Saint Louis Le Goff, Jacques, Gareth Evan Gollrad
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Saint Louis Le Goff, Jacques, Gareth Evan Gollrad Published by University of Notre Dame Press Le Goff, Jacques & Gollrad, Evan. Saint Louis. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009. Project MUSE., https://muse.jhu.edu/. For additional information about this book https://muse.jhu.edu/book/14076 Access provided at 14 Jul 2019 04:31 GMT from University of Toledo SAINT LOUIS Jacques Le Goff Translated by Gareth Evan Gollrad “Life of a king, life of a saint, life of a man. In this work, Jacques Le Goff, one of the truly great medieval historians of our times, magisterially plumbs the depths of the fundamental contradiction of Saint Louis: is it possible to be both a king and a saint? Saint Louis lies at the intersection of reasons of state and divine reason; he is an individual around whom Le Goff turns like a detective searching for an ever-elusive truth, that of a life and a leg- end inextricably intertwined. A fine, eminently readable translation.” —Robert J. Morrissey, University of Chicago Critical praise for the French edition: “What is the ‘truth’ about Saint Louis? Can we recover an image of the ‘real SAINT man’? . Are the excavated multiple and tangled images of the king the only reality? ‘Saint Louis,’ wonders Jacques Le Goff, ‘a-t-il existé?’ In the pages of this wise and ruminative study, the distinguished French medieval- ist, in his longest and most impressive book, tries to provide an answer to this last question. [Le Goff’s] question . is not so much a pleasant irony LOUIS or an allusion to the methodological power of deconstruction as a profound meditation on the difficulty of doing history . [and] an earnest exhorta- tion to new and profounder engagement with the sources of the past. It is the kind of question we have come to expect from Jacques Le Goff.” —William Chester Jordan, Speculum JACQUES LE GOFF “A Christ-like humility . and a cult of self-imposed suffering provide, for Le Goff, the key to Louis’s behavior. To this extent, the saint eclipses the king in this lengthy and provocative but, in many ways, tantalizing study. Le Goff’s Saint Louis is . as much an extended commentary on the histo- Translated by Gareth Evan Gollrad rian’s craft, and on the integrity of history as an intellectual discipline, as a ‘Life’ of an individual. As such, it is more than welcome.” —Malcolm Vale, Times Literary Supplement University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, IN 46556 undpress.nd.edu LeGoff0-000.FM 9/29/08 11:29 AM Page i S AINT L OUIS LeGoff0-000.FM 9/29/08 11:29 AM Page ii Saint Louis Le Goff, Jacques, Gareth Evan Gollrad Published by University of Notre Dame Press Le Goff, Jacques & Gollrad, Evan. Saint Louis. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009. Project MUSE., https://muse.jhu.edu/. For additional information about this book https://muse.jhu.edu/book/14076 Access provided at 14 Jul 2019 04:58 GMT from University of Toledo LeGoff0-000.FM 9/29/08 11:29 AM Page iii SAINT LOUIS JACQUES LE GOFF S Translated by Gareth Evan Gollrad University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana S LeGoff0-000.FM 9/29/08 11:29 AM Page iv English Language Edition Copyright © 2009 by University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 All Rights Reserved www.undpress.nd.edu Manufactured in the United States of America Translated by Gareth Evan Gollrad from Saint Louis, by Jacques Le Goff, published by Éditions Gallimard, Paris, France. © Éditions Gallimard, 1996. Representation of Saint Louis. Early fourteenth-century statue from the church of Mainneville, Eure, France. Artist unknown. The publication of this book was generously supported by the Laura Shannon Fund for French Medieval Studies. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Le Goff, Jacques, 1924- [Saint Louis. English] Saint Louis / by Jacques Le Goff ; translated by Gareth Evan Gollrad. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-268-03381-1 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-268-03381-1 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Louis IX, King of France, 1214 –1270. 2. Christian saints—France—Biography. 3. France—Kings and rulers—Biography. I. Gollrad, Gareth Evan. II. Title. DC91. L39513 2008 944'.023092—dc22 [B] 2008027215 This book is printed on recycled paper. LeGoff0-000.FM 9/29/08 11:29 AM Page v Sa piété, qui était celle d’un anachorète, ne lui ôta aucune vertu de roi. Une sage économie ne déroba rien à sa libéralité. Il sut accorder une politique profonde avec une justice exacte et peut-être est-il le seul souverain qui mérite cette louange: prudent et ferme dans le conseil, intrépide dans les combats sans être emporté, compatissant comme s’il n’avait jamais été que malheureux. Il n’est pas donné à l’homme de porter plus loin la vertu. Voltaire Essai sur les moeurs, Chapter 58 LeGoff0-000.FM 9/29/08 11:29 AM Page vi Saint Louis Le Goff, Jacques, Gareth Evan Gollrad Published by University of Notre Dame Press Le Goff, Jacques & Gollrad, Evan. Saint Louis. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009. Project MUSE., https://muse.jhu.edu/. For additional information about this book https://muse.jhu.edu/book/14076 Access provided by Bethel University (19 Mar 2019 09:53 GMT) LeGoff0-000.FM 9/29/08 11:29 AM Page xvi Translator’s Note Le Goff’s work is a living monument, an epically proportioned historical narrative that explores every knowable aspect of Saint Louis’ life. At the same time, this work offers a complete historical analysis, not only bringing Louis IX to life for us but distinguishing between the living king familiar to his friends and inner circle and the narrative constructions of more distant authors and their traditional models of kingship and sainthood or modern scholarly criticism. Le Goff’s book is also a brilliant prism, as through the life of Saint Louis the reader discovers almost every important dimension of life in thirteenth-century France, presented in moving depth and intricate detail. I am grateful to many for having received the opportunity to translate this Saint Louis, above all to Barbara Hanrahan, the Director of the Univer- sity of Notre Dame Press. On the same note, I thank Françoise Meltzer, my former mentor in the Department of Romance Languages and Litera- tures at the University of Chicago. Not least of all, I thank the author him- self for providing such an interesting, complex, and richly nuanced work to translate. I would also like to thank those who helped me at different stages of the translation—above all the ever-affable Peter Dembowski, medievalist ex- traordinaire, who helped me with some of the most challenging Old French xvi LeGoff0-000.FM 9/29/08 11:29 AM Page xvii Translator’s Note S xvii words that surfaced in the original, and Carole Roos for all her helpful, highly focused, and encouraging work as my copyeditor. Likewise, I thank those who have taken an interest in this work during my years in law school at Chicago-Kent College of Law, most notably my professors there Hank Perritt and Dan Hamilton. Finally, I thank all those closest to me who have steadfastly sustained me over the years with their friendship, love, and support—most of all the love of my life Jessica Buben, my mother Julie, my sister Karen, and my father Evan who is sadly missed. Gareth Evan Gollrad Saint Louis Le Goff, Jacques, Gareth Evan Gollrad Published by University of Notre Dame Press Le Goff, Jacques & Gollrad, Evan. Saint Louis. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009. Project MUSE., https://muse.jhu.edu/. For additional information about this book https://muse.jhu.edu/book/14076 Access provided at 14 Jul 2019 04:42 GMT from University of Toledo LeGoff0-000.FM 9/29/08 11:29 AM Page xx Introduction Sometimes called “the century of Saint Louis,” the thirteenth century has attracted historians less than the creative and turbulent twelfth century and less than the fourteenth century that sank into the great crisis at the close of the Middle Ages. Between his grandfather Philip Augustus and his grand- son Philip the Fair, who have both garnered extensive interest from mod- ern historians, we find to our great surprise that Louis IX has been “the least known of the great kings of medieval France.” One recent work by the American historian William Chester Jordan and another by the French historian Jean Richard present him as a man driven by a single idea, his fas- cination with the crusades and his obsession with the Holy Land. I believe that Saint Louis was a far more complex character. His long reign of forty- four years contained more changes and the period in which he lived was less stable than the term often used to describe it, “apogee” of the Middle Ages, implies. The thirteenth century, however, is not the object of this study. We will have to deal with it, of course, since Louis lived during this period that constitutes the matter of his life and his actions. Still, this book is about the man himself and deals with the age only to the extent that it allows us to explain him. My topic is not “the reign of Saint Louis,” nor is it “Saint Louis and his kingdom,” nor “Saint Louis and Christendom,” nor “Saint xx LeGoff0-000.FM 9/29/08 11:29 AM Page xxi Introduction S xxi Louis and his age,” even if I will have to explore these themes.