As we saw in chapter 3, one of Louise de Keralio’s chief complaints about Isabeau of Bavaria was her greed: the queen “gorged herself on the nation’s gold.”1
The charge stuck. Jean Verdon expresses a view of the queen still common today: she “enriched herself while the State’s financial difficulties increased.... The jewels accumulated in her coffers..”[250] [251] And, indeed, Isabeau’s accounts reveal that she purchased substantial numbers of rings, necklaces, elaborate pins, goblets and bowls made of precious metals and inlaid with jewels.[252] Charles V and his brothers, the Valois dukes, followed by Charles VI and Louis of Orleans and their children, also accumulated collections of jewels. on the patronage of royal and noble women shows that supporting artists was central to female authority.[253] The notion of Isabeau as frivolous spendthrift misses the mark: it is no longer tenable to dismiss her jewels as pretty baubles that she purchased for her own amusement, to satisfy her vanity. Isabeau’s interest in acquiring jewels needs to be re-framed, I suggest in this chapter. I begin by considering recent scholarship on the exchange of gifts at the end of the Middle Ages, studies that clarify some of the ways in which power was manifested and negotiated during that period. I then examine from this perspective Isabeau’s collecting of jewels and how she exercised influence through gifting the precious objects.