Early Modern Women:
An Interdisciplinary Journal
2013, vol. 8
Isabeau of Bavaria, Anne of France, and the History
of Female Regency in France*
1
T A G R
F
emale regency in France has a long history. Queen Fredegund (d. 597)
monitored her young son Chlotar’s succession and reign after the
assassination of her husband, Chilperic; Anne of Kiev (d. 1075) acted as
co-regent for her son, Philip I; Adèle of Champagne (d. 1206) administered the kingdom for her son Philip Augustus when he departed on the
Third Crusade; Blanche of Castile (1188–1252), mother of St. Louis,
watched over her son as a minor king and, later, supervised the realm while
he was on Crusade; Isabeau of Bavaria (1370–1435) was appointed guardian of the dauphin during the periods of madness of her husband, King
Charles VI; Anne of France (1461–1522), along with her husband, Pierre
of Beaujeu, was named guardian for her younger brother Charles VIII by
the dying Louis XI, who wanted to keep his son safe from the influence of
his ambitious nephew.
These earliest examples represented ad-hoc solutions to urgent situations. Ever since the regency of Louise of Savoy (1476–1531), however,
the queen mother came to be the first choice among possible regents, with
female regency achieving a quasi-institutional status under Catherine de
Médicis (1519–89), Marie de Médicis (1575–1642), and Anne of Austria
(1601–66). Scholars tracing the evolution of this phenomenon have
argued that it was made possible by the Salic Law, that is, the exclusion
in France of women from the throne: the queen mother was a safe regent
*
The authors would like to thank the anonymous reader at Early Modern Women
for the insightful and useful comments.
119
120 EMWJ 2013, vol. 8
Tracy Adams and Glenn Rechtschaffen
because she was unable to succeed and, therefore, usurp.1 Equally important, scholars have noted, prior to the development of the Salic Law, a 1403
ordinance of Charles VI stipulated that the young king would succeed
no matter what his age without the aid of a regent, liberating the queen
mother from the surveillance of any male governor.2 As guardian of her
son, the queen mother could rule through him until he was capable of ruling himself. True, the ordinance decreed that the queen would be assisted
in her task by a college of advisors, but a strong and competent woman
could effectively rule the kingdom under such circumstances.
See Fanny Cosandey, “Puissance maternelle et pouvoir politique: La régence des
reines mères,” Clio 21 (2005): 69–90; Katherine Crawford, “Catherine de Médicis and the
Performance of Political Motherhood,” Sixteenth Century Journal 31 (2000): 643–74; and
eadem, Perilous Performances: Gender and Regency in Early Modern France (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2004). On female regency in France more generally, see
also André Poulet, “Capetian Women and the Regency: The Genesis of a Vocation,”
Medieval Queenship, ed. John Carmi Parsons (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993),
93–116. Although Marie-Luise Heckmann’s Stellvertreter, Mit- und Ersatzherrscher:
Regenten, Generalstatthalter, Kurfürsten und Reichsvikare in Regnum und Imperium vom
13. bis zum frühen 15. Jahrhundert, 2 vols. (Warendorf: Fahlbusch Verlag, 2002), deals
with male and female regencies in Europe, her work is indispensable for understanding regency in France. For the early regencies see Félix Olivier-Martin, Les Régences et la
majorité des rois sous les Capétiens directs et les premiers Valois (1060–1375) (Paris: Recueil
Sirey, 1931), 174–75.
2
The ordinance, promulgated on April 26, 1403, states that if the king dies leaving
a minor heir, the kingdom will have no regent. The young king will succeed immediately
“without anyone else, no matter how closely related, taking over the care, regency, or government of our kingdom, and without any obstacle being put before our oldest son in
the natural right that is due to him, through regency or government of our kingdom or
for any reason whatsoever.” See Les Ordonnances des rois de France de la troisième race, ed.
Denis-François Secousse, et al, 21 vols. (Paris: L’Imprimerie nationale, 1723–1849), 8:
582. However, in a letter patent of May 7, 1403, the king acknowledged that some recent
ordinances may have been damaging to his brother, Louis of Orleans, and rescinded any
part of these ordinances that deprived Louis of his power. See the letter patent in François
André Isambert, Recueil général des anciennes lois françaises, depuis l’an 420 jusqu’à la
Révolution de 1789, 29 vols. (Paris and Belin-Le Prieur: Plon, 1824–57), 7: 59. After the
assassination of Louis in November 1407, on December 23 the Royal Council passed an
ordinance reinstating the ordinance of 1403. See Ordonnances, 9: 267–69. Translations
throughout are our own.
1
Female Regency in France
121
These later queen mothers have been well studied. However, the two
female regents immediately preceding them have attracted relatively little
scholarly attention. Marie-Luise Heckmann’s chapter on Charles VI focuses primarily on the struggle for control among Charles VI’s male relatives.
The substance of Katherine Crawford’s analysis begins with Catherine
de Médicis. Although Fanny Cosandey focuses on the importance of the
ordinance of 1403 abolishing a separate regent to the advantage of the
queen mother and notes that the regency of 1483 was determined by the
Estates General, she does not mention Isabeau of Bavaria and spends little
time on Anne of France, beginning her detailed analysis with Catherine
de Médicis; and Elizabeth McCartney sees the regency of Louise of Savoy
as different from that of Isabeau of Bavaria, which was not supported by
“dynastic notions of lineages and blood ties found in feudal law codes.” 3
And yet, the regencies of Isabeau and Anne, like those of the later
queen mothers, were constructed explicitly on their exclusion from the
throne and their ability to rule through the king. True, their careers
received none of the theorizing of their later counterparts, who, challenged
by opposition factions, inspired numerous treatises during their lifetimes
both for and against female regency.4 Different from her later counterparts,
See Elizabeth McCartney, “The King’s Mother and Royal Prerogative in EarlySixteenth-Century France,” Medieval Queenship, ed. Parsons, 117–141.
4
Pierre Dupuy reproduces the substance of the royal ordinances appointing
Isabeau guardian of the dauphin and the journal of the Estates General approving Anne
of France’s guardianship in his Traité de la majorité de nos rois et des régences du royaume,
avec les preuves tirées tant du Trésor des chartes du roy que des registres du parlement et
autres lieux; ensemble un traité des prééminences du parlement de Paris (Paris: Du Puis et
E. Martin, 1655). However, in the case of Isabeau, he misinterprets the ordinances. For
example, he reports that in 1392 Charles VI awarded the queen, his spouse, regency, along
with his uncles, using the terms “tutele, garde et gouvernement du Dauphin” (16), and
left administration of the realm to his brother, Louis of Orleans. It is true that the queen
exercised guardianship; however, Louis, awarded administration of the realm, was understood to be the regent; that is, he ruled the realm during the king’s periods of insanity.
This was the root cause of the conflict between the Orleanists (or later Armagnacs) that
devastated France and led to the occupation by the English. See the pertinent ordinances
in Secousse, et al., eds., Ordonnnances, 7: 530–35 and 535–38. Dupuy is more accurate
in his description of the ordinances abolishing regency of April 16, 1403, reporting that
Charles VI named the queen his wife “tutrice” along with his uncles. However, he misses
3
122 EMWJ 2013, vol. 8
Tracy Adams and Glenn Rechtschaffen
Isabeau was the queen of a mad king rather than his widow, but she was
charged with overseeing the important business of the kingdom during her
husband’s episodes of insanity in a series of ordinances passed between
1402 and 1409 (including that of 1403, referenced above).5 But if we have
the significance of the ordinance by leaving out or, sometimes, misunderstanding the
context (16–17; again 20–21, 37, and 88–94, where he incorrectly reports that Louis of
Orleans was so strongly opposed by the other dukes that he retreated from the regency
in 1403). Although Dupuy correctly reports that the Estates General confirmed Anne’s
guardianship of her brother, once again, he gives no idea of the significance of this move
to the situation overall (21–22; again 34, 38, and 94–104). On Dupuy’s political context
see Harriet Lightman, “Political Power and the Queen of France: Pierre Dupuy’s Treatise
on Regency Government,” Canadian Journal of History 21 (1986): 299–312. In contrast
with Dupuy, other theoreticians of regency pay these regencies little heed. Jean du Tillet,
attempting to determine the age of majority in the context of Catherine de Médicis’s claim
of regency, notes only that Isabeau was poorly provisioned during her last years. See Jean
du Tillet, Pour l’Entiere majorité du roy treschrestien, contre le legitime conseil malicieusement
inventé par les rebelles (Paris: Guillaume Morel, 1560) and Les Mémoires et recherches de
Jean du Tillet (Rouen: Philippe de Tours 1578), 125–26. On the activity of this legal
historian, see Donald R. Kelley, “Jean du Tillet, Archivist and Antiquary,” The Journal of
Modern History 38 (1966): 337–35. Likewise, René Choppin omits Isabeau and Anne
from his list of regents, although mentioning Adela, wife of Louis VII, as well as Blanche
of Castile, Jeanne of Navarre for Philippe IV, and Anne of Brittany for Louis XII. René
Choppin, Trois livres du domaine de la couronne de France, composez en latin par M. René
Choppin . . . et traduicts en langage vulgaire sur la dernière impression de l’an 1605 (Paris:
Sonnium, 1613), 403.
5
“[S]he will attend . . . to the government of our finances and to the other serious
problems of our realm until such a time as we can take care of them personally.” Louis
Claude Douët-d’Arcq, Choix de pièces inédites relatives au règne de Charles VI, 2 vols.
(Paris: Renouard, 1863), 1: 241. Victim of a tenacious black legend until recent years,
Isabeau has received little attention from recent historians of regency. For rehabilitations
of Isabeau of Bavaria, see Heidrun Kimm, Isabeau de Baviere, reine de France 1370–1435.
Beitrag zur Geschichte einer bayerischen Herzogstochter und des französischen Königshauses
(Munich: Stadtarchiv, 1969); Yann Grandeau’s many articles, especially “Les Dames qui
ont servi la reine Isabeau de Bavière,” Bulletin philologique et historique (Paris: Bibliothèque
Nationale, 1975), 129–239 and “Le Dauphin Jean, duc de Touraine, fils de Charles VI
(1398–1417),” Bulletin philologique et historique (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1971),
665–728; R. C. Famiglietti, Royal Intrigue: Crisis at the Court of Charles VI, 1392–1420
(New York: AMS Press, 1986); the studies of Rachel C. Gibbons, including “Isabeau
of Bavaria, Queen of France (1385–1422): The Creation of an Historical Villainess,”
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Series 6.6. (1996), 51–74; and Tracy Adams,
Female Regency in France
123
no treatises by Isabeau’s contemporaries to flesh out her regency, a rich
source of information on how her role was understood during her own
time is offered by some writings of her champion, Christine de Pizan.
When Christine’s Livre de la cité des dames, the “Epistre a la Royne de
France,” both of 1405, and the Livre des trois vertus of 1406 are considered in their historical context, a coup attempt by the king’s cousin, Jean
of Burgundy, they must be read as defenses of Isabeau’s regency, defenses
that Christine bases upon the guarantee that the queen, in contrast with
Jean, presented no threat of usurpation.6 Crawford’s observation that
Catherine de Médicis turned “the ties of maternity and her own incapacity
for the throne” into a “claim for regency in which the queen mother enjoyed
both guardianship and administrative powers” applies first to Christine’s
Isabeau.7
The regency claim of Anne of France, who governed in the name of
her brother Charles VIII from 1483–1492, is equally central to the history of female regency. Reader of Christine’s defenses of women, Anne
sought guardianship of the thirteen-year-old Charles VIII for herself and
her husband, Pierre of Beaujeu, later Duke of Bourbon, intending to rule
the realm through this position. She could not claim maternal ties, but,
profiting from the paradoxical advantage offered by the Salic Law, she
represented herself as a less dangerous regent than the new king’s closest
male heir, her cousin, Louis of Orleans, later King Louis XII. Although
the Estates General confirmed his role as head of the Royal Council, they
The Life and Afterlife of Isabeau of Bavaria (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2010).
6
La città delle dame (La Cité des dames), ed. and trans. Patrizia Caraffi and E.
Jeffrey Richards (Milan: Luni Editrice, 1997); The Epistle of the Prison of Human Life with
An Epistle to the Queen of France and Lament on the Evils of the Civil War, ed. and trans.
Josette A. Wisman (New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1984); and Le Livre
des trois vertus, ed. Charity C. Willard and Eric Hicks (Paris: Champion, 1989). On the
conflict between Charles VI’s brother, Louis of Orleans, and his cousin, Jean of Burgundy,
see Michael Nordberg, Les Ducs et la royauté: étude sur la rivalité des ducs d’Orléans et de
Bourgogne, 1392–1407 (Uppsala: Svenska Bokförlaget, 1964); Bertrand Schnerb, Les
Armagnacs et les Bourguignons: La maudite guerre (Paris: Perrin, 1988) and Jean sans Peur:
le prince meurtrier (Paris: Payot, 2005); and Adams, Life and Afterlife, 166–92.
7
Crawford, Perilous Performances, 23.
124 EMWJ 2013, vol. 8
Tracy Adams and Glenn Rechtschaffen
diplomatically refused his bid for guardianship to the dauphin, and Anne
effectively governed the kingdom from 1484 until 1492.8 Although female
regency would always be embattled, in confirming the guardianship of
Anne and her husband, the Estates General dealt a blow to the tradition of
the male regent and further secured the space within which Catherine de
Médicis, who ruled by virtue of her position as her son’s guardian, would
construct her regency.
The Foundations of Female Regency
To prepare the context within which we examine how Isabeau and Anne
constructed their regencies, we consider in this section the closely related
social and legal structures that made them possible, as well as the regencies
of the later queen mothers. Chief among these, as we have noted, was the
principle of female exclusion from the throne sometimes referred to as the
Salic Law, which guaranteed that the queen mother was a safer choice for
regent than a minor king’s closest male relative.9 Although Ralph E. Giesey
and other scholars have shown that the Salic Law was a creation of the 15th
century, explaining retrospectively rather than causing female exclusion,
it had a long history, traceable to the death of Louis X in 1316.10 During
the first three hundred years of Capetian rule, female succession was not
an issue. However, when Louis X died, he left a four-year-old daughter,
Jeanne, and a pregnant queen. His posthumous son died shortly after birth.
Philip, brother of the defunct king, assumed regency, initially promising to
revisit succession when Jeanne came of age. But he later negotiated with his
niece’s maternal relatives, the dukes of Burgundy, so that she renounced her
claim to the throne, and had himself crowned Philip V.11
Jean Masselin, Journal des états généraux de France tenus a Tours en 1484 sous le
règne de Charles VIII, ed. and trans. [into French] Adhelm Bernier (Paris: Imprimerie
royale, 1835).
9
See Cosandey, “Puissance maternelle et pouvoir politique,” 72–75.
10
See Ralph E. Giesey, Le rôle méconnu de la loi salique: La succession royale, XIVeXVIe siècles (Paris: Belles Lettres, 2007).
11
On the exclusion of women from the French throne the fundamental study
is Paul Viollet’s “Comment les femmes ont été exclues en France de la succession à la
8
Female Regency in France
125
Although Philip V’s preventing his niece from succession has been
referred to as a fraud perpetrated upon women, it was purely opportunistic.12 The Capetian monarchy in 1316 had not been fully theorized: was it
a feudal monarchy or something different? When the issue was forced in
1419 by the disinheritance of the dauphin by Charles VI, French jurists
determined that the throne was not the king’s to dispense with. But in
1316, the kingdom appears to have been considered a sort of fief, and, in
the absence of any law governing succession, Philip and the deliberating
barons looked to feudal law for a way to justify his claim.13 Yet, feudal law
concerning female succession varied, though male preference prevailed.
Still, in some cases only males could inherit. In others, a woman might
inherit in the absence of a male heir. As Giesey notes, “The Libri Feudorum
calls for male succession only, but not so all the French coutumiers.”14 For
example, just before his death, King Philip IV had decreed that the apanage of his son, Philip, would return to the crown if Philip produced no
Couronne,” Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions 34:2 (1893), 25–78. See also John
Milton Potter, “The Development and Significance of the Salic Law of the French,” The
English Historical Review 52 (1937): 235–253; Craig Taylor, “The Salic Law and the
Valois Succession to the French Crown,” French History 15 (2001): 358–77; idem, “The
Salic Law, French Queenship and the Defence of Women in the Late Middle Ages,”
French Historical Studies 29 (2006): 543–64; and Taylor’s introduction to his Debating the
Hundred Years War: Pour ce que plusieurs (La Loi Salicque) and A Declaracion of the Trew
and Dewe Title of Henry VIII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006), where he
describes the embarrassment of Jean de Montreuil regarding the use of the Lex Salica as
the source of female exclusion. Eliane Viennot’s La France, les femmes et le pouvoir: l’invention de la loi salique (Ve-XVIe siècle) (Paris: Perrin, 2006) also describes how the Salic
Law developed.
12
Although Sarah Hanley has made the case that the Salic Law was created to
deprive women of the throne in France, her point has been refuted by Giesey and others.
See Giesey, Le Rôle méconnu, who shows that the young Jeanne was not excluded from
the throne for years after Philip V’s accession and that her claim to the throne was always
a possibility. The proclamation that women could not succeed was simply a defense of a
fait accompli (40) rather than evidence of misogyny. It was not a “question de principe
mais de politique” (47).
13
Ralph E. Giesey, “The Juristic Basis of the Dynastic Right to the French Throne,”
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 51 (1961): 11.
14
Ibid.
126 EMWJ 2013, vol. 8
Tracy Adams and Glenn Rechtschaffen
male heir. When his father died, Philip asked his brother, King Louis X, to
allow Philip’s daughter to inherit if Philip produced no son, a request that
was granted. The Lex Salica, marshaled in the fifteenth century to back the
claim that women could not inherit the throne in France, prohibited female
inheritance of allodial lands, even though it had nothing to say about royal
succession, as was sometimes argued. Given the variation, it seems that no
widespread sentiment either in favor of or against female exclusion from
inheritance existed, and, as Giesey writes, feudal customs being variable,
“political and patriotic pressures ultimately tipped the balance in favor of
one and not another rule.”15
In any case, the assertion that women could not succeed to the throne
was plausible. More important, this tradition solved a pressing problem; it
helped delay the succession of an heir who was only a child and avoided the
succession threat of the heir’s maternal relatives who represented a league
hostile to the royal family.16 The idea that a woman could not inherit the
throne was also marshaled to solve a later problem: when Philip V died
in 1322 leaving only daughters, it assured the succession of his brother,
Charles. A variation on the tradition was used in 1328 by supporters of
Philip VI of Valois to counter a claim to the French throne by the king of
England, Edward III, grandson of Philip IV of France. Although Edward
III accepted that women could not rule France, he argued that the right
to succession could pass through a woman, in this case through Edward
III’s mother Isabella, daughter of Philip IV. If so, Edward III’s claim was
stronger than that of the French claimant, Philip VI, a nephew of Philip
IV, that is, son of Philip IV’s brother, Charles of Valois. That an English
king could rule France was unacceptable to Philip VI’s followers, and
thus it was decided that the right to succession could not pass through a
woman. Although female exclusion from the throne first came into existence through opportunistic bids for power, it also offered a way to refute
the English claim to the throne. Also, as Raymond Cazelles and others
Ibid.
Eudes of Burgundy, Jeanne’s maternal uncle, had led the Burgundians against
King Louis X as part of the confederation of regional leagues that had risen up first under
Philip the Fair.
15
16
Female Regency in France
127
have noted, if succession through female lineage had been admitted, the
pretenders to the throne would have been numerous, for Louis X, Philip
V, and Charles IV all left daughters.17
Thus, the seventeenth-century argument that the queen mother was
a safe choice and particularly apt to govern for her minor son can be traced
to events of the fourteenth century.18 A further structure facilitating the
primacy of the queen mother was the conflation of the two offices associated with regency. As Fanny Cosandey has noted, regency consisted of the
separable offices of guardianship (sometimes called tutelle) of the dauphin
and administration or governance of the realm.19 During certain regencies,
the two positions were held by different individuals. During others, like
that of Louise of Savoy, who administered in the absence of an adult king,
only one element was present. Catherine de Médicis based her regency
claim on her conflation of the two offices: she headed the government “in
consideration of the great virtues, prudence, and wise conduct . . . and the
great affection which she has always demonstrated.”20 Marie de Médicis
and Anne of Austria, too, held both offices. Moreover, the relative importance that the two offices were perceived to hold varied, as we can see in the
struggle for power during the reign of Charles VI. Episodically insane from
1392, Charles VI in 1393 assigned Queen Isabeau tutelle of the dauphin
and other children, assisted by the princes of the blood and various advisors, in case the king should die prematurely. At the same time, the king
Raymond Cazelles, La Société politique et la crise de la royauté sous Philippe de
Valois (Paris: Librairie d’Argences, 1958), 52.
18
See Dupuy, Traité de la majorité de nos rois, 35–36.
19
Cosandey, “Puissance maternelle et pouvoir politique,” 70–71. See Heckmann,
Stellvertreter, 1: 324–27. Medieval and early modern regency did not possess a stable,
standard vocabulary. See Elie Berger, “Le Titre de régent dans les actes de la chancellerie
royale,” Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 61 (1900), 412–25. Fanny Cosandey, La Reine
de France: Symbole et pouvoir, XVe–XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 2000), 37.
20
Quoted in Crawford, Perilous Performances, 39. See also Elizabeth McCartney,
“In the Queen’s Words: Perceptions of Regency Government Gleaned from the
Correspondence of Catherine de Médicis,” Women’s Letters across Europe, 1400–1700:
Form and Persuasion, ed. Jane Couchman and Ann Crabb (Aldershot, Hampshire, UK:
Ashgate, 2005), 207–22.
17
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assigned administracion du royaume to his brother, Louis of Orleans.21 In
1402, Isabeau was given the power to mediate certain conflicts on behalf
of Charles VI, represent him on the Royal Council during his absences,
and settle financial issues in the king’s name.22 In 1403, her authority was
further augmented, at least potentially, when Charles VI passed an ordinance abolishing regency altogether in the case that he should die leaving
a minor heir.23 With no one administering the realm, the queen, already
guardian of the dauphin, could in effect exercise total regency through her
son. However, Louis fought the 1403 ordinance successfully, for in a letter
patent of May 7, 1403, the king acknowledged that “certain” recent ordinances may have been damaging to his brother and ordered that any part
of them that deprived Louis of his power be rescinded.24
The ordinance reappeared in December 1407.25 In November of that
year, Jean, duke of Burgundy since the death of his father Philip in 1404,
had had Louis assassinated. With the Duke of Orleans dead, regency was
once again abolished, that is, the ordinance abolishing regency first promulgated in April 1403 was reinstated. The new ordinance, like its earlier
counterpart, proclaimed that royal heirs, no matter what their age, would
immediately accede to the throne without the establishment of a regency.
When the heirs were minor, the realm would be administered by their
authority and in their name by the good advice, deliberation, and counsel
of the queen, their mother, if she were living, and by the next of lineage
and blood royal, if there were any, and also by the advice, deliberation,
and counsel of the constable and chancellor of France and the wise men
of the Council.26 It seems clear that the Royal Council promulgated the
ordinance to prevent Jean of Burgundy from seizing control of the dauphin
21
22
See note 2, above.
These are printed in Douët-d’Arcq, Choix de pièces inédites, 1: 227–39 and
240–43.
Secousse, et al., eds., Ordonnances 8: 577. On the importance of the change see
Cosandey, La Reine de France, 37, and Heckmann, Stellvertreter, 2: 816–19.
24
The letter patent is printed in Isambert, Recueil général des anciennes lois françaises, 7: 59.
25
Secousse, et al., eds., Ordonnances 9: 267–69.
26
Ibid., 9: 268.
23
Female Regency in France
129
and therefore establishing a regency. Nonetheless, Jean prevailed: on
December 27, 1409, at a meeting in Vincennes, a royal ordinance announced
that because the dauphin was of an age to meet people from all estates of the
realm and because Queen Isabeau was often otherwise occupied, guardianship of the dauphin would be transferred to Jean.27 Jean thus became de facto
ruler of the kingdom.
The conflation of guardianship and administration of the realm
aided the evolution of female regency, although as we see with the case of
Jean of Burgundy, the phenomenon was not useful to queen mothers alone.
However, a third structure strengthened the claim of the queen mother in
particular. This was her dynastic bond to her son. Beginning with Louise
of Savoy, as McCartney has argued, an increased emphasis upon this bond
reinforced her claim to rule.28 Still, this emphasis is already present in the
insistence on maternal affection that appears in Philip the Fair’s regency
ordinances of 1297 and Charles V’s of 1374.29 Charles VI’s regency ordinance of 1393 follows the custom established by these forebears, assigning
guardianship of the dauphin to the queen mother, assisted by the princes
of the blood and other advisors, in the event of the king’s premature death.
The ordinance explains the rationale behind the choice: “the mother has
The document awarding the tutelle to the Duke of Burgundy is printed in
Urbain Plancher, Histoire générale et particulière de Bourgogne, 4 vols. (Dijon: Imprimerie
de A. de Fay, 1739–1781), 3, no. 261. “In response to the statement of our very dear and
much loved companion, the Queen, that by our ordinance she has long watched over
and raised our very dear and much loved oldest son, Louis, Duke of Guyenne, Dauphin
of the Viennois, and has had guardianship and government over him, and kept him and
raised him and watched over him to the point where he is grown to such an age that it
is fitting that from now on he learn to know people of all the estates of the realm, and
the tasks and affairs of it, and because our said companion, considering her illness and
the problems that she often has and will continue to have, because of the great number
of children it has pleased the Lord to send us, and which she carried, as well as the fact
that she cannot always from now on be present in the places in which she needs to be for
the completion and introduction of our son, and desiring with all her heart the good and
advancement. . . .” Once again, it is not certain who was the impetus behind the ordinance.
It is doubtful that the intermittently mad Charles VI was ever in a state of mind to make
what we would think of as a voluntary decision.
28
See McCartney, “The King’s Mother and Royal Prerogative”, 117–41.
29
See Heckmann, Stellvertreter, 2: 742.
27
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Tracy Adams and Glenn Rechtschaffen
a greater and more tender love for her children, and with a soft and caring heart takes care of and nourishes them more lovingly than any other
person, no matter how closely related, and for this reason, she is to be
preferred above all others. . . .”30 Although in the 1393 regency ordinances
guardianship of the dauphin seems to have been considered less significant than administration of the realm, reality proved to be different, as we
have seen with Jean of Burgundy. Indeed, the potential significance of
guardianship had long been recognized. In his ordinance of August 1374,
Charles V recognizes the importance of physical possession of the future
ruler when he insists that the people are naturally inclined to obey even
a minor king, which he illustrates in a story of how Chilperic (although
the baby in question could not in fact have been Chilperic but must have
been Chlotar) was used to rouse the lords of France to action.31 The fourmonth-old Chilperic, held aloft in the arms of his mother the queen,
inspired the nobility to win a great victory. Having seen the child, Charles’s
ordinance concludes, the nobles were excited and moved to obedience and
prompt service. In theory, then, whoever controlled the dauphin potentially
could control the kingdom.
Although realization of regency was contingent on the circumstances
and the personality of the person exercising it, the ordinances of 1403 and
1407 offered a space from which a queen mother theoretically could rule.
This was never easy: as Crawford has demonstrated, female regency always
was contested. “Performed” in marginal spaces between manifestations of
official power, female regency never received formal legal recognition, and,
as Crawford makes clear, we should not regard the phenomenon as a product of a straightforward political or legal evolution alone but as individual
creations “of logics and structures of gendered authority through assertion
and resistance, acquiescence and contestation. . . .”32
30
31
32
Secousse, et al., eds., Ordonnances, 7: 530.
Ibid., 6: 26–30. See p. 28 for Chlotar versus Chilperic.
Crawford, Perilous Performances, 23.
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131
The City of Ladies as Argument for Female Regency
The career of Isabeau of Bavaria has not received wide attention in studies
of female regency in France. One aspect of her career, however, is central
to the evolution of the phenomenon. The regency ordinance of 1403, however ineffective it may have been at the moment that it was promulgated,
was initiated specifically as a way of settling or transcending a destructive
power struggle between the king’s male relatives. In three “feminist” writings of about 1405–1406, Christine de Pizan grasps this essential point
and elaborates on it to promote the queen’s regency.
When Philip of Burgundy died in 1404, succeeded by his son Jean,
the rivalry between the houses of Orleans and Burgundy went from bad to
worse. With Louis of Orleans controlling the Royal Council, Jean attempted to lay hold of the dauphin, always a crucial pawn in a struggle for power.
In August 1405, Jean entered Paris with an army, and, discovering that
Louis and Isabeau had already left town with the dauphin, he set off after
the boy and forced him to turn back to Paris. In response, Louis called up
his men, and for over a month the armed forces faced each other tensely.
The danger was great: Louis of Orleans claimed just after Jean’s seizure of the dauphin that the Duke of Burgundy would also seize the mad
king also and hold him “in custody or in guardianship.”33 Christine’s three
defenses of women dating from 1405–6 must be seen as interventions in
favor of Isabeau’s regency against the bellicose Jean’s grab for power. These
works are not treatises of the sort that begin to appear in the late sixteenth
century. Still, they flesh out the sparse descriptions of Isabeau’s role found
in the ordinances, and, as we will show, their assumptions about regency
derive from feudal law and share the ideology evident in arguments for
the queen mother based on her exclusion from succession. Isabeau’s “feminine” qualities coupled with her sense for government made her the ideal
candidate for the position of regent. Seeing the dukes on the brink of war,
Christine promoted a peaceful solution under the guidance of the queen,
the solution also promoted by the king in his ordinances.
33
“[E]n bail ou en tutelle” (Douët-d’Arcq, Choix des pièces inédites, 1: 282).
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Christine’s argument for Isabeau emerges logically from the construction of gender that she details in her work. Although women are
excluded from certain positions by “nature,” a divinely-ordained hierarchy
maintained on earth through God’s viceroy, Nature, they are, nonetheless,
capable of fulfilling such positions, and, when men are lacking, they can be
substituted. Christine tells us that Nature, the figure whom the poet claims
as her mother in the Livre de la mutacion de fortune (1402), constrains men
and women to different roles in the world, but this does not mean that a
woman is not as competent as her male counterpart to fulfill the tasks from
which she is excluded by virtue of her sex. Christine explains this allegorically, claiming that her father possessed two magnificent precious “stones”:
astrological and medical knowledge. He desired a son to whom to pass on
these “stones.” But her mother, Nature, to whom God gave “le regiment /
Du monde accroistre et maintenir” (the authority to expand and maintain
the world) wanted a child who resembled her.34 The result? Christine was
born, resembling her father in all things, including “manners,” “body,” and
“face” (“façons,” “corps,” “vis”), except her “sexe.” And for this reason alone,
she could not inherit her father’s riches. Still, although the role allotted
Christine was determined by Nature, she, like other women, stepped in
when a male relative was lacking. Later in the same work, she describes
herself metamorphosing into a man to take care of her family when her
own husband dies.35
In the first of the three works that we believe constitute defenses
of Isabeau’s regency, the Livre de la cité des dames, Christine makes her
point about gender yet more forcefully. Here she explains that God created the two sexes as a complementary pair for maximum social efficiency.
Responding to Christine’s question of why women are never seen in courts
of law, Raison, the first of three allegorical figures who appear to Christine
to help her construct a city for ladies, explains:
34
Christine de Pizan, Le Livre de la mutacion de fortune, ed. Suzanne Solente, 4
vols. (Paris: Picard, 1959–1966), vol. 1.
35
Ibid., 1: 46–53.
Female Regency in France
133
Just as a wise and well-organized lord divides his household into
different offices to take care of different tasks . . . God wanted
that man and woman serve him differently, that they help and
support each other mutually, each in his or her way. Therefore
God gave the two sexes nature and dispositions necessary to
accomplish their tasks. . . .36
However, this does not mean that women are incapable of fulfilling the
tasks normally assigned men: “But if certain people want to say that
women do not have sufficient understanding to learn the law, the opposite
is shown through the proof that is offered and has been offered by many
women. . . .”37 Raison proclaims to those who do not believe that women
have the natural sense (sens naturel) for government that she will give
examples of great female rulers of the past possessing such sense, and,
moreover, that she will remind them of women of their own times, who,
having been widowed, are conducting the affairs of their dead husbands
and who serve as magnificent examples of the proposition that a woman
of skill is apt for all roles.38
Although Christine does not specifically evoke feudal law, her numerous references to women ruling in the absence of their husbands take such
a legal framework for granted. Crucially, the Cité des dames begins and
ends by evoking the Virgin Mary, the ultimate exemplar for female regents.
The narrative opens with Christine lamenting the slanderous portrayals of
women rife among erudite writers. Having spent herself tearfully asking
God why He created such a miserable creature as woman, she sits, cheek
in hand. Suddenly a ray of light falls across her lap, her “giron.” Her Livre
de la cité des dames is conceived, then, through divine intervention, just as
Mary herself conceived Jesus. Moreover, the “city of ladies” that Christine
helps to construct refers to the body of the Virgin, the City of God. Psalm
87, describing the New Jerusalem, the Civitas Dei, was commonly held to
refer to Mary, in whom Jesus “resided” (and the psalm continues to be sung,
36
37
38
Christine de Pizan, Cité des dames, ed. Caraffi and Richards, 92.
Ibid., 92.
Ibid., 94.
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Tracy Adams and Glenn Rechtschaffen
even today, at celebrations of the Virgin). As Prudence Allen has noted,
Christine refers explicitly to the psalm in Book 3 of the Cité des dames.39
The figure of Justice, having completed her mission by welcoming the
Virgin into the city, proclaims that holy ladies may now live in the city of
ladies about which it may be said “Gloriosa dicta sunt de te, civitas Dei,”this
being the third line of the Psalm 87. 40
The presence of the Virgin in the Cité des dames is further underlined
through the figure of the Queen of Sheba, the first of a series of female
rulers introduced by Raison. The Empress Nycole (Nicaula), the Queen
of Sheba, was often associated with the Virgin Mary, either directly, with
her entry into Jerusalem in search of Solomon and his wisdom interpreted
as a precursor of Mary’s assumption into heaven, or indirectly as a figure
for the Church. The Queen of Sheba was also associated with the Bride
of Christ of the “Song of Solomon.”41 Moreover, one sees her portrayed
with Solomon, the pair representing Christ and the Virgin in the “Court
of Heaven.”42 Just after this figure of the Virgin Mary, Raison introduces
women of France who ruled after the deaths of their husbands: “who
remained widows and whose excellent government of all their affairs after
the death of their husbands shows clearly that a woman with intelligence is
suited for any task.”43 They include Fredegund; Blanche of Castile; Jeanne
Prudence Allen, The Concept of Women: The Early Humanist Reformation
(1250–1500) (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1997), 641. Depending upon which
numbering system is used, Masoretic or Septuagint, the number of the psalm referred to
here may be 86 or 87.
40
Christine de Pizan, Cité des dames, 496.
41
This is manifested in the south portal of the west façade, the portal of the Mère
de Dieu, of Amiens Cathedral. Here Solomon and the Queen of Sheba reflect Christ
and Mary. Like the Virgin, the Queen of Sheba — often depicted with the Christ-figure
Solomon, whose wisdom she tried to prove through riddles — was associated with
Ecclesia and the Bride of Christ. See Marcia R. Rickard, “The Iconography of the Virgin
Portal at Amiens,” Gesta 22 (1983): 153; Vera K. Ostoia, “Two Riddles of the Queen of
Sheba,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 6 (1972), 78–79; and Paul F. Watson, “The Queen
of Sheba in Christian Tradition,” Solomon and Sheba, ed. James B. Pritchard (London:
Phaidon Press, 1974), 115–45.
42
Watson, “The Queen of Sheba,” 117.
43
Christine de Pizan, Cité des dames, 94.
39
Female Regency in France
135
of Evreux; Blanche of Orleans; Bonne of Luxembourg, wife of Jean le Bon;
Marie of Blois, Countess of Anjou; and Catherine, Countess of la Marche
and Vendôme.44 Women rulers of mythology and literature are next introduced, among them the widows, daughters, or sisters who took up rule
in the absence of a male leader: Semiramis, Zenobia, Artemisia, Lilia,
Berenice, Dido, and Lavinia.
As she introduces these female regents, Raison assures women that
God and Nature have been kind to them in making them physically weak,
because for this reason they have not been required to engage in the sort
of violence for which men have been responsible through the centuries.45
Droiture (rectitude), second of the allegorical figures of the Cité des dames,
reiterates the point in her description of Isabeau of Bavaria at the end of
Book 2. Isabeau, of course, does not appear along with the widows of Book
1; she is not a widow at the time that Christine writes, but she appears
with the princesses and ladies of France at present living. In an implicit
contrast with the Duke of Burgundy, Droiture explains that in Isabeau
there is no “cruelty, extortion, or any vice whatsoever, but rather great love
and kindness towards her subjects.”46 In Book 3 of the work the Virgin
Mary arrives in the Cité des dames to become its leader. It is significant that
Cité des dames finishes as it had begun, by evoking female regents, especially the Virgin Mary, she who “has dominion and administration over
all things after her son whom she carried and conceived through the Holy
Spirit, and who is the son of God the Father.”47
The female regents of the city, working to preserve their family’s
dynasties, are glorified by comparison to the Virgin, second to none except
her son, but incapable of usurping his position. The regents cannot be
seen as arguments for independent female rule. Rather, as women fit for
On this group of women as a sort of ideal Royal Council, see E. Jeffrey Richards,
“Political Thought as Improvisation: Female Regency and Mariology in Late Medieval
French Thought,” Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration: Political Ideas of European Women,
1400–1800, ed. Jacqueline Broad and Karen Green (Berlin and New York: Springer,
2007), 12–13.
45
Christine de Pizan, Cité des dames, 104.
46
Ibid., 422.
47
Ibid., 430.
44
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all tasks but limited by a divinely inspired gender hierarchy, they are arguments for female regency.
In the second of the defenses of Isabeau’s regency, the “Epistre a la
Royne de France” dated October 5, 1405, Christine draws on the examples
of the Virgin Mary and Blanche of Castile in making her case for the queen.
This work is linked yet more precisely than the Cité des dames with Jean of
Burgundy’s coup attempt, for its purpose is to enhance Isabeau’s authority
as an arbitrator between the dukes to bring an end to their standoff and
restore peace to the kingdom. Several of Charles VI’s regency ordinances
command his unruly male relatives to present themselves for arbitration
before the queen when the king is sick. The need to repeat the command
suggests that Isabeau’s authority was not readily accepted. Christine’s
epistle, preceding by one week an ordinance threatening the dukes with
bodily harm if they do not submit themselves to the queen’s arbitration,
insists upon Isabeau’s stature.48
Christine was a reader of the Grandes Chroniques de France, which
tells the story of Blanche of Castile and the child Louis IX harassed by the
barons of the realm. The chronicle recounts that the barons did not believe
that Blanche, a woman, was fit to rule a kingdom.49 Hearing that the barons were planning to seize the young king, “la royne sa mere” asked the
powerful men of Paris to come to her aid. She then sent letters throughout
the kingdom asking for further support. A great army assembled at Paris
to deliver the young king from his enemies. In the epistle, Christine draws
a parallel between Blanche and Isabeau, both harassed by unruly lords.
Christine means to rally the people of Paris behind Isabeau, just as they
once came to the defense of Blanche. In the epistle, Christine describes
how Blanche takes the child Louis in her arms. Extending him towards
the quarreling barons, she commands that they look at their king, reminding them that he will one day be old enough to do something about their
unruliness.50 The episode cannot help but recall for the reader that Isabeau
Ibid., 12: 222–23.
Les Grandes Chroniques de France, ed. Jules Viard, 10 vols. (Paris: Champion,
1920–1953), 7: 38–39.
50
Christine de Pizan, “Epistle to the Queen of France,” ed. and trans. Wisman, 76.
48
49
Female Regency in France
137
had responded to Jean’s recent entry into Paris with an army by calling the
dauphin to join her in Melun, although the boy was stopped along the road
by Jean and forced to return to Paris.
Christine returns to quarreling barons in the Livre des trois vertus.
Describing the burdens that a widowed princess must face, Christine
explains that the job of keeping the barons in line will fall to her if her son
is too young to take charge. If there is war between the barons over the
government, the princess will depend upon her wisdom to guide them to
peace.51 Foreign enemies are not nearly as dangerous as internal ones for
the minor heir, she adds.
In the Trois vertus, Christine takes for granted that the widowed
mother will act as guardian for her child. This point had broad application.
Still, the nature of her advice to the female guardian seems so pertinent
to the discord between the dukes that it must be seen as a comment on
the situation. Besides the risk that barons might go to war against each
other over government, Christine adds that even the debates surrounding
such struggles were dangerous. Thus the wise lady will maintain the peace
between the warring lords:
[T]he wise lady will be such an excellent arbitrator between
them with her prudent composure and knowledge — thinking
of the evil that could come of their disputes, given the youth of
her child — that she will be able to appease them. To do this,
she will seek the most appropriate means possible, treating them
with gentleness, and making sure that all is done according to
good and loyal advice.52
It is clear to whom and what Christine refers.
Isabeau’s regency has attracted little serious study for a number
of reasons.53 First, her regency was not successful. However, this may
Christine de Pizan, Trois Vertus, 84. See full citation in note 6.
Ibid., 85.
53
The exception is the PhD dissertation of Rachel C. Gibbons, “The Active
Queenship of Isabeau of Bavaria, 1392–1417,” University of Reading, 1997. See also
her article, “Isabeau de Bavière: reine de France ou ‘lieutenant-général’ du royaume?”
51
52
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Tracy Adams and Glenn Rechtschaffen
be attributable more to circumstance than to her lack of skill. She was
working in the middle of a deadly feud, and modern scholarship has demonstrated just how difficult cycles of violence are to halt. Her hope was
that the dauphin, Louis of Guyenne, would unite the factions, but when
he died suddenly at age eighteen, that hope was dashed. Had he lived to
force the Armagnacs and Burgundians to reconcile, Isabeau today would
be considered a model queen mother. A further reason for this neglect is
that scholars who have studied the queen are not agreed upon exactly the
extent of her political role. Straightforward readings of the documents
describing her role suggest a less active one than other evidence shows to
have been the case: Isabeau worked very much behind the scenes. Finally,
modern historical periodization may have played a role, with medievalists
and Renaissance scholars remaining on separate sides of the sixteenthcentury divide.
The Regency of Anne of France
Anne of France’s case reinforces Crawford’s point that female regency
was recreated anew each time to conform to the conditions at hand. Had
Charles VI’s ordinances abolishing regency in favor of a college headed by
the queen mother, both for guardianship of the dauphin and administration of the realm, been taken as precedent, the regent for the young King
Charles VIII after the death of King Louis XI in August 1483 would have
been the queen mother, Charlotte of Savoy.54 On his deathbed, Louis XI
stipulated that the “government and principal handling of the person and
the affairs of Charles” be awarded to his daughter Anne and her husband
Pierre of Beaujeu, later Duke of Bourbon. The king acknowledged no precedent here, passing over the two most likely candidates for regent, at least
according to tradition: the queen mother and the closest male relation to
Femmes de pouvoir, femmes politiques durant les derniers siècles du Moyen Âge et au cours de
la première Renaissance, ed. Eric Bousmar, Jonathan Dumont, Alain Marchandisse, and
Bertrand Schnerb (Bruxelles: De Boeck, 2012).
54
Jean de Saint-Gelais, Histoire de Louis XII (Paris: Abraham Pacard, 1622), 43,
and Paul Pélicier, Essai sur le gouvernement de la Dame de Beaujeu 1483–1491 (Chartres:
Imprimerie Edouard Garnier, 1882), 44–45.
Female Regency in France
139
the king, Louis of Orleans, heir presumptive to the throne (and grandson
of the Duke of Orleans assassinated by Jean of Burgundy in 1407). But
a wide historical consensus holds that the king respected his intelligent
daughter over all others and that while cultivating her to become regent he
chose a husband for her whom he and she could control. Thus, he seems
to have intended France to be ruled by this politically astute woman working through the young king rather than by an ambitious male relative.55 In
fact, the king seems to have worried that his lack of precedent in assigning regency would be contested. He is said to have ordered Pierre to go
immediately upon his death to Amboise where the new king was residing,
to take “complete charge and government of the said king” and not to let
anyone go near him.56 Also, shortly before his death he asked the thirteenyear-old Charles to obey Pierre just as if he were the king himself.
The queen mother Charlotte made a counter-claim for regency,
backed by Louis of Orleans. When she died in November, 1483, Louis of
Orleans, backed by a coalition of powerful lords, including many of the
princes of the blood, stepped in, claiming the regency for himself.
To settle the question, an assembly of the Estates General was called
in Tours in January 1484. Whose idea this was is moot. It may have been
Anne, seeing the assembly as her only possibility for legitimizing her claim;
on the other hand, some scholars argue that she was an unlikely proponent
because recent cases submitted by the royalty before such assemblies had
finished badly. Marie of Burgundy, submitting to the Estates of Flanders,
had been forced to cede Burgundy to Louis XI in 1477, and in England
the parliament had excluded the children of Edward IV and Elizabeth
Woodville from succession. But whatever her role in the process, on
October 24, Anne accepted the convocation of the Estates General, despite
her precarious position. She was under attack by Louis of Orleans and his
followers over the regency issue. Further, they and others were still angry
about the royal policies to consolidate power carried out by the recently
55
56
See Pélicier, Essai, 44–45.
Claude de Seyssel, cited Ibid., 44–45.
140 EMWJ 2013, vol. 8
Tracy Adams and Glenn Rechtschaffen
departed Louis XI.57 She thus needed to win over the delegates by demonstrating that she would rectify some of what many of the great lords felt to
be her father’s brutal transgressions. Moreover, she had to persuade them
that she was better suited than the rash Louis to safeguard the realm while
molding the young Charles into a worthy king. Requesting three months
to prepare for the Estates General, she put the time to good use, touring
the territories of Louis of Orleans with the young king by her side to convince the people of her good will and lack of menace. 58 As she accompanied
her brother during his entries at Blois, Beaugency, Cléry, Mehun-sur Yèvre,
and Amboise, she discerned the attitudes of the people.59 In her careful
acts of reconciliation, she seems to have followed the advice of Christine
de Pizan: she listened to good counsel, “guarding and defending boldly her
right by reason, without condescending to anyone, and thus she will give
her reason or have it given courteously to all, but she will hold on to her
right.”60
On January 7, 1484, the delegates to the Estates General began to
descend on the castle in Tours. Anne kept herself discreetly out of view,
observing the activity in the cour d’honneur from a hiding spot.61 On January
14, Charles made his entry into the town. The next day he mounted the
estrade to greet the crowd, led by Pierre, then seated himself on his throne
“fleurdelisé.” To his right sat the Duke of Bourbon, elder brother of Pierre
of Beaujeu but a strong ally of and second in command behind Louis of
Orleans; to the left sat the family in order of rank: his cousin Louis, the
See Jean-François Lassalmonie, “Discours à trois voix sur le pouvoir: le roi et les
états généraux 1484,” Penser le pouvoir au Moyen Âge (VIIIe–XVe siècle), ed. Dominique
Boutet and Jacques Verger (Paris: Éditions Rue d’Ulm, 2000), 128. More generally on
Anne, see Lassalmonie’s “Anne de France, dame de Beaujeu: Un modèle féminin d’exercice
du pouvoir dans la France de la fin du Moyen Âge,” Femmes de pouvoir, ed. Bousmar, et
al., 129–46.
58
Marc Chombart de Lauwe, Anne de Beaujeu ou la passion du pouvoir (Paris:
Tallandier, 1980), 88.
59
Pélicier, Essai, 63–64.
60
Christine de Pizan, Trois vertus, 84.
61
Chombart de Lauwe, Anne de Beaujeu, 92.
57
Female Regency in France
141
Duke of Alençon and Angoulême, and finally his brother-in-law Pierre.
There was no sign of Anne.62
The tone of the actors and the reactions they solicited are not always
easy to discern, which has resulted in varied interpretations of the proceedings. However, it seems clear that Louis of Orleans, by intimidating
the delegates with a veiled menace, which contrasted unfavorably with the
Beaujeus’ strategy of appeasement, stumbled early in the bid for guardianship. At the end of January, Pierre de Luxembourg, bishop of Mans, in the
name of Louis and his allies warned the assembly to choose the members
of the Royal Council carefully, because those who had been chosen most
recently — that is, those selected by Anne — were maliciously oppressing
the people. The princes, he added, were powerful enough to back up the
delegates’ choices.63 This has been seen by some historians as an attempt on
Louis’s part to threaten the assembly by intimating that he and the princes
would not hesitate to resort to violence if Louis’s will was thwarted, something the delegates hoped to avoid. But the plan backfired: the assembly
preferred Anne’s apparent gentleness.64 For his part, the young Charles
VIII aided his sister’s cause by reinforcing the royal family’s commitment
to leaving the delegates alone to deliberate. He repeated several times that
they should do their work in peace — he did not want to bother them.
The Beaujeus and the king were on their way to reassuring the assembly
of their good will.
The discourse by Philip Pot on behalf of Anne and Pierre is especially illuminating for the study of female regency.65 Seigneur of La Roche
and Thorey-sur-Ouche and formerly the Grand Seneschal of Burgundy,
Pot had been solicited by Louis XI, who made him his first counselor
after the demise of Charles the Bold in 1477. Anne, recognizing in him
an important ally, had cultivated him in the months leading up to the
meeting of the Estates General.66 Pot’s harangue, mirroring the Beaujeu
62
63
64
65
66
Masselin, Journal, 5–8.
Ibid., 80–83.
See Chombart de Lauwe, Anne de Beaujeu, 96.
Masselin, Journal, 140–157.
See Pélicier, Essai, 73–74, n. 3.
142 EMWJ 2013, vol. 8
Tracy Adams and Glenn Rechtschaffen
position, represented one strain of contemporary thought about who by
right should hold guardianship. Some believed that assigning rule of the
realm to the minor king’s closest relatives and guardianship to the heir
presumptive was normal practice. Pot, however, claimed that this would be
dangerous, saying, in effect, this is not how you keep the young king safe
from conspiracies and great dangers (“Ast ne sic quidem pupillum a machinationibus, et maximis periculis liberas. . .”).67 Moreover, he demanded,
where was it written that the closest relatives should occupy these posts?
Nowhere. Indeed, the fact that the Duke of Orleans did not at the moment
enjoy sovereignty over the government was enough to prove that no such
laws existed. For if they had existed, the Duke of Orleans would hardly
have stood by while his rights were denied!68
No such laws existed, then. This curious insistence upon the rights of
the closest male relative in the absence of any such law suggests that female
regency, emerging from the abolition of regency in the ordinance of 1403,
was facilitated by its unofficial status: it was proclaimed to be an “anomaly”
even though it was not. The notion that female regency was somehow
exceptional or marginal would work to Anne’s advantage.
“Who should decide the crucial question of guardianship?” Pot asked.
His answer was that the authority lay with the Estates General. Although
he did not dare articulate this, Pot must have hoped that the delegates
would remember the chaotic reign of Charles VI and opt against putting
the young Charles VIII in the hands of a male relative. The delegates may
also have remembered the contemporary English case of Edward IV’s son,
declared illegitimate in June 1483 just before mysteriously vanishing, a grim
reminder that male relatives were sometimes ill-willed. Still, the assembly
received Pot’s claim nervously, hesitant to accept responsibility for deciding
a matter of such importance: this would have brought the wrath of Louis
and the princes upon them. Instead, the delegates cautiously announced
that they saw no reason to change the status quo, i.e., that Charles should
remain where he was, in the care of Anne and Pierre. Thus they avoided
Masselin, Journal, 142.
Although the claim was rhetorical, this was precisely Louis’s belief. See SaintGelais, Histoire de Louis XII, 44–45.
67
68
Female Regency in France
143
making a radical decision, choosing instead to demur. This was what Anne
and Pierre wanted. The conclusion seemed all the more reasonable given
that Jean de Reli, a notary, explained that the king was mature enough to
compose all letters patents, rules and ordinances.69 There was no compelling reason for change. To insist, as Louis did, on his right to guardianship,
made him appear self-interested.
In a slightly different interpretation Cosandey notes that the Estates
General’s decision resolved the issue so as to exclude neither the Beaujeus
nor the party of the Duke of Orleans.70 She then explains that Anne in
reality was able to monopolize power, despite the apparent division of
power between her as guardian and Louis as head of the Royal Council.
We would like to emphasize that in Louis’s eyes the solution of the Estates
General was already unacceptable from the very beginning; although the
assembly pretended to be deciding two weighty issues, regency at that
point meant guardianship, which, in turn, meant rule of the realm. The
Duke of Orleans understood exactly what it meant to possess the physical
person of the king. Furious, he finally tried at least to save face, demanding
that the articles explaining the situation be amended such that the terms
(“termini”) used to describe the dauphin’s guardianship not damage his,
Louis’s, dignity.71 By this he meant removing any words related to guardianship. But manipulating the language of regency did not alter the reality. The victorious Beaujeus, only too happy to acquiesce, had the article
amended to read that “Dominus et domina de Beaujeu sint circa regis
personam sicut hactenus fuerunt, et quemadmodum per regem et reginam
defunctos ordinatum fuit” (the Lord and Lady of Beaujeu would be beside
the person of the king as they had been thus far, and in the way that had
been decreed by the late king and queen).72
The Estates General’s demurral of 1484 conformed to the general
principle submitted by Charles VI, supported by Christine de Pizan, and
Masselin, Journal, 146.
Fanny Cosandey, “De Lance en quenouille: la reine dans l’état modernel,”
Annales: Histoire, Sciences sociales 52 (1997): 799–820, 817.
71
Masselin, Journal, 226.
72
Ibid., 230.
69
70
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eventually put into practice by the great female regents: the queen mother,
or, in the case of Anne, the female relative closest to the king, should
occupy the position of regent by virtue of her familial relationship to the
king. The position was at once innocuous, in perfect conformity with gender expectations, and powerful. Rather than awarding guardianship to the
nearest male relative, the Estates General concluded that simply allowing
Anne and her husband to remain with the king better served the kingdom
and its conception of monarchy. The late king had believed this because he
was concerned to preserve the primacy of his lineage. The Estates General’s
resolution evinces a general acceptance of the principles on which the later
female regents based their claims, although the controversy leading up to
the resolution demonstrates that the institution was by no means fixed.
Much of Anne’s effectiveness can be attributed to her self-representation as non-threatening.73 It has been posited that Anne studied the works
of Christine de Pizan, where she would have found ample instruction on
how to wield power discreetly. She had access to several of Christine’s manuscripts, including at least two copies each of the Cité des dames and the
Trois vertus that she inherited through her bibliophile mother and her husband.74 Additionally, tapestries illustrating the Cité des dames were owned
A number of biographies recount Anne’s accession to power and unofficial
regency. See Jean Cluzel, Anne de France: fille de Louis XI, duchesse de Bourbon (Paris:
Fayard, 2002); Pierre Pradel, Anne de France 1461–1522 (Paris: Editions Publisud,
1986); Chombart de Lauwe, Anne de Beaujeu ou la passion du pouvoir; Jean-Charles
Varennes, Anne de Bourbon, roi de France (Paris: Librairie académique Perrin, 1978). But
the most significant history of her regency remains that of Pélicier, Essai sur le gouvernement de la Dame de Beaujeu.
74
See Charity Cannon Willard, “Anne de France, Reader of Christine de Pizan,”
The Reception of Christine de Pizan from the Fifteenth through the Nineteenth Centuries:
Visitors to the City (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1991), 59–70 and, also by
the same author, “The Manuscript Tradition of the Livre des trois vertus and Christine
de Pisan’s Literary Audience,” Journal of the History of Ideas 27 (1966): 433–44.
The inventory of Anne’s library at Moulins is printed in Chazaud’s edition of the
Enseignements, Les Enseignements d’Anne de France, duchesse de Bourbonnais et d’Auvergne,
à sa fille Susanne de Bourbon, ed. A-M Chazaud (Moulins: Desroziers, 1878). Not only
does the Enseignements bear striking similarities to Christine’s Trois vertus, but several
copies of the latter figure in the inventory of Anne’s library at Moulins.
73
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145
by a series of powerful women including Queen Elizabeth of England,
Margaret of Austria, and Anne of Brittany, suggesting that the writer’s
works remained well-known and meaningful for several generations after
her death; her ideas circulated widely.75 What Anne offers in her conduct
book for her daughter Suzanne, written around the time of the girl’s marriage at the age of fourteen in 1504, is strikingly similar in substance to the
lessons of the Trois vertus, showing how a woman might exercise power
without drawing attention to what she was doing.76 Like Christine, Anne
promotes piety and docility as primary virtues, and, like Christine, she promotes these not as ends in themselves but rather as part of the psychology
of wielding influence from a position of disadvantage. Anne mastered the
art of ruling from such a position, incorporating her disadvantage into her
self-representation. As she herself proclaimed, a princess without children
or right to the throne cannot have any serious reason to lay hold of the
government.77
Charters from the years of her reign prove that she, not Pierre, was in
charge. Modern historians have demonstrated that by masking her operations behind other figures of authority, like Pierre, she was able to govern
while conforming to norms of feminine comportment.78 The description
of Anne as “virago” by Benedictine monk Nicolas Barthélemy of Loches
(b. 1478) reveals the impression that she created as a persona that possessed the qualities of a man and yet aroused only admiration: “‘Virago
sane supra muliebrem sexum et consulta et animosa, quae nec viris consilio
nec audacia cederet” (“A women truly surpassing the female sex and skilled
See Susan Groag Bell, The Lost Tapestries of the City of Ladies: Christine de
Pizan’s Renaissance Legacy (Berkeley; University of California Press, 2004) for all that is
known about the no longer extant tapestries.
76
On the circulation of the Trois vertus see Willard, “The Manuscript Tradition.”
77
Pradel, Anne de France, 73.
78
Pélicier, Essai, writes that while her contemporaries perceived Anne to exercise
genuine regency power during her brother’s adolescence, overt signs of her work were few
(198). See also vol. 1, “Reign of Charles VIII, Regency of Anne of Beaujeu” of John S. C.
Bridge’s A History of France from the Death of Louis XI, 5 vols. (Oxford: The Clarendon
Press, 1921–36).
75
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and brave, who did not cede to the resolution or daring of a man”).79 In
her conduct she was also compared to Semiramis, queen of the Assyrians,
whose praises Christine de Pizan sang in the Cité des dames.80 Anne’s very
marginality to power, the advantage that she used to rule, was the means
by which she gained regency in the first place.
The confirmation by the Estates General of the guardianship already
being exercised by Anne did not please Louis of Orleans, who subsequently led a coalition against the Beaujeus in what became known as the
Folle Guerre or the War of Public Weal, lasting from 1485 until 1488. The
duke’s outraged reaction draws attention to the importance of guardianship; by exercising it, Anne effectively, although not officially, ruled the
kingdom until the king assumed power for himself.
Conclusion
With Charles VI and Isabeau of Bavaria the history of female regency in
France takes a turn of the greatest importance, moving towards a conception of regency as a proxy reign for the king exercised ideally by the queen
mother. This conception of regency is furthered by Anne of France, who
was never even officially named as guardian, let alone granted administration of the realm. Rather, her authority was confirmed quietly by the
Estates General, who simply agreed that she should continue to occupy
the position that she already held. Although Louise of Savoy, Catherine
de Médicis, Marie de Médicis, and Anne of Austria were queen mothers
who supported their child’s dynastic claim by drawing upon their maternity and, implicitly or explicitly, female exclusion and who can reasonably
be regarded as a unit, Isabeau and Anne stand at the head of their line.
Isabeau and Anne, even though the latter could not claim maternal ties,
also turned their incapacity for the throne into a regency claim that encompassed both guardianship and governance of the realm. Female regency
Cited in Pélicier, Essai, 54, n. 1.
Octavien de Saint-Gelais describes Anne’s subduing the French kingdom,
“comme autre Semyramis ou comme nouvelle royne des amazones. . .” (like another
Semiramis or a new queen of the Amazons). Cited in Jehanne d’Orliac, Anne de Beaujeu,
Roi de France (Paris: Plon, 1926), 105.
79
80
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147
was not formally theorized until the late sixteenth century when factional
fighting instigated by religious division and a succession of minor kings
incited the proliferation of legal writings on the powers of the French
monarch and the mode of succession. Still, in the regencies of these two
women, unofficial though they were, we see the characteristics of their later
counterparts.