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

Chapter 2: Beatus Ludovicus

2 BeatuS LudovicuS Beatus Ludovicus (BHL no.5043b),like Gloriosissimi regis, was written shortly after the canonization. As with Gloriosissimi Regis, it echoes William of Saint-Pathus’ Vie and was probably based on the canonization proceedings. Unlike Gloriosissimi Regis, however, its author also had access to William of Chartres’ life of Louis, and he incorporates some of William’s themes pertaining to Louis’ royalty. Our evidence for the early date of Beatus Ludovicus comes from its anterior relationship to the liturgical vita BLQRF.Beatus Ludovicus is not a polished text, but it is important for the history of the construction of Louis’ sanctity , both because it represents one of the earliest post-canonization efforts to synthesize the story of Louis’ saintly life and, critically, because it formed the basis of the liturgical vita BLQRF, which was the single most widely known hagiographical text of Louis in the Middle Ages.Additionally, as the reader will see, its materials and content are in tune with and often resonant with Gloriosissimi regis, indicating, it appears , mutual influences and the same well of sources. But they are different texts, not mutually dependent, and they evince different interests and emphases. Beatus Ludovicus comprises twelve chapters and includes a list of seventeen miracles. The anonymous author’s access to William of Chartres’little-known or little-disseminated De vita et actibus, together with the text’s emphasis on the Dominican role in the education of Louis, suggests a Dominican cleric in the ambit of the royal court as its author. The text of Beatus Ludovicus survives in a single manuscript, Orleans BM 348 (siglum O), which probably dates to the second quarter of the fourteenth century.1 This manuscript is an odd collection of liturgical and paraliturgical texts. It is not a lectionary or a breviary per se, but rather a kind of libelli, or“shrine book”—that is, a manuscript that includes a series of texts important to a particular institution but that does not follow the liturgical year. A note in the manuscript indi106 Beatus Ludovicus 1. It has been dated anywhere from “after 1297” (based on the date of Louis’ canonization) to the fifteenth century. It must date before 1424, at which time the chapel of Notre-Dame des Miracles, founded by John XXII in 1320, was defunct. The pen flourishes of the incipit “B” on fol. 1 indicate a date of the first half of the fourteenth century. cates that it was owned at one time by a cleric associated with the chapel of Notre-Dame des Miracles in Avignon, and may have been copied for the chapel, and it later showed up in the library of St.-Benoît (Fleury).2 In addition to the texts for Louis (fols. 1–22r), MS 348 includes a vita of Saint Margaret (fols. 22v–37) and offices for the dedi cation of a church (fols. 37–41), the conception of the Blessed Virgin (fols. 41–44), the dedication of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome (fols. 44–50), Saint Gaudens martyr (fols. 50–61), and Saint Bernard Commingnes (fols. 61–76v). The section devoted to Louis is written in a different hand from the rest of the manuscript and was added later. It includes Beatus Ludovicus (fols. 1–18), our text here, and also the unique witness to an early redaction of a liturgy for Louis (fols.18–22).The latter is the secularized version of the Cistercian office for Louis, Lauda celestis, which was then the basis for the liturgical office in use at St.-Denis and St.-Germaindes -Près in Paris.3 The vita itself runs from fol.1 to fol.14v; the miracles run from fol. 14v to fol. 18. Beatus Ludovicus 107 2. Mostert, The Library of Fleury, 183; Samaran and Marichal, Catalogue des manuscrits en écriture latine, vol. 7, 497. 3. On the liturgical tradition for Lauda celestis, see Gaposchkin, “The Mo nastic Office,” 143–74. Beatus Ludovicus [1.0] Incipit vita illustrissimi domini sancti Ludovici regis Francie. [1.1] Beatus Ludovicus quondam rex francorum illustris generosa regum prosapia Francie & Castelle apud villam que dicitur pissiacum extitit oriundus. Patrem namque habuit christianissimum regem francorum dominum Ludovicum, qui zelo fidei accensus contra hereticos et scismaticos, qui in partibus albigensibus tunc temporis in perditionem multorum fidem catholicam oppugnabant, auctoritate ecclesie crucem suscepit, ac Deum de inimicis fidei potenter...