Louis XI, A French Monarch in Pilgrim’s Garb: Badges

Abstract

In book ten, chapter five, of The Hunchback ofNotre-Dame (1831), Victor Hugo depicts a superstitious King Louis XI of France sequestered with his advisors, resolving to hang the heroine Esmeralda as a witch despite her having claimed sanctuary in the cathedral of Notre-Dame. Asking advance forgiveness from the Virgin Mary, the king removes his hat and prays to one of several pilgrims' badges pinned to the hood, a medal devoted to the Virgin of Paris. Hugo's fictional account of the king's hat corresponds to fifteenth-c. accounts of apparel documented by historians during Louis's lifetime. The portrait (fig. 1) shows Louis's unkingly hat with the glimmer of a pardy visible badge pinned on it. This badge, others like it, and the ways such a sign was used by pilgrims is the subject of this investigation, which will add to the already extensive literature on Louis XI, as well as expand the examination of pilgrims' badges and their uses in the late Middle Ages. Some of the ways in which the king used pilgrims' insignia were typical of fifteenth-c. pilgrims; others were unique to him alone and allow a glance at Louis's spiritual tenor. In any case, the prominence of the king makes Louis's use of these badges well documented and ideal for analysis. King Louis XI (1423-83) ruled France from 1461 to 1483, and his reign is often described as a period of absolutism. Louis XI (1423-83) was raised in isolation from his father (Charles VII) and remained his enemy until 1461, the year of Louis's ascension to the throne. After the death of the king's first wife, he retired to his property in Dauphine (1447) but fled the realm in 1456. When he became king of France, he expanded his authority abroad (Catalonia) and at home, dismissing his father's advisors and making Philippe de Commynes his councilor (1447-1511). Commynes's Memoires (1524), besides becoming a new literary genre, reveal all the details about Louis XI, as shown in the newest editions and translations of the memorialist's work (by Jean Dufournet and Joel Blanchard). Louis made several serious political mistakes during his reign, but his councilor certainly prevented other errors by offering the monarch political analyses, lucidity in anticipating outcomes, and general pragmatism (an early Machiavelli). Soon, Louis handled his domestic enemies more strategically by isolating and destroying each in turn, preferring diplomacy to war. He supported first the Lancastrians and then the Yorkists, in order to prevent English intervention, and subsidized Swiss resistance to Burgundy, whose territories he acquired. Before his death, he achieved the territorial unification of modern France. We know relatively little as yet about his spiritual life. As with all historical documentation, the sources of pilgrims' signs are piecemeal. Thousands of archaeological examples of such badges have been found in northern Europe but remain detached from their original contexts of use; further, painted and sculpted images supplement the metallic devices. Textual references are mosdy anecdotal and incidental, but in Louis's case many such signs exist. They are mentioned in descriptions of the king's appearance and behavior, as noted by fifteenth-c. observers; comparable references are likewise made in royal correspondence and financial accounts. Both pilgrimages and badges had a prominent role in Louis's reign; during his career, he used these signs to manifest his public identity and as emblems of his political network. Thus, it becomes evident that he used these insignia not only for personal devotional purposes, but also to build and maintain networks, to represent relationships beyond those typically established during pilgrimages, to further his political ambitions, to negotiate his relationship with the clergy, and to create affiliations that linked the political and the spiritual realms. Badges are wearable souvenirs that thousands of medieval pilgrims bought for a few pennies at the tombs, shrines, and wonder-working images all over Europe from the twelfth century onwards. …

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