In the Battle of Agincourt, 1415, the English, by
means of their superior longbows that effectively
defeated the enemy knights on horseback, won a
major victory over the French, butchering masses
of their opponents and taking many peers as prisoners. One of the prisoners was Charles d’ Orléans. Charles’s mother was Valentina, daughter
of the duke of Milan (house of the Visconti), and
his father was Louis, duke of Orléans and the
brother of King Charles VI. He spent his childhood in Chateaudun, 20 miles south of Orléans,
where he acquired a solid education in the liberal
arts under his tutor, Nicholas Garbet. His father
was assassinated in 1407 by a band of men hired
by his political enemy, Jean-sans-Peur, duke of
Burgundy, and his mother died the following
year. Already in 1406, as a 12-year-old, Charles
had married Isabelle, widow of King RICHARD II
of England. After her death in 1409, Charles married Bonne d’Armagnac. However, since Charles
was not released from his imprisonment for 25
years, after 1415 he never again saw his wife, who
died before his return in 1440. In 1428 English
troops invaded and largely destroyed his estates.
Only Orléans held out and was relieved on May 8,
1429, with the help of JOAN OF ARC. This, however, reconfirmed the English decision to keep
Charles as long as possible, irrespective of the
payment of the ransom, which had become more
difficult to put together than ever before, although ironically Joan’s military achievements
eventually led to the liberation of France from
English occupation.
After Charles’s ransom had finally been paid in
1440, he returned to France and married Marie de
Clèves, niece of Philip of Burgundy, who had contributed to the ransom. Charles made major efforts to bring about peace negotiations to end the
Hundred Years’ War between England and France,
and a peace settlement was finally signed on May
28, 1444, in Tours. In 1447 Charles tried in vain
with some military troops to recapture the Duchy
of Asti, an Italian property he had inherited from
his mother. But he had too few resources to hold
on to Asti and left again in 1448, only to renounce
his claim on Asti entirely in 1450, allowing the new
duke of Milan, Francesco Sforza, to take control of
the duchy. Thereafter, despite some expectations
that Charles would be a political leader, he basically retired to Blois for the rest of his life and refrained from getting involved in political conflicts
with the French royalty despite his close family relations. His wife bore him two daughters and one
son who later rose to the French throne as King
Louis XII. Charles died on January 4, 1465.
During his 25 years in England Charles was
highly active in writing meditative and allegorical
poems in English, 141 of which are found in
British Library MS Harley 682. Recent scholarship
has even identified him as one of the leading 15thcentury English poets. Back in France, Charles
continued composing poetry and quickly gained a
great reputation among his contemporaries. In
Blois he created a kind of literary court with poetry contests. One of his many visitors was the
rather notorious François VILLON who wrote three
poems, most famously his “Je meurs de suif auprés
de la fontaine” (“I die of thirst beside the fountain”), during his stay there. Other well-known
poets also joined Charles, such as Jean Meschinot,
René d’Anjou, Olivier de la Marche, and Georges
Chastelain. Charles set up the practice of giving
his guests the first line for a ballad and asking
them to write the rest. Many of these poems have
been preserved in a manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fr. 25458) that served Charles as
a poetry album for his own poems and those of
his visitors.
Composing verse was a common element in the
education of medieval nobles, but Charles demonstrated a powerful poetic gift from early on.
Throughout his life he published volumes with his
poetry, beginning with Retenue d’amours, composed prior to his capture at Agincourt, followed
by the Complainte de France (1433), then a 550-
line sequel to Retenue, then Songe en complainte
(1437); in total he composed 89 chansons, five
COMPLAINTS, 123 BALLADES, four carols, and 435
RONDEAUX. He wrote 125 poems in English, many
of which have French counterparts. His entire
œuvre includes more than 13,000 verses and sheds
significant light on the poet’s concept of self, his
melancholic perception of life, and his contempt
for man’s hypocritical nature.
Charles’s major themes were of a melancholy
and introspective character, focusing on his destiny
in exile, solitude, the idle passage of time, the various experiences of love, life as a prison, old age,
religious experiences, and death. But he also reflects a certain degree of humor, especially in his
many love poems offering advise to unhappy
lovers.
Bibliography
Arn, Mary-Jo, ed. Charles d’Orléans in England
(1415–1440). Cambridge, U.K.: Brewer, 2000.
———. Fortunes Stabilnes. Charles of Orleans’s English Book of Love. A Critical Edition. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and
Studies, 1994.
Charles d’Orléans. Poésies. Edited by Pierre Champion. 2 vols. Paris: Champion, 1923–1927.
Classen, Albrecht. Die autobiographische Lyrik des europäischen Spätmittelalters. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1991, 269–345.
Coldiron, A. E. B. Canon, Period, and the Poetry of
Charles of Orleans. Found in Translation. Ann
Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2000.
Fein, David. Charles d’Orléans. Boston: Twayne,
1983.
Spence, Sarah, ed. and trans. The French Chansons of
Charles d’Orléans with the Corresponding Middle
English Chansons. New York: Garland, 1986.
Albrecht Classen