Further Reading
Bullough, Donald. The Age of Charlemagne, 2d ed. London:
Paul Elek, 1973.
Collins, Roger. Charlemagne. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1998.
Contreni, John J. “The Carolingian Renaissance: Education and
Literary Culture.” In The New Cambridge Medieval History,
ed. Rosamond McKitterick. Vol. 2, c. 700—c. 900. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 709–757.
——. “Carolingian Biblical Culture.” In Iohannes Scottus Eri-
ugena: The Bible and Hermeneutics, ed. Gerd Van Riel, Carlos
Steel, and James McEvoy. Ancient and Medieval Philosophy,
De-Wulf-Mansion Centre, Series 1, XX. Louvain: Louvain
University Press, 1996, pp. 1–23.
Dutton, Paul Edward. The Politics of Dreaming in the Carolingian
Empire. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994.
——, ed. Carolingian Civilization: A Reader. Peterborough, Ont.:
Broadview Press, 1993.
Fichtenau, Heinrich. The Carolingian Empire: The Age of Char-
lemagne, trans. Peter Munz. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1957.
Ganshof, François Louis. Frankish Institutions Under Char-
lemagne, rrans. Bryce and Mary Lyon. Providence, R.I.:
Brown University Press, 1968.
Godman, Peter. Poets and Emperors: Frankish Politics and Caro-
lingian Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.
——. trans. Poetry of the Carolingian Empire. Norman: Univer-
sity of Oklahoma Press, 1985.
King, P. D., trans. Charlemagne: Translated Sources. Lambrigg,
England: P. D. King, 1987.
Loyn, H. R., and John Percival, trans. The Reign of Charlemagne:
Documents on Carolingian Government and Administration.
London: Edward Arnold, 1975.
McKitterick, Rosamond. The Frankish Kingdoms Under the Car-
olingians, 751–987. London and New York: Longman, 1983.
Nees, Lawrence. A Tainted Mantle: Hercules and the Classical
Tradition at the Carolingian Court. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1991.
Nelson, Janet. “Women at the Court of Charlemagne: A Case of
Monstrous Regiment?” In Janet Nelson, The Frankish World,
750–900. London: Hambledon Press, 1996, pp. 223–242.
Riché, Pierre. The Carolingians: A Family Who Forged Europe,
trans. Michael Idomir Allen. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1993.
Sullivan, Richard E. Aix-la-Chapelle in the Age of Charlemagne.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.
John J. Contreni
CHARLES D’ORLÉANS (1394–1465)
Son of Valentina, daughter of the duke of Milan, and
Louis, duke of Orléans and brother of King Charles VI.
In 1407, Louis was murdered by John the Fearless, duke
of Burgundy, and Valentine died at Blois the following
year. In 1406, Charles had married Isabelle, widow
of Richard II of England and daughter of Charles VI.
The year after her death in 1409, he married Bonne
d’Armagnac. Captured by the English at the Battle of
Agincourt in 1415, Charles spent the next twenty-fi ve
years in England in the custody of several noblemen.
Bonne died in France during this period. Released in
1440, Charles returned joyfully to France and soon
afterward married fourteen-year-old Marie de Clèves,
niece of Philip of Burgundy, who had helped to arrange
his release. After a period of political involvement, he
spent most of his remaining years at Blois, where two
daughters and a son who was to become King Louis
XII were born.
During the last fi fteen years of his life at Blois,
Charles received many visitors, who joined with mem-
bers of his household to participate in poetry contests.
Samples of this literary activity have survived in a
manuscript (B.N. fr. 25458) that served as Charles’s
personal album, in which he recorded in his own hand
his own poems, had some entered by scribes, and also
invited members of his entourage and visitors to make
contributions. Included in this collection are poems by
important political fi gures of the day, by writers with
established reputations, and even by the itinerant poet
and sometime criminal François Villon, who may have
received a small allowance while living at the court.
Charles often proposed the fi rst line of a rondeau or bal-
lade and asked his entourage to write a poem following
the restrictions of the prescribed form. It was under these
circumstances that Villon wrote Je meurs de suef auprés
de la fontaine, probably in 1457 or 1458. Villon’s other
poem in the collection, Épître à Marie d’Orléans, was
probably composed to celebrate the birth of Charles’s
daughter in December 1457. The wit and good-natured
bantering found in the poems written at the court of
Blois serve as evidence of an unusually pleasant and
relaxed atmosphere, in which poetry writing was an
agreeable pastime.
Charles and his two younger brothers, Philippe and
Jean, received a traditional medieval education under
the direction of a private tutor. Writing in verse seems
to have come naturally, since the fi rst work attributed
to Charles, Le livre contre tout péché, was written at
the age of ten. His numerous poetic works include the
Complainte de France, written in 1433 after he had
been in England for many years; Retenue d’amours,
composed prior to his capture; the Songe en complainte
(1437), a 550-line sequel to Retenue d’amours; eighty-
nine chansons and fi ve complaintes written in England,
perhaps after Bonne’s death; 123 ballades written mostly
during but also after his captivity; four caroles; and
435 rondeaux written mostly at Blois. In addition to
the poems in French, about 125 in English, many with
French counterparts, are attributed to him with increas-
ing confi dence.
Charles d’Orléans is known particularly for his use
of allegory and the introspective nature of his poetry.
Recurring themes in his ballades and rondeaux include
exile, the passage of time, the fl ight of love, life as a
prison, old age, the decomposition of the human body,
and melancholy. He may be one of the best known and
least appreciated French poets. Nearly every anthology
of French poetry includes a few of his ballades andCHARLEMAGNE