Customer Reviews

The Good King: René of Anjou and 15th Century Europe

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This book is about Rene of Anjou, medieval France, and Europe in the fifteenth century.

When I learned French medieval history, it was all about the growth of monarchical power - the gradual expansion from the Ile de France across the whole kingdom, which always left out of account the 'apanages' - the great territorial endowments of the royal Dukes, which the French monarchy itself deliberately created. Margaret Kekewich takes one of these, the Duchy of Anjou, and examines the relationship between its greatest prince, Rene, and his dominions on the one hand, and the King of France on the other. We learn much about the true nature of late medieval politics.

There are many pundits who will tell you that all that matters in history is money, and the pursuit of it. This has always been a silly view. Kekewich shows that it is the dynasty which is central, not the currency. The dynasty is about more than wealth, it is about the pursuit of ancestral rights, honour and shame, pride and self-respect, even identity. In Rene's case, this meant pursuing ancestral rights in several different parts of Europe - Anjou obviously, but also Bar and Lorraine, and even Italy. We learn much about the Hundred Years War, since the English occupied Maine, part of Rene's apanage for twenty years between the 1420s and the 1440; but also about 'the other Hundred Years War' which the Angevins waged between 1380 and 1480 in Italy. I found all this a real eye-opener.

Kekewich has been a historian all her life and she is clearly familiar with the sources She tells her story well, and one has complete confidence that she has got her facts right. She paints a sympathetic portrait of Rene, who was a miserable failure in his foreign adventures, but seems to have been a nice man, and was undoubtedly a considerable patron of the arts.

Buy this book if you want some real history, as opposed to the ersatz experience on the TV.