THE EDUCATION OF NOBLE GIRLS IN MEDIEVAL FRANCE: VINCENT OF BEAUVAIS AND DE ERUDITIONE FILIORUM NOBILIUM _______________________________________ A Dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri-Columbia _______________________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy _____________________________________________________ by REBECCA J. JACOBS-POLLEZ Dr. Lois L. Huneycutt, Dissertation Supervisor JULY, 2012 © Copyright by Rebecca J. Jacobs-Pollez 2012 All Rights Reserved The undersigned, appointed by the dean of the Graduate School, have examined the dissertation entitled THE EDUCATION OF NOBLE GIRLS IN MEDIEVAL FRANCE: VINCENT OF BEAUVAIS AND DE ERUDITIONE FILIORUM NOBILIUM Presented by Rebecca J. Jacobs-Pollez A candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy And hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance. _________________________________________________ Professor Lois L. Huneycutt, Chair _________________________________________________ Professor A. Mark Smith _________________________________________________ Professor John Frymire _________________________________________________ Professor Lawrence Okamura _________________________________________________ Professor Anne Stanton I would like to dedicate this work to my family and friends, especially my husband Alain, who changed careers so that I could pursue a long-held dream. I have been fortunate for his support through this entire process. And he is an excellent travel companion! My parents, George and Joan, have believed in me and supported me no matter what unusual path my life has taken. Friends in Houston, who I miss dearly, stayed with me in spirit when I deserted them for Missouri and a late-in-life career change. A despondent email to Bev, Dawn, Mikayla, Sherry, or Pete was always answered with love and encouragement. Sherry’s daily poems remind me of all that I left behind. Leslie’s summer visits were always a joyful reunion. Other friends too numerous to mention gave of themselves in small but meaningful ways. Returning to Missouri allowed me to reconnect with old high school friends – thank you Christy and Wayleen. My brothers, Bryan and Glenn, their wives, Ann and Crystal, and my nieces, Charity and Amanda, believed in my goals and the Missouri members of my family welcomed me into their homes as if I had never left. Without them all I could not have completed this work, and for that reason it is dedicated to all of them. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Excellent advisors provide more than simple academic advice and support to students. I have been fortunate to have outstanding advisors throughout my advanced academic career. Dr. Angela Howard provided the guidance I needed to go beyond my master’s degree and enter a PhD program. In the long process of achieving my doctorate, Dr. Lois Huneycutt not only provided scholarly advice, but also had faith in me when I had no faith in myself. I cannot thank her enough. My remaining committee members not only have helped me within their interesting and informative seminars, but also with my job search, and with much good advice. I would like to thank Dr. A. Mark Smith, Dr. John Frymire, Dr. Lawrence Okamura, and Dr. Anne Stanton. I am especially thankful to Dr. Smith for nominating me for the Donald K. Anderson Graduate Teaching Assistant Award. This work would not have been possible without the numerous scholars whose work I studied. I would not have been able to complete it without the library resources, and the librarians of the University of Missouri; the Saint Louis University; the Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium; the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, France; and the Openbibliotheek, Brugge, Belgium. Dr. Michiel Verweij at the Bibliothèque royale in Brussels was especially helpful in pointing out many interesting features of the manuscripts that I used. Mr. Ludo Vandamme at the Openbibliotheek, Brugge, was also helpful in providing information about the monastery where the manuscripts I examined were created. I am especially grateful to the history department and Dr. Charles Nauert, and the Graduate School and John Bies for the grants that provided the funding for my research in Paris and Brugge. ii Dr. Johanna Kramer of the English department and Dr. Rabia Gregory of Religious Studies often answered questions and provided encouragement with seminar papers when I exploring the idea of writing about Vincent. The summer seminar hosted by Dr. Timothy Graham at the University of New Mexico helped me learn enough codicology to prepare me for manuscript research. Dr. Gregory Guzman sent me an entire set of the Vincent of Beauvais Newsletters and thought of me when an opening came for a publication in the Vincent of Beauvais Newsletter. My fellow graduate students deserve many thanks for providing helpful comments on seminar papers, conference papers, and dissertation chapters. They especially deserve thanks for listening when I was stressed. Sam Blanchard, Autum Dolan, Rob Howe, Heather McRae, Daniel Menold, Alexis Miller, Katie Sheffield, Mark Singer, Nina Verbanaz, and Tiffany Ziegler are all impressive and I look forward to reading their exceptional works in the future. I will miss the conversations we had going to and from conferences. Fellow students Rebecca Mouser, English, and Leroy Rowe, American history, also deserve thanks for listening when I needed to talk out problems and for providing excellent advice. Unlike Vincent, who claimed that his assistants were unreliable when they copied the texts he used,1 I take responsibility for all of my errors and appreciate the helpful suggestions I received from Dr. Huneycutt and my committee members, and from my fellow students. If I am somewhat repetitive within the text of this work, it is simply in emulation of Vincent. 1 “non omnia manu propria, sed pleraque per manus notariorum abbreviaui, ut potui” (I was not able to do everything with my own hand, but by the hands of notaries much has been abbreviated), prologue to the Speculum historiale, chapter iii. iii ABSTRACT The educational treatise by Vincent of Beauvais (1184/1194-1264), De eruditione filiorum nobilium (On the Education of Noble Girls), was the first medieval educational text to both systematically present a comprehensive method of instruction for lay children and to included a section devoted to girls. Vincent also included many details supporting his theories of education within his most famous work, the massive encyclopedia the Speculum maius (The Great Mirror). The first three books of the third volume, the Speculum doctrinale (The Mirror of Doctrine), deal directly with pedagogical issues. Subsequent books within this volume address subjects pertinent to discussions in De eruditione. Vincent planned for De eruditione to be part of a greater work, an Opus universale de statu principis (Universal Work on the Royal Condition), a guideline for the governance of the French realm that would provide instructions for the behaviors and duties of the prince, his family, and his court. Even before beginning his educational treatise Vincent had begun to determine the various roles that the king, his family, and his courtiers would play both at court and in governing the kingdom. Vincent planned to write three volumes of political manuals that would record his theories of governance. Together with De eruditione, they would form the four volume Opus; however, he only completed the first of the political manuals, De morali principis institutione (On the Foundations of Royal Morals), a guideline for the king to use as the head of the royal domain. De morali reflects ideas about kingship current at the time that Vincent wrote. For several generations French kings had slowly been establishing a type of administrative kingship, a governmental structure that was less feudal, more centralized, with a stronger iv monarchy supported by an incipient bureaucracy. Vincent’s patron, King Louis IX of France (1214-1270), actively continued this process during his reign. A close reading of the Speculum shows that Vincent included material that reinforced the transition to administrative kingship. Although De morali concentrates on the king’s responsibilities and the role he would play in the new government structure, within it are clues to the behaviors that Vincent expected from others at court. Specifically, he virtually eliminated the duties of the powerful Capetian queens. Since De eruditione was the last volume of the Opus, Vincent almost certainly wrote it in part to train royal children to fit their new roles. Applying the principles of De eruditione to the education of boys would create the ideal king defined in De morali. Vincent’s proposals for girls’ education went against traditional Capetian practice, especially the strong roles that queens and noble women played in government and in training their children. Instead, matching the reduced role for royal women in De morali, girls educated according to the instructions provided in De eruditione would no longer be fit to participate in the governmental functions they had previously so adequately filled, or provide the education their children needed. Thus, examining the details of Vincent’s proposals for female education through placing De eruditione within the scope of his overall work shows that Vincent was not simply providing advice about women’s edification and spiritual improvement, but that he wanted to form