Now let us return to our subject and tell how, after these things, the king [Louis IX] held a full court at Saumur in Anjou, and I was there and can testify that it was the best-ordered court that ever I saw. For at the king’s table ate, after him, the Count of Poitiers, whom he had newly made knight at the feast of St. John; and after the Count of Poitiers, ate the Count of Dreux, whom he had also newly made knight; and after the Count of Dreux the Count of la Marche; and after the Count of la Marche the good Count Peter of Brittany; and before the king’s table, opposite the Count of Dreux, ate my lord the King of Naverre, in tunic and mantle of samite well bedight with a belt and a clasp, and a cap of gold; and I carved before him.
Before the king the Count of Artois, his brother, served the meat, and before the king the good count John of Soissons carved with a knife. In order to guard the king’s table there were there my Lord Imbert of Beau-jeu, who was afterwards Constable of France, and my Lord Enguerrand of Coucy, and my Lord Archamband of Bourbon. Behind these three barons stood some thirty of their knights, in tunics of silken cloth, to keep guard over them; and behind these knights there were a great quantity of sergeants bearing on their clothing the arms of the Count of Poitiers embroidered in taffeta. The king was clothed in a tunic of blue satin, and surcoat and mantle of vermeil samite lined with ermine, and he had a cotton cap on his head, which suited him very badly, because he was at that time a young man.
The king held these banquets in the halls of Saumur which had been built, so it was said, by the great King Henry of England [Henry II] in order that he might hold his great banquets therein; and this hall is built after the fashion of the cloisters of the white monks of the Cistercian order. But I think there is none other hall so large, and by a great deal.
And I will tell you why I think so—it is because by the wall of the cloister, where the king ate, surrounded by his knights and sergeants who occupied a great space, there was also room for a table where ate twenty bishops and archbishops. . . the Queen Blanche, the king’s mother, ate near their table, at the end of the cloister, on the other side from the king.
And to serve the queen there was the Count of Boulogne, who afterwards became King of Portugal, and the good Count Hugh of St. Paul, and a German of the age of eighteen years, who was said to be the son of St. Elizabeth of Thuringia, for which cause it was told that Queen Blanche kissed him on the forehead, as an act of devotion, because she thought that his mother must ofttimes have kissed him there.
At the end of the cloister, on the other side, were the kitchens, cellars, the pantries and the butteries; from this end were served to the king and to the queen meats, and wine, and bread. And in the wings and in the central court ate the knights, in such numbers, that I knew not how to count them. And many said they had never, at any feast, seen together so many surcoats and other garments, of cloth of gold and silk; and it was said also that no less than three thousand knights were there present.
Source: Jean de Joinville. Chronicle of the Crusade of St. Louis. Pp. 159-60.
World History
