RHETORIC, POLITICS AND PROPAGANDA

GUILLAUMEFILLASTRE'S SPEECHES

Malte Prietzel

'So the bishop of Tournai sang the high mass. Afterwards, he pronounced a little sermon to the greatest praise of the deceased lord and with the inten• tion to urge everybody to pray for his soul, so that God, by his holy mercy, would receive it in his holy paradise' .1 With these words, Jean de Wavrin summarised the funeral oration which Guillaume Fillastre, bishop of Tour• nai, had pronounced at the obsequies of Philip the Good in June 1467. Another witness, Jacques Du Clercq, also mentioned this speech, calling it 'a very remarkable sermon' _2 An official report judged that 'the bishop of Tournai held a speech in a very remarkable way and to the highest praise of the deceased lord' .3

1 Si chanta l'evesque de Tournay !a grant messe, aprez laquele il fist une petite collation a !a loenge du trespasse, adfin de chascun plus esmouvoir a pryer pour son arne que Dieu par sa sainte grace vceille avoir en son saint paradis. Amen. Jehan de Wavrin, seigneur du Forestel, Recueil des chroniques et anchiennes istoires de Ia grant Bretaigne, apresent nomme Engleterre, eds. Sir W. Hardy and E. L. C. P. Hardy, Rerum britannicarum medii aevi scriptores 39, vol. 5 (London, 1891), p. 539. -The text of this oration is not extant, but probably a chapter in Fillastre's first 'Book of the Golden Fleece' is based on it. Guillaume Fillastre, 'Uber Herzog Philipp den Guten von Burgund. Text und Kommentar', ed. M. Priet• zel, in: Francia 24/1 (1997), pp. 83-121, here pp. 84-85. -The present article is mainly based on: M. Prietzel, Guillaume Fillastre der Jungere (1400/07-1473). Kirchenfiirst und herzoglich-burgundischer Rat (Stuttgart, 2001), pp. 407-416; Guillaume Fillastre, Ausgewiihlte Werke. Mit einer Edition der Kreuzzugsbulle Pius' II 'Ezechielis prophete ', ed. M. Prietzel (Stuttgart, 2003). - I am much obliged to Helga Steinwede, who saw over this text. 2 L 'evesque de Tournay, lequel y feit ung tres notable sermon, auquel recommanda l 'arne du due es prieres des presents et de tout son peuple; laquelle Dieu par sa grace veuille mectre en sa gloire, a repos avecq les bans et loyaux chrestiens. Amen. Jacques Du Clercq, Memoires sur le regne de Philippe le Bon, due de Bourgogne, ed. F.-A.-F.-T. baron de Reiffenberg, 5 vols. (Brussels, 21836), vol. 4, p. 306. 3 Et ... monseigneur de Tournay feit Ia collacion bien notablement a Ia tresgrande louenge dudit seigneur trespasse et pour enhorter le peuple de prier dieu pour lui. Archives departementales de la Cote d'Or, B 310 (fol. 6v); printed: E.-L. Lory, ed., 'Les obseques de Philippe-le-Bon, due de Bourgogne, mort a en 1467', in: 118 MALTE PRIETZEL

Evidently, Fillastre's funeral sermon was an important part of the late duke's obsequies, and the mourning audience highly esteemed the preacher's words. On many other occasions speeches were pronounced at the fifteenth-century Burgundian court and by Burgundian diplomats in foreign countries, too. But while literature and historiography, tournaments and wedding celebrations, tapestries and illuminated manuscripts at the courts of Philip the Good and Charles the Bold have long attracted the attention of the historians, speeches aroused very little interest. To tradition• ally minded political historians, orations seemed to be just words, and did not exercise an influence on the course of events. Hence they were believed to have no impact on history. Even worse, many speeches were clearly meant to convince the audience of the orator's opinion, and hence described facts from a very partial point-of-view. Some speeches even deliberately spread lies. Thus, most orations were not deemed reliable sources, and could therefore be of no use to political history. In the last years, however, some speeches have attracted the attention of a few historians who are concerned with intellectual or literary history. Arjo V andeljagt and Wim Blockmans, for example, examined speeches made by Charles the Bold and Guillaume Hugonet, thereby clearly demonstrating the enormous impact of humanistic political philosophy on Burgundian political ideas in the 1460s and .4 Evencio Beltran was attracted by a couple of Burgundian pre-humanists, who, as he claims, helped French humanism to survive during the difficult period between its first blossoming at the beginning of the fifteenth century and before its fmal breakthrough in the years around 1500.5 In her fascinating biography of Jean Jouffroy, one of the most famous orators at the Burgundian court, Claudia Miirtl also examined Jouffroy's orations.6 I would like to approach the speeches pronounced at the Burgundian court and by Burgundian diplomats in the third quarter of the fifteenth century in a different manner. I shall not concentrate on new, humanistic elements in orations, neither with regard to their contents, nor according to

Memoires de Ia Commission des antiquaires de Ia Cote-d'Or 7 (1869), pp. 215-246, herep. 244. 4 A. J. Vanderjagt, 'Qui sa vertu anoblist'. The Concepts of noblesse and chose pu• blicque in Burgundian Political Thought (Groningen, 1981); W. Blockmans, 'Cris• me de leze mageste. Les idees politiques de Charles le Temeraire', in: J.-M. Duvos• quel, J. Nazet, and A. Vanrie, eds., Les Pays-Bas bourguignons. Histoire et institu• tions. Melanges Andre Uyttebrouck (Brussels, 1996), pp. 71-81. 5 E. Beltran, ed., Nouveaux textes inedits d'humanistes fram;ais du XVe siecle. Edi• tion, introduction, notes et index (Geneva, 1992); idem, 'L'humanisme fran9ais au temps de Charles VII et Louis XI', in: C. Bozzolo and E. Omato, eds., Preludes a Ia Renaissance. Aspects de Ia vie intellectuelle en au XVe siecle (Paris, 1992), pp. 123-162. 6 C. Marti, Kardinal Jean Jouffroy (f 1473). Leben und Werk (Sigmaringen, 1996).