The Manuscripts

In the 1880s, when Auguste Molinier[1] produced his edition of the Vita Ludovici, he had access to seven manuscripts that he designated A-G. Henri Waquet[2] in his 1929 edition of the text used an eighth manuscripts adding Manuscript H to Molinier’s seven. Since then, three additional manuscripts that contain copies of the Vita Ludovici, unknown to Waquet have come to light that can be lettered I-L. Of these manuscripts, eight (A, D, E, G, H, I and L) provide a complete text. Four manuscripts (B, C, J and K) are incomplete and only provide fragments of the text. Manuscript F is important in having a text that is significantly different and more detailed in some areas from the other manuscripts especially in relation to the events of 1124.

Manuscript A

Bibliothèque Mazarine: 2013, ancien 543; 266 folios in two columns

This volume consists of 266 leaves written in two columns containing a collection of narrative texts relating to the history of the Papacy and France (Liber Pontificalis, Historia ecclesiatica by Hugh de Fleury, extracts from Gregory of Tour, the Gesta Normannorum of William of Jumieges and fragments from the Chronicle of Adon de Vienne etc.) Molinier saw the manuscript as a sort of universal history since the birth of Christ formed by the juxtaposing of distinctive historical works and attributed it, if not to Suger himself then to his disciples.[3] He appears to base this conclusion, which he recognised was tenuous to Suger’s biographer William’s statement about Suger’s knowledge of and interest in history. The Vita Ludovici is to be found at the end of the manuscript from folio 232. Apart from glosses written during the thirteenth century, it is possible to distinguish the work of two hands. The first copied folios 1-231, probably compiled under the direction of Suger and worked between 1120, the year of Louis VII’s birth until the death of the young Philip in 1131 or at the latest the death of Louis VI in 1137.[4] The second was responsible for the final thirty-five leaves occupied by the work of Suger and worked around 1160-70.[5] The manuscript originated in the abbey of St-Denis[6] and Molinier argued that it was ‘perhaps’ regarded as a ‘first draft of Grandes chroniques de Saint-Denis’ and that the second copyist had access to Suger’s own copy of the Vita Ludovici.[7] This copy of the work of Suger is the oldest and best of the manuscripts and it is probable that all the other manuscripts derive from this work.

Manuscript B

Bibliothèque Nationale, 17546, ancien Notre-Dame 135; 39 folios in two columns; incomplete

This manuscript is structured very like Manuscript A but it is smaller consisting of thirty-nine leaves of which Suger’s text fills up the last twenty. The first part of the manuscript consists of a universal chronicle that stops in 1109 and is made up of passages borrowed from Adon de Vienne, Reginon de Prüm, Aimoin and his continuators. The Vita Ludovici is incomplete and ends in the middle of a sentence in chapter 26 with the words ‘scismaticum Burdinum’ on folio 39. The remainder of the manuscript existed in 1596 when Pithou used the manuscript but it appears to have been lost in the seventeenth century. [8]

The writing is the same throughout the manuscript and it was produced towards the end of the twelfth century. The scribe either used Manuscript A or, more probably a manuscript other than A but very close to it and since lost. He brought to the text some humorous corrections but he also made a significant number of omissions.

Manuscript C

Bibliothèque Nationale, 17657, ancien Notre-Dame 133; 163 folios in two columns; incomplete

This manuscript consists of material on Charlemagne (folios 1-16: Eginard and the Pseudo-Turpin) and events in the history of Normandy and England (folios 17-115: William of Malmesbury Gesta Anglorum and folios 120-158: William of Jumieges Gesta Normannorum). In addition, there are three fragments of the Vita Ludovici on folios 117-119.

· From ‘Guilelmus usui militia’ to ‘materiam’ covering the war between the young Louis and William Rufus and his death in 1100. [9]

· From ‘ad partes Normannorum’ to ‘ulterione’ covering the interview between Henry I and Louis VI at Neaufles. [10]

· From ‘de illustrem Antiochenum’ to ‘vitam amisit’covering the exploits of Bohemond. [11]

These fragments were probably copied in the 1160s. The final fragment of the Vita Ludovici is on folios 158-163 from ‘de venerande memorie’ to ‘stilum replicemus’[12] and examines the visit of Paschal II to France and the quarrel over investitures. This fragment was written by a different scribe after the Lateran Council of 1179.[13] He changed certain of Suger’s phrases and omitted certain words or groups of words.

There are undeniable parallels between Manuscripts C and D in their transcription of the Vita Ludovici. They derive from a common but lost source, similar to A and reproduced exactly in C but badly transcribed in D. The lost source was contemporaneous to Suger but was not his original text.

Manuscript D

Bibliothèque Nationale, 12710, ancien Saint-Germain; 89 folios

This is a very complex manuscript executed in relatively small script by at least nine scribes. The date and provenance are difficult to establish. Palaeographical evidence suggests a date at the end of the first half, or about the middle of the twelfth century. The manuscript gives the impression of a sort of commonplace-book containing a large variety of historiographical and hagiographical texts concerning the history of France. Saint-Denis has been suggested as the place of origins on the basis of its textual links to Manuscript A. However, documents relating to Dinant on folio 83 and a reference to a Liber Lobiensis on folio 32 suggest an origin in the diocese of Liège. In the sixteenth century, the book belonged to the monastery of Saint-Feuillien-du-Rœulx in Belgium and then passed to the library of Saint-German-des-Prés near Paris.

Many of the omissions in Manuscript C are also found in Manuscript D written after 1180. The Vita Ludovici is found in folios 12-25 and is transcribed in its entirety. As in Manuscript A, it forms part of a general history[14]. The scribe of Manuscript D knew Manuscript A and used it for several texts but did not utilise it for Suger’s text. He transcribed it poorly from an alternative manuscript, the same one used by the transcriber of Manuscript C. This is clear from the words and groups of words that are missing in both manuscripts.

Manuscript E

Bibliothèque Nationale, 5925, ancien Colbert 290

Manuscript E consists of dense collection of histories and chronicles concerning the kingdom of France down to 1223. It was produced in the middle of the thirteenth century and was one of the principal sources for the Chroniques françaises de Saint-Denis. The Vita Ludovici is on folios 199-232. Although it has closer links with Manuscript A than Manuscript B, it is arguably based on an intermediate manuscript since lost.

Manuscript F

Bibliothèque Nationale, 5949

Manuscript F exists in two versions. The original manuscript is in the Bibliothèque Mazarine 554, a parchment of 652 pages written for Charles V in the middle of the fourteenth century. There is an excellent copy made in the seventeenth century for André Duchesne. It is a collection of texts, made by a monk from St-Denis for a universal chronicle from 1057 to 1270 and consists of a partial copy of the Chronicle of William de Nangis (second redaction), Henry of Huntingdon Historia Anglorum, the Secreta fidelium of Marino Sanudo and the Vita Ludovici that reveals information found in no other manuscript.

Both Molinier[15] and Waquet[16] spend some time examining Manuscript F. Paul Viollet[17] argued, and Molinier supported this view in his preface that this redaction was produced by Suger himself after he had produced the original text. He argued that Suger had returned to his text and revised it as part of producing a new historical work that was interrupted by his death. Waquet was not convinced by their argument citing the work on O. Holder-Egger[18] who concluded that there was no evidence for a second redaction produced by Suger. Several of the passages cited by Molinier that seemed relevant to new circumstances in reality are little more than rather verbose developments of the original text. Even where there is something new, there is little reason to attribute them directly to Suger. O. Holder-Egger argues that the passage in the Vita Ludovici on the banner of St Denis could not have been the work of an individual living before the fourteenth century.

There may, however, be support for Viollet and Molinier’s view of Manuscript F from Linda Grant.[19] She argues that ‘it is difficult to believe that Suger was not using passages written as events happened; he must have started recording the deeds of the king many years before his subject’s death in 1137, with Louis’ blessing and cooperation.’ She bases this conclusion of the detailed nature of those parts of the text dealing with the early years of Louis’ life. Writing then stopped in the early 1130s, she argues and was taken up again after Louis’ death when Suger added the section on Louis’ lengthy final illness and revised the rest adding extra information, reflections and linking passages. She points to two occasions when ‘the seam shows’: for example, the end of chapter 1 marks the death of William Rufus but in the middle of chapter 16 is a paragraph beginning ‘Prefatus itaque rex Henricus, Guilelmo fratri deliciter succedens’, sections that succeed and complement one another. Whether her sequencing of the writing of Louis’ life is correct, the construction of the work over a long period of time with textual revisions and additions may well be how Suger wrote. If this was the case, then there could be an argument for a further revision in the late 1140s that supports Viollet’s thesis. Clearly, however, this revision was not available to the scribe of Manuscript A when he transcribed the Vita Ludovici in the 1160s and that I think poses a real problem because if it existed at that time at St-Denis why did he not use it? On balance, I am inclined to the view that Manuscript F is later and, in the absence of compelling evidence to support Viollet that the view of Holder-Egger that it originated in the fourteenth century in the reign of Charles V (born 1338; king 1364-1380) is the most likely explanation.

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[1] Ibid, Molinier, Auguste, (ed.), Vie de Louis le Gros par Suger, pp. xvii-xxii.

[2] Ibid, Waquet, Henri, (ed.), Vie de Louis VI le Gros, pp. xvii-xxiv.

[3] Ibid, Molinier, Auguste, (ed.), Vie de Louis le Gros par Suger, p. xvii, xviii cit, ibid, Lecoy de la Marche, A., (ed.), Oeuvres completes de Suger, recueilles, annotées er publiées d’après les manuscrits, pp. 382.

[4] Lair, Jules, ‘Memoire sur deux chroniques latines composées au XII^e siecle a l’abbaye de Saint-Denis’, Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartres, vol. xxxv, (1874), pp. 543-570 argued on p. 570 that the list of French kings that ended with the words ‘Ludovicus rex genuit Phillippum, Ludovicum et Henricum’ on folio 222 that it was not produced before 1131.

[5] Viollet, Paul, ‘Une grand chronique latine de Saint-Denis: observations pour server à l’histoire des oeuvres de Suger’, Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartres, vol. xxxiv, (1873), pp. 241-254 argued that the final folios could not have been copied before 1162.

[6] For historical writing at St-Denis, see Spiegel, Gabrielle M., The Chronicle Tradition of Saint-Denis: a Survey, Brookline, Mass., 1978.

[7] Ibid, Molinier, Auguste, (ed.), Vie de Louis le Gros par Suger, pp. xvii-xviii.

[8] Pithou, P., Historia Francorum scriptores, vol. xi, Frankfort, 1596, pp. 95-135.

[9] Ibid, Waquet, Henri, (ed.), Vie de Louis VI le Gros, p. 6 (lines 20-21) to p. 14 (line 4).

[10] Ibid, p. 98 (line 1) to p. 112 (line 8).

[11] Ibid, p. 44 (line 1) to p. 50 (line 8).

[12] Ibid, p. 50 (line 10) to p. 68 (line 18).

[13] In the title of this chapter, written in the same hand as the other fragments, it says ‘De nostri temporis concilio a papa Alexandro III Rome celebrato’. This dates it to shortly after 1179.

[14] Lair, Jules, ‘Memoire sur deux chroniques latines composées au XII^e siecle a l’abbaye de Saint-Denis’, Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartres, vol. xxxv, (1874), pp. 543-570 showed it was a collection of copies and extracts drawn together by a French historian in order to compose a chronicle of the kings of France.

[15] Ibid, Molinier, Auguste, (ed.), Vie de Louis le Gros par Suger, pp. xxii-xxviii and 133-164

[16] Ibid, Waquet, Henri, (ed.), Vie de Louis VI le Gros, pp. xxii-xxiv

[17] Viollet, Paul, ‘Une grand chronique latine de Saint-Denis: observations pour server à l’histoire des oeuvres de Suger’, Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartres, vol. xxxiv, (1873), pp. 241-254. Luchaire, Achille supported his thesis in ‘Une trés ancienne histoire de France. La compilation du manuscript latin 5949 A’, Revue historique, vol. xxxiv, (1887), pp. 259-276.

[18] Holder-Egger, O., ‘Zu Sugers Vita Ludowici VII regis’, Neues Archic der Gesellschaft für altere deutsche Geschintkunde, vol. ccvii, (1901), pp. 186-197.

[19] Grant, Linda, Abbot Suger of St-Denis: Church and State in Early Twelfth-Century France, London, 1998, pp. 38-42.

Vita or Gesta? 2

Certainly, Suger is ‘selective’ in his account of Louis’ life. There is much that is left out and historians have to turn to other historians like Orderic Vitalis to fill in the details. There is little on Louis’ life before the age of eleven, little on the tensions between him and his father over his second ‘marriage’ to Bertrada, their falling out over Louis being knighted away from home in 1098 or Bretrada’s attempt to have him imprisoned and poisoned in England in 1100-1101. Louis’ marriage to Adelaide de Maurienne in 1115 is mentioned briefly and his eldest son Philip is introduced only to die. It may be that Suger did not view these events as having any real bearing on the purpose of the text. However, there are other omissions that can be explained by Suger’s personal political and religious agenda. There is little on the factionalism of Louis’ court linked to the growing power of the Garlande family especially Stephen de Garlande leading to the crisis of 1127 when he was ousted from his position as chancellor. In fact, there is little on the mechanics of governing France under Louis. This was certainly deliberate on Suger’s part and reflects his desire, from the vantage point of the 1140s to distance himself and perhaps by extension Louis from the rule of the Garlandes.

He briefly mentions the house of St. Victor in Paris that Louis founded in 1113 and that played a significant part in twelfth century spiritual and intellectual life but he remains silent on Louis’ involvement with any other monasteries. St Bernard of Clairvaux and the religious tendencies he represented are ignored though there is a passing reference to his having advised on the coronation of the young Louis in 1131 in Manuscript F. It is Louis’ relationship with St-Denis that is the focus of his attention and particularly his relationship with Suger whose predecessor Adam gets scant recognition.

Establishing a clear link between the Capetian monarchy and St-Denis was at the heart of Suger’s writing. The abbey was under pressure from several quarters in the first decades of the twelfth century. First, to the church of Reims was promoting the cult of St Remigius as a rival to that of Dionysius: in his prologue, Suger described himself as ‘abbot of the blessed Denis the Areopagite’[1]. In 1090, the young prince Louis had subscribed to a document issued by his father confirming the possessions and immunities of the competing saint’s abbey in Reims. Louis had come into direct conflict with Reims over his coronation at Orleans in 1108 and although Both Philip and the young Louis were crowned at Reims in 1129 and 1131 respectively, the tensions between St-Denis and Reims comes out strongly in Suger’s text. Wherever possible, Suger showed Reims in a bad light. Secondly, during the 1120s, Peter Abelard had correctly challenged the claim that Dionysius the Areopagite was the patron of the abbey causing considerable internal dissension at St Denis. Abelard was accused as a traitor to the Crown, was thrown into prison, managed to escape and sought sanctuary in the lands of Theobald of Blois. Suger decided to drop the whole matter and allowed Abelard to live wherever he chose on condition that he did not enter another monastery. He did not object when Abelard became a very unhappy abbot himself a few years later and took no part in the attacks by Bernard of Clairvaux that resulted in Abelard’s condemnation at the Synod of Sens in 1140. Suger’s major concern in the years after he bacame abbot was the reform of St-Denis. He may have regarded his predecessor Adam as his ‘spiritual father and foster parent’ but he found the abbey buildings in disrepair, its revenues uncollected and its possessions alienated after Adam’s death. Thirdly, king Philip I had chosen to be buried, not in St-Denis but at the abbey of St-Benoit-sur-Loire reinforcing Suger’s less than flattering view of him unlike the Chronicle of Morigny that described him as a ‘man of wisdom’.[2] Suger contrasted Philip’s indolence with Louis’ activity to the extent that even during his father’s lifetime he was described as ‘defender of his father’s kingdom’. The language used in the text, especially the verbs and adverbs of speed reinforced the view that Suger’s Louis spent his life in continuous activity. It was Louis’ devotion to St-Denis from childhood and the fact that he lived a ‘good life’ and had a ‘good death’ that strengthened Suger’s claims for the abbey. Central to his restatement of the centrality of St-Denis to the French monarchy was Suger’s embellished account of the threatened German invasion of 1124. Louis conducted himself ‘with great humility’ at St-Denis asking the blessed Dionysius for aid, taking the battle standard, the mythic oriflamme[3] from the altar in a ceremony Suger implied meant that Louis recognised that he was a vassal of the abbey.[4] His account of events is open to question in several important respects but behind the rhetoric there is a king clearly devoted to St Denis. Royal donations and privileges especially the extension of St-Denis’ local jurisdiction and the concessions of the Lendit fair helped restore the legal and economic authority of the abbey. Louis’ support was essential and in his text, Suger shows again and again just how St-Denis profited.

Louis may have been at the centre of the canvas but St Denis and St-Denis were always in its background. They provided the link between the ideal visibility of human society and the order and justice of the invisible, divine hierarchy with Louis progressing from ‘a handsome youth…admirable for his development of moral character and for the growth of a well-made body’ to his approaching death when he ‘put off his kingship and laid down his kingdom’: the move from the material state of external beauty to the invisible state of enlightenment. The Vita Ludovici can be seen in terms of the Pseudo-Dionysian notion of anagogical ascent where readers, in contemplating the life of Louis VI share in the experience of enlightenment that his life reflected and that access to that enlightenment is achieved by following the mos anagogicus, the anagogical way. [5]

The Vita Ludovici operates on several different levels. First, it can be regarded as a ‘gesta’ to the extent that it recounts the deeds of Louis VI. Secondly, it is a ‘vita’ albeit a selective biographical study of Louis VI covering his life from his adolescence through to his death. In both these respects it is a partial account subject to the problems of reliability that historians encounter when dealing with medieval sources. The ‘gesta’ and ‘vita’ dimensions of the Vita Ludovici operate at the level of the visible in that they say what happened in a world in which there was disorder, threats to the authority of the Crown that were countered by an active and, within limits successful monarch. The degree of narrative credibility is determined by the third, and for Suger most important aspect of his work, its mystical and invisible quality. Suger has created a cultural image of kingship and its role in a cosmologically defined hierarchy of being, a means through which people may seek enlightenment through contemplating the ‘deeds’ and ‘life’ of Louis VI.

Suger wrote neither a traditional ‘gesta’ nor a traditional ‘vita’ in the sense that they are recognised in medieval historiography. The narrative of Louis’s life and deeds is important for the gloss it gives on the increasing authority of Capetian monarchy and the importance of individuals in bringing about fundamental political change. Yet to view the Vita Ludovici simply in those terms is to miss the central thrust of Suger’s writing. It is true that, unlike most of his ecclesiastical contemporaries, Suger never wrote a theological text but for a full understanding of why he wrote about Louis VI we have to recognise the centrality of the ideas of the Pseudo-Dionysius to his thinking. The Vita Ludovici can, in this sense be seen as a work of theology, a religious and educative tract using secular events as the medium through which Suger explored the Dionysian dualities of ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’, order and chaos, strength and weakness, authority and rebellion, secular and ecclestiastical, and good and evil. The memory of what had happened allowed others to contemplate what was to come. As Speigel says at the end of her paper[6]: ‘To Suger, the recollection of the past was not only a memory; it was also and perhaps more important, the promise of the future.’

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[1] Robert Hanning has made some useful comments on the effects of chroniclers stating the rhetorical principles of historiography in their Prologues in his review of Lecroix, Benôit, L’Historiens au moyen age, Paris, 1971 in History and Theory, vol. xii, (1973), pp. 419-434. Hanning argued that the conscious expression of rhetorical tradition that occurred in much medieval writing had a paradoxical role: ‘in providing not a guide to perceiving and communicating the meaning of history but rather as a context within which the author and audience shared a common intention – to address themselves to the needs of the past for instruction and edification.’ He believes this provided a ‘verbal context’ in which historians located themselves and won acceptance from their audiences but do not describe the methods or purposes that governed or inspired their work. For Suger, this ‘context’ lies in friendship, duty and especially remembrance.

[2] Ibid, Mirot, Leon, (ed.), La Chronique de Morigny (1095-1152), p. 21. La Chronique de Saint-Pierre-le-Vif de Sens, edited by R.H. Bautier and M. Gilles, Paris 1979, p. 146 also viewed Philip more favourably.

[3] The practice of depositing the royal flag at St-Denis started with Hugh Capet. The flag did not belong to the monastery but had originally been Charlemagne’s. The Chanson de Roland is the main source for this: ‘Saint Pierre fut, si aveit num Romaine/Mais de Munjoie iloec out pris eschange’ and the Nova Gesta Francorum, written at St-Denis in the early twelfth century reiterated this legend: ‘Mox ut Leo in eius loco successit missis legatis ad pium regem Karolem clavis confessionis Sanct Petri simul et vexillum romane urbis direxit’ (Bibliothèque Nationale lat 11793, fol. 27v). It is described as a gift from Pope Leo to Charlemagne recognising his status as emperor of the Roman people; this explains why it is sometimes called ‘Romane’. The Chanson de Roland described it as an ‘Orie flambé’ (the flag with ears) and gives Monjoie as its preferred name. Until the end of the eleventh century, the banner retained its religious significance while becoming more and more important as a symbol of the nation. There was, however, a second standard at St-Denis, that of the Vexin. This was, in origin feudal without previous royal associations but its importance as a royal standard was sealed when Louis VI took it from the saint’s altar in 1124 and ‘invited all France to follow him’ to face the threat of the German invasion. Increasingly the distinction between the banner of St-Denis and Charlemagne’s Oriflamme became confused though probably not before the reign of Philip Augustus later in the twelfth century and this is reflected in the dual battle cry of the French: ‘Montjoie Saint Denis’. See Spiegel, Gabrielle M., ‘The Cult of Saint Denis’, Journal of Medieval History, vol. i, (1975), pp. 43-69, printed in her ibid, The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography, especially pp. 153-155.

[4] The claims Suger made for St-Denis are based, to a certain extent on a charter that purported to have been given to the abbey by Charlemagne in 813: Muhlbacher, E., (ed.), Monumenta Germaniae Historica Diplomatum Karolinorum I: Pippini, Carlomanni, Caroli Magni Diplomata, Hannover, 1906: D.Kar.286, pp. 428-430. This said that all archbishops and bishops should defer to the church of St-Denis, which is the head (‘caput’) of all the churches in the kingdom and that its abbot is primate of the church of France.

[5] What follows draws on the Pseudo-Dionysian arguments of Spiegel, Gabrielle M., ‘History as Enlightenment: Suger and the Mos Anagogicus’, in ibid, Gerson, P. L., (ed.), Abbot Suger and St Denis, pp. 151-158, printed in her ibid, The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography, see p. 175.

[6] Spiegel, Gabrielle M., ‘History as Enlightenment: Suger and the Mos Anagogicus’, in ibid, Gerson, P. L., (ed.), Abbot Suger and St Denis, pp. 151-158, printed in her ibid, The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography, p. 177.