Über den Umgang mit Lob und Tadel: Normative Adelsliteratur und politische Kommunikation im burgundischen Hofadel, 1430–1506 (review)

This hefty volume constitutes an extensive contribution to the study of the interplay of moral discourse and noble self-representation in the late Middle Ages. Sterchi takes as his starting point various books of moral education found in the libraries of the Burgundian nobility, ranging from a French translation of Poggio Bracciolini's Latin version of Xenophon's Cyropaedia to several medieval treatises (such as Brunetto Latini) and contemporary advice books, such as Hugues de Lannoy's Enseignement de vraie noblesse. Next he analyzes their liminary rhetoric and their usefulness as collections of arguments and examples. Quoting widely from the assembled material, Sterchi then proceeds to examine several questions relating moral values and noble behavior, including the relative importance of birth and virtue in the justification of the nobility; the not-to-be-confused concepts of renown (renommée), glory, reputation, prestige, and honor, and the way in which virtue provides a retroactive legitimation for social standing; the account of noble deeds and the struggle with Fortune as an augmentation of renown; and the importance of illustrious ancestors in representation and justification of the nobility. A substantial case study follows, that of the Order of the Golden Fleece, whose self-justification and proceedings are summarized, and then seen through the lenses of the disgrace of Antoine de Croy (1465) and his return to favor with Charles the Bold (1473). In an appendix Sterchi transcribes several relevant texts, ranging from marked passages in the nobles' books to documents relating to the proceedings of the Order of the Golden Fleece, in the cases of Antoine de Croy, Louis de Bruges, and Adolf de Clèves.

My summary does not do sufficient justice to the wealth of information presented by Sterchi, which historians of fifteenth-century Burgundy and above all historians of the European nobility will find invaluable. Beyond its documentary value, this study also poses two interrelated questions that anyone seriously considering moral education in the early modern period should grapple with. First, did the infusion of virtue into the justification of the nobility throughout the later Middle Ages lead to changed behavior on the part of nobles so educated? Sterchi deals with this question in his introduction, and prefers to see virtue and subsequent renown as social signifiers that are negotiated. In other words, he is interested in the social usefulness of the discourse of virtue, not in its effectiveness in tempering a violent warrior caste. However, some of his own analyses inevitably lead the reader back to this more naïvely pragmatic question. If renown is a product of past actions, judged to be virtuous by the relevant public (including those in a position to understand and influence behavior), and also a product of expectations based on this appreciation of past actions, then presumably actions most easily judged to be virtuous would garner that judgment, and thus produce renown. That virtue can be based largely on the judgments of others does not prevent some actions, on the whole and over time, from being more effective than others in producing those judgments. This leads to the second question: can the different virtues and their related concepts be used to describe distinct behavior, or are they so broad that any behavior can be made to fit? Sterchi returns frequently to this question, preferring to see the flexibility of moral terms as a sign of their serviceability, their availability as vehicles of social standing and communication. Others would see this flexibility as a sign of moral discourse's superfluity in truly understanding noble society, and as mere cynicism of its practitioners. The question obviously transcends the Burgundian or even late medieval context, and derives perhaps finally from the very functioning of classical virtue ethics, which is always determined in some measure by opinions and examples and cannot rely on hard and fast...