Charles d'Orléans and the Renaissance

CHARLES D'ORLÉANS AND THE RENAISSANCE Ann Tukey Harrison Born in 1394 to the wealthy house of Orléans, Charles d'Orléans occupied in his lifetime, and in that afterlife reserved to men of letters, the niche of poet-prince. Such status brings many privileges, all of which the Due d'Orléans enjoyed for his 71 years, but it also presents some inherent pitfalls: the poet is subject to reproach as a dilettante, an amateur, and a dabbler, and the prince may be disdained as an anachronistic aesthete in the age of Henry V and Macchiavelli by political scientists who are overly impressed by the courtliness of his verse. Certainly Charles d'Orléans is vulnerable on both counts; yet, his royal status gave him great accessibility to the vast cultural resources of the era from which the Renaissance grew. In both politics and literature, Charles d'Orléans could have been one of the great transitional figures of western civilization: as a prince he was operative in a time when warfare, diplomacy, intranational politics, and the monarchy were irrevocably altered; as a poet whose work has been called "une perpétuelle allégorie"1 he wrote midway between Le Roman de la Rose and Spenser's Faerie Queene, allegories that typify their respective literary epochs. Is he in any way a Renaissance man, by training, inclination, or production? An answer may be found by reviewing his education and the formative influences at work upon his mind and by measuring him against his favorite contemporaries, French, English, and Italian. To review the family and educational milieu in which Charles was raised is to realize the luminous intellectual atmosphere of the year 1400. Charles' early life evolved from kinship ties to the royal family; he himself never ruled as king, but bis paternal uncle, his first cousins, and his son did. His father, Louis d'Orléans, brother of the reigning monarch Charles and first peer of the realm, was a spiritual ancestor of François I and a true nephew of Jean, Due de Berry, a renowned patron of both authors and artists and an avid collector of manuscripts. Louis' purse was generous, and the family account books meticulously chronicle the steady subsidizing of his library which would becomes the core of the Bibliothèque nationale. Charles' mother, Valentina Visconti, a Milanese noblewoman reputedly well-educated, personally supervized her son's training both in materials and personnel. The Duchesse d'Orléans selected as tutor for young Charles Dr. Jean Gerson, a fully mature professor from the Sorbonne, described as one of its most brilliant. He was learned but not retiring, rather an outgoing leader in Paris' triple arena of university, society, and clergy. The authors chosen by Gerson to quicken a seven-year-old mind included St. Augustine, St. 1PiOTe Champion, Charles d'Orléans (Paris, 1908), introduction, p. vii. 86 Charles d'Orléans and the Renaissance87 Bernard, St. Anselm, Aristotle, Valerius Maximus, Sallust, Vegetius, Boethius, Seneca, Suetonius, Livy, John of Holywood, and Vincent of Beauvais.2 After presenting this tabulation, Norma Lore Goodrich commented: In his list Jean Gerson emphasized the Bible and Bible commentaries, the Church Fathers, works of philosophy, military strategy, Roman and French history, political science, morality and physics.3 Along with the emphasis, it is important to bear in mind the selection process. This list represents the considered choice and bias of a scholar whose breadth and depth permitted him the widest acquaintance with the accumulation in Paris—the world's manuscript trade center—of centuries of learning. No penurious provincials, Louis and Valentina could be expected to acquire or commission any texts deemed necessary for their heir's education. It was the hard, factual core of learning which was consciously recommended. The curriculum for this boy was designed to inculcate facts, to stimulate philosophical inquiry, and to form character. In addition to the attitudes and actions of his parents and the rigorous program of his tutor, Charles had other advantages. As an eldest son he received much attention and educational "grooming," and his life was relatively tranquil until the murder of his father, when Charles was thirteen. Though this...