The following is a - very short - extract from Paths to Kingship in medieval Latin Europe, which is due to be published in October. In that sense, this post is a taster (go on, buy the book, e.g. here: it's really quite affordable, so that every household can own at least two copies). But it also touches on wider questions about audience and readership, the relationship between (mostly) clerical writers of history and their lay (often) elite patrons, and the cultural horizons of politics.
I
In 1161, Peter of Blois, writing on behalf of Archbishop Rotrou of Rouen, urged King Henry II of England to provide his eldest son with a literary education. His letter offers perhaps the fullest programmatic statement on the subject to survive from high medieval Europe.
Literature, Peter declared, provided a compendium of all useful knowledge: how to govern the state; how to erect, destroy and rebuild castles; how to wage war; how justice, reverence for the law and the peace of liberty could be nurtured; and how the friendship of neighbouring nations could be won. Henry, who had himself been trained in letters since early adolescence, provided a most glorious example. As a result of this education, he went on to be wise in governance, perceptive in judgements, cautious in commands and circumspect in counsel. The bishops of the realm therefore implored Henry to ensure that his son be trained to act in a like fashion. An illiterate king was like a navigator without oarsmen or a bird without feathers.
The power of innate virtue, if exercised in conjunction with philosophy, would increase understanding and discernment fourfold. Aristotle’s teaching had made Alexander even greater. Solomon had treasured wisdom above riches and beauty. For how could a king rule according to divine law, if he could not discern that law? In order to discern it, he would have to be proficient in letters.
Peter continued to list kings whose throne had been blessed and whose realms flourished because they had been well versed in literature: David, Josiah, Constantine, Theodosius and Justinian. Peter added a warning: the continuation of both realm and dynasty depended upon kings abiding by divine law. When David had asked God for wisdom, the Lord had promised that his kingdom and his line would be blessed provided they enforced divine law.
Yet if they defied the will of God, He would unleash upon them righteous anger and great fury. The history of the kings of Israel showed how, from Saul and his son Jonathan onwards, kings had concluded their days well and had reigned in glory as long as they did God’s bidding. But once they veered from the path of righteousness, they died by the sword. Worse still, the failings of kings rebounded upon their people. David’s presumption resulted in a great pestilence, killing 70,000 people, and Jeroboam’s rent Israel asunder. Finally, if a ruler did not heed the law of God, the throne would pass to foes, lesser men and aliens. Therefore, Henry II was urged, his son ought to be instructed in letters. Armed with wisdom, he would vanquish evil and give a shining example to others.
II
Literature provided a storehouse of useful information about warfare, governance and justice. Such utility extended to moral lessons. A knowledge of letters enhanced the innate virtue of princes and provided them with the means of fathoming God’s will. Illiterate kings, by contrast, endangered the welfare of their people, both in this world and the next. Moreover, Peter pointed out, the Old King had himself been trained in letters from an early age.
That was no mere flattery. Henry’s father, the count of Anjou, had been a patron of William of Conches, whose Dragmaticon became a popular treatise on the natural world, and Count Fulk Rechin of Anjou was reputed to have written a history of the comital house. On the English side, Henry’s uncle had been a patron of William of Malmesbury and Geoffrey of Monmouth; the king’s grandmother had commissioned William of Malmesbury to write the Gesta Regum; and his mother had been the recipient of a copy both of William’s Gesta Regum and of the Latin Kaiserchronik. Literary patronage was very much a family tradition. Henry II followed suit. As Peter of Blois explained to the archbishop of Palermo, in the king’s household, ‘every day is school, in the constant conversation of the most literate and discussion of questions’.
The expectation that rulers commission and collect learned texts, that they listen to, engage and converse with scholars and writers, was by no means peculiar to England. In the eleventh century, King Sancho of Navarre commissioned letters and treatises from Bishop Oliba of Vic and Abbot Bern of Reichenau provided materials for the imperial library of Henry III. In twelfth-century Denmark, Valdemar I and Knud VI collated accounts about the weapons of their forebears, the laws of Knud the Great and ancient inscriptions. In the crusader states William of Tyre singled out King Baldwin III of Jerusalem as enjoying conversations with learned men and the study of history. In fact, history appears to have been a popular subject in the instruction of rulers. Around 1040 Wipo composed the Gesta Chuonradi for Emperor Henry III. It used the deeds of Henry’s father to construct an ideal image of kingship. Around 1125, William of Malmesbury dedicated his Gesta Regum Anglorum to Henry I’s likely successors and their advisors. In the early thirteenth century Giles of Paris penned an account of the deeds of Charlemagne for the edification and instruction of the future Louis VIII.
The imperial palace at Hagenau, a residence favoured by both Frederick Barbarossa and Henry VI, was so famed for its library that Godfrey of Viterbo celebrated its holdings in verse. The emperor’s book chests preserved ‘for him the best authors and the tales of the saints. If you want to read chronicles, the hall will offer them to you. There you will find law and sciences, and every poet. The great Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen give you worthy counsel in this house, and teach you what to avoid.’ No book catalogue has survived from twelfth-century Hagenau, but the subjects covered in Godfrey’s list do not diverge much from those viewed as essential by Peter of Blois: history, law, theology, medicine and natural philosophy. Other evidence also suggests that the Staufen emperors were avid collectors, and even producers, of texts. Henry VI wrote vernacular poetry, Frederick Barbarossa travelled with a collection of books when campaigning in Italy, Burgundino of Pisa claimed to have conversed with the emperor about natural philosophy and Hugh of Honau, a court cleric, drew on the imperial library at Hagenau in his study of Aristotle.
None of this necessarily meant that Frederick Barbarossa and his peers were avid readers. They were, however, supposed to surround themselves with men who were. Literary court culture most likely unfolded in conversation, discussion and the studying of excerpts, perhaps even in translation. That much is suggested by Peter of Blois’ description of the court of Henry II. Likewise, Burgundino discussed ‘the nature of things and their causes’ with Frederick. Baldwin III ‘easily surpassed all the other princes of the realm in liveliness of mind and flourishing speech’, and sought relaxation from public affairs by ‘eagerly imbibing readings (lectiones). In particular, he enjoyed listening to histories, and diligently explored the deeds and mores of ancient kings and of the greatest of the princes; he was refreshed by the tales of, above all, literate men, but also by those of prudent laymen.’ It was perhaps in this context that many texts reached the ears of rulers: not through active reading, but through interlocutors who expounded the moral principles on which the royal office rested and who recounted exemplary deeds.
III
These efforts met practical needs. As William of Malmesbury had claimed of Henry I of England, it was because of his reading history that the king learned ‘how to ride his subjects with a lighter rein as time went on’. Knowledge of the past also served to justify, guide or initiate concrete political action. When pondering whether to claim a royal title, Roger II of Sicily appointed a commission of scholars to research the ancient history of kingship in Sicily. Valdemar I of Denmark, when confronted with mysterious inscriptions near Blekinge, ‘sent men … to make a closer investigation of the rows of characters there, and then copy the twiggy outlines of the letters’. Scholars helped illuminate the past for the benefit of ruler and realm. As experts on history, they also enabled monarchs to perform a most basic duty: to recognise, recover and restore good law. Valdemar's son, Knud VI, commissioned Absalon of Lund to gather the legal customs of Knud the Great (who himself had brought together wise men to compile them), St Stephen of Hungary convened scholars to collate law, and at Roncaglia in 1158 Frederick Barbarossa called upon judges and lawyers to define imperial rights in Italy. Yet that was possible only because the ruler sought the company of wise and prudent men, of whose expertise he could readily avail himself.
Their counsel further supported the monarch in his role as keeper and protector of the faith. While rulers did not usually engage in settling theological disputes, they certainly were called upon to resolve others, especially when the matter at hand touched upon royal privileges or the king’s prerogatives. In the 1160s, the monks of Battle Abbey, a community originally endowed by William the Conqueror, disputed the rights of the bishop of Chichester to exercise oversight of them. Partly because it involved a royal charter, the case was ultimately decided by the king himself. In 1167 Pope Alexander III requested that Louis VII of France help resolve a clash between the canons and the archbishop of Reims. This religious dimension called for familiarity with basic principles of theology and doctrine. As Peter of Blois had explained, kings could only abide by divine law if they knew what it was. Therefore, they had to be made aware of how it applied to the art of governance. Hence Oliba of Vic advising his king on marriage laws and auguries, Burgundino of Pisa discussing ‘the nature of things’ with Frederick Barbarossa or the emperor writing to the abbot of Tegernsee, requesting that, as he had a talented scribe in his community, a missal and a volume of ‘letters and gospels according to the order of clerics’ be produced for Frederick’s perusal. Knowledge of literature was essential for just and righteous government, but it was dependent on and required a court that attracted wise and learned men.
A literary education was about more than just being able to read. It provided its recipients with an essential set of tools without which they would not be able to govern, and therefore constituted a central part of the education that kings could bestow upon their chosen heirs. When Emperor Henry II spent time at Hildesheim and Louis VI of France at St Denis, it not only testified to the piety and devotion of their fathers, but also constituted an attempt to ready their sons for assuming the reins of power. Their exposure to books gave them access to the basic knowledge they needed to divine God’s will. It aided them in choosing wise and prudent counsellors, in drawing fruitful lessons from their erudition and in interacting in a refined and elegant manner with their subjects.
Yet learning was to provide prospective rulers with a basic grasp rather than in-depth knowledge. When Peter of Blois described himself as having instructed the future king of Sicily in ‘the basic arts of versification and literature’ (emphasis mine), he probably gave a fairly accurate impression of what a royal education entailed. Even so, there was a lot to take in. Kings had to know enough to be able to grasp the complexity of historical precedent, and to understand the principles underpinning legal custom and the doctrines of the faith. All this they had to know sufficiently well to be able to convene and preside over debates, to navigate the pitfalls of conflicting and divergent laws and resolve disputes and ecclesiastical rivalries, while also setting an example to their people in displaying serenity and equanimity of mind in just the right combination of erudition, virtue and refinement. That Frederick Barbarossa, with his notoriously weak grasp of Latin, assembled so veritable a treasure at Hagenau, that he commissioned his uncle Otto of Freising, taught at Paris, to compile an account of his deeds and that he sought the company of scholars like Burgundino, may indicate just how important the expectation was that a ruler act as patron of and have some grounding in matters of literature.