Bastards or Kings or Both? Louis III and Carloman in Late-Medieval French Historiography
Sanford Zale
B ASTARDS OR K INGS OTH ? L OUIS III AND C ARLOMAN IN ATE -M EDIEVAL F RENCH H ISTORIOGRAPHY S ANFORD Z ALE Consider the anxiety that late-medieval authors of histories France must have experienced as their narratives approached last decades ninth century. On one hand, they lived in a kingdom where royalist ideology barred bastards from mounting throne and an era when ideologically-driven historical propaganda insisted never had. other, knew brothers Louis (879–882) Carloman (879–884), Frankish rulers West whom Frenchmen regarded French kings France, had been both kings. Caught between fact contemporary would deny it, to decide what tell readers about two illegitimate Carolingian monarchs. This study will document responses conflicting claims history, assess significance those for under- standing culture, through examination accounts reigns twenty-three written 1380 1515. Their wrote social political context made royal bastardy sensitive matter. Whereas shared upbringing legitimate half-brothers accepted members noble families during High Middle Ages, 1 attitudes toward changed centuries. The legal distinction children became more pronounced, stigma increasingly came be attached latter. What held true nobility truer still Capetians Valois rulers, threat provoked three enormous scandals fourteenth fifteenth supposed adultery wives Philip Fair’s sons resulted untimely deaths king’s daughters-in-law execution alleged lovers 1314; resulting doubts her parentage may contributed exclusion X’s daughter, Joan, 1316. It was rumored discovery queenly behind death Georges Duby, Knight, Lady, Priest, trans. Barbara Bray (New York, 1983), OMITATUS 29 (1998): 95–112.
Comitatus-a Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies