John II (âthe Goodâ) spent one third of his reign in captivity. While he was not the only king of France to be taken in battle (Saint Louis was captured at Fariskur in 1250 and Francis I at Pavia in 1525), the repercussions of his capture at Poitiers were the undoubtedly the most significant. According to Raymond Cazelles, the battle had âincalculable consequencesâ (âconsĂ©quences incalculablesâ), while Georges Minois has recently pronounced that its effects were so severe that âit is permissible to think that it would have been better for King John to have been killed at Poitiers rather than taken prisonerâ (âil est permis de penser quâil eut mieux valu que le roi Jean soit tuĂ© que fait prisonnier Ă Poitiersâ). 1 Certainly, Johnâs capture at Poitiers triggered a series of events that destabilised his kingdom, including: the reforming programme of the Estates of Languedoil, Charles of Navarreâs release from prison, the major peasant revolt known as the Jacquerie and Ătienne Marcelâs âParisian Revolutionâ. In addition to these political crises, France was suffering from widespread economic and social turmoil in the mid-1350s, as a result of two decades of war with England, the depredations of the free companies and the impact of the Black Death. It is for these reasons that J. B. Henneman has observed that the reign of John II is associated with âthe great disasters in French historyâ. 2
While the years following Poitiers were undoubtedly filled with calamities, John II played a secondary role in his governmentâs response to these events because he was in captivity and unable to rule his kingdom effectively. As his eldest son, Charles, was left to contend with these crises, historians have overwhelmingly approached the events of the later 1350s from the dauphinâs perspective. It is revealing that two of the best accounts of these years are found in Roland Delachenalâs and Françoise Autrandâs biographies of Charles V, both of which give limited treatment to Johnâs actions in captivity. 3 While Raymond Cazelles studied the reigns of John II and Charles V together in SociĂ©tĂ© politique, noblesse et couronne, he says little about Johnâs time in England beyond showing how the Valois monarchâs efforts to try and rule his kingdom from captivity harmed his sonâs position in France. 4 Likewise, Henneman focuses on the impact John IIâs capture at Poitiers had on France (particularly through the raising of his ransom) and he does not deal with the French kingâs actions in England. 5 The events of the later 1350s are typically seen to belong to the reign of Charles V rather than that of his father. For Autrand these years were âfor Charles, the passage from childhood to adulthoodâ (âpour Charles, le passage de lâenfance Ă lâĂąge adulteâ), while Delachenal found that the experiences Charles gained during the four years of his fatherâs captivity formed âa decisive influenceâ (âune influence dĂ©cisiveâ) on his style of rule as king. 6
While historians have written sympathetically about the dauphin because of the difficulties he had to contend with during these years, they have been scathing in their criticism of John II. In his Histoire de France, Louis-Pierre Anquetil wrote that âthe reign of King John is one of historyâs most disastrousâ (âle rĂšgne du roi Jean est un des plus dĂ©sastreux que lâhistoire presenteâ). 7 The events of Johnâs reign undoubtedly seemed especially pitiful to Anquetil because his Histoire (written at Napoleonâs request) was first published in 1805, the year of Austerlitz, when France, triumphant in Europe, crushed the Holy Roman Empire and even considered invading Britain. From the early twentieth century, historians began to attribute many of the disasters that befell France in the 1350s to defects in John IIâs character. Roland Delachenal labelled him a âmediocre sovereignâ (âmediocre souverainâ), while Alfred Colville found that he had âmediocre intelligenceâ (âune intelligence mĂ©diocreâ). 8 Likewise, in his influential La guerre de cent ans (published in 1945 after another disastrous period of French history, when military defeat had again led to foreign occupation), Ădouard Perroy found that âat a tragic moment in its history, the crown of France was worn ⊠by a mediocrityâ (âĂ un moment tragique de son histoire, la couronne de France fĂ»t portĂ©e ⊠par un mĂ©diocreâ), while Richard Vaughan noted in his 1962 study of Philip the Bold that John II was reckoned to be âamongst the worst of medieval French kingsâ. 9 Raymond Cazelles challenged the typically negative view of John IIâs character in his 1974 article âJean II le Bon: Quel homme? Quel roi?â. While Cazelles presented John as an âinnovative kingâ (âroi innovateurâ) who was responsible for many of the achievements that had been erroneously credited to his son, he largely omitted Johnâs four years in captivity from his study. 10 This is a considerable oversight because, as I show in this book, the developments John II made to the presentation of the royal image during this period deserve to rank high amongst the achievements of his reign.
Historians are overwhelmingly negative about John IIâs time in England, which they rate as the most pitiful years of a disastrous reign. John is typically cast as a negligent monarch who squandered his subjectsâ money in the pursuit of his own personal pleasures at the Plantagenet court. For Jules Michelet, the captive French king enjoyed âthe insolent courtesy of the Englishâ (âde jouir bonnement de lâinsolente courtoisie des Anglaisâ), while Françoise Autrand writes that John âfrom his gilded prison of Windsor ⊠did little either for his son or for the honour of the Crown of Franceâ (âde sa prison dorĂ©e de âWindesoresâ ⊠ne faisait pas grand-chose ni pour son fils ni pour lâhonneur de la couronne de Franceâ). 11 For Delachenal, John âyoung still, carefree, insouciant, passionate for hunting, had the freedom to satisfy his desiresâ (âjeune encore, insouciant, passionnĂ© pour la chasse, il avait tout latitude pour donner satisfaction Ă ses goutsâ), while the duke of Aumale (who edited the first set of the household accounts detailing Johnâs time in Englandâsee below) stated that âwith little concern for the miseries of his kingdom ⊠he especially loved pleasureâ (âassez peu prĂ©occupĂ© des misĂšres de son royaume ⊠il aimait surtout le plaisirâ). 12 Historians generally portray John as filling his time with frivolous pastimes as âhe waited for the hour of his releaseâ (âil attendit lâheure de la dĂ©liveranceâ). 13 Recently, Jonathan Sumption has stated that John âkicked his heelsâ in England while waiting to return to France. 14 Even sympathetic accounts of John IIâs reign view his actions in captivity as of little importance and divorced from the practice of kingship. 15
In contrast, this book shows that the activities John II pursued during his captivity were of the utmost importance to his struggle with Edward III. Johnâs innovations in the presentation of the royal image, which came as a result of the conditions of his captivity, also had a wider impact on the fashioning of Valois power during the fourteenth century. Historians customarily state that courtly display blossomed under Charles V because of his achievements in restoring the French monarchyâs power after the catastrophe of his fatherâs reign. For Robert Knecht, the Valois court was âa âtheatre of magnificenceâ for which Charles V laid down certain rulesâ, while David Loades has called the reign of Charles V the âapogeeâ of the French court. 16 In his influential study of pre-modern European courts, A. G. Dickens even compared the magnificence of the court of Charles V with that of Louis XIV. 17 In this book, I demonstrate that the developments which took place to the presentation of Valois power during Charles Vâs reign have been overstated and that he has been credited for initiatives which should be attributed to his father. Rather than being a product of the military and diplomatic successes of Charles Vâs reign, it was the conditions of his fatherâs captivity that spurred on the major developments that took place in the construction of the royal image during this period. It was John rather than Charles who played the formative role in establishing the French court as the leading court in Europe in the mid-fourteenth century.
The perception that Charles Vâs reign was the golden age of the medieval French court is partly a consequence of the lack of work on the early Valois French court. While there are numerous books on the Renaissance Valois court, beyond the work by Ălisabeth Lalou and Jules Viard on household ordinances, historians have paid little attention to the reigns of the first two Valois monarchs. 18 While Malcolm Vale compares the courts of England,...