Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

A History of France, 1460–1560 pp 29–56Cite as

The Monarchy: Ideology, Presentation and Ritual

  • Chapter

  • 96 Accesses

Part of the book series: New Studies in Medieval History ((NSMH))

Abstract

Bernard Guenée remarked, in the course of a study of the ceremonial of the joyeuse entrée in the late Middle Ages, that ‘the secret of the state’s cohesion should be sought in the minds’ of Frenchmen.1 The purpose of this chapter is to explore the ways — modes of thought, ceremonial, ritual — in which the power of the crown was conceived and visualised in this period. Jacques Krynen has drawn attention to the preoccupation with the growth of public power and the state in late medieval drama (e.g. Le mistère du siege d’Orléans), in poetry (Christine de Pisan, Eustache Deschamps and Guillaume de Machault) as well as in the vast literature on law and rights.2

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. N. Grévy-Pons, ‘Tropagande et sentiment national pendant le règne de Charles VI: L’exemple de Jean de Montreuil’, Francia, 8 (1980), 127–45

    Google Scholar 

  2. E.H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies. à Study in médiéval Political Theology (Princeton, 1957); A. Boureau, Le simple corps du roi. L’impos-sible sacralité des souverains français XVe-XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1988), pp. 16–23, 62–3. Grassailles quoted in E.H. Kantorowicz, ‘Mysteries of state. An absolutist concept and its late médiéval origins’ in his Selected Studies (New York, 1965), p.396; Charles Dumoulin, Les petites dates (1551) quoted in Kelley, “Fides historiae”: Charles Dumoulin and the Gallican view of history’, p.392. R. Descimon, ‘Les fonctions de la metaphore du mariage politique du roi et de la république en France, XVe-XVIIIe siècles’, Annates, 47 (1992), 1127–47

    Google Scholar 

  3. R.W. Scheller, ‘Ensigns of authority: French royal symbolism in the age of Louis XII’, Simiolus, 13 (1982–3), 121–3.

    Google Scholar 

  4. D. Haigneré, Dictionnaire historique et archéologique... du Pas-de-Calais (Arras, 1880), I, p.230

    Google Scholar 

  5. R.W. Scheller, ‘Imperial themes in art and literature of the early French Renaissance: the period of Charles VIII’, Simiolus, 12 (1981–2), 12–15

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. J. Poujol, ‘L’évolution et L’influence des idées absolutistes en France de 1498 à 1559’, L’information historique, 18 (1956), 43–4

    Google Scholar 

  7. Speech of the count of Rochefort, 1560: L. Lalanne, Brantôme, sa vie et ses écrits (Paris, 1896), p.261. C.W. Stocker, ‘The politics of the Parlement of Paris in1525’, FHS, 8 (1973–4), 191–211

    Google Scholar 

  8. R. Giesey, ‘The juristic basis of dynastic right to the French throne’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 51 (1961), 3–47

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. P.E. Schramm, Der König von Frankreich. Das Wesen der Monarchic vom 9. zum 16. Jahrhundert, 2 vols (Weimar, 1939, repr. 1960); J.M. Bak, ‘Medieval symbology of the state: Percy E. Schramm’s contribution’, Viator, 4 (1973), 33–63

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. L’Ordre du Sacre et couronnement du roy Très chrétien notre sire François de Valoys (1515); T. Godefroy, Le cérémonial François, 2 vols (Paris, 1649), I, pp.245–63

    Google Scholar 

  11. M. Valensise, ‘Le sacre du roi: stratégic et doctrine politique de la monarchic francaise’, Annales, 41 (1986), 543–77

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. C. Beaune, ‘Les sanctuaires royaux’, in P. Nora, Lieux de memoire, I, p.64-; J.P. Babelon, ‘La Renaissance’, in Le Roi, la sculpture et la mort. Gisants et tombeaux de la basilique de Saint-Denis, Bulletin des archives départementales de la Seine-Saint-Denis, 5 (1976), 31–45.

    Google Scholar 

  13. J.E. Brink, ‘Royal power through provincial eyes: Languedoc 1510–1560’, PWSFH, 10 (1982), 52–9.

    Google Scholar 

  14. M. McGowan, ‘Form and themes in Henri II’s Entry into Rouen’, Renaissance Drama, 1 (1968), 217-.

    Google Scholar 

  15. L.M. Bryant, The King and the City in the Parisian Royal Entry Ceremony: Politics, Ritual and Art in the Renaissance (Geneva, 1986); Bryant, ‘The médiéval entry ceremony’, p.107. C.R. Baskerville (ed.), Pierre Gringore’s Pageants for the Entry of Mary Tudor into Paris. An Unpublished Manuscript (Chicago, 1934); M. Sherman, ‘Pomp and circumstances: pageantry, politics and propaganda in France during the reign of Louis XII, 1498–1515’, SCJ 9, iv (1978), 13–32

    Google Scholar 

  16. R.J. Knecht, ‘Francis I and the “lit de justice”: à “Legend” Defended’, EH (March 1992), 53–83, esp. 64–74; M.P. Holt, ‘The king in Parlement: the problem of the lit de justice in sixteenth-century France’; HJ 31 (1988), 507–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. On the sun imagery, see E.H. Kantorowicz, ‘Oriens Augusti-lever du roi’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 17 (1963), 119–77

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. David Potter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

© 1995 David Potter

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Potter, D. (1995). The Monarchy: Ideology, Presentation and Ritual. In: A History of France, 1460–1560. New Studies in Medieval History. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23848-4_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23848-4_2

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-333-54124-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-349-23848-4

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation