Silencing the Widow with a Prayer for Peace: Gerson, Valentina Visconti, and the Murder of Louis of Orléans (Paris, 1407–08)

On November 23, 1407, in accordance with arrangements made by John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, assassins murdered Louis of Orléans, the younger brother of King Charles VI of France. The king pardoned John for the murder, but Louis’ family sought revenge. On August 28, 1408, Louis’ widow, Valentina Visconti, entered Paris in a litter draped in black and surrounded by several carriages that were also draped in black and full of members of the nobility. In this manner she dramatically staged the grief suffered by the nobility of France as a result of the assassination and effectively called the king’s pardon of John the Fearless into question. Gerson replied to this carefully staged request for vengeance by portraying the University of Paris, which enjoyed the royal title of Daughter of the King, as a helpless female crying out in a loud voice to God, “Let there be peace.” In the process, he opposed individual suffering to the good of the group and Valentina’s demand for revenge to the rational advice of the learned men who comprised the University of Paris. My paper examines Gerson’s attempt to silence the widow of Louis of Orléans in order to explore the interaction between the political drama surrounding the women of the late medieval French royal court and Gerson’s promotion of the University of Paris as a public authority. I argue that Gerson’s co-optation of the subject position of Valentina and other noble women explains both the misogynistic tone of many of Gerson’s works promoting the academic authority of the university and later authors who suggested that women lacked the rational abilities that would allow them to be political and religious leaders.