Jean de Joinville

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Johann von Joinville, painting by Merry-Joseph Blondel (19th century)

Jean de Joinville (also Johann von Joinville ; * 1224 or 1225; † December 24, 1317 ) was Lord of Joinville and Seneschal of the county of Champagne . He was also a confidante of King Ludwig IX. of France and is considered the first French-speaking biographer in a modern sense with his book about him .

origin

Johann came from a family that had risen to the high nobility, not least through rich marriages, and in which the (judge) office of the Seneschal of Champagne was hereditary. At the age of about eight he lost his father, Simon von Joinville , after which he was brought up by his mother Beatrix, a daughter of Count Stephan III. from Auxonne .

Life

In 1241 Johann can be proven in his rank as Seneschal for the first time, namely during a court day in Saumur, where he witnessed the sword- making of Prince Alfons of Poitiers . He then went on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela . After his return he married. In 1245 or 1246, Johann took part in fighting for the first time on the occasion of the feud of an uncle, the Count of Chalon , against Jocerand de Brancion .

Capture of Damiette in 1249. Joinville, with the old family coat of arms, rides in front of King Louis IX. into town. (Miniature from the 14th century; Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris)

Easter 1248, meanwhile he was the father of two children, Johann took the cross, as several ancestors had done, and joined the crusade of King Ludwig IX with ten knights paid by him. to Egypt ( Sixth Crusade ). With his cousin Gottfried II von Apremont he set sail from Marseille and reached the crusader army in Cyprus . During the longer stopover on the island, he joined the royal entourage, not least for financial reasons.

With the landing of the crusader army on the Egyptian coast in early 1249 and the capture of the port city of Damiette , Johann distinguished himself. A little later took part in the disastrous siege of al-Mansura , in which the crusade failed. On the retreat to Damiette in April 1250 he and the king were taken prisoner by the Mamluk troops of the Ayyubid sultan. Johann was supposed to be killed, but was spared when it turned out that he was a relative of the Staufer emperor Friedrich II, who was popular with the Muslims . On payment of a large ransom he was released the following month and together with King Ludwig he embarked for Acre in the Kingdom of Jerusalem . In the Holy Land he stayed with the king for four years and became his confidante and friend. While the king was staying in Sidon in the summer of 1253 , Johann made a pilgrimage to the Church of Our Lady in Tortosa , after which he visited Prince Bohemond VI. from Antioch in Tripoli . In all likelihood he visited the grave of his uncle, Gottfried V von Joinville , in the nearby fortress of the Hospitallers , the Krak des Chevaliers, on this occasion . The shield of his uncle, whom he had carried on the fourth crusade , should have got through him to the collegiate church of Saint-Laurent in Joinville, where he remained until 1544.

In the spring of 1254 Johann returned to France in the royal entourage, at Beaucaire he separated from the king in July 1254 and returned to Joinville. His first wife died there during his absence, which he later passed over in his chronicle. In 1254 he rejoined the royal court in Soissons , where he witnessed the homage of Duke John I of Brittany to King Louis IX. has been. From then on, Johann took a permanent place on the king's council.

1267 was Johann by Ludwig IX. urged to take part in another crusade that was to lead to Tunis ( Seventh Crusade ). However, he refused because he did not want to abandon his vassals and also (because he had recently entered into a new marriage and become a father again) the family ("[sa] gent"). Moreover, he thought the project was wrong - and not wrongly, because Ludwig died in Tunis in 1270 without having achieved any success.

In 1282 Johann was one of the witnesses in the canonization process that had been opened for Ludwig and ended with his canonization in 1290. The wording of his statement has been preserved.

As a very old man, he took part in several campaigns and died at the biblical age of 90 years, which is biblical by medieval standards.

Literary work

Joinville hands over his finished work to King Ludwig X. (Miniature from the 14th century; Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris)

Around 1305 John (who had already written a commentary on the Creed in Acre ), at Queen Joan's request, began to write Le Livre des saintes paroles et des bons faits de nostre saint roi Louis ("The book of our holy words and good deeds holy king Ludwig "). It was intended to teach and edify the Crown Prince (later Louis X ) and was completed in 1309 and dedicated to King Philip IV .

Naturally, in addition to its educational purpose, the work also pursued political goals, namely to strengthen the dynasty through the presentation of an exemplary ruler from among its ranks. But Johann also shows himself to advantage, because he is the first chronicler in French literature to tell in the first person. In terms of form, his work is a lively account of his many encounters with Ludwig and thus mixes generic features of biography, autobiography, chronicle and travelogue, but also the mostly Latin Exempla literature of the time.

Johann's image of a first biographer in the modern sense results from the fact that he endeavors to portray the person portrayed as objectively as possible despite all his sympathy, i.e. H. in the most varied, both everyday and official situations, and to show him less as a saint than as a good Christian and king, who also shows this or that weakness.

Apparently his work was not widely used because only a few manuscripts have survived. After all, it was printed in 1547 under the title Vie de Saint Louis . It was not until the 19th century that it received greater attention from French historians and literary historians. A German translation (by Theodor Nißl) appeared in 1852. During the Renouveau catholique , Johann was particularly eagerly received by Charles Péguy , who saw in him an early representative of the “Mission of France” in the world.

Relationship to the Hohenstaufen

 
 
 
 
 Friedrich II. The one-eyed
Duke of Swabia
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Berta von Schwaben
∞ with Duke Matthew I of Lorraine
 
 
 
 
 
 Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa
(around 1122 - June 10, 1190)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judith von Lothringen
∞ with Count Stephan II of Auxonne
 
 
 
 
 
 Emperor Heinrich VI.
(1165--28 September 1197)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Count Stephan III. from Auxonne
 
 
 
 
 
 Emperor Friedrich II
(December 26, 1194 - December 13, 1250)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Beatrix von Auxonne
∞ with Simon von Joinville
 
 
 
 
 
 King Conrad IV
(April 25, 1228 - May 21, 1254)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Johann (Jean de Joinville)
(* 1224/25 - † December 24, 1317)
 
 
 
 
 
 Konradin von Hohenstaufen
(* March 25, 1252 - † October 29, 1268)

Family and offspring

Coat of arms of the Lords of Joinville

In his first marriage he married Adelheid (Adelaide) von Grandpré around 1244 , with whom he had the following children:

  • Gottfried (Geoffroy, Goffredo) († before 1290), descendants with the name Ianvilla in southern Italy
  • Johann (Jean) "Boutefeu" († around 1304), Lord of Ancerville

In his second marriage he married Alix de Reynel, from whom he had the following children:

  • Marguerite (Margaret)
    • 1. ∞ with Mr. Dreux I. von Charny
  • Johann (Jean) († March 2, 1301), Lord of Reynel
  • Anselm (Anseau) († 1343), Lord of Joinville, Marshal of France
  • Walter (Gauthier) († before 1308)
  • Andreas (André), Lord of Beaupré
  • Alice (Alix) († around 1336)

literature

  • Jules Simonnet: Essai sur l'histoire de la généalogie des sires de Joinville. 1008-1386. Accompagné de chartes & documents inédits. F. Dangien, Langres 1875.
  • Henri-François Delaborde: Jean de Joinville et les seigneurs de Joinville . Librairie Picard et fils, Paris 1894.
  • Joinville: Saint Louis (= Le monde en 10/18, 77). Avant Propos de Andrée Duby. Union Générale d'Editions, Paris 1963
  • Translated by Otto Flake : André Suarès , Portraits. Nachw. Des Übers. Drei Masken Verlag, Munich 1922, pp. 7–24

Editions of the Vita:

  • Histoire de Saint Louis. Edited by Pierre-Claude Daunou . In: Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France . Vol. 20, 1840, pp. 190-304.
  • Life of Saint Louis of France. Translated into German by Theodor Nißl, according to the story of his comrade at the time and combat, Johann von Joinville. Manz, Regensburg 1852, digitized .
  • Histoire de Saint Louis. Suivie du credo et de la lettre à Louis X (= Société de l'Histoire de France. Vol. 144, ZDB -ID 2082189-X ). Edition in Old French, edited by Natalis de Wailly. Renouard, Paris 1868.
  • Histoire de Saint Louis, credo et lettres à Louis X. New language version, edited by Natalis de Wailly. Firman Didot, Paris 1874.
  • The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville. A new english version. English translation by Ethel Wedgwood. J. Murray, London 1906.
  • The life of St. Ludwig. The Vita of Joinville (= saints of undivided Christianity. Vol. 13, ZDB -ID 2239326-2 ). German translation based on the old French version by Wailly. Translated by Eugen Mayser. Edited and introduced by Erich Kock . Patmos-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1969.
  • Vie de Saint Louis. Translation from Old French, edited by Jacques Monfrin . Dunod, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-10-002601-1 .

Fiction: The figure of Jean de Joinville was used by the German author Peter Berling in the first two volumes of his “Grail Cycle” . While he only made a brief appearance as a marginal figure in the first volume The Children of the Grail (1991), he plays a central role as the narrator in The Blood of Kings (1993). Similar to his historical work, large parts of the story that takes place against the backdrop of the crusade to Egypt are told from the first-person perspective of jeans. Together with the Franciscan Wilhelm von Rubruk , he wrote a secret diary , the fictional content of which is artfully interwoven with actual historical events.

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Commons : Johann (Joinville)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
predecessor Office successor
Simon Lord of Joinville
1233-1317 		Anselm
personal data
SURNAME Jean de Joinville
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Johann of Joinville
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Seneschal of Champagne and chronicler of Louis IX.
DATE OF BIRTH 1224 or 1225
DATE OF DEATH December 24, 1317