Brittany, eventually secured Brittany for the French royal
domain. This marriage infuriated Anne’s erstwhile fiancé,
MAXIMILIAN I, and presaged the long Hapsburg–Valois con-
flict. On attaining his majority Charles was able to pursue
his dreams of conquest, chivalry, and a crusade against the
Turks. His first step was to assert French claims in Italy.
After making costly treaties to buy off possible enemies,
Charles invaded Italy (1494). He met little opposition;
SAVONAROLAwelcomed him as a liberator to Florence, the
pope opened the gates of Rome, and Naples surrendered
without a fight. Charles was crowned king of Naples (May
1495), but France’s enemies formed a league against her.
Charles abandoned Naples to the Aragonese and fought
his way back to France, where he died while preparing an-
other Italian invasion.
Charles Borromeo, St. (1538–1584) Italian churchman
Born at Arona, Borromeo was destined from childhood for
the Church and in 1560 was appointed cardinal arch-
bishop of Milan by his maternal uncle, Pope Pius IV. Until
Pius IV died (1565) Cardinal Borromeo served in the
Curia, playing an important part in the later sessions of
the Council of TRENTand drafting the Roman catechism.
After 1566 he devoted himself to the archdiocese of Milan.
He reformed its administration, improved the morals of
clergy and laity, supported the Jesuits, helped establish
seminaries and religious schools, and aided the poor and
sick. His heroic efforts during an outbreak of plague
(1576–78) were much admired. A leading figure in the
COUNTER-REFORMATION, he was canonized in 1610.
Charles the Bold (1433–1477) Duke of Burgundy
(1467–77)
The son of PHILIP THE GOOD, Charles was a rash man, who
inherited extensive territories. His great ambitions were to
gain a royal title and to win Alsace and Lorraine, the lands
dividing his domains in the Netherlands from those in the
Franche-Comté. He came close to realizing his first ambi-
tion, when Emperor Frederick III was on the brink of
making Burgundy a kingdom. In pursuit of his second am-
bition he acquired power in Alsace and attacked Lorraine
(1475). Alarmed at the prospect of a Burgundian kingdom
stretching from the North Sea to the Alps, his neighbors
combined against him. He died fighting the Swiss at
Nancy and left his daughter Mary as his heiress. Her mar-
riage to MAXIMILIAN Iconveyed most of the Burgundian in-
heritance to the house of HAPSBURG.
Further reading: Richard Vaughan, Charles the Bold:
The Last Valois Duke of Burgundy (London: Longman,
1973; new ed. Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell & Brewer,
2002).
Charonton, Enguerrand See QUARTON, ENGUERRAND
Charron, Pierre (1541–1603) French writer and moralist
Born in Paris, he was one of a family of 25 children. After
studying law at Orleans and Bourges he practiced as an ad-
vocate but became disenchanted with the profession. He
turned to the Church and enjoyed a distinguished career
as a preacher, becoming chaplain-in-ordinary to Margaret
of Valois, first wife of Henry of Navarre. In 1588 he re-
turned to Paris determined to join a religious order, but,
when none would accept him because of his age, he re-
tired to Bordeaux where he became close friends with
MONTAIGNE. Charron published anonymously a treatise on
Les Trois Vérités (The Three Truths; 1593), which com-
bined an apology for Catholicism with an attack on DU
PLESSIS-MORNAY. He died in Paris of a stroke.
Charron’s most important work was De la sagesse (On
Wisdom; 1601). The main thesis of this work was the in-
capacity of reason to discover truth and the need for tol-
erance on religious questions. The work was severely
censured by the Sorbonne and was a forerunner of 17th-
century deism.Charton, Enguerrand See QUARTON, ENGUERRANDChaucer, Geoffrey (c. 1343–1400) English poet
Born the son of a rich London wine merchant, Chaucer
was brought up in the household of the earl of Ulster.
Captured by the French near Reims while serving with the
English army, he was ransomed by Edward III (1360). He
then visited Spain (1366) before joining the royal house-
hold in 1367. In 1369 or 1370 he produced his first im-
portant poem, The Book of the Duchess, commemorating
the recently dead Blanche of Lancaster. He made two vis-
its to Italy, the first on business with the Genoese
(1372–73), the second (1378) negotiating with Bernabò
Visconti of Milan. From 1374 to 1386 he was a customs
controller in the port of London. Poems of the early 1380s
include The House of Fame, The Parliament of Fowls, and
Troilus and Criseyde. Around 1387 he began work on The
Canterbury Tales. From 1385 he was associated with the
county of Kent in some of his many official capacities and
probably lived there until he moved to a house near West-
minster Abbey in 1399. He was interred in the abbey the
following year.
Acknowledged by his Renaissance successors as the
greatest of earlier English writers, Chaucer was an impor-
tant figure to them on several counts, despite what seems
to us the thoroughly medieval nature of his poetry. First,
his learning was singled out for special admiration, for in-
stance in the dedication to the first complete edition of his
works, published in 1532. The moral lessons implicit in
his poetry particularly appealed to an age which held that
“wholesome counsel and sage advice” (William Webbe,
Discourse of English Poetry, 1586) should be mingled with
“delight.”11002 2 CChhaarrlleess BBoorrrroommeeoo,, SStt..