CHARLOTTE OF SAVOY
(1439–1483). Queen of France. The youngest daughter of Louis, duke of Savoy, and
Anne of Cyprus, Charlotte of Savoy became queen of France through her marriage to
Louis XI (r. 1461–83). Louis had married her in 1451, when she was twelve years old
and he was still dauphin. At that time, he was feuding with his father, Charles VII, who
opposed the marriage. The marriage failed to convert the duke of Savoy into an ally, as
Louis had hoped, but Charlotte bore him several children, including the future Charles
VIII in 1470. The queen’s death late in 1483 prevented her from playing a role in the
power struggles that followed the death of her husband.
John Bell Henneman, Jr.
CHARNY, GEOFFROY DE
(d. 1356). Geoffroy de Charny, lord of Pierre-Pertuis, died guarding the king’s standard
at the Battle of Poitiers. His Livre de chevalerie is a prose text that deals with the
instruction of a young knight. He is also the author of another Livre on the same subject
written in verse, as well as the Demandes pour la joute, les tournois et la guerre, which
takes the form of questions to members of the Order of the Star on points of chivalry. In
all three works, he is concerned with degrees of honor and achievement in chivalry.
Claude J.Fouillade
Geoffroy de Charny. Livre de chevalerie, ed. Joseph K.de Lettenhove. In Œuvres de Froissart.
Brussels: Devaux, 1873, 1875, Vol. 1:3, pp. 463–533. [Prose Livre.]
Piaget, Arthur. “Le livre de messire Geoffroi de Charny.” Romania 26(1897):399–410. [Partial
transcription of verse Livre.]
Keen, Maurice. Chivalry. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.
CHARROI DE NÎMES
. This epic poem of 1,486 assonanced decasyllabic lines, one of the oldest of the
Guillaume d’Orange Cycle (after 1150), tells of the conquest by ruse of the city of
Nîmes. The poem’s rich thematics link traditional epic matter with 12th-century
problems: the duties of king and vassal, the situation of the young fiefless knight, the
problem of crusade. Capetian policy itself, with the expeditions of Louis VI and Louis
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