Isabeau of Bavaria, gift-giver
The invisibility of female networks of gift-giving has caused the currency that Isabeau collected to be misread as jewels that she purchased for her own delight.[266] Isabeau undoubtedly amassed treasures.
But she also participated in gift-giving at key moments of her reign. During a festival of 22 May 1395 in honor of Charles VI, she distributed a number of sumptuous gifts. Modern historians have tended to view this festival as an occasion to amuse Charles VI, one writing that Isabeau “adored parties; in addition, it should be noted that his doctors had recommended that the king be entertained.”[267] Even the most recent biographers of the queen interpret this particular festival and the gifts distributed on this occasion as personal exchanges devoid of any political significance. We read, for example, that the[p]resents bought by Isabeau include [,..] a collar scattered with black-enameled pods from which hung little golden bowl shapes, made especially to be attached to a black velvet houppelande, both of which were presented by Isabeau to Charles VI at a party that she held for him at her recently-refurbished Vaux- la-Reine on 22 May 1395. The next entry details the queen's order of fifteen gold rings to be given to his companions, enameled in green with a setting for a solitaire diamond.[268]
Festivals, however, cannot be reduced to simple parties; in addition to awing guests, they offered opportunities for the powerful to enact their authority. If we restore the festival's political context, it becomes clear that at that moment, the queen was seeking to persuade the king to sign the treaty that I discussed in chapter 4 allying him with the Florentines against the Milanese. Along with her Bavarian family, Isabeau supported the cause of Bernabo Visconti, her grandfather, assassinated in 1385, against that of Giangaleazzo Visconti, lord of Milan and assassin of Bernabo, who was attempting to extend his authority over Florence.
The principal obstacle to a treaty was the opposition to the latter of the king's brother Louis of Orleans and his spouse, Valentina Visconti, daughter of Giangaleazzo Visconti. The strategic importance of the Lombard city for France, however, diminished in 1395—1396 at the same time that rumors accusing Valentina of wanting to poison the king to facilitate her husband’s succession to the throne began to spread widely; Valentina, as we have seen, was forced to abandon the court in March or April of 1396. With Valentina no longer an obstacle, Isabeau was able to reassert her influence over the king on the matter. In May 1396, following closely on Valentina’s flight, the queen summoned Florentine ambassador Buonaccorse Pitti.[269] On 29 September 1396, the French sealed an alliance with the Florentines against the Milanese.This context helps us to make sense of the gifts that the queen distributed, especially the rings offered to the men of the royal entourage. She was demonstrating largesse, a key trait of successful rulers. The festival, along with the gifts distributed during it, then, bore fruit for Isabeau, and it should be regarded as an initial attempt to convince Charles VI to accord a positive response to the Florentines, that is to say, implement Isabeau’s politics.
Between 1380—1422, Isabeau also took part in the exchange etrennes at the royal court.[270] The practice, with its performative element, was an important way of producing and reproducing social relations at court.[271] Calculations of how many gifts exchanged hands is not exact, dependent on remaining records, but a comparison of the totals suggests at least who the most prolific givers were. Over the years, Isabeau offered 91 gifts and received 51. Although she was not the most frequent giver, she was in the upper echelons. Ahead of her come the Burgundians, Philip of Burgundy, who leads the pack by far with 743 gifts distributed, and Jean sans Peur with 152; Louis of Orleans comes next with 135 and Valentina Visconti 127, Charles VI with 93.
However, Isabeau leads royal uncle Jean de Berry who is recorded giving 45.[272]To a large extent, the identities of the givers and receivers of gifts reinforces what we already know about political alliances at court. For example, Philip’s position as far and away the most prolific giver, confirms his ambition to be the most powerful lord of the kingdom. His influence surpassed even that of the periodically insane king. Louis of Orleans, younger and less wealthy than his uncle, offers fewer gifts, as we would expect. Charles, son of the king, appears on the list of donors for the first time in 1420, offering 50 gifts. This is the year in which the young man begins to asserts his rights over the throne of France, from which the king and queen had tried to disinherit him in favor of Henry V, married to their daughter Catherine.
Given that these gifts confirm what we know about networks of influence, they can reasonably be taken as evidence about the strength of a particular relationship. For example, an examination of Charles VI’s commissions to the Parisian silversmith Hemann Ruissel before the onset of his intermittent insanity shows that 17 of the 32 royal commissions were executed in double, the second object produced for the king’s brother, Louis.[273] We can therefore conclude that the king and his brother enjoyed a close relationship. If the double commissions had begun only after the king’s first bout of insanity we might have imagined that Louis himself influenced the king to make the purchase, but the frequency of the commissions even before the king fell ill let us assume the Charles VI was responsible for the gifts.
Gifts distributed by Valentina Visconti, spouse of Louis of Orleans, highlight other types of political relations. Even after her exile from the court in March or April of 1396, Valentina continued to participate in the exchange of gifts. Of a total of 127 etrennes, she offered only 36 before her flight.
This suggests her continuing influence even after she was physically absent from the court.As for Isabeau, a number of interesting conclusions about her politics can be drawn from an examination of her etrennes. First, she offered gifts in sporadic fashion: some years she seems to have offered none at all. Of course it may be that records of her accounts are not complete. Still, the distribution of gifts appears to correspond to what we know about her political career from other sources. She presented many gifts in 1391 and 1392, just before the onset of the king’s madness. What was happening? She may have been using gifts to solicit loyalty. As Sharon Kettering explains, gift-giving was, at the end of the day, “used to create and maintain a personal bond.”[274] Why at that time? As I noted in chapter 2, at the end of 1388, after a long period of minority, Charles VI declared himself independent of his uncles, Philip of Burgundy and Jean of Berry. The decision had been long in coming: the king was at that moment already twenty years old. His new independence would have been experienced as significant by Isabeau, as well. The following year Isabeau made her entry into Paris and was crowned. The iconography prepared for the occasion evoked the dawn of a new era of peace and prosperity. The royal couple hovered at the zenith of their power, and a radiant future seemed guaranteed. Isabeau would have imagined that she would play a central role in court life in the years to follow and begun to demonstrate through gift-giving the new clout that she enjoyed with Charles’s assuming full responsibility for the kingdom.
The sudden and devastating crisis of madness in 1392 forced the king back under the guardianship of his uncles. Over the two following years, Isabeau is recorded as offering only one gift, to an unknown recipient, but, by 1395, the queen was once again acquiring political clout with her involvement in the project to form an alliance with the Florentines showing results.
In that year she once again began to offer gifts.[275] In 1398, Isabeau offered etrennes to Louis, Philip, and Valentina; in that year we see the first serious tensions between the houses of Orleans and Burgundy. In this context, the gifts suggest that Isabeau was trying to appease the actors, for whom she acted as mediator in formal peace-making situations. In 1402—1403, she offered numerous etrennes, the dates once again corresponding to the dates of the royal ordinances naming her official mediator between the warring dukes. In addition, during these same years, her accounts show the purchase of numerous beautiful objects.[276] In 1408, after the assassination of Louis of Orleans, ordered by Jean of Burgundy, she offered only one gift, but the recipient was none other than Louis’s murderer, Jean. The gift was surely offered in the hope of creating a practical alliance with a man who represented a serious threat to the kingdom. In 1411, after signing a treaty with Charles of Orleans, son of the late Louis, she gave the young man an etrenne. In 1414, after several years of subjection to Jean, with the suppression of the Cabochian revolt Isabeau found herself again in power, this time with the dauphin. She therefore offered etrennes: diamonds for her husband and for eight unknown recipients.[277]The etrennes that Isabeau offers correspond precisely to the more detailed descriptions of objects enumerated in her accounts: twelve silver glasses, several goblets and gold-leafed pitchers, gold rosaries, a small ruby ring, a silver belt, a silver crown, a pin of gold decorated with three diamonds, three pearls, and a ruby, and the list continues.[278] Valuable objects given as gifts played a central role in political status, both ostentatiously displaying wealth and therefore making visible the personal worth and largesse of the giver and establishing implicit contracts carrying personal meanings. Surely this is how Isabeau distributed the objects she collected as well.