.] and in this way, create division and rebellion in the kingdom’). Douet d’Arcq, Choix de pieces inedites, vol. 1, 282.

21 Pintoin, Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys, vol. 3, 340. Juvenal des Ursins reports the reaction of the Parisian burghers aswell, although he does not give a date, writing in response to John’s request that they agreed that they would guard their city,but as for the request that they take arms or leave with him, they would not do it. See Juvenal des Ursins, ‘Histoire de Charles VI,roy de France, et des choses memorables advenues durant quarante-deux annees de son regne: depuis 1380 jusqu’a 1422’, in:Nouvelle collection des memoires pour servir a l’histoire de France, ed. Joseph-François Michaud and Jean-Joseph-François Pou-joulat, 3 series, 34 vols (Paris, 1836–39), series 1, vol. 2, 437.

22 Guenee, La Folie de Charles VI, 208.23 Chousat writes that the Council ‘moiennent et traveillent mondit seigneur par grans delays, et lui donne (sic) esperence de

pourveoir aux requestes que mondit seigneur et mess. ses freres.’ (Try and work my lord with great delays, and they give himhope of realising the requests my lord and his brother have made for the good of the king and his kingdom, but still nothinghappens). Nordberg, Les Ducs, 202.

24 Ordonnances, vol. 12, 222–3.25 Willard, Christine de Pizan, 155.

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a prince collect taxes to support certain things, like war and marriage celebrations for his children. Shetargets for criticism the contemporary method of assessing taxes. The writer insists that taxes shouldbe assessed compassionately, that ‘the rich should support the poor in such a case, and the rich shouldnot be exempt, as they are today, when the poor are all the more heavily burdened.’26 Never, in any ofhis calls for financial reform, did the duke of Burgundy suggest that the tax burden be redistributed toinclude the nobility, exempt from taxation by virtue of the requirements that they come to the king’said when he called them to arms and that they leave their lands when they accept a position within theking’s court. As we have seen, John disputed the individual tailles levied by the duke of Orleans for thewar against England, claiming that the money was going into Louis pockets. The claim has been shownto be false.27 Also, John later abandoned the discourse when pressed for fear of losing the revenue herequired to carry out his political agenda.28 There is no common ground between Christine’s criticismsof exemption from taxation for the rich and the duke of Burgundy’s programme for financial reform.

Christine’s argument against John has been further obscured by the assumption that she dis-approved of Louis. Many studies of the reign of Charles VI have depicted the duke of Orleans as anoversexed, frivolous, and corrupt scoundrel. A major reason for the currency of this caricature is thatthe two most significant and widely-read chroniclers of the period for modern historians, MichelPintoin and Enguerran de Monstrelet, were biased against Louis. As Jean-Michel Dequeker-Fergonpoints out, chroniclers under Armagnac King Charles VII, tended to write polemical histories in favourof Louis.29 However, these are not the sources to which modern historians have turned for informationon the reign of Charles VI. In addition to the discernible partisanship in the chroniclers most familiar tomodern historians, another important source of the modern anti-Orleans bias is noted by ElizabethGonzalez:

26 doiaujourd

27 Maaccusatseigneudirectemdans le

28 Cla(Ive–XV

29 Jean30 Les

d’ecroudepotscaracted’Orlean

31 dep32 See33 Mic

Bourgog

Explanatory factors for this distortion begin with the sources. Abundant, in series (householdrolls) or in groups in the case of Burgundy, they are located for the most part in three principalarchives, those of Paris, Lille and Dijon, the main centres of activity for the principality. Incontrast, sources for the dukes of Orleans are characterised by their extreme dispersion andfragmentation.30

The result has been that histories treating Louis often have been, as Gonzalez writes, devoid of anycritical perspective on the sources.31

Louis has not been savaged by all modern historians. Eugene Jarry’s La Vie politique de Louis deFrance, duc d’Orleans, 1372–1407 of 1889 treated him sympathetically.32 Michael Nordberg minutelydetailed the Burgundian bias against the duke in an article of 1959 and in his longer study of the rivalrybetween the houses of Orleans and Burgundy of 1964.33 Christopher Schultz’s dissertation of 1977explained that from the late fourteenth century, the ‘Burgundian star was ascending, and toward it, forthe next half century, many chroniclers fixed their gaze [.].this development, more than any other,

vent les riches en tel cas supporter les povres, et non mie que yceulx riches en soient excens, si comme on le fait’hui, et que les povres en soient de tant plus chargiez. LCP, 17.

urice Rey, Le Domaine du roi et les finances extraordinaires sous Charles VI (1388-1413) (Paris, 1965), scrutinises theion and concludes that it is baseless: ‘Rien, dans les grandes Tailles des annees 1404 et 1405, ne fut l’objet de don aur chez qui on la percevait; le frere du roi, alors au sommet de sa toute-puissance, n’osa pas en profiter pour se servir

ent, comme en temoigne sa comptabilite’ (338–9). Rey dismisses the charge as ‘accusations astucieusement lanceess cercles bourguignons pour dresser l’opinion publique contre l’homme qu’on voulait abattre’ (339).ude Gavard, ‘Les Officiers royaux et l’opinion publique en France a la fin du moyen age’, Histoire comparee de l’administrationIIIe siecle), ed. Werner Paravicini and Karl Ferdinand Werner (Munich, 1980), 583–93 (590).-Michel Dequeker-Fergon, ‘L’Histoire au service des pouvoirs’, Medievales, 5, (1986), 51–68, especially 62–8.

facteurs explicatifs d’une telle distorsion ne manquent pas, a commencer par les sources. Abondantes, serielles (les listess) ou collectives dans le cas de la principaute bourguignonne, elles sont localisees pour l’essentiel dans trois grandsd’archives d Paris, Lille et Dijon, lieux principaux d’activite de la principaute d, tandis que celles des d’Orleans serisent par leur extreme dispersion et fragmentation. Elizabeth Gonzalez, Un prince en son hotel. Les Serviteurs des ducss au XVe siecle (Paris, 2004), 13.ourvue de tout regard critique envers les sources. Gonzalez, Un prince en son hotel, 14.Eugene Jarry, La Vie politique de Louis de France, duc d’Orleans, 1372–1407 (Paris, 1889).hael Nordberg, ‘Les Sources bourguignonnes des accusations portees contre la memoire de Louis d’Orleans’, Annales dene, 31 (1959), 81–98, and Les Ducs.

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established attitudes about the duke and duchess of Orleans which have been retained in Frenchhistoriography to the present.’34 R. C. Famiglietti’s 1986 Royal intrigue. Crisis at the court of Charles VIalso presents a balanced view of the dukes’ conflict.35 Moreover, in addition to these earlier studies,a trend in recent decades among historians to read medieval chronicles as transmitters of ideologyrather than transparent fact has brought about a revision of the duke of Orleans’ debauched image,which is now recognised as a product of Burgundian propaganda, as Gonzalez’s work attests.

And yet, Gonzalez’s point about the tenacity of Louis negative image is confirmed by the continuedacceptance at face value by many scholars of Christine de Pizan of the assessment of the dukepromulgated in Burgundian sources.36 Two of Christine’s references to her disappointment inunnamed powerful people have been interpreted as targeting the Duke of Orleans. In the first, inL’Avision Christine, Christine expresses regret that her young son, unnoticed among the crowds at thecourt of some unnamed nobleman, was not chosen for service. In the second, in Le Livre des trois vertus,she notes that the court of an unnamed figure was frequented by a popular entertainer, who was bettertreated than serious writers.37 Her manifold explicit positive references to Louis have been explained asproducts of an early happy relationship that was supposedly followed by growing disenchantmentwith the promising but dissolute duke.

But surely an argument that depends upon the identification of Louis with two unnamed figures istoo tenuous to maintain. Many great lords owned homes in Paris and any one of them might havedisappointed Christine. To name just a few, she might have been referring to Antoine de Bourgogneduke of Brabant, who owned the Hotel de Flandre; the king’s uncle, the duke of Berry; the connetableCharles d’Albret, to whom the duke of Berry sold his hotel in Paris in the first years of the fifteenthcentury; Guillaume de la Tremoille, owner of the splendid Hotel de Calais; Jean de Montaigu; Charles deSavoisy, whose magnificent hotel in Paris rivalled those of the royalty; the marmousets Bureau de laRiviere or Jean le Mercier; or Louis II, duke of Anjou, to whose residence Christine refers in the Cite dedames.38 No evidence of disapproval of Louis on the part of Christine has ever been traced. Especiallywhen it is acknowledged that the image of the dissolute Louis of Orleans d or at least the image ofLouis as exceptionally dissolute, more dissolute than other noblemen of the period d was a creation ofBurgundian propaganda, there is no ground for the assumption that her two negative remarks areaimed at him.

Although Christine sought patrons from both the Orleans and Burgundian factions, her literarydedications do not tell us anything about her fundamental loyalties. And although she seems to haveleft Paris forever in 1418 when the city was overrun by the Burgundians, to support Charles VII, we

34 Christopher Ronald Schultz, ‘The artistic and literary patronage of Louis of Orleans and his wife, Valentine Visconti,1389–1408’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Emory University, 1977), 13–14.

35 R.C. Famiglietti, Royal intrigue. Crisis at the court of Charles VI (New York, 1986). See in particular 23–63.36 For some recent examples of the image of Louis in secondary literature on Christine de Pizan, see, for example, Forhan,

Political theory, 104–5; Charity Cannon Willard, Christine de Pizan. Her life and works (New York, 1984), 81 and 150; RosalindBrown-Grant, Christine de Pizan and the moral defence of women. Reading beyond gender (Cambridge, 1999), 104, where theauthor speculates that Christine may have made ‘oblique’ criticisms of Louis, ‘who was rumoured to be having an affair with hissister-in-law, Isabeau de Baviere’. As evidence for the charge, Brown-Grant cites Jean Favier’s La Guerre de cent ans (Paris, 1980),415–16. Favier, however, merely asserts that Louis and Isabeau were having an affair, without citation. See also Jane H.M. Taylor,The making of poetry. Late-medieval French poetic anthologies (Turnhout, 2007), 27, who asserts, without citation, ‘Isabeau ofBavaria was, according to gossip, thought to be Louis d’Orleans’ mistress.’ The stories of Isabeau and Louis love affair, of course,have been proved baseless at numerous points over the past century, although the legend continues to appear. See mostrecently Famiglietti, Royal intrigue, 43–6, and Tales of the marriage bed from medieval France (1300–1500) (Providence, 1992); andRachel C. Gibbons, ‘Isabeau of Bavaria, queen of France (1385–1422): the creation of an historical villainess’, Transactions of theRoyal Historical Society, 6th series, 6 (1996), 51–73.

37 The references can be found in Le Livre de l’advision Cristine, ed. Christine Reno and Liliane Dulac (Paris, 2001), 113, and LeLivre des trois vertus, ed. and intro. Charity Cannon Willard and Eric Hicks (Paris, 1989), 79–80. See Willard, Christine de Pizan,165–71, for the idea that Louis was the target of these references. Willard notes that according to Burgundian accounts (171),Christine received gifts on various occasions from the Duke. But, as she does not mention, the Orleans accounts are notcomplete enough to determine to whom he offered gifts. There is no reason to assume that Louis of Orleans was the great lordwho disappointed Christine.

38 For the reference to Charles de Savoisy, see Pintoin, Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys, vol. 3, 192. For the reference to theresidence of the duke of Anjou see Christine de Pizan, La Citta delle dame, ed. and trans. Patrizia Caraffi and E.J. Richards (Milan,1997), 420.

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cannot reasonably extrapolate her early allegiances from these late ones. Switching sides was verycommon at that time. I will argue, however, that insight into her political views c.1405–7 can begleaned from the way she writes about the danger of popular revolt in Paris in the LCP. John theFearless, self-styled man of the people, attempted to incite the people of Paris in 1405, and, although hefailed then, the tactic would succeed in 1413 with the Cabochian revolt. Christine evinces a horror ofuprisings, urging what she depicts as more enlightened social groups in the LCP to keep their less-enlightened neighbours in line. Having witnessed the perilous situation created by the dukes’ neararmed confrontation and well aware of the earlier rebellions in France and of uprisings in Italian cities,Christine recognised the continued danger. Her apprehension would have been heightened by thepublication of two royal ordinances, cried publicly in the streets of Paris, forbidding assemblies of anykind in February and April 1407.39

Christine’s body politic

Christine’s grasp of the dynamics of the tense political situation is manifest in the way she describes, inthe third section of the LCP, the relationships among the various subgroups of the common or universalpeople, whose tendency to riot was so dreaded by medieval princes. In her configuration of the third partof the body politic, she reveals her hope that this group can be persuaded to police itself effectively,thereby defusing the danger its potentially violent members presented to the kingdom overall.

Good princes, Christine has already established in her first section, correspond to the head of the bodypolitic, and they owe their subjects love and care. This will prevent social unrest from occurring in thefirst place. The nobility, the arms and hands of the body politic, exist to care for the bien public, defendingit from exterior threats through warfare. As for the common people, the stomach, legs, and feet of thebody politic, their chief duty is to love and obey their prince, keeping peace within the kingdom. ButChristine does not simply exhort the people to obedience. She cultivates their sense of solidarity with theother members of the body politic by appealing to their sense of pride, acknowledging their status asa crucial part of a magnificent whole. Love and obedience towards their prince are natural to the Frenchpeople, she writes, who, since the founding of the French kingdom by fleeing Trojans, have been ruled bythe same family, which passed the crown on, father to son.

39 See40 Don

Troiensles ont sprincesroyaumsingulie

41 SeeSolente

Thus in this regard I hold the French people to be blessed, who from their very origins in the issueof Troy, have never been governed by foreign princes, but by their own, themselves issued fromheir to heir of those who had always ruled over them, as is made clear by old histories andchronicles, which mention this, which rulership by noble French princes has become natural tothe people. And for this reason, by the grace of God, the people of France, more than any other landor kingdom of the world, have the most natural and best love and obedience for their prince,which is a singular and very special virtue, for which theyare deserving of great praise and merit.40

Christine, who read the Grandes chroniques de France, knew perfectly well that the French crown hadnot been passed from father to son from the beginning (the Carolingians had given way to the Cape-tians who had then given way to the Valois).41 But this did not lessen the emotional appeal of thehistory that she believed to form the common heritage of all the French. Because of this ancientcommon heritage, embodied in the crown, the French people had the best love and most naturalobedience for their prince of any people in the world. This is a special virtue, writes Christine, particular

Coville, Les Cabochiens, 10; for the ordinance of April see Ordonnances, vol. 12, 224–5.cques a nostre propos je tiens le peuple de France tres beneure, lequel tres son commencement, qui fu de l’issue des

, a este gouverne non mie de princes estranges mais de ceulx meismes qui sont issues d’oir en hoir de ceulx qui tousjourseigneuris, si qu’il appert par les anciennes histoires et les croniques qui de ce font mencion, laquelle seigneurie des noblesfrançois est convertie au peuple comme naturelle. Et pour celle cause est-ce avec la grace de Dieu que sur tous les pais etes du monde le peuple de France est de plus naturel et meilleur amour et obeissance a leur prince, laquelle chose estre et tres especiale vertu et grant louenge a eulx et en deservent grant merite. LCP, 93.Christine de Pizan, Le Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V par Christine de Pisan, ed. and intro. Suzanne

, 2 vols (Paris, 1936), vol. 1, xli–xlvi.

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to the French. When she urges the people’s obedience, then, she is asking that they cleave to the largerbody politic and behave according to their ‘French’ nature.

For Christine, certain elements of the peuple take their responsibility to support the king seriously.But even as she strives to convince her readers of the fundamental cohesion among the entire peupleand the rest of the body politic, she simultaneously reveals the profound fissures that divide the peuple.Occasionally some groups require guidance to understand their responsibilities as French people, sheproposes, and, in these cases, the more enlightened members of the third part of the body politicshould aid their ignorant compatriots. Specifically, Christine assigns the wise burghers, les saigesbourgois, the job of keeping potential troublemakers calm. The wise burghers are not the only membersof the body politic upon whom she calls to maintain the peace, however. For preceding them are theclergy (III.4 and III.5), whom she places at the very head of the peuple.

The clergy were generally accorded a loftier role than what we find here. But Christine’s reasoningbecomes clear when we examine the way she structures the rest of part three of the LCP. Following theclergy are the burghers and merchants (III.6). Christine appeals to them in a separate section (III.7) tohelp keep the simple people in line:

42 Et aa parledeffent101.

43 Onvernemorigines1957-19

44 Et pc’est m

45 aucprejudi

As we noted earlier, the wise must advise the simple and ignorant to keep silent about the thingsthey have no right to speak of, and from which great danger and nothing positive can come.What is written in the book of Exodus, in the 12th chapter, bears witness to this: the law forbidssuch complaints, and says: you will not complain about great lords, and you will not curse theprinces of the people.42

Immediately following this appeal, Christine begins a new section, where she describes the lessimportant merchants (III.8). She follows these with artisans and labourers (III.9–10). The structure thusseparates the clergy and the city leaders, including the most important merchants, on the one hand,from the potentially troublesome lesser merchants and the rest, on the other.

In addition to placing the clergy among the peuple, Christine makes another striking transformationof the former in her discussion. The clergy were traditionally conceived of as an estate unto itself, andthey typically included members of the aristocracy who held important archbishoprics and bishoprics,along with priests of various social standing, as well as University clerics, masters and students.43 ButChristine defines the clergy first and foremost as university students, writing: ‘And because the estateof the clergy is high and noble and worthy of honour among the others, I will speak first to it, to thestudents, as those at the University of Paris, or other universities.’44

What is the significance of this peculiar conception of the clergy? In fact, when we recall the socialcontext of the LCP, the conception is not peculiar at all because it captures very precisely a situation thatChristine would have observed in early fifteenth-century Paris. She targets students especially becausecontrol of them was crucial to the successful maintenance of the peace in the body politic. Unruly,potentially seditious and eager to arouse the lesser members of the peuple, university students createddisturbances that caused the king to single them out for censure in royal ordinances of February andApril 1407. In the ordinance of 6 April the king accuses ‘some henchmen of our dear daughter, theUniversity of Paris, and others incited by them’ of posting letters in churches that called the people togatherings where ‘many words highly prejudicial and damaging’ to the king were pronounced.45 These

insi que dit est, les sages doivent amonnester les simples et les ignorans de eulx taire de ce de quoy ne leur appertientr, et dont grant peril peut venir et nul preu. Et ce tesmoigne ce qui est escript ou livre de Exode, ou xiie chapitre: La loytel murmuracion, et dit: Tu ne murmureras pas des grans seigneur, et si ne maudiras point les princes du peuple. LCP,

the three estates see Georges Picot, Histoire des etats generaux consideres au point de vue de leur influence sur le gou-ent de la France de 1355 a 1614, 5 vols (Paris, 1888); Jacques Cadart, Le Regime electoral des etats generaux de 1789 et ses

(Paris, 1952); Ferdinand Lot and Robert Fawtier, Histoire des institutions françaises au moyen age, 3 vols (Paris,62); and John Russell Major, Representative institutions in renaissance France, 1421–1559 (Madison, WI, 1960).our ce que l’estat de clergie est entre les autres hault et noble et digne d’onneur, je m’adrecerai premierement a icellui,

on entente, aux estudians si comme en l’universite de Paris ou autre part. LCP, 96.uns suppotz de nostre amee fille l’Universite de Paris & autres meuz de leur volonte [.]; plusieurs paroles grandementciables & dommaigeables. Ordonnances, vol. 12, 224–5.

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gatherings were extremely dangerous, the ordinance continues, because they could lead the subjects ofthe realm to internal discord. The ordinance then goes on to warn all the people of the clergy d peopleof the Church d of Paris to refuse such assemblies in their churches.46 If ‘certain members of the saidUniversity wanted to gather or tried to gather such assemblies’, they were to be turned over to theking’s officers and the sergeants of the city of Paris.47

This ordinance brings to life a scenario of university students agitating to arouse the Parisians. Thesubgroup of the clergy directly responsible for the unrest, then, is the one that Christine explicitly seeksto calm in the LCP: university students. When she includes students at the head of the third element ofthe body politic, her intention seems to be to persuade them to put aside the seditious behaviourencouraged by the duke of Burgundy and join with the burghers and well-placed merchants to act asa brake upon potential rioters. The University, of course, was not a monolithic body, and its members,starting with the chancellor, Jean Gerson, did not uniformly follow the duke of Burgundy.48 Still, theUniversity’s Chartularium indicates that during the stand-off of 1405, its representatives went on behalfof the duke of Burgundy to the duke of Orleans to persuade him to reconcile with his cousin.49

Chroniclers’ accounts of the ‘Kidnapping of the dauphin’ also make clear that the University acted atJohn’s behest.50 The members of the University are a privileged group, Christine writes, addressingthem as ‘gent bien conseilliee’ and ‘gent eureuse’.51 They are ‘disciples of the study of wisdom, who, bythe grace of God or good fortune or by nature’ are engaged in the search for that star, ‘science’.52 Butafter capturing their goodwill through praise and enumerating the joys of knowledge, at the close ofthe section she reminds clerics that the ultimate goal of learning is to achieve an understanding ofvirtue; those who study do so because ‘they increase their characters in goodness and virtue’.53 Shethen warns them about preaching wisdom to others while not practising it themselves, describingthose who ‘do not use their wisdom in their own lives, but just teach it to others’.54 Those who do notpractise what they preach ‘are more to blame when they commit a crime than others’.55

After stressing the cleric’s duty to transform his wisdom into virtue, Christine moves to theresponsibility of the burghers and merchants to see that their less advantaged brothers and sisters notdisturb the body politic. They are to guarantee that the menu peuple, ‘who have no business voicingopinions about royal or princely ordinances’, remain quiet.56 They must ensure that the commonpeople not conspire against the prince or council.57

Most telling, however, is Christine’s configuring of the merchants into two groups. The first merchants,as we have seen, are grouped along with the burghers, associated thus with the city’s ruling class. Christineappeals to this group to keep peace among the menu peuple. But in addition to these well-placedmerchants, Christine acknowledges another type in III.8. She reminds this second group of merchants of itssocial obligation to be honest and hardworking. I propose that Christine targets the butchers of Paris here.

Like her reduction of the clergy to university students, the poet’s distribution of merchants across twogroups follows a logic, corresponding precisely to a prevalent perception of her time. With the exceptionof the king and the princes with their entourages (the groups that Christine represents in the first twoparts of the body politic), early fifteenth-century Paris fell into two categories ‘whose aptitudes, politicaldesires, differed in an obvious way, the haute bourgeoisie, that is, a major portion of the royal officers, andcertain groups of merchants, gathered around the king in great numbers, on the one hand, and, on the

46 tous les Gens d’Eglise d’icelle nostre ville de Paris. Ordonnances, vol. 12, 224.47 aucuns de ladite Universite voulloient faire ou s’efforçoient de voulloir faire telles assemblees. Ordonnances, vol. 12, 225.48 Although early in his career Jean Gerson was supported by Philip of Burgundy, he later forcefully condemned Philip’s son,

John. On Gerson’s life see the introduction to Gerson’s Oeuvres complete, vol. 1, 105–39.49 See Heinrich Denifle, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, 4 vols (Paris, 1889–97), vol. 4, 135.50 See Pintoin, Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys, vol 3, 312.51 LCP, 96.52 disciples d’estude de sapience qui, par grace de Dieu et de bonne fortune ou de nature. LCP, 96.53 ilz acroissent semblablement leur nature en bien et vertu. LCP, 98.54 ne font riens quant en eulx-meismes, mais l’aprennent aux autres. LCP, 98.55 font plus a reprenre quant ilz mesfont que ne font autres. LCP, 98.56 dont ne se doivent mesler des ordonnances d’icelle establies par les princes. LCP, 98.57 n’en face aucune conspiracion mauvaise contre le prince ou le conseil. LCP, 98.

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other, the mass of workers, a fluid, open class’ (my emphasis).58 A passage from Pintoin’s chronicledescribing a delegation that went to visit the king to beg for mercy for the people of Paris after theMaillotin revolt in 1384 reveals just such a cleavage at the heart of the people of Paris.59 Representativesfrom the University along with a group of cives, quibus mens erat sanior (which was sounder in mind),explained to the king that in any population some are prudent and disciplined while others are not.Diverse passions and differences in morals produce such variations, they continued. The group pleadedthat the king take this into account and not judge them all on the basis of a contingent of troublemakers.The king was sympathetic to their argument, and he agreed to pardon everyone except those mostdirectly involved. In addition to illustrating the fact that the University and the cives sometimes madecommon cause and lending plausibility to Christine’s argument in the LCP, the passage demonstrates theprotective attitude of the important burghers towards their less fortunate counterparts.

A significant group belonging to the second category of merchant was the butchers. Paris was hometo several groups of butchers, the largest of which was that of the Chatelet, the Grande boucherie. Theywere wealthy and respected, and yet they did not belong to the ruling burghers, or cives, as Pintoin callsthem. In other words, they were merchants, but not of the same ‘quality’ as the great merchants. Eventhe most important butcher families, the Saint-Yon, the Thibert, the Guerin, the Deux-Epees and theLegois, were gens de metier and therefore separated by a yawning gulf from Paris’s ruling class.60

Powerful, they could muster followers, but these followers included many of doubtful character, inthe eyes of the ruling burghers. As Alfred Coville explains, among them were valets, ‘devoted to thebutchers, ready to help them, to follow and even precede them. It was like a small army that thecorporation could raise when it wished in Paris, an army that no amount of violence or excess couldfrighten.’61 A contemporary of Christine, the chronicler known as Juvenal des Ursins, reported that thebutchers were followed by ‘people of several trades of Paris, surgeons, furriers, and tailors’. But, hecontinues, attached to these were ‘poor people and bad ones wanting to pillage and steal’.62

The butchers had led uprisings in Paris in 1382–84; as Coville writes, they also led uprisings amongthe Parisians from 1408–13. During the Cabochian revolt the cives were outraged by the behaviour ofthe rebels, who, according to Pintoin, broke the doors and windows at the duke of Berry’s Hotel deNesle, forced the prevot des marchands and many of his circle to leave the city, and led a hostile groupinto the hotel of the dauphin.63 They threatened clerks and officers close to the king and queen withimprisonment and even execution. Their success was short-lived in 1413. The University refused tosupport them, and the dauphin, furious at the chaos John the Fearless had provoked and then failed tohalt, summoned the Armagnacs for assistance in crushing the revolt. The cives backed him in hisappeal, demonstrating once again that the peuple was not a cohesive body.

The third section of Christine’s body politic, then, groups the University with the ruling members ofParis and urges them to stand up to the marauding elements of their estate to maintain order in therealm. She thus seeks to lure the University from the side of John of Burgundy and turn it against themenu peuple, destroying what Coville described as the ‘the triple alliance which formed graduallybetween the University, the people of Paris and the duke of Burgundy’. The alliance was not necessarilya natural one: Coville notes that the members were driven by different motives.64 The University wasmoved by a belief in the excellence of its own remedies for the evils facing the kingdom; the people of

58 dont les aptitudes, les desirs politiques, differaient d’une maniere assez sensible, la haute bourgeoisie, c’est-a-dire lamajeure partie des officiers royaux, si nombreux autour du roi, et certains corps de marchands, d’une part, de l’autre la masse descorps de metiers, la classe ouvriere et flottante. Coville, Les Cabochiens, 92.

59 Pintoin, Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys, vol. 1, 14660 Coville, Les Cabochiens, 103.61 devoues aux bouchers, prets a les aider, a les suivre et meme a les devancer. C’etait comme une petite armee que la

corporation pouvait lever a son gre dans Paris, et une armee qu’aucune violence, aucun exces ne devait effrayer. Coville, LesCabochiens, 105.

62 gens de plusieurs mestiers de Paris, chirugiens, [.] pelletiers, et coustumiers [.]; toutes gens pauvres, et meschansdesirans piller et desrober. Juvenal des Ursins, ‘Histoire de Charles VI’, 467.

63 Pintoin, Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys, vol. 5, 130, and Coville, Les Cabochiens, 109.64 triple alliance qui se forma peu a peu entre l’Universite, le peuple de Paris et le duc de Bourgogne. Coville, Les Cabochiens,

143.

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Paris by their impatience; the duke of Burgundy by pure ambition. Still, he concludes, the three shareda common goal: a major role in the government for John.

The LCP attempts to persuade the University that its real interest, the pursuit of knowledge for theenhancement of virtue, was not served by its support of the duke of Burgundy and that social unrestcould only harm the burghers and great merchants. Christine presses both groups to protect themselvesby listening carefully to the complaints of the menu peuple and representing their problems to the royalcouncil. Relations between the groups, as we have seen, were not always friendly; however, Parisians ofgreatly varying social levels occupied the same physical space, which meant that constant interactionwas inevitable. As Bronislaw Geremek writes, it is not easy for historians of medieval Paris ‘to establishthe respective locations of wealth and poverty, since they existed in close proximity to each other’.65

Certain areas contained greater or lesser conglomerations of wealthy or poor, but in the Cite, for example,‘wealth lived side by side with the greatest deprivation. This small island accommodated alike ‘‘good’’districts and the haunts of the very poor.’66 Thus the peuple of high status were in a position to monitorgrumblings. In the LCP, Christine makes a suggestion for riot control that was entirely plausible. If thecives watched out for the menu peuple, intervening when murmuring began, assembling the wisest of thegroup, and taking them to the princes to let them make their case, they could prevent unrest.67

Conclusion

The status of poet as political adviser during the last decade of the fourteenth century, the entree dupoete dans le champ politique, has received scholarly attention.68 However, poets did more than attemptto train their leaders in the art of good government, although of course such instruction was part oftheir project. More important, they taught larger audiences how to understand themselves as politicalsubjects, increasing their consciousness of their obligations and demonstrating to them how theirbehaviour and intervention could help shape the political landscape for the better. In the case of theLCP, Christine addresses the problem of how Parisians should react to the rivalry between the dukes ofOrleans and Burgundy. Protocol for the urgent issue of how the realm should be ruled when a king wasunable to rule for himself was not firmly established, although tradition suggested a variety ofpossibilities. As Marie-Luise Heckmann observes, three distinct European models were available toCharles VI: first, cession of power to a college of counsellors; second, voluntary renunciation of theoffice in favour of a new ruler; or, third, creation of a co-regency to aid the King during his periods ofindisposition.69 The assumption of power during the king’s ‘absences’ by his brother as co-regent wasa plausible solution, defensible through precedent.70 However, that the duke of Burgundy, cousin to theking, assume power through a coup backed by Parisians was not an acceptable alternative. On thecontrary, for a well-placed burgher like Christine, such an option was out of the question.

Although in 1405 John denied that he was seeking control of the government, his later actions d havingLouis assassinated in 1407 and assuming leadership of royal council and guardianship of thedauphin in 1409 d verify that Louis accusations about John’s intentions had been absolutelycorrect. With Louis out of the way, John could be halted by no one else in the kingdom, until theformation of the League of Gien in 1410 under Louis son, Charles of Orleans. However, the feudbetween the Orleanists and the Burgundians was still just a threat when Christine called upon

65 Bronis1aw Geremek, The margins of society in late medieval Paris, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge, 1987), 77.66 Geremek, Margins of society, 77.67 LCP, 100.68 See Joel Blanchard, ‘L’Entree du poete dans le champ politique au XVe siecle’, Annales: Economies, Societes, Civilisations, 41

(1986), 43–61.69 Marie-Luise Heckmann, Stellvertreter, Mit- und Ersatzherrscher. Regenten, Generalstatthalter, Kurfursten und Reichsvikare in

Regnum und Imperium vom 13. bis zum fruhen 15. Jahrhundert, 2 vols (Warendorf, 2002), vol. 1, 324.70 For example, Philip III had appointed his brother Pierre, count of Alençon, regent. See François Isambert, Recueil general des

anciennes lois françaises, vol. 2, 644–8. Philip V, brother of Louis X, served as regent for Louis daughter after Louis death(although he in fact usurped her throne); Philip V’s brother, Charles IV, also served as regent when Philip V died early. See PaulViollet, ‘Comment les femmes ont ete exclues en France de la succession a la Couronne’, Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions,34:2 (1893), 25–78. Charles V appointed his brother, Louis of Anjou, regent in an ordinance of 1374. See Ordonnances, vol. 6,45–8.

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members of the University to leave their support of John and reminded them, along with theruling cives of Paris, of their responsibility to prevent social unrest in the LCP.

But how might a work like the LCP have produced effects? As Angus Kennedy indicates in his intro-duction to his edition of the LCP, the work was written for the dauphin.71 But it is unlikely that Christinewould have intended the public of her work to be restricted to a 9 or 10 year-old boy. Presumably, shewould have desired an audience composed of the two social groups upon which she calls to manage themenu peuple, the University and the category described by Coville as celle des officiers royaux et des grosmarchands.72 In England, the works of political writers were often read aloud in the homes of the nobilityand the ruling burghers and merchants. In this way, works dealing with recent shows of power and how tounderstand them were discussed and spread on to other audiences.73 Although less is known about thechannels by which political ideas spread in France, people of different social levels had access to books. Thebook trade flourished in Paris from the twelfth century on, as Richard and Mary Rouse have demonstrated,with the scribes, illuminators and booksellers who gathered near the Universityand the cathedral of Notre-Dame serving a varied clientele.74 Keith Busby has shown that a substantial number of the significantburghers of Paris owned books in the fifteenth century.75 Also, as Joyce Coleman writes, members of theroyalty had edifying works read aloud to audiences at court. After the assassination of the duke of Orleans,Louis of Bourbon held an open house for the nobles hommes et officiers, a group that would have includedmembers of the echelons of Parisian society interpellated by Christine.76 The duke of Bourbon had hisgathering listen to tales of men worthy of honour. Still, it is impossible to know to what extent suchreadings were common. The nine manuscript copies of the text suggest that the work was read, but none ofthe manuscripts offers clues about the work’s earliest public.77

Beyond books, one means by which Christine may have spread her message would have been herally, Jean Gerson, whose discourses and sermons attracted large audiences.78 As chancellor of theUniversity, Gerson would have had considerable sway with that body, and, he, like Christine, wasa staunch opponent of the revolt John was attempting to provoke. Indeed, just after the ‘Kidnapping ofthe dauphin’, in November, 1405, he delivered the sermon Vivat rex before the king and the court to tryto convince John to stop inciting the people to rise up. In this discourse, Gerson preaches at lengthabout the sacrosanctity of royal power, reminding the audience of their obligation to adhere to oneking. The duke of Orleans was recognised as the king’s regent when the king was unable to govern.Gerson grants that Louis may not be the most popular of regents. However, his strongest warning isissued not to Louis, but to John. Gerson insists that the call to sedition is worse than tyranny.

71 Chr72 Cov73 See

reading74 Ric

2 vols75 Kei76 Col77 Chr78 Tha

rose. Sede PizaKenned

79 Jeaconvienaultremtirannie

It is not right that if the head hurts a bit the hand strike it; that would be the act of a crazyperson; nor is it right to cut it from and separate it from the body, but to cure it in all sweetness,as much with good words as with good medicines. There is nothing more unreasonable andharmful than to try to avert tyranny by sedition. I call sedition popular rebellion, without rhymeor reason. Often, it is worse than tyranny.79

istine de Pizan, Le Livre du corps de policie, ed. Kennedy, ‘Introduction’, xxv.ille, Les Cabochiens, 92.Joyce Coleman on the ‘aural’ status of the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century reading public, Public reading and thepublic in late medieval England and France (New York, 1996), especially 95–7.

hard H. and Mary A. Rouse, Manuscripts and their makers. Commercial book producers in medieval Paris, 1200–1500,(Turnhout, 2000).th Busby, Codex and context. Reading Old French verse narrative in manuscript, 2 vols (Amsterdam, 2002), vol. 2, 714–36.emam, Public reading, 117–21 and 124–5. Coville, Les Cabochiens, 92.istine de Pizan, Le Livre du corps de policie, ed. Kennedy, ‘Introduction’, xii–xiv.t Christine and Jean Gerson were allies is suggested by their role in the 1401 debate over the utility of the Romance of thee Le Debat sur le Roman de la rose, ed., trans. and intro. Eric Hicks (Paris, 1977). See further E. Jeffrey Richards, ‘Christinen and Jean Gerson: an intellectual friendship’, Christine de Pizan 2000. Studies on Christine de Pizan in honour of Angus J.y, ed. John Campbell and Nadia Margolis (Atlanta, 2000), 197–208.n Gerson, Vivat rex, 1159. Il ne convient pas que si le chief se deult ung peu, que la main l’abate, ce seroit faict de fol; ou net pas tantost le trancher et separer du corps, mais le mediciner en toutes doulceurs, tant par bonnes parolles commeent a l’exemple des bons medicins. Ne seroit chose plus desraisonnable et crueuse que vouloir empescher par sedicion. Je appelle sedicion rebellion populaire sans rime et sans raison. Elle est pire souvent que tirannie.

T. Adams / Journal of Medieval History 35 (2009) 385–398398

Gerson confronts Louis, as well, warning him against tyranny, that is, oppressing the people withforeign armies, tailles, corvees, exactions, and secret murders, and, more generally, warning the kingagainst alienation of his domain, pieces of which he had ceded to a number of his relatives, includingLouis and Philip of Burgundy, as well as important retainers. But a good portion of the address isdevoted to warning the people not to attempt to diminish the king’s power. John’s emotional appeal layin his calls for France to be ruled as it had been in earlier days by the three estates, which wouldnecessarily entail a diminution of the king’s power.80 Louis was accused of many sins by the Bur-gundians, but never of seeking to diminish the king’s power or incite the Parisians to rebel. WhenChristine produced the LCP in 1407, then, she may have intended her message to be spread through thelike-minded Gerson.

Through dialogues set in motion among royalty, the University, and the upper echelons of thepublic, Christine reasonably might have hoped to promote her ideas. Power at the Valois court was stilla highly personal issue, exercised through physical contact. The ruling Parisians could and did solicitthe royal family, arranging personal meetings; members of the University made visits to court as well.Positioning themselves as intermediaries between the king and his representatives and the potentiallyunruly people, ruling Parisians and the University could help maintain order in a very concrete way. Inthe LCP, Christine makes them aware of their potential to maintain peace.

Tracy Adams is senior lecturer in French at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her monograph on Isabeau of Bavaria willappear with the Johns Hopkins University Press. Her recent work is on ideas of beauty as commodity during the early modernperiod.

80 Pierre Cochon asserted: Et voulloit Bourgoigne que le royalme fut gouverne par les trois estas comme autrefois a este fait.(And Burgundy wanted the realm to be governed as it had been in the past by the three estates). Chronique de la Pucelle ouchronique de Cousinot, suivie de la chronique Normand de P. Cochon, relatives aux regnes de Charles VI et de Charles VII, restituees aleurs auteurs et publiees pour la premiere fois integralement a partir de l’an 1403, d’apres les manuscrits, avec notices, notes, etdeveloppements, ed. Auguste Vallet de Viriville (Paris, 1859; repr. New York, 2005), 373.