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The Trojan Franks and their Critics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2019

George Huppert
George Huppert*
Affiliation:
California State College, Hayward, California
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Extract

The heroes of the Trojan war who figured so prominently in the pedigrees of ancient nations continued to perform the function of mythical sires for the new nations of medieval Europe. The Franks especially, from the time of the Merovingian kings, filled the darkest recesses of their forgotten past with elaborate fictions of ancient Trojan splendor. In a seventh-century chronicle, Priam appears as the first king of the Franks. After the fall of Troy, according to the Merovingian chronicler, some Trojans escaped the disaster and elected a man named Francio king. Francio's people, after a long and warlike exodus, eventually materialized over the Rhine as the Franks who invaded Gaul.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in the Renaissance , Volume 12 , 1965 , pp. 227 - 241
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1965

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References

1 ‘Exinde origo Francorum fuit. Priamo primo regi habuerant…’ (Chronicarum quae dicuntur Fredegarii Scholastici libri IVcum continuationibus, ed. B. Krusch, 1888, Monumenta Germaniae Historka, Scriptorum Rerum Merovingicarum, II, p. 45). On the continuous medieval tradition and its many versions see Maria Klippel, Die Darstellungder Frankischen Irojanersage (Marburg, 1936); A. Joly, in Benoil de Sainte-More et le Roman de Troie (Paris, 1871), p. 122, suggested that the story of their Trojan origin must have been well established and endowed with official sanction among the Franks by the time this chronicle was composed. He quotes (without giving a specific reference, however) a charter of King Dagobert in which one reads that the Franks were ‘ex nobilissimo et antiquo Trojanorum reliquarium sanguine nati'.

2 Fredegarius, p. 46.

3 See Denys Hay, Europe: the Emergence of an Idea (Edinburgh, 1957), p. 49, on the widespread use of the Trojan myth by European nations. See also Joly, p. 118.

4 On Fréret, see the article ‘Freret’ in Larousse du XIXe siècle.

5 On this, see Vittorio de Caprariis, Propaganda e pensiero politico in Francia durante h guerre di religione (Naples, 1959).

6 Thus the Jesuit Father Jean-Estienne Taraut in his Annates de France (Paris: P. Billaine, 1635), p. 58: ‘Encore que ie face sortir les Francois de Vestfalie, de Frise, de Saxe, de Turinge, de Hesse & de Misnie Province de Germanie, & des terres arrousees des rivieres, Oemis, Elbe, Lippe, Isel, Vater, Veser, Adrana, Nexer, Meyor & du Rhin, fleuves d'Allemagne. Ie n'avouä pas neãtmoins qu'ils en fussent originaires; ie dis que les peuples appelez Francs estoiet une colonie sortie des Gaules….’ On the origins of this patriotic alternative to the Trojan legend, see below page 233.

7 See, for instance, Ferdinand Lot, La Caule (Paris, 1947), p. 7: ‘Ce fut une stupeur indignee quand Fréret, á la fin du siècle de Louis xrv, osa prètendre que les Francs étaient un peuple germanique… . Jusqu'alors les personnes savantes, utilisant les fabrications naives de clercs, remontant á l'ère merovingienne finissante, se les représentaient comme les descendants des Troyens… .'

8 Joly, p. 609: ‘Ainsi la légende troyenne était en pleine déroute à la fin du XVIe siècle, mais ce n'était pas encore l'histoire vraie qui devait regagner tout de suite le terrain perdu par elle; la légende hebraique cree par Annius de Viterbo allait encore quelque temps garder la place.'

9 Hay, p. 109.

10 See the unpublished doctoral thesis (Cornell University, 1960) by Samuel C. Kinser, 'The Historiography of J. A. De Thou'; unpublished doctoral thesis (Cornell University, 1961) by G. W. Sypher, ‘La Popeliniere: Historian and Historiographer'; unpublished doctoral thesis (Columbia University, i960) by Donald Kelley, ‘Historical Thought and Legal Scholarship in Sixteenth Century France'; unpublished doctoral thesis (Berkeley: University of California, 1962) by George Huppert, ‘The New History of the French Renaissance'; and Julian H. Franklin, Jean Bodin and the Sixteenth Century Revolution in the Methodology of Law and History (New York, 1963).

11 Les tres elegantes, tres ueridiques et copieuses Annates des trespreux, tres nobles, tres chrestiens et tres excellens moderateurs des belliqueuses Gaules … compilees par … Nicole Gilles (Paris: Galliot Du Pré, 1525), Fvii, Fviii. Gilles was secretary to Louis xn, later secretary to the treasury until 1496. He died in Paris in 1503. His book may have had a first edition in 1492, but the 1525 edition is the earliest available now. For a discussion of Gilles in the context of fifteenth-century historiographical traditions, see the unpublished doctoral dissertation of Katharine Davies, ‘Late xvth century French Historiography, as exemplified in the Compendium of Robert Gaguin and the De Rebus Gestis of Paulus Aemilius' (University of Edinburgh, 1954).

12 Gaguin was the acknowledged leader of the first humanist academy in Paris, the Fkhetistes, so named after the founder of this circle, Guillaume Fichet. (See A. Renaudet, Prereforme et humanisme a Paris [1494-1517], Paris, 1916, p. 83.) After Fichet's departure for Rome, Gaguin had assumed the leadership of the Parisian humanists. He made several journeys to Italy, where he naturally had opportunities for meeting men who shared his enthusiasm for classical letters. In Paris, his close relations with emigre scholars like George Hermonymius of Sparta, Gregorio of Citta di Castello, and Beroaldo of Bologna and his role as teacher and patron of a younger group of scholars which included Erasmus of Rotterdam, Beatus Rhenanus, Reuchlin, and Guillaume Bude, gave him a central posi- “tion in the intellectual life of Paris. On Gaguin, see Davies, op. cit.

13 Louis Delaruelle, Guillaume Budé (Paris, 1907), p. 32.

14 Gaguin, in the French translation published under the title of Les Grandes chroniques (Paris: Galliot du Pré, 1514), pages not numbered: ‘LesFrancoys (comme plusieurs autres nations) se donnent gloire et honneur de estre produits et issus des Troyans. Lesquels mis en evil pour tant que Paris avait ravi Helene: partie diceut avec la conduite de Francion s'en alia habiter et faire residence au plus pres des Alains: sur le lac meotide qui remplit le fleuve Tanais coulant par la region de Scythie auquel lieu appelles Francois a cause du nom de leur due Francion edifierent une ville de grand prix nominee Sycambri: pres des hongrois.'

15 “Toutesfois je n'ai point lu de certain autheur qui constamment ecrive le temps de ce nom’ (le temps de ce nom should obviously read le nom de ce temps).

16 ‘Et n'a Gregoire de Tours assez connu le commencement de cette nation.'

17 Pauli Aemilii Veronensis de rebus gestis francorum libri IIII (Vaenundantur in aedibus Iodoci Badii Ascensii, c. 1517). On Emilio, consult Davies, op. cit.

18 Emilio, 1, F.iii. Cicero wrote of Frangones (ad Att. xrv, 10) by which he meant not a tribal but a family name. See Ludwig Schmidt, Geschichte der deutschen Stamme (Berlin, 1904-1918, Quellen und Forschungen zur alten Geschichte und Geographic, ed. W. Sieglin), xxx, 433.

19 Davies, p. 171, however, makes the point that the MS. drafts of Emilio's history reveal him ‘… as a scholar of wide interests and more conscientious diligence than could be proved from the De Rebus Gestis …'.

20 For a detailed discussion of these new forgeries, see Joly, pp. 550 ff.

21 Rerum Germanicorum libri tres (Basel: Froben, 1531). The Franks are discussed on pp. 27∼39i 106-108 of this work. A. Du Chesne, in his Historiae Francorum scriptores, 1, 172- 175, reproduces an earlier German essay, Hermanni Comitis Nuenarii brevis narratio de origine et sedibuspriscorum francorum (1521). This essay is like a rough sketch for Beatus' discussion of this subject. Pauljoachimsen, in his Geschkhtsauffassung und Geschichtsschreibung in Deutschland unter dem Einfluss des Humanismus, pointed out that in Count Hermann's essay, in the Chronicle of Nauclerus (ca. 1504), in a polemical work of Bebel's (1507), and in the edition of the panegyrics by Cuspinianus in 1513 some of the steps were taken which made Beatus’ critical work possible. And it is true also that in these German humanist circles at the turn of the century some fabulous stories of German origins were rejected in favor of the notion ‘Germani sunt indigeni', after Tacitus. But this point of vjew was taken for political reasons (Kulturkampf against claims of Italian superiority) and not for critical, historical reasons. As Joachimsen makes clear, Beatus was a pioneer and a loner; he was never understood by his German contemporaries, he belonged to no circle and had no disciples. To demonstrate that the Franks were a German-speaking people, Beatus quoted some lines of Old German in his Rerum Germanicarum, this in itself a real novelty: ‘Otfried's Krist: Nu vvil ich scriban unser heil | Evangeliono deil | So wir nu hiar bigunnon | In Frenkisga zungon'.

22 Panegyrici veteres (Basel: Froben, 1520).

23 Beatus, Rer. Ger., p. 31: ‘Quae verba depravatissime leguntur in vulgaris exemplaribus.'

24 p. 29.

25 In his Epitome de I'antiquité” des Gaules et de France (Paris, 1556).

26 Bodin, Jean , Methodus ad jacilem historiarum cognitionem (Paris, 1566).Google Scholar References are to Pierre Mesnard's edition in Oeuvres phihsophiques (Paris, 1951), p. 403. Caprariis, op. cit., p. 367, attributes the same story of the returning Gauls to Pasquier. Since Caprariis does not support this statement, it is difficult to trace its origin. Clearly no such view is expressed in the sixteenth-century editions of Pasquier's Recherches. Caprariis, however, uses an eighteenth-century edition and it is just barely possible that the old tale has crept in somewhere.

27 Postel, Guillaume, L'Histoire memorable des expeditions depuis le deluge faictes par ks Gaulois ou Francoys (Paris, 1552), pp. 52-53.Google Scholar Postel's inspired account owed much to Annius of Viterbo.

28 Pasquier, Estienne, Des Recherches de la France livrepremier (Paris, 1560), pp. 53-55.Google Scholar

29 Beatus, Rer. Ger., p. 29.

30 Pasquier, Estienne, Des Recherches de la France livrepremier et second (Paris: P. L'Huillier, 1569), pp. 30-31.Google Scholar

31 Eug. et Em. Haag, La France Protestante (1846-1858), v, 526, article ‘Hotman', quoting Pasquier: ‘Je vous Puis dire que l'un de mes plus grands heurs que je pense avoir recueilly en ma jeunesse, fut qu'un lendemain de l'Assomption nostre Dame, l'an 1546, Hotoman et Balduin commencerent leurs premieres lectures…'. Hotman was appointed historiographer royal by Chancellor de I'Hospital in 1567, but the violence of the civil war prevented him from taking charge of the office, since he was a Protestant.

32 References here will be to the French translation by Simon Goulart published at Cologne in 1574 under the title of La Gaule Francoise.

33 Hotman, pp. 33-46.

34 Beatus, Rer. Ger., p. 35.

35 Hotman, p. 47.

36 Schmidt, p. 433.

37 Hotman, p. 45: ‘Quant aux autres, qui pour le goust qu'ils ont pris à des fables et contes faits à plaisir, ont rapporte l'origine des Francois aux Troyens et a un ne sais quel Francion fils de Priamus: ie n'en veux dire autre chose, sinon qu'ils ont plustot fourni de matiere a ecrire aux Poetes qu'aux historiens veritables.'

38 Jean du Tillet, Les Memoires et recherches (Rouen, 1578), p. 3.

39 Pp. 3-7.

40 P. 6.

41 On Nicolas Vignier, see Huppert, op. cit.

42 Vignier, Nicolas, Sommaire de Vhistoire des Francois (Paris: S. Nivelle, 1579).Google Scholar The pages of the prefatory essay are not numbered.

43 ‘Quant aux longues & prolixes narrations que certains escrivains Allemans & Flemants de ce siecle ont digerees des fables de Trittemius & d'Annius de Viterbe, au d'autres aucteurs … pour extraire les Francois des Troyens, … : ie les quite a ceux qui font estat & gain de mettre toute matiere en oeuvre, sans discerner la vraye d'avec la faulse …'.

44 Ibid.

45 de Belleforest, Francois, Les Grandes annales et histoire generate de France (Paris: G. Buon, 1579).Google Scholar

46 Jean, de Serres, Inventaire général de Vhistoire de France (Paris: A. Saugrain, G. Des Rues, 1597).Google Scholar

47 By 1676 there were twelve such theories, according to Nathan Edelman (Attitudes of Seventeenth-century France toward the Middle Ages, New York, 1946, p. 77), who concludes that the Trojan legend persisted in historical writing throughout the seventeenth century.

48 Histoire de France avant Clovis (Amsterdam, 1692), p. 194: ‘… je sais que ce narré est plein de fables et d'anachronismes: mais je suis persuade qu'il n'y a gueres de vieux contes qui n'ayant quelque fondement dans la verité .'

49 In his Histoire de France (Paris, 1643), 1, 174 ff. for example, he is copying Emilio in Jean Regnart's translation (Paul Émile, Vhistoire desfaicts, gestes et conquestes des roys, princes, seigneurs etpeuple de France, Paris: F. Morel, 1581, pp. 104 ff.).

50 Mézeray, Avant Clovis, p. 196.

52 Jacques de Charron, Histoire Universelle (Paris: T. Blaise, 1621).

53 Pp. 194 ff.

54 Nicolas Freret, Oeuvres completes, ed. M. de Septchfines (Paris, 1796), v, 155 ff.

55 References to Vignier in Freret's paper, pp. 163, 293.

56 P. 155.

57 See the preface by Bougainville, ibid., I, A4.

58 Mézeray, for example, in his Histoire de France (Paris, 1643), resurrects the giants of the medieval chroniclers. He retells the story of Roland killing the giant Ferragut and finds nothing in this fabulous tale ‘qu'on puisse absolument convaincre de faux’ (1, 174). The medieval source of this story had been subjected to expert historical criticism by Papire Masson in 1577. Masson demonstrated that the chronicle was a forgery (Annalium libri quattuor, Paris, 1577, pp. 97-101, cited in Pierre Ronzy, Un Humaniste italianisant: Papire Masson, Paris, 1924). Nicolas Vignier's account of the engagement at Roncevaux and of Count Roland's actions (Sommaire de I'histoire des Francois, Paris, 1579) was a bare paragraph, stripped of all legendary material, in which he followed Eginhard.

59 On the systematic neglect of Pasquier, see P. Bouteiller, ‘Un Historien du XVI siecle: Estienne Pasquier', Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance VI (1945), 390.

60 In his valuable monograph on Mézeray (L'Historien Mezeray, Paris, 1930), Wilfred H. Evans suggests this.

61 On La Mothe le Vayer and historical Pyrrhonism, see Rene Pintard, Le Libertinage irudit dans la premiere moitii du XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1943).

62 Charles de La Ruelle, Succinctz aduersaires contre Vhistoire etprofesseurs d'icelle (Poitiers, 1574).

63 Nicolas Vignier, La Bibliotheque historiale (Paris: Abel L'Angelier, 1588), I, preface (pages not numbered) ‘… nos Academiciens nouveaux, qui revoquent aujourd'hui toutes choses en doute et incertitude … si perfectement ils ne peuvent embrasser une doctrine, ou que les expositeurs ne parlent tout d'un mesme language, ils concluent incontinent qu'il n'y a aucune certitude de doctrine …'.

64 Ibid.: ‘… quelque diversite ou repugnance qu'il y ait entre les Chronographes et Historiographies … toutesfois pour cela n'a pas ete toute la verite ensevelie, ains en peut on tirer assez pour satisfaire au goust d'un jugment sain et modeste …'.

65 See, for instance, Rene Descartes, A Discourse on Method (New York, 1951), p. 5: ’ … even the most faithful histories, if they do not wholly misrepresent matters, or exaggerate their importance to render the account of them more worthy of perusal, omit, at least, always the meanest and least striking of the attendant circumstances; hence it happens that the remainder does not represent the truth, and that such as regulate their conduct by examples drawn from this source, are apt to fall into the extravagances of the knight-errants of romance, and to entertain projects that exceed their powers.'

66 See note 10 above.

67 Henri Busson, Les Sources et le developpement du rationalisme dans la littérature francaise de la Renaissance ﹛1553-1601) (Paris, 1922), p . 434: ‘En verite Montaigne ne tranche point sur son temps, si ce n'est par l'art avec lequel il expose et renouvelle des idees courantes.'

67 Henri Busson, Les Sources et le developpement du rationalisme dans la littérature francaise de la Renaissance ﹛1553-1601) (Paris, 1922), p . 434: ‘En verite Montaigne ne tranche point sur son temps, si ce n'est par l'art avec lequel il expose et renouvelle des idees courantes.'