Blessed Louis, the Most Glorious of Kings: Texts Relating to the Cult of Saint Louis of France

Chapter 1: Gloriosissimi Regis

1 GlorioSiSSimi regiS Gloriosissimi regis represents one of the early attempts to model the portrait of Saint Louis that emerged from the canonization proceedings into a structured hagiographical and para-liturgical narrative. It echoed many of the themes found in William of Saint-Pathus’Vie, and may have been based on mutual sources. It prizes themes of humility, piety, renunciation, and charity. The text exists in two versions. The earlier, in twelve chapters, was probably compiled around 1300 (BHL no. 5047).A second, longer version (BHL no. 5042) was redacted in the second half of the fifteenth century at Rooklooster (Rouge Cloître), a convent of canons regular in the Lowlands, outside Brussels. The early version of Gloriosissimi regis was composed by someone who had known Philip III (d. 1285) and seems to have been part of the early efforts by the court to promote Louis’ sanctity. Lections were drawn from it for an early (if not the earliest) copy of the liturgical office for Louis, Ludovicus decus regnantium, in a royal breviary perhaps made for one of Louis’ own sons.1 This pairing was never again repeated and was probably a provisional usage, when the tradition was still in flux. However, the Franciscans quickly adopted Gloriosissimi regis as the readings (lections) for their office, Francorum rex, and it is through their liturgical manuscripts that the early parts of this tradition were chiefly disseminated.2 The text was then substantially expanded in the fifteenth century at Rooklooster. Founded in 1374 in the Zoniën (Soignes) woods as a hermitage for regular canons, Rooklooster was a leader in the devotio moderna movement and became a great center of learning, mysticism, and hagiography in both Latin and Middle-Dutch in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It boasted one of the premier medieval monastic libraries and owned dozens of works of hagiography, sermons, and 28 Gloriosissimi regis 1. Washington, DC, Library of Congress MS 15, 553v–560r. Rebecca Baltzer has suggested that the breviary was made for Robert of Clermont. See Baltzer,“A Royal French Breviary from the Reign of Saint Louis.” 2. Cambridge Dd V5, 294v–299v; London British Library Harley 2864, 368v–370v; New York Pierpont Morgan M 149, 465v–470v; New York Pierpont Morgan M 75, 484v–487v; BNF Lat 1288, 491v–494v; Padua, University of Padua 734, 375r–377r. histories.3 All three manuscripts that preserve the longer version were written there.4 The expansion was done by taking the existing text in twelve chapters and incorporating into it text from BLQRF (itself derived from Beatus Ludovicus), along with an original set of lections that was written , in or after 1306, for the Office of the Translation of Louis’ head to the Ste.-Chapelle (Exultemus omnes), and a miracle account. The latter included miracles that had occurred after 1297, which seem to have been tracked at the royal court. The result was a text of fifteen chapters, which included the insertion into the narrative (as the new chapter 9) of the eighth lection of BLQRF,which treated the otherwise missing theme of Louis’good rule, and two added chapters at the end (chapters 14 and 15, here), which dealt with post-canonization events. The fourteenth chapter comprised simply the octave readings from BLQRF that narrated some of Saint Louis’miracles.The fifteenth chapter,drawing from the lessons from the Translation of the Head that had been composed at court, dealt with Louis’ canonization and Philip the Fair’s role in the sanctification of his grandfather and the translation of the head relic to the Ste.-Chapelle. It includes the astounding royalizing formulation that “where the head of the entire kingdom of France is [that is, the royal palace], there the head of that one who so gloriously ruled over and benefited France . . . shall be forever worshipped”(see GR 15.11). We can identify the very manuscript in which this expansion occurred :Vienna ÖNB 12807 (9394),141r–146r (before 1465) (siglum B), a collection of “Vitae Fratrum Predicatorum.”5 No name can be attached Gloriosissimi regis 29 3. Corpus Catalogorum Belgii, ed. Derolez, vol. 4, 178–209. Rooklooster’s catalogues do not include its liturgical holdings, from which some of the additions to the earlier life may have derived (p. 179). 4. For Vienna ÖNB 12807 (9394), see“Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum qui vindobonae,” 257. For Vienna ÖNB 12706 (9397a), see “De codicibus hagiographicis...