French Encounters with the Ottomans, 1510-1560

Pascale Barthe

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317132660
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Medieval & Early Modern Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Focusing on early Renaissance Franco-Ottoman relations, this book fills a gap in studies of Ottoman representations by early modern European powers by addressing the Franco-Ottoman bond. In French Encounters with the Ottomans, Pascale Barthe examines the birth of the Franco-Ottoman rapprochement and the enthusiasm with which, before the age of absolutism, French kings and their subjects pursued exchanges-real or imagined-with those they referred to as the 'Turks.' Barthe calls into question the existence of an Orientalist discourse in the Renaissance, and examines early cross-cultural relations through the lenses of sixteenth-century French literary and cultural production. Informed by insights from historians, literary scholars, and art historians from around the world, this study underscores and challenges long-standing dichotomies (Christians vs. Muslims, West vs. East) as well as reductive periodizations (Middle Ages vs. Renaissance) and compartmentalization of disciplines. Grounded in close readings, it includes discussions of cultural production, specifically visual representations of space and customs. Barthe showcases diplomatic envoys, courtly poets, 'bourgeois', prominent fiction writers, and chroniclers, who all engaged eagerly with the 'Turks' and developed a multiplicity of responses to the Ottomans before the latter became both fashionable and neutralized, and their representation fixed.

1 All Birds Assembled

Voici donc assemblés tous les oiseaux du monde, ceux des proches contrées et des pays lointains.

The world’s birds gathered for their conference.

—Farid-ud-Din’ Attar, La conférence des oiseaux¹

The Crusade Tradition and Its French Response

In the late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century the ideal of the crusade was alive² and very much aimed at the Ottomans. On September 25, 1396, they had severely crushed the crusaders at Nicopolis, and in 1453 they captured Constantinople, making their presence ever more unavoidable in Christian Europe. As woodcuts portraying monstrosities perpetrated by the Ottomans inundated the German market,³ French courtiers authored poems that carried an obvious crusading element and consequently were virulently opposed to the ‘Turks.’ Jean Molinet (ca. 1435–1507) and André de La Vigne (1470–1527?) wrote vitriolic examples of this ambient Ottomanophobia that was as strikingly visual as it was long-lasting.

In the “Complainte de Grèce,” a poem alternating prose and verse that he wrote in early 1464, Molinet sets out to describe three allegorical queens: England, France, and “la povre Gresse oppressee des Turcz infidelles” (poor Greece oppressed by the Turkish infidels).⁴ The poet describes Greece’s aggressor either as a wolf, a snake, or an abominable seven-headed dragon whistling of contentment and opening its mouth to swallow her.⁵ Directly inspired by biblical prophecies, the apocalyptic beast is identified with the ‘Turks’ by the Queen of France:

O Grece, ma chiere amie, qui sera celle horrible beste venant des parties d’Orient? N’est ce mie ce tres furieux dragon, le Turc infidelle, le prince des tenebres, le patron de tirannie, le pere des mescreans sathalites, le filz de perdition, le disciple de Mahommet, le messagier de Antechrist, l’espantaille des povres brebisettes, le flaÿau des Crestïens, le rieu d’enfer et la dure verge de Dieu poindant et criminelle de qui tu es persecutee? (lines 45–53, pp. 17–18)

Greece, my dear friend, who will this terrible beast coming from the East be? Is it not this furious dragon, the infidel Turk, the prince of darkness, the patron of tyranny, the father of unbelieving torturers, the disciple of Muhammad, the messenger of the Antichrist, the one that frightens the poor lambs, the scourge of Christians, the announcer of hell and the hard curse of God by whom you are persecuted?

Answering the French queen’s hopelessness, the poet suggests that, were England to dispatch George to kill the new dragon, she could be Greece’s savior. Or else France or Bourgogne could produce a second Charlemagne. The end of the poem builds on the last suggestion and shows the Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, as the western lion that will save his eastern neighbor:

O Grece […] as tu veu en tes forests orientelles lyon pareil a cestuy revestu de la couleur du ciel, ton reparateur rugissant en Occident, le tres victorieux duc de Bourgongne, qui, par raison et comme renommé par le siecle univers, est appelé le puissant lyon? (lines 99–105, p. 19)

Oh, Greece, … have you seen in your oriental forests a lion such as the one dressed in azure, your savior roaring in the West, the powerful Duke of Burgundy who, with reason, is known as the great lion of our time?

In the final section of the poem, acteur and England complete the casting of Philip the Good as crusader by adding a “prophetie de Merlin” to earlier biblical apocalyptic references.

One could view the “Complainte de Grèce” as a particularly effective poème de circonstance written by a poet entirely devoted to his patrons at the court of Burgundy: by flaunting war against Islam, the rhétoriqueur uses an argument to which Philip the Good could not be indifferent since his father, John the Fearless, had been defeated by the Ottomans in the battle of Nicopolis in 1396. This would be a hasty judgment, however. Jean Devaux has shown that Molinet, while aptly and consistently legitimizing the politics of the Dukes of Bourgogne—including their crusading agenda—was also able to criticize the results of their political decisions.⁶ More than a docile historiographer focused on Burgundy, Molinet looked far beyond his court and was not blindly serving a dynasty. Deeply influenced by conduct literature, the rhétoriqueur’s entire literary production served to empower his ruler while expecting accountability from him. This is particularly visible in the “Complainte de Grèce” where the poet, indiciaire and literatus, calls for a crusade at the same time as he speaks in favor of union among Christian princes.⁷ In other words, in Molinet’s poetry, a belligerent topos overlaps with what Devaux calls a pacifist discourse. As Michael Randall states, “Molinet’s poems are turned outward.”⁸ From the individual, the rhétoriqueur seeks out the collective; from Burgundy, he observes and engages with France, England, and Greece, as well as the Ottoman Empire.

Thirty years after Molinet’s “Complainte de Grèce,” André de La Vigne penned a Ressource de la chrestienté, a poem rallying against the ‘Turks’ and geared toward a position at court which the poet obtained soon afterwards.⁹ The poem, which was most likely written between February and May 1494, closely reflects and offers a justification to the political ambitions of Charles VIII in Italy, Naples more specifically.¹⁰ The chief rationalization for an Italian invasion by a French king was a crusade against the Ottomans, one that, according to popular prophecies, would eventually lead to the Holy Land. Indeed, a “prenosticacion du roy Charles huytieme de ce nom compillée par l’une des sibiles,” claims that a French prince named Charles would conquer Florence and Rome, become king of Greece, annihilate the ‘Turks,’ and die in Jerusalem.¹¹ This prophecy, in Latin, was included in one version of the Ressource.

In La Vigne’s poem, Dame Crestienté,¹² persecuted by “Les Turcs maulditz, desloyaulx chiens mastins” (v. 136) (the damned Turks, these treacherous dogs), is rescued by Dame Noblesse and Magesté Royalle, the latter being identified in several acrostics as Charles de Valois. The most intriguing part of the Ressource is the interchange that takes place in the second half of the poem between Je ne sçay qui and Bon Conseil. Opposing war against the Ottomans, Je ne sçay qui cautions against the possible death of the French monarch whose life should be protected and not endangered by travel outside of the kingdom that could shorten his life. The anonymous character warns against a courageous opponent and suggests that the French king should fight back if he is attacked on his territory; war, however, should not be waged unprovoked for it might bring death among the French population at large. Therefore, according to the war skeptic, it is better to adopt a laissez-faire attitude and to wait for God to act.¹³ The pope can go ahead if he wants, Je ne sçay qui adds, but the French should be wary about war spilling onto their territory. In short, the French should not “aller a Napples pour faire du Rolant” (v. 1163) (go to Naples and be a martyr like Roland).

Bon Conseil counters Je ne sçay qui’s arguments by accusing his debater of lying and serving his own interests.¹⁴Bon Conseil then encourages everyone to consider the honor that the French and Christian warriors, and potential martyrs, would receive for centuries to come. Like Charlemagne’s exploits, their heroic actions would be sung and remembered while the legendary valor and reputation of the French would remain intact. Bon Conseil’s advice ultimately prevails and the poem ends with Magesté Royalle calling on the French soldiers to gather their arms and rally to Dame Crestienté’s defense.

In the late fifteenth century, however, the crusade might have been an excuse more than a motivation and a goal in itself. Isom-Verhaaren claims that the crusade was not the main motive for Burgundian and French rulers who were more interested in territorial expansion than costly campaigns to Jerusalem.¹⁵ Furthermore, what is striking in Molinet’s and La Vigne’s poems is not only the pretext that the crusade conveniently offers to the French kings who have their eye on Italy, but also the fact that crusading has become a princely duty. Popes may agree to a crusade, but princes decide to conduct them. Still, objections like the ones voiced by Je ne sçay qui are publicly heard and acknowledged, before being debunked.¹⁶

The rhetoric of the crusade is undeniably present in Molinet and La Vigne’s poems, but the crusade itself is singularly absent, both poets seeking to exalt the expansionist agendas of either a Burgundian duke or one of two French kings, Charles VIII (r. 1483–1498) and Louis XII (r. 1498–1515), rather than rallying Christian princes and peoples behind a war against Islam. The crusade had become more a façade than a reality by the late fifteenth century. It did not entirely hide political preoccupations in Italy, but the crusade was used as a parade and a deflector for the French; early modern readers of these two rhétoriqueurs would have understood as much.¹⁷

Nevertheless, poets like Molinet and La Vigne—who were influential at court and who responded to the court’s political agenda, but who could not simply have been opportunists—gave the Ottomans’ significant territorial conquests and military success at least considerable attention if not very real concern, and they translated them into striking belligerent verses. The concern was all the more real since the Ottomans neither started nor stopped at Byzantine Greece and Constantinople. Under Selim I (r. 1512–1520), they defeated the Mamlūks and conquered Syria, Palestine, and Egypt within months (1516–1517), thereby becoming the guardians of the two most sacred places of the Islamo-Christian civilization, Jerusalem and Mecca. The Ottomans took the island of Rhodes from the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in 1522¹⁸ and controlled most of the Mediterranean in the next decade thanks, in part, to the famed Khayr-ed-Din from Algiers, known in the West as Barbarossa (ca.1478–1546). On land, they pushed deep into Europe, conquering Belgrade in 1521, Mohács in Hungary in 1526, Buda in 1529, more Hungarian territory in 1541, Transylvania in 1551–1552, and Cyprus in 1571. Before laying siege to Malta in 1565, they had progressed into continental Europe as far as Vienna, where they had been stopped in 1529. Most historians accept that the Ottoman Empire was at its peak, territorially speaking, but also militarily, politically, and artistically, during the reign of Sultan Süleyman between 1521 and 1566.¹⁹ The Christian world of the sixteenth century agreed.

What was perceived as an inexorable march toward Rome prompted the papacy to call on Christian princes to unite against Islam. After Julius II, Leo X tried to jumpstart a crusade. Francis I (r. 1515–1547), who had impressed the pope in Marignan in 1515, responded to this call in the affirmative, although rather equivocally. Wishing to appear as Christianity’s champion, the young king agreed to embark on a crusading project with the papal state:

[je] me offre entrer et condescendre sincèrement, sans fraude, dol ne machination en icelle paix, tresve ou fraternité, d’autant que sur toutes choses ay toujours désiré (comme si fais encores), ainsi que on a peu voir, paix, amour et union universelle en la chrestienté, afin que l’effusion du sang que longuement y a eu cours au grand détriment et affoiblissement d’icelle, cesse et soit rétorqué et converty contre les ennemis de nostre foy, et pour ce faire ay déliberé n’espargner ma personne ne mes biens, ainsi que par l’effect se pourra cognoistre.²⁰

[I] propose to enter and accept sincerely, without fail nor calculation, this peace, this truce, this brotherly alliance, [for] above all things I have wished and still do, as one can see, peace, love, and universal union within Christendom, so that the bloodshedding that has been happening for ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: The French Are All Ottomans
• 1 All Birds Assembled
• 2 A Dove or a Crow? Jean Lemaire de Belges and Jean Thenaud Open the Way to the Ottomans
• 3 A Sultan for a Master: Jacques de Bourbon Counters Lame Ducks
• 4 Of Pigeons: Rabelaisian Spaces
• 5 The Hawk above Constantinople: Bertrand de La Borderie’s Imperial Envy
• 6 The Peacock’s Beautiful Feathers: Jean Yversen (Re)Dresses the Protestants and Himself
• Conclusion: Birds of a Feather Flock Together?
• Bibliography
• Index