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‘Bons Bretons et Bons Francoys’: The Language and Meaning of Treason in Later Medieval France

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Michael Jones
Michael Jones
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The Society's Conference
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Extract

‘Men dred tresson wher they it finden’ wrote an anonymous fifteenth-century translator of the Song of Roland, the earliest and greatest of all chansons de geste which take treason as their major theme. In later medieval France men did not have far to search before they found evidence justifying concern with that particular topos. Treason was often associated with its sister sedition in contemporary chronicles, memoirs, pamphlets, sermons and political allegories, even in figurative representations of that betrayal, most notorious to medieval men, by Judas of his Lord. The long war with England naturally posed delicate problems over the loyalty and allegiance of many involved in conflict through no choice of their own. Aspects of what happened when individuals changed sides and whole provinces bent before force majeure in recognizing a new sovereign, thereby incurring the stigma of rebellion against a former lord, have recently been much discussed. Plots to deliver castles and towns are without number. Siege warfare, so characteristic of the period, encouraged such behaviour. Surviving interrogations reveal both serious and improbable schemes to over-throw royal authority, in which great provincial princes were often implicated. Thousands of letters of pardon recite, frequently in the graphic words of the guilty, the extent of innumerable individual acts of treachery towards the French crown. The use of spies and informers, coded and cryptic messages, poisoning, assassination, torture, bribery and blackmail, pre-arranged meetings with mysterious figures and also the invocation of intangible occult forces, sorcery, divination and black magic, to attain political ends, all these are integral to the most notorious cases of treachery.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 32 , December 1982 , pp. 91 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1982

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79 Lettres de Jean V, no. 2012 ( a case of execution by drowning).

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83 Cuttler, , Law of Treason, pp. 213–33Google Scholar.

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85 A.L.A., E 190, nos. 1–15, partially summarised in Morice, Preuves, III, 207–9.

86 A.L.A., E 190, no. 3, fos. 1–17V. His terms of service as master of the artillery were fully set out in a commission of 17 Jan. 1467 (B 5, fos. 9r–11r); see La Borderie, , Histoire de Bretagne, IV, 471–2, 500–2Google Scholar, and Haut–Jussé, B. A. Pocquet du, François II, due de Bretagne et l'Angleterre (Paris, 1929) for ChauvinGoogle Scholar.

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89 Lettres de Louis XI, roi de France, ed. Vaesen, J. and Charavay, E. (11 vols., Paris, 1883–1909), VI, no. MVIIIGoogle Scholar; cf. Ill, no. CCCXXV.

90 A.L.A., E 190, no. 2, fo. 86. Rouville had been prominent in the ducal council since 1459 at least (E 131 passim). Commynes thought him a very clever man who needed to keep his wits about him (Mémoires, ed. Calmette, J. and Durville, G., 3 vols., Paris, 1924–1925, I, 15)Google Scholar.

91 A.L.A., E 190, no. 2, fo. 86v; cf. no. i, fos. 9r–11r, 43, 66 8. Succeeding his famous uncle, a faithful servant of Charles VII, Tanguy had been dismissed in 1461, fought against Louis in 1465, but rejoined him in May 1468 when Francis II referred to his ‘desertion’ and dismissed him from the captaincy of Nantes (B 6, fo. 97V). Although there were occasional rumours of a reconciliation with the duke (Morice, , Preuves, III, 207Google Scholar) and Louis feared ‘que vous aiez joue ce tour et fait de la teste de Breton’ (Lettres, V, no. DCXCII), he kept spies in Brittany and remained loyal until his death at the siege of Bouchain in May 1477, his Breton lands having been seized (Morice, , Preuves, III, 240, 281Google Scholar; LaBorderie, , Histoire de Bretagne, IV, 465–7)Google Scholar.

92 A.L.A., E 190, no. 3, fo. 5r; Contamine, , Guerre, état et société, pp. 238–9, 496–8, 412 etcGoogle Scholar. Dismissed in 1461, Lohéac began to receive a pension again from Louis XI in 1466. He was one of the first knights of the Order of St. Michel but continued to manage his Breton estates, including the ancient barony of Lanvaux revived for him in 1464, until his death in i486 (B.N., MS. Nouv. acq. fr. 24169, nos. 34–41; A.L.A., B 3, fos. 152v–155r; Morice, , Preuves, III, 480–2)Google Scholar.

93 A.L.A., E 190, no. 2, fo. 71V (testimony of Mons. Noel d e Tissue).

94 Morice, , Preuves, II, 1404–6Google Scholar.

95 A.L.A., E 198.no. 17 (Jan. 1480: inquiry into relations of Oliver du Tertre, porter of St-Malo, with the admiral of France, Louis Malet de Graville).

96 A.L.A., E 4, no. 5 (1 Oct. 1484: grant to Francis of Avaugour of lands seized because ‘paravant ces heures feu Guillaume Chauvin, nostre chancelier et chief de nostre conseil, eust secretement et a nostre desceu prins intelligence et entendement a aucuns quels il savoit et congnoissoit estre noz adversaires et annemys mortelz et avecques eulx fait plusieurs factions et conspiracions par messagiers et… personnes quil y avoit diverses foiz envoye se delibere et conclut daller de sa personne servir led. party a nous contraire de laisser et abandoner nostre service, il qui estoit subgect et originaire de nostre pays, en comectant parce moyen a lencontre de nous et le bien publicque de nostre pays crime de lese majeste.’) Louis XI had unsuccessfully evoked the case of Guillaume Chauvin and his son Jean to the parlement of Paris for deniel of justice by duke Francis II on 27 August 1482 (A.L.A., E 198, no. 411).

97 La Borderie, , Histoire de Bretagne, IV, 504–20Google Scholar. A petition to Chauvin from someone terrified by Landois, who suspected him of revealing to Francis 11 that the treasurer was using necromancy to maintain his dominance over the duke, may be found in Morice, , Preuves, III, 399–400Google Scholar; see also ibid., 433–7 and 548 for further cases of lese-majesty.

98 A.L.A., B 11, fos. 13V, 82, 135V, 152; B 12, fos. 86, 138, 140 etc.; B 13, fos. 34V, 64V, 66, 99V, 110, 1 18v–20r, 127–8 etc.

99 Labande-Mailfert, , Charles VIII, pp. 55 ff.Google Scholar; B.N., MS. Nouv. acq. fr. 1232 contains copies of letters from Francis of Avaugour, Francis of Laval, lord of Gavre, Guy XV of Laval, John II of Rohan, John IV of Rieux, Peter of Rohan, lord of Quintin and others to Charles VIII soliciting offices and other favours and reporting news from Brittany from 1484. Duke Francis II sought to strengthen the loyalty of his son, which was already wavering in 1485–6, by augmenting his apanage in January 1487 (A.L.A., B 10, fo. 108r), but by March he was stated to be in rebellion (fo. 155V). On 7 August 1487 he had a safe conduct to come to the duke (fo. 201 v), his supporters already having received a pardon (E 200, no 15). But now in receipt of a royal pension of 6000 livres tournois (A.N., KK 79, fo. 66r), he was collaborating closely with royal forces (B.N., MS. Nouv. acq. fr. 1232, fo. 176; cf. fo. 52. See also Lettres de Charles VIII, ed. Pelicier, P. and Mandrot, B. de (5 vols., Paris, 1898–1905)Google Scholar, ii, nos. CCCLXXXIII, CCCCXXIII, CCCCXLVIII).

100 A.L.A. B 12, fo. 56V (4 Jan. 1490: declaration by Duchess Anne that all those obeying the king would be treated as guilty of lese-majesty); for the later enquiries see ‘Enquête relative à la prise d'un seigneur breton qui tenait le parti des franc.ais contre la duchesse Anne de Bretagne pendant la guerre de 1488–89’, Bulletin de la société archéologique du Finistère, iii (1875–1876), 14–30Google Scholar (now Arch. dep. du Finistere, 1 E504); Arch, municipales, Guingamp. AA 7, no. 22 (‘Enqueste de la chancellerie et conseill du roy nostre sire en Bretagne’, Sept. 1492, concerning the delivery of Guingamp to the French on 21 January 1489). For accusations of treachery against Guillaume de Rosnyvinen for delivering St-Aubin du Cormier in October 1487, see A.L.A., B n, fos. 8 and 30; Morice, , Preuves, III, 558–63Google Scholar; Jones, , ‘The Breton Nobility and their Masters’, 51–2Google Scholar.

101 Archiv des Ordens vom Goldenen Vliesse, Vienna, Reg. 2, fos. 6 ff. (proceedings against the Croy family, summarised in de Reiffenberg, Baron, Histoire de I'ordre de la Toison d'Or (Bruxelles, 1830), pp. 45 ff.Google Scholar). I am grateful to the Librarian, History Faculty Library, Oxford, for permission to consult a microfilm of this register. Armstrong, C.A.J. (‘Had the Burgundian Government a policy for the Nobility?’, England and the Netherlands, II, ed. Bromley, J. S. and Kossman, E. H. (Groningen, 1964), pp. 9–32Google Scholar) has argued that the Valois dukes early adopted the use of proceedings for lese-majesty, but this specific form of words is not included in any of the cases he cites for the action of the duke in his lands within the boundaries of the kingdom of France, though he appears to have executed traitors in his Imperial lands in accordance with the lex Julia maiestatis (Monstrelet, , Chronique, v. 67Google Scholar). In 1452 Philip the Good accused the men of Ghent of ‘conspiracion tres detestable’; and 7tyrannie evidente' but not treason (La Chronique de Mathieu d'Escouchy, ed. Beaucourt, G. du Fresne de, 3 vols., Paris, 1863–1964, III; 413–14)Google Scholar. In the 1478 and 1481 chapters of the Golden Fleece the cases of six knights who had joined Louis XI since 1477 were discussed. Only in that of Philippe de Crevecoeur was the charge specifically ‘faulsete, trahison et desloyaute envers mondict seigneur et dame’ ( de Reiffenberg, , Histoire, pp. 91–124Google Scholar). Commynes was less reticent with the charge of treason(cf. Dufournet, J., La destruction des mythes dans Us Memoires de Ph. de Commynes, Geneva, 1966, pp. 35–42Google Scholar). The duke of Burgundy was several times reminded by the parlement of Paris that he could not exercise rights of lese-majesty as were other lay magnates (Cuttler, , Law of Treason, pp. 67–8Google Scholar). There was a tentative attempt to claim that crimes of lese-majesty could be committed against the Dauphin in the Dauphine (ibid., pp. 25–6).

102 Huizinga, J., ‘L'Etat bourguignon, ses rapports avec la France et les origines d'une nationality neerlandaise’, Le Moyen Age, xl (1930), 180–4Google Scholar, citing Chastellain and Olivier de la Marche. See also Leguai, A., ‘The Relations between the Towns of Burgundy and the French Crown in the Fifteenth Century’, The Crown and Local Communities in England and France in the Fifteenth Century, ed. Highfield, and Jeffs, , pp. 129–45Google Scholar.

103 In preparing this paper I have incurred particular debts to Christopher Allmand, Simon Cuttler, Wolfgang van Emden, André Leguai, Robin Storey and Malcolm Vale. I am grateful to the British Academy for financing a visit to Paris from the Small Research Grants in the Humanities Fund.