Welcome back to the Age of Cathedrals.

In our last times together, we looked at the

ways in which Saint Louis' assembling of relics, to be housed in the Sainte-
Chapelle, transformed the king's chapel into a new Temple On The Mount, making a
13th century Paris a new Jerusalem. Louis's elaborate reliquary to house the
passion relics, was a new Ark of the Covenant, the guarantee of the king's covenant
with the new chosen people, the French. We also saw how beautifully and elaborately
King Louis surrounded himself, with stained glass and sculpture, illustrating not
only scenes from the Old and New Testaments, but he surrounded himself with a
visual set of windows, illustrating how he managed to amass such a large collection
of holy objects, and bring them to France. We're extremely lucky to possess a
record, in fact, several records of the life of the Saint King. Most notably, the
life of St. Louis by Jean de Joinville, chief steward of the Duchy of Champagne,
under the poet Duc Thibault IV of Champagne. Joinville's Life of St. Louis is an
example of a particular type of medieval literature, the life of a saint written in
the context of a saint's canonization. A life like Thomas Llano's Life of the
Blessed Francis, written in 1228, at the time of St. Francis of Assisi's elevation
to sainthood. This is not the kind of self-justifying, or semi-confessional life
that we saw in Abelard's History of My Misfortunes, but a work meant to demonstrate
the saint's (or potential saint's) virtue, to illustrate his or her deeds and
connection to miracles, which are the proof of sanctity, often in the particular
context of a papal inquiry, which itself might be the result of worldly pressure at
the highest level. We see signs of this in Joinville's paragraph 760. Afterwards,
Joinville writes, through the efforts of the king of France (Philip III) and at the
command of the pope, the Archbishop of Rouen, and brother John of Samois (who later
became a bishop), came to Saint-Denis in France, and stayed there a long while in
order to inquire into the life, works, and miracles of the Holy King. I was
summoned to go with them, and they kept me for two days. After having heard
testimony from me and from others, their findings were taken to the papal court in
Rome. The Pope and the cardinals examined this evidence carefully, and on the basis
of what they saw, they did the king justice and placed him among the number of
confessors. The image we see here is from another life of St. Louis, the official
inquiry into his worthiness for sainthood by a Franciscan who claims to have been
the confessor of Louis's wife Marguerite of Provence, as well as of his daughter
Blanche, whom you will remember was born while Louis and Marguerite were in the
Middle East. This man's name was Guillaume de St Pathus, who wrote here we see
Philip, king of France, son of King Louis the second born, who governed the realm.
Then Charles, king of Sicily, the brother of the blessed Saint Louis, then the
honorable father Nicole, the bishop of Averreux, who was 53 years old or
thereabouts. Then the honorable father Robert the bishop of Saint Lys, 58 years old
or thereabouts. Monsignor Merhi the Abbey of the Abbey of Saint-Denis in France,
sixty years old or thereabouts, and brother Adam of Saint Lieux, the Abbey of
Boiseumains of the Order of Citeaux in the Diocese of Beauvais, about sixty-eight
years old or thereabouts. Here end the names of the witnesses who were sworn about
the life of Sir Saint Louis. The inquiry concerning Louis' worthiness to be a saint
dominates Raville's narrative, especially in his insistence upon how he knows what
he knows, the importance of eye witnessing, and this from the very start in
paragraph three: I was not there when he died (de Joinville writes) but Count Peter
of Alencon, his son, who loved me very much, was there, and he reported to me the
fitting end the king made, as you will find written at the end of this book. We
find in Joinville's Life of St. Louis an oft repeated phrase: I was there and bear
witness that it was the most elegantly appointed court I have ever seen, or apropos
of the king's court at Someuax. Joinville uses a detail as a guarantee of
authenticity. He notes for example the particulars of dress or experience: I stood
before him (Joinville writes) to carve his meat, or when the meat comes out the
other end, we are treated to a description of the effects of calf disease (or
diarrhoea), on Louis' bowels. He fainted several times that evening and because of
his severe diarrhea, he went down to the latrines, so often that it was necessary
to cut the seat from his breeches. I do not want to say or include in my book
(writes Joinville) anything of which I am not certain. My subject is our saintly
King and nothing else. Here we find a curious conjunction between the contiguous
contact with the saint's body, via relics, and the legitimacy of a historical
account, either via eye witnessing firsthand, or via a reliable communication of
such an eye witnessing. You will note throughout Joinville's book how insistent he
is about having actually been there. The beginning of chapter one has the air of
sworn testimony: in the name of God Almighty I, John of Joinville, seneschal or
steward of Champagne am dictating the life of our saintly King Louis. What I saw
and heard during the six years I was in his company on the pilgrimage overseas, and
after our return.