JONAS OF ORUÉANS
(before 780-ca. 843). Frankish theologian. Born in Aquitaine, Jonas became bishop of
Orléans in 818, after its previous bishop, Theodulf, was compromised in the revolt of
Bernard of Italy, nephew of Emperor Louis the Pious (r. 814–40). Jonas was involved in
the political crises of Louis’s reign and in several synods, including the assembly held in
Paris in 825 to discuss the problem of image worship in the East and the Paris reform
synod of 829. In connection with the synod of 825, Louis the Pious charged Jonas and
Archbishop Jeremiah of Sens with preparing for Pope Eugenius II an extract of the
council’s decrees, which clarified the ways that 9th-century Carolingian views on images
and their worship differed from those espoused by the papacy and the Byzantine court.
Jonas’s writings also include the treatise De institutione regia, composed for Pepin of
Aquitaine (d. 838), on the duties of monarchs and the role of bishops in the temporal
sphere; De institutione laicali, written for Count Matfrid of Orléans, purportedly to
explain the obligations of marriage; and De cultu imaginum, completed after 840, which
defended the cults of relics and the Cross as well as the presence of artistic
representations in churches.
Celia Chazelle
Jonas of Orléans. PL 106.
——. A Ninth-Century Political Tract: The “De institutione regia” of Jonas of Orleans, trans.
R.W.Dyson. Smithtown: Exposition, 1983.
Delaruelle, Étienne. “Jonas d’Orléans et le moralisme carolingien.” Bulletin de littérature
ecclesiastique 55(1954):129–43.
Reviron, Jean. Les idées politico-religieuses d’un évêque du IXe siècle, Jonas d’Orléans et son “De
institutione regia”: étude et texte critique. Paris: Vrin, 1930.
JONGLEUR
. Professional performers best known for propagating the chansons de geste, jongleurs
also performed more mundane acts, such as acting, doing stunts, dancing, and bear
baiting. Since the jongleurs normally sang the works of another and belonged to a lower
class, they are regularly distinguished from the trouvères, who by definition “found,” that
is, created themselves, the songs they sang and did not participate in the other aspects of
the jongleurs’ art. Deriving from Old French jogleor, itself from Latin joculator ‘jokester,
comedian,’ the form jongleur dates from the 16th century and is a contamination of
jangler ‘to chat, to gossip.’
The jongleurs’ trade apparently emerged about the 8th century, although attestation of
the word itself occurs only in the 9th. The church early on recognized the danger of
uncontrolled histrionics during holy festivities, but since jongleurs also recited saints’
lives ecclesiastical authority began to favor them, and some few acquired prestige. As a
rule, however, their low social class made them outcasts, so that they were often rejected
and prohibited from participating in the church services.
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