Костырев В. Г. Особенности восприятия современниками французского короля Карла V как невоюющего монарха [Электронный ресурс] // Vox medii aevi. 2024. Vol. 2 (11). С. 14–35. URL: https://voxmediiaevi.com/2024-2-kostyrev/
DOI: 10.24412/2587-6619-2024-11-14-35
VLADIMIR KOSTYREV
Candidate of Sciences (History), independent researcher
jaime@yandex.ru
The French King Charles V as a non-belligerent monarch in the views of his contemporaries.
King of France Charles V (1364–1380) was a very unwarlike monarch. Although as dauphin and regent he took part in some military campaigns, including the famous battle of Poitiers in 1356, after ascending to the throne he completely ceased to do so. This attitude was very unusual for a French king. The monarch could stay away from battle and personal fighting but often he personally commanded armies and was present at the sieges — that is how Charles’grandfather Philipp VI, his father John II and his son Charles VI behaved.One can read along the lines of Charles V’s behavior the changes in the mode of governance and organization of war. There is a monarch who doesn’t lead warriors from the front, committing chivalric feats and recklessly risking his life and the fate of the kingdom, but wisely conducts campaigns from afar.Some 20 years after the dead of the king,Christine de Pizan praised him for precisely that — winning the war against the English without leaving his palace. She also stipulated that the monarch shouldn’t fight personally without necessity. But further analysis adds some details to this picture. Christine de Pisan herself paid much attention to the chivalric deeds and the personal participation indifferent wars of the relatives of Charles and members of the royal court and strove to prove that he was perfect knight himself. Court clerics created the image of Charles V as military leader and knight who could rival Arthur or Roland. Eustache Deschamps, who was working at the king’s court and later at that of his son, exalted chivalric virtues of his contemporaries. In the official Grandes chroniques de France, composed at court under the supervision of Charles V himself, there are no signs of this alleged new model of wise prince commanding from afar — meaning that the king did not see himself in that way. At the same time, some sources provide evidence that contemporaries saw Charles V behavior as cowardness and indecisiveness. Christine de Pizan even tries to explain his actions — or rather inactions — by his illness and recalls that he fought in wars of his father in his youth. At last, it is important to underline that such a model of behavior did not survive in France. Charles V went to war when he was 14 years old. His successors further down the line — both his grandson Charles VII and great-grandson Louis XI — went to war and commanded armies despite having unwarlike reputation. Charles’ contemporaries and he himself wanted to see in him military leader and chivalric knight. One cannot deny changes in the organization of war and functions of princes in the Late Middle Ages, but, as in this case, they often were not as consequential as one could think at the first sight.
Keywords: Charles V; chivalry; Christine de Pisan; France; Hundred Years War; organization of war.