If the Moniage satirizes monastic life, it also cultivates the ideal relationship, asserted
by Thomas Cabham, between gesta principum (the deeds of princes) and vitae sanctorum
(the lives of saints), between epic and hagiography.
François Suard
[See also: GUILLAUME D’ORANGE CYCLE]
Cloëtta, Wilhelm, ed. Les deux rédactions en vers du “Moniage Guillaumer.” 2 vols. Paris: SATF,
1906–11.
Frappier, Jean. Les chansons de geste du cycle de Guillaume d’Orange. 3 vols. Paris: SEDES,
1983, Vol. 3, pp. 19–259.
MONTAIGU
. Jean, lord of Montaigu-en-Laye and vidame of Laonnais, then “over fifty” years old,
was executed at Paris in October 1409. He had risen to a position of great influence
through service to the crown. His family, originally from Montaigu-en-Laonnais, first
became prominent with his father, Gérard de Montaigu (d. 1391), a royal notary who was
ennobled in 1363, served as a royal secretary and keeper of the archives (Trésor des
Chartes) for many years, became a maître des comptes in 1390, and was a knight and
royal councillor when he died.
The family was connected to two important prelates who owed their positions to royal
service, Ferry Cassinel, archbishop of Reims, whose sister married Gérard, and Jean de la
Grange, cardinal of Amiens, whose niece married Jean. Jean entered royal service as a
secretary of Charles VI in the 1380s. Like Cassinel and La Grange, he was associated
with the Marmousets and was dismissed from court when the royal uncles ousted them
from power in 1392. By May 1393, however, he had resumed his post, and in 1396 he
became a councillor of the king, commissioned to oversee the receipt of funds destined
for the household expenditures of the king, queen, dauphin, and the duke and duchess of
Orléans. In 1398, he was knighted and became a royal chamberlain and maître d’hôtel of
the queen. He became captain of the Bastille in 1399 and from 1402 until his death was
sovereign master of the king’s household. Jean and his wife founded a Celestine convent
near Marcoussis castle, which Cassinel had given him in 1388. His political influence and
ostentatious wealth finally angered John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, who engineered
his destruction.
His brother, a younger Gérard (d. 1420), succeeded his father as custodian of the
Trésor des Chartes and became a royal councillor and maître des comptes. Bishop of
Poitiers by 1404, Gérard moved to the see of Paris in 1409. He served for about five
years as the duke of Berry’s chancellor (until 1409) and also received a pension from
Louis of Orléans. In November 1413, he became president of the Chambre des Comptes.
A third brother, Jean, was evidently named after his brother, a custom sometimes
observed in medieval France. He was elected bishop of Chartres in 1390, transferred to
the archbishopric of Sens in 1406, and served as a royal councillor and ambassador. In
disgrace after the execution of the elder Jean, he became a supporter of the Orléanist
faction. In 1413, after the flight of the Burgundians from Paris, he was president of the
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