CHARLES D’ORLÉANS

(1394–1465)

In the Battle of Agincourt, 1415, the English, by means of their superior longbows that effectively defeated the enemy knights on horseback, won a major victory over the French, butchering masses of their opponents and taking many peers as prisoners. One of the prisoners was Charles d’ Orléans. Charles’s mother was Valentina, daughter of the duke of Milan (house of the Visconti), and his father was Louis, duke of Orléans and the brother of King Charles VI. He spent his childhood in Chateaudun, 20 miles south of Orléans, where he acquired a solid education in the liberal arts under his tutor, Nicholas Garbet. His father was assassinated in 1407 by a band of men hired by his political enemy, Jean-sans-Peur, duke of Burgundy, and his mother died the following year. Already in 1406, as a 12-year-old, Charles had married Isabelle, widow of King RICHARD II of England. After her death in 1409, Charles married Bonne d’Armagnac. However, since Charles was not released from his imprisonment for 25 years, after 1415 he never again saw his wife, who died before his return in 1440. In 1428 English troops invaded and largely destroyed his estates. Only Orléans held out and was relieved on May 8, 1429, with the help of JOAN OF ARC. This, however, reconfirmed the English decision to keep Charles as long as possible, irrespective of the payment of the ransom, which had become more difficult to put together than ever before, although ironically Joan’s military achievements eventually led to the liberation of France from English occupation.

After Charles’s ransom had finally been paid in 1440, he returned to France and married Marie de Clèves, niece of Philip of Burgundy, who had contributed to the ransom. Charles made major efforts to bring about peace negotiations to end the Hundred Years’War between England and France, and a peace settlement was finally signed on May 28, 1444, in Tours.In 1447 Charles tried in vain with some military troops to recapture the Duchy of Asti, an Italian property he had inherited from his mother. But he had too few resources to hold on to Asti and left again in 1448, only to renounce his claim on Asti entirely in 1450, allowing the new duke of Milan, Francesco Sforza, to take control of the duchy. Thereafter, despite some expectations that Charles would be a political leader, he basically retired to Blois for the rest of his life and refrained from getting involved in political conflicts with the French royalty despite his close family relations. His wife bore him two daughters and one son who later rose to the French throne as King Louis XII. Charles died on January 4, 1465. During his 25 years in England Charles was highly active in writing meditative and allegorical poems in English, 141 of which are found in British Library MS Harley 682. Recent scholarship has even identified him as one of the leading 15thcentury English poets. Back in France, Charles continued composing poetry and quickly gained a great reputation among his contemporaries. In Blois he created a kind of literary court with poetry contests. One of his many visitors was the rather notorious François VILLON who wrote three poems, most famously his “Je meurs de suif auprésde la fontaine” (“I die of thirst beside the fountain”), during his stay there. Other well-known poets also joined Charles, such as Jean Meschinot, René d’Anjou, Olivier de la Marche, and Georges Chastelain. Charles set up the practice of giving his guests the first line for a ballad and asking them to write the rest. Many of these poems have been preserved in a manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fr. 25458) that served Charles as a poetry album for his own poems and those of his visitors.

Composing verse was a common element in the education of medieval nobles, but Charles demonstrated a powerful poetic gift from early on. Throughout his life he published volumes with his poetry, beginning withRetenue d’amours, composed prior to his capture at Agincourt, followed by theComplainte de France(1433), then a 550-line sequel toRetenue, thenSonge en complainte(1437); in total he composed 89 chansons, five COMPLAINTS, 123BALLADES, four carols, and 435 RONDEAUX. He wrote 125 poems in English, many of which have French counterparts. His entireoeuvreincludes more than 13,000 verses and sheds significant light on the poet’s concept of self, his melancholic perception of life, and his contempt for man’s hypocritical nature. Charles’s major themes were of a melancholy and introspective character, focusing on his destiny in exile, solitude, the idle passage of time, the various experiences of love, life as a prison, old age, religious experiences, and death. But he also reflects a certain degree of humor, especially in his many love poems offering advise to unhappy lovers.

■ Arn, Mary-Jo, ed.Charles d’Orléans in England(1415–1440). Cambridge, U.K.: Brewer, 2000.

■ ———.Fortunes Stabilnes.Charles of Orleans’s English Book of Love.A Critical Edition. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1994.

■ Charles d’Orléans.Poésies. Edited by Pierre Champion. 2 vols. Paris: Champion, 1923–1927.

■ Classen, Albrecht.Die autobiographische Lyrik des europäischen Spätmittelalters. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1991, 269–345.

■ Coldiron, A. E. B.Canon, Period, and the Poetry of Charles of Orleans.Found in Translation. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2000.

■ Fein, David.Charles d’Orléans. Boston: Twayne, 1983.

■ Spence, Sarah, ed. and trans.The French Chansons of Charles d’Orléans with the Corresponding Middle English Chansons. New York: Garland, 1986.