Medieval France
(1409–1480). Son of Louis II, duke of Anjou, and Yolande of Aragon, the “Good King René” is known for his accomplishments in several areas. This second son of the politically ambitious Yolande was, for strategic reasons, adopted by the duke of Bar. He was married in 1420 to Isabelle of Lorraine. He became duke of Bar in 1430 and duke of Lorraine in 1431, but his claim to the latter title cost him five years in prison. At the death of his elder brother Louis in 1434, René inherited the duchy of Anjou and the family claim to the kingdom of Naples. Although he lost the latter throne to Alfonso of Aragon in 1442, René’s prestige and influence nonetheless continued to grow at the court of his brother-in-law, Charles VII, and in France generally. After the death of Isabelle in 1453, he married Jeanne de Laval. René, whose titles derived from the circumstances of aristocratic inheritance, was one of the last obstacles to the unification of France by Louis XI. Deprived of Bar and Anjou by Louis, René retreated in his later years to Provence.
Despite his political reversals, René d’Anjou was known as a good strategist in battle and an expert in warfare. He wrote a treatise on tournaments, the Traictié de la forme et devis d’un tornoy (1445–50), and organized several celebrated tournaments on Charles VII’s behalf.
He was a generous patron of the arts and himself a painter and writer. He composed two richly illuminated allegorical works in verse and prose: the Mortifiement de vaine plaisance (1455) and the Livre du cuer d’amours espris (1457).
Janice C.Zinser
[See also: ABUZÉ EN COURT; ANJOU, HOUSES OF; LORRAINE]
René d’Anjou. Le livre du cuer d’amours espris, ed. Susan Wharton. Paris: Union Générale des Éditions, 1980.
——. King René’s Book of Love (Le cueur d’amours espris, intro. and commentary F.Unterkircher, trans. Sophie Wilkins. New York: Braziller, 1975. [Reproduces sixteen illuminations attributed to René.]
Des Garets, Marie Louyse. Un artisan de la Renaissance française du XVe siècle, le roi René, 1409–1480. Paris: Éditions de la Table Ronde, 1946.
Lyna, Frédéric. Le mortifiement de vaine plaisance de René d’Anjou: étude du texte et des manuscrits a peintures. Brussels: Weckesser, 1926.
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