Gift-giving and the exercise of power
Charles V (1338—1380) was the first Valois king explicitly renowned for his interest in jewels.[254] [255] Christine de Pizan notes the king’s enthusiasm for inspecting his small treasures in her biography of the king: After sleep he had time with his intimates for enjoying pleasant things, visiting jewels or other riches; and he took this recreation so that his great duties did not affect his health, in the way of those who spend most of their time occupied with laborious business....6 Charles V’s rich and powerful brothers, Dukes Louis of Anjou, Jean of Berry, and Philip of Burgundy, also collected such riches, forming a first generation of lovers of beautiful objects. Even during the worst crises of the reign, the princes of the blood and their clienteles continued to purchase gems and objects of precious metals. Although the rivalry among the princes of the blood was damaging to the kingdom, “the brilliance of the arts in France had never been so great,” the princes commissioning “for themselves or to offer as gifts all sorts of jewels, embroideries, and gems, mentioned in their inventories.”[257] Figures of encrusted enamel were especially prized, heralding the arts of courtly societies of the Renaissance. These objects served multiple purposes. For one, they were easily converted into money. Although the scholarship related to medieval art has long tended to emphasize the esthetic value produced by objects and princely competition as patrons of such art, it is important to note that the objects were viewed as dispensable, or, at least, renewable, frequently recycled into coin. Richard Vaughan observes that a “large proportion of a ruler’s liquid assets took the form of plate and jewellery, so that much of what is listed in the inventories was destined neither for the table nor for personal adornment, but for melting down and sale whenever ready cash was required....”[258] For another, as Daniel Russo writes, to the princes, a stash of precious objects “was an integral part of their conception of power and the quality with which they wished to imbue their lives.” Referring to Charles V’s treasure trove, Ingrid Ciulisova enumerates still other purposes for beautiful objects: they functioned as “seals, amulets and ornamental as means of drawing “flattering comparisons between the kings of France and the emperors of ancient Rome;” as health aids; as votives.”[259] [260] But, most significant, such objects could serve as gifts, that is, as means of creating dependencies and alliances. The anonymous 1378 treatise on kingship, Le Songe du vergier, which Charles V had translated as part of what Deborah McGrady has called that king’s “sapientia project,” proclaims that kings and emperors are powerful “because they give gifts.”11 The gift and the counter-gift created and represented mutual affective commitments. Brigitte Buettner emphasizes that “gift exchanges—of material goods, services, or people—lay at the core of the social contract; without reciprocity there would be no community.” From a political perspective, she continues, gifts were essential to commanding obedience and forming alliances: they “were used as political weapons to make and unmake alliances, to forge diplomatic ties, to signal dominance.”12 Constrained to solicit the services of the nobility to insure administration and protection of the kingdom, the king gave gifts to those whose support or services he required, even as market economies began to take hold. Walter Paravicini observes that the monarch, the chief gift-giver, was “in a practical sense helpless in the face of the pressure that he received from inside.”13 The great lords represented a “clientele which it was necessary to cultivate and compensate,” which meant that the king was required to “attach them to himself through largesse and concessions of all sorts....”14 Exchange between the princes of the blood and the nobility worked in the same way. Alain Guery explains that the transfers of goods and services, even those involving money, were signs of the tacit contracts that existed between participants. Such contracts bound them together emotionally within network of reciprocal obligations: “To give one’s assets over to another is give over a part of oneself; to receive from another is to accept a part of another. Exchange and power are linked in an existential principle where personhood and belonging are the same.”15 Returning to precious objects in particular, in the late fourteenth century we notice an increased emphasis on a special type of gift-giving at the Valois courts, the exchange of etrennes, New Year’s gifts. “Sporadic early in the century,” writes Buettner, “the evidence becomes more consistent from the 1380s onward, and by the reign of Charles VI it was a well-established and major court ceremony despite the fact that January 1 was still not the official beginning of the year in France.”16 At the same time, the etrennes assumed a typical form, that of a beautiful object, often composed of gold or silverwork and jewels. The preference for exchanging sumptuous objects was undoubtedly linked to the rise of Paris as an artistic center in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century. Russo details the many factors the scholarship on practices of gift-giving in the Middle Ages see Kjaer, introduction, 1—13, to The Medieval Gift and the Classical Tradition. 12 Buettner, “Past Presents,” 598. 13 Paravicini, “Administrateurs professionnels,” 174. 14 Paravicini, “Administrateurs professionnels,” 176. 15 Guery, “Le roi depensier,” 1241. 16 Buettner, “Past Presents,” 600. that contributed to make the city flourish in this area: the formidable power of rival princes, the taste for precious objects, and the custom of collecting them, as well as the strong pull that the city exercised as a cultural space.[261] The gifting of precious objects was also integrated into rituals of power. As Ciulisova explains, “it was customary for friends of the King of France and the members of his household to provide elaborate goldsmiths’ objects, ornamented with gemstones, as gifts for ritual exchange on solemn occasions, including diplomatic meetings.”[262] The visit to France of Charles V’s uncle Emperor Charles IV was an occasion for exchanging gorgeous objects.[263] The list of pieces presented by Louis of Orleans to Emperor Wenceslas of Luxembourg during the last years of the fourteenth century offers important insight. Louis’s objective, which he accomplished much to Wenceslas’s detriment, was to nudge the emperor to subtract obedience from the Italian pope, Boniface IX.[264] The Duke of Orleans first offered offered Wencenslas’s wife, duchess of Luxembourg Sophie of Bavaria, a painting of an Homme de douleurs, a man of sorrows. Shortly after a first encounter, the Duke of Orleans welcomed the emperor to Epernay and presented him with a small golden statue of Charlemagne. But Louis did not limit his gifts to the emperor and his spouse; he demonstrated generosity in equal measure to certain of their officers, distributing 16 silver cups, two small bowls, six silk doublets, and a number of enameled brooches with wolves covered with pearls and precious stones. Nor did the Duke of Orleans forget the emperor’s entourage, allocating to them small enameled brooches. Such attempts at influence through jewels were common. On 1 January 1403 Philip Duke of Burgundy, uncle of Charles VI and Louis, sought to gain the loyalty of 60 men whom he gathered to form the Order of the Golden Tree by giving them brooches decorated with a golden tree between a lion and a white enamel eagle.[265] The objects gifted by these dukes resemble those that we find in Isabeau’s accounts, and they therefore permit us to imagine that the queen made use of her objects in the same way as Louis and Philip. When we focus on what was transpiring at the moments at which the queen bought precious objects it seems clear that she accumulated them for strategic reasons.