O Decus Ecclesie - comparative iconography on Edward the Confessor and Louis IX of France

The comparative study of the saints Edward the Confessor (d.1066, can.1161) and Louis IX of France (d.1270, can.1297) is an immensely rich field, and the reasons for this are many. First of all they both belong to the same saint-type, being both royal saints and confessors, and this in itself requires much in-depth exploration. Secondly, they are both important figures in the histories of their respective countries, both while living and posthumously. Thirdly, they have both, as saints, engendered a significant repertoire of literary and musical works. What is of course most interesting about this subject, is that the two cults influenced each other throughout the later Middle Ages, meaning - unsurprisingly - that their respective devotees were very much aware of the other cult. A detailed survey of the relationship between the cults of Edward and Louis would require a book of its own (and hopefully such a volume will be written in not too long). In this blogpost, however, I aim to focus on one single text which illustrates the interaction between the cults quite nicely, namely an antiphon found in the MS. Codex Coloniensis, Köln Historisches Arkiv, W. kl. 8o 28.

Louis on his sickbed, vowing to go on crusade

MS. Royal 16 G VI Chroniques de France ou de St Denis (Central France, after 1332, before 1350)

Courtesy of British Library

Louis' crusade of 1249, leaving Damietta for Egypt

MS. Royal 16 G VI Chroniques de France ou de St Denis (Central France, after 1332, before 1350)

Courtesy of British Library

This manuscript is a collection of chants compiled by a 15th-century Carthusian monk, and its content is very varied, comprising "pieces from ecclesiastical office cycles, singular antiphons, responsories, invitatories" and also fragments of hymns, sequences and non-liturgical items. The collection was edited by Guido Maria Dreves and published as volume XXVIII of Analecta Hymnica in 1898, and he identified the collector as a native of Cologne, and the book as a prayerbook (1). Later, Andrew Hughes has claimed that the book was produced sometime around 1480 (2). This book, henceforth referred to as CCW, contains two antiphons for Edward the Confessor, and the latter of these is the focus of today's post. The translation is my own.

O decus ecclesiae,                                      O glory of the church,
Pie rex Anglorum,                                     Pious king of the English,

Exemplar iustitiae,                                    Example of justice,

Lex et norma morum,                               Law and standard of customs,

Post finem angustiae,                               [Who] upon the end of struggle,

Mortis et laborum                                     Death and suffering

Praesta dono gratiae                                Give your gift of goodwill

Regnum beatorum.                                    From the kingdom of the blessed

As we see, Edward the Confessor is hailed for a number of virtues commonly included in his aretalogy, but the interesting part is that this antiphon was originally written for the liturgy of Saint Louis. The first part, from O decus to morum, features in two antiphons from two different offices written at the turn of the 13th century, both of which were used by the Dominicans, either composed for that order or adapted for secular use. Some confusion still remains concerning the details and we don't know which office was written first or by which of the available candidates (3). The antiphon as it is found in CCW, however, is taken verbatim from the office Ludovicus decus, except, of course, that Francorum is substituted with Anglorum.

Louis receiving the Crown of Thorns

MS. Royal 16 G VI Chroniques de France ou de St Denis (Central France, after 1332, before 1350)

Courtesy of British Library

Edward receiving a Papal letter with dispensation from going on pilgrimage

MS Ee.3.59, English, 13th century

Courtesy of Cambridge University Library

Naturally, we will never know whether the French liturgists composed these lines themselves, or borrowed them from an antiphon to Edward now lost to us. Personally, however, I find it more likely that it originated in an environment either Dominican or with Dominican influence. The reason for this is that in the 1290s the Dominicans had had a long-standing relationship with the French court of Louis IX and his son Philip III, and upon canonisation Louis quickly made his way into the Dominican sanctorale (4). Edward the Confessor, however, did not enter Dominican calendars until 1267, despite the fact that Edward by then had been revered as a saint for over hundred years and that the Dominicans had been in England since 1221 (5). It was not the Dominicans, but rather the Cistercians who considered Edward to be the ideal king. I therefore find it more plausible that a Dominican antiphon was disseminated to St. Edward's liturgists than the other way around.

Massacre at Sidon, Louis helps burying the dead

MS. Royal 16 G VI Chroniques de France ou de St Denis (Central France, after 1332, before 1350)

Courtesy of British Library

That Louis, the younger of the two saints, should influence Edward is quite fascinating, but it also makes good sense. Both were kings, both were revered as confessors, both were addressed as patrons and guardians of their respective realms, and they shared a great number of features. Louis was hailed for his justice in court cases, while Edward was called a just lawmaker, they were both applauded for their religious life and for spurning the world, they both engaged in the building or refurbishing of churches and they both died in sickness. It is therefore unsurprising that liturgists at Westminster - the centre of Edward's cult - should borrow from their French brethren at Saint Denis, the focal point of the cult of Louis (although challenged by the royal chapel in Paris) (6).

Louis ministering to the poor

MS. Royal 16 G VI Chroniques de France ou de St Denis (Central France, after 1332, before 1350)

Courtesy of British Library

Edward the Confessor dreaming of the Seven Sleepers turning in their sleep

MS Ee.3.59, English, 13th century

Courtesy of Cambridge University Library

We do not know how this text was transmitted, and although I suggest that it was taken to England from France, we do not find this text in an English source and can therefore not ascertain that it in fact ever reached England. It may, for instance, have been meant for performance at Fécamp in Normandy instead, where Edward had been included in the liturgy since the 12th century, and where there was put up a cycle of stained glass images with scenes from Edward's life around 1308 (7).

Nor can we say with certainty when it was adapted to Edward's liturgy. The text was certainly available when the glass cycle was finished at Fécamp, or it may have been borrowed during the 1390s when Edward's popularity at the royal court reached its highest peak since the mid-13th century (8). It may also have been adapted for another house, or even another country - it is, after all, found in a German prayerbook - and we simply do not know the answer.

Although we can glean little information from the available sources, this case study pinpoints the interesting comparisons that can be made between Edward and Louis, and also the interchange between the cults. In the future, I hope there will be done more on this particular subject, and perhaps we'll even find more information somewhere.

Louis about to be brought to Heaven by angels

MS. Sloane 2433 (c1410-20), Grandes chroniques de France

Courtesy of British Library

Footnotes

1) Dreves, Guido Maria, Analecta Hymnica Vol. XXVIII, Leipzig, 1898: 6-7

2) Hughes, Andrew, "British Rhymed Offices: A Catalogue and Commentary", printed in Rankin, Susan and Hiley, David (eds.), Music in the Medieval English liturgy: Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Society centennial essays, Oxford University Press, 1993: 281

3) Gaposchkin, Cecilia M., The Making of Saint Louis: Kingship, Sanctity and Crusade in the Later Middle Ages, Cornell University Press, 2010: 79-81

4) Gaposchkin 2010: 77

5) Pfaff, Richard W., The Liturgy in Medieval England, Cambridge University Press, 2009: 311-14

6) Jordan,William Chester, A Tale of Two Monasteries, Princeton University Press, 2009: 48-59

7) Harrison, Madeline, "A Life of St. Edward the Confessor in Early Fourteenth-Century Stained Glass at Fecamp, in Normandy", printed in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 26, no. 1/2, 1963: 23-25

8) For an overview of Edward's popularity at the English court, see Hope, Steffen, The King's Three Images, Trondheim, 2012

References

Dreves, Guido Maria, Analecta Hymnica Vol. XXVIII, Leipzig, 1898

Gaposchkin, Cecilia M., The Making of Saint Louis: Kingship, Sanctity and Crusade in the Later Middle Ages, Cornell University Press, 2010

Harrison, Madeline, "A Life of St. Edward the Confessor in Early Fourteenth-Century Stained Glass at Fecamp, in Normandy", printed in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 26, no. 1/2, 1963

Hope, Steffen, The King's Three Images, Trondheim, 2012

Hughes, Andrew, "British Rhymed Offices: A Catalogue and Commentary", printed in Rankin, Susan and Hiley, David (eds.), Music in the Medieval English liturgy: Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Society centennial essays, Oxford University Press, 1993

Jordan,William Chester, A Tale of Two Monasteries, Princeton University Press, 2009

Pfaff, Richard W., The Liturgy in Medieval England, Cambridge University Press, 2009