CHARTIER, ALAIN
(ca. 1385-ca. 1430). Author and diplomat, known chiefly for his controversial poem, the
Belle dame sans merci, and for his talent as an orator. A native of Bayeux, Alain Chartier
studied at the University of Paris, earning the title of “maistre.” Early in his career, in the
period between 1409 and 1414, Chartier worked in the household of Yolande d’Anjou,
mother of King René and of Marie d’Anjou, who was betrothed to the future Charles VII
in 1413. Charles’s presence at the Angevin court gave him occasion to acquaint himself
with Chartier’s talents. By 1417, Chartier was in the service of the dauphin as notary and
secretary, serving also for a time King Charles VI.
For a decade beginning in 1418, Chartier’s life followed the wandering of the exiled
dauphin through Berry and Touraine, areas withstanding the Anglo-Burgundian
onslaught. In addition to routine duties as secretary and notary, Chartier’s later service to
Charles included ambassadorial functions on missions during 1425 to the emperor
Sigismund’s court in Hungary and to the Venetian senate in an effort to convince
Sigismund to side with the French against the English. In 1428, at the court of James I of
Scotland, Chartier helped to renew relations between France and Scotland and to
negotiate the marriage between James’s daughter Margaret and the dauphin Louis.
During these missions, Chartier provided eloquent introductory discourses opening the
diplomatic exchanges.
From 1420 on, Chartier held various ecclesiastical offices. In 1420, he was named
canon of Notre-Dame of Paris, although he was unable to assume the responsibilities of
the office because of the Burgundian occupation of the city. In 1425, he was named
curate of Saint-Lambertdes-Levées near Angers; in 1426, he was granted the prebendal
canonry of Tours; and in 1428, he was appointed chancellor of Bayeux. An epitaph
engraved in 1458 mentions that he was archdeacon of Paris.
It is generally assumed that Chartier died ca. 1430, since his signature does not appear
on any royal document after 1428; L’esperance, begun in 1428, was never finished; and
shortly after July 17, 1429, he sent a letter to Sigismund recounting Jeanne d’Arc’s
achievements and the consecration of Charles VII in Reims. By 1432, Chartier’s brother
had succeeded him as curate of Saint-Lambertdes-Levées. Record of a tombal inscription
suggests that he was buried in the church of Saint-Antoine in Avignon, although the
reason for his presence in Avignon at the time of his death is unknown.
An active and valued royal servant who held important ecclesiastical positions,
Chartier was also a master of prose both in Latin and French and an accomplished poet.
The range of style, form, and subject matter in Chartier’s work is impressive.
His most controversial, celebrated, and imitated work, the Belle dame sans merci
(1424), begins with a conventional situation: the wandering, mournful narrator overhears
an exchange between a disconsolate lover and his lady. The language the lover uses to
persuade the lady of his love and to ask for hers in return reveals that he has been cast in
the old mold, in which the lady either granted such requests or maintained a neutral
distance. Chartier’s belle dame reserves her right to refuse and to disabuse the lover of his
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