Wisdom and Justice in the Court of Jeanne of Navarre and Philip IV: Durand of Champagne, the Speculum dominarum, and the De informatione principum

Abstract

This article examines the Speculum dominarum of Durand of Champagne, Franciscan confessor to Jeanne of Navarre, queen of France from 1285 to her untimely death in 1305. It also considers the De informatione principum, a treatise of which the second recension is explicitly dedicated to her son, the future Louis X. While this work was in the past erroneously attributed both to Giles of Rome and to a Dominican preacher, it in fact reproduces and elaborates upon significant sections of the Speculum dominarum about wisdom and justice, and has good reason to be considered another composition of Durand. Both works are alluded to in a third treatise, the De consideratione novissimorum (subsequently incorporated into the Speculum morale), for their analysis of wisdom and mercy. Durand offers more scripturally based instruction than Giles of Rome, but skilfully weaves Thomist concern with virtue ethics into a sapiential theology shaped by Bonaventure.