Recueil des actes de Louis VI, roi de France (1108-1137) ed. by Robert-Henri Bautier (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 539 Recueil des actes de Louis VI, roi de France (1108-1137). Publié sous la direction de Robert-Henri Bautier par Jean Dufour. 4 vols. [Chartes et diplômes relatifs à l'histoire de France.] (Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et BellesLettres . Distributed by Boccard. 1992-1994. Pp. xxvii, 497; 497; 233, plates 5; 193.) In 1894, the "Commission des chartes et diplômes" of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres resolved to provide historians with comprehensive critical editions of French royal charters issued between 840 (accession of Charles the Bald to the West Frankish kingdom) and 1223 (death of King Philip Augustus). In the course ofthe twentieth century, all Carolingian and Robertian diplomas were edited, along with the Capetian charters ofPhilip 1(1060- 1 108) and Philip Augustus (1 180-1223).Jean Dufour,who has already contributed the respected Recueil des actes de Robert I" et de Raoul, rois de France 926-936 (Paris, 1978), now expands the corpus of Capetian diplomaties with his new meticulous and scholarly edition of all known acts issued in the name of Louis VI as king-designate and as king, and ofhis queen and dowager,Adelaide ofMaurienne . Faithful to the exacting rules of traditional diplomatics but also utilizing the resources of computerized textual processing, Dufour provides analysis, stemma, text or clue, and critical apparatus for some 500 Latin documents, ordered chronologically. This corpus, gathered by means of an extensive quest which has uncovered thirty-two unpublished items and yielded ninety-six original documents and twenty forgeries, consists primarily of authentic copies or references to acts now lost. Framing this rich material are graphic illustrations, valuable appendices and indexes, and an erudite introduction in which Dufour addresses the modes and significance of scribal production, chancery practice, and diplomatic discourse. Louis VTs diplomatic production was far more extensive than that of his father , King Philip I (180 articles), and introduced new rhetorical forms and validating procedure. Dufour relates these innovations in part to the personal influence of Guillaume de Champeaux and of Suger, who may themselves have penned some royal diplomas and to the scriptorial activity of their respective abbeys of St. Victor and St. Denis. Louis' diplomatics was fundamentally shaped by the literate culture of churchmen, as had been the case with royal documentary practices since Carolingian times. The chancellor responsible for the royal seal and for documentary validation continued to head the royal chapel and the chancery with both units being staffed by the same clerics who neither prepared all royal charters nor filed them in a royal archive. As the principal recipients of the king's generosity, ecclesiastical establishments also drafted, and preserved, the records of those gifts and decisions made in their favor by Louis VI. Indeed, the great majority of Louis' charters involved religious institutions, particularly Benedictine monasteries and communities of canons regular, mainly located within the royal domain and the Ile-de-France; neither the Cistercian nor the Prémontré abbeys appear to have been much favored. 540 BOOK REVIEWS Irrespective of whether they were the products of the court or of ecclesiastical scriptoria,these royal charters express the king's will, utilizing peremptory signs (seal, monogram) and tone, yet also suffused with a sense of accountability to God. Generally concerned with the conveyance of lands for salvific purposes , they begin with symbolic and verbal Trinitarian invocations, proceed to the royal subscription containing the devotional formula "rex gratia Dei" or "divina ordinanteProvidentia," are addressed to "all the faithful in Christ,"continue with a preamble (arenga) often composed of excerpts from the Scriptures which Dufour has conveniently identified and gathered in an appendix, and, after describing the pious motifs prompting the gift and its recording, close with spiritual maledictions. As early twelfth-centuryWestern society evolved its new dependency on the written word, manifestations of royal power in writing came to be endowed with a new format and significance. The charter production of King Louis VI, now readily accessible in this reliable and outstanding edition by Jean Dufour, will permit historians to chart the cultural divergence between script and scripture , between writing as inscription of divine order and the written as vehicle for administrative development. Brigitte Bedos-Rezak...