Men at the Center: Redemptive Governance Under Louis IX

148 Pages·2012·0.918 MB·English

by  William Chester Jordan

at The Natalie Zemon Davis Annual Lectures
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Published in the same series: Taking Professor Natalie Zemon Davis’s fascinating biographical C ie e n at t h e e n t e r
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an inspiration, the author of this book offers three portraits of men e M
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who were at the very center of governance in thirteenth-century n Redemptive G overnance u nder
France, men who strove in the shadow of King Louis IX (Saint Louis) D
Lynn Hunt: Measuring Time, Making History to impose a redemptive regime on the realm. Professor Jordan treats av Lou is IX
them as individuals, but in a sense they are also types:  Robert of Sorbon, is
Miri Rubin: Emotions and Devotions.
a churchman; Étienne Boileau, a bourgeois; and Simon de Nesle, an
The Meaning of Mary in Medieval Religious
aristocrat. Robert was the founder of the Sorbonne; Boileau was the W
Cultures
prévôt or royal administrator of Paris; and Simon was twice co-regent i William Chester Jordan
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of the kingdom. Thinking about them and their relations with Louis IX li On the Cover:
Ute Frevert: Emotions in History—Lost and found a
opens up a new and altogether sobering vista for exploring the nature of m Louis IX as Christ. Carpentras, Biblitohèque
the king’s rule and the impact of his rule on his subjects. C inguimbertine, Ms. 1779 fo 74 v.
Eva Österberg: Friendship and Love, Ethics and h
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR r
History
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William Chester Jordan is Dayton-Stockton Professor of History and r
William A. Christian: Divine Presence in Spain d
Chairman of the History Department of Princeton University. He was a
and Western Europe, 1500–1960 n
Director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies (1994
to 1999). His most recent book is A Tale of Two Monasteries: Westminster
and Saint-Denis in the Thirteenth Century (2009). M
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Budapest – New York
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Sales and Information: n
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[email protected]
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Website: http://www.ceupress-com r
ISBN 978-615-5225-12-3
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ISBN 978-615-5225-12-3

9786155 225123
Men at the Center:
redeMptive GovernanCe under Louis ix
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The Natalie Zemon Davis Annual Lecture Series
at Central European University, Budapest
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M C :
en at the enter
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edeMptive overnanCe
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under ouis
William Chester Jordan
Central European University Press
Budapest – N ew York
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© 2012 by William Chester Jordan
Published in 2012 by
Central European University Press
An imprint of the Central European University Limited Liability Company
Nádor utca 11, H-1051 Budapest, Hungary
Tel: [phone] or 327-3000 · Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected] · Website: www.ceupress.com
400 West 59th Street, New York NY 10019, USA
Tel: [phone] · Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the permission of the Publisher.
Cover design and layout by Péter Tóth
ISBN 978-615-5225-12-3
ISSN 1996-1197

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jordan, William C., 1948-
Men at the center : redemptive governance under Louis IX / William
Chester Jordan.
p. cm. — (The Natalie Zemon Davis annual lectures ; v. 11)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-6155225123 (pbk.)
1. France—Politics and government—1226-1270. 2. France—History—
Louis IX, 1226-1270. 3. Courts and courtiers—France—History—To 1500.
4. Courtesans—France—Biography. 5. Robert, of Sorbonne, 1201-1274. 6.
Boileau, Etienne, ca. 1200-1269. 7. Nesle, Simon de, ca. 1209-1279. I. Title.
DC91.J76 2012
944’.023—dc23
2012015686
Printed in Hungary by
Prime Rate Kft., Budapest
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Chapter One: Robert of Sorbon, Churchman 1
Chapter Two: Étienne Boileau, Bourgeois 37
Chapter Three: Simon de Nesle, Aristocrat 71
Epilogue 101
Notes 109
List of References 123
Index 133
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Acknowledgements
I
want to thank Gábor Klaniczay for inviting me to
come to the Central European University (CEU) in
Budapest in November 2011 to give the series of lec-
tures on which this book is based. I have known Gá-
bor almost as long as I have been a professor, and I
have always admired and respected him. Thus, when he
asked me to deliver the lectures, I was instantly predis-
posed to accept. My predisposition was strengthened
even more by the opportunity I would have to honor
my dear friend and former colleague Professor Nata-
lie Zemon Davis, in whose honor the series is named.
Natalie agreed to come to Budapest as well and to take
part by commenting and raising questions generated
from my presentations. While in Budapest we also met
with graduate students of the CEU, learned of the in-
teresting dissertation projects they had selected, and
offered such advice as we could on how to pursue those
projects. Many of these students attended the lectures
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and contributed by their questions and comments to
the final form of the book. I wish to thank them and,
indeed, all of those who offered stimulating responses
to my arguments.
The experience was wholly positive, from the ex-
quisite view of the castle across the Danube from the
hotel, to the delicious meals, and to the welcome and
hospitality in general. I know now that the organiz-
ing genius behind all of this was Csilla Dobos, the
Academic and Ph.D. Program Coordinator for the
Department of Medieval Studies at the CEU. There
was never a question that I asked that she could not an-
swer. There was never a request I made that she did not
deal with effectively and efficiently. She went far be-
yond the call of duty by attending all the lectures! My
gratitude to her knows no bounds.
I bounced many of my ideas off of several friends
and colleagues at Princeton, including my wife Chris-
tine Kenyon Jordan, Professor John Haldon, two
of my wonderful graduate students, Jenna Phillips
and Hagar Barak, and the Academic Manager of the
Department of History, Judith Hanson. None of
them seemed to think the subject as I was develop-
ing it was entirely boring (hallelujah!), and this sus-
tained me as I was crafting the talks. That said, one
or more of them fairly often also challenged me to
clarify points I was making and to keep to those
viii
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points. They also endorsed my decision to name
the series—and thus the book—“Men at the Cen-
ter,” a title meant to evoke Natalie’s own scintillating
work, Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Cen-
tury Lives (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard
University Press, 1995), and the biographical ap-
proach she adopted in that work. When it turned out
as I deepened my research that many of the men at
the center whom I chose to discuss in the lectures had
come from the margins of the French kingdom, so-
cially and geographically, the symbolic evocation of
Natalie’s book came full circle. Of course, I dedicate
the finished product, however insufficient, to her.
ix
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