Tuesday, October 6, 2020

Primat de Saint-Denis

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[[File:Primat-StDenis.jpg|thumb|Primat writing the ''Roman des rois'', from the ''[[Grandes Chroniques de France]]'', MS BnF, fr. 2813, folio 265v (c.1375×c.1380)]]
'''Primat''' was a 13th-century French [[Benedictine monk]] and historian of the [[abbey of Saint-Denis]] near Paris. He composed two histories of France with a royal focus, one in [[Latin]] and the other in [[Old French]]. His detailed account of the reign of [[Louis IX]], although today known only through the work of others, is one of the most important contemporary sources.

==Life==
Of the life of Primat, almost nothing is known. Given the rarity of his name, the translator is almost certainly the same person as the Robert Primat who witnessed a charter of Saint-Denis in 1270. A wife of Primat, almost certainly the translator, was receiving an annual pension worth 50 ''[[French sol|sous]]'' from the abbey between 1284 and 1297. This notice suggest that Primat had separated from his wife to become a monk. That his Latin chronicle appears to have ended abruptly in 1277 in the middle of the reign of [[Philip III of France|Philip III]] suggests that Primat died at that time or shortly after.

==Works==
===Latin chronicle===
Primat's Latin history survives only in part in an Old French translation by [[Jean de Vignay]]. The original Latin is lost. Jean's translation was made for Queen [[Joan the Lame]] around 1335. It survives in a single manuscript, now in London, [[British Library]], [[Royal manuscripts, British Library|Bibl. Reg.]] 19 D.i. It appears that Primat's chronicle only covered the years 1248–1277 and was a continuation of the chronicle of [[Gilon of Reims]]. It was thus part of a series of royal histories produced at Saint-Denis.

Jean translated Primat to use as a continuation of his translation of the ''Speculum historiale'' of [[Vincent of Beauvais]] from the year 1250 until 1277. The anonymous ''[[Chronicle of Baldwin of Avesnes]]'' also uses Primat as a source in this way. Guillaume de Nangis, in his ''Vita Ludovici IX'', borrows directly from Primat without citing him, apparently because he considered his work just an extension of Gilon's. Although Jean de Vignay states that Primat's chronicle ran down to 1285, it appears from comparison with ''Baldwin of Avesnes'' and Guillaume de Nangis that the work of Primat ended in 1277 and what Jean had in front of him was a copy of Primat with a short continuation down to 1285. It was once commonly thought that the first part of Primat's chronicle, covering the first half of the reign of Louis IX, was lost, but it is as likely that his chronicle began where that of Gilon ended.

[[File:Filip3.jpg|thumb|A [[presentation miniature]] showing Primat giving the ''Roman des rois'' to Philip III, from the ''Grandes Chroniques de France'', MS BnF, fr. 2813, folio 260v (c.1375×c.1380)]]

[[Gabrielle Spiegel]] proposes that a first redaction of Primat's work, limited to the reign of Louis IX, appeared in the year of the monarch's death (1270); that Primat's death prevented him from completing a history of the reign of Philip III; that a second redaction of his chronicle down to 1277 was put together after his death but before 1280; and that a third and final redaction down to the end of Philip's reign in 1285 was only completed after 1307 by borrowing material from [[Guillaume de Nangis]]'s ''Chronicon''.

===Old French chronicle===
Primat's Old French chronicle, ''Roman des rois'' ("Romance of Kings"), was presented to Philip III in about 1274. It was probably commissioned by the king's father, Louis IX. It was created by translating excerpts from various Latin histories in the archives of Saint-Denis. The main source was the collection now in Paris, [[Bibliothèque nationale de France]], lat. 5925. This contained, among other texts, [[Einhard]]'s ''[[Vita Karoli Magni]]'', [[Aimon of Fleury]]'s ''De gestis regum Francorum'', the chronicle of [[Pseudo-Turpin]].

==Notes==


==Bibliography==

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[[Category:1270s deaths]]
[[Category:13th-century Christian monks]]
[[Category:13th-century historians]]
[[Category:13th-century Latin writers]]
[[Category:13th-century French writers]]
[[Category:French chroniclers]]
[[Category:Latin–French translators]]
[[Category:French Benedictines]]
[[Category:Benedictine writers]]

[[de:Primat von Saint-Denis]]
[[fr:Primat de Saint-Denis]]


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