Christine de Pizan's Ditie de Jehanne d'Arc: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Charles VII

Christine de Pizan's Ditie de Jehanne d'Arc: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Charles VII Benjamin Cornford The Ditie de Jehanne d'Arc is of remarkable historical value as one of very few texts concerning Joan composed during her lifetime. Not only is it of value as the last work of Christine de Pizan, seen by many to be a fitting culmination of the themes of her previous work, but w h e n examined in the context of contemporary prophecy and pro-Joan propaganda, it appears as the ultimate literary focus of a number of political and theological ideas prevalent at the time. A recent and convincing challenge to the date of composition offered in the poem, June 31, 1429, by Anne Lutkus and Julia Walker, has potentially changed the basis for any examination w e might make of this important text. Christine de Pizan wrote the Ditie de Jehanne d'Arc after having been in retirement for eleven years in the 'Abbaye close', or Royal abbey of the Dominicans at Poissy, 1 For the text and translation of the Ditie, as well as a discussion o editions: A.J. Kennedy and K. Varty, 'Christine de Pizan's "Ditie de Jehanne d'Arc", Part 1', Nottingham Medieval Studies, 18 (1974), 29-55; A.J. Kennedy K. Varty, 'Christine de Pizan's "Ditie de Jehanne d'Arc", Part 2', Nottingham Medieval Studies, 19 (1975), 53-76. 2 A.D. Lutkus and J.M. Walker, 'PR Pas PC: Christine de Pizan's Pro-Joan Propaganda', in B. Wheeler and CT. Wood (eds.), Fresh Verdicts on Joan ofA (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996), pp. 145-60. 76 Benjamin Cornford where she had flown from the Burgundians in 1418. W e know of no other writing by Christine throughout that entire period. In trying to locate a motive for the work it seems insufficient to point to Christine's no doubt profound enthusiasm for Joan of Arc as her only inspiration, for the urgency of the writing and its political content suggests it is not so much a celebration of Joan's merits and virtues, but a work that had a specific political purpose. Lutkus and Walker proposed that the Ditie was written 'explicitly against the king of France on the issue of taking Paris', and came to the conclusion that 'Christine de Pizan used the power of prophetic history to place herself clearly on the side of Joan the Maid and against the actions, if not the person, of Charles VII.' In accepting this n e w interpretation of the Ditie w e are left with a number of questions about the political context in which the poem appeared, which it is the purpose of this paper to address. Why, for instance, after so long, did Christine write this political propaganda with a very immediate political focus, w h o was it supposed to influence, and who, if anyone, commissioned the work from her? In pursuing this line of enquiry, however, w e cannot limit our examination to Christine's poem, for, if w e accept the interpretation of the Ditie as a piece of political propaganda possibly commissioned by a political 'faction', then w e must also carry out a re-examination of the immediately preceding texts concerning Joan, namely the treatise of Jacques Gelu, Jean Gerson's De quadam puella and the De mirabili victoria, to see if any further links mig be established between these texts and the contemporary political context. It is also the intention of this paper to re-assess these works within their political context and to propose that Gelu's treatise and the De mirabili victoria were intended to have an equally specific political impact, that they m a y well have been commissioned by a faction concerned to influence the direction of Armagnac policy, and that the most likely target of this propaganda was King Charles himself. I have chosen to begin this study with Christine's Ditie de Jehanne d'Arc in order to establish a retrospective paradigm. 3 Kennedy and Varty, 'Ditie, Part 2', p. 54. 4 Lutkus and Walker, 'PR pas PC, pp. 146 and 156. Poetry and...