Jean de Joinville
See also: Joinville
Jean de Joinville (1224 - December 24th 1317), noble Champagne and biographer of holy Louis.
Wire of Simon de Joinville and Beatrice d' Auxonne, it belonged to a family of the Champagne nobility. It accepted an education of noble young person at the court of Thibaut IV, count de Champagne: reading, writing, rudiments of Latin. With died of his father, it became Sénéchal of Champagne (and was thus attached to the person of Thibaut IV). It was a man very pious and concerned to manage its area well.
In 1241, it accompanies its lord, Thibaud IV of Champagne, at the court of the king de France, Louis IX (future Louis saint). In 1244, when this one organized the Seventh crusade, Joinville decided to join the Christian knights just like his father had done it 35 years earlier against the Albigensian. At the time of the crusade, Joinville was put at the service of the king and became his adviser and his confidant. In 1250, when the king and his troops were captured by the Mamelouks with Mansourah, Joinville, among the prisoners, took part in the negotiations and the collection of the ransom. Joinville probably approached still the king in the difficult moments which followed the failure of the crusade (death of his/her Robert brother, badly surrounded by the other lords…). It is Joinville which advised with the king to remain out of Holy Land instead of returning immediately to France like pushed the other lords there; the king followed the opinion of Joinville.
During the four following years, last out of Holy Land, Joinville was the very listened adviser of the king. This one had fun transport, naivety and weaknesses of Joinville, and it took it again sometimes, but it knew that it could count on its absolute devotion and its frankness.
In 1270, Louis IX, although physically very weakened, again crossed with its three sons. Joinville refused to follow it, conscious of the inefficiency of the company and convinced that the duty of the king was not to leave a kingdom which needed him. In fact, forwarding was a disaster and the king died in front of Tunis the August 25th 1270. Joinville as for him, died on December 24th, 1317, old of more than 93 years, nearly 50 years after the saint king. It was buried in the Saint-Joseph vault of the St. Lawrence church of the castle of Joinville, now destroyed.
Starting from 1271, papacy carried out a long survey about Louis IX, who ends to his Canonization, marked in 1297 by Boniface VIII. As Joinville had been the close friend of the king, his adviser and his confidant, its testimony was very invaluable for the ecclesiastical investigators.
Life of saint Louis
Silent partner
Jeanne de Navarre, grand-daughter of Louis saint and wife of Philippe IV Beautiful the, required of Joinville to write the life of the saint king. He then put himself to write the delivers holy words and goods faiz of nostre holy roy Looÿs (as he names it itself), indicated today like the Vie of saint Louis . But Jeanne de Navarre died the April 2nd 1305, whereas the work was not finished yet. Joinville thus dedicated it in 1309 to the son of this one, Louis Hutin, king de Navarre and count de Champagne, future Louis X.
Composition and date
As we saw, the book was not completed with not died of Jeanne de Navarre, in 1305. In addition, oldest Manuscrit preserved (not Autograph) is completed in these terms: “ This fu escript in the year of grace millet .CCC and .IX. '', or moys of octovre ”. It cannot be a question of the date of drafting of this manuscript precisely, because he is obviously posterior. It is thus either the date of the completion of work by Joinville, or the date of drafting of a manuscript having been used as model with that we have. Work was thus written between 1305 and 1309. By various steppings, one can also affirm that a passage located at the extreme end of the book, reporting a dream of Joinville, could not be written before 1308. Joinville thus finished its work little time before giving it to Louis Hutin.
Tradition of the text
The modern editor has primarily of only one old copy of the text and two late states of the text. One did not preserve the manuscript which was offered to Louis Hutin.
The preserved manuscript is obviously very close to the original. It is included in the inventory of 1373 of the library of Charles V. Moreover, according to paintings, one can estimate his realization at the years 1330-1340, that is to say a score of year after the original manuscript. This copy remained in the royal library then passed between the hands of Philippe the Good, duke of Burgundy, before landing with Brussels, where it was forgotten. It was redécouvert only in 1746, with the catch of Brussels by the French troops. This manuscript, known as “of Brussels”, is preserved at the National library of France. It is a volume of 391 pages of 2 columns. The first page is decorated with gold and illuminations, and a painting representing the writer presenting his book to Louis Hutin. The text is cut out in paragraphs beginning each one with initial gilded.
One lays out moreover of two editions of a translation (itself not preserved) of the text of Joinville, realized respectively by Antoine Pierre in 1547 and by Claude Ménard in 1617. If the first edition is sullied by modifications of the original text and additions whimsical, the second is an excellent work of scholar.
Lastly, a third state of the text is consisted two manuscripts which appear to go back to the second quarter of the 16th century. They are modernized transcriptions (systematic renovation of the language) of a manuscript former to the manuscript of Brussels.
General prospects for work
Joinville is a knight. It is neither a skilful Clerc to compose of the books, nor a Chroniqueur trained in the search of written or oral information. Nevertheless, its step is sincere and not involved. He tells especially what he personally knew of the reign of Louis saint, primarily the crusade in Egypt and the stay out of Holy Land. Its account is full with life, anecdotes and even with features of humor. It is more one personal testimony on the king that a history of the reign.
The freshness and the precision of its memories impress, especially when it is known that he wrote his account several decades after the facts. Certain medievists explained that by supposing that Joinville had often told orally its past at the sides of Louis saint or that he had consigned it in writing.
But Joinville speaks almost as much about itself that of the king, the subject of his book, but it makes it in a way so natural that it never gives the impression to want to propose itself. We thus have an incomparable lighting on the ways of thinking of a man of the 13th century. For this reason, the modern editors sometimes hesitated to indicate its work like its Mémoires or rather like the Histoire or the Vie of saint Louis .
holy words
The first part of the work of Joinville is devoted to the holy words of the king. Joinville brings back the edifying remarks of the king and his Christian virtues.
The word is very important in Louis saint. Its word is moral and didactic, with the image of the preachers (Dominican and franciscains) of which it is surrounded. It transmits a moral and religious teaching and often aims at strengthening the faith of the interlocutor. There was an intimacy between the king and his close relations (familiar, confidants, advisers, among whom appear Joinville and Robert de Sorbon) which was expressed particularly in the conversation: the king invites his interlocutors to answer his questions, often in order to inform them on the levels moral and religious. This importance of the royal word is particularly well returned by Joinville, which very often makes speak its characters. It is one of the first memorialist S to integrate the dialog reconstituted in an account. It generally uses the direct speech and marks the interventions of the characters by advertisements like “says it” or “it made”. And Joinville never makes hold of long discourses monologs with its characters: the lesson always rises from the dialog.
In addition, it is through the words of the king that arises its major faith and its holiness. For Joinville, Louis IX incarnated the ideal of the Prud'homme, at the same time piles, courageous, good, intelligent and wise, a man who defends the Christian faith by his courage. And in fact, in the work of Joinville the image of a king ardently loving takes shape his God, benevolent for his people, humble, moderate and courteous, wise and right, peaceful, honest and generous. Under certain aspects, Joinville is sometimes not very far from the Hagiographie.
Joinville, like its king, obviously was very attached to the Christian religion, its doctrines, its morals and its practices. There has of it as a proof a small work of construction which it composed in 1250, entitled Li novels ace ymages of the poinz of nostre faith , where Joinville makes a short comment of the Credo . But its major faith and sincere contrast with the almost exalté Christian heroism of the king. The Christianity of Joinville is more ground with ground, nearer to that of the common run of people.
The crusade
Joinville also tells the important facts of Louis saint, in particular the unfolding of the Seventh crusade and the Holy Land stay which followed, which occupies most of its book.
Value of the testimony of Joinville
If Joinville does not make work of historian, it is however completely sincere. When it must mention facts of which it was not pilot, it expresses reservations about what it reports by hearsay and it recognizes the loans that it makes with other chroniclers. Admittedly, when he speaks about the beginning of the reign of Louis saint, not being able to have this period of the personal memories, he makes certain confusions but, starting from the crusade of 1248, one does not take it at fault, except errors of details, on any the facts for which a stepping is possible.
That posed, one can wonder whether the general presentation of the facts is not conditioned by its own personality, its designs and its admiration for the king. Perhaps its position of noble and its mistrust for the government of Philippe the Beautiful one could lead it to give in the manner of controlling of Louis saint an image close to that which one was done of the ideal sovereign. But it is not a question of an organized teaching, which considers various qualities and the various duties of the sovereign. He leaves the person of the king, the object of his book, and he expresses clearly that the successors of this one would make well follow the example of it, but he does not go further; he does not write a work of morals.
Work entered the sights of a policy capétienne anxious as well as possible to exploit the prestige of the king died in the crusade. But the retreat of time and, especially, the satisfying of Joinville and its naive roughness give to its memories an exceptional value.
Literature
- Simonnet, Jules: " Test on the history of the genealogy of the lords de Joinville (1008-1386) accompanied by chartes" , historical and archaeological Company of Langres, 1875, F. Dangien
External bonds
- Full text of the “'' Livre of the holy words and the goods faiz nostre roy holy Looys ''” of Jehans de Joinville
- Jehan de Joinville Research undertaken by Yves RENAUD
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