Quentin Durward and Louis XI: Sir Walter Scott as Historian

Summary

Discussion of Sir Walter Scott’s work as a historian recreating the past in his novels has long been a staple of Scott scholarship, but it usually focuses on his treatment of large historical themes, such as the transition from agrarian feudalism to the modern industrial state, as argued by Georg Lukács in his seminal study of the historical novel. Critics have also frequently claimed that the novels set in the relatively recent past of his native Scotland are generally stronger than the medieval tales, and Ian Duncan has recently focused on these to argue that they constitute a major moment in the transformation of historical and fictional consciousness in Scotland during the later Enlightenment and Romantic era. But surely Quentin Durward (1823) can be counted among Scott’s most popular and influential works, for along with Ivanhoe (1819) its characteristic blend of history and romance set the mold for historical novels of medieval and early modern Europe for a century. J. H. Alexander and Judith Wilt have attempted to situate both Quentin Durward and Anne of Geierstein in the context of major historical developments in fifteenth-century France and the spectacular dynastic complex of territories assembled by the dukes of Burgundy, especially the transition from feudalism to the modern state. However, this paper will take a different approach, more along the lines of a later medieval historian than a Romantic literature scholar, to suggest that the enduring heart of Scott’s historical achievement in Quentin Durward lies not in these broader literary and historical perspectives, but first and foremost in his brilliant character study of King Louis XI of France (1461–83).

The story of young Quentin’s adventures on the Continent in search of knightly honor and fortune is tightly interwoven with the most dramatic moments of high politics in the life-and-death struggle between Louis XI and his great vassal Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy, culminating in their famous interview at Péronne in 1468. The depiction of these events is firmly grounded in both primary and secondary historical accounts, above all the celebrated Mémoires of Philippe de Commynes. Beginning his career as an intimate advisor of Charles the Bold, Commynes switched sides a few years after the Péronne interview to assume an even closer association with Louis XI, and thus his memoirs provide an unparalleled entrée into both sides of their epic quarrel.